February 26, 2024 — Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Forum is present. Do you need room or anything? Okay? Well, good evening. Everyone quorum is present for the February 2024. Meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. We will start with approval of the agenda. May I have a motion to approve the agenda motion to approve the agenda. Alright a second, please. For example. Second. great. Are there any amendments to make to the agenda? Okay, all in favor approving the agenda? Say, Aye. Hi! Hi! Well, the agenda is approved. Next up we have future board items and tours Allie Roads. Thank you, Mr. Chair ally Roads, director of Parks and recreation while I have the mic. I wanna introduce you all to Aubrey Noble. She is our colleague from planning development services. She supports planning board. Rosa. Is it an important family milestone tonight? And so, luckily, we have great folks across the city, and we really appreciate Aubrey supporting you tonight? With that just some highlights for upcoming meetings. The most important that I would love you to

[1:14] highlight and and underline and do whatever you need to do on your calendars. Your March meeting is happening a week earlier, so that our staff and board members can enjoy the Bbsd and see you spring break. We will be meeting Monday, March eighteenth, 2 key notes about the location. This room is getting a significant technological renovation and is closed for the entire month of march. So we will be meeting at the Municipal Services Center. This building is on East Pearl. We'll send you your appointment will be Updated with the location and if you have any questions about finding it, feel free to reach out, I think you all have my text number, so we can. We can make sure to connect. The other thing I'll note is that that will be our first, fully hybrid meeting. We will be welcoming the public in person. Should they choose?

[2:00] We're very excited to have that milestone happening. With that, let me just tell you a few other exciting things for your calendar that are coming up. We are very excited, march to coming to be coming back to you with concepts. And the next phase for the court system plan. You might have noticed this weekend. There was some positive coverage in the daily camera. I think boulders players celebrate boulder parks, and recreation was the gist of the headline which I'm gonna mark on my calendar that was very exciting. So we have an open house next week. It is Monday evening at the Osmp hub, which is off of No. Jccc. Thanks, team. That public meeting is at the Jccc. So that's Cherryvale and a Rapaho. We expect to have quite a large crowd. We have about 200 folks for the first public meeting of this planning process, and even though we know folks who are excited about this plan. We know they also believe that they need to continue to show their numbers for us to listen. So we're excited for that public meeting. That team has been working very hard.

[3:07] the other thing just for April. I wanted to give you a heads up that that's when we'll be onboarding 3 new board members. So we have just finished interviews. Councils will be making those appointments at their march. Fourteenth meeting. If you want to listen in, and if not, we'll give you an update at that meeting the following Monday. and I think obviously there's a a full agenda coming the next few months, but those are the highlights, and if anyone has any questions, let me know. I don't have a question. But I have to leave early tonight. cause my son has a concert that I have to go to. So I'll have to leave it like 7, 15. That's okay. We have a quorum. So that's wonderful, and if you all want to challenge yourselves to be done by then, then that is the Board's purview and and we support. Thank you. II can talk fast, but I don't think I can talk that fast.

[4:04] Okay, any further questions. Nope. next up is public participation. This portion of the meeting is for members of the public to communicate ideas or concerns to the Board regarding parks and recreation issues for which a public hearing is not scheduled. Later in the meeting, and there is no public hearing, so all public comment will be taken. Now. A public 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. and depending on the nature of your matter, you may or may not receive a response from the board or staff after you deliver your comments, but rest assured we're always listening, and we appreciate your feedback. So we have 2 people signed up for public comment. The first of these is Alan Smith. So if you're ready to go, Aubrey. Major Smith, you're welcome to unmute and begin speaking. Thank you. Thank you all very much. I I'm a long time you know, resident of of voter moved here in 88

[5:07] I'm currently the commander of the veterans of foreign war post here in Boulder, and I am also a former member of the Park and Rex Advisory Board, and during my tenure there we moved forward the Bill Bowers Pocket Park that's located on table, Mesa and Hartford Drive, and you know. As II just wanna I just wanna have a shout out to the park and Rec. Staff. They take such good care of the park, and this is the park that gets used all the time. It it warms the cockles of my heart every time II go by and and see young families enjoying the the park in the facility so just wanted to give you all a shout out for for what you're doing there. But Bill Bauer was a member of the Boulder community and was also a one of the pilots of the famous Doolittle raid in World War 2

[6:06] and he lived in in in this neighborhood for for many years. And so it's awesome that the Parks Department decided to name this park after him. But there is nothing in the Park that indicates who Bill Powers was, what contribution he made to this community or you know, or to our to our country. And so there are a number of retired military officers that are, you know, trying to advance a you know a a plaque to be put in the Park, and I'm sure that you members of the Park and Direct Advisory Board are aware of that, and I'm just asking that if to to the extent you can with with the delays that happened. And you know, with the bureaucracy within city. Just gotta keep that moving forward. I realize, having served on the board years ago that you know there, there's the process. There's reasons for those processes. They're all good reasons, but anything that you all can do to keep that moving along.

[7:03] I would appreciate it very much. And barn any questions or comments from you all. I yield back to the chair. Thank you very much for your comments, and I might address this after the second person on the waiting list has had a chance to speak. So the next person up is Mitchell Magnovic. So, Mitchell, if you're ready, please unmute, and you have 3 min to speak alright, and I just wanted to point out my virtual timer was not working for Alan. So, Mitchell, you will see a timer on the screen. Sorry about that, Alan and Mitchell. You're good to go. Okay, thank you. Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here this evening especially on the short notice I provided. Did you all have a chance to read my my notes as far as a little bit of background.

[8:00] Members of the Board. Yes, I got time just before the meeting started. Okay, so recreational technical tree climbing is something that is very little known even in a a city like ours of Boulder, Colorado. I'm gonna say fewer than one out of a hundred people. If they're not tree care. Professionals know what it is outside of just climbing as a kid. But it is basically climbing into trees, using the same or similar techniques used by arborists around the world to access, move around and descend trees. and we happen to through our school, have one of the only tree climbing schools in the entire country. And I would hope that would be something that the city, once they know about it, would be proud to host and be home of, and and the State. For that matter, there aren't even any in adjoining states. so it's something that is good for people's health. mentally, physically.

[9:08] and for some people it changes the way they walk around the urban environment and engage with the urban and non-urban forest for the rest of their lives. Because they've had an experience in the trees that their relationship to it is just forever changed. So it's a beautiful thing, and I would hope it's something that the city would be not only willing, but but very excited, to support, is one of the few places in the country that offers a school for this. and while I started out with a close relationship, a supportive relationship with forestry out of the blue. I just heard. I think it was a week or 2 ago, maybe 2 weeks, that they were no longer going to allow climbing in any parks on any tree. And I understand expenses. I understand interdepartmental cooperation.

[10:00] This is not something that is overly complicated. It's not something that hasn't been dealt with many, many times over for liability, and whatever risk concerns there are, and I think it would be a real shame and disservice to the community to disallow this activity, especially with an organization like ours based here. and I yield my remaining 10 s back to the chair. Thank you very much, Mitchell. Okay. Is there any feedback from the board or staff on either of these comments. II would just say, my husband works as an arborist sometimes, and I do think it's an important skill and something to have in the community, if possible. I don't know about the liability and other insurance aspects of it, because I know that's complicated, but I do think it's a valuable skill to have here. And regarding Bill Bowers Park, Initially, there was there was a group of veterans who wanted to get a plaque and a

[11:13] more than a plaque, a little landscape element installed in Bill Bowers Park. and initially that was moving very slowly, and especially during the pandemic. But everything moves slowly for understandable reasons. but I thought that that was have been progressing fairly well, and I hadn't heard back from that veterans group in recent months or years, even year and a half. So my assumption was that that was moving forward at a reasonable pace. So if there are any roadblocks, I don't know about them, and I would like to hear about them. and I'll also like to hear Feedback to Mitchell's comment about the tree climbing on the recreational tree climbing. I don't have information tonight. I just learned about this today. So I'm happy to get more information and get a follow up to the board, either at your next meeting or I can provide a written update. But I need to do some research first.

[12:01] and then on that Bill Bower Park, our planning Senior manager. Was over there, jumping up and down, telling me he'd be happy to share a little more. Yes, thank you, Ali Mark Davidson, planning manager for box project did slow down. We did spend the with the group working closely with our communications and our equity office on the wording for the plaque, and that's took a little while to figure it out. But there was definitely a delay in us following up to move the design forward. Tina Briggs has been the project manager on that. We just had a conversation last week to see how advanced it this year, so we do apologize was a delay. But we're definitely looking to get it on the books this year. And have you reached your agreement on the wording for the plaque? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So we're in good shape. Move forward with the design. Is it a good compromise? No one's happy. Feel like you've been in government longer than I. No, I think we got a good degree. so I think everyone's happy. Great, thank you. I'd like to add a little more to that cause. I

[13:01] what what mark is managing is, I mean, we talked about everything slowing down during the pandemic, but our cip kept growing every year. We plan for the next 5 years, and we would add projects, and not consider the human capital required to deliver them. And so, what you will see this year is us really sticking to our work plan and not having capacity to handle. Some things that come over the fence. This, this is a smaller project. It still requires staff time to be thoughtful about the landscaping, who's gonna operate it and and other elements. And so I, just this is a very small example of how stretched our planning team is because we are still recovering from the backlog cause we just didn't have the foresight to pause, and we've kept adding cause. We have such incredible backlog in our parks, and we want to make them all better. So I think, as we start, you know. And next, actually, next month you will start talking about the next 5 year, Cip, and what you'll see is us. Mark has done an incredible job with his team. Darren's here also, about what can we realistically deliver and trying to balance that with? You know, really high and wonderful expectations for a community who loves parks and recreation, and a director who wants it all tomorrow.

[14:17] Thank you. Any further comments from the board. Okay? We'll move on to the consent agenda. which is comprised of approval of the minutes updates from director of parks and recreation parks and recreation operations updates and planning design and construction updates. So let's start with a motion to approve, the minutes so moved. and a second second great. Are there any alterations? Modifications to the minutes has been presented? Okay, all in favor approving the minutes, please say, aye. aye.

[15:00] okay. Minutes are approved. Next up is updates from the director of parks and recreation. So it's not a verbal matter. This is a written matter. I have. I have a comment. I'm not sure if it goes under BC or D here. This is in regards to the cold weather. Action where you open the East Boulder Community Center to make place for 50 people who would otherwise not have had shelter. and it involves a lot of members of staff, not just in parks and recreation, but across the city. So I just wanted to congratulate you on our job. Well done, and I'm glad it turned out well, and that we might have saved some lives. So thank you. There were people all over the city, and who did an incredible job over those 5 nights. And and we appreciate that, can I just alert you all, Aubrey? Just let me know that we do have someone wanting us to reopen public comment. And so that is a question for the Board to consider. Thanks. I didn't check with her to see if there was anyone else waiting. Sorry, Amory. are there any objections for letting someone else participate?

