February 1, 2023 — Environmental Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:04] All right. There you go and Brett, do you want to do your slides and we'll call the meeting to order first? Right? Okay, call the meeting door. Going to Brett right? Can you see the screen? It's just loading up There we go all right. Here we go. We are pleased to have you join us to strike a balance between meaningful in transparent engagement and online security. The following rules will be applied for this meeting. This meeting has been called to conduct the business to the city of Boulder. Activities that disrupt delay, or otherwise interfere with. The meetings are prohibited. Time for speaking or asking questions may be limited. No person shall speak except when recognized by the person presiding, and no person shall speak for longer than the time allotted.

[1:08] Each person shall register to speak at the meeting, using that person's real name, and then he personally to be using a sitting in it, and will not be permitted to speak at the meeting. So if someone comes into the meeting with telephone number or name associate with a specific diet device, eg. Tom's ipad, the host will be asked for. A full host may ask for a full name before align the individual to speak my apologies. It seems to have pros there. It goes. no video will be permitted except for city officials, employees, and invited speakers and presenters. All others will participate by voice only. Person presiding. The meeting shall enforce these rules by muting anyone who violates any rule. The chat functionality we use for individuals to communicate with the host. It should be used for technical and online platform related questions only. If an attendee attempts to use chat for any reason other than a seeking assistance from the host, the city reserves the right to disable that individuals access to chat.

[2:04] and only the host individuals designated by the host would be permitted to share their screen during this meeting. Great. Thank you, Brett. With that we can move on to have you Brook or Amanda have any comments on the minutes before we make it a motion to approve. Okay, motion to approve the minutes. I second that one. Okay, great. All right. I can't see heather. If there's anyone still or who is here for the public participation, for so in this zoom format, so could you let me know and let them in? We have. Yeah. First, we have Kennedy Metcalf, so I will get them a prompt to unmute. Thank you. And, Kennedy. You should be able to unmute yourself. Hi, thanks for having me Guys

[3:00] candy. Did you have any other comments you wanted to make? Or are you just planning to watch tonight? Yeah, I am tuning in. I attend the University of Denver getting my masters in environmental policy. So I will be taking some notes as we go along tonight. Okay, Great? Well, thanks for coming. Glad to have you anyone else, heather? Or is that it for this evening? Hey, Paul? So, Paul, you should be able to unmute yourself in just a second. Yep. Got it? Thanks. So I don't have any prepared comments tonight. Just turn it in and seeing what happens, so appreciate it all, you guys. for all the work you do and keep it up. Thanks. Thank you, Paul. It's always a pleasure to have you here. Oh, it's nice to see your involvement. I appreciate it. Anyone else he there? No, that's all okay

[4:01] great. With that we can close the public participation and move into the discussion items for the evening. It looks like my reading glasses work better if I wear them. It looks like the first one is recruitment update from heather. Yeah, I just wanted to give everybody a quick update that recruitment for Boards Applications closed yesterday. and we had a whopping 2 applicants. so a little bit less than typical. But there we are. and interviews will happen over the next few weeks, so we'll keep you posted. Great. Thank you. Do we know who the applicants are? I believe one. Maybe, Mike. I was hoping that that was the case. I just that was an assumption. I'm not sure who the other one is, yet they Haven't released the names. Yet. Did you get a confirmation, Mike, of your application?

[5:12] Okay. Okay, Brett. Well, her not that here. But do you still want to to discuss the board chair to any. Yeah, yeah, I think it's just it's useful just because of some of the Board members being relatively new. The tradition in the Environmental Advisory board is simply to have a rotating chair, not for there to have to be an election of the chair, and so that every person on the Environmental advisory board eventually cycles through that chair. And so, since Mike has been the path, the chair now for this past year. the the process would be for him to cycle off, and for the next most senior person to assume that role which would be her 9. So, starting with the agenda setting meeting for the March meeting. We'll invite her not to join

[6:01] Mike, because Mike's last meeting as chair will be this March meeting. and then I believe I believe the the last is the yeah, that's technically the last meeting in Mike's term. Is that correct heather? Yeah. So by one scenario that some of us would really like Mike. who is now applying to be on the board again, will cycle back on. So we need, and we have 2 openings and 2 applicants, so we'll see. But, Mike, if Mike returns, it won't be as chair. Her not will assume that role. Okay. that makes good sense. Anything else on that bread? No, that's it. All right. Then we can move on to the topic of biodiversity and integrated past management. Yeah, and maybe I can just sort of introduce this segments and provide a little bit of an update for the board on the anticipated flow for the next series of Environmental Advisory Board meetings.

[7:02] The, as you all might remember. At the end of last year we did an exercise to start identifying topics, and we create a kind of clustering of different topics that we might be wanting to bring by the board based on the work of this department. We can't necessarily anticipate what the work of other departments are that they might want to bring to eab. But in the case, at least, of the climate Initiatives Department, who, sir, provide service to this board, we know our own kind of work flow. And so this will be the last meeting that I will be technically serving as the ongoing liaison, because we're going to start bringing more of our climate initiative staff into this relationship with the Board. I think that's a really positive and constructive step, because it will actually expose you to more of the work that we're doing in the hands of those who are actually doing that work.

[8:00] And so we haven't exactly determined which of the other work teams. So there's probably, you know, there are 3 major work teams in the climate Initiatives Department. There's the energy team. the circular economy team and the natural climate solutions or nature-based cloud solutions team. So tonight is really a part of the nature based climate solutions team giving you an update on the work that we've been involved in and are going to be involved in. And in this case also a really exciting report out from Rela around how this work we're doing locally ties into efforts that scale right to the international level around. How we protect and enhance the larger living world, especially around biodiversity in ways that create a more stable and sustainable world. So that's that's the context of tonight, and just to know that in in next month's session I I suspect that you're You're going to be hearing from the circular economy team.

[9:02] but it also could be the energy team. There's a number of issues coming forward like leaf blowers and things that are kind of in there a work area. So we'll see. But just that's the that's something to know as a sort of a new feature for this this year. So yeah, so with that, maybe I can just introduce my colleague. Rela Abernathy, because it, as of this time last year the Nature based climate Solution team was a team of one, namely, me, and then, happily about. I don't know whether it's March or April, or somewhere in there, we managed to connive our way into stealing Rela out of the planning department, where she has been for over 10 years. serving in this sort of cross organizational cross-city role of really helping to manage ecosystems in a variety of ways but particularly around our integrated pest management programs and our mosquito program and things of that sort.

[10:04] Well, it's probably 2 to humble to say this, but Real holds a Phd. In entomology, and has done research with the EPA, and has really amazing credentials and experience in this field of ecology. And it's been really a a true national leader in working on how we create a living systems and ecosystems based approach to managing these challenges as opposed to a chemical based approach. And if some of you may know Boulder, starting in. I think the nineties really began to set up a a high standard for the entire country in terms of a commitment to reduce, and in many cases eliminate the use of pesticides and herbicides. Like none of our parks, use pesticides or herbicides that's almost unheard of in the conventional landscape management, world and not a small part part of that has to do with

[11:01] the the work that Ralla has been doing. So. It was part of of that basket of experience and technical expertise and things that when we knew that this most recent convention of the parties with which is, you know, the the cops, these are the international gatherings that the UN sponsors there are. There are 3 major environment related ones. There's the Climate Convention. There's the biodiversity convention, and there's the convention on combating to certification, all of which were, as we know, I think, formed around 1,992 at the earth summit. So when we heard that that there was perhaps an opening for local jurisdictions to be represented at the conventional biodiversity gathering in Montreal and December. We just said well we're going to get Rela there and see what we see what happens. And so she's going to tell us what happened. Right? Okay, let me. Oh, I have. I'm heather. I have my screen disabled for sharing.

