May 19, 2025 — Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] You have it. I it was really nice, actually ran into you on shopping Saturday, and she mentioned she was traveling. I was like, oh, my gosh! We haven't really talked about attendance. It just hadn't come up with onboarding. So hence my Sunday email just being like, Oh, gosh! We're 6, not 7, and that means kind of need a head count. So just thank you all you can. You can talk if you'd like. So the 7th is gonna come in August. Is that correct? So Count. Can you hear me? Oh, yay, there, I am sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just wondering. Thank you. Boys. Okay. Thank you so much. For joining from DC. Of course. Thank you. There were a few boards that were not fully seated in March when they seated the others, and so the Board and Commissions Committee had calendar for August. I kind of begged that since we're gonna be using our existing applicants, could we? Just we take 5 min at a meeting and get our 7th member. so they'll do it with everything else in August, which there's only a few meetings away. So what we have 12, maybe, under matters from the board.

[1:21] which is probably. Quick question being remote. Am I supposed to be on camera? I'm I'm I don't know what you see on your end. I don't think I'm on camera. Yvonne. I'll share with you what the Handbook says. There's no rule. What previous preps have decided, what is codified in the Handbook is that there is a preference, if you're virtual, that you have your camera on both for the board to breed facial expressions and see when you want to talk, but also for the community to know that you're there and participating. It's not a rule, it's a preference the previous board had codified in the handbook, and so I would defer to you all what you think is is best.

[2:01] I'm happy to do either. I just can't figure out. It says I'm on a zoom, but I don't see any option to show myself, usually on a zoom call, you can. you know, hit camera? Oh, wait! Maybe some of. Except the panelists. Oh, now I see. Okay, thank you. Whoever sent that to me. And now I can start. There you go. So Yvonne. in DC. And on East Coast time, and just appreciate you joining while traveling. I know we appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Alright, it's 6 o'clock. We have a quorum. So we started recording. Yes, great! It's alright. So our would anybody like to make a. I will officially call the meeting to order. Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the agenda?

[3:02] I move second, and then our second second alright. Is there any discussion for the motion to approve the agenda or any comments on the agenda? All right. So we have a motion, and a second, all those in favor raise your hand any above any, nobody against the motion. Okay. Hearing no opposition, the motion passes and the agenda is approved. I will now turn it over to the director for future board items. Thank you, madam. Chair folks, I'm Ali Rhodes. I'm the director of Parks and Recreation for the city of Boulder for the future items. Last month we talked a lot through your calendar, through your cip tour in August. So I want to focus tonight, just on some exciting opportunities coming up to engage with the community. One this weekend it has been shoulder season at Scott Carpenter Pool. This weekend, the swim beach at the Boulder Reservoir, the Leisure Pool at Scott. Carpenter Pool opens, and then spruce will follow shortly thereafter. I think June 10th

[4:10] maybe. No, they're both opening. They're both opening this weekend. Check it all out. June 16.th We are doing a community open house to share the civic area concept plan, which is the amalgamation of all of the feedback we've heard from the community the 2 draft concepts that were shown. And so there is a kid concert in the Park. There is an open house. We'll repeat that July 14, th and expect to get a whole lot of folks downtown talking to us about the civic area. There's also a series of nature play pop ups happening in the civic area this summer. There's information online about all of that. But really, our goal is to get a lot of people playing in the park and giving us input on that concept plan so that we can take that to help prioritize what gets funded for this next phase of construction. With that I'll hand it back to you right.

[5:03] Our next section is public participation. This portion of the meeting is for members of the public to communicate ideas or concerns to the Board regarding parks and recreation issues for which a public hearing is not scheduled later in the meeting tonight there are no public hearings scheduled, so all public participation will happen at this time. I believe that we have one person in online for public participation. Is that correct? Okay. 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. While speakers are limited to 3 min, depending on the nature of your matter, you may or may not receive a response from the board. After you live your comments, the Board is always listening to and appreciative of community feedback. Clarissa, will you please present the additional guidelines if necessary, and then call in our 1st speaker tonight. Yes.

[6:04] the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff and council, as well as democracy, for people of all ages, identities, experiences and political perspective. For more information about this vision and the community process. Please visit our website at the link shown. The following are examples of rules of decorum found in the folder revised code and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during this meeting participants are required to sign up to speak, using the name they are commonly known by, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Currently, only audio testimony is permitted online, all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity, other epithets based on race, gender or religion, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes. The meeting will not be tolerated.