[16:04] No. okay. all right, we have Lynne Siegel. Just give me a moment, Lynn, to allow you to talk and get the timer set up. That's kind of you. Thank you. I thought, maybe, that you have to sign up ahead of time with Crab. There's no other boards that I have to do that with. So it was kind of confusing. So I'm kind of off the cuff here. But my one thought about prab, was the interaction regarding the civic space, and how that I I'm not really clear on how that has come into a bit of conflict with the landmarks board and their attempts at getting that space. land barked. and how that inflicts

[17:05] with prab. But I just would think that landmarking would be most the most preservationist approach to the land. I'm also unclear about what happens to parking spaces, surface parking, or other, if those are also landmarked. and if that could have a change, if you know we're having less parking and more use of the space in some other way. and I just wanna thank you for all that you do otherwise. And of course, the other issue is, you know, the cost of keeping up these lands and the cost of running the whole department. and that that impact from increasing population in Boulder, and I just like to see the population, if as much as possible limited

[18:10] to the extent that the developers have to pay their way rather than putting up more and more high end housing or converting commercial space like the Western resource advocates to to demo it in order to get more more residential into it. 30,000 square feet instead of 19,000 square feet, which makes them want to demo it because they don't have a way to get the parking for that residential. Now I know this is doesn't involve Prab directly, but indirectly it does, because the more there is a push for residential in this town. The more people are here, and the more you have in your budget to service those people I know in Denver because of the homeless situation they've had to close down their rec centers earlier hours, you know. Take take things of service, of availability from the public. So I just ask that you somehow consider how to manage the population. Thank you so much.

[19:21] Thank you, Lynn. Any feedback. Okay, thanks. When we back to the consent agenda now? So is there any further comment on updates from the vector and the parks and recreation operations updates and planning design and construction updates from the board. Sorry? Yeah, thanks for all those updates. Appreciate the follow up on the conversation. We had the retreat signing the framework and then I was also wanted to just applied the staff involved in the effort around the very cold nights. I didn't realize it took 100 25 people were involved in that. So thank you all for doing that.

[20:07] I just had a question on the thanks also for the update on the reservoir concessions. That's good news. You probably. I don't know. I'm sure you can't talk about any details, and looks like it's not due for a little bit. But do you have any sense of the interest? Yeah. And I wanna clarify because our team is or actually Scott, you can take this. I'm still building that muscle of realizing that that I have a deputy director. Thanks, Ally, and I also see Stephanie has turned on her camera and is here, and probably can provide a little bit better update than I can as well. Stephanie Monroe is our senior manager that oversees our regional facilities, and she is the person that has spearheaded the the Rfp. For concession. So, Stephanie, I'll I'll yield over to you. Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: sure. Thank you, Scott and Ali. Good evening, Stephanie Monroe. Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: The Rfp. Is out, and I don't at this point have any idea of how many interest parties we've had a couple of questions that have come in.

[21:06] Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: That will Pre will prepare for posting those those questions to the the Rfp. Before it closes. We do have a scheduled Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: non mandatory tour of the reservoir, and that is scheduled tomorrow. So I should know tomorrow if anyone shows up for an interest of taking a tour of the facility and and seeing the site before the big closes. But that was something that is voluntary, and it's not required. It's just something we're providing. So I don't have any indication as to how many people might be showing up. Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: We did send it out to quite a few people that had Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: come to us in the past as far as an interest party or possible interest. So that list has been provided when the the bid posted along with Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: the normal mechanisms that the bit posts to. so as of right now I don't know but it's still very early in the process. Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: And Ellie and Scott, I don't know. Do you? Do you? Wanna

[22:02] Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: it? It sounded like you wanted to say something else, and I can surely add to that if you'd like me to. Yeah, no, I'll I'll definitely chime in as well. And just say, this Rfp, that that is out. There is kind of an interim plan for us, because we will be here in 2024, working on a management and business plan for the reservoir. So we're looking for more of a a a stopgap for this next year to handle our concession services. But we do plan on putting together a full management plan. That would be implemented for the summer of 2025. Moving forward then. Stephanie Munro, COB Parks and Rec: And Scott, that's 2526. Most likely any other questions or comments from the board. Okay, we will skip right over action items and matters for discussion, information and move to matters from the department. Starting with Pleasant view access improvements.

[23:01] Thank you, Mr. Chair, and this item is going to be presented by senior landscape architect, Darren Wagner. I don't think there's a clicker for here. But, Ari, are you presenting this right now? You're gonna have to just do the fun next slide. Which thank you for your Grace. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. Darren Wagner. Ii appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight, and for this item we wanted to take the opportunity to update you on some recent stakeholder engagement efforts that we've conducted on the project as well as share where we're at in developing these proposed improvements. For both capital construction and for reducing the demand for vehicles on the site. So next slide, please. we also just wanna take a moment, too, and just say that we feel like this is a good problem that we have. We see this complex as an incredible, valuable, an incredibly valuable asset in our system, in terms of advancing our goals around youth, activity, and have been able, through our partners, to pull together some statistics based on you know how many youth players are out there. How many adult players?

[24:19] What does that look like in terms of activating our community as well as bringing in revenue to cover the maintenance and operation of that site. So we just don't like to miss opportunities to say what a you know. Fantastic asset this is in our system. Next slide, Audrey. and then we also recognize that we have issues that we want to improve out there, and so are going through this process to to work through those. So if you remember, we started the data collection back in fall of 2022, and last year worked on the analysis of those as well as the the development of some initial recommendations that our consultants provided for us to consider. Since that time staff has worked through some refinements to those proposals and then taken those out to this immediate stakeholders involved in the site.

[25:12] and we're here tonight to again share the updates of that so that we can move into final design and eventually permitting in later this year, such that we can hopefully, if all goes well, maybe start some early site preparation by the end of the year, but more likely construct any of the capital improvements in early to mid next year next slide. so there will be no impact to field play this year in 2024, and likely very little in 2025, as we work on partnership agreements with with our neighbors to accommodate those temporary impacts for construction. Next, please. But we are in a conversation with our athletic organizations around ways that we can go ahead and inspire transportation demand management actions as early as the season in terms of incentivizing car pooling, for example, and so that will likely start this season.

[26:12] so we did, as I mentioned, to hold a meeting of a few weeks ago on February thirteenth, and strategically invited particular stakeholders who were either most directly impacted by the transportation issues that we have there, or most able to help us make a difference in terms of a collaborative solution to addressing those. So this is a the general list of who we invited. And we had about 8 to 10 stakeholders come as representatives for these organizations, and although it was a small group, it was a really effective conversation that yielded a lot of positive support, for where we are now next slide. we took the opportunity. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. You know, we we do have a significant amount of parking on site. We do have 416 spaces on site as well as a number of bike parking spaces, and so on. And so at the stakeholder meeting. You know, we just started out with this acknowledgement that we. We recognize that over time, even though that seems like a lot of parking. We have over time

[27:17] reduce the field size so that we could increase the number of touches on the ball, so we can increase youth activity out there. But that meant we weren't able to expand parking to keep up with that. So next slide, please. So it's resulted, as many of us know in a number of issues out there. Some of them involve the existing circulation, and the 2 starbursts that you see there on the diagram are some of the Hotspots within the lot itself, where there's a lot of circulation happening all in one spot, whether it's cars, bikes, pedestrians, people towing carts and coolers, and so on. And so we recognize from a circulation standpoint, we have some improvements to make.

[28:00] We also know, based on the site, the data collection that our consultants did back in 22, that for a significant portion of the day on Saturdays we have, we do not have adequate parking to to support the demand. And that on Sundays. That's generally it's it. We don't reach capacity, and so we we've been able to confirm that Saturdays are the main days we need to address. We also know that that when we have those issues on Saturdays, it does result in impacts to the surrounding neighborhood streets. And what you're looking at here is is one diagram that shows in red, for example, where most of that parking impact happens in those neighborhood streets. And so when we work towards the updated or excuse me the upcoming capital improvements, you can go to the next slide. We were last year again presented with these options from our consultants. Where we were looking at 2 major distinctions, that 2 major options that we could consider, and one being that we on on the left a prefer, or the the option a was to connect

[29:11] the parking lot down to Kalmia with a one way road connection down to Kalmia which would serve a lot of purposes, and I'll go into that in a moment. The other was to consider an enhanced drop off and pick up area on the northern part of the the lot. Both of those were aimed at at trying to improve those circulation issues. And the the major safety issues that we have in there in working through the the details of how that might really look on the ground staff really felt like that the option a was much more preferred, and in speaking with our stakeholders, they do agree that by providing that one way connection out to Kalmia, it would allow us to make significant use of the overflow parking in the church lot. and the Church has expressed strong support and interest in in working that out with us, especially on Saturdays.

[30:06] Whereas we felt that that option B was it. It still stood the chance of being abused in the sense that the drop off and pick up behavior sometimes gets. You know you. You wait in your car for an hour, while you know, somebody's playing or going to practice, and it's not really drop off and pick up. And so we didn't feel like it would address the issues that we're trying to, and in terms of the sort of bang for the buck that option A was the one we moved forward into the conversations with stakeholders. So this is what we took to the stakeholders a couple of weeks ago. Where we W. Worked on initial conversations with the Church to consider formalizing an agreement with them for overflow parking. On Saturdays the details of that are still to work still to be worked out and but they're again very open to it. And then what that would allow is for access to actually come in off of 28 such that if you're playing on certain fields you would be directed or encouraged to park in the church, parking lots on Saturdays.

[31:11] and not even need to go into the our main lot. What that would potentially require is extending. There's a a path that connects that church lot over to the fields themselves. So that might require extending that path and creating a formalized gate there, where we would have additional bike parking as well as pedestrian access And then again, the other significant move would be to add that one way connection down to Kalmia on the southern end of the lot, as well as widening and extending the existing sidewalk. That's on the west end of the lot down to Kalmia, such that we're allowing more multimodal access in and out of the site from that end as well. Some of the other improvements that we recognize we we need to make is is the safety around the multimodal circulation happening in there. Our partners at transportation and mobility are going through a a campaign. II think it may be called way of the path. They're finalizing their messaging around that, but they are looking for sites just like this. Where they can

[32:25] more heavily influenced the signing and messaging around path safety. So we would participate in that with them. Our our staff and community have long wanted to provide additional Wi-fi access out there, and we feel like, if we are doing construction out in there that it's not it's it's significant savings to to go ahead and pursue that as part of this construction project, we also have the opportunity to improve the accessible parking spaces primarily to provide for rear, loading vehicles and then to improve the safety at that multimodal path crossing through the lot where we might look to look at a raised crossing. In keeping with transportation practices elsewhere. And then also looking to to slow and filter the stormwater through the site such that we're we wanna advance all of the citywide goals around sustainability and resilience. While we're in construction projects such as these.

[33:20] So just to walk you through what that might look like again. If you're playing on certain fields, you would have the capacity to come in off of twenty-eighth parking the lots the church lots and enter through that new gate. On the west side. There, if you are still coming in from forty-seventh it would, you know, reduce the volume of traffic coming in and out of the lot, partly because some would be parking on in the church lots on Saturdays. And so we do feel like it would also improve some of the safety issues in there. The the. And then again, at this point we do anticipate that it would likely be southbound, only out to Calmea.

