January 9, 2025 — Environmental Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Heather. Do you want to start with the meeting protocols here? Share? Sorry about that. Right? My gosh! It would not be an Eab meeting without me. Computer. Welcome everybody to the January Eab meeting. The city has engaged for community members to go create a vision for productive excuse me for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff and board and commission members as well as democracy for people of all ages and identities lived experiences and political perspectives.

[1:07] For more information about this vision and the community engagement process. Please visit the website seen on your screen. The following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder revised Code, and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person, obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. participants are required to sign up to speak, using the name they are commonly known by, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Currently, only audio testimony is permitted online because we do not have registration for open and public comment. Tonight, you can indicate you would like to participate by using the raise hand function, the raise hand button is in the participant box which could be found in the menu by hovering over the top or the bottom of your screen, and then clicking on the participant icon.

[2:05] When the box opens you will see the raise hand button at the bottom. By clicking on that button you can indicate. You would like to participate in open or public comment. If you have joined us by phone, you can press Star 9 to raise your hand. It's like we have no participants. Right? Thank you. Heather Next, I think we can go to approve our minutes from the last meeting. Go for a second, and then all in favor, and 1, 2, 3, and I've sent you Oh, Rick. moving on to our meeting items. Do you want to start with the presentation. We will. Thanks. I just wanted to acknowledge that. I don't know if you saw the note from Annie that she may pop on. She's traveling. She is in India, so that may or may not. The time difference is a little bit. It was a little rough.

[3:14] So I just wanna make sure that that was on the record. I don't need to tee this up. I think I'll look over to Carolyn Elam to t this item up except to say that this is part of a series of conversations that we've been having with board on this particular topic really wanted to get this in front of you. So we have a regular cadence of updates that way. If you have suggestions, feedback or particular questions. As we move this forward. We're acknowledging this as we go. So, Caroline. yeah, absolutely. And I'll be quite brief. But if you'll recall that I I came and talked to you a couple of times last year around building related decarbonization, one being our building code update. So we are now on the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code, so excited to see that move forward. And then our team here joined you for a meeting in the spring to talk about our new project, to update our overall roadmap for how we will

[4:16] work towards decarbonizing all of our buildings. So not just those that fall under our construction codes. But how we address the magnitude of buildings that we have, the breadth of the buildings we have. That exists today. And so I think at that time we gave you kind of an overview of the project. We'll refresh you on kind of the scope of the project when Laurel starts the presentation we've since hired our consulting teams. Gotten some of the initial analysis from them in terms of the policy landscape and some of the opportunities. And we're about to kick, start, or, you know, really dive into our community engagement. And so that's why we really wanted to to come here and and have an opportunity to check in with you, to to let you know you know what we're envisioning, as far as engagement. To inform this this roadmap

[5:07] process and what comes next, and get your feedback and before we launch that, and also make sure you're able to help us. Help community members provide their feedback into our roadmap effort to, so that you're aware of what's going on. And then, you know, we'll be coming back. We anticipate. We have a a scheduled Council study session at the end of May. So like we're targeting, coming back, beginning of May. To you all to share the results of the engagement, and what we plan to share with city council as far as the roadmap at that time. So this is kind of like, get feedback into the engagement portion of it. But I will hand that over to to my amazing team. you guys want to start by. Introduce yourself again. I'm Caroline, senior manager in our department. I realized I failed. That task laurel. You want to introduce yourself 1st and then crystal, and then you can start the presentation. Sure, I am Laurel Mattree and I work on the energy team and climate initiatives. I focus primarily on building efficiency, electrification, air quality.

[6:11] And I'm crystal launder and my title is energy equity policy advisor. And I guess you know, I mean primarily, that means. I am focused on kind of making sure that we're incorporating equity considerations. In all of our work. just kind of do a lot of well, you can see we've got our our titles here related to this project, so no one's our project. Sponsor. We've got laurel, and the analysis lead and engagement lead alright. So 1st up, we wanted to say that the official name for the roadmap is healthy building, stronger community roadmap, but this was formerly known as the healthy, resilient fossil Fuel Free Buildings roadmap, which is what we had presented to you on previously.

[7:01] That's just, is it the arrow down? Come on this one. They lobby for something shorter. Gotcha so here's just an overview of what we're gonna talk about. I'm not gonna go through every single thing, but just to kind of give you like an idea of kind of the flow of our presentation. Generally our effort to develop a roadmap falls inside of the greenhouse gas emission targets, emission reduction targets that we have as a department and as a city right now we're our big question is, how do we get to net 0 by 2035? So that's kind of the scope of the roadmap timeline right now. But just as a reminder. And then another thing, I think that's important in this slide is that electricity as a source of energy is a hundred percent renewable. So thus, the focus on reduction of the use of natural gas in our buildings.

[8:08] The assumption is that in that timeline, yes, it's not today. So I just wanted to point that out. okay, so why buildings? Why are we focusing on them? Why are they important? If we look at our emissions by sector buildings are by far and large, the kind of highest producers of greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, you know, commercial really stands out, but residential as well. So that's what we're focusing on in this roadmap. that's not to say that we're not focusing on resilience. That's also a piece of what we're focusing on and equity. So I think those 3, you know, missions reduction is a big piece, but also and this I'll talk about this in the next slide, so

[9:00] or 2 slides down. Little bit of background. 2 thirds of our unit of our approximately 47,000 residential units, 3,700 commercial buildings produce our communities emissions. Buildings last 50 years. So we are looking at a lot of modification upgrade. You know, trying to convince people or make make them or give them great incentives or programs to update an asset that they're gonna be holding on to for a long time. And then, just as another piece, we are definitely focusing on indoor air quality, people spend 90% of their time indoors. You know, with extremes and climates in terms of heat and cold. We want to make sure that we're thinking about. What we're doing when we're sealing up envelopes of buildings is that, you know. essentially like recirculating more air indoor. So that's on our minds as well when we.

[10:04] when we are looking at what our roadmap is. Yes, sir. So you say 2 thirds. What about the other 3? rd That's actually like, I think I edited this. Yeah, that is an error. 2 thirds of our greenhouse gas emissions are from buildings. Yes, yes, we will edit that. Yeah. Yeah. Buildings are responsible for 2 thirds of our. It keeps going down, thanks to electricity. Just a note, too, that that 60% is based on our 2,000. And excuse me, 2023 greenhouse gas inventory. And so it's a good proxy for 2024. But we don't have a certificate. And that's like initials, just like we'll be like heating.

[11:03] Yeah, I mean, it's predominantly space and water conditioning is the the largest single use of energy, but it it also includes other applications, because we just quantify the total electricity consumption and the total natural gas consumption. So you're also gonna see in there? you know, process loads or things like that from our industrial center, particularly on the well. Actually, both both sides are are pretty intensive. So and just so, you know, we were actually trying to test you to see if you're paying attention. Good job. So generally, the vision for the roadmap and I kind of hinted at this is that we want to achieve. We want to support meeting our net 0 emissions goal by 2035 we want to increase the building site. Resilience to future climate impacts improve indoor air, quality, address, racial equity, other equity considerations advance social resilience with affordable solutions.

[12:04] and then stabilize energy costs to the degree that we can, as climate extremes increase. So here has been the approach to the roadmap. We started with kind of the technical piece on the front end. We brought in a rip. We did put it on. Rfp. Chose a rip as our consultant and had them perform update our building stock analysis so that we know all the different types of buildings we have. What's all the information we have about those buildings? Do we know what kind of Hvac systems they have? You know what kind of upgrades have been done, what might be standard systems that exist in those types of buildings. So we can gather all the types of information that we would need, so that we would know from Point A, which is this building stock analysis. What do we need to do in a roadmap to get to Point B, which is, you know, our emissions, reductions, goals, but also the other pieces of the visions that I just laid out is that for city only buildings or all. Yeah.

[13:09] We also did a policy and program scan and analysis where we had our consultants. Look at not only our own programs, policies from past, present. But then go out across the country to see what's out there that people are doing. That, you know, would be feasible for boulder both at the city and state level. And then we're having them work on a financial analysis so that we can learn what are the tools that are out there that we can use to pay for all this? Essentially. you know, by way of example, we we know you know. Well, over 70% of our our buildings currently rely on gas for space heating. And and if we want to get to our net 0 goal, you know, we need to transition all those, and we've, you know, done the back of envelope analysis in the past of you know what it costs to retrofit it.