[12:04] Okay, let me try now. All right. Now, if I can find in my tiredness where this slide share is so anybody see it? Oh, I see the zoom is over it, so I can't see up here. Okay, or the little button down the bottom by the let's find this bar little projector looking. Okay. So i'm gonna take you through some updates up there happening in the department and citywide. And then I will take you through the the top 15 experience and share some of that with you, so I don't want to take up too much time, so feel free to stop me. If you have more questions, or we can

[13:00] go deeper into any of these subjects after I get done. So the first thing I wanted to let you guys know is that we are going through a review of the Integrated Pest management program. and so that'll be a review of what's currently happening with our current policy, and it's implementation. There'll be some close consultation with Staff across all the different departments about what the the needs and challenges are. They are experiencing, especially, you know, as things are really ramping up as far as extreme weather and invasive species pressures. And and you know, multiple hard make things that make their lives harder. and then the effectiveness right now for this, the program, as it exists for how we're using it, and what we expect in the from future conditions. And then we'll also be seeing review of the emerging science through the lens of changing climate and ecological conditions. I'm screening you guys over a little bit, so I can see.

[14:02] And then when I did that, I got off my slides. Okay, so make oh, I did that already. Okay. So this is just a timeline to give you an idea what to expect. It's a pretty fast turnaround. So this isn't an update. It's just a review, so we can see where we are, and especially in the context of what's happening, and and with science, and so everything should be completed by August, if we stay on track and we'll keep you updated as we go through that to anything that might need to come to the attention of the boards. I just wanted to point out that our Ipm definition for the city. It's really talking about the importance of ecosystem management, and this is one of the original and definitions. Much of it's still here, from where first policy, which is implemented in 93 so we're really focused on how we manage biodiversity and the overall ecosystem instead of focusing on one species. And we ask, what is a pest? And if it is a pest, why, so that we can try to figure out the underlying causes and address those instead of focusing on the pest.

[15:14] So now i'm gonna shift a little bit over to what happened at the top 15 of Montreal. And if we were any of you watching the the event last night, because if you are, it's gonna be quite a bit of repetition. But hopefully you weren't. And so this is. You know how the the the mood that was there that we don't even have to read about all we have to do is look out outside to see what's happening, because so much is happening everywhere in the world. and and and there was so much emphasis on the disportionate impact on marginalized communities and and people, particularly in the global South. But there is also, you know, a lot of talk of true transformational change, and that's what we're all focused on. And so

[16:07] you know, a lot of it is is lip service from the countries. But the people who are working within the the conventions and the the cities and and scientists and people were there are really serious about creating change. Oh, and I guess I meant to have this before that slide. So one of the other updates I was gonna give you. I was rushing out to hear a a lecture from the Catherine Wilkinson on all we can save. So. anyway, that's my excuse. So there's some research projects, too, that I thought you would all find interesting, Mike you had mentioned the dog-color study that happened last year. We're 40 participants, and in volunteers and boulder for a collector that collects volatile environmental toxic on their dogs and walk them. We're repeating that. And this year we're actually going to be doing it during the peak of blonde chemical season and in tandem with that we're being doing a fairly extensive Boulder Creek toxic testing.

[17:10] So some of those chemicals overlap, some won't, but to the detection methods. But it'll be interesting to see what we find, and we'll have an a a public, some public engagement in that, because the people who are participate are always interested in what they were exposed to. And we're also developing insect monitoring program for long term insect monitoring. And that's in the urban areas as well as we'll be doing some on our open space lands. and we are working with open space to augment a study that they're doing within dazz of them. That's for you, for the chemical you may be hearing a lot about from people who've been protesting or talking to the Council Commissioners about you on county lands and other areas all throughout the State. So we'll be testing the soil for that with the team at see you, and also checking to see how that's impacting. See germination.

[18:06] So let's see now, i'm going to go back to the biodiversity so that they, the UN. Focuses on 5 major drivers for the nature crisis. So one is the most important one, Really, that's at the oops. Whether I keep doing that is the the way we're using land. So habitat, fragmentation, ecosystem degradation. And the important thing is that the food system is a major driver of this. So we're losing about 85% of our the species at risk, are coming from agriculture alone, and that is really untouchable in the Us. You know our State Legislature won't Touch agriculture in any way, and that's true of the Federal government as well. So it's really hard not only to get changes, even minor changes, but to get options and alternatives into regenerative agriculture and other farming systems

[19:04] and climate change. Of course, you know, there's direct impacts to species as well as ecosystem impacts. pollution of all sorts, plastics, industrial chemicals, fertilizers and and chemicals and direct exploitation, and then invasive species get made much worse by all these other issues that are compounding. And this I think this little picture shows it all about even direct effects. I see I see you graduate student Asia Kaiser. who works on Pollinators film this little bumblebee in June of last year, where it was so hot that the bee couldn't move it. Just so another victim of heat exhaustion. So Brett had mentioned that you know all of this really goes back to the Rio Earth Summit, back in 92 where 178 nations participated, plus all kinds of people from all over the world showed up there, and to make their voices heard.

[20:07] And out of that came these 3 conventions that Bret had mentioned. So i'm going to be focusing on the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was what cop 15 was about when, and I was in Montreal, or now it's 2 months ago, since it's February. Now so back in December. So this was adopted initially in 92 at Rio they started the country started signing on this is a multilateral treaty in 93 The first cop or conference of the parties occurred in 2,000, and they meet every 2 years. But they have these big ones every 10 years. That are the the where the the treaties are updated, and these are binding agreements among the nations. and they're named, as most of you know, after the cities, for they occur. So if cop 10 was in the Goya, and then the the targets that came out of the the agreement between the cities are called the Ochi targets, because at least the prefecture where Nagoy is located, and during 2,010,

[21:04] when they had that cop 10 in the Goya. it was supposed to be the year where we reverse things and turn them around. So it was called the International Year Biodiversity. And then, in the decade, the UN declared 2,011 through 2,020, the the decade on biodiversity. So, just to give you a quick and be scan of what the the Archie targets are about. Just take a you know. It's just to give you a cursory overview. No, it's. It's on me. Most of the things that you would think about when you're trying to preserve biodiversity like stopping species, loss and reducing pollution. But the one here that I have an asterisk to which is revising the the Nbsp. Those are the national bi biodiversity, strategies and action plans. and we Don't have one in the Us. Because the Us. Is the only country in the world besides a Vatican that is never signed on to this treaty.

[22:00] Finally Clinton and when he was the President signed it, but it has to be ratified. It's a treaty. It has to be ratified by 2 thirds of the Senate, and we know how likely that is to happen. So that's left us with kind of a leadership vacuum at the top as far as this this goes. and and also this the Us Isn't party to the negotiations or the agreements. So with this decade on biodiversity, how did we do with those targets? And the answer is terribly. We not one country in the entire world met one target. So it was an abysmal failure, and very little progress is made. So a lot of hopes have been penned on this one, the 2,020 cop, which was supposed to happen in 2,020. But since China was, has the Presidency, and it was a host country and all those lockdowns from Covid it got put off.

[23:00] and finally Montreal, which is where the convention on biodiversity is housed. said, let's just have it here, so you'll hear it called by 2 names. It's the the Montreal cop. and this was our goal is now we're focused on 2030 to put an to to get Nature back on the path recovery. There are a lot of people who really are serious about this, but of course you know, it's very difficult to make the changes that are necessary and and our governments. So now i'm going to just give you a quick kind of tour and photos of what it was like to be there. So this is a big plenary room like you see, like you'd see on the news where the countries are sitting at the tables, and the officials are all up at the front. But there's so much happening out in the hallways, and then the the rooms all throughout this huge convention center in Montreal. So this is the China Pavilion, and they, you know, have all there's all kinds of displays and information, and then they have those stages where they can have

[24:10] presentations or press conferences. and Montreal also had a big one. Many countries have one, and the Us Doesn't have one. So it doesn't give us a chance to really highlight anything that we're doing and the biden administration is starting to try. You know there's the new policy on nature based solutions that we're excited, that they're talking about. And they did send a special envoy and an American delegation that we found the last day. Doesn't that guy on the right look like George Santos to stick her to. He had seen that before. Okay, maybe maybe he was negotiating okay, and so, and there's I mean it's huge complex with stuff happening all the time from day to night. So there are panels of scientists and Ngos and

[25:01] women's, groups and youth groups and local governments. And so there are people talking about now, lots of business stuff, too. So people looking at ways that we can try to really move fast and and try to get things changed and talking about what's worked and what Hasn't worked. So there was a whole lot going on in an informal and formal discussions. This is a a women women's group. We were trying to fight against violence like because women are so disenfranchised women, especially in environmental work and a particularly indigenous women. So there are many groups working on those topics. And here's a young, indigenous women's, group scientists, trying to show better ways of doing things and respecting life, lots of performances. So all kinds of cultural performances from different folks from around the world. and I kind of see Bruce Coburn, who played in a very small venue, so I guess he usually does big auditoriums or sports arenas. So it was really fun.