[34:01] Next slide. We also wanted to make sure that while while we know that any major transportation program, anything close to something like what we have at Chautauqua is expensive and has a lot of complications and and such that you know the city wouldn't at this point explore running its own shuttle system out there we recognize that there are opportunities for our vendors, for the athletic organizations to partner with hotel shuttles. If they are for big tournaments where those hotel shuttles might provide that same level of service or any private service that they're able to to contract with. so they would be able to come through the lot, and head south and park in the church lot as well. So we we feel confident that we could still support that larger vehicle circulation. And in future capital programming, we would anticipate the opportunity to construct a multi use path bypass around the east side of the lot. That's a project that our transportation and mobility staff has been trying to advance for grant funding for years they have not yet been successful. But it's still on the books.

[35:10] We also know that there's the potential in terms of space to add, in addition, an additional roughly 45 spaces on site but we would pursue that as as what we would call an add alternate where, if within the budget, we find that it's possible we would consider it, but likely it would be something that could happen afterwards. If we feel like these initial improvements haven't done what we intend for them to do. And a longer term item is also to formalize on street parking along Kalmia right now, that's signed as illegal because our transportation staff wanna protect the bike. Use along kalmia such that there's not parking and doors opening and closing when bikes are already having to share the road. So what they would prefer is that we formalize we, you know, in a in a longer term, capital investment project. We formalize that multi use path and separate it on the north side of Kalmia and then formalize on street parking.

[36:14] One of the great things about the stakeholder meeting that we just held was that our again, our partners in transportation facilitated this portion of the meeting where they invited ideas and brainstorming around. How can we start even this season reducing the number of cars that are coming to and from the site again, we wanna be partners and and advance. See why goals around sustainability and resilience. So how can we, you know, invite our athletic organizations to organize things like bike buses. and even just the term bike bus was fairly new. And so you know, it was a really nice awareness building conversation. They're really interested in the carpool incentives, and that to them feels like something that's easy to move on this year. And both the Rugby and Soccer communities have said, Yes, absolutely. We'll we'll work on that.

[37:03] I mentioned also the private vans or shuttles, and so they that they have that on their radar as well. The conversation around E. Scooters or e-bikes. Has been a little more loop warm, that there's this concern, that it's, you know, because people are people who are coming from in and out from out of town. Are already having to drive to the community that. And then they're also carrying a lot of equipment to and from the site that it would be less effective. But recognizing that biking in general is really important for our local community, and we know that on our busiest local game days those bike parking lots are full and over over overflowing. So more emphasis on the the biking approach than than these others. We also have introduced the idea, and we'll we'll formalize expectations with our athletic partners around. The need to manage parking once once the cars are there. We don't currently have any formal requirements around, for example, them providing communications to their participants.

[38:07] or where signs get placed on a temporary basis on our biggest days, for example, and it's been inconsistent around how parking attendance get used and the church, for example, has said. we would absolutely support parking there on Saturdays on Sundays. Not so much, but we may still depending on the biggest day's biggest tournaments we might still appreciate there being a parking attendant out there to make sure that cars don't park in a lot. So those details are also being worked out as we formalize expectations with our athletic partners moving forward. So I'm happy to answer any questions about this, but just overall after having held this stakeholder meeting. We're obviously meeting with you tonight and working through some of the smaller refinements that were recommended during that they in large part, they very much supported the the proposal. And really, we're just offering some smaller suggestions like.

[39:05] Do you really need to add that new gate on the west side to connect to the church lot like, might it be? Se, you know? Okay. Sufficient enough to just ask people to walk around the corner to that existing gate on the south side. So really, really helpful small refinements like that that we're gonna go through and continue to incorporate again as we formalize agreements with the with the church. We're also gonna have continued conversations with the friends school at this meeting. They were volunteering the possibilities of using their site for a number of reasons, even if it's just temporary. to drop off and pick up during this season. You know, to to divert some of that use onto their site and or overflow parking. So we're gonna be following up on those and formalizing those agreements. And supporting those early efforts to incentivize car pooling, and other other things as we move into final design and permitting.

[40:02] So with that, I welcome questions and feedback from the prep. Great, why don't we just go down the line? Start down there. If there are questions or feedback you want to provide? We are active users of this soccer field, and we live in the neighborhood. So I think these are all great changes. I do think that the bike, I think there is a big opportunity to increase bike use there, but it's gonna require, not only like the infrastructure changes that you mentioned, but also kind of operations changes from the field providers because they don't consistently make the bike gates open. So, and I don't know if that has to be come from the leadership of the soccer clubs. But the people who are in charge of opening the gates don't seem to really see it as a priority, and it's like more of like. If I have time, I'll get over to it. And so when it's not consistently available, I think that decreases bike use?

[41:04] Thank you. You bet. I appreciate that. And that is part of the conversation. Yeah, thank you. I'm curious to know what a carpool is. How do you define that? Because in general I've seen like 2 people equals a carpool in Carpool lanes and things like that. So when I'm picturing, and my family does use this. These fields. You know a. Our carpool is our family. and because I have 2 kids who are still using booster seats, even if my husband's not showing up. We can still only fit 2, maybe 3 kids in our car at a time. So that's my first question. Thank you for asking that we have not gotten to that level of detail, but our partners and transportation, and the ones who particularly deal with these kinds of programs are on hand to support us through these details. I, you know, initially fabulous point. Maybe we need to consider it being 2 different families or something. Not one. I, you know I don't know. Thank you for bringing that up. Well, yeah, I mean, I just

[42:11] when I think of. And we live in South Boulder. And so we're. There's no way we're biking. We've got backpacks. We've got chairs. You've got water bottles. and you know I'm always looking for a carpool, but like, I said. It's it's like one other kid. It's not really cutting down too much on the driving. and I love the solutions you've come up with. But I also would love to see you encouraging the vendor people you're working with United and like. especially for the younger ages who are in that situation where they have to be in a car seat, and their parents are coming with them for a number of reasons, and often another small child.

[43:02] The logistics of getting to those fields, finding which field you're on carrying all your stuff. It's it's the the experience of going to those fields is not positive, generally speaking. and I would love to see you encourage that vendor to be partnering with Bbsd schools to use some of the fields that are not used at all that are in neighborhoods for those younger groups of kids who just don't need to be on those big fields. In my opinion. And that might just help mitigate the traffic situation to begin with. But I don't. I don't know a couple other parents up here. Go to those fields, and it's I never wanna go to those fields. Maybe when they're playing tournaments. That would be exciting. But I still have 9. And under kids and the several years that we've played there. I'm I dread the drive and the traffic, and the hauling of stuff, and the fact that the bathroom is nowhere near where you are sitting with your little kids. So

[44:07] it seems like a more appropriate field for older kids, older families, tournaments, and I would love to see more use of local neighborhood parks and fields, and that would just generally cut down on transportation. Thank you, Sunny. We have not pursued that aspect of it. And I, again, I appreciate that recommendation. This is this is exactly the kind of feedback that we're hoping for tonight. Well, first of all, thanks for considering our feedback that we provided earlier last year definitely appreciate seeing elements of that incorporated, and especially the transportation demand management and discussing those issues with the vendors, clients or partners, stakeholders, organizations. I have a couple of concerns one is that you're gonna be adding traffic on to Comeya. At the same time you're encouraging more families to use bicycles to get there.

[45:07] and Kamiya has 0 shoulder. and it's a straight line country road. It has very high very high exceedences of the posted speed limit cause I used to live there. So I know and so adding more, adding more bike traffic with, especially with kids to a road that's already got traffic problems. speed problems, not traffic problems. I think, is problematic. I think so you need to work with transportation to really develop a plan for safe bike infrastructure on camera. And they admit that because they don't want to allow parking along it because they say that bikes have to be in the road. And now you're gonna add more cars to that. So that's that's a concern right? in the in your final recommended plan. You had additional road connecting the parking lot to come here.

[46:00] Is that intended to be one way you mentioned that earlier, but then I didn't see that mentioned in the final drawing, that it was going to be a one way. Yes, that that is still where we are. At this point. The only the only refinement to that that we've actually heard from our operations staff is regarding. how some of our large on our largest event days. We do have issues with Western coming through to remove some of the trash, for example, and it takes them like a half hour to just get from one end of the lot down to the southern end of the lot to remove it. So it was brought up sort of towards this very end of like, maybe we should consider that but it's, I think, where the reason we've landed on the southbound. Only to this point is because of exactly what you're saying. We didn't wanna add even more traffic to Kamiya and wanted to maintain that primary entrance being on 47 to preserve that real character of that neighborhood in there as well.

[47:01] Okay, thank you. And and would the gates be closed when the fields are not open for activities. Okay? And will there be a gate on the other street so that people know that and don't try to use one way. I guess they wouldn't be using it, anyway, I hope. there was one other thing I'll come back to it. I'll think of it. Pass over to Bernie. So my question is also about cars on Kalmia and I'll betray my feelings about cars and saying this, but I have observed increasing amounts of what I would call scoff law driving just in my daily life, I think. Sure we would probably all agree. There's more speeding. There's more rolling through. rolling through reds when they're definitely red and not yellow, and you know, making it right on red without stopping, etc., etc., etc. How are we going to engineer this entrance to tell me in such a way that people don't use it as an entrance.

[48:00] Yes, so the the final design of that is something that will work with a civil engineer to to work through, so I can't offer details about that right now, except to acknowledge that. You know our partners at friend school, for example. They know how confusing that is. Right now you get to the end of Kalmia, and some people think you can get into the lot right now, even right? And so you get down there and you don't know what to do. Is that access into friends school where I'm supposed to go? Or am I supposed to just make a Ue, or you know, so that as we work through that connection, the signing and the design of that roundabout. The connection in there will have to be considered yeah, thank you very much, I mean it's it was a very thoughtful kind of presentation. And really resp like response to the the number of challenges that place presents. I feel the same way about Sunday. We. We're there a lot and I. It's just such a beautiful place. It's such a great field, but I do feel a sense of dread every time I see it on the calendar that because of the logistics I'd almost rather go to our Vada to play at the edge even though they're night there parking the nightmare. But you know we go by bike. We go by car, and I think every any way you go there's challenges.

