June 5, 2024 — Environmental Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[12:19] And so most of the people who sat on the environmental advisory board were really interested in municipalization. We're doing around that. Just a few years ago, we started, well, actually in 2016 when we wrote the last version of our full draft of the climate action plan. We try to acknowledge that. Climate change was about more than just energy systems. And that actually the larger living world plays a very big role in the stabilization of climate. And so since that time, 2016, we've been fully building out a work area around how to work with the larger living world around climate stabilization and climate science, etc. So we formed a new team. In the nature base solutions team about 2 years ago to start really furthering that work.

[13:01] And a lot of our job is to really try to work across all of the other city departments who actually control who are responsible for managing those kinds of root systems. Greenways, etc. So a lot of what our team does is to try to compile information about what we understand around climate change and what the role of living systems are. Both in causing it and reducing it and also enabling us to prepare for. So what I'm gonna show you now is a tool that we developed over the last year or so. It was developed by a former professor at, CEO named Paul Chanowski. And a firm that he formed called Resilient Analytics. And this actually grew out of work that Paul been done with the city since 2014 to start to try to take global climate models. Do what they call down scaling, which is try to make that those models are designed to try to see change at a global level.

[14:00] Or not useful, frankly, for how to think about what we should do on the ground locally. But over time, there have been ways of starting to try with this, a downscale, bring that to the point where we can use that information. And so Paul has been one of the leaders in this. Took some of the information about what we understand to be. Well, literally the climate model, so I know you might have heard of RCP 4.5 8.5. These are the projections for. What will the climate look like under different conditions of emissions? And so under sort of We now only used to be that there was like, we would look at the low emission scenario and the meeting, you know, with I'm sure. We really looked all over. Cause it's, So what this model does is it's enabling us to say in 2030 under a sort of moderate emissions scenario, what would these different climate risks be? So we've modeled a variety of different climate risks. You'll see those here. Average temperatures, which is actually one of the things you learn in climate action is that Averages are not really that useful.

[15:05] Like a global average temperature rise of one and a half or 2 degrees, you know, really who cares? What gets you is extremes. Because under a global condition in which our temperatures rise by 2 degrees on average, that could mean that our extremes change by 1012, 15 degrees. So it's really the things like how many days over 95 we have now or do we expect to have in the future? How many high fire days? How much drought do we expect to see? How many extreme precipitation events? So I'm just gonna take you to a couple of these that are kind of a lost student so we're gonna go to the days over 95. One of the fun things about this tool is that it it gives us actually historical data. So this is the historical data for days over 95. And so I should point out those rectangles. You see each one that's got a different number in it. Those rectangles are the scale of analysis at which a global climate model is done. So you obviously don't get count to anything close to a neighborhood, but you can see it's interesting to know that they're not the same across Boulder.

[16:15] So even on average. The number of days over 95 in East Bowler was almost 7 and a half while as you know on the forest moderated west side more like. So this is the historic baseline. Let's look at the projections for 2030. This one So you can see we're talking about doubling, tripling, quadrupling of the number of days over 95. And this is where you start to really see human risk and I'll talk about that in a second. Heat. Is actually the greatest sustained danger that we face from climate change. There are other things to sort of charismatic catastrophes, fires, floods, you know, hurricanes.

[17:02] Those are certainly terrifying and dangerous, but what gets us most and you'll see this in the data is he. So anyway, that's that's 1 example of days over 95. And I'll just, yes. Now I'll just note that Sometimes you don't see as much change in the so yeah, fair amount. Sometimes in the signatures of these. Differ between the risk. So as you can see, this does increase at twenty-fifty. What you do consistently see is that the real ramp up of system destabilization is in the next 10 to 20 years. And that past that, we've kind of hit a whole new equilibrium of disruption. But let's go to this is the one, unfortunately, is probably the most shocking and the most. One of those that is truly most, threatening to our community. So this is the number of high fire days days that we would be considering ourselves that we would be considering ourselves at high risk.

[18:05] And this is the number of high fire days days that we would be considering ourselves at high risk. And this is the historic baseline. This is the historic baseline up to the late teens. Now, if I go to even now. That number is a hundred 16. So it's gone up 10 fold. Just since that historic baseline number. 116 days that we are now considered likely to be and today is a really good example. If we get winds like we had today. In another month. We will be in extreme fire nature. Right now the landscapes are voice and so it's dangerous, but it's not nearly. These combinations and we've seen this as we all know we've seen a lot more wind right and wind events. That's a feature of climate change. One of the things that is sort of ironic, I'm waiting for Jonathan and our energy team really pick up on this inside.

[19:00] That. You know, we've been focusing for 20 years on the fact that we have an energy problem as a species, right? So we're using a lot of energy and we're using this really carbon dense energy that we're missing into the atmosphere. So the irony of our situation is that what happens with global warming? Is that the globe is capturing a lot more energy. That's what he is just a form of energy, right? So if you if you increase the amount of heat in the global system, what we've essentially done Is added a lot more energy. Which can manifest in heat, it can manifest in wind, it can manifest in all these kind of extreme events. That's just a lot of energy moving around in a system playing with itself in terms of water and wind. And so what we need is for our energy team to start capturing all that energy and pulling it back out of the system. While our team is actually bringing all that carving water back down to the ground. So you guys do that and we'll do this over here and it will all be good.

[20:02] So anyway, when you look at this, this one, Yeah, so the 2050 numbers, if it changes. Yeah, so it's really high now. It's like in the 115 to twentys by the twenty-fifty. Could be 160 70. So it's it's daunting. So the part of this is that we just need to understand what are we facing. So let's now. Like the same inputs over the decades or do you like adjust given the previous decades. Numbers. It's 2030 getting essentially different inputs that 2050 from 2030 to 2050. Whatever input you're using for the model. He changes or wind changes. There. I assume those aren't going to be like the same American have the same environmental conditions.

[21:10] For these 5 years as we would from 2045 to twenty-fifty. Yeah, if I understand your question, I would say that the models are probably somewhat conservative from the standpoint, especially in terms of these extreme events, that as the landscapes dry out even further. That you can see even more extremes in terms of especially these oyster dynamics to keep dynamic. So I don't know how to answer your questions. Can I ask another question? The previous one showed a number of Thanks for you have. Right. Does that take, does that? Tell you is that also didn't wanna be distributed over the summer or you wanna have fun or you don't have longer summers.

[22:01] Are you gonna have like other 5 danger days gonna go? Sped out over time in a particular year or is it? So concentrate during the days that we have Well, what we now know about fire danger in Boulder, we used to think that there was a fire And with the marshal fire, we know, you know, there's no such. It could literally happen. And that has upended our understanding of. Both the risk and how we manage for. So, I mean, I think. Yeah, it's even, sort of things like extreme weather events. We're going to see more extreme kale. We hail events have already increased traumatic. Yeah. There one of the things one of the sort of physics dynamics of climate change is that for every for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature you get 7% more moisture in the atmosphere.

