April 22, 2024 — Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] Are you recording the meeting? Rosa causes. Thanks everybody for joining us tonight. We have a quorum. Correct? Okay? Great. Well, I have a few prepared remarks to start us off. So as many of you know. Tonight is the first night Passover, an important Jewish holiday when Jews across the world convene for the Passover. Seder at the beginning of Satur, set the stage for the story of Passover. We asked, Why is this night different? We're special from all other nights. Well, to juice. Passover is special, because it is a celebration of the escape from slavery in Egypt, and I think it's thing that we're celebrating Passover tonight, because for the prep. This, too, is a very special night. Tonight we are doing 2 very special things that we only do once per year. Number one, we're welcoming and swearing in our newest Brad members who are present. Well, 2 of them are physically present. One is on the way and then 2, we're electing new Brad officers.

[1:00] And thanks to the Parks department, we're not going to go hungry doing it because they've provided us with a delicious pass over there to our vacation. So thank you so much for that. It's been very helpful. Thank you. So with that, let's get started the first thing we need to do is we need to welcome and swear in our newest members. And they are Eric Graffine, Waylon, Lewis and Jenny Roberts and Rose, I'll let you do this. The oh, yes. Wayland, Louis. Okay. Yup, I okay. You would just affirm, I waylon Lewis do solemnly swear or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the State of Colorado, and the charter and ordinance ordinances of the City of Boulder. and faithfully performed the duties of the office of a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, which I am about to enter.

[2:07] I confirm. Thank you. Jennifer. I, Jennifer Robbins, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and of the State of Colorado, and the charter and ordinances of the City of Boulder, and faithfully perform the duties of the office of a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, which I am about to enter. Thank you, Jenny. You're in 2, and we will wait for Eric. We're gonna wait for Eric. So he's on his way from the airport. His flight is the way. So we will honor that. Okay, so I think the next thing we need to do is we need to

[3:00] We would like to welcome our new folks by going around and just introducing ourselves. And when you introduce yourself just to share your name. How long you've been on the Brad, which is literally 1 min and your favorite park or rec fac facility in boulder. So let's start with Rosa. Okay, my name is Rosa Cole. I'm your board secretary. Almost going on 2 years, and my favorite park is the North Boulder Park, because it's right. Next to Iris. where I work. Taylor. My name is Ina Singer, and I love Noodle Google. And I had it 20 years. Yeah. I've been on the power for one year, still learning lots of things about how it works. and my favorite part is for those

[4:04] my name is Wayla Lewis. Look forward to getting to know all of you. I What do I say? My favorite part where you just joined grass? So it's going great fall downhill from here in the sense sledding on a park down fun downhill hopefully not disastrous downhill and so many parks. I grew up here so and and rec centers but right now Ellie and I just walked through it the other day. The historic Columbia Cemetery. I live right below it, and it's incredibly gorgeous. especially at this time of year, like all parts. But I encourage you to visit with you haven't for a while. I'm Jen Robbins. 2 min, and so thank you. And my favorite, I would say, I have a really soft spot for North Wales for my kids. So we have something in play tennis.

[5:02] my name is Sunny Vanderstar, and I've been on path for 2 years now. And I did, Anna. I love that, but really smart. It's a good one. Yeah. Elliot. vice. Sure. The prep been on for 3 years. My fourth year. My current favorite park is Scott Carpenter Scott Carpenter, because I think it's just kind of a beating part of the city in a lot of ways, and I take my sledding there, and also the playground. And also that's really something. It's just amazing. My name is Andrew. First you have to call me Bernie, that'd be great. And entering my second year. And I'm curious what the answer was last year, but at this moment my favorite parts facilities, is full of reps. I love how much, but nothing. Oh, there it is. and I've been spending a lot of time in this winter with that broken again. I'm like. Hello, Stephanie Monroe, regional facilities manager.

[6:04] I mean, I don't know. I have to say the regional solution, but maybe they'll not like part. and we have a special guest here from our utilities department. Hi, here! I'm Keith. I'm at home with you. Water quality manager. Gosh, there's so many I I really like that part of the car, too. I am sicy, Paul, and I am the. and my favorite facility is little I'm Reggie Nelson, senior manager for natural resources for the department. I don't know that I can. My teams are in all the parts.

[7:03] all of that, all of that. Yes. Stacy Hoffman and Location Services Budget. We love them all, but of course spend a lot of time there and be like that. This other page. I'm Jackson Knight business services manager. I've been here 6 years, and my favorite part of the reservoir or Farsight Park. I think it's just a great name. I'm Scott Shanberg. I'm the deputy director, and again we've disabled her for about a year and a half. And my favorite part, I guess. Yeah. Like Bernie. I'm not sure what I said last year when we did this. But I really like Chicago. I just think there's so much history there, and we really spectacular and blocks place. So

[8:00] I see, okay, so last order business on that is, we need to assign Brad mentors to all of our newbies. So we'll go in order of people sworn in. So, Wayland. I will take you as my Nancy. Yeah, awesome. Okay. Jenny, you're up next. Who would like to be Jenny's mentor? Anybody present? Sonny? Awesome. These are going to be reflecting the minutes. Right? Okay, good. And then Eric, who is not officially sworn in yet, but we can assign him a mentor in in absentia. Oh, February, okay, great. Unless you really want to do that. I feel like I could use something interesting. Okay, so now, we have to elect

[9:02] officers. Is that right? Okay, so this is something we do yearly, and the chair is the person. So there are 2 officer roles out of the 7 members. The chair runs the meetings. Is the person who, with the vice chair, helps set the agenda for all the weekly meetings. Is sometimes kind of invited on behalf of Brab, to speak, to counsel for various reasons, or represent crab and that here was for one year vice chair sits in the place of the chair when the chair is absent from meetings, so device share among the meetings, and then also participate in the agenda, setting with the share and as part of the process. There needs to be nominations that's already happened. There needs to be acceptance of nominations that's already happened. We have one candidate who's been nominated, accepted for chair. That's me.

[10:07] And then we have one person who has been nominated and accepted for vice chair, and that's burning so what we can do is kind of pro forma, but we can say a few words about you know what we'd like to do in our officer positions. If you'd like, does that sound? Okay? Sure. Okay, great. So So I would love to be your chair. I've really been honored to serve as vice chair for the past year. I'm excited for the opportunity to help lead the Board to continue to be a voice for give members of this board and the board itself with staff, especially in agenda setting and other places. I wanna find, continue to find ways to run our meetings and accomplish our business more efficiently. Which I helped you this past year by redrafting the handbook which you also read cover to cover. It's a real you know.

[11:08] and you know, I really wanna continue to represent the interest of the cities and community. When it comes to our parks and rec opportunities and programs. And we really be honored to have you both today, for sure. I would like start up by saying, I think we shall recognize there's a little bit of leadership back from his body. We lost a wonderful chair and Chuck and Jason cycled off a little bit earlier, anticipated as he focused on other other important government work. If if you don't know Jason was left in schoolwork. so I I say that just in case anyone has any questions about why, a person in the second year of the board is running a vice chair. I probably wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't have chosen to just have more senior members. They haven't continuing or best interest. but that's it. I'm about to step up the first year that I sort of got rewarded and really enjoyed

[12:05] quickly getting up to speed a lot of the issues that we work on and learning about work with the city staff a little bit, and I am looking forward to working with Elliot on making this body more effective, and and do what we can do to help all these wonderful professionals that are services above. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have anything on it. I would just say, I think what we would need is a motion from one of the board members. And I think we could probably do the share position first, and then once that is taken care of, then the chair can move forward with the vice chair, so is there any motion to Hello! I'll get to the chair. I moved a little to Jeremy. I'll second right. Been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

[13:04] Thanks. Okay, so, Rosa, I think we can move forward with a roll call vote eric will not be able to vote yet, since he's not officially sworn in, but we still have a quote. Who was my second vote? Jenny? Alright! I'll just need an eye from Bernie Bernstein, Art Wayland Lewis, Anna Seagram. Aye. Sandy, sunny Vanderstar. Jenny Robbins. thank you. Congratulations. Yeah, you bet. Okay, do we have a motion to elect Bernie Burns Steiner Steve Steve seeing, you know, as the vice chair of this steamed body. Alright, we have a second like that. I'm not seeing that.

[14:02] Yes. Could you please do roll, call vote alright. Then I hear an eye from Elliot Hood er Wayland Lewis, Anna Segore, Sonny Vanderstone. Jenny Robbins. Thank you. Actually. thank you. Okay, I think we are in a position to move forward with the meeting. Now that we have quorum, we have a newly elected members and officers amazing, and we did it all in almost 15 min. Okay, so do we have a motion to approve the agenda. a seventh and second all in favor. Say, aye. Anybody opposed one question. Yes. You had mentioned when we got copied that early in the meeting. If we have questions or something, we should mention them. Yeah, so that good question, and I should have asked if there's any discussion. So this is not that portion of the meeting when we approve the agenda. It's just whatever is written down in the proposed agenda for staff, and we can propose

[15:18] amendments to that. The part I was talking about was the consent agenda, which is after public participation. You said that that's like a very big question. Thank you for that. So we've approved the agenda, and the first item, I believe, is future board items and tours. Yes, so I believe our plan is to and let me just scroll down here real quickly on here. We will have a meeting coming up on May twentieth. During that May twentieth meeting. we will have our third touch on the 2025 budget development which will include revenue expenses, deep policy updates, and a fee schedule. So Jackson and Stacy will be back to share additional information there. We will also be sharing with you the court system. Final plan, as well as information on the park on Violet, you will be bringing forward a

[16:19] the community engagement on the part number has already started, and there's a preliminary name that will be shared with with the crowd at that time. That you'll have an opportunity to to build on and get updated on. And then the natural land system plan kick off will ultimately happening. I've got future items. Once I I believe we're looking at August to do tours of facilities. And we know this year. That will also do better install course. So we'll have more details about facility tours coming up in the next month or 2. Awesome. Anybody have any questions or comments about future items?

[17:00] Great. And if you ever do, this is where the chair, and if I share, meet weekly with staff to actually set the agenda for the next couple of months. So if you do have any feedback on it, please do let us know in in the meeting. Well, that's it. Okay, are we ready to invite a public participation? Rosa? Great. Okay. So 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 tonight there are 3 books who have signed up Tom Linda, who will refer to as Tom Jay Ballser we'll refer to as J. And Norris Firmsmayer will refer to refer to as Norris. They'll get 3 min each During this public participation time the 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.

[18:06] depending on the nature of your matter. You may or may not receive response from the board after you deliver your comments. The Board is always listening to and appreciative of community feedback. Rosa, will you please present the additional guidelines and then call on our first speaker. So we actually just have Tom speaking tonight for 3 min. So, Tom, if you would like to stand and we can direct ourselves to Tom in the back there. The event, like Tom, I will begin your timer Board Board members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Tom Window. I'm president of the Boulder Military Officers Association Chapter, which Bill Dower was 1993, and I'm here to talk about. The Park was built in 2014, an interpretive display explaining why Bill Bauer is a national and a local hero was part of the plan, but it wasn't executed because we ran out of funds.

[19:09] The Military Officers Association Chapter has established a project to rectify that problem and create an interpreter. That's why we're prepared to fund that project. We submitted a proposal in January 22, and after some back and forth we resubmitted in October of 23. And we're here to find out. You know how that's going. The status of the project from our perspective was, I raised $20,000 and stop fundraising year and a half ago, because I couldn't tell people what exactly we were gonna build and what the timeline was. So we sort of suspended fundraising operations. We're ready to restart them. Let me get them fund commitment we've got the project manager who did all the work part one years ago and project architect 20 years ago. So we've got an experience team on board

[20:11] What we'd like to do is move the project forward as rapidly as possible and get. And and toward that end. Get a current status from Brexit next. And what's happened? We've got October 2023 proposal. and you'd like a commitment going forward to monthly updates. and we're more than prepared to assist in any changes proposed by the city with the community. We understand that it still has to be offered. Well, anyway, that's where we are, Elliot. We appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. Are there any questions? Boots? Tom, thanks so much. Does anybody else want to speak. Thank you. Okay. Do the members of the Board have any comments or questions for staff, or otherwise, about public county?

[21:12] Yes, I do this meeting. Yep. Could I say something? Yeah. You got 3 min. Did you sign up? Have 3 s? You got 3 min? Oh, really. Yeah. Oh, good. Are you, Jay or Norris, I'm Jay. Okay, Jay, you've got 3 min. Oh, that's a great. I didn't expect to have yeah, you you absolutely Tom spoke. He's our leader. I will just try to add a little background. That he hadn't talked about. This isn't the first time we're working with Parks and Rec to create an interpretative display at a park. How many people have seen the display at Burke Park, Admiral? Arling, Burke Park!

[22:04] Thank you. I mean, it's hard for me to understand. This is a parks and bread advisory committee. We have a beautiful park at Berg Park. And it's not just a part. There's an interpretive display that we spent a lot of time working on 20 years ago with the city. Please go over there. Look at that display. Look at the explanation of who Arlie Burke was. The park is named for him. Take a few minutes and go over there. It's worth your while. What we're doing now is a similar thing with Bill Bower Park. Bill Bauer was also a military hero and a respected S. Citizen of Boulder.

[23:01] They named the Park for him. They intended to have a display that explained we weren't. Why was it named for him? You walk in the park? I mean that there's a sign on Table Mason, Drive, Bill Bower Park. You go into the Park 0 now. The neighbors have a summer block party. For the last 2 years we've attended and put up a little table and explain what we're trying to do. And we asked them. do you know who Bill Bell, or is maybe 20%, maybe 25% of the neighbors living next to the park. They don't even know who he is. That's ridiculous. So long and short. we're trying to

[24:02] have patrons of the part. Understand who go. He was an important guy. I don't want to take the time to go through that. Look them up on the web Bill Bower a do a little raider. Your community. Add to this contributed his time to many nonprofits in Boulder. When the city, went out to the neighbors and said, What should we name the part? Overwhelming number of people said, Let's name it for Bill. He was like the grandfather. The kids would call me fix their bikes, give him jolly rancher, and he was just a nice guy. anyway. Boom 2, one, that's it. Yes, at the time you did. Thank you for your comments. Does anybody else want to speak?

[25:06] Okay, is there anybody online? Rosa? So this is staff. And this is Staff. I'm not sure if these are. this is a community member. I'm not sure anybody that's Staff and Sharon Anderson community member. So yeah, so we I actually I was gonna open it up for questions or comment on based on public comment. Does anybody have a question for staff or comment about what you start where things are at. Oh, I'm sorry.