[7:17] Alright, Patrick, I'm going to set up the timer, and then you'll be able to start speaking. I'm good to go. Hello, Parks, and Rec. Board. I wanna welcome the new members to the committee. My name is Patrick O'rourke. I'm the preservation chair and the Vice President of historic boulder here in town, and I wanted to take this opportunity to put in a request. I sent an email to all the members this afternoon of what is called the Hip the Historic Places Plan. I would hope that you take the opportunity to review it. And then what my request or historic boulders request is to get an update from the parks and Recreation

[8:11] Department and board about what the current status of the the 13 facilities that the Parks and Recreation Board is the steward of We. We think they're doing a great job. Chautauqua, of the 10 historic districts. The Parks and Recreation Board is in charge of 3 of them. I understand Chautauqua, the Columbia Cemetery, and the Pearl Street Mall. We're pretty much up to speed on what's eventually going to happen at the Pearl Street Mall, and we we know the stewardess. The work done at Chautauqua is always sensitive and well done. Matter of fact that kids park is incredible. So thank you for doing a great job. There concerns are in 2 areas. One is

[9:04] what what happened to the hip. The city spent over $200,000, having a report done, and it was finished in 2023. In that report there were recommendations, and we just would like to find out what recommendations are being followed through on specifically dealing with 3 or 4 properties. The Harbeck House, which is a treasure for the city of Boulder, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done, and I'm not sure, and we would like to find out what's happening there. The firehouse, which is used for the ceramics groups, is, I think, that's in pretty good shape, but it also needed some work. And then there's just a collection of other properties. And the Boyd Smelter just a little bit of work there all solve the problems that exist. Finally. the comprehensive plan is being updated, and we believe that the hips should be

[10:03] an important component of that update historic places in boulder is important. I mean, we all know that one of the reasons why sundance is coming to Boulder is because of our historic sites. So I want to thank you and welcome the new board members, and we're just requesting that sometime in the future we get an update. Have a good day. Alright. Thank you so much for your comments. since there are no other public or no other community members who would like to speak tonight. I will close public comments. Is there anything that the staff or the board would like to respond to in regard to the public comment tonight? Oh, okay, great.

[11:02] While you do that, I'll just say that I would defer to the chair and vice chair if that were to be something you want to be calendar. We're not currently we don't have an implementation report for the hip. And so it would take some staff work to put something together. I don't see when I look at your agenda. August is the the capital meeting. The July meeting, as you saw on future board items, is fairly full, but would defer to the chair vice chair to bring that back to a future meeting. If you'd like an update on that, I will add that to discussion for the agenda setting meeting next week. Thank you, Hallie. all right, moving on to the consent agenda. What it would would anyone like to make a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting. Move alright a second. I can check him. Are there any questions,

[12:00] or discussion regarding the consent? Agenda? Oh, I would love to, just because I'm curious. Hear an update about the senior basketball issue from last meeting. Oh, Megan Loman, our senior manager for recreation is here can give an update. Yeah, so the the challenge, I will say, has been resolved. It was probably resolved 3 weeks before the meeting the meeting last time to be honest. And it it by choice of participants themselves, have self selected to participate or not, and and senior basketball. So so was the the member that there was a bit aggressive. Did they decide not to participate? Or was it others that that person has decided to participate in a little bit more competitive option somewhere else. And they had done that before the meeting last time. Well, that sounds like a great solution.

[13:10] Alright! Anything else on the consent agenda from anybody. I wanted to just ask briefly about the Community Forest Court. Update. how many people. Oh, I see 150. Youth applied for the program, and 20 were hired. What generally are the qualifications for people who who are selected for the program. That's a lot. That's a great number of applicants that is fantastic. It's it's wonderful. Can you tell us a little bit more about the program, and how how long I see how long it goes, but how many days a week is there a number of hours? No, I'm sorry I can get more details and get back to you. I can add a little bit of context if it's helpful just to know that this year the city is working with Boulder County and tag teaming off a lot of

[14:09] experience they have in drumming up this interest right? And so that is partly to do with the great number of applicants, and so on. And so they've worked with us and our forestry team to identify the priority locations where they can help. And it's just a beautiful synergy between some of the stuff that we design and install. And then the young people are then a part of maintaining those. For example, at Crestview Park is 1 1 place I'm thinking about. but your specifics about how we're selecting people, their schedules we have to follow up, we can include it next month's consent. I have a friend whose son was chosen, and they were so incredibly excited. So we, you know we have enough work for programs like this to be larger. Funding is the limiting factor. Yes, of course. all right. I know. I was also impressed with the the number of applicants. And I think it shows that there's probably some like learnings there about successful outreach to. Seems like a lot of people heard about this program works like that's a really good point.