[14:09] you know. Residential. Oh, we've done some baselining of like what it takes to do some commercial. This is to create the whole picture of you know. Here, you know. Here's the it's I don't remember. They haven't gotten us the number yet. But let's just say it's the 600. You know, the 600 million dollar cost or the 1 billion dollar cost that needs to be invested, you know. Then we look at you know what incentives are out there, what financing tools are out there? What tax credit programs are out there? What's the normal investment that would happen over that time? That buildings would have to make anyway, and system replacement. And then what's left? And what's that gap so that we can then have a conversation around what we as as a city from programs and policies. Wanted you to. you know, recognizing the magnitude of that investment need, what do we wanna do in terms of offering financial support or other tools.

[15:07] So then, next part of the approach is community engagement. Crystal is, gonna talk more about that. We are currently just at the beginning of that process. And then eventually, we take that technical analysis, all the information we've collected. We take all the input and feedback from the community engagement process. And we synthesize that into the roadmap recommendations and suggestions and put that as a draft and get your feedback and hopefully finalize that and then start to actually implement our plan. And yeah, I'll just call out that trestle strategy group and institute for the built- built environment are our consultants on that piece on the engagement. Yeah, and it and this will again lay out the prioritized list of things that we would then start to further advance. So let's just. And Laurel could talk about some of the examples. Yeah. But you know. So, for example, you know, if

[16:06] we get, you know, very positive, you know positive feedback around some of these, and we know that they could have big impact, something like a building performance standard. By way of example, then that will inform further development, further engagement, and and then we would take that back to council as a like a new ordinance or update. So that's mechanically what that would look like. Yeah. So having done the policy program, scan you know, from our own kind of knowledge of history and kind of what we have done already in Boulder Boulder County, the state we put together. This is kind of what is risen to the surface in terms of what potentially is possible in boulder. And some of this already exists. Some doesn't so this is the kind of ideas that we're gonna bring to the community engagement process to get feedback on and kind of get more insight into just to pull out a couple we've talked about building performance standards that is like setting standards or targets on the emissions from a building or energy use from a building and State of Colorado and Denver, Fort Collins and Aspen are already well on the way to doing this. But

[17:20] Some other things potentially end of life replacement. So when a you know, furnace runs out, we might require someone to replace it with an electric with a heat pumper. So just to kind of give you some point of sale upgrades is another thing that we found interesting in California. They actually when a when a old goes up for sale, there's certain efficiency upgrades they have to make in order to sell the home. And so that's kind of a area where we don't have a lot of, I'd say, like teeth, you know, to implement change right now is in the our non landlord operated buildings where you know it's just a regular you and me who buy a home? How do we? How do we impact the that community? So that's something we might consider there, depending on the feedback we get

[18:09] and then on this list, there's also, you know, equity priority buildings is something. We'll we're actually gonna establish a specific program to support equity priority buildings and moving through some of our requirements. And we actually have received 4.5 million dollars from the Department of Energy to set this program up. So that'll definitely be a part of whatever we do. But anyway, this is this is kind of where we landed in terms of the types of things that we're gonna be discussing and putting forth to our community. And then ultimately, in the end, selecting kind of what's gonna make the draft roadmap. Yeah. One thing I'll say about this list. Laurel, if you want to stay on. It is what you're gonna see is a blend of things here, like some of them are like regulatory strategies, like you know, and end of life replacement or or time of sale requirements. And then some are supporting programs and policies.

[19:09] So you know, for example, wraparound services like it's how you how you set up for success. So as you're looking at that list there, there's a blend of those on there. So we're looking at. You know how you enable how you support equity principles in addition to like, what's the policy requirement that you may impose. And you know, and some of these, you know, continue with things like we already have today, such as you know, incentive programs, advisory support. That's some of our wraparound services we have today. But there's going to be nuances that we glean that can help improve upon what we have today. So that's that's why you're kind of seeing a blend of things that may not all look like they're equal to each other in terms of policy. Yeah. And I would say, I mean 2 big ones that are buildings need a lot of support with is the technical assistance and the finance funding and financing support like? Not necessarily like. Here's the funding. But how do I even figure out how to fund, or what are what's out there for me.

[20:14] or is there some sort of guide someone who could guide me through? How to figure out how to finance a project, or to use the incentives that are out there. That's 1 big one that I know. You know we've been looking at. Other cities and communities are are adding. And then another is that technical assistance? It's like, Okay, you know, I'm a property manager. That's like kind of barely getting by. you know, with your Vpo requirements. And now you want me to do a full billing analysis, you know. Figure out how to get it from point A to Point B in terms of mission reductions. I'm gonna need some support and like technically how to understand that and get from point A to point B, so just wanted to. I'll point that out anything else on this cool. Alright, I will every life.

[21:05] So I'm gonna take over here, and now I'm gonna give you guys whiplash and bring you out of the this whole topic of you know, what potentially are we considering for the roadmap and back out to, you know, 10,000 feed to ours like kind of how our city looks, at what the agreements we have on, how we look at projects, and what we have to consider as we go into engagement. So this is the engagement spectrum. That is in our engagement strategic framework. And so there's like informed soul involved, collaborate. And because this is really a roadmap. And we're not actually designing projects right now. Really, a lot of what we're doing is we're, you know. I think our commitments are really on that. Informed to consult end of things. You know, as as there are specific programs that get rolled out, involve and collaborate might, you know well, I depending on what? Especially the equity ones, what they'll be definitely more involved and consult

[22:07] And so, you know, I think our commitment to the community and to our stakeholders is really like, keep people informed as we're doing this developing the roadmap. listening to and acknowledging concerns and aspirations is is, you know, part of that commitment share feedback on how the public input has actually had input on the decision influenced it. and then just ensuring that we are getting feedback from the right voices, right? Cause there's a lot of different stakeholders that often that work in buildings. Live in buildings, own buildings, and then the other. The other piece that we've kind of was suggested by our consultants, which is what we're doing is empower. So making sure that like as we're doing this touch point. where we're having interviews with people or doing these focus groups, we're actually, you know, making sure that you know they're they're learning about what already exists. That's a re potential resource that can support them.

[23:10] And then what might be coming down the pike. So there's actually these talking point sheets that we go through, so that we're very transparent about, like. you know, just consistently communicating about what all the potential programs are. So people have the opportunity to learn and weigh in. And then the incentives and programs. All right. Next slide, please. Thank you. I sit down the pike. but I don't know. Is it hype? I don't know. It's the turnpike and the pipe. Hi, that's okay. No worries. I think it's the term pipe reference. Yeah. Well, I mean, I figured out where it came from, but it just yeah. It caught me off guard. Yeah, yeah, they're probably both work. Right? Yeah. So this is again, this is kind of an overlay of our healthy built buildings. Stronger community roadmap process with this

[24:10] thing called the engagement wheel. So you've probably, you know, kind of are familiar with this as well. So there's the 9 steps to engagement. The 1st step is defining the issues. And we when we visited you back in April, that's what we kind of talked about is these are the issues we just kind of re hit on that lightly again. We did a lot of stakeholder mapping to to really make sure that we're we're thinking about everybody who has in some way has a stake that they hold in this space. And then where we're at tonight with you all is. we have our draft plan has has been produced. This is your opportunity to pro- provide input. And then we're gonna like, kind of. we're gonna get together one last time about 2 weeks from now to finalize our engagement plan. As we get ready to kind of launch into engagement.

[25:04] And then release the hounds. Yeah, release the hounds. And then those all the work that a rep has, you know, under Laurel's charge. All of the work they've been doing is going to be that shared foundation of when inquiry, in addition to like really like having a good robust explanation of like what it is that already exists here, like what we've done in the past, what we've tried, what's failed, what we where we're at today. So people understand that. And then I think the next kind of step that's worth pointing out is, step 7. Make a decision. That's the city Council meeting on May 20 second, and then step 8 communicate decision and rationale. That's when it actually gets published, and then it will be shared with the broader community and the stakeholders. And then there's after 8, you you implement. And then you just circle back. So this, it's like an iterative process. And then from there it's gonna each each of each of these strategies that come out of it are gonna have their own

[26:06] trip around the wheel right? When do you think that complement is? It's gonna begin this year. Yeah. Cause if we I think so may as we hit council, I think it'll be. I mean, in my experience, from other projects. I feel like it shouldn't take more than 3 weeks to like go because we should have a pretty clear sense. And and they they provide. Input, and then we may make some adjustments and clean it up, and then it's ready to go like, unless there's some like some fatal flaw that I'm not anything, you know. but it's just a study session which is different than like an agenda item. Right? So that's kind of a difference. It's not a formally adopted policy per se. But we want to make sure that we're using the opportunity because you can envision. You know, one obvious thing that we're gonna need to do, no matter what is make updates to our current like building performance ordinance, because we have a state program out there. Now that affects some of our buildings. We have things that we've learned.