[26:03] Is there any like mandated response. Time for the city to community members when they submit proposals. So great question, and I know our team as as was referenced by Tom, I believe they first approached us. In 2022, and there was a lot of conversation around some of the verbiage and the process. I'm gonna see if our senior planning manager, Mark Davidson. I believe he's online. See if Mark can provide a little bit of an update from our perspective. Yeah. Happy, happy to Scott apologies. I can't turn on my camera at night, for some reason. Rose, I think you have to then block me for my camera to work, but just to keep things moving. No, it has. The project did get delayed. It was very unfortunate the planning team had a big change over. I've been there myself 18 months, and we've been getting back up speed. So we recognize this project was delayed.

[27:03] The good news is at this point. We are hoping to re-engage in June to get the project moving, and we've got funding ready to try and move that project forward as fast as possible, working with our partners so apologies for the delay. But come, June, we should start to see movement on it, and hopefully have it completed by the end of the year end of the year. And to your question, Tommy, your request for monthly updates. I believe that's something our staff can definitely provide to make sure that we're in communication here starting in May. And and continually moving forward for the project is complete. Okay, thank you. So, Mark, I have a question for you, I think. Thank you. Where? So you know, we saw a packet from from these gentlemen that showed a fairly complete proposal of what they would like seen apart. Is that the plan? Are we still kind of deciding what we're gonna do? Where are we in the actual construction, planning, planning, and construction process?

[28:02] Yeah at the Mo at this point would be basically starting the process in June Review. The designs see what any, if any, permitting, is required. and then move the project forward. Make sure it complies with sort of park design standards, which you know I know Tina's been working on this earlier, so it should be fairly straightforward. We've had the wording already reviewed with our equity department, and the partners have done a great job there. so hopefully. There won't be many delays once we get moving on, it. I can't give it. Timeline yet, but when we do the consent agenda update in June, we should be able to get closer to providing a schedule for the project. Well, I read through the report. I just I wanna compliment whoever came up to the design. It seems really thoughtful, and to be actually serving the park, and the people would want to use the park in shade. The diversity of the trees, the info, that storking phone propeller, all that seems like a wonderful. wonderfully thought out process. So hopefully, the delay is.

[29:03] results have been something very thoughtful that will last for generations. Yeah. And for Mark's comment, I'd love to have an update in the updates from staff and the consent agenda for the Zoom Meeting, if that's possible, on just on where we are with this, and what a projected timeline looks like. Thanks. Any other comments? Questions about a public comment. I had one little question. Okay? just because I'm a rookie. I don't know even know who I should be asking. Maybe mark but the use of concrete in park installations. Just do. We have a kind of overriding environmental approach to these kind of installations. It's obviously concrete is sort of a last resort. Material. Environmentally. the tab. Yeah, it's it's actually, it's one of those questions that quite deep, isn't it? Once you get into it because we do use it in lots of types of facilities and amenities.

[30:06] Sometimes things do come down with cost. We're going to be realistic about that. The city does have very robust resilience and permitting and code to use as many green and sustainable materials as possible. So it's often just one of those cost balance assessments we have to do with upcoming projects. We are looking to improve the green assets within parks, and we've actually recently done a certification for staff in green asset management which is exciting. So that's sort of spreading the knowledge of how to use more sustainable materials. And we do try to use recycled materials where possible. I think, as we get into more of the capital projects that are up and coming, we'll be able to sort of give you more information on that, as you see, the designs coming through for Violet Park civic area, north Boulder Park. And would it be appropriate to

[31:02] be able to meet with Mark, or whomever is looking at environmentally to find out more absolutely. Okay, thank you. Sorry my camera is not. He's a very kind gentleman, generous with his time. Thank you, Margaret. Mark. I thought yes, for sure. One doesn't do it. Yeah. Any other comments, questions, thanks. So much for that. That's great. Okay? So that concludes the public participation portion of the meeting the next item is the consent agenda. And just a remark about what the consent agenda is. So the consent agenda is a package of non controversial items, updates, meeting minutes that don't require typically don't require discussion. And so we approve them at the same time as part of the concept. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[32:02] So the way that we will handle it, because the approval of the minutes is part of the consent agenda, and because updates from the park department is part of will move to approve them. We'll get a second and then we'll open it up for discussion. At that point you can ask any questions you want about the update you received from staff you can ask to have the minutes amended, or whatnot, and then, when we're done with that discussion, we will vote to approve the consent agenda, and then that will be done, and then we'll move on. Are there any questions about that? Okay, okay, so is there a motion to approve the consent? Agenda? I looked. Thank you, Bernie. Jenny, thank you. Any discussion on any of the items in the consent agenda. This includes the minutes and the updates.

[33:03] I do the minutes from the last meeting. I'm not listed as being present. I was definitely here. Cause it says that I move for various things, so if we could amend the minutes to just reflect that I was present. That'll be awesome. I have a couple of questions about the updates. So, and it's by the way, if you think of questions along the way that. You didn't think of support as based on my questions, please, you know. Feel free to jump in after we haven't like seen is your ability to ask questions. So on the hiring for the the 2024 hiring campaign. this all sounds really great. Sounds like you guys have a really great planning pace in place. But are we on pace to hire enough people for December? I I'm happy to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to say we are on pace. jackson has been approving requests from staff for for hiring

[34:07] hopefully 5 to 10 people per week. We're really ramping up right now, and we actually feel knock on wood here. We feel really good about our our staffing levels for this summer. So things are are really looking solid as a 5 o'clock we had 398 seasonal stop working for us 138. That will start by July fourth, which brings us up to 546 last summer we talked out at 560, so we are right there. Well, it's great nice job. on page 11 of the packet, you guys listed a couple of projects and their status and one of the projects. I just remind me what it is. It says Pearl Street Place, making. What is that? Again? I can. Respond to that project if you like. Thanks, Martin.

[35:00] That was a project that was put into the Ccrs tax number of years ago to renovate Pearl Street, and initially we were hoping for around about 10 million based upon current budget. Sort of constrained budgets. We've got a 3 million dollar mark for that project. The Pill Street will celebrate its fiftieth in 2027. So our goal at this point is in 25, through 26 to renovate the bathroom. That's like an urgent item that needs to be done even before we do design for the Pole Street as a whole, and then we'll look to do a schematic design in 2026, with hopefully the 20, seventh, 2027 being kind of that 50 year fundraising campaign. Possibly we haven't fully looked into that. But the goal that further construction would occur in 2028, 2029, and that would obviously depend upon additional funding coming in. We're not looking to obviously do a major revamp of pearl. A lot of that of the work, frankly, would be fixing things like utilities and

[36:01] overdue lifecycle maintenance along Pearl Street. Obviously, as we work with the business community would look for opportunities to improve foot traffic in the area and revenue. Great thanks, Mark. on the item related to the new park on Violet. So there's mentioned in here about we're gonna vote on the new name in June. Is that right? Correct? Okay. That's correct. Be soliciting potential name candidates from the community. So our planning team and Mark can probably talk about this one a little bit as well, but I know they've been very engaged with our use services initiative, and the our group of employees that are are meeting the needs of of a lot of the community members that are located in the housing area just north of support there. And so there's been quite a bit of community engagement and interaction. Mark, do you have any update or any information you can share

[37:00] on the the park, on violet community? Feedback. So, Scott, I think you covered it just about all. The the only 2 things, I would add is, we're we're following the city's naming policy. And that's why. Obviously, the Board gets to vote on this, and it definitely has been a youth led effort where there's been a lot of work engagement with youth across the board in that area they'll come up with various names for the Park, and ultimately with the preferred choice. So Darren Wagner will be presenting on that, and you'll she'll be able to tell. Show you the full story and the full engagement. And it's a frankly, it's a really good connections we've made with the local community for this new park. So you know, it's this idea that we don't want to just cut the ribbon and say, Hey, come, use the park. We're trying to build partnerships with the community. So it'll really feel like welcoming. And they actually own the park. Spark. And how many rooms do you anticipate giving us to the side from. Sorry I didn't hear that last part. Apologies. How many names do you anticipate giving us. I believe there will. There'll be. You'll see the names that were picked, and the the youth pick their preferred option coming forward, so there will be a preferred option

[38:07] that will be recommended from stuff. Oh, so Staff's gonna recommend a name. Well coming via the engagement with youth. Okay, but you'll list. You'll include the other names that were. Yeah, Darren will show the process by which names came up and some went back. You know someone selected got a final few, and then the youth said, this is sort of the preferred choice. Okay. Got it great in at the last meeting we had talked about the letter from grab to city council about the universal swim and funding for maintenance, and upgraded the facilities. And I don't see that anywhere here is that something that it's gonna be talked about later. whereas, like the follow-up to that

[39:00] point I'd be happy to address that I will say that that letter did go to council and council had their retreat. And they're in the process of of working on updating the strategic plan. And I believe it was 11 or 12 initiatives that came through from the city. Wide strategic plan. I don't have an update yet. I know directors are are working on addressing the elements of the strategic plan. What I will say is from the universal swim. Update. We are going to be having a community engagement meeting this coming Thursday, the 20 fifth over at the hub at the Osmp center, where we've got several of our users going to be there to talk about aquatics. And and what's happening from a user group standpoint and and demand for pool usage. So that will be going on on Thursday, I think. Coming up on the next meeting. Probably here in May we can provide a little bit better update on

[40:01] Council's reaction to the letter that perhaps sent to them. I don't have that at this time, but we'll we'll make sure to keep you in the loop on that. Think it's do you want something included in the next update about that that would be great. And I also think that it should be reflected in the minutes of something cause we did spend time talking about it, is it not? Reflecting in minutes I didn't see anything about it. It's definitely up to them. If that's the case. could you? Rosa, when you're going through these minutes. Could you make sure that there's it's reflective that we did discuss that letter at the last meeting, if it's not and then I had some other questions, but but we have same topic. so in terms of next steps, it will be an update at the next meeting to hear what the strategic plan and just the city council name.

[41:00] R. Yes. So city staff brought forward recommendations for a strategic plan. City live strategic plan that leaders from each department focused on here throughout early 2024 and late 2023 that was brought forward to city council at their retreat. They address that I was not at the Retreat, so I don't know where that is, is that at this point, but it's my understanding that each Council member also had their own initiatives and things that they wanted to make sure we're addressed in the strategic plan. And then they also took the letter from Brad, for example, into account as they develop their upcoming strategic initiatives for for the city. So once we're able to provide an update. With that we'll make sure to do that, and I would anticipate that would be next at the next month's meeting. And then I just wanted to say that I think it's really important as someone who is pushing the universal swim concept. I think it's really important to kind of.

[42:04] whenever possible use more of a price based language about They need for universal swim rather than presenting it as a 0 sum game, because if it's presented as like to provide access to some skills to the whole population folder. Some people are gonna lose. It's gonna be like dead on arrival with those universal folder so I don't. I think we should try and avoid saying that we've broken up who's out on access to. and so facilities or orders to try to adopt a program like this. And then the last thing I want to say was about metrics that I was wondering if it would be possible to have some type of metrics or reporting around universal swim with a certain frequency. Absolutely. I think we can certainly provide updates in the consent agenda throughout. We do have a section for recreation operational updates. So we'll make sure to include universal slim. And what's happening with the meetings that we're having with aquatics community wide meetings as well as some lesson updates. And we do have the the free

[43:18] some safety events that are coming up here as well. So we'll make sure to provide those updates. Okay. thank you. I have some questions. Did you wanna swing Eric? So we. I received some, and I received communication from the community regarding memorial. So I saw on the consent agenda. There were some. Some staff was helping some people figure out how to officially create a memorial there. I was wondering if you could outline what that process looks like. Yeah. So I met with a group of representatives from the occupied community from out there. Mr. Bear is one of them once several others. Then there's kind of a couple of different ways that we can approach this to create sort of a more of a sanction memorial sanction space.

[44:18] and it really kind of is up to the those community members which avenue they essentially where we are, is providing them some resources around. If they wanted to become an organized group like friends of group what that would look like, and to be able to then have some long term maintenance management of an area on parks and Rec property. So there's that kind of avenue. Alternatively, there's similar to the group that we actually just heard from today with the bill, Bower is, if there's like a one time project or a one time thing that they want to have happen. How we go about proposal for that there are pros and cons for the community of each sort of avenue which they would like to choose. But it really is about, how do we create a space? That is, you know, meets the needs of both net long term management of the area. Staff resources, capacity. Maintain that

[45:15] or if like, I said, the organization or the community really wants to be the ones like and owning that space, what can that look like, and probably be kind of work together and collaborate and partnership together. What would the account. or which one for it being a one time office? So account for it being a long time project for specifically for this group. They really they have a lot of ownership of the area want to be able to maintain it. They really enjoy that, like grassroots. Feel of it? For sort of an ongoing maintenance kind of agreement. We require things like insurance, which is actually very cheap. But So things like I said

[46:01] insurance. Then there's the community engagement component of it like it becomes really our project for the partners project in a way rather than being that. So that's sort of a comfort being one from 1 one time project is that there's a little less of that community control over that space. So if it was a friends of style project, they would be able to maintain it themselves. We have other agreements with specific organizations around how we can. How other organizations can maintain personal property to a different standard than we do. But it requires things like, I said, like insurance, and those are some of the cons to that insurance, actually organizing as a nonprofit organization things like that. So there, like, I said, there are pros and cons to both. so. And it's just working with, like those community members. What? Where? They in in, just out of curiosity, the reason why original move was just our safety concern. So it it becomes a bigger

[47:07] sort of question, I think. around we end up seeing a lot of things kind of pop up on our property. And it's how do we not create a precedent where maybe they don't want somebody else doesn't want their memorial. There, they want it over there, and so things can start to pop up and grow and get bigger. And so per our city policy, and codes within the Prc. It is within our rights to remove things off of city property, public property like that. For those like long term management. I think as we we've learned like while that is within our city policy. How we go about that we definitely learned a lot of lessons as it relates to this particular one, and how we can do that better in the future, working with our community.

[48:00] but yeah, that's okay. Thank you. And then my next question, yeah, I really appreciate that, Jackie? And and the answer. So by learning lessons, does that mean like, if we've seen organic random thing begins develop in a corner by many parts or etc, that there's a if it seems wholesome in some way, like not damaging, that we then consider it, and meet with those members before disposing of it. I I think it would be more around. How do we notify the community that this is something that's going to be, you know, potentially be removed. How do we communicate with them? Better? Like, I said, as opposed to at the time. Never rocks. We pick up rocks, you know and so it we have an obligation when it's personal property, to notice that for 72 h we can't take personal property away.