[23:00] Because he causes evaporation. So we're already, and when you hear the numbers like, oh, well, we. We're now at a global average temperature increase of about one and a half degrees. That's again such an average like in in the in the in the polar regions we're already on an average 8 Right. So. Yeah, so it's been part of what I wanna say is. This is daunting. I, I get that. One of the things that we, we haven't actually gone out with all this data yet. And one of the things we wanna think about is how do we talk about this with the community in ways that this is overwhelming cause people to just shut down. And there are things that we can do. In fact, nature based climate solutions is one of the really significant pathways. To stabilize these systems. Maybe one of the things that I'll share with you, after this meeting is we have done an and sort of summary of the science and that I think one of the things that we're starting to realize is that we have overly simplified how the climate function.

[24:06] As a consequence we have missed. One of the most important both causes and solutions to climate change. So we, and there's actually a really interesting history of all this of why we started to talk about climate change as being just about carbon and about this sort of carbon. Balance in the atmosphere as if the climate was simply the product of this sort of CO 2 in CO 2 out she. It's very geochemical sort of mechanistic way, right? Which is sort of, you know, we like to think about things that way. But it's actually not that way. The climate is actually a biologically mediated dynamic. You can see that actually the annual cycles of CO 2 because the earth breathes in and it breeds out literally through the terrestrial world. Vastly more carbon and we admit it's just that we have tipped a balance that was actually heading slightly into cooling and we now we're moving into warming and even slightly moving into warming starts to move you into this really dangerous territory.

[25:07] The point is we live on a planet that human beings have been frankly the grading for thousands of years. And have really increased the rate at which that happens dramatically in the last several 100. And what's really interesting, we could show you the curves, the curve of CO 2 increase in the atmosphere. Yes, it matches actually the curve of fossil fuel consumption, but it also matches the curve of land degradation. And one of the analyses that's been released is that over a 3rd of the CO 2 in the atmosphere didn't come from burning fossil fuel. They're burned from, it came from deforestation and soil oxidation and all those things that happened from landing. And of course, once we started using fossil fuels, larger and larger machines and basically it's accelerated our degradation of land. The reason I'm saying all this is to say one of the most important things we can do to stabilize climate is to restore land. We were living on a planet in which roughly 50% of the photosynthetic capability has been lost.

[26:05] That's a staggering. From what time point at 50%. But literally within the last several 100 years, we've lost about 50% of the But the, the good news is we actually know how to restore full synthetic capability. It just means that that needs to be a major priority of our society. And the relevance to all this still right now into here. Is that as per normal? In Boulder, we think we might have some ideas that would be relevant not only to our area but maybe to the rest of the world. And so that's part of what we're now trying to work on is these nature-based solutions, which no small and scale right now in here, we're starting to show can have that sort of way. It can be applied in larger. So let me just take you then to some of the tools that we're looking at. Using to do that. So this is a new tool also. That we have just had built for us around.

[27:04] So this is, I'm just back up still a little bit. You can see this is the bolder boundary, right? And this is each one of these squares is a census block group or one of these boundaries. And so we're gonna. This is so much fun. I, turn the rest of the time along, promise, but playing around with you in this. So this is this is each one of these boundaries. Now has an analysis for how much. Can't be that. So let's just go just drop in a little bit further. Little boulder a little bit. So let's go to the area close to where my I live here. I think that's about. So, well, let's go here. So in this We know what the canopy is now or wasn't 2021 33%.

[28:01] What it was in 2015 34%. And a whole bunch of other things about that area. We can actually now look and then next to it is a can of isn't census block that only has 16%. And so this is another area where averages aren't very useful. If you asked us a couple of years ago, well, what's the tree canopy in Boulder? We'd say, 20%. As if all of Boulder had a 20% candidate. Well, actually right here you can see it's 33% in this area. It's 16% here. It's hope 7% here. Well, let's take a look. Just within a few blocks from like. Yes, well, you'll start to see this in a second when we start to show you the. So. Yeah. And this is what's the definition of a tree versus the bush? So this, this is aerial imagery that's done by the national agricultural inventory.

[29:02] So, they use some now machine based algorithm that starts to interpret what that. That photograph is in terms of, I can actually show you. So this is. Let's go right now. So this is right about so I live. In fact, I'll show you something fun. In this tool, and this is available now to public, we, have a really widely. Share it out yet, but we will. Let's just go to my house. So. And it will take us right there. And then if we wanted to, and so I've actually I was showing you. I was showing you the analysis at a census block group level. We can do this and that we have the analysis run at all these different levels. So it's block group, what you saw initially. So let's just look at census blocks. So in my, in my area. I live in a census block that has. What is it?

[30:03] 16% canopy. We had 17%. Let's back up just a little bit. So you can see this. Okay, so now we're looking at Census Box. This is my census block group, which actually includes the whole park behind us. Let's go. I'll show you something. That's interesting. You're just sorry. Hold on that question. So this but this this is really important. And street canopy and boulders 20% right but my neighborhood might block next door to us They're canopy is 37%. So, you know, in some ways in Boulder it is, it's 5% or it's 10%. In other places, that's really important as to who's got risk from shady. We actually. And then you can take what's really fun is we can actually go down to the parcel. It takes a little bit to render this, but. So we can literally see. Our soul by parts. And here's, but here's where it really gets fun. I, we have a, when we bought the data, we bought a baseline year that we could compare all previous years to.

[31:08] 15. So let's look at urban tree canopy. From 2015 to 2021 anything that's tan to brown is lost Anything that's sort of big, greenish is game. So in my, on my, in my, parcel. We love, we lost, a big cotton witchery. So we lost Kennedy. But this is what this is not so interesting. But what the really useful way to look at this. Law number is when you start to look at census block groups and since then you could start to really see patterns across the, right? Now we can really start to get a sense of what's happening to again. Up to this point, by the way, we might get canopy information maybe every 10 years. Now we're gonna have it every 2 years. Because we're now living in a fast change world and we need to see these kinds of changes.

[32:09] It's very interesting. Like when you zoom out, right? And I'm bad with not South East West, but let's just say the way you were showing it, the right hand side has no Oh, this is all the, right? Okay, got it. So this is all our forested tracks in the open space land. Got it, got it. And then this is now we're out into the planes. So do, would that never have been, except along the recurring streamers where we would have had galleries of cotton wood. What do you say, what was the tell me to use? Yeah, yeah. No, this is an important point and one that's often actually. So that people say, well, you know, Boulder didn't historically have trees, so why are we putting more trees?