[26:07] And then there were lots of displays like this. Of these are notes that people would write, you know, for what they hoped their hopes, or what they loved about nature. And so a lot of those were by the youth groups. and there are people protesting everywhere, making their We have no there what they, how they how they felt known inside. Very strict security getting into this, of course you in perimeter all around it. And then this, I thought, was really heartbreaking, you know, from some of the the youth there about the reality of. and there there, how they feel outside lots going on, protests marches. The Mayor of Montreal is out there with them for some of these marches. and it's such a strong presence by indigenous groups, so that was really good to see.

[27:02] and being indigenous, voices being included at every level of discussion. There was this indigenous village. It was off site over by the river and this longhouse. and they held events throughout the whole time. So they had, you know, panels and concerts and all kinds of things happening. We went to a reception there when I and I pumped into David Suzuki and got to spend about 20 min with him. So that was a big highlight for me. But what's interesting in a big change. That really is. What's relevant to us about this particular cop is that the local governments were raised at a level that they'd never been before. So there was a 2 day Conference summit. That was a plenary level discussion of among local governments and some national governments. So there were some regional and some State governments there, too.

[28:00] And this actually happened in the big plenary room. So while they were on a 2 day break, we were there, and I've said at Nate, at Nehru's table. and we actually had some of the negotiators came up and talked to us so. And then Namibia came up and talked to us. So it was kind of interesting. and then a group of us join join cities with nature regions with nature, and we're given certificates there. So Mayor Bracket had this join before I left, and so we're now part of that group of cities. some of the first ones to join. and there were lots of press conferences. So that's Montreal's Mayor, third from the left, and people were holding press conferences all the time, but they were able to talk about? Why, what's really important to local governments and what's important, there is a guy that second from the right is all over. Halal. who is one of the top officials in the UN.

[29:01] This convention on Biological versus Secretariat, who's spent his whole career working on trying to get local governments. The tools they need to start getting this work done at the local level. There's this recognition that it's us that we're going to be doing 80% of this work to try to get any of these global targets which are solid targets implemented, and that we need the resources we need, the the help we need the relationship with other cities we need to be able to be transparent and report out. So he's one of the the key people who've been working on that. and They also understand that we need to be working with the climate folks in the Climate Convention as well as the this Desertification Convention. So here is it was, it could be totally crazy in the plenary room as things broke down, or you know things things. And then they finally met, and we're starting to negotiate hard on certain things.

[30:01] and they worked all hours of the night. And so finally, when it was ended, it was like 3 30 in the morning, I think, when they finally reached the final agreement. So when the hammer came down, people really, you know, felt like they'd made progress. We had now have 23 targets. 3 of the 3 new ones are really focused on local governments and okay indigenous communities and the the the mechanism that they're using to from the UN. And iclay the local governments for sustainability, nature, conservancy, and other groups. So this is really spearheaded by the UN. Is the cities with nature platform. and so what we're hearing. Oh, let me i'll! I'll come back to that in just a sec. So one thing I wanted to share with you. I don't know if any of you have seen this chart, but you know we've all seen the ones for for climate where it shows. You know the temperatures just going up up, and then the different scenarios. If we

[31:05] take different actions, you know, to try to lower the temperatures over the the next 50 years or 100 years, and this is the one for biodiversity. So you can see this incredibly steep decline until we get to. You know where we are now. but these are the different actions we can take, and just like, just like you know, the climate crisis. There's we we can choose right now at this moment in time. The decisions we make are going to choose that path for us, and so we really don't want to be there on the gray, which is status quo. We have to be changing so that we can start saving the natural role in ourselves. And here's some of the work that our our our community is already doing on regenerative agriculture and starting to change the way that we're landscaping our cities. So the the key outcomes that they're really focused on is, you'll see here 30 by 30, which is setting aside 30% of of terrestrial lands and and and waters

[32:09] for for nature, and then restoring at least 30 of existing degraded ecosystems and reducing harmful subsidies, which is really interesting to see, considering the pressure that they were under from the industries lobbying. So that's ending in subsidies for the fossil fuel companies for the chemical and and Big Ag, or business companies that are the ones that are responsible for the majority of the harm. So so one outcome. That's that's where it is going to be involved where some of the nature based climate solutions, work is going to be discussed as a city summit of the Americas. which is happening in Denver in April this year. So 250 mayors from around the Us. And 250 mayors from the other Americas will be coming to Denver.

[33:02] and they went around 2,000 staff members. And so some of these ideas will be discussed, and they really want to be partnering cities together, particularly cities in the Us. And in South America. So there's some real opportunities for us to be leading the early cohorts of cities, or be I'm. Partnering with an early group of cohort of cities to try out the the cities with nature platform and some of its tools all right, just to share, you know information and and see how fast we can go. So that's what they've got for you. And if you have any questions happy to answer those thanks for that that was really amazing. appreciate it. Why, don't, we see, we'll go around like we usually do, and you know each member a chance to ask any questions. If they have any. We'll start with Brook. She's in the middle of the screen. Bro. Do you have any questions for us?

[34:01] Not not particularly, plus, i'm sure Amanda has plenty of questions, and they will be more interesting than mine, so i'll I'll throw it over to her. I mean. The only reason I I I do sometimes is because I like, read the pack, and then I go and research. But it's just like the first time i'm looking at this stuff shade. Your questions are much more interesting than any of my everyone don't feel bad. I apologize. Oh, no, I'm just prefacing that. I don't have like a lot of questions right now. But just off the top of my head got near the end you mentioned the meeting in done for, and how cities are going to be paired together or partnered together, and i'm wondering if we are working with any sister cities that we have right now on projects. Say, I think

[35:07] wasn't do. Shan Bay, W. One of our sister cities. And are we exploring that? The I think the the short answer is, No, we haven't been engaged in any sort of international sister city work around our climate efforts in any sort of formal way. For some time. I think we established sister City relationships around a variety of other topics, but i'm not sure that those were ever explicitly associated with climate action, work. and I think that in this particular instance correct me if i'm wrong part of what the the administration is really interested in is trying to foster relationships between us cities and Central and South American cities in this particular context.

[36:00] that right role. Yeah, I mean, we're we're hearing second hand from the State Department what the plans are. It? Place the and you guys as quickly as the it's an act. Okay, so it plays. Got a one of their Us. Iclay, U.S.A. Staff members. Kale Roberts is working with the State Department to organize this summit. and you know, of course, everybody's coming up with the same ideas. And so, you know, Brett and I had already talked about the idea of parting with other cities around nature, with nature, with cities. your cities with nature, so that we could. you know, test out some of these ideas. And when I was when I was in Montreal. One of the really cool things is meeting people from all these other cities. and everybody's interested in working together, you know, and that was one of the things that was really a take on for me. Is it doesn't matter how different our our our environments are, where we are cultures. Everybody saw so much commonality and so much opportunity to work together, and

[37:03] even the UN. Folks and the agency scientists are interested in us just because we have so much land and so many different types of land types and and and that type of support from our community and our elected leaders. You know that we try things, and we want to be innovative. So there's lots of interesting using us as a case study. So it was really great to meet, You know. so many people who are all working towards the same thing. But it's more. It's like a community organizing kind of level of things at the international level. just because everybody knows we have to start working now that we're just running out of time. And so there was this real urgency, this sense of urgency and sense of camaraderie, and being in it together. So there's all kinds of opportunities we're going to be starting to explore some of those as a department. you know, and see where there is opportunity for us to to try some new things.

[38:04] Some of that may be with the State Department, and some of it may not be that we may do independently with through Iclay and other groups. Yeah, I guess just to follow up on that. Why, you know, if if we have sister cities right now that we're established relationships based on other mutual interests, why wouldn't we start talking to them also about climate, solutions and stuff that we're doing, and how we can. you know, share ideas, even if it. you know, might not be specific to the Americas and pairing like a global North and a global south city, which I actually really like the idea of, because we've historically taken a lot from global south. But Yeah, if we already have established relationships with other cities, Why?