[27:10] you know, so we're likely going to be rapidly coming back to council with with some revisions to that so part of the study session is, you know, just to make sure that they can understand within our roadmap where that update sits and what to expect from it. So we've laid that groundwork with them as well for the next steps of implementation. Thank you. Alright. Do you mind shifting to the next slide, please. Alright. So this is the timeline and we're actually, if you look on this timeline, we're in I'm gonna call it like Hunter green. I don't know. That's not quite the right color, but it's q 1 so we're about ready to head into that engagement phase and with the other stuff is behind us. And then, specifically, what that's gonna look like is we we actually back in December. You'll notice right above that it says 10 initial interviews and the purpose of those, and I'll I'll share a little bit about like kind of our like the themes in a slide that's coming up. But

[28:12] we did that to like better to like, be better prepared to do meaningful focus groups and then in February is gonna be really, when we're like kind of hitting hit, hitting this, the pavement and all the over the course of the month. We're gonna have all 20 of those focus groups. And then simultaneously, like a staff. we're gonna be talking to the departments the various of our, you know, kind of Allied departments, and having different conversations about, you know. Very. You know, the different ways that we touch those other departments. yeah, they're part of our internal engagement as part of the engagement plan. Yeah. And then the one other thing is, we will have, like a broad community, wide questionnaire. And

[29:00] I'm just looking draft. So yeah, then I think of the rest of it's pretty self explanatory. Yeah. And I think one of the things I would say here, crystal, I think we you know we started the framing of this presentation a little bit about hitting our emissions reduction goals. But you know, I think we've certainly were hyper focused on emissions, reductions over the years and with our past policies, you know, and as we really center our goals and strategies more soundly in resilience and equity. And I think we talked about this last spring when when we were here, you know, acknowledging that the energy needs of our community are changing and evolving. As you know, we we have increased weather extremes, rising temperatures, cooling access is important, you know. So I think one thing to think about as we do this engagement. It I think we're trying to make our conversation with the community a little bit more focused around those other values than just the traditional emissions reduction component. Because that's really what these strategies are centered around as well like I think crystal or laurel spoke to.

[30:14] you know, stabilization of utility costs right? So as we know that people have increasing demands for for cooling and weather extremes, you know we know the vulnerabilities of like fluctuating natural gas prices challenging. We know that we can help stabilize costs if we have solar with with folks. So it's really thinking about that holistic delivery. And so I think that's going to be really core to how we engage with the community broadly and talk to things that we know will be a little bit more connectable, and- and urgent. And concerning to to folks right? We I saw a lot of head nodding, you know, when we were talking about how much time people spend in buildings and air quality. You know, those are. Those are the things we're really going to talk to and and talk about, and really try and make sure that people are understanding the connection, that this isn't just emissions reduction for the sake of emissions reduction. It's really making our buildings healthy and resilient.

[31:11] and we get the benefit of emissions reduction. As a result, and really just trying to sophisticate the conversation we're having with the community about that. I think there's an additional objective, too. And I really appreciated the presentation, and how how the team is kind of thinking about this more holistically. And I want to kind of reference back to the discussion that we had with the Board last year around the update to the energy code. And at that time I think we were talking to you about how we're using that regulatory framework. We have the energy code. We have the building code. We have multiple regulatory components. But how do you create that umbrella across those that really help us? 0 in on the values that we're trying to create and the outcome that we're trying to create with this.

[32:00] with our buildings overall. And so, of course, if you just look at a building code, there are certain requirements and outcomes. But as we think about how to address issues related to climate and resilience and other important community values, that's really what this represents. And so I want to just acknowledge and really amplify the point. This is not a departmental effort. This is a citywide effort to try to bring the various parts and pieces together. So we have a really good vision moving forward. So we'll be working very closely, obviously with our internal partners, planning being a major one, to understand how this really fits in and nests and and really creates some synergy around the work that they're doing, and that includes a lot of the updates that are currently underway. And so we'll talk about later in the the calendar. Look ahead. There is some council conversation with respect to building code. Obviously, there's gonna be a lot of discussion in 2025 around the Comp plan. So just trying to keep a a sharp eye on how these things all fit together. And this roadmap is gonna be really, really valuable.

[33:08] So I think you're gonna dive into the specifics. Now, one more. Yeah, yeah, I think the intent of this is just to give you guys like a little window into what we've heard so far. Because, like. I imagine if I was sitting in in your chairs like that would I would be kind of very curious. So like, Hey, let's just put it together. So just understand that this is like a like a high, level, broad brush, like just looking for me, not doing any kind of technical analysis, just like looking at the words that came up a lot. But these were like the kind of the ways that our consultant categorize what they were hearing was like they heard, you know, was the codes and regulations category. the efficiency and electrification, financial considerations, green infrastructure. There was a whole category called student housing concerns, and then landlord, tenant dynamics.

[34:04] And so some of the themes that were coming out were increase ease or reduce complexity like, how do you make it easier for us? Money! Who pays, and how I think I actually have that kind of coming up twice. But like it, reflective of the conversations. But that was yeah. Regulatory fatigue. I the way I it was kind of like stated a couple of ways, but like regulatory fatigue and avoiding compliance like that people some people will actually just, I guess, buy out of our current like Bpo, because they just are frightened of dealing with getting a permit, you know, like that. That. So that's kind of part of part of what we were hearing. and then people were saying like, Hey, is there a way you can incentivize us? Santa Monica has a great program. We were also hearing.

[35:02] that there's other things that are just happening in this world of ours that is, feel it feels like it's like ratcheting down and intensifying, like, you know, like. There there is, you know. I know the landlord tenant space has like, for example, had there's been additional regulation on landlords, so they're feeling that they're having to navigate that. But then some. There's also people saying that their fire insurance costs are so high like it's just the cost to do business here is getting more expensive. And then this is the where. I think it's kind of saying twice like the it's. And this may be a nuance. Difference is like, who is responsible like? Is it? Is it really a public? Should the public be responsible, or these private businesses for these upgrades? Is it the home buyer or the home seller like when, if it's a if it's an point of sale, if that's what we're talking about as a policy, who should have to do the upgrade? Is it the building owner or the commercial tenant? So these are. These are just like some of those types of issues were raised. And then

[36:09] people are requesting assistance with planning. So help us plan to replace equipment. because they're saying like, if we could just, you know, know, ahead of time what we need to do when the furnace fails, then it's easier for us because we have a. We have a plan in place, you know. So that was one idea that came out, for example, small. And then just a general theme of the smaller the business the more you're gonna struggle to come into compliance. Growing interest in net 0 was another one, like a lot of like younger home buyers. Seem to when they're on the market or valuing those kind of more net 0 type. Amenities and homes, basic health and safety. Was another theme that came up like in some buildings. This came up in the student housing conversation

[37:01] because some of the buildings just are ha like are just fundamentally like lagging and not, you know. Let's let's forget about electrifying. Let's just get these up to like basic health and safety. And then, you know, just saying, like, maybe one of the things we can do to make this go well is to communicate the benefits so that those are just some examples. There's more that I'm not saying. yeah, and process wise. So crystal, maybe talk a little bit about like how the engagement process is structured. Right? So this is the start with the targeted interviews. Yeah. and and so we we had our consultants speak with remind me of kind of like who the stakeholders were so like we had. Yeah. So we had like, like the Rental Housing Association was one of the stakeholder groups that we we 1st heard from like their board.

[38:02] We and you know. So we intentionally sought certain voices because we want, and we want to make sure we heard from from like we student housing folks, that that topic had come up. We wanted to hear from small businesses, so we heard from them. We talked to somebody from pace, one of our partner, our partner organization. We talked to. We definitely wanted to talk a couple of property managers, tenants, and the idea here is to to do those targeted stakeholders and then use that feedback to then frame out the focus groups that are gonna follow. Which is the that next phase, right? So it doesn't stop. Th. Those were kind of voices that kind of spanned what we thought to be kind of the spectrum so that that we can narrow down the deeper conversations for the focus groups. And I think our last slide here. Do you want to flip to the last slide. I think I think we're good. I think that that was a pretty

[39:04] pretty thorough description. So this is you. It's on. It's the board like what came up for you. What do you want us to know? Yeah. So why don't we either of you have any anything? Jump into mind off the bat. Alex, I'll extend that to you as well. 2. But I'll let everyone else go first.st I. My main thing is just about if we're going to be requiring at end of at end of life, requiring upgrading to electrics. Those can tend to be pretty expensive. And so I know that there's pretty solid programs for, like low income people to like help finance those things. But there's a pretty solid gap in the middle where you definitely don't make enough to afford the new one, but you make too much to get the aid from a lot of financial services, and so, finding some way to try and cover that gap like I know a lot of my coworkers.