[33:04] Well, Boulder didn't historically live in a condition that's going to be over a hundred degrees for weeks at a time. You want to live in a place with no trees now? I doubt it. So it's 1 of these kinds of, they sometimes call it novel ecosystems. These are not historic. And we probably don't want to live in the historic conditions given what we're So, anyway, what I was trying to show you is that we now have this capability looking even right now at the Parks level, but certainly at a neighborhood scale. And, well, one of the things I did want to show before I leave this map is We've even, we, so we have now launched this issue. I'm about to talk about called the community forestry core. And one of the things. One of the things that we're doing is trying to figure out where do we have areas with both social risks and vulnerabilities. And low camping. And where do we want to start then really focusing activity to increase that so that we can reduce those vulnerabilities.

[34:06] And one of those places, it turns out. Is schools. So we have the school boundaries. Actually delineated so we could see what the the, canopy percentages were, sorry. Moved too fast, I get it. So this is the elementary school. I don't think they didn't have any, well, actually. Hey, probably had no camping. 50. And then they had a few scraggler trees that have been poorly maintained. So we literally just planted, 25 trees there a couple of weeks ago, but like it's starting from 0 and as a consequence those schools which were not built with air conditioning most of them right because we didn't need it. Are now really suffering. My kids like in the fall or in spring. Quite a common for the for those classrooms to be 80 degrees plus right so we need shape not only of course for schools but for other households especially those who may be they don't have a can afford air conditioning. So this is where we'll now talk about the work we're about to do.

[35:12] Can I come back with a question about, like we talk about a tree like we see the tree outside over there, right? Pretty big trees. And then when I want to put trees in my house, I'm buying these like, please let me just take it or something. Is that count or are we looking at? That's size, you know, for I understand it cannot be effective, but I'm also talking about increasing the photosynthesis, Really this bigger tree makes a big difference, but as climbing smaller. I'm trying to figure out a rain myself in so I don't plot too big. But, well, I'll just say this. I think one of the things that I'm most excited about, the work that we're doing, and I'm most proud of our team around.

[36:05] Is that we're gonna try to really push the boundaries of how we've understood urban landscapes. And and reconnect it so that we're not talking about urban forest over here and green infrastructure over there. We're gonna do some polynomial habitat over here and never are we actually talking about them together. Because if you go and you look at some of these poor trees that are planted in the city, there it's like saying to you, I'm gonna put you in a desert by yourself with nothing else and maybe I'll give you enough like food to just keep you alive. Are you gonna thrive? No, because you're actually intrinsically a community member. There's all these relationships subsurface that all the other things that you normally live with would be helping with and that you'd be mutually collaborating on, but now you're going to be there all by yourself. If we don't start thinking about how water and shrubs and forbs and trees and pollinators all work together.

[37:02] And we're gonna have these very degraded landscapes that can't Believe in this robust way that we need them to to be able to be resilient in the kind of conditions we're facing. So when you say what about these other things? One of the things we need to be thinking about is planting more shrubs. Especially in the 1st stage while we're waiting for those canopies of the trees that we're planting to get a bigger. Cause we can get a shrub up to 8, 1015 feet within 2 or 3 years. We can't get an oat to that. But we do want that over to get there, you know, 30, 40 years into its life cycle. Is just having the extra green space covering the concrete and the asphalt. And just as long as there is some, like, even if there isn't shape for the people. For the ground is gonna help produce the overall temperature of the spaces and also reduce the temperature like. Consistency like overnight.

[38:08] And so just having the load, the ground stuff is just helpful in the long term as well. We've actually been starting to see the signature of cooling caused even by. Hi, grasses and low shrubs. For those very sorts of reasons. I think you'll start to see some of that. And so now I'm gonna just take you through. This work that we've just launched this year. And So we, the other thing about, You can't change the urban forest condition across an entire city in a short period of time. It's a big area, right? We would literally have to plant. Hundreds of thousands of trees. Did we want to move the statistics for the entire city? We can absolutely move canopy percentages for areas or neighborhoods very much more quickly.

[39:00] And so we need to start thinking about where do we need to prioritize action 1st given the limited resources that we have. So we've chosen 3 areas around the community as starting points both to to build systems for doing this and also to start working in the areas that we think need some work. We are going just to the areas that are higher risk for 2 reasons. One is, is it fair to experiment when we don't completely know exactly how to do all this? In those areas that are most vulnerable first? st No, I don't think so. We should have put start some of our work in areas where we were restored a little bit better, but we are actually choosing at least one area where demographically it has some of our higher risk conditions. So what do you, I'm just curious what you consider that like, categorically, it'd be, it's usually a composite of multiple things. The social demographic conditions like average income. Ethnicity race education also how much canopy there is there now housing type so those all sort of fall into that.

[40:07] You can also use the viral screen tools from the state or the, the various other equity tools that are out there to do some of these because they do that kind of But I do want to just emphasize one other thing. Sometimes, and you know, trees have gotten a lot of attention over the last couple of years. Is kind of like a solution and it is great. But as you were sort of implying, planting a tree and so there's this term that kind of drives me crazy, Like, okay, these places that don't have very many trees, that's very inevitable. So the solution to that is we just plant more trees there. Well, in fact, if you go into a historically underserved and under shaded community and you plant trees, what you've actually just delivered is a liability. Because that tree doesn't provide any of those ecosystem services you want right now like shading and infiltration. It won't for another 10 or 30, 20 years. But you've given them a liability, they have to keep alive that long in order for you to get there, right? So who's gonna do that?

[41:05] Who's gonna pay for that? Whose water is going to be used for that? So if we're gonna think about equity in this context, we need to think about it. In multiple ways and one of them is what benefit am I delivering now? And so one of the things we could do is at least make the process of planting and caring for those trees during this period of establishment, something that potentially delivers a benefit into those communities. So, has literally launched something that's the 1st in the nation that we're calling the community forestry core. And it's based on the premise that we're gonna be planting trees, we need a plan for how we're gonna take care of them. And if we're gonna take care of them, then we're gonna spend money to do that. We ought to actually at least make that opportunity available to the people who come from some of those communities that we think are most at risk. And so we launched this initiative called the Community Forestry Corps. And I'm excited to say that which just launched literally this week. We have, oh, I'll get into this. And, well, let me just go back to this issue of Pete.

[42:03] We could share this information with you. These are the deaths from sort of the charismatic types of climate change issues like hurricanes, tornadoes, and you see extreme. Like there's just no comparison to the number of people who are. And one of the things that we're starting to worry about is when you see heat. And energy systems that can no longer. And so they've done some analyses that's pretty terrifying about what the prospective number of people visiting. Emergency rooms are in places like Phoenix and I can't remember where that other spot is Houston, I think it is. And like there are scenarios which are not at all unlikely in places like Phoenix where if you have a major blackout or brown out and you're in that sort of sustained 110 plus time, it's just gonna be catastrophic. So this is all just to say, we really need to work on. So in 2,022, we started this. In fact, we were one of, the 1st 3 years of a project with NOAA.