[39:04] For what? So how can our Board help, maybe facilitate starting to talk to them? It's a it's a perfectly reasonable question. I I I think what I would say is those types of sister City relationships. The the as far as I know, are dormant or no longer existent. so they exist primarily as really relics of past efforts, and they haven't been sustained. So to you would essentially be starting an entirely new relationship. and it may not be one in which there is actually a natural connection around climate work. And so I think part of the issue is, how do we accelerate innovation and dissemination? And that's not necessarily. By looking backwards, you again totally understandable and reasonable question. But I think the reality is, there's no real

[40:03] life in most of those relationships now and then. I guess my other question would be. Are we doing any work around collaborating with tribes that are native to the boulder area that have historically been stewarding the land in with regards to like nature based solutions. And and I think I I had talked to somebody in a native tribe kind of collaboration organization that there was W, one or 2 native people that actually walked the land with the Boulder City staff, and pointed out all of the

[41:01] native species of plants and how to cultivate them. And somehow the report was potentially lost, or did not get any further attention to it. Yeah, it that is. you know it. That's when we're talking about equity, You know it. It it has. We have to actually see it in happening in action. And one of the really cool things I saw in and learned about the Montreal is, I guess, when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister because of the the residential schools, a bunch of really dark stuff that come out about them. And so I guess he wasn't the type who apologized, but he, he apologized publicly, and the tribes took that as like an opening. Okay, then we're going to start asking for. They became empowered and got agency and started creating changes and and demanding them. So one thing that was really cool is that in this what's publicly, what publicly owned land in BC.

[42:05] They actually have tribes who are managing that land now. so they know there's a movement to start returning land, but there's also a movement to allow tribes to have control over management decisions. And so it's from all the way at the top of making the decisions to actually being on the land. And so through this Ipm process. You know it. It's really important that we include the tribes, and we have some relationships already built, or I do. And other people in our department and people we're working with with the First Nations Development Institutes actually in Longmont. And so I need to check with my contacts there who actually Don't live in in Colorado, but and find out who's there. And then we're working with some other travel groups here. But I found out that Osmp actually has an mou with the tribes, and they have them named. This is a legally binding agreement for them to be involved.

[43:01] and our management of our open space lands, and so I think we need to be learning more about that. I know that they've been involved in some of the renaming of some of the trails or sites. but I think it needs to be much deeper than that. And if we're gonna have any chance of of healing this planet. We're going to have to heal a relationship with each other. And that means including everybody and finding new ways, including them and not just using our typical public engagement methods which I think the city is learning about, but through cool boulder. And in our partnerships, you know, we have all kinds of possibilities that really trying new ways of engaging people and having them be involved. So that's my long way of saying Yes, we will really be looking at how we can include people, everybody in this particularly indigenous books. I just want to do a quick time, check and process check making sure that we have. We have another couple of presentations that we want to actually include here.

[44:03] Yup: yeah, it's what 6? 45, okay, anything else, from anyone or otherwise. What's your Amanda? Any other comments for Ella. No, I think I think I'm. Good. Yeah. I look forward to hearing more about the meeting with somewhere in Denver, too. It sounds really exciting. So thanks for that. You have anything else to add For, Ella. Are you good to be fine? No, I think we're good to move on just as introducing this next section. I think Heather and Daniel might be more sort of integrating together here on this, as they're both talking about the same sort of phenomena in this case, cool boulder, and maybe I can just t this up a little bit, too. Again, About a year ago, actually, it was in the at the Jewish seder of the trees which is about to happen. It's next Monday night. In fact, if you are interested in going that it's happening at Jcc. I think the tickets are still available for that. It's a really important annual event in the Jewish calendar. That is literally a seder that honors trees.

[45:12] And so it was in that, say last year that we announced the formation of the cool boulder initiative. So it was basically just an idea. Still, at that point we didn't have any other staff besides myself working on this. And so what you're about to hear about is essentially the fruition of about a little less actually than a year's worth of work around the establishment of a community based initiative to begin operationalizing nature-based solutions with the community, and in an effort to really in sort of a very active experimental effort to try to do this in a way that isn't centered on the city. But it's literally the what is much more, centered within the community itself. We were fortunate to be able to hire heather Prince Loza as a part of our team this fall to take up the work of helping to coordinate the separate, and about the same time we were also fortunate to be able to add Daniel Hansen to our team as a part of he's a fellow with the civic spark which is Americorps program.

[46:13] and we're hoping to keep him around for another year beyond the one that he's in with us. So, anyway, you're going to hear from 2 folks who've been pretty deep into this great effort to build this community based initiative so that heather. I guess i'll turn it to you. Yeah, thank you so much, Brett. It's great to meet everyone, too. I'm just learning about this board. And so i'm looking forward to getting to know you all in the future. I'll go ahead and share my screen. Yeah, Dan Daniel not gonna tag team this a bit. Daniel's work has largely been centered on communications, so i'm gonna pop off and let him talk about those in the center, and then i'll. I'll kind of bookend things for us. Let me share this. All right.

[47:01] You're right that the the slide show stuff gets in the way that the zoom stuff gets in the way. There we go. all right. Can everybody see that? Okay. Great? All right. And there's there's a lot we can say about cool boulder, and we didn't want to take the entire 2 h. So we're gonna start with an overview of just general successes that we saw in last year, and some of the key elements that we feel we initiate, initiated, and are working on in 2,023. So we're considering this largely a a report out on 22, and looking into our 2,023 and the the core elements, we're kind of going to focus on here equity communications and mobilization calendar. So there we go. Okay. We had a first year, and as Brett said, it just launched. So this is very new. I guess we've been around approximately a year. I was just really exciting

[48:03] is looking into these successes. You know. The first success is just getting started, and it's it's really often that this was kicked off by one person. And now we have a team of 3 and a half, with the hope that, Daniel stay with us that we can keep around for a while. I will cry if you can't stay around in April, so kind of jumped right off the office starting block, and there was a partnering with replenish to plant about 2,000 trees and something I want to know. Here. cool boulder, is. It's a hard thing to figure out how to stay. What the success is. A pool there are, because it's such a collaborative thing. So something i'm going to try to do. Here is note who coordinated, who led what groups were? A key Part of this? Because I in no way I want to imply this is a city centric effort, and that the city did. This cool boulder is a network coolable. There's a collaboration, and so i'm going to try to know, through here

[49:01] the key people responsible. So in this case tree punish was coordinated by an amazing grad student. We've gotten to actually contract with again this year to do some heat work. Adam call, and we don't unfortunately have any follow up metrics on how many of these trees lived? So that's something we're working on in the future. But we know that there were approximately 2,000 trees planted. and it seems like a really great starting point. The Pollinator advocate program was launched, resulting in 16 pollinator, advocate graduates, and well as a huge part of this. and this is also led by Andrea Montoya. and that's way to Bueno is her consulting firm or consulting group. I guess if i'm wording that right. but definitely noting the rela is a key key part of the pollinator advocates as well. and if anyone has questions, you can go into the what that program is, but it's it's really the goal of training members of the community pretty in depth, so that they can become resources for their complete. So graduating from those courses is actually a pretty big deal, and it's a really cool cohort of people.

[50:06] In July. There was a big heat mapping effort, which was one of our most publicized things last year, and it was in coordination with Noaa and campus strategies. And this was again another thing out of really led on as a member of the graduate school student team who is working with Google Holder. There was also a re-establishment of the Tree Trust and also an establishment of the Tree Trust Advisory Committee. and this is a collaboration between clay Boulder and the City of Boulder. So there is now a. P. A project manager for the Tree Trust, based in play boulder. But this is a a really tight collaboration. and the tree just kind of have a similar structure. As the pollinator advocates. They're going to go through a lot, of course, work essentially and three-planting training, so that they can then go on to become resources for their community. And this is the re-establishment, because there was effort to do this in 2,019. But Covid came in and shut a lot of stuff down.

[51:04] So there's a lot of rebooting materials, reassessing, based on feedback, and then. and what's really cool is some of those 2,019 folks are coming back to help with the 2,023 relaunch of the trainings. This is a little more of our Ncs team. Initiative is going to really, really tie to efforts that happen in full boulder. Last year we initiated the work on a climate resiliency tool. and the the projection with this is that we're going to go forward interacting with people on how to established natural client, cooling solutions, and a lot of this is going to be based on who needs it. And then also it's going to be quantitative. So the goal here is to figure out how much heat can. For example, one tree reduce. And then how can we target that? It's very much so work in progress, but that was something that was initiated last year, and threat will be able to speak more deeply on it if folks have questions.