[40:07] Definitely fall in that category of making too much money to be on Medicare, but barely by, like a couple $1,000 a year, and so definitely not having enough money to finance their own healthcare. And so I haven't been to the doctor in a decade. Right? And like just a lot of people in that realm. So if it's a legal requirement, making sure to eliminate as much of that gap as possible would be a big concern of mine. That that was the main thing that jumped out to me, and I was just a comment for you that disappeared before I could read it. Heather it was Alex just asking to type any questions in the chat. Great, I think, for Boulder. Just like, kind of respond to that. You know, what we've really been exploring is this whole expansion of low to moderate income.

[41:01] And I think we focus a lot on the low income we're like, I think we need to pull moderate income in, because we know that this is exactly what the struggle is. It's like I can't go out and buy a heat pump. I mean, I'm in the same boat like I can't buy a heat pump tomorrow kind of our thinking around our incentives and programs. Now. you know, it might not be that, like the incentive, is like a full grant to a moderate income right home. But there's but but you know, we're look, we're definitely looking at like, what can we do to incentivize that group works. We know, that's a struggle. Yeah. And I would put it into those 2 buckets right? It's the, you know. It's end of life. You're you have to make it an expense right? We have the 1st problem with which is making that expense is hard, yes, even for the like for like replacement. And then, if we're asking you to confer.

[42:01] then there's that increment on top. And both of those need to be supported. I definitely, I definitely hear that. yeah, a very important point, very much on our I mean our mind. The best solution is simply tax rich people. But in lieu of that solution. So I need to get in my obligatory for for those listening and and for you to certainly share. I I do think that there's some promising things it's not solved for on January first, st Excel announced. They're substantially increased incentives. So if you do know, folks who are looking to to do heat pump adoption effectively excels, rebates tripled. that's great to hear and then the the city and county have launched their low to moderate income incentive, which can provide some additional gap. It obviously doesn't get you to the the cost of replacement.

[43:13] We have a legislative initiative to to do the on bill repayment program so that you could at least have access to to accessible financing. That doesn't require all the you know, the credit history or the home equity. So it's definitely, very much a need and not solved for, but getting a little bit more promising. And I think that's why, in looking at kind of whole list of what we're considering and the engagement process and strategies that really emphasize for financial advising and the technical assistance. Because, like, you know, it's like, Hey, I know I want to do this, and what the heck's out there. And how do I get there, you know. But if there's somebody to call that could say, Okay, let's like, walk you through where you're at. What's appropriate for you. Yeah. So you can say, Oh, I can see the vision. Now, how I can get there. Absolutely cool. That was, that was the main thing that that sort of tripped out to me just

[44:08] there are so many people that fall through the gaps and are decaying late stage capitalism. And trying to find ways to to help does pace. Do some of this already. Yeah, yeah. And energy smart. yes.com is our residential advisors. We're there to kind of help walk through some of these incentives. At least, you know. Yeah, we continue to partner with the county through energy smart for resident and pace for commercial. And they're both out of the same office. So so people don't get bounced around. If they end up at the wrong place. It's all good. But I mean, I think there's still a broad need. And I, I think we, you know, are continuously welcoming feedback on on how to to reach the harder to to reach people who don't necessarily know about that. I mean, these programs have long, long served people, you know, with a little bit more of the financial capacity and wherewithal to undertake the upgrades. And and we're

[45:07] always trying to include do more outreach into areas that we think have been underserved and are certainly starting to reach for people. But I I definitely welcome any good resources and getting the word out to to folks about programs. How do you work with installers? So like I had, I had someone over to do something, and I just asked for fun like, Oh, you know how much would be the switch to a heat pump. And they're like, oh, that wouldn't work for you. I'm like, I know it would. And so it's the. It's the perpetual challenge. I mean I can. There's a number of things that are going on. What is that part of? I do think that it's yeah, certainly a contractor education, contractor, outreach workforce development. Our our key. I I also think that there's the vast amounts of money that are are starting to flow will also help us with this issue. Right? So

[46:14] traditionally, it's it's harder to sell. They have less confidence. But you know, if if somebody's got access to. you know, 6, $8,000 incentive you don't quite get away with that same conversation anymore. But it's it remains an issue absolutely. we certainly recommend that folks talk. Go through our energy smart program. To get advice back right? So if you're getting that kind of feedback from from contractors, you can talk with one of our advisors, and and they can say, well, you know, you might want to talk to, to get another quote. Or here, here's some additional questions you can ask, you know, to get clarity on. Why, it's not a good solution, but it's still a challenge for sure.

[47:05] And I've got a question from Alex. Are there any other communities pursuing this similar initiative. And do they have technical knowledge or connections that can help fill the technical assistance category? Yeah, I mean, laurel. You want to talk a little bit about the partnership we have with the Energy Office and the grants you you mentioned. Sure kind of expand a little bit on that. Sure. So I mean, we do have the benefit of like, maybe not going 1st on at least something like a building performance standard. So the State and Denver year out already. In the implementation of their program. So they've really started to kind of structure the technical assistance piece. And they have got newsletters and trainings, and they have, like actual like call in line. So the actual equity priority buildings program was the way that I've defined it and kind of. I'm working in this larger

[48:03] department of energy. Grant, with the State and with Denver on and not Denver with Aspen and Fort Collins, was kind of, based on what the city of Denver was doing. So for sure, we're looking at what others have done and looking at how it's working and how it's not working so that we can, you know, learn from and lean in. And I also think, you know, we there's really been some other roadmaps out there. We never really published a broad roadmap, but we've certainly had our internal working roadmap. So this is like a refresh of that. But there's yeah. The a lot of what we've been able to do with our con consultants is kind of get a scan of some of those best practices, and where some of those good example programs are that, you know, have a little nuances that can be beneficial to us. But I'm I'm especially excited about the 20 million dollar. Grant that. We partnered on with the State and the as Laura mentioned the 4.5 million that's coming to us to support our programs.

[49:05] I think, is really representative of the opportunity to partner with other communities. And and you know, better support through shared learnings and scale is all the stuff you find from the consultants gonna be in the roadmap as they come back. just for people want to learn from it. Yeah, I think the format is something that we're still in conversation with. Like it. It'll be like consultant reports, or it it yeah. Cause I think we'll center the things we think are most suited. But yeah, I envision that we'll have available kind of the the broader you can really nerd out. Even. I did final. I have a couple of questions, so I think, like my furnace is reaching like end of life soon in the next few years. And I think I would love to like upgrade to electric.

[50:07] The only thing that's giving me pause is like when you know self got the power. For 3 days I can hook up. I've been looking into like hooking up a propane generator, or even a natural gas generator, and you have enough to run the fan, and I have heating for, like whatever you know, 2, 3 days so it's nice to have a backup fuel source. So I guess what the status. Do you guys know what the status of like the whole mess with excel Kelly power? what what could be my backup fuel source, I guess in the in case of an outage. If this you know, I imagine it may get worse in the future, if it's not restricted. So that would be my. Only the only thing giving me pause is like, I lose my backup. Yeah, can I make one comment? One comment is like, we have all the fires happening in Los Angeles. Right now, I think what I'm just. This is just a pure comment. And

[51:10] they they are doing. They did do public service power shut offs out there. And they also like I I was. I just happened that somebody tagged me on social media trying to figure out if I was okay, if they somehow thought it was living in California. but it was on this fire like safety thing, and they were talking about how many explosions there were from the gas. So it's just like an interesting thing. As you look at that like I was thinking like, Gosh! Like cause. There we do have these for the the option. One of the options that is less expensive is not doing an all electric heat pump, but but having, like a like the the one fuels backup fuel switching, what is it called? Yeah, dual fuel dual fuel. Yeah. So there's there are options to back you up. But then it's interesting to think about the infrastructure and impacts and stuff. So I don't know. Yeah.

[52:05] I I appreciate you saying that I think I'll start with the state of our system that requires proactive shut off, that extends for days. It's not the appropriate end state for an urban community like ours. Right? It's it. The proactive shut off, that excel had to do is a reflection of the current state and risks associated with the system. There is a 2 billion dollar plan being presented to the Public Utilities Commission right now as to the types of investments they would make to to rapidly reduce their need to shut off power to large numbers of customers like it's not going to be like they're not going to do it tomorrow or next year. But the idea is that through sectionalizing, undergrounding, hardening the system.