[43:01] To do what we call this the Heat Watch program. And in this program, it's a really fun program where it's just a single day. You kinda go through this hair raising process with noah to try to predict what that hottest day of your year is gonna be. And then you recruit a bunch of volunteers and they 3 times during that day. You send them out on these driving routes where they have a thermometer that's in their vehicle. And you drive them through these routes that have been designed to try to capture all the variation in the community. And this is a really interesting example of that. This is this is from our 2,022. It turned out to be it was one of the hottest days in the year. We had this great graduate student team that organized 70 volunteers in the community. They went out 3 different times. What was like 7 to 8 a. M. 3 to 4 pm and then 6 7 to 8 p. M. And this is the temperature variation at the 3 to 4 PM. So you can see it's 10 degree difference across town. Well, on left side is. So I was in the field. And the brightest red would be like writing down where we have the most concrete asphalt.

[44:10] Okay. This is, the 3 and 4, 3 to 4, and the 6 to 7 67 was fascinating. In fact, we had one of the. Whyest variations in temperature in the nation. There's a 17 degree difference between. The coldest and the warmest. At our in our early mornings. And the interesting thing that we didn't expect. Was it some of the warmest? We're on the western edge of town. Now why do you think that would be the case? So, and it catches the morning sun. So yeah, it was interesting. But you know, in general, it is that's, you know, the high at that point is 78 you know later in the day. Out there, it's only in the low nineties, whereas downtown is, you know, 100 plus. So. So anyway, that's cool. This is kind of the state of the art for how to mobilize the community to do temperature gap.

[45:11] Good husband. So more recently we actually contracted with a group out of Georgia Tech to do an even more in depth analysis at a finer scale to say what are the temperature dynamics of our community based on all kinds of things including the built environment, a natural environment. So I'm not gonna go into this very far just to say we know that even more granular keyed analysis model has been done. But based on all that, we said, okay, let's start figuring out we're gonna do something about it. And so part of this idea was to create. Us an infrastructure for caring for that. Rupenforce that we say we want and need to cool ourselves and to have that be a kind of youth powered effort. So we launched this thing called the community forestry core. It's a paid piece. It started this past week. It will run through, I think, mid August. It's a lot like, if you know the junior Rangers program.

[46:04] It's sort of like the urban analog to the Junior Rangers program. It's sort of like the urban analog to the Junior Rangers program. And it's ironic to me that we have over a hundred kids and have for years that are going out every summer to work on our parks and our open space. Awesome. But what about urban landscapes? And what are significantly underfunded parts of. So now this is sort of creating that. I'm proud to say that a part of this has been how do we develop this? You know, in a way that reaches 1st into those parts of our community that might not other work that are most at risk and might not otherwise have this opportunity. So this is just an example of the the recruitment brochures that we put out. They were published in both English and. And one of the things that I'm really excited about is we have hired a crew of 10. Half of which are English 1st or Spanish 1st speakers. And so we are really walking the talk on this. We have 2 crew leaders besides those 10. Each of them are Spanish speakers as well.

[47:04] We have these 3 areas that they're gonna be working in. It's a 40 h week program about one of the dates of the I don't think it's actually 40 yards. I think it's a 35 h week. But in any event, it's 3 days of work and a day of education and curve develop for the young people. What I'm also excited to report is that we got the county to fund a parallel program in And we've helped to support the standup of the same program in Cleveland, Chicago, Boise, and Albuquerque. So we're really launching kind of a national initiative around all. And this is mostly in public. Plan not like you're not approaching private properties. We are actually the first.st Wave of this given how quickly we've stood this up is their most of the maintenance work they're doing is on schools and parks. But we are starting to recruit private lands as well. Part of the idea of reason why deal is think about paper routes or what about summer tree watering. So what we do hold is that we can actually get more of the private land owners involved in engaging with this as well.

[48:08] So again, this is really about how we start to create this kind of increased resilience through natural infrastructure. And so these are the 3 areas that we have selected for initial action. Crest view in northern, bolder, which is also one of the areas. Because with the Boulder Meadows manufacturer home. development. One of the sites that shows up is having some of the higher risk factors. Then, BCS elementary school that I was showing you were near where I live. And then the Fairview High School area, which is actually also an area that has one of our highest fire risks in the community as well. So just curious, you planting all these trees in areas that. Doing that, are you in some way, Yeah, good question. So typically, deciduous trees are not a significant fire factor. Evergreen trees, especially Juniper, are.

[49:08] In fact, in the case of the Marshall Fire, the thing it really illustrated was. Yeah, what they call conflagration of what fast moving fire that suits into an urban area like that. It's not actually house to house admission that they're most worried about. It's the emperor cast. It's that once something starts to burn and it starts to send embers into that wind that then get capped. And you might remember. Having seen how like properties like the lows and other things they burned in that superior was all stuff that was getting tossed by the So it's not really that the trees are much of a especially decision. Now there is. There is concern of course about any tree that's too close to a structure, cause if it does catch fire, so there's new guidance about how close to structures you should have trees. And there are trade offs. Isn't to say, to certainly the safest landscape of all, be a rock concrete pavement and it would be its landscape that's 20 plus degrees hotter.

[50:01] So there's a little bit about like where do we want to live and those kind of things. Evie trees. Yeah. So I cottonwood is okay. Yeah, Jennifer, in fact, there was a little bit of a dispute internally, but there was a fire department wanted to launch initially, but there was a fire department wanted to launch an issue called Jump the Juniper. Like go out there and, in most cases, probably is a good idea. There are natural junipers and there are tree-form junipers and there are natural junipers and there are tree form junipers and there are tree forms and there are tree form juniper as and there are tree forms, you know, pose. I mean, the worst are actually those classic sixties era. Right along the house like that is like, a project that just the city is involved.

[51:05] In fact, our colleagues and friends at the Play Foundation and Tree Trust are huge parts of it. They're actually the employer of record, the ones that are managing the use in this program. Most of you hopefully know about the Cool Boulder initiative, which is over 35 partner organizations in the community working with us on this great organization called classrooms for climate action. Boulder County has been investing in this too and Michael's been a part and we're actually not looking at the school district too by the way. I think are gonna become a very active partner in nature. How do you, you know, up to very recently we thought of landscapes that's just an aesthetic background. You know, very recently we thought of landscapes. That's just an aesthetic back. We have not recognized. Work part of our, so anyway, I would have gone on and on, I always. I have another question.

[52:03] Obviously you choose you or I assume your choice of seasonality was for the employment summer availability or the implications for like tree planting in the summer is too. Like fall spring when it's typically cooler in there. Survivability is a little bit better. We do want to plan in the spring or the fall. And so what we're doing actually now is watering current for trees of the plan in the spring. So we're not planting trees for primarily watering and then mulching into another things like that. There is another issue which is the program is only as we've currently got it set out from. Early June into August there's really time after August of course that they need to. And I can't frankly say we've solved all that yet, but hopefully part of this is that we raise awareness. The schools actually go back and say we've solved all of that yet, but hopefully part of this is that we raise awareness.