[52:01] And we also initiated review and assessment of a bunch of urban forestry planning tools. And so that is something in the works, because we're trying really, really hard to focus on this tie between urban and forestry. and how we can target the people who really need the cooling. The most. We're partnering with 30 plus organizations. By the end of last year we had 30 plus groups on board, which is really great, and i'll, i'll explain, partnering a little more and a couple of slides. And then, as I mentioned, I want to focus a little bit on some critical elements that were initiated in 2,022, and that's initial work on equity communication systems. And then also this focus on community mobilizations. So no need to read all this. But I wanted to show you all our list of partners. This is a really amazing group of people from a whole bunch of different experiences, and I think maybe coming into this, this list can look a little strange, just like who are all these people. But when you start to think about nature-based climate solutions and looking at who this group is, it's a really awesome

[53:03] collaboration, and it's important to note that this is an official partnering process. So we have people formerly a former lead, formally sorry, agreeing to certain things in in in terms of collaboration and communication. There are a lot of folks who are also participating, and the main form of participation at the moment is a monthly campaign meeting, and then also events that have been going on. So we have a lot of folks from study as a decent number of other organizations who Haven't decided to officially partner, but who are really coming along for the ride, and probably some of them will partner as we go forward. and I think it's a huge success. That cool boulder established these 3 action areas, and when you look through our partners we really have folks working in all 3 of these action areas represented in our group. I think that's just definitely a success. I want to highlight and really gives us a chance to work forward

[54:00] on all these action areas together. And there's some really fun branding that came along with these, and so maybe we'll get some pins and buttons and things to start recognizing these different themes of work. I just a quick little explanation of what we need when we say, partner, because I really think what I've been trying to distinguish is that we have these official partners, and then also just a whole network. And we're working with our partners. These folks have formally agreed to collaborating in ways that mean, you know, broadcasting information across different platforms. participating in these monthly meetings and partnering on events. sharing information like Logos and communication packets. And then this group is really open to partnering on resources whenever possible, and that's something the city can provide to them is we're looking for ways to put resources out into the community and by having this really tight-knit partnering group who's collaborating with. we get to find these ways to use the resources that Buller has to push them out to the community.

[55:05] and then hopefully expand even further than the community as we start to grow and expand and establish programs. and there's gonna have to be ways to resource things, you know, other than just the city. But this is how we can find that. And hopefully, the city can be a source of launching a lot of things and moving forward. It's also important to note, and this is, I I want to use this as my segue into equity. This is a commitment to sharing and collaborating in a way that is non-appropriate and mutually beneficial. So when you're partnering with a lot of groups that are nonprofits, we've got to be careful to share how we share credit and how we use materials back and forth in such a way where we aren't. taking for granted where they came from, and in no way is the city trying to steal some groups list of volunteers. We're trying to grow the volunteer network involve the community and and get people involved not to take away one of a nonprofit for examples of most important assets.

[56:02] So this is something we're very cognitive and trying to be as responsible to as possible. And as Brett said, this is kind of an experiment, because it's difficult to do this. It takes a lot of very intentional work, and i'm excited about where we're at with it. It takes a lot of communication and trust. I think so. The first critical element in you know, in talking about equity is. yeah, we're we're really focused, and we understand that everyone in this group knows this work has to be centered in equity. and that's a key priority for the department. Our natural time decisions team as a city, and also for cool boulder. and I think we all probably know this is something that I think someone in a meeting the other day use moves at the speed of trust. So what that looks like for cool boulder in 2,022 we had a graduate team working with us. and they did research and and wrote up recommendations for the the group, which was really a great asset to have, you know, with this this group of great minds working on recommendations for us, and they also did some surveying out work with our partners to see. Hey, you know

[57:11] what work is happening, and and where is everyone at here? And we also established groundwork for an Equity Committee that's been slowly moving. That is definitely the part that's moving. I think at the speed of trust is building those connections, getting people in the same space, getting those communications rolling. and how that looks going forward in 2,023 is, we're really looking for developing a set of clear principles that cool boulder can communicate its equity priorities with, and also hold the self accountable to those principles and priorities. And so far, the way we see the best mechanism formulating is in this set of principles. And we're gonna we're gonna develop them with a with our group and keep growing our committee as well. A really exciting thing that just happened this week is we're going to be providing some scholarships for some of our partners to attend

[58:05] a really cool anti-racism workshop that is taught through the harvest of all first nations. And it's it's pretty expensive, so we won't be able to, you know, fund everyone going, but we've put out the call to see who's interested in our offering some financial support. And then we're continuing to work to recruit partners who are representative of our whole community, and that's gonna take some work and some planning, but just trying to get our voice out there and invite people in to the best of our ability instead of just, you know the friend of a friend who heard about this, and so that that looks like doing outreach events that looks like events where we reach out to as many people as we can through the best avenues we can and slowly grow. And this is this is really based in a an ethic of continuously listening learning and growing. So we can build this collaborative space together without trying to be in a way dictating how this goes. We really want the full boulder space

[59:01] to grow together, and for the the general understanding of how we work on equity to also spread outwards from pool boulder into the city and into the places where we work with the community. I'm gonna switch to Daniel now, so he can talk about how we are kind of formulating our communications at the moment. It's definitely a work in progress. But Daniel's in some awesome work, and there's been a lot of a lot of slow but study process and developing some infrastructure. Daniel, do you wanna take over and just let me know when you want me to change slides. Yep, thank you. So as Heather, said i'm going to be talking about our communications, and how we are approaching our community engagement and outreach. And again i'm Daniel Hansen, i'm a civic spark fellow on the cool border team. So a big reason. We spend a lot of time developing this communications. Infrastructure is so that we can mobilize our community

[60:05] because generating community engagement and climate, resilience action and biodiversity. Loss Prevention requires a substantial amount of education and outreach towards our community and our communications and multiple main themes. To achieve this with each month covering a specific theme to build community interest and literacy and the various topic areas that are related to our work Each month we AIM to hold a community event, and publish blogs, and provide education and education and volunteer opportunities that are all related to the month's theme just to provide engagement and learning opportunities for our community to start discussing some of these topics. Some of the desired outcomes of our development of the communications. Infrastructure is.

[61:00] as heather mentioned, to build this communications network of amongst our partners partner organizations, so we really encourage them to be collaborating on promoting each other's events. We also promote our partners events. putting together a comprehensive calendar of all of our events, so that the community can find them all in one place, and working together to collaborate on developing education resources for the public. Another outcome is to inspire community interest in engagement and our mobilization programs within our action areas that heather mentioned earlier. So this would be like encouraging community members to join our pollinator, advocates trainings and tree tenders, trainings, and participate in the volunteer opportunities that we provide. Another. One is to disseminate awareness and understanding of the multiple environmental crises that our community is facing.

[62:02] So this is just to disseminate some understanding about how our community is facing multiple crises, and in the relating to climate change, biodiversity, loss, and desertification. As Brett mentioned earlier. another one is to point to the importance and benefits of implementing natural climate, solutions, initiatives such as natural cooling solutions. fostering biodiversity, to really encourage soil, regeneration, and regenerate regenerating landscapes as a whole brought in community understanding of the scale of climate action required, and how we need to be thinking about these things and all aspects of our life, and finally, to create a shared sense of hope that a better feature is possible, because, with all the news about climate, change and biodiversity loss, it's easy to get

[63:00] to feel pretty down and feel some climate anxiety. So we want to build some hope through community action. So our big main themes that we communicate overall are some of the science basics of climate change, and how it is impacting our community right now. Biodiversity it's importance, and it's relation to climate change, and how they're in inherently linked Natural climate solutions, basically just informing the public about what does that mean? The phrase natural climate solutions, and why they so important to preparing our community to face some climatic extremes. and excuse me communicating the need for a community-led movement that is centered in equity. And, as I mentioned, building help through community action. So i'm not going to go through all of these. But here are our monthly themes that we have each month, and these are meant to