[15:12] Alright. no amendments. So we'll go ahead and we have a motion and a second to approve the consent. Agenda, all those in favor raise your hand. anybody? Nay, no, all right, then the consent agenda is approved. and we have minutes approved for the last meeting as well in there. All right. and then the motion passes and the minutes are approved. I'll now turn over to Ally Rhodes to discuss the parks and recreation updates in the consent agenda. Did we do that? Or I think you just did all that. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, then, action items. So

[16:01] we have no action items, no action items, no action items. Great. Thank you all for bearing with me on this. You're good officials. We have several matters from the department tonight, and so I think you just heard from. I'll introduce Darren Wagner, senior landscape architect. She's been the project manager on the future of recreation centers project. And we have a draft needs assessment coming that you all are going to provide input on. Given that it wasn't ready yet. and given the interest for this board on this project Darren has joined to give an overview of the projects, process. purpose, and status, so that when we get to that needs assessment. This newer, the newer board members have had that chance to get up to speed on the on the background of the project. So that's the intent of tonight's meet. Item, thanks for joining us, Darren. Yeah, absolutely. Excuse me again, Darren Wagner thrilled. To meet all of you. Appreciate the time tonight. Jenny, thank you, as I know you'll have heard some of this already before, but hopefully it's a good refresher. As Ali was saying, we do want to just make sure that you have that foundation of of background and process and status.

[17:13] it's been a wonderful deep, broad engagement process. And so part of our findings that we will highlight tonight. Let you in on some of that that analysis that's been done through the engagement process so far. That was also included in some past memos from to to the prab earlier before some of you joined and so after. We go through an overview and those findings, and I'll give you an idea of next steps and what that will look like also. So for a little background. Why, we're even doing this project. I imagine to some extent it's obvious that we have 3 rec centers and that they function together. But in other ways this process has been a way to let us step back and look at the ways they operate it as a system, and how they're serving our community. And in what ways? So, for example, when we think about the North Boulder Rec center, it gets the lion's share of our participation, our visitation.

[18:12] It also serves as a centralized location for gymnastics. That's not a recreation activity. We provide elsewhere. In other places. And it's also home to boulder highs, swim team. you compare that to South South functions at smaller square footage currently, and it functions as a neighborhood anchor with a lot of community gathering and neighboring that happens there, and it's home to a competitor, Fairview's swim team. And then we have East, and that in and of itself is a unique location, because we have co-located there with us, the East Age well center for older adults. And so, as we think about how the different amenities and offerings at these locations are serving our community. It helps just start with the baseline of like, what do they look like and what services are available.

[19:06] We also have been partnering really deeply with the facilities and fleet department. And so you will see in future meetings. some of our colleagues join us because it is their charge to actually manage the facility and the envelope and the maintenance. In 2021. Their department plan had given grades or letter scores to the department, to each of the 3 locations just in terms of its physical shape. How bad is it? Since this time some work has been done on emergency repairs, and we've done an additional evaluation to confirm these findings. We haven't done a full regrading of the the facilities, but it still gives you a picture that the worst really is South and but East isn't far behind. And in truth, we're really learning the details around that North isn't truly that far behind, either, that from a portfolio standpoint we have aging facilities as do most a lot of municipalities out there.