[53:02] the need to shut it off proactively. It gets narrowed to just the most vulnerable areas, fewer customers, so that can be, you know, restored more quickly limited. so that the system is is hardened and able to withstand the temperature strength. And when you certainly have events like active fire, and those types of threats, you know, there's still going to be shut offs and things because that's protecting 1st responders, you know, we saw, you know, with the Marshall fire. Everybody's gas had to get shut off as well again. That's to protect 1st responders. So I'm not going to talk about like when an emergency is going on. But just that proactive. It's windy. I think it's notable. I wasn't down here in in Boulder last Monday. It it was certainly quite windy where I was. you! I think we can already see some of the the results of some of the improvements, that there was

[54:05] no reported outages in our area during that wind event. So I think we're already starting to see some of the, you know. They they did some feeder blitzes with what they call feeder blitzes to to, you know, address where, like vegetation, was impacting wires on some of the most vulnerable things. Right? So I think excel is making material steps to reduce the need to have what happened in April happen again. That's the 1st thing I would say. The second thing I would say is, you know. Certainly you need to make decisions for yourself as to your tolerance for being without power, and and what's acceptable, the average person? You know, when we talk about low to moderate and middle income aren't gonna have the ability to install backup generators like, I don't see that as the the broad solution, it's not. It's not the ideal solution. And

[55:04] you know, for for most people, your gas furnace doesn't work when the powers out, either. and that's that's the real state. And so I think if we want to be prepared for potential outages, I think we need to think about the breadth of community, and that means, you know, understanding how to weatherize your home if you have an extended outage, so you protect your pipes from freezing, having, you know. a plan for where you can go. If your home you can't stay in your home because the temperature is is too low. I think it's some of those resilient steps that certainly many in our community are are used to doing and implementing, I think, is where we want to resource and then make sure that our electric system is is reliable because we need it to be for all sorts of reasons. It's not just to to heat. We we depend on it for traffic signals. We depend on it for hospitals. So I think that's we are hyper focused on making sure the right investments are made so that at future state is not routine shut off of our power.

[56:08] And just like an interesting point related to that, my neighborhood has never been shut off like I've I'm on an all electric house. It's been that way since 1979. It's all underground. There's not any, you know. It's just. It's not one they need to shut off. So I mean, that shows what the future state can look like. And of course the people across the street have lights. So I'm always like, you know. What did you do in excel to make them? I don't know, I guess, like the grid, whatever whatever works like. One side of the street is on one line. Yeah, no. We definitely have some vulnerable areas, a very sad New years need to talk. So we make sure we put your neighborhood on our list of of

[57:08] no, I mean, seriously, we we are working with Excel to try and look at where we're seeing abnormal outages like the average homeowner like won't remember the last outage they had. If they ever had one like. That's kind of the state it should be like if you talk like I, when I lived in Nevada for in Lakewood for years like it took a tornado. Micro sorry microburst you know, to take out power for extended periods of time like it took those types of events, and and we definitely know we have some some vulnerability here. Our infrastructure has been at an age where parts of the town it's reached and it's starting to fail. We just need to, you know, hear from community where those pockets are that it's occurring to make sure we can work with excel, to to get solutions in place for those areas which is again, it takes time to do the broad like, we have a lot of overhead lines that are in heavy vegetation areas, stress vegetation that run north south. So we're more vulnerable to wind loading, and and that was the concern in April.

[58:16] this is we are definitely having a lot of conversations about the communication and making sure that that's clear. I I make no promises, but we're working on that very robustly. But I guess in the meantime there is. And then you mentioned hybrid solutions where it's like we'll do a heat pump that runs 99% of the time on electricity. And then, if I have an outage, it will just go to the backup, you would still need to have a backup. Generator. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's there's nice, you know, wood stoves that will work in either situation. That folks can.

[59:00] using a nice EPA certified, you know, that manage, do emissions control that are, you know, if you really wanna be resilient. I I wouldn't rely on the cast personally, because it takes a really long time to restore gas outage it. It takes days because they have to go around and individually relight pilots. Once you de once you depressurize a gas system, it's far harder than trying to restore electric power. and I was just reminded recently, you know, during the Marshall fire all the way down to Alamosa they they actually had to have a power outage so that they didn't use gas because of the depressurization in the system here in Boulder County. and the connection between that. So that tells you just how interrelated things are, and the effects that that you can have

[60:03] And the gas system is particularly vulnerable because of its you know it is a is a flammable gas. It's a pressurized gas and running through lines. And see you, yeah, oh. all right. Other questions. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So the second thing for the technical assistance. Have you guys looked into chatbots or thought about Chatbots like. I mean, I don't. I know I sound like a tech bro, but I have seen the workflows of a lot of people in different industries. Colleagues of mine changed a lot in the last few months like a lot to the point where it's like alloyed, I mean, personally, I went from Googling 100% to Googling 5% and

[61:01] I don't know like it's just I've been using it, and you know, work for the national lab. So we deal with like really niche stuff. and at least the open AI one. It's it knows a lot. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I I if you don't mind, I'll answer that with what I've observed with, we have one of those already for our permitting and I was just kind of playing with it the other day because I I was trying to support. I was trying to support, like trying to get an answer on a topic. And so I tried 5 different ways to ask something. It was so off. So I think, potentially. Yeah, like, I think it just has to be like, yeah, it's like, how is it getting informed? You know, the training? There are definitely people out there working on AI on and certainly like if you look at companies like elephant energy and helium homes and energy sage like some of those they've certainly used.

[62:01] Not necessarily chat bots, but a lot of sophisticated behind the seems like modeling to help solution people right? So there's virtual audits of homes. Now that can help you properly. Size equipment. Those are in in play today that you know, I think saves cost saves time makes a little bit more accessible for some people like you're more willing to maybe get an assessment and audit when nobody has to come to your home, and if it's an accurate one that gives you a pretty good, and you get quotes with it. It's helpful. So I do see the technology evolution starting to inform this for sure, and I could see like, for you know, single family residential that could be valuable when you get into large commercial. It's like there's so many like moving parts and pieces in terms of you know how to get from point A to Point B on an upgrade that it seems like you'd need maybe a consultant, you know, you can generate the

[63:09] you can use a bot to generate the data to train a new bot if that makes sense. but maybe it's more like, partner, like I assume you're gonna partner with Jonathan. No, I just follow rules of decorum and wait, for I appreciate the question. And one thing I wanted to bring into the conversation is that we're doing a little bit of an evaluation of the environmental paradox of AI. Obviously it has great benefit with respect to modeling, forecasting. But at the same time, I think we know, and we've been hearing a lot from some council members about the energy and water consumption and resource issue. The city's in the process right now of developing an AI policy. So we're finalizing that in the next couple of months to really understand how it can and should be used, obviously for transparency, for accessibility. Those are really good things. And so we're just trying to balance a lot of the issues that come forward.

[64:10] So when I was poking at that permitting Chatbot the other day, like, how much water did I did. I waste 40 questions in Chat Gpt is 2 cups of water. That's that's the rule. Those have never been known to be untrue. No, and and I again, I I just a great benefit in terms of accessibility, just trying to balance a lot of the. That's why there are a lot of cities that are starting to look at some broader policy frameworks, and cities doing evaluation to see what cities are doing and what we should do. And I think I think what I like about the chat box is like.

[65:00] if you don't understand something, you can ask it to explain it in simpler terms. And then, if you don't understand again. okay, like simpler terms. And it's really good at, I think at a dumbing it down. Yeah. like until it's like, Oh, okay, now, it clicks like, so it's like, if you're having permitting issues or something. And assuming that model is well trained, like, it has enough data, and it knows it has the data to answer the questions. It's like, okay, you know, if the person's having issues, they couldn't keep asking questions I don't necessarily understand. Oh, there is. Yeah, I'm saving you the stairs. Yeah. And I think our advice, like, at least from what I've noticed in the 4 or 5, almost 5 years I've been here is that it's very labor intensive, you know, providing kind of hands on advising to an individual to get them from 1 point to another, you know, depending on the person. It can take

[66:08] a lot, you know, and I think we're always like struggling to kind of keep up with having enough advising capacity. So if there's a way to kind of like, blend the 2, maybe I would also like to state for the record the child of and grew up around computer programming people. That's not artificial intelligence. But it's just sophisticated machine learning. He terribly side note. But I yeah, I think that there's there's value to be had. But things get really hairy around to companies that are providing, said AI. And the ways that they're doing it. And if we have learned anything at this point is that you can't trust fucking corporation to be honest about the resources that it's using to be honest about where it's getting all of these things from, and like to be using ethical resources in training their models and like doing any of it ethically.