[49:13] I think, to to Anna's point, you know we've gone targeted the kind of North West fields, knowing that that's where the game plays. We bike there or park there and then the gates locked, and so there's all sorts of you know, challenges. I think these this thing really addresses some of them. But it's just a difficult place, so I appreciate the thoughtful approach that I have my question. Are a few on like car pooling, so not so much the definition. But we say, incentivizing car pooling like, what does what does that mean like? How does that? How is that enforced? You know I didn't even think about Sunny's point, about adding even more to a family of 4 or 5, you know car pooling. But you know, if, say you. Just you, you do say to BC. United, you need to incentivize your teams to carpool like, I said, what does that look like? And how is that enforced like, are we gonna have a monitor there, making sure that, or parking only for

[50:05] we yes, we might consider having dedicated spaces for car pooling. But the the bang for the buck would be in developing these agreements for events over a certain size where we are actually detailing out what kinds of parking management they need to do when they're on site again. Around those parking attendance, for example, where we we've started laying out sort of what size events are gonna require, what kinds of measures? Right? So we'll formalize that with our vendors, and we started thinking through a process where staff needs to approve their transportation plan for those biggest events. So it would be staffs purview to to consider what they think are are gonna be the peak hours there and make sure that all those measures are are being addressed as need be. But it wouldn't be anything from the car pooling standpoint that we would truly be able to enforce as much as like that they've they've committed to doing it and that it, the incentivizing, could be where, like we started talking the meeting about, you know, a carpooling contest. You know where they give out gift cards, for

[51:11] you know who met players who might do this the most often, you know, or something to that effect. So it would look something like that where it's voluntary we recognize it's not gonna significantly reduce the demand on the site. But every little piece of this matters. And so we that's why we'd be pursuing this. Okay, just on that. I. Someone told me that the trip tracker incentive program that goes to the school system. II you know we fill it out every month. We get our little dollars and use them. Someone said, it's an incredibly effective program and very well used. So that may be worth like, you know, it's tying incentives to that. Ii didn't think so, but someone's actually told me that it's a very well used and an effective program. I guess another question would just be on the the agreements, you know, both of the school and the church. And obviously this is preliminary like, what would that let me is that financial incentives? Is that like, what does that look like with the 2 of them? You know the the friends concept just came up at the meeting, and so we haven't pursued that in any detail with them the conversations with the Church have been

[52:14] in the church has been incredibly generous with the, with the concept of this such that they've highlighted the ways, that they provide their spaces free of charge for community meetings, and so on and so forth, and have not indicated in any way that they would ask for financial compensation for it. So that's where we are at this point in the negotiation. But we obviously wanna respect and you know, honor, the operational needs. They need to maintain and so we'll continue that sure great, that's great. And then just the last point, I think Sunny's comment was outstanding of just like anything we could do to incentivize that field for older players. That seems that that would address half of the problem like, if you take the younger kids out of there now, I mean, for a lot of reasons, we? We haul our stuff, we haul the grandparents, and it's it's a logistical, the bathrooms, the distance. And if we played at a school or a neighborhood Park, you know, as opposed to Pleasant View like that, would

[53:08] you know, I think people, young kids would would have a better experience. And then I think we'd also at the same time address a lot of the traffic and congestion, you know, issues as well. So, anyway, thanks, sonny, that was great. Good. I'm sorry can I ask a question? And II don't have children who play soccer at this field. Why don't we have soccer taking place elsewhere? Why is it all concentrated at this particular complex right? II can chime in and just say that from a staffing perspective, a lot of the groups that we work with struggled to find field monitors and folks to to work for them. And so the more locations that we're offering games, or they're offering games at the more staff that are required. So most of the groups that we work with really want to be in a in one location that's a little bit more isolated that they can handle all their games. So that's why it's not that we haven't tried to encourage them to look at other locations. It's just a convenience thing for them and their staffing models.

[54:10] I'll respond to that, but that they're not doing a very good job of it, even at a pleasant view like it's volunteer coaches, and then high school students, who maybe would rather be in their neighborhood than going to Pleasant View as well when we have somebody. So if you're negotiating with them, I would just point out that that maybe not be a good excuse if if they were religiously providing those services. Great. But they're not as it is. So I don't think it's a reason to stay. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we'll we'll continue to work with the groups that that are using the spaces and and continue to to really collaborate as much as we can. We acknowledge that there's definitely some issues from a staffing perspective. And they're using volunteers. And they're using

[55:02] young students and whatnot. And and I agree with you. It can be definitely a little bit better organized, and I think we could spend some more time with our staff, working with them with the expectations for sure. I just keep coming back to this whole idea of neighborhood schools and maximizing the use of those schools and partnering Bbsd with our Rec programs. Because, you know, I think of like who if I if there was a middle school or high school kid who's going out there to referee. someone has to drive them. They can't ride their bike necessarily that far on their own or whatever. So it's just adding, if we're in the neighborhoods, those kids might be more likely to say yes, cause it's less of a commitment and less intimidating. I don't know. There's many reasons, but I just II every time I drive by our. We have 3 elementary schools in our neighborhood, and the fields are empty. and it kind of breaks my heart that we're driving all around town

[56:02] when our kids could learn to be more independent and bike themselves to activities instead of having to carpool. I just had one more question, about Chuck's comment about the lack of shoulders and putting more cars on to that area. And also putting more bikes, is there gonna be any plan for speed mitigation like putting bumps, speed bumps, or something, because cars do tend to just like shoot down that speedway. Really fast. I appreciate that question. The city. So transportation and mobility is going through your process to look citywide at establishing more consistent criteria for speed limits. So the community can understand sort of how the that gets set and we've just at least II personally, have just started interfacing with them in that program and trying to understand those. Input. So I can't for sure at this point, say one way or another, but I know that they, the division 0 approach, is such that they are looking where they can to improve traffic safety. So thank you for that, too. Well.

[57:14] we'll continue that conversation with them. I remember in my final comment. There was no discussion about charging for parking. and I see that as both a mechanism to discourage car use. but also as a way to raise funds for the programs that are using the space so they could use parking attendance, volunteer parking attendance, charge 2 bucks to enter the parking lot. and I think you would find that that would cut down a lot and improve car pulling sticks. Work as well as carrots, too, aren't often better I can chime in on that only cause. That's a segue to the next conversation. Because I consulted with some of our experts in climate sustainability, as I gathered that presentation and talked about how in all of that work we we coordinate not only with transportation mobility, but with climate initiatives, and II had a long conversation. Chuck has brought up parking charging for parking for

[58:09] probably all of his fi his 5 years, and and what I've said for 5 years is a couple of things is is one just the the culture change of that would have our team be first through the wall in charging for recreational parking. And that's not a place that we're we have have been in a position to do as far as from a change management, perspective. Second, in some of our services it puts us at a competitive disadvantage, because other places aren't aren't charging for parking. But third, if if there was a reason why we could. Both of those things are change management that that you could address. And I talked to folks and climate initiatives if they thought that that was the right approach. The input I got from those folks who are climate scientists similar to chuck, but at different levels was that it. It wasn't where we should be focusing our energy in our efforts that we had much more leverage to impact both climate mitigation and reduction with other efforts. So it's not that it's wrong. It's just when you have a hundred strategies. It wouldn't. It wouldn't reach the top tier of ways that we could be effective.

[59:08] Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. I'm thinking of it, not in terms necessarily from the climate point of view, but in terms of needing to spend money to build more infrastructure. If if you can solve the problem without spending the money, then I think that's a benefit for the for the department and the city. Okay? We're not gonna make. We're not being done by 7 15. Sorry. thanks very much for that presentation. Yeah. Next up we have Park on Violet. That's me again. I also do have our consultant joining online. Her name is Ashley, and as Audio pulls up the presentation, I'll just share that I'll start the presentation and provide the first half, and then Ashley will join in to go over the the latter half of the slides.

[60:06] So just one moment. Hi Ashleigh, when you've joined, will you just do a quick mic check, and I think you have camera privileges as well. If you're interested. Thank you so much. And Ashley, as I'm going along since I have control over the presentation, just say next slide. Thank you. All right. let's do it alright. And I assume you'll make that full screen for us. Yeah, thank you so much. Okay. alright. So this is a different part of the city a different project and has, required a a different strategic approach to both engagement and design and construction. So I wanna take the opportunity if you can go to the next slide just to update you on the engagement that we've done to date and give you a preview of what's to come on that we have been focusing a lot of our efforts. In elevating the voices of the residents living in

[61:09] the boulder meadows manufactured home community as well as those living in Ponderosa, manufactured home community on the west side of Broadway. And then Ashley will come on to share the results of some technical side analysis that our consultant team has been preparing for us in order to inform design. So the the process here has been to start with community values. So this is a piece of land that has been in the city's ownership for the better part of 30 years and the community has come to, you know, enjoy and appreciate it in certain ways, and we wanted to build on that and to build on the the culture of the immediate neighborhood, so that we could divide, design and activate a park that is meaningful to that community and not just a rubber stamp. Approach. and that if you go back. Yeah, thank you. And so those community values and and I'll go over that in a minute. But they were confirmed through a lot of engagement and have been driven the site analysis in such a way to make sure that we are understanding the basic conditions that we're trying to either enhance or improve.

[62:19] We also asked in our first round of engagement a lot of questions around, what do you want to do when you're here at the Park, and wanting to start from that place of like, how how do you want to enjoy it? So that that would drive design. This concept of a year in the life of a park is something that we've also tried to start thinking about in concert with the community, such that we this is a park we want the neighborhood to enjoy all year long. And so when we think about those recreational activities, some of them are unstructured. It's just to go and enjoy the park. And others are formal events or formal programs that either we, as staff or partners, may provide and how do those play out across all the 4 seasons so that we continue to have an activated park?

[63:02] And all of those components are informing the the place making and space activation approach to that. Those are big words. I'll just say briefly that it's basically we're trying to really think about design of this in concert with the way we activate the park, so that as soon as we're cutting the ribbon, the community is there ready to engage and run programs and and play and so where we are now is in early conceptual design. And that's what our next engagement window will be focused on and then we'll move towards schematic design. A more detailed measure drawing for site plan for the Site plan in the summer. So next slide is a lot of text, and our consultants are quickly designing a beautiful infographic to convey all this. But, we just wanted to give you a snapshot of what we've been doing. So we do have. Now, we have 3 paid community connectors. We've just hired that third who's focused on engaging people with disabilities. She's also the city's youngest community connector, which is exciting. So she also brings a youth perspective.

[64:10] We've held 4 workshops with Middle and high School students who are participating in our Ysi program use services initiatives that are based in boulder meadows. Last year we had 2 high schools interns who got out to the North Boulder Rec Center and sat there and talked to well, over 30 people coming in and out. We've reached about 60 community members at block parties that the neighborhoods held both at Ponderosa and for Boulder meadows. Our community connectors have also had direct conversations and gatherings with where Staff wasn't even involved. It was terrific. And that brought in another 20 voices. We held an onsite gathering for young children and their caregivers and around a hundred Member community members attended an event on site in September that was called Whatsapp Boulder which was a fun opportunity for pop up, play and engagement.

[65:14] and then, later in the fall, we had done the analysis to understand what the community was telling us throughout all these engagements, developed an initial set of themes or community values, and then took those back out to the community. To confirm them. To make sure is this, do we hear this correctly? And about 65 of them confirmed? Yes, and then help just prioritize within that excellent. So I just wanna scroll through these slides quickly, just to give you some pictures, cause it's nice to see the people that we're talking about. And this again involves. These are the Ysi workshops. One of the highest highlights of my position right now is getting to work with these kids. And they. Really, this group is becoming almost a de facto advisory group youth, advisory group, because they live there. They love it. They continue to be involved and want to be going forward

[66:10] next slide. just some again, pictures of our interns at the Rec. Center, the early childhood gathering the block parties next slide we held before Whatsapp Boulder. We had a little volunteer event, and invited people to come and paint the things that would be out there for them to enjoy at the Whatsapp Boulder event. So you can see on the left, for example, they're painting the chalkboards that we then invited people to write their ideas on. and I mentioned the pop up nature play installation. So these were in large part materials that came from our forestry yard. That gorgeous cottonwood there with the curly queues that came from our yard, and it was just too beautiful to waste, so we just brought it out on site and invited them play, go back one. This is. These are pictures from the big event. That is wilder go a great outdoors. Colorado's spokes, creature, as they call it.