[49:01] But as far as just. You know. I know some of our open space friends. They'll get like Karen's growing, you know, around that, and so they'll disperse those as they come across them. And so it was just a similar and a manager action at that point in time. So I think that sort of the learning is that when we see memorials we'll make sure that we're notifying, noticing them, putting out signage, saying, This is going to be removed. and things like that. Could there be a slightly different process like if it seems wonderful and like the whole community, is more or less behind it. and instead of giving them so we'll remove it. Try to meet with them and say, Do we want this to be an ongoing once we move them? So it just seems like to avoid a future one like with anything. Some notice like, Please contact us. Yeah, exactly. And then, so that that's really kind of what it comes down to.

[50:07] but I guess just to put a cross the T on that one to leave a note of saying, Please contact us. We won't necessarily remove this like not started with a like 50 kind of statement. If it seems like a wonderful thing. I I I think it sort of depends on who's whose definition of it's a wonderful thing. Why, there's obvious examples where things aren't constructive or wanted. You know. Yeah, I think our our goal is obviously always work with the community. We're we're not. And do you? I mean, I've I've started a 563 in the past. It's a difficult time. Arduous process. Do you have?

[51:02] I? I realize it's gonna be a huge ask. But like on Staff, is there somebody who could really help guide them instead of just provide resources. Or is that too much? We don't really have the expertise on staff to be able to do that realistically. I know that there are several organizations in the State, Colorado that can provide some of those that help with an existing. I I think those are all possibilities like, I said. I know that there are several organizations within the State of Colorado, both that can provide resources to folks that are looking to start 501 c. 3 is their umbrella, 501 c. 3. Type organizations. So there are alternatives you like Bill Bauer Parker. Is that something that is a Advisory Board member if they ask me for help, which has not happened. But I mean

[52:02] technically, can I say, I mean, here's some people that might be interested in partnering with you in Boulder. interested in the concern. And I wanna help confirm. Thank you. And again, awesome and then I was looking at the overview of major projects, and I had another just kind of general procedural question. First, the child friendly. This is a general procedure, but I was under the impression the child friendly city initiative, the Unass project is, if we receive that designation. I can respond if you like. Oh. Yeah, was. The question is, did we receive? We receive the designation yet. Yes.

[53:00] Yeah, no, not yet. The process started a year ago, and the cities partnered with growing up boulder. We're currently still in the engagement process. and I can get back to you on the exact schedule, but I believe would be taking it to city council next year. Excuse the dogs. Spring of 25 is what Darren said earlier this week. Mark. Yeah, perfect. And then the general procedural question, the way the status is listed from planning to scoping to design. I think this is also probably a really big umbrella question. But how long does the project usually take to get through the process from planning to implementation? And can I just ask, are you referring to the child friendly cities initiative here, or. I mean, I guess in in general, if we're talking about, I mean, I know these are really different projects. But initiative is a good example of how long that would take to go from planning to implementation.

[54:05] Yeah, it's it's A. The 12 Family Cities Initiative is frankly a planning project covering all departments. Darren Wagner just happens to be Pm. Who's in the Planning design group. and that's an example of a project. It'll take roughly 2 to 3 years. hopefully, 2 years, but sometimes it could be 3. A project like the civic area can take, which we're currently underway can take up to 4 years more. Medium sized projects can take 2 to 3 years. and a lot of that depends upon not just like the scale of the project, but the complexity. You'll probably notice that Parks we are digging out of a bit of a backlog after Covid. So the sort of term we've been using lately is coming out of Covid. We're getting the planes in the air, and we've got quite few planes in there at the moment, and that in itself sometimes causes a little bits of delays here and there because you don't want to be, for instance, doing all the engagement at once, or all the construction at once. So we also have to time

[55:01] the projects as a whole. And actually, when we come back with the CIP. In May, with Jackson and Stacy and June, will be showing some of the timelines for those projects. Great. Okay. Pleasure. Thank you. Any other. okay. So first of all, I was hoping just to provide a quick update on the Start district. We discussed that at the last meeting our work was unanimous. That We were posted extension into our district in Central Park. I have the honor of going to city Council to represent that point of view. Earlier this month. The city Council had quite likely discussion about this, but they have considered the mountains of data that provided to them about the park. It's history potential future. They also heard quite a bit of public comments. Which I will say was unanimously in favor of the district.

[56:02] I'm happy to report that in a wisdom the city Council agree with us and voted against expanding the district. the most Ellian points was that. like us, they see an opportunity to do something different in that part that may be different from what's done in the past, but it still honors the heritage of what happened there on the Go and and move the city forward instead of keeping us rooted in that. And what is their present place? It was great to be a part of that discussion, and thank you all for letting me represent us any questions on the discussion. Why? Why was this Advisory Board opposed? We were host, because primarily our largest reason was because we think there's opportunity to improve that part. We we see that part zone performing and we're designated as far as districts. It would certainly require more administrative hurdles to make changes.

[57:03] and we may not have been able to make all the changes that we thought could be made. I'll say, speaking just for myself. And one of the main points of discussion is that that part of folder was once neighborhood house in our community. Those people were removed to make room for the park by Brothers Wall. Instead, we did that in many cities junior And one of this one of the points in discussion was like, well, we need to preserve the parks so we can honor the people room in their homes. My perspective and city Council will agree was that we can honor them. We can put up historical signage, interpret the history without making a district. And are there plans to do any of that. Well, it's currently part of the the civic area review process. So there's last templates and the plans that plans are easier to affect without making the historic district. Yeah. Should should it have been made as our district anything that the city wants to change, but so ironically honoring that difficult pass.

[58:12] It's going to be easier without making it this sort of district. Yeah. And I wasn't present for the meeting when we formally summarized our perspective. But I do recall that we had a pretty lengthy discussion about how the proposal just did not meet the criteria set forth in city chart and the code. So but I'd moving on from that. Any other questions or comments about the update from staff. We have a very important item business to take care of. We gotta swear in our third new member, Eric Graffini. Welcome, Eric. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Rosa, would you like to admit I'll have you affirm the sales. I, Eric Ruffini, do solemnly swear.

[59:10] affirm, then I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and of the State of Colorado, and the charter and ordinances of the City of Boulder, and faithfully perform the duties of the office of a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, which I am about to enter. hey? Affirm? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, good! Thank you so much over here. Oh, thank you, we we have food. Okay? It's pass over themes right on and we also, we introduced ourselves and said, We our names brand new. So yeah, favorite park

[60:03] us. I've been here about 5 years. I'm still starting to get to know all of them. And there's things I like about a lot of them. I live close to even G, and I think on a hot August day. That's one of the best places to go after a run and cool off my kids like Scott Carpenter. So we spend a lot of time there, too. So now that Eric is sworn in. We can finish our business with the consent agenda. So I'm gonna re remove to approve the consent agenda. If I have lost random first kind of rookie idea of their questions. It's now the time. or is that about what? I think similar to Jenny. I just had questions on the various topics or ideas of things I would love to see happen. They're all probably super nice and wonderful. But is now the time to raise them, or or if they're part, if they're connected with the update, and then said, no. But later, in the meeting at the end, we have goters from the board section where you can definitely.

[61:04] yeah, that's that's your red spot. Yeah. So great. Yeah, you bet. Thanks for the question will be the most ideal. It's all happening the next. Okay? So I I'm gonna remove to approve the consent agenda with the amendments that we discussed, namely, the amending the minutes assembly. Second. So I moved. So secondly, I so seconded, okay, good. You can search any discussion, any further discussion on the items in the consent agenda. Okay, do. We have to do a role for this? Or can we just do it by day? Okay, all in favor of approving the consent? Agenda say, aye, all opposed. Okay, it is approved. Thank you, Rosa, for updating those. Okay. We have no action items. We have no matters for discussion. But we do have a couple of matters from the department and I wanted to hand it over staff to get going there.

[62:17] Perfect. So we'll start off with our update on Baltimore reservoir. We'll see we've got the presentation. I have my notes for the presentation. Who cares whatever have itself? This presentation serves as an update for the Eurasian water, milk, oil infestation that for the reservoir as well as just a general background. And that's kind of catch up for, especially for the report. The Boulder rest of our team presented an update on the Ams program at the Boulder Reservoir as part of our formal after action review process and 20, and have continued to update crab in regards to Ans with an annual facility evaluation process

[63:09] that was also productive. We wanted to provide an update that on the actions that have been taken since last September, and our proposed approach for the original modern oil control for that for 2024, and then next steps moving forward. So so the boulder reservoir was. I was saying, thank you that you were like on it. The Boulder reservoir was constructed in 1,950, and it's primary purpose was to collect and retain water for municipal, domestic, agricultural and industrial uses for the members of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy. What we will call Northern water moving forward

[64:00] the reservoir is first and foremost a valuable drink and water supply for the city of Boulder. This map, the reservoir in general is a highly visited growing in popularity, local and regional facility. It provides many recreational amenities and services, and it's host to large a large number of events, picnics and sees over a quarter of a million visitors each year. and that's just the south shore. So this map kind of outlines how we've kind of divided up the space in and around the reservoir. So there you have. It's about 1,190 acres of land surrounding the resort that are divided into 4 management areas. There's the north Shore and the Food Lake area, which is on the north side, and it's generally passive recreation. There's the North.

[65:03] north and South shore areas which I'm not sure is the North and South dams that are in each color. The south shore, which is the more active recreation which is in the green, and then the west shore, which is in the light blue and so the south shore, which is the active recreation area, is roughly about 76 acres and it houses facilities such as the gatehouses are both inspection station, the Visitor Services Center, which is now the main building. The Lifeguard station, the boat house, maintenance buildings. fueling station, and so on. It's home to many popular amenities, such as the swimming area, boat, parking boat ramps. It's where all the boat launching happens. It has reservable picnic locations and numerous vehicle parking spaces

[66:05] next one. Yeah. so these are our pretty ans. So just a little bit of background about ams. Ams are invasive non native animals and plants. Once they are introduced most of the time cannot be eradicated. And their primary means, the primary means of introduction are typically via watercraft and anglers. And so this picture shows the zebra and final muscles. This is New Zealand, my snail, and our lovely duration of oil. We started our Ans program in 2,009, and when that started, that is, when we started inspecting on watercraft coming into the Boulder reservoir to launch their boats.

[67:05] In 2020. We introduced this kind of classification system for the watercraft that are using our facility. And the classification system was created based on the level of risk that each type of watercraft post to the to the body of water. Not all watercraft are treated equally because each water crash has a different level of risk. And this was created so that it was easier for us to implement our Ans program, and it was easier for our public to understand what their watercraft was and how it kind of laid in terms of risk. For the rest. in 2,003 or 2,023. Sorry we made a number of adjustments for our program. We implemented outgoing inspections for all of our watercraft.

[68:03] We increased our education efforts and we have created a moratorium on all class 5 boats and class 5 boats are those very high risk boats that include pontoons on whiteboarding boats because they can carry water from other facilities. So we continue that moratorium which is still in place today. And this was all in response to our discovery of water percent throughout the production. We're talking about new folks. That means that once that's already standard as well out, they are. They're kind of grandfathered in, but they are not allowed to replace their current watercraft with another plasma. So the the class 5 numbers are so they are not allowed to go anywhere else. If they go anywhere else. It's pontoons. Wakeboarding boats, both with ballast tanks or ballast bags. Okay.

[69:15] thank you. How many questions. Rebecca? So your region? Water, milfoil? What is your region water milk. It's a non native, invasive plant that is found on the States, not just rootless. It was first discovered in a boulder reservoir in August of 2022, and in only one year, from being discovered, it has spread to the majority of the Western codes as seen in the figure above. and so the so in October of 2022 is the hatched area, and then what you see in the green area is the growth. Since 2,022 when we redid our survey in 2,023. So that's one year.

[70:11] and is that it's like a blanket, or it's just somewhere in there like, is it precluding the meeting? Get into a store there? So we have closed the western side of the reservoir to any motor boats. And it is getting pretty dense on that side. So access to that side, even with standup or kayaks is, people don't want to be in there. and it's close to motor drives, in part, because it could dump up their engines. Yeah, okay, so that growth is in the shallowest areas of the reservoir. Does it grow better as yellow water? Yeah. So Hi, drinking water quality manager, the utilities. And

[71:07] so just to provide a little bit of background on your you wanna also answer a couple of those questions. So those meeting areas are not a 100 solid math. It's it's not a full coverage. Those the hash areas are are pretty dense. Mass. so. But some of the maths are, you know, can be sparse and areas just kind of depending it. Generally it generally isn't present right now at desk, like about 10 years or so. So it is primarily in the shallower areas, is a. It can be light, limited, and the weather for us on on a more turbid money side. Which camera this goes so so that's kind of with the general. It is. But that's Stacy's gonna talk about. We're gonna be doing some more in-depth vegetation service to get more detail information on. It's exactly spread

[72:05] through the texture piece. We did. Yeah, no, that's the that's one of the guys with invasive it's not a large resource. I can provide some food, but it's not like a primary required habitat source. Do you drain around the barn ever it would. Generally. No it has been lower for like if Northern water did a project years ago on some meetings on their outlook structure, and they did lower the reservoir of the lower the reservoir level. But it wasn't. It was a plan. Yeah, is there? I guess my question is sort of generally like, what is the rest of our considered to be like. you know, is it nature, or is it just our water supply? And if it's our water supply where we put fuel in it, and that kind of thing like if if it's just water, couldn't we drain it?

[73:09] Yeah. So so boulder reservoir is pretty typical of most reservoirs in Colorado in the West. It is a it's a regionally critical water supply. So while the city of Boulder we use it as a backup water supply and can't feed it with other sources are not available for other reasons. It is the water supply. Aspect and water storage is is part of the larger call out Big Thompson, water delivery system. And so water from all the reservoir goes downstream to other users like this is Erie Lafayette, and lots of irrigation and other disasters. So it is a regionally important water spraying. But so it sounds like there's never any ideal time like maybe not during farm and season, when they need to to empty it. And I guess my major question was like, Is there life in it that we don't. We can't empty it.

