May 22, 2023 — Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[2:28] Program. That is an area where the Prab has formal approval for the charter. You do have to approve any expenditures from the permanent parks and recreation fund. And we'll also get your final input on our 2024 budget submission and the fee policy. You'll see that there's a, there's a edit we caught this morning that we'll talk about when we set a genders later this week, but in June you're actually going to discuss the fee policy so that your input can shape the final draft you see in July. Other exciting upcoming events just noting that in July we'll start talking about the civic area you all got a pre kick off overview of that earlier this year.

[3:06] I do wanna call attention just the department events and item of interest. I'm not gonna name them all, but there is a lot going on in summer in Boulder Park and recreation. We know the board members enjoy participating. So you'll want to check those out and, whenever you can, we appreciate your attendance specifically though. I guess I will call out, I believe that June. Fourteenth, Teen anywhere I was going June fourteenth is our groundbreaking the official groundbreaking for the Flat Iron's golf course, so we hope we see you all out there. We're really excited about that project. With that, I'll hand it to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I'm gonna report that unfortunately I won't be able to make the June fourteenth. Regret. Regrets. When I apologize for my voice too, the smoke has really been rasping my voice up. So I'm gonna be a little horse today. Next up we have public participation. This portion of the meeting is for members of the public to communicate their ideas or concerns to the board about Parks and Recreation issues.

[4:06] Items for which a public hearing is not scheduled for later in the meeting. So we have no, public hearings this meeting. So all public comment will be taken now. Pubic is encouraged to comment on the need for Parks and Recreation Programs and facilities as they perceive them. All speakers are limited to 3 min. Depending on the nature of your matter you may or may not receive a response from the board or from staff after you deliver your comments. But be assured that the board is always listening to and we are very appreciative of your feedback. So we have several speakers tonight and, Rosa has a list of them. Let's see if I can put up 2. Hmm. See the first person that I have on the list is Catherine Barth. And that will be she'll be followed by Bill Brenner. Is that right? Okay.

[5:02] So Katherine, if you could unmute yourself, I think you should have the capability to do that. Go ahead. And Rose, I neglected to ask you to, record the session. I want to make sure you started that. Okay. Go ahead, Katherine. Okay, alright. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. You're a little faint, so if you could speak up a bit, that'd be helpful. Okay, and I noted I've just lost like a quarter of a minute. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I am a great fan of, And I've been doing a lot of reading and I was just doing some reading today that just really inspired me.

[6:01] And I just wanted to share this with you. You may know this, but at the time that he was the hired by Boulder. There were only 10,000 people. Lived here. And he was answered, they had there was a question that. The boulder, improvement committee asked him, which was, what physical improvements. Within the reach of the city. Boulder will help to make it. Increasingly convenient. Agreeable and generally satisfactory as a place to live. And who's answer was a wonderful, quite long report. The improvement of Boulder, Colorado. In that, he said, and I love this, that Boulder should never arrange itself for the benefit of tourists. Because they hastily passed through a place which attracts them. They leave just a few nickels behind.

[7:01] And they don't take interest in the welfare of the community and they often conduct themselves. So interferes seriously with the comfort and welfare of the residents. He was also kind of suspicious of developers. Saying that we're not running charitable enterprises and said they were usually from out of town. But then this is the thing that just really inspired me. He said as with the food we eat and the air we breathe. So the sites habitually before our eyes. Playing immense part and determining. Whether we feel cheerful, efficient, and fit for life or the contrary. He was concerned with the mental and nurse condition of people. And he said, our job is in all cases is to achieve order. He said we in. Or add order and we hope for beauty. And I just think that's such an inspiring thing for these beautiful parks that we have in our city.

[8:07] I thank you so much for the work you do. And thanks so much. Great, thank you for that historical perspective. That's very interesting. Next up we have Bill Brenner and he'll be followed by Patrick or Work. Hey, good evening. I'm Bill Brenner. I'm speaking on behalf of the Boulder Aquatic Master Swim Program that uses Parks and Rex pools in Boulder. I'm the senior director of club and coach development for US Master Swimming. Usms is the national governing body for adult swimming and we represent over 1,500 clubs. With 60,000 members nationwide. Boulder Aquatic Masters is one of our registered clubs. Our joint mission is to encourage adults to swim for health, wellness, fitness, and competition. We are a community oriented and provides swimming as a form of recreation and exercise.

[9:13] We even help adults learn how to swim. And once they do learn, they become safer in and around the water. Our. Programs are inclusive. We're diverse in age, gender, and ability levels. We have swimmers from ages 18 to over a hundred years old. Many learned to swim as an adult. As a lifesaving skill. Anyone is swim and use swimming as a form of exercise to live a healthier lifestyle. Whatever their reason is for swimming, clubs like Boulder Aquatic Masters provides the opportunity. And encourages them to swim for a lifetime. BAM provides dedicated practice times for adults to swim with other like-minded adults under the watchful eye of a professional master's coach.

[10:03] Hey, the master's coach knows what each slimmer's goals are, what motivates them to swim, and instructs them how to swim correctly with good technique. That will help them avoid injury from poor stroke mechanics. The master's coach is the leader of the program and makes swimming challenging but fun. They create an inclusive atmosphere for as many adults as possible. Adults may be intrinsically motivated and choose to be at practice so the coach is charged with making sure each swimmer gets a meaningful experience. Assuming at a master's program is a social event and for many of our adults it may be their only social network. Sharing a lane or time on the pull deck. Is as much mental therapy as it is physical activity. We want to encourage as many adults as possible to join in on the fun. I hope you continue to support. The Boulder Aquatic Masters Program by providing lane space in your pools at an affordable price.

[11:05] So boulder aquatic masters may continue to do their good work in the bolder community and encourage adults from all walks of life and economic means. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Patrick O'rourke followed by Mike Ellis. Patrick and go ahead. Hi, good evening my friends at Parks and Recreation. My name is Patrick O'rourke. I'm the preservation chair for Historic Boulder and I just wanted That's based with you on a couple of things. Because our past in the near future will probably cross several times. Probably within the next week, Historic Boulder, the friends of the Tea House and the friends of the Banshee will be submitting an application for Civic Historic District.

[12:02] And in that particular part of town, I think Catherine Barth just spoke to the Olmsted report from 1,910, believe it or not, but we still believe it holds true to there's a couple of things I'd like to bring up. One is, The proposal is going forward, so I just wanted to make sure that you're aware of it. So if you need to have a discussion about it because I know it's on your agenda tonight, I did not know when until I looked earlier. But also there's gonna be a recommendation for a CLA, a cultural landscape assessment. And we strongly support a cultural landscape assessment. The challenge we have is we believe. That assessment should. Be more comprehensive than the one I believe that's going to be presented. It's our recommendation that the the CLA that the Parks and Rec Porter is going to be in charge of. Start at Canyon Park and all the way down to Twentieth Street. When I spoke last month, I mentioned that there's 15 historic sites on this creek.

[13:00] It's basically following the creek. And it's our recommendation, the boundaries. Follow what is known as the H H Z, the high hazard zone or the flood, the flood way, not the flood plain, but the flood way that follows the creek because we believe it's a critical. Asset to our community, especially if there's going to be a historic district in the future. So I just wanted to touch base with you on that, make you aware of it and have you discussed or hopefully you will discuss expanding the boundaries to what we believe is the appropriate one. And finally, I'm not sure I have on my notes here that, the 4 chambers marker, but I don't believe Parks and Rec is. Is involved and I think it might have been for open space mountain parks, but they They chose to have the market removed from the 4 chambers location. And we've been in contact with Indigenous. Groups that believe that might be a mistake and that it might be a form of a race in history.

[14:06] That being said, if it is moved and Parks and Rec has anything to do with it, it would be our recommendation that it. He turned over to the Boulder Museum. So that they can handle it. Once again, thank you for your time. And if you have any questions, we're looking forward to. Being part of the civic historicist in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have a Mike Ellis followed by Mark Eller. Thank you. This, Mike Ellis. And. I'm a member of the board of BAM, which Bill Reiner talked about a minute ago. I wanna talk about The. Way that Parks and Rex is managing fees for clubs such as.