[67:07] and some other shots of just the community building that happened that day next slide. And then here's a picture of one of the chalkboards, for example. So we had these translated into both Spanish and Nepalese, and hung on the fences out at the site for about 3 weeks. What was ironic is this is the picture. From the day of Whatsapp Boulder, at the very end of that event it poured and washed all this off. but that was the design that was intended to do that. And so the community then kept coming back and adding to it. And so we have a series of pictures of these as they evolve over time and through all that that helped us understand these major themes or community values. And so that's what you're looking at here, as well as those top 3 that emerged as the most important to the community. When we went back out in the fall to confirm oop, go back. One more. What's just important to to point out here is the degree to which the community absolutely loves the natural components of this

[68:11] and really want to both see that preserved and enhanced, and the the opportunities to enjoy that they want those to continue and be enhanced. There was also a lot of discussion, and continues to be about how the Park can and should be a place to gather safely, to feel like they belong there, and also to bring into that conversations and opportunities around food systems and arts and culture of their respective home countries. Next slide these? As we were asking questions about what recreation activities they wanna do there. This is A a summary of how that shook out. Ally has heard me say this, but II put the chart in this order on purpose, because even though winter activities got just a few votes. We were doing this engagement in the heat of summer, and everybody was most focused on water play at the time. But we also know that kids wanna get out there and sled and play in the winter, too. So didn't wanna lose that opportunity to point that out. And but you can see also up there that there is interest in the sort of just the chance to hang out with family and friends

[69:24] right? And to this idea of intergenerational fitness and wellness came up. You know where some of our youngest in community members were saying. I want a place where my mom or my grandma can work out while I play, and I wanna all be together at the same time. So it's really lovely to see this. So just a preview of what's to come. So, as I mentioned, we are using all of this input to develop a set of 3 conceptual options. And that will be the focus of our next engagement when engagement window the. We've also begun conversations with our Ysi group around what the name of the part could be. So we did generate or or collect a lot of ideas from the first engagement window. They've helped us continue to refine and consider that, and interview their family members and to get even more ideas that will bring those concepts into the next engagement window for the general public to weigh in on those ideas.

[70:24] We're also, as I mentioned, onboarding our newest community connector focused on accessibility. On March fourteenth, we are also facilitating a focus group to talk about, because wellness and mental health was a theme that emerged from the community engagement. We're hosting a a small conversation with some mental health practitioners to talk about how, how the part can be part of the solution in terms of mental health, and how even if it's just contemplative, contemplative spaces, quiet spaces, or whether it's inviting partners to come in and provide programming around this. How can we be part of that mental health conversation?

[71:04] And then we're holding a neighborhood meeting on Saturday, March sixteenth, and I would absolutely welcome and invite all of you to enjoy and to join if you'd like to. That'll be at Crestview elementary from 12 to 2 will be in the cafeteria and we'll certainly make sure it's on the details are are provided in your next packet. And we are partners at growing up. Boulder will also be hosting. A few more on-site engagements with the our youngest children to continue to get their voices in the in the mix as we move the the potential designs forward. I also wanted to point out. You may have seen the good news that we received a technical assistance, grant from the safe routes to parks partnership. and that brings true technical assistance. They're bringing so much value to our community. I I'm so grateful for that, and then it also will bring $10,000 for early action. That we hope to take, maybe as soon as this summer, if not early fall, where we can think about some easy ways to improve the transportation, safety and access to and from the park. So that we're thinking of this holistically and not just the park itself.

[72:16] So we're gonna host a a community walk and roll audit with their help in late April, in partnership with press view. So press view, and Bbsd have been a strong partner in these conversations. and then we'll move all that into schematic design, as I mentioned, for the summer, and continue to work with more interns this summer. I mentioned the state, the early action. We're also partnering with the North Bolt Branch library and stay, we're staying tuned for when they announce the the date for their grand opening, because, We would love to partner on that as another engagement opportunity. And then we will bring the final recommendation for the name to you in July. We will bring the preliminary recommendation to you in May. And then ask you to vote on that in July. So

[73:06] that's the preview of where we are. The last slide I just wanted to briefly flash in front of you is just a list of all the partnerships that we've been developing through this part process. We've got staff, as Ally mentioned from climate initiatives involved. As well as a number of other departments nonprofits and community members around around the city. So just, real, real, strong thanks for for all the work from those partners. And with that, Ashley, I will turn it over to you to share some highlights from the site analysis before we wrap this up. Thank you so much, Sarah, and thank you all for having me this evening. You can go to the next slide. I just want to start off by saying, Sasaki is extremely honored to be working with you all on such an amazing project. Your first neighborhood park in a little bit, with the staff with you all, and with the community. As Darren mentioned, I'm just gonna quickly run through our site analysis. And that's really informing the concept designs that we're currently developing that will be sharing

[74:03] with you and the community at our March engagement window in the coming weeks. So, starting off with visa, this is really what you see when you're driving along violet app. Looking into the park, you see kind of this open meadow area that really provides safe sight lines into the 9 acres of the Park. However, you don't have a buffer into into the backyards of folks in Atlanta Boulder Meadows Community. So really, looking at that as we go into design, if you go to the next slide. This this view shed analysis really characterize the 2 landscape typologies of the site, open grassland, and riparian forest, which is an incredibly diverse for a 9 acre site along a creek. There are 29 species observed on the site. Most of them were non native species, and you know we have. So this grassland species. And then this tree line species going along 4 Mile Canyon Creek. So really, you know, kind of trying to diversify the species and height of the species. As we go into design. When you go to the next slide

[75:12] you can see the trees on the riparian corridor. The majority of them are cottonwoods which are really weak, wooded, weak limb trees which isn't incredibly ideal for a park setting. A lot of those trees aren't in great health. So when we go into design, we'll be looking at monitoring and identifying which trees are in the best health to preserve them and make sure we have that sufficient canopy for the park, moving forward because going into the next slide. looking at climate adaptability, we know that we need to select plants that are going to be adaptable to climate predictions. In the future our plant hardiness zone will change. It will be getting warmer. So, making sure any plants that we install and have on site are adaptable to that. And if you go to the next slide.

[76:00] we also know we're going to be experiencing heavier rain in a short amount of time which is extremely critical to this this site, because the next slide we know Boulder experiences the highest flash flooding in Colorado. And this this watershed. You definitely experience that with the 400 foot drop on 4 Mile Canyon Creek in the watershed, and we've definitely experienced that on the site in 2,013, as we know, there was a big flood in this watershed on Violet Park. If you go to the next slide you can see by the number of restrictions that we have on the site. The majority of the site is in the high hazard zone. Again, like we saw in 2,013 the amount of flooding the amount of sediment that landed on the site. So there are a lot of restrictions on to what we can and can't do in development of this project. There is a center portion that 2 acre center chunk that isn't lined by that red hatch that we will have the opportunity to have a lot of robust programming that meets those activity.

[77:01] Those activities subcommittee would like to see and their values go to the next slide. What's super interesting about this project in this park is it is a neighborhood park, like, we said, which in your definition. The city of Boulder is a 15 min walk shed to the community. That park is a 15 min walk shed to the community. So you can see these concentric rings. Those are isochrome. So an actual, you know. Walk not bird walking through the site. so we can see actually both our meadows does not have a clear access, clear access to the parks parks around them, even though they have several in the periphery of of their neighborhood. If you zoom in and go to the next slide. we can actually see that this is from physical barriers. A boundary from Boulder Meadows to the park site. There's a fence that runs along that property line that really prevents folks from accessing that park site, and it's crazy to think that a site directly adjacent from their backyard that you can see their backyard. Takes that long to get to if you go to the next slide, and zooming in a little bit more to this. You can see.

[78:08] See why there's no physical connections into violet parks. There's no sidewalks. There's no bike lanes. There's no connection to Crestview elementary. There is a cow path trail that runs along the creek that's really beautiful that will be utilizing. But again, no infrastructure that goes into the park, connecting it to the Boulder Meadows community and the last slide. So we'll be taking all of these things that we found in the analysis, which are a lot. This is our opportunities, administrates, diagram. We have a lot of things that we're contending with is a very complicated site. But we're really excited to dive into this, and you can go to the next slide. See the other side of the the park? We're really excited to deliver. A really robust programming strategy to the community to really deliver on what their needs are, and make sure that this park is theirs.

[79:00] Thank you so much. Thank you. Ashley. You can close out this this. Yeah, thank you. I welcome any questions or comments at this point for either myself or Ashley. Thank you. It's it's exciting to see this coming together. I don't. I don't really have any questions, but it's it's great to see. that is the owner of the boulder meadows. community cooperative with improving access to the park. we are in the process of engaging more formally with them. About this in the next few weeks. As we've engaged informally, there have been opportunities to even identify where our site boundary is. So, for example, on the east side of the park.

[80:03] Our property actually extends further than they realized, and they've been maintaining the turf on our behalf there. Right? So there've been opportunities along the way to kind of engage with them informally, which have been absolutely congenial. And then we'll we'll work more directly in the next few weeks to to just be more discrete about the opportunities and needs to collaborate moving forward. And is transportation mobility, discussing improvements to Violet Park and specifically the bridge over on Violet over Canyon Creek. I've understood it to be the second worst performing bridge. Which makes me II feel a little competitive like. Why can't we be the worst performing bridge? But we're really close. So yes, it's in their plans as part of this project. Sasaki will help us come up with some conceptual designs for that, so that it will tie into the park project

[81:15] and then we'll also be in the next 6 months, working out some phasing opportunities for funding and grant applications and so on with with transportation and mobility. Okay, II see 2 logical points of access between the Mobile Home Park and and the and the part on Violet in the ones in the southwest corner. where there's currently some construction parking that seems poorly used, and the other is the Apple Tree Court. The little cul de sac that points off in the south, east. southeast corner. So anything you can do by Hooker, by crook. To get them to agree to provide access at those points would be great for the members of that community. Thank you, Jack.

[82:01] I don't really have any questions. But the last slide we flipped through really quickly, and it was interesting just to see what the elements were that you were considering, or or had weed it out. Love to see that slide again. Oh, sure. And it. What it is is that it's actually just an excerpt from our design standards manual. So it it's there, you know. If if you have any questions as we move through this. We recognize that that our, our. We're so thrilled first of all to have a design standards manual. I just. That's not always the case. We're departments and a lot of great work getting us to this point, and we know that there are opportunities to improve that, as we think through some of the equity components. And so we may need to explore some variations or some exceptions to to those standards as we move into this and you know those those could involve the types of facilities that we wouldn't normally put in a neighborhood park. But we might consider in this case.