[74:10] And one of the things she'll get into some of the the management options, one of which could be lowering the reservoir level with lots of coordination, of course. But I think it's also it's also important that just lowering the reservoir. So this is a very hardy species, a plant. And it's it is here to stay. So what we're we're going to be focusing on is, what can we do to really help protect the recreational uses. The water supply and water storage uses certified ecosystem products. I saw that there's something about Westminster is is this in other reservoirs? Or so it is in Stanley. It's actually

[75:03] it can. Yes, it can lead to currently, we're not seeing water quality impacts. But we do have a robust water quality program in place over 20 years there. So we can detect if there's any changes. but the the bigger impacts of the more immediate impacts that we're seeing right now are sort of limiting the waterfront and western shore areas. And we're working really closely with parts and rec on management actions to sort of prevent any applied ecosystem habitats, water quality changes and water supply impacts. Moving forward. Do you think it came in by boat? Or do you think it blew in. Okay, don't know. This plan. It can spread from just one small fragment. and that small fragment can survive for months without water or soil.

[76:01] So it we've done extensive research and contracted with bars. Stacy is gonna talk about. But unfortunately might be late. Since you finish? Yeah, you'll have more questions, questions, or comments, but great questions. Yes. So since we. one important thing is boulder person, recreation is working with Colorado parts and wildlife Northern water as well as utilities to figure out what we're doing where we're going until so it's a very collaborative effort that has been happening, and will continue to happen as we move forward. Since we last presented we secured a contract with a consultant called Our engineering and freshwater scientific services to create a short term and long term management plan available to us for

[77:07] it includes management goals, short term controls and recommendations, and then an adaptive management plan to guide them long term management efforts, because we will not be eradicating this particular infection. Kate talked a little bit about the threats to the boulder reservoir recreation and public safety. The water supply and environmental degradation. right now. we're seeing the biggest impact in the recreation piece of things. We are seeing it in the swim designated swimming area at the reservoir. We're hearing from our voters as they encounter it throughout. Even our voters are also encountering it. So we are definitely feeling that from our users.

[78:06] and then Kate talked about the water supply and the environmental degradation that could potentially happen as this week continues to grow and get denser. It will lower solve the oxygen levels and potentially shade out native plants, impacting fish habitat, and so we have overarching erosion water, milk, oil management goals for the boulder reservoir to protect our current recreational uses, as well as the water supply, and both both for treatment and for downstream users. The goal is supported by 3 major objectives to develop a long term monitoring program to inform and support our app adaptive management practices

[79:01] to minimize the overall Eurasian water milfoil population and minimize the impacts recreation and the water supply. and to manage and reduce the range of water mobile density in key spring areas at the reservoir for public safety. based on these management goals our consultants developed short term recommendations for managing the original water milfoil based on cost and effectiveness, which I'm going to go into in our in the next slide. And then also talk about our proposed implementation strategy. This plan will include a framework for long term recommendations that have it has not been finalized yet, but we will inform but will inform our region water, mobile management strategies over the next 5 to 10 years. So our short term plan, which is the spring early spring, early summer

[80:06] kind of timeframe is. We will start conducting manual removal of the immersion water, milk, oil in the swip areas that has already started. We will continue the west side closure of the reservoir to any powerize motorized boats. We will continue our education to our users, our voters specifically. We will continue to explore the use of weevils to help manage the original. We were unsuccessful in getting what we both from Stanley like from over the past fall. But we will continue to have conversations with them to see if we can get any more. No, they they didn't. You talk to them. There's a native.

[81:03] You raise water. Yes, this one people loves loves you raise water, and it's success rate has been mixed. It used to be commercially available in the United States, and it is no longer so. We were hoping to get some from Stanley Lake, which is the only place that we could get it in Colorado. But they, you know, they they kept the population as and flows, and they tried to get some for us. We were trying to get at least 100 in fall, and we just did not have the population to spare, so we will try again. Well, you know we're they've been very helpful resource, wise and you know, it's it's worth a shot. It's not gonna make any crazy difference in the levels of the original file. But it's it's working fine. So it seems to be helping it soon. I think.

[82:01] Yeah, it does seem to be helping. You know, I think from a management of what resimble management perspective it is. It is helping. And you can see the schedule per square meter over time, and how it's kind of changed from the general public's perspective. You know, there's still a lot of overlap. and it's a very apparent. So I think it just kind of depends on the perspective. But yeah, you know, they also they they purchased hundreds of thousands of these people. So it's a very different level of program that they were able to do, cause they've had duration, one in Buffalo for over 20 years. but we're just joining party without ruining everyone's evening. Is there any? This is a sentence I never saw myself asking, but Is there any side effect to levels like introducing different species. Like you said, not a car immediately. 3 recommendations. According to Mr. Google.

[83:04] Yeah, there's there is no known impact. Which is great, and and they are needed so, and we have seen some evidence that there is a legal there meeting them, not a ton. So there's something wonderful. Could it come through the like supply? Like on the north side, there's that channel water that comes into the most of our milk oil coming that way. Yeah. they could come in pretty much anything from them columns that could come in on people's feet. Mom Wind. So it's thirds, yeah. We will also continue to do our exiting inspection program, and then, we have purchased a new sonar system for our local boat, and we will be doing monthly surveys and mapping of the duration watermelon, not only for location, but for density. And that information will help us immensely as we move forward and create some more longer term plans

[84:22] for the longer term management. and we will also be looping in Prad and Brad with any, with all of our larger management strategies, and how this progresses as we move forward. what? Why, the outgoing inspections. So they don't take it anywhere else. Is there like a pressure washer or something. If they wash it, wash down. If we find if a boat comes to us and it's 30

[85:13] but we also do some actual physical, especially in this scenario, because it's shallow. Not that we can do that there. A lot of the links in Wisconsin, Minnesota, where I'm from. Have a fleet of harpers that go out. you know, on a weekly basis. And that might be where we're headed here. So yeah. And so he has a lot of experience with this. How do you dispose of what you pull out? It's gonna know that I'm sure you can't feed it to ghosts or something. We don't want to spread it to anybody else. So there's no productive uses. At least it's not like this group.

[86:00] We'll do that right. But it's one of those things. That is a nuisance. and there's not a great thought process, and that we can do with it that's productive. Get rid of it side. I was thinking more on the destroy it like digest it and mute or something. anyway. So yeah, a more intelligent question than goats would be. Is there best practices like you're saying Wisconsin or something anywhere that they had. I understand we can't completely get rid of it. But yeah, I mean, fortunately, there's lots of options. So we we've been researching about all the various options available on cost and effectiveness, and we hired Bar to really be able to be the experts and say, Okay, here's what all the other players we do. So we will be getting those final recommendations in May. But there are just a whole. There's a whole shortest word of different options, like

[87:06] harvesting, mechanical harvesting, or manual removal. herbicide use. You could use lake bottom blankets that move around to prevent the growth of the plan, or shade it out, kill it in in the spot. You can dredge, you can lower the reservoir level, and hope that you get at least 6 weeks of freezing temperatures to try to breathe out the room system. So it's just all sorts of options that are available. None of them will eradicate the plan. It is. It is here to stay. But we're hoping to be able to implement Some of these options based on my recommendations when those arrive, and it will be an adaptive management plan, because we fully expect that they will recommend near term actions to see how those work don't work based on that make the next make next step. So it'll only be an interim process, because then

[88:05] one like one that might work fine, and it might not be as effective and pulling them out. Seems like a pretty good method, because you mentioned, I think there's other native species you don't want to kill. Right? So, unfortunately, what has happened is our curation, water, milk, oil, native milk, oil. and created a new real boy. So we just have a lot of milk oil. That's right. Yeah, there are some. There are few other native plant species in the reservoir. But

[89:05] this plant will shave it out and overtake those and hardest thing is one tool in our toolbox which will use, and particularly to protect these scenarios, but it's resource intensive. And also this plan primarily spreads via fragmentation. So it it slops off constantly, the bottom 2 thirds of the blue, so the top. It looks like this giant map, but it's really more like a umbrella. And so it's constantly slocking those off and every single one of those fragments, and then starting the plan. So with harvesting, you know, you have to do that certain areas, and it does get you somewhere. But we also don't want that to do that on a large scale, cause it could make. But the consultant will will tell us more like how to maybe use that as one tool and then integrate other tools.

[90:02] And is there a depth at which they can't? Bro. yeah. So it does depend on light availability. They generally prefer to grow a desk less than 10 years. Not to say that they they couldn't grow it deeper and deeper areas. But right now we're generally sitting in only the shallower areas. So how deep is it the deepest? Do you guys already be? So we can grow the whole. I was pretty terrified there. Yeah, is there? So water there, I just didn't. It doesn't allow that sunlight. And again, there's some life in it where you can't just join it one cold winter and let it die. So I was also informed by our Leila Parker, who's on here? Water rights expert was. I wanted to address that that

[91:03] in this under? Oh, Leila, do you? Wanna I if if you're available, sorry to put you on the spot, do you mind chatting, chatting about the putting all water in Colorado to beneficial use. Well. Sure. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yes, let me change that. sorry. Can you still hear me. Yeah. Alright, the zoom kind of shut off for a sec. I just wanted to note that if your but in draining water out of Boulder reservoir. All that water needs to be put to beneficial use under Colorado water law. So you can't just deliver it downstream. You have to find a user for it. and that can be super tricky to plan out. So when we.

[92:00] during the reservoir in 2020, we were balancing. maintaining it high enough for recreation in the summer. and then getting all the water out as we moved into fall. When people don't really want as much water because they're not irrigating anymore. So finding finding the users for that water while keeping the water in the reservoir when we want it for recreation is a tight balance. So it's not that it can't be done, but it's just. It's just a consideration that I want to mention. Why? Why is there a law that prevents it from being delivered downstream. It needs to be delivered for something that is called a beneficial use under Colorado water law. So that can be. That's the law. It's user, it's user or lose it. Principle. So like water in the State and in the West, based on our anachronistic, outdated water laws, all water, every drop has to be put to some beneficial use. If it's a right, if someone has a right to it, and if you don't put it to a beneficial use to who's the right to it.

[93:09] So you use the water right or you lose it, and so we just give away a ton of water. We flush it downstream. Or if people that are expecting that water who have rights to it can't use it, they lose the right to it so, and and actually conveying water rights like has to go through a court system, too. So even as a layer of complexity, it's. It is one of the reasons why we have water problems is because we've got this crazy water law system. But it's just basically a user Elizabeth system, you know. Also, just just to reiterate that. Let's see, even even if we could drain the reservoir. That wouldn't eradicate the plan so we could certainly work strategically with waters and northern water and downstream users to lower the reservoir and help expose some of those

[94:02] galler areas for longer periods in the winter and hope for a very cold winter. But again, it lowering the reservoir training, it wouldn't, wouldn't automatically the plans you basically could do that. What's the like turnover of the water, like? How much is used during a year? And how much comes in? Is that question that can be answered? It varies. but it always stays at like the same level. So the reservoirs. Yeah. So the reservoir is filled by Northern reservoir, Northern water. Via the boulder you know, on the north. and that generally turned on April visual, and it flows and fills the reservoir from carbon water, and then it goes out the boulder stuff supply canal outlet. Another outlet could be the water treatment plant. If we're treating, we don't generally treat the reservoir as much anymore. It's a backup water supply for us.

[95:05] So between April and October there's a higher turnover rate of the resort. But between October and April there is no outlet unless there's one. But it'd be at lowest level unless we're meeting. So okay, also, we don't control a lot of everything right? It's not. It's this part of the of northern water. We can't just like turn off the tap, and, as I say, it would have to take a multi municipal regional effort to do it. So it sounds like your recommendations are not final, or whatever, but cutting it, or people, or whatever like, we can't empty it out freezing easily. But yeah, especially with all the other life, and that does. I was just kind of wondering when we swim in there with my kids. How long has it been in there like, what's the turnover having nothing but water itself? Yeah, I'm curious off topic for sure. But like the turnover question coming in. Does it stay a while? But it does irrigation mostly in some.

[96:17] And is Carter like taking on these precautions as well? If that's what we're getting going. Yeah. So northern water also has. Well, you should probably speak to their program. I can just say that we have one of the most stringent Anns programs in the State. At the older reservoir. We inspect we permit all of our watercraft. So you have to have a permit to use the facility, and you have to go through an inspection incoming with an actual person. And that includes small watercraft. Stand up outwards. Everything. Not many other places in the state of doing that and and a big part of that is because the Colorado person doesn't have the funding to be able to staff us in order to do that.

[97:06] So to answer your question, it does not look the same as what we are doing looks very good. So that's collaboration question. I don't personally, both on the rest of our. But my understanding is that power boats kind of have right in the center, and who empowered, is more on the right, highest and outwards. So would I be correct. Assuming that this, like the math you showed us of, where the both well is most developed is impacting standard outbreaks. Packs is more than it is enacting motorized watercraft. Yes, but because they use that outer ring. Okay, so I would love to discuss like, how do we make sure that you know power users still have a nice place to use their watercraft? And can we do that? I I guess I don't know this kind of thinking. But like.

[98:04] can we do that in a way that's still respect the fact. People are out there adjusting their ski boats going fast in certain times a day. So we do have times when the lake is available, completely available to all other class. And that's those are no wait times, and that allows you can't create a lake for the powerboat, and so that allows all of our small water to be able to go into that and use that space to recreate. So that is happening. And we are continually looking at what our time segmentation is afterwards. and and what what we need to do to make sure that we're greetings is privacy. Okay? And it's not that big of a spot.