[15:04] As BAM and I've heard that there's some terms like exclusive being bandied about. I just want to explain that BAM is not exclusive by any definition of the word. We are definition, we are inclusive. By any definition, the only. Thing you have to do to remember is know how to swim and follow our code of contact which ties back to inclusivity. Unlike most master's programs that Bill talked about, BAM is a 500, and one C 3 nonprofit. Our goal is not to make money or cater to any specific swimming population, but to foster adults women in the Boulder region. As required by law, our governance is totally transparent. Anybody can sign up our members range from 19 to 88. We have discounted membership for seniors for people on Medicare with disability. People on Medicaid. We encourage younger summers by discounting them as well. We have free membership for, multiple Medicare insurance gym programs, somewhere to what Boulder does.

[16:09] We, we have a program to offer free swimming to those in the greatest need. For example, we use that for victims of the Marshall Fire. Our members range in ability from beginners. The pro athletes, the seniors who just want to keep active. Some members participate in sanction competitions, but most don't and never will. We have members with disability who feel totally included. We have neuro diverse members. Some have used BAM to prepare for national or international level Paralympics or Down syndrome competitions. Our coaches at every workout are trained as Bill talked about, experienced with working with slurs at every level. Every single one of our workouts is open to every single one of our summers. We don't have separate workouts for different communities or different abilities.

[17:02] And lanes used by BAM typically have up to 6 summers. If you are going left swimming, maybe you have a swimmer or 2 in lane. We're very efficient. We also offer the only regular open wall swimming program. In the front range that we're aware of. We have deep roots in the border community. Some of our members have been swimming with BAM for as long as 40 years. If facility rates charged by boulder increased drastically, we may not be able to continue our program with the same broad user base. So we ask that you, have a, a fee program that is kind to programs like BAN. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up we have Mark Eller followed by Reese Campbell. Hello, thanks for, let me speak tonight. It's Mark with, Boulder Community Rowing.

[18:02] And our affiliated sister program, Colorado, Colorado Junior crew. And I'm here tonight with plenty of good things to relay. I realize sometimes we only make an appearance when we feel like we're in crisis mode. So there is good news, ahead. Overall the Roman community seems to be working more productively with the parks and wrecks staff than we have been in recent years. We're getting many important issues worked out or at least around the road. And I want to sincerely thank Parks and Rec staff for their responsiveness to all of our questions and concerns and as I said, we're moving along at a in a productive fashion right now. One item of concern at the moment is that our growing programs are operating without a contract from the city. The city tells us that their review process is taking longer than expected. But we are hopeful to resolve this quickly and just today I've heard that there is still continuing progress.

[19:03] But we always have some back and forth about the particular some of our contract and we need to have time to resolve those and our club operates on small margins. So it's very stressful to not know what the expenses for the year are going to be. So we're gonna just keep chipping away at that, but we hope to resolve it within a matter of days. This year we're asking for a monthly billing cycle. To be able to better track expenses rather than waiting to the end of the year. It's not easy in the late fall or winter to remember when a practice was canceled and we shouldn't be charged or this that or the other. So the monthly billing cycle will be a much more accurate way to handle things. But back to the good news, we are seeing a huge increase in public demand for our open houses and our free introduction to growing classes and our low cost. 6 week program for new rowers we're seeing 40 50 even 60 participants every time we hold an open house that there is right now the public is engaged.

[20:09] And that's really great to see and I think it speaks to the need to keep working with our community. And finally, I just want to say that all the quiet sports at the reservoir, the paddlers, the swimmers, the rowers, all of us. Would really benefit from some expanded hours for public access, specifically public access during non-working non school times when there are restrictions on wakes from powerboat use. In their mornings and late afternoons The shoulder season is just May and September alone. Adding some more times when we can. Be free of that and the quiet support users can use the Res. That would be a huge benefit. So I hope we can keep talking about that as we move forward together. Thank you for your time.

[21:00] Thank you very much. It's great to hear the positive feedback on the process. So thank you. Next we have Reese Campbell followed by Kevin Godzik. Hi guys, quick sound check, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, thanks. Good evening, guys. I'm, my name is Reece Campbell. I am, the president of Bora Aquatic Masters. As you hear from Bill, and Mike, we're a 5 one C 3 nonprofit. And we have been offering fully inclusive community swimming. For anyone over the age of 18 for 30 plus years. I'd like to thank the P for their time today. Are we into tonight? Maybe it's tonight now. I have 2 topics, I'd like to bring up. Firstly, as the previous speaker said, sometimes positive feedback is, hard to come by.

[22:11] So on behalf of, Balderacquatic Masters, swimmers. I'm by extension many of the swimmers in the city and county of Boulder. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Tim Stab for his work. I think Tim is the recreational supervisor for Aquatics. Tim does an amazing job of juggling all the swimmer groups. All via for poor space and time, you know, especially as we go into this, you know, busy summer season, with the outdoor pools. Well, organized in last year's, community open water swims at the Res was a bit challenging. Tim's approach. On the pool front, it's just really refreshing. It's general willingness to, you know, make it work, get stuff done, really shines through. So I wanted to pass a huge thanks, over to him. Secondly, Last year, Bam ran the open water swims coming off the back of COVID and we lost approximately $3,000 doing those swims.

[23:18] So related to costs, charge to aquatics groups, to swimming. I've read through the proposed use group categorization scheme where we are put into one of 3 categories, community, recreational or exclusive. Or caught my eye in one of the slides was swimming was an exclusive activity. Quotex user groups. Do not provide a limited community benefit, which is the definition of exclusive. In fact, swimming groups such as, are community based. You know, per your definition. So But any given practice you'll find aquatic enthusiasts from their twenties through to their eightys as Mike said.

[24:07] We do not turn down anyone, including folks from the city of Balder's own Expand program. Which I saw was clearly categorized as community. So my ask is that swimming groups such as Buller Aquatic Masters be placed in either the community, community category. Or you know the lower end of the recreational cascade in terms of cost recovery. Thanks guys, appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. Next we have Kevin Godzik followed by Tanya Kumalat. Hey folks, I'm having jobs here joining as a competitive local rec tennis player and former coach. Just looking to provide my perspective regarding the court situation here in Boulder as a relatively new resident. And while I'm a new member of the community, I know I'm not alone in the sentiment.

[25:00] I'm about to share. As a self proclaimed tennis fanatic ironing out all the details of how to explore, you know, the Boulder tennis community was at the top of my list when moving here in August. I'd mapped out all the local tennis facilities and courts even before signing my lease. And coming from Madison, Wisconsin, a city of relatively comparable size and athletic involvement to Boulder at least. Outside of the winter months. I was really excited to take advantage of the sun and the larger competitive tennis community here in Colorado. The older tennis association and the members there made it really easy to start hitting and playing matches. Getting used to elevation and as my shots and lungs continue to acclimate, I really quickly noticed that all my hitting partners started to mention, you know, more and more the difficulty of finding an open court. Much less the court without cracks that would change the course of a point or a game or maybe even an entire match. And I've seen it experience this firsthand. We drive all around town from court to court, sometimes needing to reschedule for days later and giving in to the court reservation system, which I hadn't been privy to in Madison.

[26:07] This is a totally new experience for me. In the tennis world, the added stress of not knowing whether I was gonna be able to spend, you know, beautiful day here outside doing what I love most. Or it's supposed to be a dependable stress reliever for me was soon intensifying my stress more than I had ever imagined. Madison, you know, was a little different, hunt over a hundred courts there, the public and private court infrastructure there never really had me worried. The 3 tennis facilities, one of them hosts one of the largest indoor, division one college championships and all those courts kept all of us there motivated to drive even through that persistent snow and slush 8 months out of the year. I didn't even know there was a court reservation system there. No one ever needed to use it. Seemingly. But in my short time here, I've already realized the tennis community is. Is precious. So many passionate players here at all skill levels and I've spent countless late nights locking up the Rocky Mountain tennis center indoor bubble which is one of the only reliable centers for tennis over the winter months.