[67:01] You can't trust a fucking corporation to do any of it ethically. And so I don't know. I think I mean, sure. But I think the technology here to stay. I mean my 60, something 65 year old, mother. That's what they're using. Chat Gpt. And she uses it every day now like for her. She teaches Spanish online. And she's getting like lessons made through that conversation topics like, my wife was an artist. I started using that as well for like ideas and our concepts. Her friend, who is like a little bit of a luddite, is using it now like it's just expanding. we just got like our own open AI Chatbot at work to make sure like things don't leak from the lab. I'm a child of the Terminator era. So I just live in. I'm not saying it doesn't have value, and it's not here to stay. I'm just saying that it

[68:03] we need to be, I think, careful. And as Jonathan mentioned the city's erecting a policy around it, but we need to be very careful, and how we engage with it, and how like? Especially because, like as a private citizen, however, you engage with it, is your own personal business as a public entity. correct, engaging with things has a connotation around endorsements and supporting of policy and and such. So I'm just advising caution. Yeah, Jonathan, thanks. It just occurs to me that if this is a topic that the Board wants to dive into a little bit more with respect to the policy, environmental applications and issues, maybe that's a conversation we can. I can have. I just wanted to make sure, bringing it back to kind of the roadmap piece. If there are additional questions I just want to give our our staff an opportunity to to go home. If they would like to go home. I will again put it out any any further questions. The only I imagine you do this. But I'd love to get the questionnaire when it works and then, if you need help finding people for DM,

[69:08] focus groups or anything like that. Yeah, we're working on it. It's gonna be a heavy push is like, kind of what we realize. If it's 20 people times 8 slots and then get trying to have the rep. Like all of the various, the 20 different representations. That's gonna be hard. So I run an event with a lot of people on the list that I'm having some tools. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. And in particular, I think getting the word out about our questionnaire when it's up as well, I think would be really helpful. And then. definitely, as you hear, you know, as as we start to get into community. Obviously we would anticipate that might foster some dialogue. So you know, please, you know, with your connections in the community. If you're hearing things. Let us let us know as well and get the help guys get that

[70:06] that feedback. That's what we. That's 1 of the reasons for for being here tonight is to know that we're about to. We talked to 20 times 8 and more people that. And and we know that you know as the game of telephone goes on. We'll have another conversation about coming after people's stones. Can't wait. That's the building codes the building codes here, so it'll be okay. Yeah, definitely get rid of those guests. But that's a different issue. Thank you. Thank you so much for presenting. And I look forward to seeing

[71:01] how this develops. Thank you for your impact. And before we move on to the next thing I'd like to see when she's left. What Lindsiegel did show up briefly. Yes, I could see that, and noticed that it was a little odd we didn't have any public participants check the website, noticed that the link was not there. So fix that in the meeting. So you all would like to know public participation if anyone joins. Okay, thank you for that information. So if public participants show up, you can go from there. So our apologies, Lynn, that the technical technical difficulties happen if you want. But we will continue to move them. Shall we discuss work? Chair, and I believe is the next item.

[72:00] Great got it? So my term as 4 care is coming to an end as much as as it has been my joy. Yes. to service as chair, and this is my my last chaired meeting. So the way that we've done it as a board in the past. Is that the person with next seniority, who has not previously served as chair is our next chair. Which would be Alex. That would be you. Yes, that I have obviously served. You have already served. Oh, so I'd like to nominate Alex. For chair.

[73:10] Second great! I mean you're you're welcome to not want to do it. No, I'm happy to accept it with the caveat that there is a likelihood that I won't make the February meeting, so I may I, but it is likely I won't. Yeah. And and thank thank you for putting that there, as I discuss as we, we had a discussion about this, that between the the 2 of of you who could would most reasonably serve next. You have already had your twins. You have twins to be had, and we also have the both of us around to help while while you are still adjusting to to new parenthood, and having very small new people around to deal with myself for the next 2 months, and and Hernan is here for another year. So there there is

[74:05] resources around and available to to help bridge that gap. Yeah. And I think it would insert a delay. Bill. Right? The news. Very good. Thank you. The cause- cause typically board chair moves around starting in January. It's just that you became board chair because our previous chair, Mike Clements, left early in his term, and so then we anyways ratcheted it back. So the intention was that starting get to be back on a regular schedule of of board chair passing, starting this year, and then my term would end I would have served 2 terms as a regular chairperson again, a regular board person before I leave. which is typically how it would go. So how many months on Youtube like 10

[75:00] plus or minus cause. It was like February, March or April that we switched over to me. And then it's January 10th which doesn't feel real, but because the terms. And when the new person is assigned right, which is usually April. yes, March will be my last meeting. Yes, I mean we I mean, we could start, we could say, like the chair begins in April for a whole year until next April. That is also an option on the table. I would like to throw it to our our dear Mr. Typically sure assignments happen independent of seat appointments, that those are 2 separate things. They are things. What I will say is this, the board has a lot of flexibility. However, you want to manage the cadence of of selecting and appointing new chairs. We've gone through a couple of different iterations over many, many years, and so I just want to put it out there that you have flexibility to to change it up.

[76:02] The one thing that I want to acknowledge, though, is that in your charter there is a requirements. One of the things heather and I were talking about that we have not been very good at in the past when there is a change in chair position. We are supposed to hold a public hearing. So it's an official act of the board. And tonight I just want to get a sense of when you want to do that because we will put that on the agenda as a public hearing, we can talk about how to actually do that. It's very easy in terms of kind of the rules and and decorum around that. But so my, my point there is is that I I think they are. We used to do it that way. In fact, that was one of the one of the previous kind of cadences is that as a new member would come on. We waited until the next meeting, and we would appoint the new chair. And so it just kind of kept things clean. There was this point of transition each year. But again, we had a group that didn't want to do it that way, and we kind of moved into this every 6 months. And so, whatever you'd like to do, we can certainly. And question about that rules thing. Yes, something, something, something

[77:10] is that required before the new chair takes office for lack of a better word or like, where in the process does that public hearing fall? So the the public hearing is the official act is just means that you all are. Gonna take a vote on who the new chair is and their tenure. They're gonna serve 12 year or excuse 12. And so what what would happen is there would be a motion just like we did. Now and then the chair would open it up to any public hearing. That means, if there's any public attendees, they could speak on that very issue. If there is none, you close the public hearing, you take a vote, the new chair would be appointed.

[78:08] so I would propose that that could be done at your February meeting, and you could defer if if you wanted to vote and say that the new chairperson is not in the new chair is not going to take effect until April. You can do that, but you can hold the the vote, and you can do the public hearing at your February great Council to select new members. They are doing their board appointments on March 20.th Okay? So April will be the 1st meeting of the new Board member. I mean, I will say, go back to the April to April, sure that that works for me. And so at our February meeting we will have our public hearing, and then official vote on to who our next chair will be.

[79:05] and then that will go into effect. Starting in April would be the 1st meeting that the new chair would. What about March? We just march would be a regular meeting where our old chair would. It would not be a public hearing. We would already have done that it would be the last meeting of the old Board right functioning under the current chair, and then the next meeting would be the 1st meeting of the new board with the new chair. Okay, that work for you, Alice. Yes, that would work for me. Wonderful. Okay. So at our next meeting we will hold a publicly noticed public hearing. If any of the public wishes to join and give their opinion on who the next chair should be.

[80:02] It's as I said, it's not a process that we have typically followed on the Ev. We were just looking at the the bylaws, and that was something that popped up, and I think it makes sense for a lot of the quasi judicial boards. But there is consistency across the boards, and it was written into all the bylaws that makes sense. So we will, we will hold said public hearing at our next meeting and then, hold a vote to appoint her next year to be to take official role in starting in on our April meeting whatever the 1st Wednesday of April. Yes, which will almost certainly be our our dear Alex, unless someone which is wishes to try and overthrow that gotta hit your bets. I don't think it's gonna happen. No, I'd love to. But all right.

[81:03] I think that that concludes that discussion unless anyone else has any comments, thoughts, questions, concerns. no feeling good feeling, satisfied feeling fulfilled. Cool with that. All business updates. I think that's me. Yes, it is me. I put on my little reading. Thanks for members. I thought it would be helpful just to create a little space to debrief our session with City Council on December 19, th on the Climate Action Plan. Update mostly from the perspective of love to just give you all a sense of what we heard as staff during that presentation, and obviously there was a strong connection between the Board and that presentation. And I was there you presented as a member of the public. But you were there, and well, I didn't watch the whole meeting to be honest.