[64:07] help generate some community discussion and engagement around these topics that are pretty key to the work that we do. such as biodiversity, soil, health, treat planting, drought, heat. and so on. And we really want people to learn more about these topics get interested and want to get involved through Google. So, for example. this month's theme was the kick off of 2,023, our first full year as a campaign and as well as biodiversity, and as an example of how this theme is worked into our work is that we held a an event last night actually that was themed around biodiversity, and this event consisted of umbrella giving a presentation on the recent UN Biodiversity summit that she went over for us earlier today in this meeting

[65:04] and highlighting the importance of local action and local organizing, because, as she mentioned. 80% of this work needs to be happening on the ground in local communities. We also had a panel of local biodiversity leaders who spoke about their innovative work. So we had someone from the butterfly pavilion. We had someone from a local farm who is really active and regenerative agriculture and regenerative methods to just build up some of the soil, health and manage carbon and water. and someone from boulder mushroom who is doing some really innovative work around inoculating wood ships with mushrooms to help regenerate forest and tree health. Oh, and finally we had an activity to encourage attendees to get involved in climate action themselves by creating a mini-sol bag, which is kind of like a greenhouse

[66:06] in a small plastic bag that can be reused, and it'll help germinate seeds over the winter, and we provided native grass and wildfire seeds for them to germinate, which will help contribute to our biodiversity in our community. So our event reached a Max capacity of 80 registrations a couple of days before the event, and and on the night of the event we had around 70 attendees, showing up which we were really happy with. A lot of them, were really engaged. With the presentation that Rela gave and our panel. We had a lot of people taking notes. and just really appreciative that we were providing the space to have this discussion. We also offered a live stream of the event, which was a new experience for us, and we were really happy. That multiple community members have reached out already to say that although they couldn't come. They were appreciative

[67:06] of the opportunity to attend remotely. and we also had catering from dry storage a local artisan mill, who takes climate action through their local sourcing practices of regenerative farms and their local milling. We can come back to this after the after heather finishes up this topic, but we do want to hear from you. We'd like to know if any of these main themes particularly resonate with you, and if there are any topics or themes that you think could be particularly important to communicating to our community. We can come back to this Alright. Thank you, Daniel. So i'll kind of book. Into this Daniel introduced what we got to do last night, which ended up being a super fun event. And we're really focused this year on community mobilization

[68:02] And the way we're doing this is providing space for people to act so in doing that event, You know we didn't want to just do a report out on biodiversity, because it's interesting as we all find it. Your general community member may or may not find that interesting, and so as a way to engage people, and also encourage action If we wanted to take it from an international level to a local level and then down to a local action people could take, and that really is based on that idea of giving people hope through action. And one thing that I thought was a really cool takeaway from last night for me is. I got into a couple of conversations with attendees just about how how desperately they want to act. and how how overwhelmed, and how they feel absolutely no power in the situation. We're in with climate change, and so i'm. I'm always really excited when we get that feedback. This is hey? This makes me feel hopeful. So the goal is to provide a way for people to act once a month at minimum, and then also a whole bunch of other things. But with this emphasis on providing space for community action

[69:07] and just going back to it, Daniel said, You know, like we're providing we're trying to provide this calendar. It's not going to be our only tool, but one of our first steps is just making a web calendar that not only is the the things the city is organizing itself, but also connecting people to what our partners are doing. so that we link people out to what is happening in the community, because there is so much amazing work happening in our community, and by no means is the city. the you know all all, and all of where people should be getting their information. We really want to build volunteers to these other groups and let people know how many options there are for them to get involved. It's. It's hard to communicate to people, I think, although we're working on it. The idea of the natural climate solutions such as like planting a tree or something as small as like planting a pollinator garden is a climate action that matters at a global level.

[70:00] I think that people feel this is quite small. but trying to communicate to people that you can do things for not as much money as putting on solar panels or buying an electric vehicle. You can take these small actions, and by all of us taking these actions, it becomes collective action. and how you manage your yard can be a climate action. I've been talking to friends about this. They're like oh, I never thought about that, and it's just cool to get that message out there. and we're working on providing education, training. connection to volunteer events, and also some of our own volunteer events. Several community science projects this year and more. And one way we're thinking about this is trying to have a variety of levels at which people can get involved, so that's different times of day weekends, evenings, spaces where people can bring their kids spaces along public transportation. trying to provide what one of our steering members called a a gateway to stewardship. And so You've got to hit all different levels of that. And that's one thing we're trying to do with our specific actions. And then also, of course, this connection to partners.

[71:02] just flashing the themes again. so you can see the whole calendar. I'm going to go through this quarter by quarter. We do not have a perfectly locked in calendar, but it's going to grow fast, and we have some things locked in, and we're really excited for what's going to happen this year. Here in the first quarter we got this biodiversity kick off event going, which is, i'm so happy with how it went. We did not expect to get this many people. The first time we floated this event 30 people were interested, and we had to cancel because of the Wildfire and Sunshine Canyon. We had that plan for December. and then this event came around, and we sold out, and that's so awesome. February. We've got some stuff locked in Our theme is garden habitat planning. We've got our action for the month is a garden planning workshop, which we're collaborating with the butterfly pavilion, so we we really can't take credit for the materials, but we are collaborating for them to make this workshop possible, and the intent is to push it out through the cool boulder network. Oh, there will be recruiting of the next call forward, of calling your advocates, and that's

[72:02] led again by Andrea. Montoya Umbrella is a huge huge huge leader in that as well. And then a really exciting thing is the recruiting of that first cohort for the relaunch tree tenders. I know there's so much community interest in planting trees, and this is going to be a really cool resource. And I guarantee you that there's space for 25 is going to sell out. So they're trying to figure out what it's $30, and we're gonna look at helping people pay if they need help. But it's gonna fill up. And so they're already brainstorming how to provide more options there is. There's going to be a fall cohort, but they might need to do more on the caveat that they also have a way to meaningfully engage the folks who train in March. The tree Tender trainings are gonna commence, and then we're hoping to host some workshops, some hands in the ground type opportunities with regenerative farmers in the area that we've been building relationships with. where people can come out and do something on a farm. Learn how to, You know regenerative, regenerate the soil through different practices. This is our most fully flushed out. Quarter gets a little more bag Here we do know. There the tree tender trainings are going to be occurring.

[73:06] a continuing to occur, and there are many multiple tree planting events, one of which is going to be in collaboration with one of our partners, and then we might be able to collaborate with the city Forestry Department to provide another one so definitely. Lots of tree planting, lots of tree focus in April. I May we're hoping to provide we the pretty sure this can happen. We're working with wild Land Restoration Volunteers to provide land rehydration projects. So that's training volunteers. It's a little more intensive, and it'll be like a weekend effort. You train volunteers on how to build these structures and keep water in the ground. and then you insert, and you install them as a group, and then we're also going to coordinate on community hikes in June focus on biodiversity. more community hikes, hopefully trying to just get people out into our open space, seeing things, talking about biodiversity. And then this really interesting potential of maybe ground true things, some tree potential tree planting sites based on tools we develop. So development of the tools of high level and then ground true thing.

[74:04] and then maybe recruiting people to help us collect that information. July. We're going to be really focused on heat, hoping to launch the neighborhood scale heat, mapping efforts. August More land rehydration projects Another effort with Wildland Restoration Volunteers, and then that second cohort of tree tenders. September is me crazy, busy, especially in umbrella's world. There's the D festival, and then planning to coordinate events corresponding with this really cool art exhibit that's coming to our library, where we can really focus on invertebrates. And then lots of Tbd. Here. But we're working on it harvest. There's a really cool group called Community Feet Rescue. I'm. Sure some of you are familiar. We're going to try to get volunteers out there trained up and ready to volunteer with this group who collects fruit to protect bears and also to gather the fruit and make sure it doesn't go to waste. Community hikes, maybe more activities with plantings in November. and then in December, really hoping to focus on compost, maybe some demonstrations and trainings.