[99:00] Thank you. Yes. I'll say something else, just to illustrate the finest nature of all the water. Rexford was that the City Council made for this registration just through that property. There was an attorney, a live human person. at the meeting with representing 3 companies that co-own, that ditch, those companies are all older than the state of all of. And I have been owning that dish. I've been walking that dish since 70, whatever. and that's probably gonna occur. Yeah. you had mentioned that we have one of the most streamed inspection programs or control programs for the Boulder reservoir. And I have heard, like from people just making comments like complaining about how they can help or like they can in other like long months. So I was wondering what is the result like. If you have a stringent program, and you're ending up with the basic species like, Are they having it long month and like, in terms of their cost of them for this

[100:04] having such a program. Martin. Sorry the difference between Longmont and West and Boulder, as far as it's a it's a protected bond of water. So long can't compare how we do big, how they do their inspections, because we're protecting the water. So we that's one of the reasons why we have a higher inspection or program for the Ans program. And we're also still trying to keep out many other ans, including the zebra mussels, which is, which is really where this whole program started was because of the muscles. And we have a very controlled space. Where a lot of other locations like Carter Lake. It's it's not as control. You can put in your boat in many locations which makes it a little so I know that

[101:10] in my conversations with Walmart. There have been a lot of conversations about how we do our program. and they're looking at making some changes. Don't know what that's going to look like moving forward. But they are having this conversation. Are they having the mill file problem in there? Not that I'm aware of, not at union I don't know about. Are you talking about lack of access due to like permitting process? Yeah, I mean, I don't paddle board. I will share with you that we have not run out of small craft comments this year. We did add some small craft permits, but we have not run out as of today. So I I think when we were hearing a lot of that, we were at a peak for standup, how to boarding. And I think now that peak is starting to kind of define a little bit. So I think

[102:07] we're trying to figure out what is that number of permits and what we can manage on the reservoir with everything else that happens. and you still just have seasonal permits. There's no days passes. We don't have days with weekday permits and and season passes. But we don't have days. and I'm assuming, like the water is processed or clean. So if it's being used for drinking, water like is water quality, an issue? Yeah. So when it, anyone who's using it for taking water, we have a lot of treatment plan process. So is that. Why fuel and all that is fine because it gets cleaned out. We actually, when we do routine monitoring, and would monitor with the text like

[103:02] feeling, smiling, toiling. Fuel things. the signatures of boat fuel, and it's always been unattached like in the past, like 15 years. Maybe we had one hit add detection on it. But yeah, so we have a. And in addition to that, we also monitor, for with that 150 or 3 months other water industry. So we have a pretty robust. So it almost doesn't matter like it's gonna get processed or cleaned afterwards. What doesn't matter? The water cool. I'm just, you know, as a hippie who grew up here. You know I'm I just wonder why we have boats with fuel in our drinking water supply. Understand? It's a non controversial issue with all of it. But you know, I'm just curious. I think. Well, I can't speak for the recreation side. But I'll just. I think it's sort of a balance between the recreational water use. Yeah, the intent of the

[104:05] no, that is. it is a balance, and we're constantly monitoring. And the one time that we did have a hit on the B text we sat down and had a conversation to figure out what was happening at that time, and it was a Fourth of July. and so we had a pretty large number of boats that were on the reservoir. So we did some adaptive management, and now we only allow 20 mobile at one time, and once we hit that level it's a one on one. And so again, I don't think everyone and you aren't just a source of yes, these are not allowed other than the water safety in our business. But it's not your primary source of water, right? Isn't it the top? So it's the main drinking one. So yeah, it's a backup wires folder. But this is. It's a critical regional wire supply. So

[105:08] it's it's a place where Northern water stores part of water from the color big Thompson delivery system, and it's also supplies water to downstream. Mafia and then, if there's several dishes that come up there that easily resolution. So there are quite a few users that rely on this as their primary. secondary, integrated water supply. And then it's weekly, yeah. Yeah. And the dog she sees it's not an issue.

[106:07] Yeah. And we test the swimming area weekly when we're open for swimming, to make sure that within the State regulated dates. So I hate to do this. But this has been an amazing discussion. And I love the questions. But in the interest of time we do have to move on to the next item, I can see Jackson just jump into bed. Amazing. And if you have additional questions that you want to direct. But thanks for the presentation that was really helpful. Thank you for the questions that was great. Thank you for joining us along. You bet that's my job. I'm Justin, I business services manager. Welcome to the new crowd numbers for the full crowd members. There will be a lot of repeat material. So I apologize for that. But the questions you asked last month were very good, that we have presentation to we are going to go over the 5 sources and usage of funds.

[107:21] Then we're moving points. Get into the budget strategy, the fee policy. Just for awareness. And then I will be presenting the cip. First touch. Mark is online as the expert cip winner. But I think I can walk us through this tonight. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Stacy. And you do have 2 graphics in front. Yeah. So first of all, with the timeline projects are so Stacy Hoffman, I'm gonna do business services. So what will be 5 numbers. This timeline kind of shows the proud engagement, and also what the 2025 budget development timeline is. We are sitting here in April so we're gonna do a high, level financial overview of Q, one. Give the fund overview as Jackson just mentioned. And then, really, this is your first touch with the cip as we move into May, we'll come back to the with more details about the 2025 budget development, and where we are at with that.

[108:21] and you'll have your cip. Second touch for 2025 through 2030. In June we will come back to the crowd with an action item to approve the Perm, and then also to recommend. Of our 2025 budget submittal as well on the bottom from June through December. The But it's no. We'll go through the approval process and we'll go to executive budget team the planning board and then City Council with hopeful adoption in October. So just to start the evening we are going to review the main funding streams for Vpr. The Cardin is very fortunate that we do have some diverse funding streams that includes dedicated taxes, sales and property user fees, general fund support and other fund support. So we do feel it's important for the prep

[109:15] to have flat understanding of various funding sources when we're talking about financial reviews with you all. And then also, as we move through the 2025 budget development. So you do have 2 hands out in front of you. This bigger chart right here is in the dummy. Are you here. Is basically the primary funds for the department. We did present this at last month's meeting, and upon the recommendation of the Fab, we did put in other capital funds at the end show that the Department does receive funding from other capital improvement funds. That do come in. And these are basically project based. It's not just dedicated funding streams that we account for a certain amount every year. Okay.

[110:06] on your smaller handout, which is also gonna be a slide. This is just a summary here of our funds. It gives what our uses are, the creation of funds. If it's capital or operating who develops the revenue, and she really is responsible for expense, recommendation, development. So just kind of pull for you as you are new to the board, or even continue on the board just as a refresher. So looking at our general fund is our first fund we're going to discuss. This is a governmental fund. It is supported by fees, sales, property, and other taxes, and this is, mainly used for operating expenditures. It is managed by finance and allocated citywide, and for our department. This supports our forestry department, urban parks or park operations. the department admin such as administration and business services marketing. And then also our urban Ranger program

[111:02] the fund was approved about 6.4 million for 2024 for parks and recreation use. The second fund that we do have is the Lottery Fund. This is a special revenue fund, and we do receive monies from the State Conservation Trust Fund, and they disperse that out to local governments based on population. From there. It is distributed to Gpr on an annual basis. This is a restricted fund for the department, and this is used for capital improvement programs. It was a very big win when we're doing our 2024 budget development that the department was awarded most of the funding for 2024 to support a lot of the work we're doing in our parks across the city. So the point to 5 cents sales tax fund is a special revenue fund, and this is funded by a voter. Approve it approved sales tax funds the Department does use this to support both the operating and capital expenditures.

[112:09] Again, just something that we did want to present out to the crowd that for 2024 we do have an ongoing subsidy transfer to the raft. And this is to help fund the sports turf work group and certain community benefit programs. The reason the decision was made is our sports chart group was sitting over in the general fund and the point to 5. However, all the revenue was being received in the Recreation Activity fund. So it was really disjointed, so expensive. We're sitting in one fund. We have revenue coming in a different fund. It made sense to kind of move everything into one fund for better management. All that, and just gonna move that funding string over. We'll also be looking at a conditional subsidy to the Recreation Activity Fund for the wrath. Put a placeholder, and that's because the wrap is a semi quasi Enterprise fund. We do need to make sure that it operates more like a business with our revenue and expense in ratio. So we are looking at subsidy transfer to make sure that fund us stay balanced

[113:16] alright, which brings us to the Recreation Activity fund and this is really funded by user fees and also Donations, Grants and General Fund subsidy. This is primarily used for operational expenses. We do have a one time capital expense to help fund the wrought iron stop course enhancement project that is going on right now, hopefully wrapping up soon, just because the golf course that brought in so much revenue, we just reinvested it back into the course of the capital level during the budget process, too, we will spend a lot of time developing this budget, talking about the Recreation Activity fund monitoring this throughout the year, because it's about a third of the total budget.

[114:07] The next fund which you look at is the Permanent Park and Recreation fund which is dedicated to capital projects. It is funded by property and development excise taxes, and this is the fund that Brad will have that formal approval. So when we do come back to you in June, we will have an action item to formally approve the expenditure for 2025. How does this fund will be recommended. And the Department Parking Recreation fund is used for acquiring land renovating or including existing parks and recreation facilities. It is restricted, and it is not from daily operations about this fund. I'm not sure. This next, which you do have the handout here just really kind of summarizes everything that is mentioned. Going down to our different funds that we have, if they call restricted a lot of that uses for capital

[115:09] development and planning on the Creation Fund is either going to be by city voters as sales tax city council or State voters with the Lottery Fund. We have pointed out. If it's capital or operating funds that are operating and meeting out of the general fund, the Recreation Activity Fund sales, tax fund and other funding listed is really capital. Supporting the revenue development. A lot of it is either the Budget Office or department staff, and then their expense development. It is after the Department should find out. formulate, and develop our annual budget and then present that for approval questions on the funds.

[116:05] You're moving from this. But I'm definitely, if you have any questions on funds. My only question like to build out private groups can donate money, and that's a source of income. Yes. we receive grants, donations, sponsorship settings for about 4 is $500,000 a year that we get created. All of those alternate find sources as well as groups can dedicate to a certain project to certain groups of calls as well any other questions. why is the recreation activities on in uses. There's like $200,000 less in uses than American revenues.

[117:02] Yes. So this is the fund that operates more like the business with the revenue we spend. So we want to keep that balance. So this is a budget production of where we think the revenue will be at. But because this fund is primarily funded by user fees in General Fund subsidy. We wouldn't want budget up to the top. So we want to get some type of room there in case revenue didn't hit that expectation right? Also, I'm just looking to be out there sustainable. I also think, from a government finance side of things it does have to be a Enterprise fund. We treat them more as a social enterprise fund. When everyone's profit off the recreation activities we reinvest in the excess revenues back into the services. What then? Employed? By site programming and people with disabilities? So I wanted to categorize it. We're here to make phone we are truly just reinvested back into the services that we packed.

[118:02] How much does this change from like last year? Yeah. Good question. Total dollar amount. Yeah, I mean, it seems like you spend a lot of work doing a budget every single year. Why don't we do it in reality every 2 years like a lot of places here. Right? I mean, 4 months we're gonna spend at first 4 months working on a budget. And like, then we're gonna do it again next spring. And I don't know, I mean, is, is there a lot of variability from year to year? That's why we we have to do a 12 month. But later, when we get to future site, you will see the variability over here. The city has chosen to go on an annual budget process. I think some of us are working by annual agencies. It's a loveiter sort of situation. I would hate to be in a budget year the last year. It's your legislature the last year. And because we're operating more like a business, there is so much variation year over year we do see a bit more stability and sales tax and property taxes on your basis.

[119:00] That there is some considerations moving in that direction. You will see us February through June for your time on that. So And another follow up was on the capital projects. Do you like we is there a way to like save that for future projects? And how does that like project out 5 years and say, Well, we have these rec centers, and we need to start putting some money away for those right? Well, we're gonna get there just important to note, although we are projecting out and budgeting, it's just the next year that is formally approved. So it's a plan from 26 through 30 questions in the 7 million in other. Where was that? Was that.

[120:00] What's that from? And other capital funds? Yeah. So this is finding that the Department has received to support on specific capital projects that we are working on, and it is from the CC. Rs community over resilience and safety tax which is going to help fund a joint project with facilities for the East Closer Community center. We do have the Capital Development Fund which is mainly funding Violet Park. And then we do have that folder Junction which will fund the park fish. Okay? Great. So, moving on from the different types of funds, we're just gonna give you a very high level use of funds buyer funds is this first slide. And this just shows the department. Q. One actual spend from 2,019 through 2024

[121:02] in our staffed columns. We just do have the main 5 funds, and then we do want that capital into other funds. So in that, like Lewis, the general fund. General funds. It's really important. I just wanna make a note looking at the slide. And some things that we look at is you know one. We're looking at what our actual spend is their big peaks and valleys. We're also looking at it, too, in reviewing it against budget. Right? So our budget does change every year. We're looking at on a quarterly basis of a percentage of spend to our budget. And we see any fluctuations of that just wanted to preface that across all our funds for Q, one actual spend for this year, they are very in line with that historic actual spend. You may see some absent flows in this chart, but as compared to budget we are within that anywhere from 15 to 20 spend since 2019. So things are looking pretty good. We do see general fund in the light blue. It's been fairly consistent. We point to by some sales tax is in that letter, green 23 and 24, as we're coming out of the pandemic and then also funding some capital projects

[122:15] Recreation activity Fund. Probably see the biggest growth. 2324. This was the fund that took the most significant impact in the pandemic. So you will see decrease spending 2020 through 2022 as those services we're decreased and then slowly reinstated. The permanent park and recreation funds being very capital driven, you'll see of Zoom flows, depending on the spend on the capital projects. A lot of this is what is going on throughout the year and timing issues Lottery Fund almost doesn't show up but we'll see more spending 2024 with an increase budget. And then we have our capital other funds. So again Cip related timing related, and really just show what the department is funding. For example, you do see a lot capital spend in 2020. As we were finishing up the both of us. High profile expense projects going on. So you'll see that spend go up in the Q. One.

[123:17] And just as a reminder, the Raf. The Recreation Activity Fund is the revenue that comes in from direct letters, and that's why it is impacted till March sixteenth. So Q. One was actually pretty well known it was Q. 2 that we saw. We're actually getting away money instead of plugging money. So we'll do the Qc. Review. You'll see that. But the other thing that we look at closely is just our spend per category. So in that light green color that is our operating or our personnel cost. So salaries, wages, benefits, how we do see that slight uptick do the cost escalation cost of minimum wages increase cost of wages, so we do see that time up a little bit.