[27:07] And more recently contemplate how lucky I am to play here at the base of the flat irons at the CU South complex, during the Austin Scott tournament this week. But hit hit after hit, I'm constantly reminded that the struggles that bolder tennis will need to overcome within the next couple of years. The loss of the Rocky Mountain tennis facility and the beautiful see you south courts more and more frequently I'm driving to Broomfield long monitor Lewisville to get my fix of Tennyson and residing in Boulder is looking less and less appetizing for residents who continue to pour their heart out into this lifelong sport of tennis. So I'm just asking and sincerely hoping for meaningful change and, just expressing I'm willing to help however I can to help this community grow alongside the sport. Thanks so much. Yeah. Thank you very much. Next we have Tanya Kamalat. And followed by Larry Mchugh.

[28:05] Hi, I'm Tanya, Can everyone hear me? Yes, we can. Thanks. Okay, great. I'm a long time bolder resident and I just completed my first season as the Fairview High School girls tennis coach. Where our varsity team took second place at the 5 A state tournament and we had 5 girls take individual state championship titles. I'm here tonight to advocate for the city of Boulder Parks and Rec to build indoor tennis facilities as part of the Parks and Recs programs and facilities. I grew up in Boulder and in fact at age 11 I spoke at a city council meeting in support of adding basketball courts into a pocket part going in across the street from my house. So it feels fitting to be speaking here today. I also want to mention those courts are still in frequent use every time I ride my bike by them, I see people out there playing basketball on them. So that's great to see. I grew up playing tennis in Boulder in the mid nineties and while the summer brought great opportunity to play options to play through the winter were limited to just 2 private clubs.

[29:12] What's now known as the RMTC bubble and Boulder Country Club. And while the hardy amongst us would shovel snow off the courts when the sun peaked through and the temp drifted above the forties. There was not much tennis going on in Boulder unless you were privileged enough to belong to one of those clubs. It's kinda shocking to me that 30 years later and even though the city of Boulder has grown in so many great ways. We're in the same situation and it's even more dire with the demand having grown. As a tennis playing community member, I'm privy to get to play at one of the private indoor clubs, but competition begins before you even get out onto the court when trying to nail down a court time.

[30:00] In the winter and spring I find myself on the road to Denver at least 2 times a week to find indoor playing time in our Vata and as far as South Denver. For the girls high school tryouts, we actually had to pay out of a high school budget for indoor court time and guest fees just to get challenge matches in. And even then we had to play them at 10 and 110'clock at night. So I have really recognized that the situation is more dire as I've stepped into the head coaching role. I have over 60 girls playing on the tennis team and I'm told in pre pandemic times we had even more. And the demand from pretend us all around Boulder is just growing. Astronomically as it is across the US. You know, during the state championships we had the chance to see and use some of the facilities that Denver provides to community members, the Denver Tennis Park being a place that we went.

[31:02] When we got rained out multiple times. So anyway, thank you. I really hope you consider adding an indoor tennis facility and just more tennis facilities. Thanks very much for your comments and congratulations on the second place finish for the. Fairview Girls High School team in the state, finals. My, my wife was actually on the Fairview High team in the 19 eighties and on a doubles, state championship with you guys. So that's great. Next up is Larry Mchio. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Excellent. Hello, Prab. My name is Larry Mchugh. I've been a bolder resident for 33 plus years and I'm an avid user of city parks and wrecked services for overtime. I've been interacting with parts to reach staff for the better part of the last 15 years. Tonight's comments are directed towards the fee policy and budget strategy portion of this team's agenda.

[32:02] As I mentioned, during last once Prab meeting during my public. Comments and in the follow up email after the meeting. Aquatic user groups are not providing a limited community benefit. We are the community. At any given practice, you will find Aquatic in their twenties through to their seventies, and you've heard several other members talk to this fact earlier. For the 2 prime members, it managed to click through the enclosed slides that I included with my follow up email. Thank you, by the way. You would have seen it, BAM, Open Water Swims brought in about 400 unique swimmers. Who swam a cumulative number of swims. In excess of 1,300 times out of the reservoir last summer. You would have also seen 76% of those swimmers were not band members. The, board's goal for more swimming this summer are threefold. Foster a sense of connection and community. Open water swimming can be a deeply personal and communal experience. And Ben's open water swims, Support accessible and inclusive swimming opportunities by accommodating swimmers of varying abilities and backgrounds.

[33:09] I'm promoting diversity among participants and volunteers. And then lastly, Promoting physical and mental well being. Plus water safety and education. These goals are all about meeting the swimmer where they are. And to help them be the best person that they can be at that point in time. User groups such as BAM in the Buller community rollers are augmenting the city's recreational programs at no additional expense. We are offering a value that is greater than just the financial transaction to law. Especially given the fact that the city is financially benefiting from our activities. More so than the organizations themselves are. Reservoir last summer benefited from the nearly $13,000 in gate fees. That our open water swims. Brought through the gate. At the early morning hours. Meanwhile, Ben was able to recoup just about a third of that money.

[34:06] Only to turn around and head a back to the city for various fees related to our own swim. We're hoping in 2023 just to break even for these reasons we should be viewed as a recreational activity as opposed to exclusivity. Have a reasonable subsidy level. My comments at the probabilities are not looking for handouts. We are and do pay reasonable rates for services consumed. It would be great if we didn't incur 300% fee increase to access the reservoir in order to safely host a moneymaking activity for the city's recreational budget. Thank you. Thank you, Larry. So at this time, I'd like to, offer staff the opportunity to respond to any of these concerns I'd be interested in hearing a little bit about. Something we discussed last month, which is how to define the community recreational and exclusive use rules and

[35:05] Interested in finding out how we might communicate to the public how those rules will be established. And what they might look like. But as I mentioned in June, you're gonna see a draft fee policy. And that's when the details of that will be outlined as a reminder for current board members and as an introduction for new board members for City of Boulder offered programs, we have a objective scoring system to outline how. How programs are categorized and I expect that the draft you see in June will show how certain program types are categorized as well as what organizations can do if they think that they are. Deserving of subsidy. The other thing that you will see in the future is that part of the conversation also has to be about funding levels. So if we are to discount fees, so if we are to discount fees below costs, that money has to be funded from somewhere, so if we are to discount fees below costs, that money has to be funded from somewhere, which, requires trade offs, that money has to be funded from somewhere, which, requires trade offs.

[36:02] So we expect to be following up with you that, requires trade-offs. So we expect to be following up with you that at the June meeting, you'll see a draft policy that you will approve And so beyond that, I didn't hear any other questions from the public comment. I heard a couple of folks interested in courts in our community. You're gonna hear an update on our court system plan, which is kicking off very soon as a matter of from the department very soon if those folks want to hang in and listen. But other than that, we have really smart people on our team. If any board members had questions about anything. It was a Yeah, mister or work mentioned the historic marker that is on the Fort Chambers property that is managed by our colleagues in Open Space in Mountain Parks. And while I can't speak for them, I am aware that they have very close relationships with Indigenous peoples through our government to government relations with the tribes. And I encourage Mr. Work to reach out to our colleagues in the Open Space Mountain Parks Department. Patrick, if you're still listening and you don't know who to contact, feel free to email me and I will connect you.

[37:03] Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from board members? So we have Sunny on is that correct? Okay. Just let us know if you need to say something. Since we can't see the raise hand feature, how is there a way Rosa that you'll be able to detect if sunny. Wants to make a comment. Okay, thank you. No comments at this time. Thank you, though. Okay, thank you. Okay, next up on the agenda is the consent agenda. Which includes, approval of the minutes from last meeting. Followed by the parks and recreation planning, designing construction updates. And then the parks and recreation operations updates. And those, latter 2 things have been. Communicated by. In the, materials.

[38:01] That were given to the, to the, PR members before the meeting. So they won't be directly discussed unless there are questions from, board members. Let's start with approval of the minutes from April, 20 fourth, 2023. Can heck at a motion to approve those minutes or are there any amendments that are suggested? Okay, and we have a motion to approve a second. Okay, thank you, Anita. All in favor of approving the minutes, please indicate by raising your hand or saying aye. Hi. 8 min are approved. So next up are the. Design planning, design and construction updates. From the consent agenda.