[53:00] The schools actually go back in the session Cause I know that there are plenty of high school students who still need a job during the school year. So would there be a way to sort of like extend the program to be, you know. You know, more, employee deaths and sort of those planting seasons. And then maintain them year round because if part of the goal is to help take some of the economic pressure off of low resource communities for taking care of those new trees that are providing shade only taken care of from 3 months a year is still burning them with taking care of that tree over the course of the winter. When there can be increased. Economic pressure from you to keep your eyes warm. And the tree still needs to be kept alive, right? You can't just water it 3 months a year. I'm not expected to survive all winter. So is, there any way to sort of. Expand that you're helping relieve that pressure year round and you know. Give some jobs to.

[54:01] Active. High school students all year or is that Well, I think it's really just a matter of resource and So, I mean, I think this is an issue that I. Part of the reason I wanted to come tonight is to say. As the EAP. One of the topics that I believe you will have the opportunity to participate in and I think it's really important. Things for you to have input on is we need to update our codes and ordinances. In order to recognize the important role that landscapes play as part of our climate resilience strategy. We have a lot of work to do there because they haven't been updated for years and things like. Some of you might know the state passed a new law that says we should not be enabling non-functional turf and that you local governments are now required to start developing new ordnances around non-functional turf. That's sounds good in the sense that we won't have a lot of turf that's requiring a lot of water, but if we stop watering and our trees die.

[55:06] And we're gonna be facing a lot of challenges, right? If we put in a lot of gravel and other things and we have to start trying to weed it through using herbicides. That's gonna be a problem too. So we really need to be thinking proactively about how to transition these landscapes. And that that gets to this issue that you're talking about. How do we fund it? We need new mechanisms that continue to invest in maintaining this natural infrastructure. We do understand infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance on the built side. We need to now start thinking about infrastructure maintenance on the natural side too. Well, thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate the chance to. Sure, this is a very interesting presentation.

[56:00] Yeah. Actually, It's possibly in the packet. Okay. My bodies are. Oh, I do have one last question. Given that. What did you do? I'm curious for community outreach or just letting people know these positions were available. I think it's a question we get a lot from. Different people coming in is like how we communicate our needs to the community. We work through a whole bunch of different organizations that are connected into these communities. I can't tell you all that but they were that doesn't probably, yeah, I'm sure that there are ways we could have done that, but I think we did a pretty good. And I just, again, I was I feel really good that half of our crew. It's really reflecting that.

[57:13] Okay. Any other questions or comments or inquiries? No, feeling good, feeling good. Alright. Thank you so much, Fred. Super interesting. Right. Our next item. Certainly, you. One little segue that I wanted to connect with and I just really want to appreciate, for his leadership in this space. It's really, wanna appreciate, for his leadership in this space. It's really been tremendous as he mentioned the beginning of his leadership in this space. It's really been tremendous as he mentioned the beginning of this presentation that the States are based. It's really been tremendous as he mentioned the beginning of this presentation that the Stature-based Solutions work is really, I think, the beginning of this presentation that this Nature-based Solutions work is really, I think, I wouldn't call it its infancy anymore. It's made me a sell of adolescent at this point, but really, really, building a lot of muscle, really building a lot of capacity and a lot of support. And I think if you probably heard many, many times how that really integrates into our kind of comprehensive and more holistic work around the climate space.

[58:13] So the one piece I want to kind of use is a nice bridge into this next piece of the topic is where we just added and that is codes and how we use codes to really achieve the outcomes that we are seeking and one of the things that you may have heard in council conversations. They come up pretty regularly over the past. Several months, because we are in that cycle right now. Updating a whole package of I code. So that's our energy code looking at our building code. And another is of course looking at our landscaping, or, and, and, and how we use those. And I think it's a really interesting opportunity to. Harmonize and think very thoughtfully about all of the outcomes because I think generally there's like those one that's really intense there per minute.

[59:00] Just thinking about wildfire. How do we think about, or virus gaming? It's good. Just thinking about wildfire. How do we think about wildfire? How do we think about, or virus gaming? On the water and hydrology system. So it's a way to kind of come together and use our code and the really interesting way. But again, it's not just that code. So we start then thinking about how to use the building code, to achieve the same outcome. How do those different codes all work together? And this is something that I think is, in in practice. For the city where we, treat each of those codes generally in isolation and it has a, function. We don't really think about it connects to the other codes for these purposes, resilience climate and otherwise. So it's an exciting time to be able to think about that. So. I use that as an introduction because that was really, I think, front and center in the conversation that we had with council just a couple of weeks ago. You heard many conversations over the past many months around the update to the energy code of its purpose on why we were updating and then you provided really valuable input into that process.

[60:13] And I just wanted assured the board, and I think you know this, that your comments were really forward. They were heard by council. Particularly in the study section that we had with them last November and then as we brought the actual. Code language forward to them just a few months ago. So the 1st reading again was several months ago. Initial opportunity for council to take a look at the entity code and then we had our big public hearing just a couple of weeks ago. And there were 2 things and I'm just really delighted to say that, what we were trying to achieve with this update and I'll just bring, remind you. The way I like to talk about this code update is our traditional approach is just kind of turning the dial on energy efficiency just to make buildings more and more efficient.

[61:06] And we really changed our approach and tactic this time and to really use the energy code is an opportunity to drive down side of the portfolio that was really it's its purpose, we've gotten to the point where I wouldn't call them division returns, but as you really tightened up the efficiency of building, you start to have these unintended consequences on cost. On deconstructability of those buildings and those are things that You don't want to run into and because we have really tight buildings, how do we think about human health and in that application? So if this was our opportunity to kind of shift our approach into the human health space of combustion, not gonna gas indoors and really drive it up with electrical, for the construction. I'm not telling you. So there are 2 things that council asked us to do as amendments the 1st was the execution day we were planning on kicking off The new code on July 1st they asked for a little bit more time for builders to kind of settle in to this new electric code.

[62:10] Understand it a little bit more. So, they asked that the implementation days would be December. And part of that was We wanted to We didn't wanna go into January 1st fall. That's not a great time for kind of a code officials. There's holidays and all that stuff. So after a little bit debate, council agreed on December first.st So not a huge issue. The second one was a little bit more substantial but still not an issue for for the staff anyway but just a couple of days before we went to council we had a letter from a number of large property. That have traditionally used offsite solar. So that's solar that's not on the building specifically, but, community solar or large scale commercial solar, say, in Weld County and they would use that solar to meet the onsite requirements.