[83:09] I don't really have any questions, either. I just you know, it was. This was a really great presentation. I feel like I learned so much to this. And just kind of talk to hearing you talk about this process and the engagement and all the creative ways. It just seems like this is exactly like what you hope for from your local government. And so I just appreciate that, you know, just kind of it's like local government. It's best. So thank you for for that work. Yeah, just a real like pleasure to watch that and hear the peer. The the process to this point. So thanks. Gosh, thank you. Okay, no further comments we'll move on to the climate initiatives discussion. Thank you so much. So I'm gonna present this item, cause it's a summary of work happening across the department. And this is on. This is a verbal presentation. It's on request from a board member. So we're just it's kind of in the way of your study session topics where we're. Gonna I'm gonna share a whole bunch of information. And I'll probably try and go

[84:12] at a medium to high speed. But you can tell me where you want to slow down and ask questions throughout. So the first thing to start with is just that all the work that we do in the department it's guided by on the right there. That's the city sustainability, equity, resilience, framework. And we talked about that at your retreat in February there was a link to it in the consent. Agenda. All of the work we do in the department is guided by the 2022 parks and recreation pl plan. When it comes to climate work. It's also guided by a couple of other documents. There is the city's climate Action plan, and then there is a resilience strategy. And so the way I framed this update tonight really is in the framework of those of those guiding plans to there's lots of things that people can be doing to address both

[85:04] climate change and prepare for climate change through mitigation strategies. I'm talking about the things where we all of the city have agreed. That's that's where the most leverages. So this slide actually actually just covered. This, the climate risks like, why are we talking about it? We know as the temperature warms, it's gonna have impacts on impacts on our community and on our ecosystem extreme heat drought, extreme weather conditions. They all will have impacts on both our plants, in our wildlife and on and on our community. And so again, our efforts are both about, what can we do to reduce climate change. And what can we do to mitigate against these impacts that are already happening? And so I frame them around 3 key themes from our master plan. Our department plan. Sorry. So for community health and wellbeing. Just a quick summary of what we have done in our 3 recreation centers. And this is now about a decade old. We spent a significant amount of money Se. City wide to do a program called Energy performance contracting through the Governor's energy office.

[86:09] And it's where you contract against your utility bills by implementing facility, improvement measures that save on your energy costs. So I always explain this with big rep big big round numbers. If, before the energy performance contract, you paid $100 a month for your utility bill. and then you implemented facility improvement measures that reduce that cost such as more efficient H back equipment, daylighting controls. After the contract you're still paying $100 a month, 30 of it to pay off that. That new equipment, and 70 is your reduced utility bill. So that's something the city's done citywide. The key takeaway for you all is. If there's low hanging fruit on facility efficiency, the city has done it. Our recreation centers have daylighting controls meaning when there's enough daylight in a space the lights turn off. This is true in our gymnasiums and our pools. The gymnastic center at the north boulder Rec. Center. We have occupancy controls on the H back equipment. So if a room does not have people in it, it, it it slows down the cooling and the heating

[87:09] we have really efficient equipment on our pools. We have even though pools are an incredible energy hog. We have what are called variable frequency drives. So there is a sensor that manages measures the turbidity of the pool, and if it's clean enough and the water quality is where it should be, the pool mode or slowdown, and it stops churning the water at the turnover that is normally necessary. we have photovoltaic and solar thermal at our recreation centers, and Jonathan gave me some of the the recent data that solar thermal that is functioning east and south will save the city $15,000 a year. Reduce carbon emissions by more than a hundred 25 tons. Unfortunately, the solar thermal system system at the North Boulder Recreation Center is not functioning. But when it was installed. It was one of the city's largest solar power systems.

[88:00] We're also, I think we've talked to you before about the vehicle to building pilot that we have in place at the North Boulder Recreation Center, sunny and Bernie, have you 2 heard about that? So we have an Ev vehicle at the North Boulder Recreation Center that when it's not in use it's actually sending charge back to the facility. It resulted in. A charge that reduced energy consumption by about 3% which doesn't amount to a lot when you look at the building. But when you look at how that could scale. It's a pilot that's been recognized across the country. And it's it's a super cool experiment. And that's all. Really in partnership with climate initiatives. So that's what we've done. Can I say a follow question about that? That's literally just like one car. And we're using that cars battery to store energy and then send it back into the building overnight. One car. It's impressive. It's super cool. Yeah. And so the question is, you know, we know that 2 way charging can reduce energy, question questions, and you can explore more scenarios. What if the entire city fleet looked like that? So what if you set it up for residential and office buildings like there's there's really a lot of opportunity to scale.

[89:10] So so that's what we've done. Here's what's ahead. I mentioned earlier. We've taken care of the low hanging fruit. It's gonna take major renovation and significant renovation to to get to the next level with the recreation centers. In some ways it's gonna also take incredible innovation. There does not yet exist a pool boiler that can heat and treat 200,000 gallons of water with renewable resources. It is all through natural gas. And so Jonathan and I are becoming best friends. We wrote a song together on Chat Gp today about parks and climate. I'm gonna share it with you. Cla, chuck, cause it's amazing. But just you know ideas. How could we work with university and maybe have a design challenge with some electrical engineers or others. To what does it look like to create this equipment? you all know that there's a major renovation funded at the East Boulder Community Center, and in a big outcome of that project is an energy retro fit. One of the biggest ways that buildings become more efficient is by improving the envelope or the outer core of it.

[90:10] so that whatever is happening inside stays inside, whether you're heating or cooling, and that again, with the heating of our community, recreation centers often become cooling centers, for not everybody has air conditioning, and so community spaces more and more becoming wellness hubs in that way. I'll share part of the reason Jonathan and I were chatting today is cause I took this language, and I put it into Chat Gpt cause this is not plain. Speak basically, what it means is we're gonna try and use less carbon in the opera. The construction and operations of our recreation centers. But with the pleasant view of conversation, you all touched on something really important. It's also about the programming of the facilities. And so the future of the Rec Center's project. We will very much be looking at what should be close to home opportunities that people can just walk or bike to with their neighborhood recreation center. And what are regional amenities that are you're just gonna have one of in the community. And gymnastics is a great example. We're not going to have 3 10,000 square foot gymnastics Center. There will be one so we look forward to that conversation.

[91:08] I'm gonna shift to taking care of what we have. And I just wanna note that there's there's some policy language up here because really it's infused in everything we do in the way we maintain the land. It's this this ecosystem approach. You heard it, and Darren's presentations tonight, for both of them are looking at. How do we increase stormwater detention at at Pleasant View? We're looking at the ecosystems and again, stormwater detention at Violet. So this is I mean I, if I were to list everything we do in this realm, we would be here all night. So I just wanted to show you these 2 policies that that are really embedded in everything we do that it's it's about the design, the operations. so that we're always working to reduce emissions. but I do have some highlights for you of what we have done, Aubrey. If you want to go to the next.

[92:00] If you wanna go to the next slide. So here's here's something we have done. So I actually took this picture today. Cause I was like, this is perfect because we had a meeting tonight. I snuck out at lunch and I got a hike so that I could stay awake past my bedtime. And the lower right hand of that picture is Wonderland Park, and you see trench lines across it, cause we just replace the irrigation there anytime. We take care of something in our system, we build it better so. One just in replacing it. Certainly, that in infrastructure had aged and had water loss. But the water, wise control. So we all, I think the current numbers close to 90% of our parks have water wise controls. So really being thoughtful about water consumption. Last spring, when it was especially rainy. We we saw that in the data that we were able to to not use water in irrigating our systems, small equipment throughout our system. 75% of it is electric where it is not is likely, because equipment just hasn't gotten there yet. There's some snow removal equipment where the gas powered still is, is the only way we can achieve the job. There's some work on the Mall that can only be achieved at this point with gas powered equipment. But we have an incredible partnership with Toro with steel and a couple of other manufacturers that when they have new equipment we're often the first to test it, cause they know that we're we're an eager partner.

[93:17] We have robotic equipment. We have our robotic. So you all were talking about your headaches with Pleasant view. Our headache, with Pleasant view is painting it. It can take 2 folks 2 days and we have a robot that does it at about and half the time. And it's electric. So it's pretty cool. Just this last fall. A gal you met tonight named Darren Wagner worked with some connections, and we brought in a program from the Csu agricultural extension. We train 15 of our employees from across the department on sustainable landscape maintenance practices. So in addition to learning about pollinators and other reasons why they they learned, you know, details about being thoughtful about something something is simple as where you dump snow when you're doing snow removal can impact how different different wildlife and animals are. W are wintering. And so it was an incredible thing, and I'm very grateful to Darren for organizing that, and we know it'll continue. We also, Jonathan highlighted, and II always forget about this one cause. It's it's such a part of the way we work, but we use very little pesticides on our athletic turf. We use no pesticides

[94:24] and where we do use pesticides, it's because the value has been deemed worthy of it. Tree care is an area where we have some approved pesticides, the the value that trees provide I'm gonna talk about in a minute, but it is. It has outweighed the impact of using the pesticides. But just some talking points. Pesticides can impact human health. They can contaminate waterways, hurt and damage ecosystems. And so we've managed our turf grass without pesticides since 2,002. And so that means when you see the beautiful turf at Pleasant View. That does not. That is, that is all turf. It doesn't have Dan lines and other that that happens mechanically and through really good cultural practices, where they they really cultivate healthy turf, so that there's no room for the weeds. In the spring, when you see dandelions all over our parks, you can celebrate them. It's because we are not using any pesticides.

[95:14] So almost all pesticides are banned on city prop property, including the neonic nose and glyphosate that are seem to be so incredibly negative and value to pollinators and other insects. So what's next for taking care of what we have? I'm really excited. I, our parks maintenance manager, is working with some folks in climate initiatives, and we're going to be piloting some low and no Mo areas and low water turf over the next couple of years. We're hoping to turn those into some design standards where we have more low Mo, no areas. And in active areas in our parks, our current research is showing that there's not a turf mix that stands up to active use. You're hearing a lot right now about different turf in this Colorado you heard earlier. Native prairie is a lot of our natural ecosystem. Unfortunately, native prairie doesn't stand up to 1,300 kids playing soccer. So we're not. We're not there yet, but we're gonna keep piloting it.

[96:11] And one thing just as a reminder at Violet we are also gonna be piling into sites. Rating, which is, if you've heard of lead certifications for buildings that's about around Yup. So sites is similar. We're not gonna actually go for the accreditation cause it comes with cost. And we're not really. We're not really interested in checking the box. It's more about the learnings from this initiative. And I'll also note that the the field of landscape Architect ter Architecture. The Membership Association is the American Society for Landscape Architects, or Asla, their discipline, and what they're doing for their commitment to climate action. Ii think it's actually leading of all the disciplines that I'm involved, and I'm very impressed with their commitment to climate resilience. They have a written commitment to way the way. That they think the industry should responding. They are doing Grant making right now for a lot of the construction companies to reduce the embodied carbon that they're using in the materials for park design. It's it's impressive. But lastly, we're hoping to learn from all of that to update our design standards. Darren mentioned those a bit ago. How could we include type, not typologies in our in our passive areas of our park that make it part of the design standard. That that's a low monomo area. When we lower water turf.