[75:04] and then an end of your wrap up and celebration for the folks who've been involved with us. So that was rapid. Fire still took a while. But thanks for your time, and i'm Happy Daniel. I happy to take questions, and we'll probably tag Brett into some of the answers as well. Umbrella great. Thank you so much. You pardon me if it's loud, and you. My wife and daughter are listening to Madonna very loudly, and singing in the kitchen brook. Could you have any question clarifying questions? And then we'll go around and make comments after a quick round of clarifying questions. No, that that presentation is super super comprehensive. I I don't have anything that i'm super confused by. Okay, Great Amanda, do you have any clarifying questions? Not clarifying questions, but thank you again, and just wanted to say good job to Daniel. I was also a as a Americorps in an environmental space. So

[76:09] I guess I have a quick question which I and I might have missed it, but is part of the outreach to ever going to branch towards, like the K. Through 12 schools, and essentially doing things within Vvsd. And the School system, and like a. At a continue a regular basis with the children. so I I can take a first stop at it. Bbsd is involved in our campaign meetings. We've got a couple of student leaders, so i'm still trying to connect with it's a little hard to keep tabs on the rotating student leaders of. I believe they're called the Eco warriors. and then we have connections with a group called Classrooms for climate action, which, you know, Brett can speak a little more in depth to, and then also connections to growing up boulder, which is a large collaboration that we're starting to work more with. So our youth outreach hasn't been fully developed. But we are connected to programs and really wanting to emphasize them. Starting to get asked to people in the community of given feedback, like, what are the resources for kids, and there are some really great programs out there, but unfortunately they can't work in every elementary school.

[77:11] So it's a lot of balance, and seeing how that can go right, Can you offer more information than that? I think that that's just great. I mean, we're just getting it rolling. But if you haven't seen classrooms for climate actions work, they're really phenomenal and really doing amazing in classroom work that gives young people a chance to be doing really substantive things, not just kind of make work or kind of interesting concept stuff, so really trying to figure out how we build and support that as opposed to try to launch stuff ourselves. Great! Thank you. That's helpful. There's no other questions in Brook. Do you have any comments you'd like? Oh, wait! Grand as a hand up question. No, brook go first.

[78:02] Okay, no. It was to really, really thank you so much for the presentation. And I think those are some, some really great programs. And you there was the one slide in the middle about commenting on themes, and if there are things that we should include, I, I don't have any themes that I think would be really important to include in this. I am very happy to see such a big focus on equity. because I mean everything is, everything is interlocked. You can't have one thing without the other. Just sort of in general, and equity is something that we're consistently really bad at as a society. And so there's some extra compensation that has to be done. So i'm really really happy to see that in there, with such a heavy focus. Absolutely. Yeah. And you can you? You probably notice that we didn't have equity in any one of our monthly themes because we ended up deciding that

[79:00] it's obviously just more important to embed it and integrate it into every one of them. So I I did notice that, and I assumed that was the reasoning there. Hearing that clarification as well as additionally wonderful. Yeah. thank you. Amanda. Did you have comments there? Yeah. I just wanted to answer Daniel's questions at the end of his part of the presentation. And while I I think the work that you guys are doing is really great, and especially this kind of coalition, bringing some, but lots and lots of different table. And talking about it together is really great. I would also suggest that you talk. talk to all of the organizations about disseminating like flow charts for proper sorting for waste, because, as we've talked about as a board, we have had troubles with

[80:10] contamination and composting streams, and and kind of a lot of switching from compost to to trash services, and I noticed the last topic you were going to talk about was composting. But if we could kind of use, if you guys could kind of use this umbrella organization coalition as a way to disseminate to the whole community. Since you're working with lots of partners that would, I think, be really helpful. Yeah, I appreciate that, Amanda. Actually, I I know there's a lot of conversation about this and Marty Nature and I have been talking a lot. She was geared up to present at our next campaign meeting. She. Basically we did a calendaring activity and asked people where the city could support.

[81:01] And we can't reach every one of these meetings. It's a big group, but we tried to find a way to get everybody talking. and ecosystems of us was help. and so Marty was going to present at our last meeting that won't work out now. But one thing about the themes is, we went through them, and we have these 3 action areas As this absorbent landscapes of compost. It's regenerative soils, connected canopies that's in our tree work. And then these pollinator pathways, which is really kind of pathways for life, You know, does not just pollinators, the pathways for biodiversity and invertebrates. And one thing we wanted to do with all of our themes is, make sure there's space for all 3 of those actionaries in each theme. And so there's definitely a dedicated effort to conveying this idea that. hey, what you compost of the climate action. And so, if you can't compost in a healthy way. you can't have healthy results, and so healthy compost is healthy soil, and then flipping that into a Here's how you do this, and here's your takeaway action. So it's. It's a theme towards the end of the year, but it's probably going to be running throughout

[82:06] everything, especially with the communication needs, because we have been asked like. One thing we need is help. This: this is a problem. So I don't know exactly how that's going to come out, but definitely in the works. And hopefully we can use this campaign meetings and our communication structures. The community are really just starting to stand up. So it's gonna start as a newsletter, and this calendar and our best tools, probably our website. So it's a little bit of a stutter start, but hopefully, by the end of the year One of our goals is that most of the city is heard about Cool boulder. I want to be able to go to grocery store and say, have you heard about cool boulder and have to be like, oh, yeah, and I did. I went to a grocery store that didn't actually found someone who'd heard of us, and I was really excited. Granted it was nude foods, so there's like kind of a particular audience there. but I was still excited. So yeah, thank you for that comment, and it is sort of already under way, and there there are plans.

[83:01] No, that's that's awesome. I go to new foods, too. I love them. But yeah, I think that that is part of what I was saying was to kind of get all of the organizations talking about it. But I was also. maybe suggesting that, like just simple flowchart pamphlets be disseminated not only to the organizations, but whoever the organizations work with their clients, or like the people that they that they talk to so. And I like that. I like that suggestion of very structured outreach material. And there's one thing we're hoping to be able to provide for people if they don't have the resources to make it, as they get some feedback and be able to disseminate it, since we've got some staff working on it. So I I appreciate that a lot. It's just like a structured thing that here you can give this out. It's a good thing to have anything else. Amanda. Yeah, that's it. And thank you for a really great presentation.

[84:01] Okay, Thank you all. Yeah, I mean. I guess I would just say that I thank you. Yeah, I thought the presentation was fantastic. I'm really fond of this work. I think it's super important, and i'm a big problem of mitigating the urban. He d island before it could say, I feel like it's something that's so tangible to the citizens. So i'm really excited about it. I guess I was. I'd set this thing pop into my head, which is maybe silly, but I just cannot say it. Which would be. It might be cool at some point to like, but I don't even know if this could happen in the future to sort of somewhere downtown or a park where people attend to sort of set up something where you had like a cool area, and then a display of like the not cool area right next by, and benches in both, with like temperature visible, and then, like some cool boulder, you know information there, so you could like, see, and direct people could look at it and sit in the 2 places and be like Wow! It's a difference, and and then discuss it. I think it might be a neat display, or even yeah. And I guess one other question I have which is looking way into the future, and maybe not super relevant. But I guess the comment would be in the basis for Brett, too, is, do we ever do you ever see cool boulder, because I think it's such a great idea, and I like how it's

[85:10] encompassing a lot of different things. And do you ever see it expanding in the future. To also include, like elements of physical infrastructure, like roofs and and pool pavement, and those type of that type of infrastructure beyond more of the natural and roping, you know, growing and bringing it everything further into it. you know. First, I love your idea about a tangible experiential display around this we're actually exploring how we might do that in neighborhoods this summer by engaging local neighbors in heat, mapping their own neighborhood. So that's another sort of iteration of that kind. But I I like that. I think that's what's so exciting. And this graduate student who's who did our heat mapping campaign last summer, who is working with us again.

[86:02] came up with this kind of a low tech, low cost way of giving people basic tools that connect to their phones and be able to then send them off and have this kind of an experience. And that's one of the reasons why we signed on to the Noaa heat mapping program, not because the data is super accurate, which it isn't necessarily super accurate, but it's a very good experiential process. So yes. And then i'm sorry. The second Part I'm. Obviously getting tired. Now. The the second part was expanding the more natural 5 into 2 more physical infrastructure at some point. Yeah, absolutely. In fact. there's a couple of things that are in the works that I'm really excited about. One is that I think we're going to go forward in doing a contract with possibly Rmi or others to do an analysis of the economic development potential of a heat management strategy that pairs, natural climate solutions with built environment actions.