[63:08] And we've always allowed that because it's new additive solar into a system which is good. We took that opportunity. Out of this code update because we felt it was really important that buildings are really seeing that value on site. We're really building buildings here locally. We want the solar to be on site. And to look at other alternatives and we have a lot of flexibility in the code cheap building efficiency ability to work for the property owner if they're not meeting the certain level of requirement for the new building or the new construction they can work and get points in other ways. And so we didn't we didn't we didn't want to advocate for off site solar wanted to take that out and a lot of large property owners ask to put that back in council, synthetic to that. And so we're gonna work with, those developers in Q 3 and come up with some alternatives and we may or may not.

[64:00] Included. Yeah, large commercial properties and understand that a lot of those big buildings, they have a lot of those big buildings, they have a lot of those big buildings, they have a lot of those big buildings they have a lot of purposes they have a lot of architectural shaving they have things on roots air conditioning, they have a lot of architectural shaving, they have things on roots, air conditioning units and so forth and so on. It's not a great contiguous surface. All of the time. Even so, we want to do as much as we can on site because we're making a major shift right now. In my department to think about solar, and the benefits that, that it provides not just because solar is good but how do we start now into this next phase of hardening our system resilience, adding in storage capabilities, thinking about micro grids, thinking about, resilience hubs and the way solar plays into that, is really important to us, not just, well, solar is good, but it also has great economic value and benefit. As well. So did they site their reasons?

[65:04] Was it lack of space on site? Was it? Economic reasons they specify what they're. You know, I mean, it's it's always cheaper, right? I mean, they can subscribe to a community solar. Like I said, in Montgomery and so price for Kill a lot cheaper than doing a project that might be kind of chopped up on a funky room for sure. I mean, I totally get that. And that's why we originally had it chopped up on a funky room for sure. I mean, I totally get that. And that's why we originally had it as an alternative but we wanted to get that. And that's why we originally had it as an alternative, but we wanted to push a little bit harder in this update and ultimately have it as an alternative but we wanted to push a little bit harder in this update and ultimately counsel was sympathetic as I said and that's fine. So we'll go back a little bit harder in this update and ultimately council was sympathetic as I said and that's fine so we'll go back have a and see what we'll do and that's fine. So we'll go back, and that's fine. So we'll go back, have a conversation and see what we'll go back, have a conversation and see what we'll go back have a conversation and see what we'll do and have a conversation and see what will do and it'll be a standalone code and then it won't hold up the adoption of So you said the letter was received like a couple days before. You didn't have a chance to talk back and forth. We discussed it with a few property owners originally when we did some of our outreach and community engagement with, with some of the commercial industrial property owners and there was a little bit of grumbling, but nothing that was really organized and then they get organized and And then would it be possible?

[66:18] Just. To just do like, you can do a certain percentage off site and then or is that like also off the table or Nothing. Yeah, as I said, we didn't wanna hold up the coded option and try to solve it all right now. We have the ability to go back later in the year, which is a standalone amendment to the energy code once we have some opportunity to discuss. Second item on that evening. And Carolyn provided you all a good presentation. I think in our last meeting that we were together on the landscape equipment and I'm I'm delighted if we had a lot of discussion council members leading up to that item. I was disappointed because the energy code discussion took a long time and we didn't start, our conversation about, until about 9 45 pm, which doesn't really give community members a great opportunity to watch.

[67:14] It's it's a tough and challenging topic. Ultimately, again, another item that the board. Find it really valuable input. Over the last 2 years, as we've been running the pilot program. And we presented the same results. We presented the results of the pilot, what we've learned, what we've heard, how landscape companies are transitioning how quickly and we We kept our recommendation, as you all know, not to implement any regulatory measures right now, but to continue in the space learning more, understanding the implications on small landscape companies, with the intention that we can always come back and add some regulatory component.

[68:00] We also wanted to see what's gonna happen with the state rules as those roll out over the next year to see. Whether we see a faster transition, I think, and the electrification of some of that. So. Ultimately, it was a really good evening, got through a couple big milestones and then the following week. You brought forward our draft, community wildfire protection plan. And I just wanted to signal to the board. Again, it's really important topic that I want to bring back to all of you. On the next couple of months, it give you an opportunity to weigh in on how we're moving forward on some of the community basic elements of that wildcard protection plan. Okay. I have a, some of really the question from the April. That, I think. There was something in there about updating the firm action plan. What, what that means and yeah, so there was a discussion at the, accounts retreat.

[69:10] Baby, were you here? It's okay. It was one of the council priorities. The added priorities they had their 10 and they added this around updating their financial plan. The intention was we had planned on coming back with, an update to the structure of our plan. We I talk about this a lot. I have a really strong aversion to spending months and months having staff try to rank the perfect document. Pass it, adopt it. It takes a year to do the thing in graphics. You pay a lot. And then suddenly it's, it's not in working in the space where things move so quickly.

[70:05] Decision with council a couple of years ago that we would not do like. Update every 5 year a big plan because we know what needs to be done. We can look at it in modules we can look at strategic kind of our work plan so people can see what's that and what's moving but we do have an opportunity to update some of our goals and targets. One is around our local generation target. And I just talked about why we want to ship from just install capacity. As solar to thinking about solar and heartening our infrastructure integrated and selling. So we are going to be polishing up and doing something that's a little bit more user-friendly that's a little bit more user-friendly that someone could print off, in doing something that's a little bit more user friendly that's a little bit more user friendly that someone could print off, say a short summary of what is our theory of change when it comes to climate . We have our climate commitment document, which was that nice call of chatting, that original climate action plan.

[71:02] And now it goes to a council memo and to me that's probably worse than anything sending someone to a hundred 15 page council agenda to say, here's our theory of change. Here's what our plans are around climate, but it's taking all of that, synthesizing it and putting it into a, you know, a more user friendly document that we can update regularly. So that's our plan. We're working on it now. Our intention is to go back to council. And then one of the things I have to talk about at that time at the retreat is could we add some things in around water and some of the other elements that relate to climate. My response in the moment was what I don't wanna do is go out into other departments and other plans like our drought plan, our water efficiency plan, our grassland master plan, our open space master plan. They have now embedded climate resilience and sustainability into those plans and try to pull them out and drop them in one document.

[72:01] What I would rather do is create a really nice, way to reference and point to when we talk about water. It lives in these places. And here's our, here's ultimately our theory of change, why we think about water and here's how different departments are, actively working in that space. So we're trying to stitch that all together right now. Any other council updates? I have the look ahead, for you momentarily, but there was one other item that I put on the agenda. Okay. I'm excited about it. This came from, and just any other questions on those 2 items. So there was an item that came up in a couple of different ways and I don't know if you've been tracking this at all, but, one of our council members reached out to me, kind of, of 2 sway because I'm also part of this small dye city kind of sustainability group of course and some one of the things that's been really interesting is some work going on

[73:10] in Denver to promote plant based. Meals as the default for board and commission meetings. And I think it's kind of exciting. I was interested in thinking about how they were gonna roll that out and the council member reached out at the same time and said, have we ever thought about this? And I said I actually had plan to come to you all and just put this before you as something you might wanna consider. And so the power and I think you know this you all I don't need to evangelize this in any way but I think there's a really strong statement to thinking about switching to plant based diets. We have talked about this with the media that why doesn't the city actually act actively work in policy in that way? Their cultural applications, the idea of kind of social engineering that the city would dictate what people can eat.