[82:01] but then also to give Arnon an opportunity to share his thoughts, and if you had not watched the session, I would just say Ernan did a fabulous job representing the board's feedback, and it was a really, I think, well executed opportunity to have the board there in person. There were a number of questions that Aaron can elaborate on if you'd like to. So, generally speaking, there were no real surprises. I think we had talked to the board previously about what the update consisted of, and how we were going forward to represent what was being updated. But I think that all went incredibly smoothly again. This was not a it wasn't a decision point for council. It was just to check in with them, to let them know what our plan was, and if there were additional items or ideas or thoughts that they had on that plan. That was an opportunity just to do that pulse check with council a couple of the the larger items. I think, that came up that I was really grateful to hear Council's perspective.

[83:08] one being one that really started to gel the week before, and certainly was something that you all had considered, and that really had to do with compact land use and transit oriented development. It was one of the questions and comments that you all brought up the session previously around the role. that the cap is playing in thinking about land, use how the Ipcc and their recommendations really kind of feeding into how we are thinking about that body of work, and then how that translates and connects into other more planning specific plans like the Boulder Valley Comp plan as an example. And so Council Member Shuhard sent out some hotline questions the week before, asking how Staff was really thinking about land use issues and the Ipcc's recommendations with relation to climate. And so we developed a response on hotline. If you all didn't see that I'm happy to forward that out.

[84:13] But I think it. It created a good solid starting point for the conversation with Council in that particular area. During the session that we had on the 19.th I want to back up and just say that if you were watching and are not, I think you arrived a little bit later. It was a. It was a tough evening overall. There was a lot of disruption taking place in chambers that night, and I bring that up because it always is difficult as staff to kind of get centered and make sure that we're showing up as our best selves and presenting what we need to present, and vice versa. It's very difficult for Council members who were obviously rattled by the Disruption and the protesters that evening, and we had to

[85:00] council had to call a recess. And so I just point that out is that those are challenging circumstances. And so, if you were watching the session and wondering why we came on a little bit late. And knowing, or if you felt there was something a little bit odd, because there was no audience. I just wanted to point out that that was what was going on behind the cameras if you didn't see it. So land use was certainly a topic that was brought into the conversation. We knew from previous conversations with a few council members, that they were very interested in thinking about the connection to some of the other areas that have not been central and traditionally included in the cap. We talked to you about this at our session. Previously things like water as an example, and really starting to think about other aspects. And that was really, I think, the exciting update to council about that cross departmental mapping and really looking at the plans that currently exist and how we're starting to really connect to those Council, I think, was very appreciative. They really like that idea, mostly because they're really looking for all departments to really

[86:09] step into their their space around climate and resilience. And I think that's a really positive thing. So we heard some comments about how each department is really starting to show up in in that regard. The other, the other comments that we heard. but I wanted to highlight back. There was a little bit of discussion, I think, prompted by one of your colleagues here around the connection to food. And so there was some response to that which was really good. And then the connection that was drawn in some of our mapping to mental health and kind of social issues that have not been central to our climate work previously, and so thinking about, not just with respect to climate anxiety. But how climate change and climate disruption really does connect to a lot of the other social issues that we're trying to solve at the local level. And so there was comment back about from at least one council member that they really liked that connection. And then the last

[87:11] comment which has got us thinking a little bit differently about some of the potential risks that we've been mapping and identifying really came from one council members, comments about financial risk, and it was, I believe, something that you all talked about when we spoke with you in December as well. I think it came up with respect to under insured or uninsured community members. I'm looking at you. We had a really robust conversation, and it was really helpful. And one of the council members, I think, had picked up on that, and started to kind of get into a conversation with us about how are we thinking about that moving forward? How does it show up in the cap? And then how does it show up? With respect to what I like to describe as like the financial headwinds related to climate disruption that we haven't necessarily mapped in a holistic way across the organization. So that gave us

[88:12] the thought to kind of move into that space a little bit, too. So before I I I'd love to hear and on you talk a little bit about your experience if there's anything you want to share at all. But as far as next steps we're taking that feedback from council. Really starting to map that into our our plan, our trajectory to get to kind of the rewrite of the cap and so adding in some new call outs, adding in some new dimensions, some new connection points. Right now we're in that drafting phase. So we're starting to pull all that together and likely be coming back to the board with a more solid draft in the next couple of months. The other thing that we'll be doing is, if you recall. We had hoped to go back to council to update some of our targets related to resilience and equity kind of putting them at the same level as some of our mitigation targets. And so one of the conversations that we had with Council is, what's the best way to do that, whether it should be by resolution. We don't like to govern by resolution. I understand that, but those

[89:23] those targets were adopted by resolution originally, so it makes sense to us to go back and just update that. But Council did have some comment on. We're going to be in the situation again, that we're always going to be kind of coming back and checking in on progress and updating where we're headed and the tools and targets. So what's the best and most flexible way to do that. And maybe it's not resolutions. Maybe. So we're we're looking and evaluating some of those options. But at least for this next update, our plan is to go back with an update resolution, so I'll stop there. Would love to field any questions, any comments if you watch the session, if anything came up for you. But, or not, I'd just love to give you a little bit of space to share your experience to anything you heard.

[90:12] I think overall that feedback was positive. I will say, I think there was some confusion with the memo from our board. I don't know if you saw that oh, yeah, actually, I guess I don't really know what they ended up getting. Yeah, yeah. But there was some initial confusion there, like a little push back. Because basically, I think what we ended up putting in the memo was the overall discussion we had, and like a multitude of ideas. But I think there was some confusion as to whether it was like a unanimous set of suggestions rather than just different ideas. I don't know. There was a little that that part was a bit confusing. So maybe next time we need to tailor that a little bit or make more specific, like what the memo from us represents.

[91:00] I can see, a like very much like a like. These are the things we discussed. This is what we recommend into those 2 segments of like these. These thoughts and ideas and topics came up as we discussed them. Here was what here were some of the conclusions that we came to just to like, try and split that up. But continue, yeah, yeah. So that was, that will be my only recommendation. Moving forward. There were some comments I know about human behavior and how we're taking into account that into the plan. I remember we had this discussion like years ago, where human behavior was part of the old approach, and that kind of wasn't working. People were not changing their behavior. So we kind of move into system changes to kind of try to like, incentivize those behaviors instead of telling people to do something more like like more of an indirect approach. So I don't know. It seems like, there's something that we're not doing anymore. So yeah, I'm I'm I'm glad you picked up on that. That was. And I kind of forgot about that piece. And so, yeah, there was a comment around, what? How can we continue to?

[92:11] really direct our efforts to changing individual behaviors to take advantage of the programs and services and like, and I think the way we discussed it with Council is, yes and but again, we're not going to deal with this with climate disruption by changing light bulbs. So the idea is, yes, we want to continue to support individual behavior, change and opportunities. Because people do want. We all want to do something, but at the same time it's more powerful when done in a collective way, and then identifying. How does that help us in terms of changing the systems. And I think your answer reflected that I remember you. You mentioned system change, and I think so that's something I noticed that called my my attention. The line line item, budget ask. I thought that was like, I don't know how you guys want to address that, but I don't know. I don't think that's

[93:05] feasible right? Like I don't that I guess it seems it seems to be. I don't know, like I from some from the council discussion, it seemed like I guess it's how you define plan. I think to me the document is more of a general strategy roadmap. and to other people a plan is like a specific plan with step by steps, so that kinda difference in in views of the plan. It seems like some people were like reacting differently. so I mean, I just, I'm just telling you what I notice. I guess I'm not saying But yeah, I mean, like, I think, lying out of budget does not, I think when you represented to us you know what 2 months ago, or one month ago. I remember. I think we talked about funding, and you mentioned like the the goal of the plan is to have

[94:05] everything in place. So if, like a grant comes along or a program comes along, we can like talk, get it and get that money and find the projects. At least, that's how I understood it rather than Oh, we have. You know, the city has this budget. So we're gonna locate this like, it's more like it seemed to me it was more like as things come along. Take advantage of them, you know, like the doctor came along through the was it the infrastructure, Bill? I'm not sure like, So yeah, So that part is like, maybe clarify for council like this is not the kind of plan that has like line item, budget. It's more like a strategy. Where you know, as as things come along. we we seize the opportunity because we? We have these goals that we have set for the department of the city button. So and that seems like that was a bit of confusion.