[87:06] particularly around an electrification and access to cooling technology strategy, paired with planting trees and creating natural cooling and shade and and looking at what what the economic potential would be if we actually approached it like a regional scale like with maybe essentially excel service territory being kind of the boundaries for that scale of action. Because I think one of the things that Hasn't been fully appreciated is that we could literally create probably tens of thousands of living wage jobs if we were serious about implementing that kind of inside outside strategy. So we're looking at that strategy in in our area, and then through the work that i'm doing. and through what we're now calling the center for regenerative solutions we're we're possibly going to do that in Cleveland, in one of the historically under served neighborhoods whose life expectancy is literally 20 years less than a couple of neighborhoods, just a you know, a mile away, and and doing that with the

[88:07] with the added dimension of looking it as a community based economic development strategy. So not only what scale of work is necessary to be able to fully implement a heat security strategy. But then, how does that work get then translated into opportunities for the people who live in those neighborhoods? So we're doing that a little bit. Well, not a little bit in this, maybe, is a little bit of an update that's worth passing along. you know. First of all. I just want to recognize, Mike, that you have been a leader on this issue in this board for 5 years. I don't know it's a long time, and I think we've been. We've been making some progress. And so one of the places that we've made some progress is getting the profile of urban forestry as a heat management strategy elevated. and part of what we succeeded in doing nationally over this past couple of years is getting a 1 billionand a half dollars put into the 4 services, urban and community forestry budget.

[89:02] and so we literally helped that money get placed. And now we've been helping to position our State to capture. What could be tens of millions of dollars towards these kinds of natural climate solutions, strategies, and one of the things that we did when we built that strategy was we. We worked really hard with about 15 different workforce development organizations around the Denver Metro Front range area to say, how do we create equity centered economic development opportunities around this urban forestry expansion strategy. And so one of the implications, one of the iterations of that that may actually be fielded. This fall is a a strategy to work with the mile High youth core that are based out of Denver. who already have programs to hire and train youth 18 to 24 year olds from historically, you know, disfranchised communities. and they train them already in wildfire hazard reduction.

[90:03] And we're talking to them about, essentially creating kind of like a ccc crew that would be cross-trained in urban forestry in wild and urban interface fire has a reduction and in wildline stuff, and then having those crews available on higher to communities, to be able to deploy for a week or 2 weeks or 3 weeks to go do some of these critical actions. So I think we're we're starting to see some of these things, and especially with the Ira funding flowing over these next couple of years. I think those are going to be a lot of really interesting stuff happening. Great, Thank you, Brad. That's really exciting, and, thanks to all of you that this is really great work. I'm really pleased to see it moving forward. It's really exciting. So awesome sort of do a little closing for our team, because I just want to acknowledge how grateful I am and how how excited I am to have a team now, a team of these remarkable people who you've just heard from, who all bring remarkable passion and commitment and

[91:00] and creativity to this work. And and i'm excited about this board, helping to continue to identify places and ways that this work can be most effectively focused, not only in terms of the outcomes, but in terms of how the community sees and understands and starts to become invested in this kind of work. So again, you know, especially Mike, to you for years of your commitments to this already and to broken Amanda. Thank you for continuing to be a part of this effort. you know, if I hadn't re-applied, and I just heard this talk I would have been so bummed, but it felt like such a jerk. So i'm so glad I reapply. So so, Mike, I I noticed that Lynn Siegel arrived, maybe a little past our public participation period, but maybe we could open it up. Since we're we have a little bit of time for give her a 3 min public participation piece. Now. Sure, that's fine by me. If it's okay with everyone, Heather, Could you open that up there? Sure. Okay.

[92:00] All right line up. I put the wrong person. Hi, Lynn. Hi, yeah. I was just at the Landmarks Board meeting, because unfortunately, they overlap. and an interesting house came up that I and I brought this up to them. that this house in particular it didn't have a notable architect. but a woman that lived in the house designed it and it. And yeah. I've got a senior student to finish the design, or to formally design it and built this beautiful kind of ski chalet upon Bellevue Drive, where it turns. It's like up in high Chautauqua with the retaining walls. So it's built. You know it's it's really tough situations up there. so I felt it's really kind of relevant like 7. 7. 7 circle was about when we have these houses up on the foothills, where there's been a lot of excavation in a lot of trouble to put the place there now. 777 circle was impeccable.

[93:07] It was like a rock, solid like perfect place, and to have that demolished was just a an abomination in my view, and it didn't even go to landmarks board. But straight through L Ltrc. I think they should come to Eab first. I think if you saw if you walked that 777 circle house, you would be astounded to. There were 5 5 chandeliers in it, and across the street. right fl on Flagstaff. The last house before you leave Boulder, on the west side of the street is a house by Speckler. I think the name of the guy, the same guy that did 700 and 77 Circle and Stevens barn built a place there that he kept the you Sonian characteristic solar benefit of the house, and as a as a characteristic, You, Sonia of you, Sonian architecture, which was good solar

[94:09] design, you know. He kept that part, and it kept ironically a retaining wall. Well, this house had a retaining wall that he said, was just making it so hard to redesign the house. Okay. But you know. anyone who is buying a house with Steven Spawn is going to pay many, many millions of dollars. They could spend those millions of dollars easily on preserving something, even if it's structurally screwed up they can they? We've got to do something to get architects in this town to appreciate what's left, what's standing there already is the best thing to keep rather than you know, trashing it and putting in new.

[95:02] and they've got it be creative. And so it's some extra work, and so it cost a lot. The people in these houses have got their hands full of money. They're the perfect opportunity to save these beautiful historic. This, like a ski cabin, is just beautiful, and and it's getting demoed. you know again. So I don't know what you can do. I said also that someone from Eab should be an exhibition on the landmarks board. which make my life easier, that luckily they end it tonight right now, or I wouldn't have jumped across to speak here. Good. you know, and I know you can't control when 2 boards, but the same night. and I follow 8 boards, so that happens occasionally. But I just think something should be done. Thing that's built. Leave it there, because this is a huge demand on our landfill, and

[96:02] and it's a huge demand on the streets, on the asphalt trucking up dem demo in these places and trucking them out, particularly when they're on tentative, you know, on the foothills, in in, in and steep grades and everything. So it not only that it was just like Steven Spawn's house. The you Sonian there were. There were Charles Hartlings there there. Were you know. There was another, the 777 was done by the same person. That Stevens Barnes house was done by, you know. and I think a 3 min mark here. So. But thank you, for you could come in and say, Well, I think there should be historic districts when there's a lot, because on this site on Chautauqua there were also Charles Hartlings. Then you know that there's a time limits, so i'm sorry you you've. You've passed the time. Thank you for commenting Lin for making it over in a rush after the other meeting. Appreciate it.

[97:03] Okay. let's see. Was there anyone else who joined late for public participation, Heather? Or is that it Okay, cool. Thank you. All right, Brett. Do we have anything under old business updates this evening that we need to touch on? No. And again, just to remind the Board that the next in March is meeting. You'll be having the opportunity to get to know more of our climate, initiative staff, and hearing about additional elements of the department's work areas great looking forward to it, and then let's see anything else. Any other matters for the Advisory board, for the manager or city attorney. No, just a note that our next meeting is scheduled for March, first from 6 to 8 Pm. And then Brett. Is it all right? If I just mentioned to Lynn about our demolition ordinance with waste aversion.

[98:02] we we do have a a city ordinance that requires any time. A building is being deconstructed for 75% of the materials by weight to be diverted from the landfill. And this is something that our staff members have been looking at to improve the compliance with, because it has been the practice of some contractors to pay a deposit, and then just lose that deposit by not meeting the ordinance requirements. So as we loop back to some of our other department staff to bring forward some additional topics throughout the year, i'm sure that that's something that they'll talk more about, and we'll be sure to let you know when that will be so that you can attend, and as I know it's an area of high interest for you. Great, thank you, Heather. I guess. And then moving down, it looks like the next eb, as you just said is March first. Would that be? Are we going to continue with virtual, or are we going to try to move back to in person? Is there any news on that front. I think there's a very high probability that we'll feed you dinner on March first and do it in person. That'd be exciting.

[99:11] Yeah. it's like. The only time I ever leave our house at night is to go to as a father. I can appreciate that statement. I I apologize to my team that I don't know we didn't manage to feed you for this meeting, but we'll get back for onto it. Okay, great. And then me and you and her on, just to continue on with just making sure we'll connect before that meeting. And the okay great. That sounds good. And if there's nothing else, then we can make a motion to it during the meeting. and it sounds good. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you all so much. Take care.