[74:02] Or Nadi is a little bit challenging, but we can instead of eyes and we can encourage and one of the things will ways to do that is think about the power that we have in our purchasing. So right now we're kicking off this. socially responsible, procurement, update. So members of my team are working with our purchasing and other departments to think about how we think about socially responsible procurement. But this is another opportunity where, what's going on in Denver is one board, issued a challenge to all of the other boards. They said this is what we are going to do and we encourage you to come on. This journey with us and the default is that when meals are ordered, they're all plant based, meals by default doesn't mean it's required if somebody on the board or commission requests. A meat based meal, they can do that separately, but the default is to start to move towards no single use plastics starting to move towards point based diets and they are issuing this challenge to all of the boards within the city that city of Denver.

[75:11] And I took it to step from there. It'd be interesting to, raise the challenge to council as well. Because, you know, it's another way that I think we can walk. Okay. Well, I mean, that's certainly up to, you all if it's something that you're interested in, the, and I'll send you a link to what Denver is doing. Denver is just, so they're not going to be, Yeah, it's play place by default. That's just the status quo, Yeah, it's kind of the theory of like. So let's say, of whatever the default place. Go with that. For example, people eat. Actually, that's. Okay.

[76:12] So I offer this not as any type of direction to the board at all. I wanted to bring it to you as that you all could decide to work on. I think it could be impactful, happy to support if it's something you all are interested if you like to talk about it or to your next meeting. Yeah, and when we talked about it in our meeting before, at the, Just, I mean, if this is something that's starting to happen, I feel like it would be. I mean, it would it would be missed opportunity if someone else were to issue that. To the other boards in Boulder before us. I think that that would be. As our position as the environmental office report, I think it would be.

[77:02] Yeah, that's the sort of thing that, it would be great to. Be the ones initiating rather than. Being a stepping behind on that so if we want to like Come to a decision tonight and then send out an email to the other boards including council. Or I don't know, come up with some more like information and like Yeah, informational items before that that we could include in that and so then talk about it at our next meeting or. Just sort of throwing it to the board as to what we thought our best path forward was gonna be, but that it would it would be. In my opinion, best to be on the forefront better than on the back foot. Okay, my opinion is like I would be absolutely down to do this as a board regardless of what The other boards do we can take a similar path as Denver, they say, please join us.

[78:05] But, you know, leave it up to reports, but sending an email with information. Maybe if you have information on the Denver approach or other information to back it up, it might also be work. Waiting to see what. Thanks before we go forward as a board, but. Yeah, I personally would be very interested in doing. My recommendation is something that, at least the 4 of you are interested in, I can provide some of the language and some of the details. Spent a little time with that and maybe put some time under. From the board at your next meeting to decide together whether it is something you want to do and how you want to do, decide together whether it is something you want to do and how you want to do it. If you want to build a laptop committee, if you want to set guidelines, thinking about writing, whatever you want to do with that at that point. And then, myself and Heather and the rest of my departments, you know, here to help as well.

[79:02] That sounds like sort of the best idea is just, yeah, if you could gather the, that they used down in Denver, sort of what that process was. Thanks. Your area of expertise. So if you had any information that you wanted to give us. I don't know, they weren't trying to advertise that. But now I think it is public. Yeah, I'm all forward to, you know, And I think another thing that I would appreciate also as Oh. Minimum wage, right, so no plastic, you know, all the usable. And things like that.

[80:01] It would not be a particular. No, and it's unfortunate and even and this is I'm not, boards or council members, but I think what happens often times is that we'll you know, send out, get whoever does the food order, right? We don't specify, we don't want, I mean, I make this joke all the time. You could literally walk around and open up drawers over here and they will be stuck full of little plastic tongs and plastic. It just all single because Whenever restaurant delivers they just bring all events and the cups and just everything And I think we have to train ourselves culturally to make sure that we say, hey, we don't want it. And then the next step is we are gonna work with vendors that only provide, items in. Reusable containers for useful takeout containers. We have that power and I think it's really true.

[81:10] And, other words, we've like you said, have been doing this for a while. So based on our experience in Boulder like this is a way to approach it Save language to use when ordering or we have found these restaurants XYZ's be great partners really easy to work within these ways. Could we extend this? Invitation to all. So like. Yeah Yeah, I mean, I think. The departments, part part of it, we're very decentralized when it comes to, food and things like that. I think generally speaking most departments do a pretty good job. Not all. And it's not because they don't care.

[82:00] 14 more. I just, I'll come or not could be a cool just educational opportunity if you like. Especially in the plant based stuff. I feel like that's a little lesser now that's just like a chance to give a little presentation and You seem to have longer impact on resources. I go up to Al Dora to the women's thing, a program, they give out these little containers with. Reusable folks, and a little, you know, and so. I would say about 1% of us would bring it back any time for our meals. But still, I think it made a difference. Right? And so I know when I do this for my kids events and stuff I'm like bring your own plates. I'm not giving you water in your own water bottle. Nice, you know, a little towel.

[83:03] And so. We can go that far. I know people will roll their eyes. Like, you know, carrying it on their own folks and nice, but. Something to think about. We provide our office provides them for all city facilities, these plates and utensils and cups and mugs. We have to buy them in stocks, Right? Even with us. Thank you. Thanks for. And, in Denver? Okay.

[84:05] And perhaps the climate actually is in. And now it's gender. Okay. And do you wanna talk about this? Hey, to the counseling, or? Just fine council. Oh, right. We did. We did say we were good. If not, that's fine. But I was just wondering if we wanted to talk about that as well. Yeah, so it's an update. I'll put this as an item under, from staff. So, we've been working, with Market to have him. To represent Boulder at the Igly World Congress, which is taking place in, in, in a couple of weeks.

[85:00] It's it's exciting. . If you're familiar with it, it's an international sustainability organization. We've been close with, I, for a very, very long time. And, is the North American director. In Denver, although she is stepping out. So you're looking for a new. Executive director for North America, so they do a world congress and we have been instrumental in helping advance some of the major based solution discussion at the World Congress and this year it's exciting because we are hosting a number of events participating in a lot of site events and then having the mayor there he's going to participate in a couple of panel discussions one on really thinking more deeply about water. Water rights, long term planning around water and another is like kinda innovative and new ways of thinking about climate. So we prepare a briefing book for him. So he is familiar. We have kind of a, an attache, who is going to be, connecting him to certain people during the Congress.