[124:16] The operating mpe, so materials, services, goods, they see anything like blue again. Do you see an increase in spend mainly due to cost escalation 2023 through 2024, also catching up still on some backlog of maintenance that was delayed during the pandemic we do have the capital and light yellow in that muster in yellow. Again dedicated to those capital projects. And then on the top we have the cost allocation, and even the departmental transfers. We just had pretty steady growth there. Alright in our last meeting in March. We did look at the basically expenditure by fund for the year end. Spend to do the M exercise. Putting on the consumer plan of the consumer price index. So the Cpi

[125:17] on to what our 2019 baseline would have looked like. So we do see the operating spend actual 2019 through 2023 and most columns. We do have the 2,024 budget and Cpi adjustments that yellow line based on 2,019 baseline. And you can see how the inflation has impacted everything over the last several years. So you do see lower actual spend 2020 through 2022 because of the pandemic as we recover our service levels and such in 2023 everything must cost more, which has been kind of a thing, and I bet the development that our expenses, you know, are outpacing our revenues that we are looking at with our budget strategy development

[126:16] question one of them. Well, yeah, I don't wanna delay things too much. But yeah, in terms of operating expenses going up. Obviously, you know, there's always a balance between retention like pay folks more better benefits and paying the minimum which has gone up a little bit, and we'll lose always more expensive and more difficult to live in. So is there some sort of ethical and strategic thinking about retention and being a way to save some money while spending more money? Does that make sense. I I run a business. If we pay folks more better benefit benefits, they stick around. We wonder

[127:02] sort of saving money with other stuff. I think you hit the challenge we face part of the nature of our non standard business is, it's for a lot of people to support years on the job. They transition on that said, We do have people who've been here 30 plus years. Yeah, referring more to the not seasonal. Yep. So the not seasonal side. We do have. We went through a process called table review and classification conversation with the city, examined all jobs across the entire organization. Compared to competitiveness to the local market and other job duties. With our summer hiring this year we do have a rehire bonus where we are getting folks to come back and work for us the second year. $100 just coming with the training timeline is less. We do have a referral bonus. We know that people wants work with their friends. So that's in place, and the city does offer a variety of benefits that is, on total compensation. So everything from tuition reimbursement

[128:04] minimal cost rec center visits. Signals policies are all back again. So I don't know the exact retention rates. But We can look into that and get back to you on it. I think it was just. It was a general concern like when Jenny and I ran. You know there was a lot of discussion about. We couldn't afford to live in boulder, etc, etc. That was also a factor. But you know, for the yeah teachers, you know, for those. Hopefully, you want to that it's possible. I think it would just be nice to know people in Israel more invested if they live in place and working in place? Any other questions. Yes, I have a question. What are the non traditional funding sources that you have listed? I was wondering if you had. Do you have anybody on. or just parks, or do we? Do? We have anybody on staff that works.

[129:03] I'm getting like sponsorship dollars. Not that older ones Google, baseball field, or something like that. But I I feel like that would be something that I haven't seen, that I'd be interested in exploring. I I can take this one. So I oversee our our marketing and communication staff. And we've certainly talked about sponsorship opportunities. We do not have a dedicated person. That is going out there and and working with businesses and trying to get donations at this point. We do have staff on our team that focuses on grants and grant opportunities. But we have not engaged in the the sponsorship. So, for example, when we open up our recreation guide, it's not filled with ads from throughout the community. A lot of organizations do that. They charge those ads in the Rec. Centers that have billboards that are costly rotating of different businesses, and they generate revenue from that because the the amount of money that can be generated from that is is very minimal. We would be, you know, starting off fortunate we'd be able to cover the cost of that position even make it happen. So. We haven't gone down that avenue yet, but we can certainly continue to look into it.

[130:11] And then my other concern is, you know, we have a lot of housing coming in. So there's obviously in relation to that. We have a lot more people coming into town. So you're gonna have a lot more tax on all of our folks infrastructure, which is obviously I don't know where signs and things like that. is there? I mean. the sales tax I feel like are that stuff's based on tourism a lot of the time. Is there something that I'm trying to think of what the you know, we charge like a developers when they come in for the affordable housing program. Is there something like we could do with developers to have them give the percentage of the funds of the back to the department services.

[131:11] That is allocated specifically to parts and migration. There's other dollar amounts to go to. Please fire the fire library. Transportation infrastructure. You name it. So we get about 800,000 to 1 million dollars a year from that. Historically, we save that up and build or use it for a big part project because it's supposed to correspond to the increase in services that community members are receiving. And then back to your original point of what are the metrics that we're comparing our service to. We do rely on the trust for public land, a bench marketing. We compare ourselves to other agencies. What we find is, we have a pro above average access to parklands on a per population basis. The walkability of that to every resident is an area that we will focus on that will show you on that.

[132:03] You just let it, I think. And and does this does this sip take into account population growth? In that we factored into a degree. Sales tax doesn't really increase all that dramatically. Probably tax doesn't increase until a few years after we do rely on to use school business for forecasting, and then we also are in close collaboration with the Governor's office. With budgeting, forecasting, and they hope of all of the longer range. 3 to 5 year out projections. For those citywide funds. Couple of questions. I remember last year I was really amazed to find out how much of the budget went towards addressing goofy and damage and bathrooms and urban Major. And I'm just curious. Do you see a trend? Do you see that you? Are you budging more this year, or are you seeing that hold steady?

[133:04] If we're looking at 2023 actuals, we could compare that to the past past 2 or 3 years. The Ranger program didn't really get off board until early 2022 staff at the end of 2,022 is our first year. I would say, generally speaking, about the budget for recurring vandalism we speak, but at the image has decreased or flattened. One time one off events, does tend to increase. But that is more of a uncommon occurrence that we're typically budgeting for and I think that there's other mechanisms beyond the organization that we have used to implement that later this summer we will have rotating security trailers at parts that saw after hours. Vandalism last year close to evolve. We'll have a security guard to provide access into the restrooms. During peak hours of vandalism.

[134:04] I think those are probably the 2 other base mechanisms. But we do see. The more we invest in those proactive prevention. the more there's possible down for the manual associated with that. What is the security trailer? So they're actually if if you think about if you go to like a lowest parking lot, and they've got the trailer and the big all thing with cameras under the top. It's it's a surveillance camera, is it? Surveillance, trailer, where we have access to the live feeds. so it it sort of depends. Dispatch can monitor those in real time. So if we like, for instance, when we have information back down and set the park dispatch could actually tap in to that those feeds and see them or, for instance, if we had vandalism in a restroom, and we happen to have a survey and share with that camera.

[135:05] We could look. See what time it is. If they got into vehicle. We can go back and look at those that footage. One more question. Are you looking any further into like new revenue streams at the bread centers? I just feel like there's a real missed opportunity there for retail stuff like goggles, or whatever you're buying it, or coffee part, or as someone who takes my kids to gymnastics. It's like a really horrible time in the evening. So if there was a snack bar that would make our life a lot better as they're going to do those every week. This is their time to get them input. And I just feel like I mentioned before South Wales, especially as we design that you got 2 campuses and kids who are going to be super in their whole month break instead of sitting by the lake having a burrito that they bought at the kiosk. That is helpful. Directly. I just I would love to see some partnerships and some ideas thrown around about how we can get more revenue

[136:06] in places that people are going, and would really enjoy the convenience of having absolutely. And and I will say we're having those conversations now. Heidi Mallon is our marketing manager, and she's working on a a marketing plan, marketing strategy for the department which includes merchandising. So, for example, sales of some branded items out of the Boulder Reservoir and Scott Carbon Park. We do have a pro shop at ease of the Rec. Centers, where we do sell some items. So if you go out to East, you'll see ice cream bars, different snack foods and those kind of things. And that's an interesting concept. Right? So back in the maybe 20 years ago, a lot of rec centers are built with snack bars built into them. Most of those have been tech during the cycling studios or other things, because they're not

[137:04] financially sustainable. So I think that's something we can continue to look at. At Scott, Carpenter. We will have a a contractor providing concession services. and then, of course, at the reservoir Stacy and her team are going to be providing food service this summer as well. But I think we can continue looking and figure out how we can leverage and and create some more revenue and and provide a great service for me. So we'll continue to look at that as a marketing professional. And that's how I have everything. A couple of weeks ago. Let's talk about this. And I think. I don't know this necessarily about like finding more things to sell people to my center so much. It's just about getting more people to go to the West Center. And that's that was the first of our conversation. Huge opportunity. Make sure that people with this say no, that those resources exist, and they're actually better than 25 fitness or or fine artists help out, or whatever. Well, I think like just giving East Boulder Rock and South Boulder. There's beautiful youth there, and we're really good at getting people moving, and that's a great part about mental health in boulder, and we're really strong getting your body the embodied move. We're not really good at creating spaces for people to gather and rest and

[138:23] enjoy nature, you know. You get on the trail. You're not letting off the trail. You gotta keep walking. You go to these, you know, Parks, and it's it's a lot of movement. There's not a lot of spaces that we created where people can sit and look at the view and drink a coffee and talk to a friend, and I just South polar screens out to me like people will go there just to have a coffee and a burrito and sit by that lake and talk to their friends. especially high school, and I don't know if no school kids are allowed to go up but high school kids for sure, and I think it's it's an additional thing that would bring people to at least those locations or other locations. And I I think food trucks like, I know, there's a couple of parks that are already permanent at food trucks. We don't.

[139:09] We're just not there yet, as far as activating the space for gathering. And by sting. And I love that. Yeah, I'm I'm good friends with Alex Alejandro. Some of you have worked with them with the coffee truck is that Dalmont by park at least once a week? Just making that encouraging that. you know, if it's appropriate if it's something you want. But I love that gathering like actually at the Columbus Cemetery which I mentioned, there's a whole bunch of different groups who come and almost inappropriately, like set up chairs in the middle of the cemetery and hang out. But clearly maybe they would be sitting on grades if they had other respons

[140:01] wasn't scheduled. Oh, trying done. I'm trying. I'm trying. It's not. Oh, yeah. So yeah, I really appreciate that that comment, right? Because I you know, we certainly understand. There's there's a need for that as well. And so it's a fine balance between what we offer as recreation professionals and and parks professionals, and how we handle our partnerships. One of the things we are looking into here is updating our commercial use program and and how we work with vendors and and then we don't have to be the experts in those kind of services. But we can partner with the people like all 100 who who are those experts. And so that's that's our goal. So you got that people are skateboarding, and, you know, hanging out right? I love the burrito thing, too, like I'm a little horrified by some of the stuff we offer. Sometimes health, wise and plastic wise. Yeah. And I think that's a that's a tough situation for us to decide if we're going to get into food service industry and and providing that I'd rather leave that to the food experts. But I like that like partnering.

[141:21] you know, under their jurisdiction, they take the risk. They're paying you something to be there. And that's a constant revenue stream that we're not taking advantage of absolutely. Yeah. I, as someone who grew up going to school and like eating ice cream out of the when it was happening. And this Pacman game was there at the time it's gone, which I'm pretty upset about. So. But and that was registry. And I was like, and yeah, just have just partnering with. We have unbelievable people making unbelievable breakfast for years, and like

[142:00] I'm sure they would decide to make a couple of 100 extra. I think you're right to. Not we don't want to get into making. Probably I'm looking at our fence there as a restroom. We didn't have a choice. Alright, so we're gonna move on with 2025 budget development. This slide is just a reminder as far as what we'll be requesting present to set the stage in April we will come back to you with a I'm sorry, brand new May. We'll come to you with a discussion item, and then in June we'll come with an action item. We typically sequence it where you have an opportunity. What is it being formal action items the crowd does have formal approval over the permanent parts integration portion of the Department budget, and then recommendation over the full budgets. So throughout this process we will be working with the team policy schedule and then updating the 25 to 2030 capital improvement program which we will also touch on tonight.

[143:06] last month we talked through challenges, and opportunities associated with the budget development, the pricing and very in agreement with the recommendation. So just remind me tonight, we're only looking at the recommendations. With the 2025 budget development. As we roll up everything from the staff department level analysis will be able to realign the department budget without alternate funding or reducing service levels. I think that we saw the impact of service level reduction back in 2,020, we have been slowly building out that we would like to maintain service levels across the board to Jenny's Point. We really are seeking non traditional funding sources. We do bring in about 400,000 sources. But I think that is a bigger area that we can continue to leverage the problem with non traditional funding sources is, we can't really count that as you have any more expenses than received. So you will see that our base budget is not factoring any additional non traditional revenue sources

[144:07] as those are received. We go through a process called adjustment. Today. Specific council. They make increases to revenues and expenses to account for that. I think something that you've heard from us many times is the emphasis on equitable access. The chart on the right shares the financial aid enrollment numbers from 2,014 when the program launched through the present you can see that there was a large spike in 2,020, and this really was based on the number of people relying on employment and then vaccine jobs from the pandemic. And we just continue to barely year over year that we're really proud of not only this number, but the visitation into our facilities. At this point, 14% of all visitation is by someone on a financial aid pass which we're incredibly proud of and really ahead of natural talking through other recommendations. We will look at the

[145:01] few policy next month, and there will be opportunities to adjust for these on special events and partial use. And then next month we will start looking at the underfunded and unfunded capital maintenance based on updating projections. And then I see asset management. So Mark will be the expert on that and then we are aligning all of our budget development standards with Capra. Chapter 5, Capra is a national accreditation process that we're going through currently the role being founded by the National Representation Agency Association next fall. So flew through that we're just gonna go through the the policy real quick, mainly for the new members. These 2 graphics the top one came from the 2022 apartment plan, which was statistically valid and provided input from everyone across the community as well as the proud city council and staff.

[146:00] And coming out of this plan that was adopted unanimously. It was both that taxing paid for programs that are community members benefited, whereas user fees would pay, whereas individuals benefits. So an example is one of our expand programs that support people disabilities that's funded primarily through the General fund subsidy that's received, whereas something that's a individual sport. We'll say a softball week is fully covered through users. On the bottom is a graphic that we developed last year that looked at what the cost recovery target should be based on those different levels of benefits going from community to recreation at the middle of the ground. You do have a wide variety of folks in there. But there is some personal benefit to individuals being those individual benefit programs. So the more individualizing program is the higher cost. Recovery target is and that's essentially that person covering their full share of the services that they are receiving.

[147:03] So last year with the key policy. We created 10 different program types as far as fee categorization. In 2024, the golf course and rentals were big areas that were updated later this year you will hear updates from stuff on the commercial use program. This has been on the pilot phase for 12 years now. So we are hoping to pick some bigger parameters around it. And then the city wide offices. Special events, is also working on some few policies and the updates that we are seeing to update those as well. We do have alternative mechanisms that aren't necessarily tied to the budget process. But do feed into our revenue projections. And those are listed below, and then finally, we have open access. But we are never going to charge a fee to access. A park that has sidewalks on 4 sides. We think it is a huge benefit to the community to be able to have mass recreation. So this is just clarifying that nice

[148:02] Are there any questions on a few policies? You mentioned that the your first slide, that the no go back home. So the recommendations are updated thread input on reschedule for special events information. So that's all we're planning on changing is just for those 2 things. And we haven't discussed that. and likely being honest with where those conversations are at across the city, we will put a placeholder into the 25 budget of what we expect. The revenue increases to be associated with that and that process will scale behind the budget development process. So next month is going to be the bulk of the budget discussion next month will be the revenues and expenses. This will have highlight. Any of the key changes year over year areas where we're continuing to invest areas where we're going to divest or not invest as much as previously.