[97:27] I can pause there for questions, or I can shift to trees ready for trees. Okay? So trees are incredibly important in keeping boulders. Neighborhood cools their canopy, which is the layer of leaves and branches that form the tree tops provide shade and cover, they absorb heat as they release moisture from their leaves, keeping water in our landscape, and people cool on hot days. This picture here is the heat mapping that the city did last year. This was through our climate initiatives department. There were a bunch of people who drove around with vehicles that were capturing

[98:05] the measuring the air temperature. And this air, this mirror area map is an overlay of the temperature and the tree canopy. And it just shows that areas that had heavier tree canopy actually had lower temperature and evidencing just those cooling benefits. Those cooling benefits. So that's pretty exciting. As it relates to the urban canopy, we are implementing the urban forest strategic plan steadily trying to really achieve a goal of maintaining 16% canopy cover over our community. So that's a metric that cities use. Ours was 16 and 2013. I suspect we're about to update our tree inventory, and and I suspect we've dropped slightly because of the the losses that we experience during the pandemic and due to emerald ash bore. And so I expect that we'll be doubling down over the next couple of years so that we can achieve that target. We're working on tree planting design standards. You heard a little bit again. Violet was such a great one of the things we know. For example, the trees recommended in the oldsted plan 100 years ago. Assumed that boulder had an ample supply of water. It does not, and the trees that we plant. We really need to be thoughtful about

[99:15] play. Our incredible philanthropic, nonprofit partner, of which Chuck is a board member. Is an incredible sponsor for the Tree Trust. This is where they take community members and teach them to be tree tenders one of the biggest risks to a newly planted tree is just lack of care in the fuse for years before it's established, and so, having folks who know what to do to help keep it watered and thriving. Those first few years are really important. The Tree Trust also serves as a funding mechanism, helping us with tree giveaways to the community and with additional tree plantings. And then finally, just cool boulder. Is the whole campaign that's engineered out of the climate initiatives department. It's all nature based solutions, and we partner with them heavily.

[100:03] that you've heard that throughout this. So I think that maybe that bullet is duplicative. So that's what we've done when it comes to the urban canopy. Here's what's next, and this is just on the next slide. Some of the mapping has allowed us to see where the urban canopy is different, based on sub community and boulder. And so we really wanna set some urban canopy goals by sub community again, when you layer in equity, there are parts of our community where the tree canopy is lighter than others as a result of either just lack of planting. Lack of care or not good, not good surfaces. So that's something that we're looking at. We're really working to restore and then grow our tree planting and care. We're not quite yet back at 2,019 levels. But we're hoping to get there. And then I mentioned a minute ago that we're updating our tree inventory this next year. I feel like I should ask Darren to come up and present this next slide. You're done. You're done for the night. This slide I get to celebrate the incredible work that our planning department is doing. And you you heard it again in her presentations earlier tonight. They are. They're not only committed to being great landscape architects, but they love and in fact, Mark is actually shifting the way we talk about this. We keep talking about the things that should be in parks.

[101:16] and Mark keeps asking, why aren't we talking about the people in parks and what they're doing in the activities. And so when Darren talks about shifts in our design standards, it's gonna be about activities. And we're looking forward to that. But we are a cohort city for the National League of Cities and the Children and Nature Network. They have a program called Cities connecting Children to Nature. If you Google it, some of the first things you find will be stories written by our teammates. on just the work that they are doing. And I've highlighted some of it here. They've led equity mapping so that we can see where in our community do you have access to nature, or where there perhaps gaps to green or blue spaces. Mark and Darren are doing this incredible work around eco healing and thinking about how kids, too, are experiencing the trauma of climate change and talking with kids about their feelings, and how their feelings are impacted positively when they connect with nature. That the bottom of that graphic there on the right is just that feelings wheel. And it's a way we how we we talk to, not just kids, but also adults about really understanding what's happening when when you're in a place

[102:22] and they both have presented both locally and then naturally, on just nationally on early childhood access to nature. So If II guess maybe I should be really explicit that we've got some incredible folks on our planning team, and I'm really grateful with the work ahead. So here's what's next. You all have heard us talk about the Child City Friendly's initiative. That we are working on with growing up boulder. That is a program@aunicefusa. The resulting. The result of that will be a youth plan for Boulder, and I'm very excited for how it should unify and understand what the services we're providing for. Kids are across our community and how we could do it better. I expect us to talk about things like what should be close to home activities for kids.

[103:07] So they've also helped spearhead the boulder youth, nature in nature initiative, which is a partnership with open space and mountain parts and other folks across the community, including the thorn natured center. We're gonna take that work and inform. 6 play area projects over the next 4 years, 3 years, one year, one year, one year it'll be done tomorrow. 6 years over the next 6 years with every playground renovation. Well, you'll really see us leaning into this nature play. You saw some pictures with Violet. and then they're also working with you heard, Darren Highlight, how they're working with you services initiative. So in our department already, we have folks who who their role is to serve kids. And so with the incredible knowledge that they have around access to nature and ego healing, they're they're imbuing those that knowledge onto our staff so that we can just make our programming richer.

[104:05] Okay, how do we measure it? So currently, just wanted to let you know the things that we measure? I mentioned the carbon footprint for the Rec centers. We measure our fleet and equipment electrification. We measure the urban canopy coverage things we could consider. So we're always looking at updating our key performance indicators to make sure they're relevant is the citywide strategic plan includes a goal to increase community. Within a 15 min walk. And so our 15 min neighborhoods. And so that's something that we can really lean in on. And right now, I know we're close to 90% when we add schoolyards into that mix. But it'd be R. It'd be really helpful for us to understand where our gaps are water, consumption and parks we measure, but we don't less necessarily let it drive any strategies right now. So we could tie that to that park typologies work that I mentioned. And then finally, just electrification of facilities. That's really the biggest opportunity we have. If we can wean ourselves off of natural gas and our recreation centers. That would be an incredible achievement.

[105:07] That's the end of my presentation. Think that was very impressive. When we start and comments with Sunny, and then work our way back this way. I don't have a lot to say other than I'm really glad that you're looking at neighborhoods. activities and just making that work more accessible and convenient and just realistic for people to enjoy what's what's right there rather than drive all around looking for something. So thank you. And that was a great presentation. And you're doing a lot of really exciting work. I'm gonna push back a little bit on what you said earlier about parking.

[106:01] And when, if you look at it as an individual item, it does not contribute much to our to our greenhouse gas emissions. What it does, though, is. It's it's a cultural shift that we need to have right, and by providing free parking and ample free parking. you're encouraging people to drive. whereas by providing less parking or paid parking. You're discouraging it. and over time. The net result of that is that people learn not to drive nearly as much, not just to parks, but to other things that they do in their lives. And I remember a a short film I saw on Youtube a couple of years ago. It was someone from New York interviewing people in the Netherlands about this lady was was biking to the grocery store. He said. why are you biking in the grocery store, she said. Are you crazy? There'd be no place to park if I drove, and and it would take longer to get there it'd be more. It'd be less convenient. I have to pay for parking. No one's going to drive to the grocery store.

[107:03] and you have something similar. Someone going to a park with their kids in a one of these cargo bikes, you know, it looks like a wheelbarrow with the kids in front. And they said the same thing. They said, why would I drive like? It's it'd be less convenient. And and there'd be no place to part. So you know people people do what's logical and what's what's made logical for them. And so that's that's sort of the change I want to see in our parks and recreation facilities and other city facilities. I'll go on. The record is saying that I also like paid parking. I think it's a an important tool for urban planning and transportation planning and while I understand that there's a certain reluctance from the department ally. I hope it's something we'll continue to talk about. Because because of all the reasons Chuck just mentioned. And I'll say that the greatest sentence that I have with this broken patella of mine is that I had to drive my car here tonight. It's just terrible.

[108:02] It wasn't that bad? Thank you for the presentation. It was. It was informative. I don't have a lot of any questions about what you discuss. Well, I have one question actually. it's great that you have so much electrically powered equipment, servicing the the the parks. That's that's great to hear. I'd love to hear a little bit just a little bit about the limitations of that like what what kinds of equipment can't be electrified? And what happens when we have outages that happen once in a while? The there's 3 types of equipment for which there's the biggest limitations right now. One is chainsaws. electric chainsaws just aren't doing it on. And for a lot of the forestry work. So that's that's probably where most of our non-electric equipment is. The blowers on the Pearl Street Mall. The amount of of work that it takes to keep that mall in the condition that is expected. Given the high vis visibility, the economic impact of that area, the the electric blowers just aren't strong enough. Most of the areas in the system. This the hardscape. It's not as important that it look the way Pearl Street looks

[109:10] and the electric floors work. Just fine. I said. 3. What was the third one that I thought of? I might have to get back to you? What lawn mowers. snow blowers. We don't use those in very many places, though there's lawn mowers. There is a well, so I was talking about small equipment when I was citing those statistics, lawn mowers. Most of our lawn mowers are gas powered. We continue to pilot Ev, and even higher ev electric and hybrid models. Most lawn mowers that are have a 6 foot deck or bigger are not quite there yet with the capacity of a an electric mower. Again, we have a great partnership with Toro, and when they develop them they they have us try them. Golf just bought their first one last year. So they have created some groundskeeping equipment for golf courses, and we have one out there but General Park equipment, and I actually spoke to the Toro rep

[110:06] in December, and they just that they're not having a significant demand for it to work on the the the development of the equipment. But could you answer the second part of the question. So if there's I mean an electric outage in Boulder, that's not been a long term issue. And if if there's a long term electric outage. We have bigger problems than not being able to string trim or okay, that's great. Here, thanks. I will. I will give an example. Sorry, I just wanna give an example. So we do. Are you all familiar with ready to work? It's a program through Bridge House. It's where they take folks and put them in full wraparound folks experiencing homelessness. They're in full wraparound services. We contract for 3 different crews in parks and recreation. One of them they do string trimming, and so they have 4 string trimmers and 12 batteries to get through a day of work and see. It's just we just buy more batteries, and then they all charge up overnight. But it does. I mean it takes coordination and thoughtfulness.

[111:15] A great presentation. Thanks for thank you for all that. I don't wanna turn this into discussion on parking. But II saw something where it was basically like Amsterdam hasn't always been Amsterdam, and their pictures of you know what it looked like in the Eightys and seventies, full of cars. And so it was. you know, very thoughtful, mindful approaches to policy, including you know how they, how they view parking and how they kind of incentivize biking. So I'm on on wanna be aligned with those comments as well, I know it's I know there the challenges you raised Ally about being kind of first out of the gate with that, and and you know competitive disadvantage. But I do think. generally in this country, and even in a bike, friendly city like Boulder, you know, parking is just too easy, and it does. We incentivize driving because it is so easy and free. So, anyway, my my thoughts on that I had a question on that. You said you said something about pools and how there's not currently a system to heat pools electrically.