[86:13] And then we're very well connected with Think Lee, our former mayor, Matt Apple. Bom is on the regional executive committee for HQ and our former planning director, David Driscoll. My former boss is on one of the other committees. So we have deep connections to, and it's gonna be a really cool opportunity to just showcase and highlight this. Anything else? Okay. The other thing is that leads into. A really great event that's gonna be taking place the next conference of parties on biodiversity which is gonna be taking place in columbia and so we're setting out to actually have a few folks there as well.

[87:01] So, from my team was at the last one in Montreal. And turns out we had a lot to say. And they that it was a lot to listen to as well. So there's a lot, lot of work going on around protocols around biodiversity. I mean, it's a very similar process. It's the cop on climate. The biodiversity conferences don't get much attention. Okay. Take a look forward if there. Yeah, very quickly. Do you do anything so that one with the flag for you all. As you know, there's gonna be a discussion coming back to you probably in July and still have not heard yet the discussion on. The. Development around Williams village. Remember this, and so that is coming back to the board. For you. But that's really being driven by staff out of the private department, but You, so that's okay.

[88:07] Well, if you remember a couple of months ago, there was a big discussion council about redevelopment. I think what got a lot of people interested is that it would be a development to the, it's on baseline so where the dark horse is, And as part of that, it was a request from council to have that item brought to the board to get your back. Forgetting that schedule. A couple of other things I wanted to, flag you'll see. On June, 27th there is a conversation that I. Excuse me, I reached out to our. Staff to understand a little bit more about the trajectory around the planning reserve. So the planning reserve, I think is something that the forward should really be paying some attention to. So if you think about the area. Area 3 in the planetary services area that's dedicated for potential future development outside of the city.

[89:05] It's not conservation, so it's subject to 4 body review. So that's the planning. Commissions of the city and the county and then the council on the board of directors and they make a decision jointly about how to develop some of those areas. Why that's a big deal is I think there's a lot of discussion about growth and one of the ways that people are saying, well, we don't need to be thinking about density and height. Let's just do what we always said we do and let's move into discussion around area 3 and expanding into those areas. People are saying that. That is out there. And so I think it's a good time as we get into the update of the comprehensive plan, which is going to be kicking off as we get into the update of the comprehensive plan, which is going to be kicking off. That's another area that I like to bring up. That's another area that I like to bring back to the board, make sure that you're integrating connected into that.

[90:02] And then I think there was one. Oh, 2 13. And that's another one that it's not right to come back to you. Will after there is the draft form based code update, to implement the East Full Rescue Mani plan. Just making sure that you're all tracked, following, but he's, this is not the thing that would come to you, but I signal to my colleagues that would come to you, but I signal to my colleagues in planning that I'd like to get, somebody, on the second. Okay. That's okay. Cool. In that case, let's talk about our next meeting a little bit. So the 1st Wednesday in July is going to be the 3.rd so. Beforehand we were talking to you know, with that being right next to the 4th that you might wanna consider.

[91:07] Postponing our meeting if we're gonna have a significant number of people at town. If people have 4th of July plans to take them out of the city. So, I mean, I personally have very little clumps about having a meeting the night before the 4.th If we're all in town and around, but if that's not a night that works for people. Then, I think we're happy to postpone the meeting. So the staff's questions. Do you all have a preference? I'm sorry. Do you all have a breakfast? It's whatever works for the board. It's been up here. Good we just not allergy line meeting or do we have to post?

[92:05] All have in the works, to talk about. But I mean, we could do another, what we did. In April where we could have a meeting in the middle of July if there isn't anything urgent and then. What I know now is if there is anything, there's not anything time-sensitive. For July, that may change. My guess is, on, I'll just call the Will, Bill, Williams, village, redevelopment site. My guess is, that may be ready by July. My guess is August. I don't have the August meeting regardless. So, yeah, we could skip the July meeting if there's nothing. Urgent and if that's what the

[93:03] I'm in town, so I don't mind having a meeting on the but I'm just thinking if you don't want to have a meeting up right so I'm hoping to make Okay, that's another. We could also make that meeting virtual only. From wherever they are. That If people do wanna get away from that, would be hard for my work schedule. I mean, personally, yeah, I, I don't work, but I have a little bit of work. So, yeah, I mean, We could definitely do a virtual meeting on the 3.rd I don't know, my opinion, I'm an anti-, so.

[94:08] I'm kind of. And a virtual meeting doesn't mean. You're on vacation. But you should still feel out withated to come to the meeting just because it's virtual, correct? Like if people on vacation, they don't. Yeah, come because just because it's virtual. That's right. I do wanna have a July meeting to like to meet your goal of like getting this Plat Paced challenge off. So going in July. You know, because we put off to August. Just for that reason I would say let's do it. Does it have to be on the 3? rd Thank you. We appreciate to bubbling Wednesday's when it falls close to a holiday.

[95:05] So the 10th could be an opportunity to. I will not call in for the 10, th but I think that's a good way to keep this one topic going, which I'm totally fine. Is the only thing like concern overlapping with other meet like city meetings. I just know that that has been brought up before. Okay. And it's also more relevant if we're doing. A hybrid meeting as opposed to a virtual meeting. Yeah, so I mean, so we can do the 3rd if we're all fine with having a meeting the night for the 4.th I'm not particularly in the Patriotic spirit this year. Given a number of things. So. Okay. But that's just You have. I don't know.

[96:00] Please do not worry about that. No. Have like 3rd ports that they're making a day long. Yeah, make out of it, you know. And the 3rd evening is. That's just my thinking of it. Okay, yeah, so I think we're well in agreement. Yeah, we'll just stick with the 3rd for the meeting. Yeah, definitely feel free. To join virtually if If you've got plans. You know, social human, but otherwise I think we're good to do the 3rd as normal. At 6 pm. Any event that I can not make the 3, rd how does that affect the plant-based discussion and consensus? I mean, I would prefer for him to be here and prefer to voice in. But it is not.

[97:04] Required. We can definitely write something for him and give it to him for feedback. And give it to him for feedback. And give it to him for feedback. And give it to him for feedback. the other alternative is one, I would say, for us to take for feedback. The other alternative is one, I would say, for us to share if you, if you don't let me jumping in. You're welcome. I would maybe suggest having a phone call with him and just breaking him on the discussion. Decision, normally by the board. You can vote. I mean, ultimately that's probably what you want to do. I have a unanimous, approach to do it, but yeah, so it's, definitely worth. Yeah, reaching out and getting his feedback and, including him in the process. But in terms of if he is not able to show up, that does not. Prevent us from having the discussion and a vote about it that night and then just going to him for feedback. So, but I mean, it would be preferable to have the in person feedback. So.

[98:05] Yeah, if you talk to me, can check in. I will reach out to him over the, in the next week or so. To talk about that. Anything else? No, feeling good. That all our stuff. Anything else from you? Great. In that case, I will make a motion to adjourn. Can I hit a second on that? Great. And all all in favor? And I'll do it. Thank you. Okay