[149:12] And did you have something there. No? Sorry. thank you. So see if he will include one of the projects, the years, the timing, the budget and then we will do a deep dive on one of the asset management categories to show you how we've come up with the projected numbers. It's just a general question. if it's something like, you know. I notice there's not recycle bins consistently at all the parks. we're like half recyclables. This that aren't getting recycled is that something we put in the budget. If we decide that's important to us. Or yes, the best process for that would be to email Ali Sky in the next 6 weeks, or raise it as a point for the may prep meeting

[150:03] and related question like, if there's a desire for a new park or a new amenity of some sort. When does that happen? Or how does that happen? So typically through the cip process? We look at things about 6 years out. So if there's things that we need to identify, Mark has a a list and quite a bit of information about taking care of what we have. And that asset management piece. And so I think that's something that we'd want to have brought up right away. And we figure out where it goes into the schedule, and it would potentially take several years. Okay? And we can add that to the agenda. So we could say, like next month is going to be huge. But you know the June meeting, and then maybe, like sometime in July or August, we could like actually put an agenda item, let's talk about what the what the potential cip backlog is. What are some ideas we have. Just so we can participate in that more formally. So just let us know. And we can add that

[151:11] any other questions. Okay, I'm gonna switch over to the cip first touch. There is very close coordination between business services team and the planning team. On the cip. So tonight I'm taking the lead. Mark is available. Should there be any questions. Last year was the first year of the capital investment strategy. This is where the planning team came and really identified what had come out of the 2022 department plan in order to recategorize and restructure our platform. We went to policy from this point forward. It just saves me a few words, so I appreciate it. But we do have a 6 year cycle that we rotating through the Cis, and this is really highlighting that we are in year 2 with year 2, we are focused on the annual planning and then the 2 year work plan. So it's very hard in the capital world only within one year. Because of the planning and prep work that goes into something through community engagement design, then you build it and then post build. You are getting into the operating phase.

[152:16] So back to Stacy's Point. so we will just continue to cycle through this. We'll review, update, and then in about 5 years we'll be going to another department and update process. This will be an opportunity for us to incorporate more feedback from the community and what's desired. But each process is very simple for focus on the next year, for appropriations looking 2 years out for staff capacity and workload thing. So here's a better graphic that highlights it. The couple improvement and is really a 6 year plan. This is what goes through crowd to planning board, and ultimately the city Council, and is called the Cip

[153:01] the 2 Year Work Plan is really helping our staff figure out timing, completing or community engagement. Design work. And then we build is more of that one year plan. So ultimately the way the budget is adopted, there's only appropriations for the next fiscal year. So we will be talking about the 2025, 2030 cp. But 2025 is the only year that will be appropriated. Everything. Now here I like to describe as written pencil. We may have to reset change around the project timelines the project budgets. What goes when and where, and that's part of the process that we go through with that and we'll have with you next month. So with the cap on investment strategy. There was 3 different categories that all of the cip investments fell into. Asset management is our biggest this focuses on the department plans theme that, taking care of what we have, we recognize that we already have a tremendous value within the park system that we own, but we want to maintain it, ensure that it is in a good standard. So I believe the asset management accounts for about

[154:12] 50 60% of our overall investment year over year. Next to that, we have the under, that, we have the personal information facilities. This is really going in and doing a big refresh on a specific property. And it's driven by what the life cycle is for our buildings, and when it fits into both the funding and staff capacity standpoint. So an example of the a parks and rec facility plan going on right now is the park on Violet? That is an area where we are putting significant investment. As Mark mentioned earlier, it's a 2 to 3 year budget for my new community. Engagement kicks off until the different things that and then the last category is system planning. This is really less than 5% of our overall investment. These are 5 to 7 year plans that we're looking at for how we are planning for the future. So a recent example with the problem started out is the quick system plan this looks at what is our current state? And where do you want to be in 7 years? And how are we going to make investments.

[155:16] What you'll see is the recommendations that come out of the system. Plan will then feed into the project facilities, and then ultimately asset management is taking care of all of those facilities across the board. So now that I'm talking through this, we don't want to change our diagnostic, but you get the gist of it. These 2 charts are directly from the 2022 department plan, and highlight. What can we do for the facilities and parts in a physically constrained environment, which is the current environment that we're in action. Envision, level funding or action envision level projects are what the community identified as be nice to have, but not within the current budget environment to get there. That being said, we do have one time funding sources, such as the Ccrs and the coupled with automatic excise tax that have allowed us to start factoring in some of the action visionable items. And as that one time funding comes through whether it's grants and donations or community supported. One time taxes. That is how we would find more of the actionable items.

[156:20] I think I just want to highlight fiscally constrained is what we are committed to achieving as part of the next 5 years. Anything that we get above and beyond, and actually, envision is great to get to on that first. So I know there's a lot of things that go into Cip I attached in your packet. There was the approved Cp. By from last June. I think that what we wanted to highlight as far as the decision and tools is, this is not on your back. End. This is done with program managers, supervisors from across the department, but we also work with other departments. So we regularly work with facilities to take care of our above ground infrastructure. We work with our partners in transportation mobility. Anytime we're touching a bike path or looking at heat changes department

[157:14] we work with climate initiatives. Anytime there is a system inside of a building that could become more environmentally sustainable. All of these are conversations that occur throughout the year. But then there is a capital review team that meets quarterly, and the reporting is on these projects that are more in that 2 to 3 year lead time. So we are making sure that there is coordination 2 tools that we rely on. That aren't directly stated is on the right hand side is the equity map from the 2022 department plan. The purple colors are where there's the highest need. Based on 4 different equity measures that we looked at. whereas the yellow to white is where the lowest need is for those deputy features.

[158:00] So as we come back to you next month, we will highlight where the projects are taking place across the city with the emphasis being, we continue to invest in areas that there is a higher need. Based on tree cover financially applications and eligibility and a few other measures that were identified in 2,022 plan. Also, speaking of the 2022 plan, there are the 60 things we really rely on, all of those, each of the themes had a initiative and go underneath of them, and we tried to verify that the cip projects within the zoom meet at least one of those, if not next in the left hand phone you will see tools that the capital alright. the planning team uses as they are going through this in order to help ensure that we can allocate our budget responsibly. Sometimes we do have to reduce the number of overall projects based on staff capacity or funding, we would rather do a project. Well, have it meet the communities that do multiple projects that

[159:04] having gone as well. we do look at value engineering. So as we are going through the design phase, we will work with a architect, or engineer to value engineer and see what our opportunities to save money in a way that is responsible, and ensures the advice of what building we do. Look at phasing where we may phase in a project over time. An example could be pacific area. Civic area phase one is completed in 2,018. Now we're coming back in with a plan that identify what could happen in that area. And we're configuring phase 2, we do have target budgeting. So we will set a target for what we think a project could cost and then work with our architects, engineers, and various permitting inputs to try to achieve that budget as close as possible. And then we do have a place spent life cycle savings. We will talk through this next month, but

[160:01] there may be a bigger cost upfront for a product or building process that credit standpoint. That our intention is not what is the cost of replacement, or the first 5 years. But what is the total cost of facility ownership over the course of maintaining that asset and invest our main meeting? I've already alluded to this. But we will talk through the asset management program, and then we will provide a updated list on our under and funded projects. With more accurate numbers based on the recent process. I will pause here and see if there's any questions on Cfp. okay. Cc, already alluded to this. But I just wanted to remind you. Next month we will be returning with a discussion item. This, is the precursor for the action item. Our hope is to gather any of your feedback next month on the projected revenues and expenses for the department

[161:02] as well as the cip, and we will also do a first touch on the adjustments for the visions to the policy. At June we will come back with the other items. I apologize. We don't have more numbers for you tonight, but we're in the middle of rolling up about 70,000 line items across the department. So There's a lot going on to figure where we're sitting. And we're a year through the new budgeting process that still requires some money. And updates is really good. So with that we had an identified 2 questions in the memo they're listed up here. But is there any information or data that would be helpful to inform your decision at the process. And then the second one being, does the crowd have any input on the processor tools really need to see a few decision making. Is there as far as the first question goes? what? What data we need for the budget? Is there like a list of priorities

[162:05] that you have and I I don't know if that would be for I don't know specifically what that looks like, Jackie. But what would what would the separate look like? So when you talk about the operating budget? I think, looking at our 2,022 Vpr. Department plan? It really does a great job of outlining where our priorities are, as far as everything that we do. So I would say, that's the first touch point. That's the first touch point to to look at and then Cip would obviously be different. But I think we've identified in that plan. Our priorities financially are people with disabilities and youth, and over adults as as really the priority that was outlined, and that was shared with us by community members. That was the feedback that we we heard, as those should be the first priorities. So but there's quite a bit more in that plan that I think is worth reviewing as far as priorities for our onboarding budget.

[163:12] And so. like Eric had mentioned. If there's not a lot of fluctuation between the years in the operating budget. what? I I think the question would more be like, what would be helpful. What do you need from us. I think for us it's an understanding of what the key changes are and how the community will react to those changes. We try to identify where we're shifting funding that ask me for additional funding and put it in a way that the community can understand. I think the hard part for us is, we are coming to you in May for a budget for launching effect until January. But there is that by time that it still has to go through a very lengthy review process and approval process. But we would come back to you in November and say, This is what city council approved, and these are the changes that the community will see. So continuing to relate that

[164:07] I feel like between pandemic and inflation. And I think what you'll hear most from the community members is about our fees and what we're charging for things. And so we need to go to this slide. And I I will tell you everything that we offer provides a benefit to the community, right? And so what you'll see is, you know, we may say, a rowing group at the reservoir is gotten individual benefit. Those rowers benefit. And so those fees are a little bit more expensive for them, because it doesn't necessarily benefit the entire community. That group may argue that that rowing does provide to the entire community, and it should be subsidized. And that's that fine balance of of really us trying to determine and understand.

[165:01] Where should we be charging that that full amount where they're covering their cost? 100. And so I think, when we talk about the fee schedule, and as you all are approached by community members having a pretty good understanding of of what this looks like from parks all the way up to pro shop items that we sell to an individual. Obviously, those pro shop items that we sell, we're going to probably be over a hundred cost recovery on those. But everything in between is where I think community members really wanna wanna reach out to you and and share their thoughts on how their activity benefits the entire community. And so that's something that I think is is really important. That proud is is aligned in in agreement and as a full understanding of of how we're charging our fees. Can you have public private partnerships that subsidize some of those we we do have public private partnerships. We have contracted programs. And so we do. We do work quite a bit with community organizations.

[166:08] In terms of data. Be helpful for me, at least. You know, looking at the master plan that we put in place 2 years ago. And the priorities we establish to that plan. Are there things that we have on our priority list, either capital or programs? That we're not that we haven't addressed fully, or that we're not fully realizing that are linked directly to a priority to be established in the Master Plan. So, for instance, like it'd be good to see a chart that's like master plan priorities. And then, you know, things big big ticket items that we're thinking about in our budget that we spend on or, you know, plan around and it would be helpful to just see like, are there things that we're that we prioritize 2 years ago that we're just still not getting and we wanna make sure that we catch up if we're gonna achieve that 5 to 10 new plan. And and the simple answer is, yes, there are things. That we. We are having discussions on. One example is team programming.

[167:10] We've we've met and talks about team programming. It's identified in that plan. It's something we know we need to prioritize. And now we're trying to figure out the best way to to to implement some team programming and make that happen. But there's several other items that are in that 2022 department plan that I think we need to continue to re-look at and and assess, and then figure out financially how we can afford to to make those things happen. Yeah. And I think it would be helpful for us. It it we're representing the community and the community really. Establish that plan, you know, through this board it will be good to know where we stand couple of years. Right? From that, and and to go back to that to revisit it to say, Okay, when we're budgeting for the next couple of years, you know, where we really, what should we be focusing on, based on what we just prioritize to. Jenny's

[168:01] absolutely well, not just. I love that. Not just a big ticket items, but also like, if there's low hanging fruit, and there's something you can do that's almost low cost or no cost. In a quality way to Jackson's Point. I like that emphasis of doing it right. But you know I've heard a lot about the need for dog a dog park in ex. So you know, like, if there's a property you can take, that is city property already. and it takes a chain of defense or whatever. And it's relatively low cost. It makes a bunch of people happy. And that's yeah. And I think back to Jenny's point. Originally, our list of unfunded and underfunded capital projects is growing just based on inflation. So I think, being aware and cognizant of what that total dollar amount is is something that will be good to have for future conversations.

[169:01] I guess what I was trying to say, with big ticket, low, low ticket thing is, if there was a chart or a list of what you all would like to prioritize, and some of those were relatively cheap and could be done right. That we can knock those off, you know. or defy. You know. Where's the bottom of this? That's kinda you know, I mean things. Everything costs more. and if you were tomorrow somebody's I'm I'm I'm not quite sure why we're fiscally constrained, or what makes that determination. But you know, if they say you have to prepare for a 10 budget cut, where? What would you cut, you know, and that that says a lot doing that exercise to say these are the really expensive things that we're may not be benefiting. You know the community so much. I kind of like that. I'm more interested in that list than I am. The other list honestly. absolutely, and I think we took full advantage of of the the pandemic and the reduced level of service. And we're very careful. And what programs and services came back and and we were very critical and strategic in in eliminating the programs and services that didn't provide that level of community benefit that had the impact we were hoping for. And so we we have come back.

[170:19] a little bit more methodical and but intentional and so I think that's something that we need to continue to do. And Jackson Stacy do a phenomenal job recommending how we shift our resources between different areas within the department, we have a huge department and a lot of programs and services that we offer. And so, we're really strategic in in where that funding is is spread out and how it can shift it around to best meet the needs of the community. So maybe you could review some of that. And that would be interesting. Doesn't sound like it's in good shape, post pandemic. That side of the when somebody mentioned about the graffiti and stuff earlier available is, it would be helpful for me to see that level of detail also is that charges go on to the same website

[171:27] 10. I don't need 75. And it's not part of our function. I think that's what I keep sort of asking like, if someone has a specific focus or interested. Still, as new board members do, how do we step into useful roles that aren't general roles where we're saying, yes, you know, we're asking dumb questions. Excuse me, person. we can certainly individually contact staff at any point and raise issues that are important to us, and we don't have some, you know, confidence or background in your

[172:08] at any time, and then you absolutely can utilize that discussion within our meeting to kind of drive discussions forward on various topics. like as a body or how retention it is. It's fairly limited, like we're we're an advisory board. We are here to get you back to Staff, who are the professionals? And you know we collectively give device reservations to see how supporting works they provide. We're not here to make decisions about a what part that's built with it, or make a recommendation right? Which is quite powerful without having any problem. Certainly city councils are not necessarily gonna be like, we need a you know, who knows it? Yeah, that's. And and it's Mark, could I? Sorry my camera still won't work? And I just mentioned there's also the board liaisons which is really helpful when we get the major projects up and running for new board members to be aware of.