[112:08] How does I don't think it's the same thing. But the stuff that the updates happen in East Boulder Rec Center. How is that related? And is there any component of that that is heating pool that that there was some electrification there. So at both east and south there is what's called solar thermal, and that's where it's a g word. What's the stuff that Sir Glycol? Well for East, do you? Wanna do you wanna come, take that mark, Davis, and just rose his hand to answer that question for you. What? But what I heard you is what we have now, and that's solar thermal, and that's just where water is preheated before it goes through the vault. Boilers preheated through a heat transfer of glycol that gets heated, and then it gets transferred through some engineering magic. And so basically makeup water hits our pipes at 56 degrees. After going through solar thermal, maybe it's 80 degrees, and then the boilers only need to heat it for another 10. That's what exists now, for East Mark is gonna share more.

[113:07] This keeps Kristen Seeley's our architect, and facilities. Looking into this. But one thing exciting about East, we're going to explore is the idea of geothermal. especially as we're looking to redevelop that parking lot and the potential for that. And that's something we haven't done before which will be really interesting. Explore cause that is free ultimately offer the maintenance of it quite long day to day. Apologies. Geothermal was very simple system in the sense that you've still got like an electric heater. Let's just say what you can do is tap in with a bypass because you're running pipes underground with water, where it brings up the temperature underground, and then brings it back to the heater so that can boost up the heat level. It doesn't take care of all of it more like a supplement to the system. and the efficiency and capacity of that is what we'll have to explain. The other word I've heard mentioned is a wastewater heat transfer. So there's pretty major wastewater heat pipes. Not wastewater heat wastewater pipes underneath the East boulder community center that have some heat to them. And there's there's a way you can transfer that heat to heat the pool.

[114:14] So all kinds of engineering magic to be explored. Did that get okay? I just wanna add one more comment that I loved the shift in focus to the people and how the people want to use their space. And I just it brings me back to our little Shanahan Ridge Neighborhood Park. where you know, we. the people, want to gather. and there's no there's no tables. There's nowhere to sit, and there's very little shade. and as a result we don't gather there. and we don't have yards to gather in, so it really does cut down on the idea of being a community and being able to come together

[115:01] in a space and make use of of what could be a really wonderful park that just needs a couple tables. So just gonna say that again, probably every week, every time I see you just need a little little more over there in Shannon Ridge, but I also want to go on the record, saying, I do not like paid parking in this situation. My husband's Dutch. I've lived in Amsterdam. I love that. You can bike everywhere. It's flat, and you don't have to bike as far there because there are neighborhoods that have the things that you need within a smaller radius. And again, if we can start working on having things in a smaller radius, then maybe we will bike more often, but I will also say that there. you know, there could be II live right up from Fairview, and the amount of of able-bodied single people who are driving to school drives me nuts, and I feel like there could be a little bit more effort to encourage certain able-bodied populations in boulder

[116:02] to bike more like there are just phases in life where biking is not going to be possibility for everybody and people with young kids or older people. It's just, it's just not okay to expect everybody to be able to do that. They just have limitations. So I do not encourage the paid parking. I think the problems with people driving a fair view is a substantial problem that perhaps a colleague on the School Board will be able to help us with in the future. Okay, any further discussion on this topic. Great. We didn't meet your 7 15 hope deadline. Sorry, Ali. It wasn't my hope I was just supportive of next up we have matters from Borden. The first item is the May meeting date which is something for you to discuss, cause I won't be around here.

[117:10] There's 3 of you. So if you want, we can table this to the March meeting or we can send out a poll, or we can wait till the second week of April to poll the full board. or we could just reschedule it. Jason, you don't matter, either. No kidding. Yeah, we'll send out a poll. Yep, we'll do that. Can. I also note, Rosa noted here that the council chambers for both dates, but I wanted to capture a conversation I think I heard after your retreat, where you enjoyed being at the Brenton Building. If you all would prefer to be in one of those less formal settings. We can certainly explore that Brenton could work great. I know other boards meet there. My one concern would be what it's. It's not very often, but every now and then we have a meeting where there's a lot of public interest. And so in that case we could just maybe open those doors, or

[118:13] that that would be my one concern with moving. It's it's rare we, but so something for you all, maybe to consider or discuss. You can probably anticipate which meetings are going to have high demand, for example, of prairie dogs come up. so it might be reasonable to meet there for most meetings, and then, if there's something on the agenda that we think is going to be hot button, and we can schedule for back here. I also don't know about the convenience of that location for people. If it's more or less convenient than coming here. just work space a mile closer to our offices. So I mean, most folks closer to your house, closer to my house. Yeah, exactly. It does often feel silly to be sitting on this day. As to this empty room, yeah.

[119:07] Oh, there will be people participating in the future. 3 people, yeah. or 5. And sometimes there's 20 if you talk about prairie dogs. So okay, next up we have the letter to counsel for the retreat. The Council's retreat, and so at our retreat. We discussed the intent of this letter and what might be in it, and we came up with. I think we had 3 things that we talked about being on there the first of them, and I'm I'm sorry that Anna's not here was funding for equity programs and that segwayed into swimming, teaching, swimming as a life skill for all youth in boulder. and that segwayed into the need for renovated rec centers. Those are sort of the 3 main thrusts of what we discussed. I don't think there is anything else that we

[120:03] focused on that I can recall. I went back and looked at the video, and that was what I got out of it. So the question is. the intent tonight, I think, is to assign writing duties for writing a draft letter which we can then circulate before the next regular meeting. and then we would approve the the letter for the next meeting, and then it would go off to council for their march. Sorry. April. Retreat. When is our retreat? April fourth, April fourth. Thank you. The due date, I believe, is March twenty-twond. So what I believe what? You yeah, you all will review it. March eighteenth. And yeah. yeah, and and agree or disagree on it at that point. So what we need right now, I think, is people to actually write a draft letter. I prefer not to say I wasn't at the meeting, but I would love to volunteer be the first editor. Okay. I nominate Elliot. He nominate Elliot. He he has nothing else to do.

[121:11] I felt like Anna was very passionate about it, and so I would like to offer her the opportunity to participate. I also don't want to dump it on her. She doesn't have the bandwidth to do it. So I'm I prefer not to do it, because I'm not going to be on the board much longer, and I think it's something that others should take on. and Jason probably feels the same. I wrote it. Yeah. And I I've done it. So I propose that I reach out to Anna to see if she's interested in taking a crack at it first. I'm happy to help, and I think we need only 2 people to really communicate closely about it, so that we don't violate open meeting laws.

[122:06] Any suggestions on beyond that. Okay. that's very kind of you. And it is. It is easy to watch the video, does he discussion? It lasts about 10 or 15 min. So it's not. It's not terrible. So I'll I'll send an email out to Anna. and I'll CC. Rosa. So that's in the record and see if she's interested in in taking it on. And I'm happy to work with her, or if you want to work with her. you know, if you, if you would like help with it, it's it's more than one person should do. I think so. I'll suggest that to her. Thank you very much. Any other comments on the letter to Council. Okay. next up we have crab matters. So this is a opportunity for members to

[123:04] talk about any interactions they've had with the community members about concerns in general regarding parks. Anything that's abroad of scope that you wanna bring up, that we haven't discussed tonight, and it's not set for agenda in the future. And any future agenda items you might want to see included. Okay, I have. I have 2. Just wanna know that week before last we had a meeting with the with the leadership of Boko Pico Ball and Boulder Town Association team around the meeting and presented some of the plans some of the preliminary plans for the court system. The both groups were quite pleased with the proposals. of course they're always very concerned that they're not gonna get everything that they want. But it was a it was a reproductive conversation, and and, like Allie, noted there was good good press coverage.

[124:00] We have a meeting on Monday for the the broader quart sport community. Which I'm sure will be quite quite popular with those those folks. I look forward to attending And I was. I wanna thank Tina and Charlotte for their leadership on that issue. That's been. It's been great to see their work. And then I just wanna mention on a on a personal note. I've been using the Rec center myself for the first time in a long time. And it's nice to be in a facility and see how well the they're run, and and to see the community enjoying them attracts me. I go to the east Boulder Rec center, because the South Boulder Rec center, which is 3 min from my house, does not have an arm bike. So there you go. I said. It's not a not really. It's more of a comment. I've I've I think I've raised this before, and I don't want to end on a negative note, I guess. But

[125:02] you know. One thing I noted in reading the the packet is just the number of references to consultants. I'm a consultant. I hope I provide value to the people that I work with. But I'm really mindful of how often that is. And you know clearly in this presentation that she, you know there was a lot of value, added and I'm you know I don't want this to be kind of my partying thoughts on the board, but I do hope and I know we are. But you know there's kind of continuous mindfulness about, you know, relying on outside expertise and not growing it in house I mean, just I worked. I still work. I worked in the Federal Government for a long time, and there's just been a huge exodus of expertise and the reliance on consultants. And it's it's very harmful to at agencies or departments. And so I don't think that's a risk here. But II do. I hope there's a very high threshold, for when we do you know, hire, because I'm sure there's, you know, significant costs.

[126:01] But it also, you know, it takes, you know, both learning and other ways. We can kind of grow staff, and I know you all are great leaders and do that. But I just hope that there's a an eye to that, a regular eye to that, because I do like, I said, I'm kind of harming my own profession, since I am a consultant, but you know, particularly as it as it relates to government and local government particular that you know. Really kind of being you know, that's that's those are significant costs. And I I hope it's at a very last resort that we kind of rely on that level of expertise. So I mean, did you want me to do? I'm happy to share a little bit if you want it, is it it? II agree with you, and I would add for us. The more we have in house talent, the more cost effective. It is right like it, I mean, I look at our attorneys. I when I talk to colleagues who don't have in house attorneys, I feel bad, you know I have a a fellow director who gets 20 min with their attorney once a month, and then anything beyond that, you know, is like $600 an hour or something. I can call an attorney anytime. I want get great legal advice, and I'm so grateful that Boulder has such an incredible in house talent in our attorney's office.

[127:08] When we use a consultants for a few reasons. One. It's really specialized skill that we don't have in house capacity. So, and especially this is, this is a bit of a good problem to have with with the capital funding that we got with the renewal of the point 2 5 cent sales tax. In 2,015 we have more capital to spend, and we don't have the staffing capacity to spend it. I will note that Mark made one change pretty quickly. Within 6 months of getting here we reduced some capital funding. We hired 2 entry level landscape architects to do in house CAD work and other things that we're we're silly to be outsourcing. So it is something we look at consistently. And it really the decision around is capacity. Can it happen better or faster if we get some help on it? Or is it a skill set, you know. For example, aquatics. obviously, buildings are different. But, like you only design a pool every you know. 1520 years. We're not gonna have someone who is an expert in designing pools on our team.

[128:05] So that that's how the evaluation goes. We'd prefer to do it in house. We just don't always have the capacity or the expertise great anything else on prep. Matters. Okay. our next boarding board meeting will be March eighteenth, 2024. It will be here right incorrect this building is being. We will be at the Municipal Services Center on East old East Pearl. So if you know where the Corwin Toyota is at, so if there's a little frontage wrote to you, does anyone go to the Parkway cafe? Greasy Spoon, great boulder breakfast? It's it's east of that on old Pearl. I think I've been to one meeting there. If you are, biking is right off the Goose Creek path. That's right. Great. Well, we'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting

[129:06] motion. Adjourn the meeting. Second. all in favor. Hi. thank you all for a nice meeting.