[95:04] I remember there wasn't push back on the Ipcc. That kind of surprised me. But they wanted to like, you know, study other sources as well. And I think those were the only like the main things that kind of jump on me. I mean, I think I agree with you. The overall. The feedback was good. yeah, these are the only things that coming up problem. Guess you know, either what you guys said. So 2 quick responses to that I I appreciate you flagging. The question about what you described as a line item. The the request was, the council member wanted to see actual strategies and the associated funding for each. And so as a team, we started talking about, what does that look like? And it's not necessarily taking our budget that we have related to the department and start to say, Okay, we're going to line like, here are the actual strategies. We kind of do that. But that's internal facing. It's a

[96:02] little bit of the work plan that we do. But it did give us an opportunity to start thinking about what's really behind that question. And how do we start thinking across the organization? And how do we do our budgeting? How are we thinking about the impacts? So yesterday we had a really, I think, robust conversation to say, we know that there are going to be additional costs associated with climate disruption. How are we thinking about that in the future, more on the resilience side of things. And how are departments starting to Orient in terms of making investments today? That will help us avoid some of those bigger ticket items later on. So thinking more on that resilience side of things. So yeah, what you said, I think is right. We? We tried that back in 2,009 and 2010, where we had a list of here's each of the programs. And here's the dollar amount, and then it just begs the question, why that amount and not that amount, and this pro. Then you get into this like cost per ton.

[97:01] and it's all around deemed savings. So we put money into strategies that support kind of a cross cut of of objectives, mitigation, resilience, equity. And so it's not just like metric tons of carbon. So thinking about, there are programs that take time to mature. So you need to invest in them now, knowing that we're gonna see savings later on. So it's not a simple exercise of accounting to say, you know. most actionable strategies. We know where the money goes. We know how we invest our dollars. We've been at this a while. And so I think we're going to have some conversation with that council member just to better understand what he is looking for. But I agree with you going back to your comment. The cap is not the place to have that listed. That's more of an internal facing thing to understand how we're resourcing the various strategies. But we might do like the some of these system changes. I mean the the funding will be external. Right like that.

[98:02] Dr. Cochran. Was it 200 million that was external? That's like a big system. Change right? So it's like. But you cannot account for that, I guess, because it I mean, if it comes, if it comes, you get it if it doesn't right. yeah. And I think I would I would put a few flavors on it. Because I you know, I appreciate where Councilmember Wallach is coming from. In this this challenge right? We know that climate change and the disruption and and the the risks that come with that, whether it's. you know, enhanced wildfire mitigation that we're doing today. You know, we know we aren't doing enough as much as we could. We know that there's gonna be strain on our our water utilities in different ways. Right? We know we know the cost of blood, those types of things. And I think he's just, you know, acknowledging that if we know it's there's gonna be a cost to the city to respond to that like trying to get a handle on that, because we're in the midst of discussing. You know how to how to resource things. So there's very much that piece. But I also think to your point.

[99:15] We also need to be cautious about implying the city's taking on the cost of everything that needs to happen. Right? So like, we talked about the roadmap and the 1 billion dollar number, it's not our intention that we're gonna stand up a billion dollar rebate program to help people make that transition. Right? We need to. We just need to quantify and tell the story of like, how it can happen, and and you know what what that saving and what that cost avoids in terms of future costs and things to to find out what the right tolerance is for investment. So there's a lot more narrative that has to happen. But he's I think he's appropriately recognizing that. you know, when you have a

[100:01] what's the number of the number of fire days, and you know tenfold increase in drought days and temperature days over 100, like, there's a cost associated with that. There's things we as a city organization are gonna have to invest in as a response to that, and trying to understand what that is and and what the trade offs gonna be in terms of other things. The city needs to fund. you know not- not. I saw Ally here, so for some reason rec centers are in on my mind. Right? Is it the you know the top of the line elite swimming pool? Or is it shoring up that building? to future utility costs because of the magnitude of climate impacts like there's going to be trade offs that happen in that discussion. And and we need to get Savvier about how to inform that trade off discussion right? Because we can't do everything.

[101:07] Forget to put the poll in just for so again. Just wanted to offer. If there are any kind of follow up questions, anything that you saw or heard that you concerned about, or us to follow up on. Well again. Thank you for your willingness. To provide feedback. And I I just wanna acknowledge we can do a better job at recognizing kind of the the challenge that you identified in terms of your feedback. And so we can do better at trying to articulate talk. Here's what you talked about. And here's the specific recommendation. So and and it's learning process like we're we're working together as a team here to to try and convey most accurately and most consistently and efficiently what we all think.

[102:00] what what the outcome is, how whatever was brought before us changed over the course of our meeting, and it doesn't have to be perfect on 1st attempt. So, and I'm sure that we can work on being less. It was good, though they read the document, and it was, it was good still. Good. Yeah. alright. So unless we have any other thoughts, questions concerns on this. Then I think we can move on to our next item. discussing our 2025 letter to Council. This happens every year. No, it doesn't, and that's why it's on the list. I just it has traditionally been every year that Council asked for letters from their boards, if you remember, Council has gone to this every other year retreat. And so this February 20

[103:01] 7 is their midterm check in. So I just wanted to alert the board that we're not doing the traditional call for letters this year. The the Retreat Committee is looking at ways to get feedback from boards and commissions. But it's not going to be that traditional letter. So I realized that normally we start that in December, and we're already talking about it and trying to refine the the parts and pieces at your January meeting. We didn't do that. I didn't really have the background of what was going to be going on. So I just want to let you know that we're not behind. We're totally okay. Sounds good. that was a quick idea. You put it on there, and nothing has to happen. Yeah, all right. And then board recruitment is still happening. When is the end line and the deadline for applications? 31, st that great. Do you know how many applicants? So far I've not seen an update yet. We just got some scheduling messages about the interviews yesterday, but I don't think we'll see how many applicants we have for probably another couple of weeks. Okay, cool. So you can check back in on that. In February, at which point the applications are to be closed. So if you have friends, family.

[104:21] neighbors, acquaintances that would be good, let them know. So you should talk to me. Get lost out. Thanks for my advisory panel. Oh, right and then just do we wanna do a quick Council calendar. Look ahead. It's not on our agenda, but anything looking forward that. Yeah, there are a number of things. And I think I'd like to maybe reserve a little bit more time.

[105:01] and we can talk about this in preparation for your February meeting, maybe just doing a little more look ahead. So rather than month to month, start to really calendar out some, some anchor points throughout the year. Some things that we definitely know that the Board wants to have conversation around, both in terms of things that we know are coming, but also some things that you brought up previously that you'd like to have some conversations. immediately. I would just say that midterm check in that one should be on your radar for February 27, th the one that we probably will be back at some point. We're not quite sure how we're gonna do it. We do have a study session coming up in March to talk about the Excel partnership. That's gonna be an important conversation. Again, not promising that we're gonna bring anything to the board in advance. Because we're still trying to sort out what that session is going to be looking like. There are a few other things on that back page that we've been tracking, and I am waiting to hear back from some colleagues. Remember, we still have some pending items.

[106:07] one being some redevelopment that's supposed to be coming back to you in the next, probably month or 2, and so I've not heard yet when that's gonna get approved. So I I would anticipate a pretty full set of agendas, at least for the next 3 to 6 months. And yeah, we can. We can check in on exactly how to work out a look ahead. In the future. So I think the the one thing that that came up today that I think might be worth following up on and figuring out how that fits in is a longer, more thorough discussion about and that might want to wait until the city's AI policy has itself come to a further fruition. But just putting that on the on the radar to to come for the board at some point. I'll have to make sure. Be here, someone to hold my my burn down the establishment torch for me.

[107:01] I might do that for for 3 min. Go on some extended 3 min ramble like I've never done before. Anyways. I'm guessing February might be my last meeting for a little bit. If people want like a 5 min update on some of the plant based stuff. I'd be happy to do that very quickly at the next meeting, or I could send it by email. But I think we can probably find some space coming up. I believe you 100% think others have plans. Yes. Is it more than one.

[108:00] 2, yes, pair of twin pregnancies on the on the board at the same time seems statistically improbable. Yeah, probably. When is your due date? 10, th maybe so good time of year to be born 14.th Oh, nice. Anyways. Unless anyone has anything else holding space holding space. Nope, feeling satisfied. In that case. Our next meeting is going to be February the 5, th unless anyone has scheduling concerns no holidays this time of year. So 1st Wednesday of the month in February. Delightful. Okay. with that I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting for the night. Second, all those in favor.

[109:05] Hi. Thank you, and that will conclude our January meeting. Welcome to 2025. Thank you.