[39:08] There any comments for members of the of the board? Well, as usual, I have some if no one else does. I wanted to thank the staff members for responding to the concerns I presented about the pleasant view fields. At last, months meeting. I do wanna, apologize for being a little emotional about my response to that. I was. A little bit. I have a. So I said, it's sort of a triggering for me. I've had some close encounters with vehicles in that parking lot and. Some aggressive drivers actually trying to run me off the pedestrian path So I get a little, I get a little wound up about it. The way we're approaching this. This project sort of exemplifies for me the need to have a more comprehensive citywide strategy.

[40:03] On how we consider. The greenhouse and climate effects, greenhouse gas and climate effects of any new project. And one thing that I, suggested to, Ali during our recent talk was developing some sort of a. A tool or some sort of way to evaluate the climate effects of any new project, something similar to the racial equity instrument. That could be used for doing climate specific, impacts of any, of any new development. And so there's something that I, it's certainly citywide and not something just within the Parks and Recreation Program. So it's something that I mentioned to her and I don't know if, you know, where that will go, but I hope that it's something that you'll consider. And At the end, I think it would be important to apply in this particular circumstance as well. And the operations, portion of the updates. I wanted to thank Boulder Aquatic Masters for the volunteers that they provided to help get the Scott Competer Park ready for the season.

[41:06] I think that's really great and also congratulations to Chelsea Cerny. Journey for her award for Special Olympics Coach of the Year. I think that's really great. So please pass along. Our congratulations from. The board. I will definitely do that and I'll just take a moment to talk about expand. Because you were talking about program categorization. So expand is in the community benefit category as we program things. It's very highly subsidized. So that there are minimal barriers to participate. Many of our participants, and expand, they have physical or developmental disabilities and they experience barriers every day of their lives and expand, we know is life changing for them. It provides opportunities for connection and fun. And I've got to see it first hand this spring, cause I've helped Chelsea out at our, our special Olympics track on Wednesday nights because it's at the exact same time that Jack Rhodes has soccer out at East Boulder Community Park and, they're magic makers, the way they

[42:02] get these, these participants moving when they don't want to and connecting with each other and they are all magic makers and Chelsea is worthy of recognition. And Chelsea is worthy of recognition. So we're really proud to have her on our team. It wasn't clear. Was that a national level award or state level? It was from the state. Yeah. So folks from Special Olympics, Colorado were out. They presented the award. They had, we all knew in advance. So many members of our team were there, her family was there, she was not like so many public servants not at all interested in recognition, but it was pretty cool to appreciate her. No, that's great. Any further comments or questions from the board? Okay, great. We'll move on. We, have no action items tonight. And we have no matters for discussion information. But we do have matters from the department, the court system plan and the budget strategy roadmap and fee policy. So we'll start with the court system plan. Alright, so I'm gonna introduce senior landscape architect Tina Briggs to present this item and just know how timely this is, right?

[43:07] You heard from some folks in public comment, there is a lot of interest in courts in our community. I do want to remind you Tina is going to talk about the court system plan, but I want to remind you for 2023 we have tripled the amount that we are spending on taking care of the courts that we have, that number increases with your approval of the CIP in June, it will double again. So we'll go from 60,000, 60,000 a year in 2022 to 200,000 this year to 400,000 a year for the next 5 years when you approve that capital. So folks in tennis, we hear you. We know that we're behind on maintenance and we're committed to doing better. With what we have and Tina is going to talk about the future. Hey, let me. Get this going and we'll still the screen. Rosa, do I just? Has to come close. You can share.

[44:08] I am, but it's not showing a share option. Have you allowed it? You're so kind to stay while we work. Alright. This is our first, meeting in the council chamber since COVID. So please bear with us. We have, we have these technical challenges. Okay. Yeah, pre COVID, this is where all our meetings were. Okay. Okay. This year, Okay. It's less, yeah. I agree.

[45:11] Okay. There we go. It just took a little bit. Alright, here we go. Let's go to the beginning. Okay, so tonight we're going to talk about, the court system plan. So really, I know you've heard from a couple of folks from the, tennis, community, but we've been hearing from the football community as well, right? So, we're hearing and we want to acknowledge and explore that growing need and demand from both. Both of those, particular sports. And then we also want to acknowledge the changing supply of courts, that are, in our system.

[46:06] So things that are changing and have changed. So in the past there have been a set of courts that went back to BVSD and are under their management. We know that see you, that development, is gonna change some court inventory. And then what they are calling RMTC or the Rocky Mountain tennis club. You might also see it as that millennium property redevelopment. So just making that acknowledgement that we know things are happening with those cards in the future. So that's, you know, elevates the need for the system plan right now. And then we can talk a little bit about in the state of the system what that CIP looks like and knowing that we maybe were a little bit behind on that maintenance, what we're doing to change that. And then while we're even doing the things in the short term, we're building this plan for the future. So we'll just start with the scope.

[47:01] We're not. Okay, so really what the plan is going to do really is going to help us make those data informed decisions, about those pick a ball and tennis courts. So the things that we're looking at right are investment, the management of and then the programming of those things. And so a blend of all of those 3 makes it kind of a bigger plan. And really just thinking about inventory and investment. So the primary outcomes is this plan is really looking at that short term. Data informed the actions and the maintenance and the distribution and in the immediate like 2 to 3. Your range and then looking at the longer range decision as well for investment prioritization and then exploring expansion possibilities. And so when I say the action and vision investment, if you remember the funding, resources. We're always looking at fiscally constrained action and vision. So those long ranges decisions are really going to be more in that fiscally constrained. But then we also want to provide some opportunities.

[48:01] What does that action and vision look like and start to work and looking at where when and how we can partner with community members, other organizations, and maybe even private industries and that public private partnership. So it'll help lay out some of the basics of how that can look in the future. Click on the process and timeline. There's a little bit more in the packet, but overall in the June July, you'll see right, we're doing the data collection research first. And we're moving into a needs assessment. Community engagement has a longer window, of course, and then market analysis is also part of that looking at what is our surrounding community look like, how, have other partnerships worked really well? What are the funding strategies? How are they managing things now? So we'll be looking at some of that and then coming back with those recommendations and prioritization. And then moving on to those action and vision opportunities. And that might be to the detail level of like what properties would we be thinking about for the future if there were those opportunities for expansion.

[49:05] Before I go into the court system today, do you guys have any questions so far on the basic scope? The timeline or process. Okay, so I think overall I just wanted to show you some of the background research we're doing. We were talking about courts today. So just a quick overview of what we have in the system today, you know, especially if we're not tennis players, it might be helpful just to kind of see a little bit of mapping. So really we have 28 racket sports in the system. So these are really just owned and maintained by Boulder Parks and Recreation. So we haven't looked at anything. Private at least it's not on this list right like we're doing that investigation but this is really just what we own in manage right now. The size of those green circles is about the is just to be relative unlike, for example, here there's 4 courts in here. There's 2 courts, so just to give you that visual spatial, of what that looks like.

[50:01] And then kind of calculated it to a big circle down there. What these are is of those courts, 18 or dedicated tennis courts kind of shows you where those are spread around the city. There's an additional part of that 28 is the 10 multi sport courts. So what that really, when we say multi sport court, those are, they're basically tennis courts that we've also stripped for pickleball lines. There usually are 2 pickleball courts for each one tennis court. And so that's, we're considering multi sports. In this case. There are 0 dedicated pickle ball courts at this time. So then just a little bit of capital investment. And you can kind of see where those orange flags, you know, they're flying up and the distribution of that. So in 2,022 we did bump up the investment maintenance of courts so you'll see that those 5 courts were resurfaced in our system. And then as we move on to 2023 planned for this year 6 resurfaced courts and then of course this court study.

[51:06] Hopefully in 2024 with all the budget said and done is will be replacing for courts with post tension which is different than resurfacing. Resurfacing is more of a patch. The post intention. It's actually, a longer term fix and it has a longer life cycle than some of our other courts. And then adding 4 dedicated football courts at the East Boulder Community Park. Quick question, sorry for the ignorance here, but. When it's a multi splurge, multi sport court, how does the like how do you transition back and forth and there's the like extra holes in the thing of those covered? I don't I don't play. Pick up also more just a logistics question on how Yeah, so on logistics we've we tried to something new at Taco which was having more of a It's not, well, it's retractable that actually the post go into the, into the

[52:02] court. We've learned from pickle ball and from tennis those are less desirable. So what we do have, at the other rec centers, they're basically rollout nets. So they're cable tied to the fence and then they're able to just roll out so that they're not affecting the course of the court for the tennis court. So it's not a bad bounce or anything like that. So it's, a preferable way to work it. Any other questions? Alright, I just also have a version of this very quickly in a spreadsheet because we all think a little bit differently. This just really shows kind of the distribution of those 18 dedicated tennis courts. The 0 pickle ball right now. We do have 10 multi sport which then equals 20 pickable courts. And then there's a total minute shows which are lighted. I didn't map the lighted courts in the past. There are also 2 courts for courts actually that are striped, on a roller rink.