[173:09] and Ali will work with you on identifying which board members will be the liaisons. Excuse me, for which projects. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Mark, for reminding about that. We have a program where we have liaisons that work with the community staffing and engaging with the community on specific items that are top of mind right now, or that are, you know, among projects that are, you know, community facing. If there's like a preliminary phase where we're getting through the endpoint, or there's an issue that's come up on one of our projects or or properties that we have. A board member Independent leads that not leads, but like works with staff on behalf of the board, and then brings info on that back to the board meetings. And here's that, please.

[174:03] We do that through the meeting. We're not going to do that today, just because it's you know, for lack of time. But we could definitely put that on next month or the month after meeting agenda and make sure that we're actually assigning those great alright. We got what we needed. And well, that was incredible that you were able to go through that so quickly and understandably. Yeah, thank you. No, that was great, and thanks for the the questions have been really phenomenal. Really appreciate them. So the last part of the meeting is matters from the board, which is really where we kind of take control and have our discussions. And it's typically a brief report, part of the meeting. But we have a few items on the agenda tonight. One is what we always do, which is grab matters, which is like we can share things that we've heard in the community. Or you know, ideas that we have or comments. And we typically try to

[175:12] keep those to a couple of minutes forwards under we can. But obviously more thorough discussions have been had on that topic. And then we also wanted to make sure that everybody knew that there is a field trip planned for August 20 sixth. which is one of my favorite parts of the year, for Brad is where we actually get to go and visit sites around the city where their existing properties or properties in progress. And we get to hear from Staff, who present to us on those properties and programs in person on site. And it's a really great way to kind of bring to light what we're doing rather than just sitting in a room and talking about things looking pictures. So mark your calendars for that. But terms of crap matters, it's really

[176:03] you know, open ended. And I know that sometimes people don't want to share anything, and sometimes everybody wants to say something, so I'll open it up to the board for anybody who has questions, comments, anything you want to share related to that this is, I do. But I'm happy to not go through. I just wanna it's kudos again to gymnastics program. It's just amazing. It's so lovely and our thriving in that but then I also want to bring attention to the fact that nobody, when they introduce themselves. said that their favorite parking is off Boulder. and I live in South Boulder. I got on his back board, because I have an interest in improving some of the stuff in South Boulder, and I had experience over spring break that I want to share with you. This happened that Shanahan Ridge. alright, which is the southern, most tip of boulder.

[177:02] and it's surrounded by high density townhomes. and it's the one space that all of us who live there and kind of recreate. We don't have yards. We have very small little patios. and so it's it has incredible opportunity or incredible possibility. But it just again, it just does not. It's it doesn't have an identity. It doesn't really serve a purpose. It's a big slanted green space that's mostly uses a dog park, but it's not supposed to be a dog park. There's a small tunnel with 2 small slides and a couple of big areas of stone, which is kind of cool the way it's designed, but it doesn't really It serves a purpose to get up on top of the tunnel. and unfortunately it's in disrepair. So all the stones that were cemented there are loose and falling off.

[178:04] and then the shrubbery that's covering that tunnel has all been pruned, and it's extremely sharp. and there's a back wall with flagstone, and there's all but 2 of the flagstones have fallen. So I was there with my kids in spring Break. and the first thing that happens we're throwing Frisbee and my daughter steps in the doctor. So we proceed to walk back to the house we cleaned up. Come back to Park. Then they're, of course, climbing on the one climbing structure, and my son cuts his leg on the sharp pruned bushes. and then we go around the back, and the kids are playing, but walking along the wall that they normally walk on, and one of them falls off because the flagstone is totally loose. So after a couple of trips back and forth to our house, I decide like they found something to play with, and I was like, I am going to sit. And for the first time, honestly, my kids are my twins are 9 first time. I don't. I really don't remember, I decided I'm gonna put my handicap and I didn't read my book. They're old enough. They can play. So I put my hammock up in the 2 only shaded trees that we have there, and I've never seen a ranger there, and I had no idea that it was not okay to hang up the hammock in trees.

[179:16] and so long comes, the Ranger tells me, like to take down my hand, so I learned something, but I also really need to state that there is no please to relax there. They're like, why don't you put a blanket on the ground? And it was like, well, there's mud and soggy ground everywhere. Why not over there? Well, there's a a a board, or a stone border with the seating with snakes literally like, see? Like it. We're all in big bundle. I guess my kids never want. So it's it's got so much potential. But it's just serving the 3 and 4, and underground, and the parents who are there with the 3 and 4 and underground don't have any place that's like there's a metal bench

[180:09] that's in the sun. and there's just nowhere for that community to gather. And It's you know, I I think, like talk about low hanging fruit like we just need a couple of cables. We need maybe a couple of places to hang Hamas. It's it's got the best using boulder, but there's just nowhere to like hang out because we were talking Mark about like, you know, how do people use spaces last time? And and how do we get input from this community, which is high density like, how do we wanna activate this space? And I don't think it would take much to actually attract people there and then. One more thing I do wanna mention before I forget is adjacent to this park is a big field with tall grass, which is really nice as a buffer between the park and the

[181:06] the road, but it's also more and more looking like a huge fire hazard. and I just don't know how it's it feels like this. Park is not on anybody's radar. and at certain times during the year it really needs to be looked at as a fire hazard and taken care of. So those are. That's kind of my my observations in the last month about that part, and it just needs some love and attention. Yeah, no, I'm happy to respond to the end. Yeah, no, you're right. We've got. We've got quite a few parks across the system that need a little bit of love. And what Jackson was talking about budget earlier was the fact that we do have quite a few parks with assets that are kind of reaching the end of the life cycle. We've got a good news is we've got a mature system with lots of services. but the issue of having lots of services and assets in those parks is that the life cycle comes together at once. So we need to do replacement rather than just continue to maintain.

[182:05] And some of those assets, because at the end of the life cycle aren't as relevant today as what we'd probably want in parks. We just to let you know we actually had it international expert in last week, training staff on nature play. And to get your point, there's 4 aspects of nature play that they pointed out. And when we say Nature play, it's not just for kids, it's adults as well. And and they were getting at the idea of gross motor skills, fine motor skills. culture it out. And then the fourth one was contemplative, quiet spaces. And that's something in our mature parks that doesn't really exist. It's mostly for the kids, gross motor skills. And then it's kind of the grass and trees approach. So as we look to update the parks. We'll probably be bringing in some of this more up to date thinking, let's say, and that will end in further design. Probably the hardest part frankly will be. Let's just say we can do 6 play areas over the next 6 years at about 500,000 a year.

[183:03] One of our jobs at the minute is to prioritize those we just did account last week. We've got about 40 play areas to prioritize. So we'll be working with you to bring these numbers back in this prioritization over the next few months. and really trying to get into. Where are the parks and make some tough decisions over where the parks that have the worst condition, the biggest equity, need the biggest service demand, and you're bringing up a topic about a park and not to ignore it. But to say. How do we think about that across the system and prioritize? And then, frankly, at what point do we say? Do we need a bit more cash to figure out how to speed up the renovation of these spaces. And that's why I point to Jackson and Stacy. I, just out of curiosity, wasn't like that open space Ranger, but wasn't wanted to be one of our one of our vendors. Yeah. So I was glad to see a Ranger there. I've in 20 years I've lived there.

[184:03] I've lived there over 20 years. I've never seen anything ever, so it's quite alive, but it you know, made me feel good that they're there, but it's it's still. But it was really loved. But there, it has such a heart. But it just is falling apart, and even this the swings that they put up like I can barely sit in them so like my kids who are 9, like one of them to do it. The other one like needs me to help you get on this way. So again, a park that's designed for honestly like the 500. And the crowd. half of what's available isn't even available like it. Just just needs a little attention. Shannon, rich. I shared a lot stuff that you just said we we definitely need to.

[185:01] That park gets in love, and it could be. It is the most beautiful view of any park in the city. In my view. And it meets a lot of work. It's maybe disregard. And mark, as far as contemplation goes like, Oh, my gosh! It's just screaming out. Put up some some benches, or some places to just enjoy the view. Yeah. And so, yeah, honestly, I'd be happy to visit there with you. Take a look. I mean, one of the things I heard you also say was, you know, this idea of safety issues like, we'll definitely take care of that for sure. That's it, like we do. We'll make sure that happens. Thank you. The. And as far as Wildfire. I don't know who we used to address that, but it it's the wind was right through there into a whole bunch of wood phones. So. Hmm. I have been working for the past probably 2 years. With a sort of cross departmental team that includes boulder, fire, rescue, open space and mountain parks, talking about wildfire specifically, most recently. So those are all

[186:16] kind of definitely cross departmental issues and things that we're looking at. And how do we look across the city of city owned properties to how to help do these. So that is definitely on our radar really, community wildfire protection plan is great because we're running a lot of experts that do a lot of modeling for fireside behavior. Looks like somewhere, because it's we've all been told we shouldn't have it. There. We've all been told it's a danger, and we shouldn't have any of the things around our house that we do. You know all those

[187:04] wooden frames and wooden fences and all that stuff, and it's just tall grass a few months out of the year. and he sparks you've been there. can I even miss? Well, I had a long list. But I think we're over time. So I might just email Ali, or what is the I'd love to meet with Mark. If Mark is available. I definitely wanna follow up with the service day today. It's shocking to me that we have single use. Plastic silverware over here, wrapped in plastic plastic is more emissions, as you know, than entire airline industry. And doesn't ever go away. Obviously, you know, making sure our water fountains and stuff are working on

[188:02] the Mall. Every water fountain deals with 1,000 supplies, water bottles, and I'll talk about equity and accessibility. Almost any park I think of has some, you know, maintenance issues. And that's not a criticism that's backing up your focus. Yeah, as reflected in the budget. Of focusing on what we have and doing a good job there instead of fun, new ideas that are beautiful. But you know, we're constraining budgetarily. So I really appreciate the presentation. Everyone. The comments. So I think I'll just follow up and okay. so as you all know, I'm here mostly for recreation and equity issues. And I just wanted to share something. Over the past couple of years I've been volunteering with boulder, indoor soccer to help them bring in more low income players like scholarship players to their program. So I've done a lot of outreach at University Hill, where my kids go to school, which is

[189:11] the top has the highest population of English language learning students, and also previous lunch students and any older elementary schools. So he had 2 teams that fell through a voice team and a girls team that just the whole team canceled. So he's like we have 2 teams I need to fill up. And he's like, just make it free. So normally, there's a scholarship price of $125, which includes the Jersey for free families, and he's like, Make it free. So in one week I got her to get signed up. And so I saw that your playpass program. It's around like 250 kids that are coming in each year. And so I think that there's just like this pent up demand of people that parents want to sign their kids up. I can't afford it, cause I thought the scholarship price was accessible. But just like I could get 30 kids, and a week shows me that there are a lot of people that that scholarship price is still barrier

[190:08] for them. So I really think that playpass, I think playpass is great, but I think playpass itself like the sign up process is a barrier, and having to demonstrate, like the whole survey, how many times a week do your kids drink? So that how many hours a day they watch TV and all that stuff just to get your kids signed up into the program, I think should be flipped around. I know it's better for reporting purposes, but I just like to see if there's a way that we can kind of make some of these used, for. It's more accessible. absolutely. And I I will say, on September thirteenth. There'll be a play foundation golf tournament over at fluttering golf course, and that's gonna be their big fundraising effort for the year. And so the more money foundation can raise the more scholarships they'll be able to give out to kids in the community, and then we can certainly work with them on trying to make the process easier for community members to qualify for those scholarships was the day there. September thirteenth.

[191:06] moving back something I talked about earlier. I I agree that like doesn't make sense to sell as a parcel recreation newsletter. But maybe this is an area where we could identify the 10 large corporations in Boulder and say, Would you like to sponsor free soccer? And that's it. Pretty good thing. But the funny thing! Yes, and we're encouraging the play foundation staff to to do those efforts and and and make those connections. And I think the golf tournament is is a new idea that they're just starting this year. Historically, they've done that duck race and that raises some money. But not as much as what could be raised via golf tournament. And so so we're very hopeful that they can build those connections throughout the community. And and really, create a an annual tournament. That'll be a big fundraising for them.

[192:00] And to your point, I think you know, when I met with Ali into Jenny's Point, you know we she immediately was like, Oh, we should go play folks, and if you have fundraising ideas like, that's a great idea idea to do funding wise. We can help make that happen if we can. Do you use the the board. Liaisons are for specific community outreach. Did you say it's for it's for board members to weigh in on and work with staff on very specific issues that are going on. So like, for instance, we had a liaison for racquet sports and the the court system outreach that we were doing as a department because there's been a shortage and it. There's going to be even more of a shortage with the decrease supply of courts across system. And so there's a lot of outreach across City and Bernie. We were the liaison. To that. He went to a lot of those meetings and engaged with the community on that specific issue, and then reported back what he heard at the board meeting. In addition to what Staff was reporting.

[193:13] could we consider potentially having board liaisons for, like public private partnerships or so? Somebody on the board who's talking to the Play foundation does have their monthly meetings, and they're actually have a seat for a crab member on the foundation to attend those meetings. And so I think at an upcoming meeting I would encourage Prab to see if there's a member that would be willing to attend those play foundation meetings and represent and be able to report back and forth. From the founders. He is officially on the board now.

[194:01] But yeah, that that could be if we identify alternative sources funding as a real growth area, and somebody from the Prep wants to engage more on that. I mean, yes, or even like the way that Kool Lake is looking for their heart. And these guys are looking for there. And you think that maybe they're the way to involve community organizations to help phone those projects along faster. The Kool Lake issue, I think, is a prime candidate for having it probably isn't. And just so like if there's just somebody to work with. not the community, but the the nonprofits, or, you know something something like that. I appreciate you wanting to push that units. Well. This is a great meeting, a long meeting, but really fall, thanks to Staff for staying late, and thanks for our new members welcome and we don't need to vote on the adjournment. So I'm just gonna say, Thank you very much.