[53:02] But I haven't counted those in the main count partly because you have to bring your own net out right now. So I think the logistics of that make it a little bit more tough. I think it's something we could work through as an option. Oops. And then it just shows some of those, like Ally was talking about how the investment has changed over time. And I color coded a little bit just so you can see if we're looking at that 2122 and we were stripe in pick of all courts and doing some resurfacing. That's about $200,000 worth of investment in 2023. It's looking closer to a 2 75 and then in 2,024. It's closer to that 6 40. So we're looking at over a million dollars in those in that time span. So just to move on to next steps of the court. It's just we're building a request for proposal right now, so we'll have a consultant come on board. I think it's really important to have a very unbiased. Consultant on board we've gotten a lot we have a lot of information that our tennis stakeholders have helped us gather.

[54:07] Pickleball has also helped gather some information. They're in different formats and, how they are gathered, right? Like is we wanna make sure that it's very like solid and stable and we can all justify it so we all have that buy in that, what we do in the future was done from a very unbiased base, to start with. What we'll also share is we work get the consultant on board then as we'll do a community engagement plan. We've got some really great stakeholders on board. We want to make sure we reach out to the general community as well. And we have that opportunity to keep that conversation going. So what we'll really do is continue to collect that research and data, continue to engage those advocates. And coordinate, especially with CU Boulder and BVSD. We know they're big players in the tennis court system and they've got needs as well. So we're going to. Start those conversations now even while this plan is building to get those relationships in place and then we'll make sure you we get updated regularly as well throughout that process.

[55:12] That's all I have. Do you guys have any questions? Comments or recommendations? Questions from the board? Thanks for the overview. I remember seeing an article from Denver that about some newly created pickleball courts that got like neighborhood backlash about noise. I was just wondering if that. There's something that's happened at B, that's just a Denver. Thing. We are aware of, the level of noise for pickle ball and we're actually testing a few things right now. Part of this plan will help us think about and determine and put some guidelines on where we should be placing pickable courts. And really how close they are to residential and what that noise level is. So we want to make sure that, you know, we're putting them in the appropriate place and that's another reason for this study to kind of go through identifying locations.

[56:02] From the article it looked like the noise when they did the noise monitoring it was below any like legal threshold for. The decibel level, but I don't know. It can be really dependent on the location. So whether there's vegetation structures, you know, so there's just there are so many variables it's hard to like to pinpoint and exact. I think we will have some guidelines, to give us some kind of minimums or maximums at least. I know it's not a city property, but a lot of reference to the Rocky Mount tennis center. I know that the, said the north side of the creek. Sl to free developments at the South Side courts too, will the whole place will be lost? Okay. Do you have a sense of like what, you know, the 3 different facilities you mentioned, some going to BSD, so I'm going to. We recommend closing and then the see you south what's the total loss of non city courts? That's a good question.

[57:01] I don't have that off the top of my head, but I can get it to you. Are the centennial courts. Included in your account of courts. They are Is there a joint use agreement with the? Would be a PST. So currently those are, they're managed by BVSD Holy. So what was in that mapping is does not include Centennial. And is there not an agreement with BVST to use those courts for various Yeah, I can chime in on that. So just background, the centennial courts were actually built by the city over 30 years ago. In their early nineties on school district land typically when and through a joint use you build construction on property that is not yours, you operate it then for 30 or so years is kind of the standard to recruit some of that investment through revenues and then it reverts back to the property owner and that's what's happening. Happened with Centennial in 2022 with the update of the joint use agreement they said we're ready we'd like them back please really because they're the home court for the Boulder High varsity tennis program and they need to make sure that the courts

[58:12] are scheduled and managed with that key purpose on their school district property. The, courts are part of the joint use agreement. The challenges is that the joint use agreement because of school district properties that the use has to be with a city. Program and tennis is one of the programs we work with a private partner on and so they have to run directly through BBSD to use the courts. And is, is it available for public drop in use or do you know? It is now. I know they're exploring changes just like with our premier facilities, their public use can result, like pleasant view is not open for public use nor other premier ball fields. They are seeing you heard earlier from the coach of Fairview, both Fairview and Buller High like to facilitate a high level play and that means they want the courts in really good condition. So I believe that in the future that may not be the case.

[59:05] Also a variable that we're considering, which is why I appreciate Tina mentioned the school district, the University of Colorado, there's a lot of partners in this area which. I think it makes it pretty exciting time to be talking about tennis. There's a lot of opportunity. Would there be any interest in cost sharing from the city with the PVST? To allow those courts to. Stay open for public use. I said you residents and that might be a cost effective way to get a larger number of courts. Yeah, that's that's something to explore. The challenges is that they're it's not their concern isn't free play. It's non reserved just open to the community play, right? That's where you can get scooters and just other misuse that can deteriorate the carts. So we're happy to explore that and we know again this is why BDSD and others are part of the conversation. I think there's other areas to look at too. I think there's courts all over town that are not operated by the city such as those of HOAS.

[60:04] And, so I'm curious about what kinds of arrangements in general can facilitate more public play. But I think with the school district, it's hard because I understand their interest to protect. Their high level assets, their premium assets for the high level high school play. And yes, it's another variable and makes it harder, but I can understand where they're coming from. I would encourage that idea of looking at private court owners and seeing if there's a way to facilitate. Excellent. So I know there are lots of little like single courts with apartment units that are. Scatter all over the city and some of them are in good shape and some of them are in terrible shape. And seems like those are wasted access if they're not available for. I rarely see them used just based on anecdotal observation. So. Thanks for that tip. That is part of the scope. Is there also? BVSD courts at Manhattan, I think I've seen.

[61:00] They're like adults playing. There are BDSD courts around the system as well. Again, I didn't, I haven't mapped all of those. It was really like this is the reality of what we own and managing can control and then the the other pieces that are that like that conversation are bringing them in and looking at the overall need of the city in the community and the schools. One last question. With the loss of the, it looks seems like the only indoor facility at Rocky Mountain is all right. It's a tennis bubble, but yeah, is that something that could be explored as a, you know, an option to cover, I don't know what the cost of that is, but to cover a. Existing outdoor court and you know as a you know, to as revenue as a business model, you know, to meet a need that will not be, you know, that's there, but. I think it's something to explore in that long range. So as we start to look at those action and vision recommendations that we start to look at those action and vision recommendations that come in that November, December timeframe. One of our stakeholder vision recommendations that come in that November, December timeframe recommendations that come in that November, December timeframe.

[62:01] One of our stakeholders has actually done some great research. He's provided it to us as a great start for that conversation, to look at that. But first of all, we'd have to have the right facility to cover. And then we also have to remember any time we cover it, it's a revenue generator and we're creating for you, we're creating a fee system for that and we're also taking that out of the free. Courts for the right so in that equity round too it's kind of just thinking that through and I think that just that needs some thought. Yeah. For sure. Okay, any questions from Sonny? Just wanna make sure she's got an opportunity to. Hi, PEN, and she wants to. Okay, thank you very much, Tina. Next up we have the budget strategy roadmap and fee policy. Thanks so much, Tina. While Jackson Hyde, our senior manager for business services gets up. Rose is going to pull up this present presentation just because it's fairly brief. We're reporting back to you since we last met, we met with City Council about the city's 2024 budget development, the city's chief financial officer and executive budget officer presented on the assumptions and guidelines.

[63:07] As the city wide budget development is happening, we are just, really in numbers were 10% of a very large budget. There's a lot of moving parts. And so a small part of that conversation was the fee policy. And so Jackson has a very brief presentation. He's going to share. And just report back on that conversation. There we are. It's been a while. Thank you all for being here. As Elle mentioned, just very brief. Wanted to give you a high level update as far as what was discussed with City Council. Just as a reminder, I tonight we're doing a quick review of the May eleventh study session with city council.

[64:03] We have on the first slide identifying what the Prems role for budget development is. You have seen this every meeting since March. So this is just a reminder as far as what the P's per view is. Making making recommendations to the council about the appropriation or expenditure from Pirates Fund and then the recommendation of the, Parks and Recreation and no budget. At the study session or. As part of the fee policy, we did share this timeline that depicts the various touch points that we're having with the P. As you're all aware, Q one and Q 2, you've been highly engaged. With a whole lot of questions. We've done our research with Benchmar communities, various analysis. Starting in June, we are going to be reaching out to the community connectors and residents to verify that we aren't having a negative impact on any of our community members as we propose the fee policy.

[65:01] As Ali mentioned earlier at the June, P meeting, you will see the draft form of the policy and then in July, our hope is that the Prab would adopt this. We recognize that the fee policy will simplify many things, but it can also create questions for various community members. So starting in September, we do think that there will be significant amount of community engagement, especially in areas where we are seeing, fee increases. And then all of those fee increases will go through the fee policy as part of the 2024 budget development that city council ultimately approves in October and then beginning in January, we would start phasing in the new fees. We have committed that any of the community your recreation fee increases would not exceed 10% in the first year. Just to be able to create some, equity and ability to play it into individual and user groups, how those fees are phased in. So. That's an overview as far as where we've been and where we're planning to go.

[66:02] On the next slide we, Highlighted the 2 big questions that we heard from council to staff. These questions really focused on the age of our facilities which you're all aware of given the recent community conversations. About the 3 rex centers that Tina has been helping facilitate. And there was just general feedback that our fees are, very high compared to surrounding communities. As you all have seen every year, our fees are highest for municipal organization on the front range. And we do have some of the oldest recreation centers on the front range as well. So there was price sensitivity associated with. Any fee increases just based on the condition of our facilities. And then there was a request, as all of you have heard to provide greater clarity on what the categories are, definitions and examples of those programs. So we are committing when we come back in June with the draft fee policy. To lay out all of our existing programs and what the categories are that those would fit into as well as the definitions.

[67:10] On the next slide we have highlighted what we heard as staff, being the key comments from city council. We think that there was continuous support for the services that we deliver to the community. As was affirmed with the, Parks and Recreation Plan adoption last summer, there is a continuing support for finding alternative funding, through grants and philanthropy, donations and revenue generation. And then finally, city council did agree with the, in maintaining current levels of service. And not wanting to decrease any, service levels of the services we do currently provide. So that is a quick summary as far as where we're at, just based on the timing of this meeting and when we talk to City Council, this is a very brief update.

[68:00] In June, we will be back with the draft fee policy and at that time we will ask you to critique all of the work that we, have put into it based on, all of the conversations we've had in the research that we are doing. And then our hope is that in July there is the formal approval of the few policy. So we can begin working on the implementation aspect. So. With that, I will open it up to any questions. You know? Just from listening to the public comment today, I was wondering about the term exclusive. It seems to be generating kind of a lot of backlash that no one wants to be thought of as being exclusive. I don't know if maybe like specialized or something. There's another term that might Go over better with the community. It just seems like a number of people like, we're not exclusive, we're not exclusive, we're not exclusive. Just thought I'm looking to Ally here. We've had the word exclusive in our plan since 2015.

[69:04] Hey, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,. And since then we've steadily implemented full cost recovery for exclusive programs. This is these regional facility user groups are actually the last outlier. I hear you, I agree. I understand. That there is a reaction. I think the reaction is more of the fact that it means full cost recovery plus, right? More than it is the word, however, we certainly hear that. And as we look at things, we can, we're not bringing back the recreation priority index, but if there are opportunities to consider the category titles. I don't think we necessarily care what they're called. It does need to convey that the in the benefit is mostly to the individual as determined both by our criteria but also industry practices part of what we're seeing in the benchmarking is that almost all of the agencies that we are looking to charge full cost recovery for rentals of their

[70:02] facilities. Was there a recognition from the city council that our That the comparison of fees between pure cities and the front range are not apples to apples comparisons because We don't get the general fund subsidies that other cities do. And as a result, they can offer lower fees for access to their. To their facilities. Is there a recognition of that city council or is that something you've been able to get across to them so that they internalize it and understand. I don't think. Yeah, I'm on. Sorry about that. I don't think it was called out directly as you're saying Chuck, but there was a question as far as, what the level of subsidy is that has been received from the general fund. As you recall, that number was about one and a half to 1.6 million, up until 2021, at which time we did receive a one-time subsidy for 22 and 23.

[71:00] We shared that our understanding is that that subsidy would be dropping back to historical levels based on our conversations with the finance department. And there was some general comments made that providing additional funding for parks and recreation was an important priority. We did not get into a comparison of our fees compared to surrounding jurisdictions fees, just because there are so many fees. We have over 3,200 various fees right now that we're still grasping our understanding of, those fees. 3,200 fees, different fees for different. Yes. So one of the goals of the fee policy is to simplify the number of fees that we have. The understanding for community members as well as our staff of, how we are administering these fees, charging these fees and making them clear to the public. A lot of other jurisdictions. Still have 2 to 300 fees. Which sounds like a whole lot but you have to remember the diversity of services that Parks and Recreation provides that our goal is to get much more simplified with the number of fees that we do have.

[72:15] So I think just from the a matter of a public understanding of our fees. It's important to emphasize the difference between. How we get our overall funding. In Boulder compared to crowning cities. Cause No, we don't get the general funds, that they do and that's a different model and It's a decision that Boulder is consciously made and. I think the public needs to be aware of it so that they They aren't as upset, you know, when they compare what it costs to go to some place in Lewisville or Longwater or somewhere else. That they're, the folks in long, are paying for it, but they're just paying for it in their taxes and other ways. Yes, I would agree with all of that. I think the city council's direction as well as the 2022 plan was for partner operations to be more entrepreneurial where we could.

[73:08] So it is a challenge. And as you mentioned, it's not an Apple Sapples comparison with surrounding communities. So I guess I'm asking for a more public facing information. On, on that topic, especially as we discuss the fee structure and I gets mentioned in the paper. I think it needs to be more especially stated and made clear to the public so that we don't get that push back. Understood. Thank you. Just on that, I've heard this idea used in other places and other contacts. I don't know if it works here, but and how many people keep the receipt or pay attention to the receipt. But you know, it's a kind of a breakdown of you know, the costs or kind of the different subsidies that go into it and that Yeah, that's an immediate form of education that I don't know again the cost or logistics or even if it's worthwhile, but. You know, that's one way you can just kind of like, Hey, you paid $12 to get in or whatever and here's this is how this breaks down so Got. Thank you.

[74:10] We always appreciate. Okay, any further comment from the board? Okay, thank you very much. Yes, we'll move on to matters from the board. Starting with our. So, that's, that's, that's,,, that's,. So in your packet there is a, is this something we can put up on the screen? To discuss. The current Rosa, can you share that please from the packet that matters from the board? Thank you.

[75:09] So while Rose is getting that up, I'll provide some background. So in 2020 we, members of the Prab. Decided that we wanted a more robust response to community emails to the to the board. And we assigned. Or ask for. Prab members to self assign different email topics. And to ensure that We, always responded. Or at least had the opportunity and someone was paying attention and could respond to emails that came in. There's always a staff response. So there's an automated message that goes out saying, the proud and receive your message and you may hear from someone. Or you may not, but we're always listening. And then usually if there's something that staff can respond to, there's a very thorough. Response by a staff member. And my personal opinion is that that staff response is often. Very clear and very well informed and deals with the topic at hand very efficiently.

[76:13] I have responded emails. From, from, members of the community. As an individual member of P. I was given the recreation center topic. And I was pretty enthusiastic about it first and for the first year I was quite good at responding and then We had the pandemic and. Everything changed, all the recreation centers closed. And so I sort of. Dropped off doing that. And, and I, to be honest, I have not been responding to most of them. I do respond to the occasional one. So I guess I'd like a discussion of whether we feel like this sort of email response is. Something we wanna consider doing again. And if so, how.

[77:05] Do we need to respond to every email or just some of them? Is this something we want to absolutely do every time? Or you wanna just give. I remember the, the opportunity to respond to every topic as they see fit. This is sort of the. To to extremes of. Of this model. So is there any feedback on? The concept of responding, to members of the community by email in a more formal and structured way. I was just gonna say I was very enthusiastic in 2020 as well. And I, not doing as much as you, that was my first year on the board and I feel like I was very smart. I don't, I don't know that there's maybe. Current need for this level, maybe just to keep the structure, you know, for when there's kind of uptick in.

[78:02] Response but it seemed to work back then but like I said I have the emails have dropped off or at least I'm not on them. It is, it's a logical way to break down the issues, but, I don't know. Welcome, other thoughts on it. I don't feel like I know enough about anything of these topics to be able to be assigned and respond like and add any value above what any staff can. Respond to. I guess I would say that. Sometimes just saying we're listening is a good enough response. Like we've heard your concerns and something we're discussing. Or something we discussed in a past meeting or something we're going to discuss. Is enough. The staff responses are often very, very thorough and detailed. They're also very professional and sometimes Just a response from a community member.

[79:06] With a more empathic response maybe is useful. Not to say the staff. Responses are not empathic, but they're often very professional and Yeah, you know, clear into the point. Chuck, I'm not sure if you can see my hand up. Yeah, I can see it now. Go ahead, Sunny. My preference would be to Have everybody have the opportunity to respond when they feel that. Connection or passion towards the specific. Subjects, I agree that having a more personal response. Would be useful and comforting. But I feel like it would need to come from somebody who has a special connection to whatever topic it is and is genuinely. You know is responding in a very genuine way and willing to take that on or willing to further their cause or or something.

[80:11] Yeah, I, I think I agree with you. Frankly, given the history of this over the last 2 or 3 years. I felt like initially I was I felt the need to be forced to respond. You know, I felt like it was my duty to respond. Even though I didn't. I didn't know what to say or didn't. Didn't feel a strong. Empathetic response to that particular topic. So I think you're right. I guess if we go that way. One thing I wanted to point out is. These. Guidelines that are in the materials here that when you're responding to resident emails. State that you're responding as an individual member of Prab and not representing the views an entire Prab.

[81:02] And to make sure that you copy Rosa or Prab and admin at Voulder. Dot. So that the open so that the, email response is recorded. In the city system in case there's an open records request at some point. Well, that's my opinion. Are there other opinions? I think that the staff members have been responding. Very fast and I didn't see a need for us to respond. Gets as a resident from older if I have a question. I would care more about, a quick response. That I'm happy that I. That I understood. If someone understood my question and get back to me more than. You know, maybe from the So you're what you're saying, what I think I hear you saying is that the getting a detailed response back from staff is probably more important than getting a We hear you message back from Prep.

[82:14] Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Sorry. Does does does the general respond or the response have kind of language like, you know, all the members of the board are receiving this. I think it does, right? And, you know, they can. Rosa, can you scroll up a little bit? I think it's in. Yeah, right there. So there's there's the current it says and We can adjust this to be whatever you'd like it to be. This is what it reads now. So thank you for emailing the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, all 7 members of the. Board have reviewed your message and you might hear from any of them individually all email sent or open record.

[83:02] Seems like enough and if people wanna way and beyond that that's Okay. I think we have a consensus. We don't need to vote on this. I think We can agree to allow individual responses as needed. Keeping in mind that we wanna follow these guidelines for your responses that are listed in the Hello the table. Okay, next up, I'm lost here. We have the, board liaisons. Or liaison to both of proxy recreation projects. And I think Ali has. Something to put up on the screen to share with us here. I think Rosa is working on that. Look at that. I asked her if she would help us with this at 5 40 pm. Thank you Rosa for diving in. Since I'm talking, I will share that so, in the before when I say in the before I mean pre pandemic when we had a lot of in person public engagement and heavy projects, we would have a board liaise on to some of them.

[84:07] We last did this with the department plan, Elliot served in that role, Tara before him and then she was elected to city council. So then Elliott, Elliott slipped in. Really the intent of this liaison role is not to provide direction because that needs to come to all 7 members of the Prab if we're gathering input, but to specifically, with a project to provide guidance on process on community engagement, that person would then have a deeper level of knowledge on the project that could help support your board conversation that is not. Staff talking about the level, or that the projects work. We, that is being helpful as you discuss some of these, major projects that are upcoming. So we've listed the timeline for some of these projects. I wanna add because we didn't put in here the scope. I do not think at any time this commitment would exceed more than an hour a month on average. Or it might be in in a specific quarter.

[85:00] You might have a workshop that is a couple of hours, but I think an hour a month is probably the average and don't see it exceeding that. And if anyone has questions about the specifics of any of these projects, I'd be happy to say a little bit more, about what the project might include. I will add specifically, you received an attachment from Rose said that the executive director of the Play Foundation. Shared about the role of the board member. I will note that in, history, when the Play Foundation was formed, it was actually part of their bylaws that a member of the P had to be a part of the board. And that disappeared, at some point for a lot of different reasons. We do see benefits to both the department and our philanthropic nonprofit partner, the Play Foundation when a member of the Prab is on the board. And so Angie prepared some information and more background on that opportunity that you received in an email. Earlier this afternoon. I don't wanna be on the board of Play Foundation, but I would like to be a liaison for that one because I'm very familiar with.

[86:11] Play pass program. If we have to pick one, that's what I would like to be. Hi, Paul, on that. Is there a member of the board that is interested in serving on the board and I say that because I know they need some bright minds. They're building a really strong board that the work of play. I don't know all of the history, but it's. So important right now. I like to joke that trees are having a moment, the amount of both federal funding and philanthropic funding available for trees is incredible. Play is facilitating the tree trust right now, which is how we are really driving the private investment in trees. As you know, our forestry department operates our public trees. And the Play Tree Trust is really helping and investing in some of the private trees, which is 75% of Boulder's urban canopy. So just supporting their effectiveness is, really helpful. So I'm, of course, Anna, you can be a on and offer them your input and guidance at any point.

[87:06] I am curious if anyone would have the time and. Generosity of spirit and time to serve on their board. I think I would consider it. I might as well just cause the topic of trees is very interesting to me. Looking at their requirements for the board members. I don't have a lot of the requisite background that they're looking for. So I would, and they want someone with a. Good background and philanthropy and management of. And budgets and things like that, which is not my strong suit. But I would, I'm gonna look at the. Look at their requirements and needs maybe talk to someone there and see if it's a. I know Angie, the executive director would be happy to go on a walk with you and talk more about it. Just Sunny, do I see your hand up or is that an old hand?

[88:00] Oh. Oh, that must be an old hand. I would also love to do it, but I just, the schedule does not work for me, unfortunately. Got it. I met with NG actually today. One of the things she was talking about was how she could. Form a deeper connection to Pab and. She said she's gonna try and set up individual meetings with every person. On P to kind of explain what they do and advocate for more funding from. The Broncos phone rather funding. Jason. Yeah, I was, I was, this just feels like a only board like being here in person and then picking liaisons. It just is like a whole nother in my fourth year, whole other experience. So I'm really excited about this. I'd love to be. On to somebody that don't know for picking these tonight but this is just exciting to be able to kind of expand you know, our role beyond. Just being on Zoom. So. I'm ready to leave the Zoom behind. Here's my suggestion Chuck and I talked about a little bit about this.

[89:01] We, I mean, obviously Elliot is away, as is, Bernie. My recommendation would be to you're here, you get first choice, no pencil in names and we can bring this back next month to finalize in it and we could also sort through if you know 3 people are passionate about the court system plan, we, you could talk offline, Chuck said he'd happily facilitate that. And Have you rock paper scissors it out? Yeah, so why don't we just go through this list and everyone who's potentially interested could raise our hand and we have put the names down. If Rosa wouldn't be kind enough to do that. And then we can, when everyone's back, hopefully next month. All the while being remote, we can hash it out. Okay, so, Violet Park development. And Sonny, if you wanna volunteer as liaison, you're gonna need to speak up because they're gonna move pretty fast. We'll do.

[90:02] I will. You do? Say so chatting and and Sunny, okay. Can I, I'd like to offer a point of. Oh no, no, sorry, Chuck. I was just saying I'll speak up. Okay, thank you. Perfect. And so every board member is continuously gonna be involved in these major projects as we bring you key milestones, right? The liaison and ideally it's one per project. It would be the more regular point of contact process guidance. So, okay, we're clear. Okay, a civic area phase 2. So we have Jason. Can we pause for a minute, Mr. Chair? I thought I saw a need to hand go up for Violet. Is, is that accurate? Okay. So Rosa, if you would add also a and then she and we can go through the list and figure out where we need to. Sort through. Hey Jason for the Civic Area phase 2. I am potentially interested in that as well, although obviously I'm not gonna do.

[91:04] Please, and all these, on things. So. But I have some interest. Boulder Creek management plan. Okay. Jason again. And then 2 public private partnerships, the Fat Aaron's golf course. I'm potentially interested in. Okay, we have Sunny and Anita. Thanks, Sunny. The Boulder Reservoir. We were thinking this would be one person that would help with both because the processes are going to be very similar around how we are FP consult with the board and so we were thinking this would be one person that would be the liaison for both projects through the end of the year. Just to clarify, we don't need a name as a name for the res. We could do it that way. We thought it would be more efficient to have it be one person.

[92:06] That's fine. Then for system plans and this. Okay, then for system plans initiatives we have the courts system plan. And let's remember we have Elliott and Bernie so we don't need to feel that don't have to fill every slot here. The fee policy. Recreation centers future. I'm potentially interested in that. Okay, so we got Sunny down for that. And I'm gonna suspect that Bernie will be interested in that as well based on what you said in the past. Regional facility business plans. Can you, expand on what regional facility business plans is? Sure, so, the Boulder Reservoir for board members who are around in twenty- 20 Q one, we approved a South Shore capital strategy that's guiding the investments at that site.

[93:11] A follow-up to that project is a part 2 that is a site management business plan that guides and actually it dovetails perfectly with outcomes of the 22 plan that is really intentional about how we operate the facility to be a quasi enterprise that can help drive revenue to community benefit programming. So that will have a business plan. The Flaturns golf course is a new facility with a beautiful new space will also have a business plan. Well, typically the Prab doesn't adopt those business plans that we do think that there'd be a valuable liaison and coordination role with those projects. Okay, thank you for that. I'll differ others, but you could put me down for that too as of interest. And. Right. And then, Boulder Junction phase 2, Elliott was already selected at the March meeting.

[94:04] And then Play Boulder. And we already heard from Anna that she was interested in that. Did I cover everything? I think you nailed it. I don't know if people aren't as interested in courts. I know there's a lot of public interest but it's going to be a great conversation we promise. Yeah, when we revisit this next, month, I hope we can. Fill out some of these more, more important nas on. Positions that are currently unfilled. Okay. Let's move on to August meeting planning. And the issue here is that the fourth Monday of the month. Falls at a time of. Hey, vacation for, most parks and recreation staff.

[95:02] Is that correct? No. Nope, this was just a verbal update that the board has expressed interest in a field. Trip and some capital site visits and we're trying to work through those logistics in our new hybrid world, we have to have virtual participation anytime there's a quorum of board members. So we're working through with the attorneys what that might look like and how we can get creative to get you on site for a meeting. This is a for new members, Anita, I know you're not new, you've been here a year, but, Sonny, Anita, Anna, this is at the, Jason, you've never done this. This is a thing we did in the before. We would have meetings in parks. We would go to sites. We've met, in the middle of grass at Salburg Park. We've met at the East Boulder Community Center. We just, this room has technology that makes it very easy for our teammates to facilitate the hybrid opportunity. As you saw tonight, We're getting public interest. The community likes to participate in public engagement hybrid. And so we have to figure out how to allow that. We know if it's a study session, you don't have to allow public comment, the public still has to be available for the meeting.

[96:04] So we just want to let you know we haven't lost sight of that request. We're working through it and expect to have a more thorough report out at the June meeting. Rosa, did I miss anything? So what is the meeting that we usually have to shuffle around for a vacation scheduled? Typically November and December, right? Spring break. We have canceled a summer meeting. So typically if you look at our meeting load, July and August. Our department in. 3 days. 80% of our staff are heads down and working so hard. You will see, I guess this is a good opportunity for me to say you might see requests from community members that we say that's a great idea. We'll talk about it in the fall because we are so focused on, facilitating fun for thousands of children and adults across the system. And so our workload lightens up as well. And so in the past, we've actually canceled one of the summer meetings because there's just not been a business need. But we haven't proposed that at this point. I do know that, when we are looking at calendar, August is pretty light.

[97:04] That's why it would be ideal for a field trip if we can figure it out. Gotcha. Okay, thank you for correcting. Okay, let's move on to the final topic for the night, which is Prab matters. This is the opportunity for Prab members to weigh in on. Concerns they may have heard from the community that are not. Otherwise addressed. More directly through Enquirer Boulder and other avenues. And any. Any contacts that have at the community, they want to, bring to the attention of the board. Mr. Chair, might I chime in here just to, so Elliott hood is out of town. He and his family are honoring his father. He has been working on the proud handbook updates. I know you folks discuss those a couple of times. Our city attorney is on a 2 week vacation. Well deserved as she's been working double duty for quite some time. They are going to review that in early June and he expects to be bringing that back to you in the June meeting.

[98:03] Alright, thanks for reminding me of that. I completely forgot. I knew one of us would, but by saying it out loud, if it one of us would remember, it was me, but next time it will be you. Yeah. Yes, I had 2 questions based on the meeting that I had today with. Angie. She wanted to know how She could kind of. Get a greater connection with Prab. And like the She mentioned she was gonna try and set up individual meetings and also asked if she could. Come speak at one session about what. Play foundation does. I see you're looking at me. I'm gonna look to chalk that week. This is something you could bring to the agenda setting. So I'm gonna actually, if Chuck, if you don't mind, I'll. For both. And I know Bernie isn't here, but as a reminder for everyone, the way that items get on the agenda.

[99:04] Is that, immediately following the business meeting that same week so on Thursday, myself, some members of my staff will meet with the chair and vice chair to talk about what we business needs the department has around either the shells or the maze of the work that we need from the board, but that's also where if board members have items that you'd like to be added to the agenda, they can be discussed and considered. And so what I what I'll ask and Rosa can help us with documenting this is that there could be an item that is a presentation from the Play Foundation. And matters from the board here is the perfect time to bring it to the our attention so we can put it on the agenda. Okay, great. Make it. More of a process question. About the Broncos funding allocation, she was saying that there's going to be some advisory group setup. To give input. And then I was just wondering if the. To me, it will also be run through community connectors for feedback.

[101:10] That youth plan is going to be informed by a community assessment. There's a government assessment that will be kicking off with, the city of Boulder and other stakeholders like Boulder County. And that'll outline some needs, but then there's a community assessment where the community identify needs and then from that there will be an action plan and it's youth led youth driven, targeted typically to underrepresented children in our community. So, and I don't know about the community connectors and residents specifically, but I know that. Very much we're trying to center equity in this project and making sure that this money has an incredible opportunity to support kids. So I'll make sure Angie's up to speed. I know Longmont is having an advisory committee. I know that Boulder County is having an advisory committee but Boulder is creating this youth plan with you creating it and that's how we'll determine the spending of our 2 million dollars. That project is just kicking off just as an FYI, we expect that around this time next year and as we're developing the 2025 budget, we would have recommendations for that spending.

[102:11] We have also said though should this assessment that's happening over the next several months, identifies immediate needs where we could be supporting kids, say around mental health, there could be an initial allocation of funding. I just wanted, I wanted to share that I applied for that board. Or the Broncos one. The, with Boulder County. Oh yes, the wonderful. That's great. Okay. Okay, do any other members of Prab have? Comments or matters they like to bring up. Okay, that brings us to the end of the agenda. There's nothing else to add. I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting. I have a second.

[103:02] I'll second it. Okay, great. All in favor of adjourning? Aye. Hi. Hi, thank you.