[20:14] So as we think about the future, and how this project can support that, we are thrilled to have taxpayer funding through a previous round of the community culture, resilience and safety tax, and are working on scoping that, and have used this project as an opportunity to understand what those improvements can and and cannot include in that broader scheme of things. we've also through, as I mentioned, additional analysis and also engagement with the community, been able to identify funding to support short term repairs at South. So previous plans, both our own and the department plan from the Facilities and Fleet Department both have identified that South

[21:00] is a candidate for replacement, that it was effectively past the end of its life cycle. But through these short term repairs we do hope to extend that life hopefully at least another 5 years. And as we look into longer term funding strategies, we'll have conversations with the community about the extent to which we could fund a replacement facility. Beyond this initial timeframe. North we are, planning on short similar short term repairs next summer. To do the same thing, to extend operations and support that the that building into the future, and then, expect to have similar conversations about the needs for future renovations there. With the community in terms of funding opportunities and needs. Meanwhile there's this conversation that's been a part of the community, or been in the community for a number of decades around. Whether or not we need or is feasible, a competitive aquatics facility. This project was not scoped to as a feasibility study for that 4th facility. It was really meant to focus on how both funded and unfunded renovations to our existing buildings could serve the community and its needs both now and into the future.

[22:15] But what this study has done is it's helped kind of identify. What are those leftover needs that we don't expect. Renovations can accommodate, and I'll go through those a little bit tonight as well as the report. When that comes out we'll go into that in much more depth. So really, at the essence of what this initial phase of work is meant to do, it's not the the report, when it comes out is not a decision making document. It's not a plan. It's not a full commitment that you and City Council would need to accept. Rather, it's meant to inform 2 primary separate efforts, and one is. as I mentioned, the funded renovations to East, and you'll hear more about that as the summer goes on, as well as to inform these citywide conversations through the fund. Our future project.

[23:03] which is meant to try and identify and discuss and prioritize with community members of of all of the unfunded needs out there from a capital standpoint, whether it's roads, public safety buildings, fire stations, recreation centers. How do our needs at these rec centers stack up to the others in relation to how willing the community is to fund those as part of potential future tax initiatives. So we're providing some inputs and information into the the these 2 separate efforts. So the inputs inputs into our process, really threefold. And this is how we approach all of our projects. And so if you've read and become familiar with our department plan, you'll see a version of this graphic in there, and probably in all of our future our future work, because we're, of course, guided by existing policies. In place. And in in this case there's a whole host of them. But one highlight would

[24:02] be the city's sustainability, equity, and resilience framework which really guides how we move towards a desired future state in regards to all of those 3 things. And it has a lot to do with some of the energy upgrades that we need to make in our facilities to sustain the buildings, to reduce our carbon portfolio and and move forward on a number of pieces. From the data and research side. This effort has involved a whole host of experts. We have consultants on board from Per Perkins and Will, and they're an international firm that have has done rec centers across North America and across the world, in fact, have done a lot of 0 energy work in that space which is pretty impressive. So they've helped us identify recreation demand and what that might look like into the future, and how our levels of service

[25:01] compared to a set of peer agencies that we've surveyed and engaged with. And then again done this updated building evaluation. To understand the physical conditions that we need to keep in mind as we think about the future of these centers. And so all of these things, together with community engagement, are what will come come together into the development of these needs and opportunities in the report. And that's it's really a synthesis of all of these things as we move them forward. So if you've been to the Rec. Centers. Lately you might hopefully have seen this graphic. We have these Vinyls up at all 3 centers, and have for some time they are meant to lay out the process of what this 1st phase is looking like, and how it will inform future efforts. Just because it's a small graphic and I have another version of it here in terms of the engagement windows that are part of this process. We started as far back as 2023, with some early listening at all of the 3 centers.

[26:03] And that helped us distill and confirm a set of community values that are important to community members in relation to how the Rec. Centers serve the community as well as what are their hopes and fears for the future. And then, in fall of 24 we moved that conversation forward and trying to understand. What is it that people want to do at our centers? You know it's if you look around at what other communities are doing, there are all kinds of things happening at community rec centers across the country. And so we wanted to know what are the most important things that city rec centers should provide, especially as we think about ourselves in a mix of. But you know the Y.M.C.A. And private Gyms and home gyms and commercial gyms, and so on. And then, more specifically, then, of those priority activities, how do we identified how we might solve them at each of the centers. It's it's a puzzle, because we don't need everything everywhere, and nor can we afford it.

[27:03] In early April we went and had a quick sort of open office hours session. Thank you for attending, and that was an opportunity to understand or to let the community in on our status, which was that we are working on developing these preliminary recommendations, both at the system, wide scale, but then also developing a set of preliminary design concepts for the innovation at East. and so kind of midway through that process. We just wanted to open the doors and see if community had questions on the process. And we had about a hundred people attend, which was great. And so this is all gearing up for the summer, where we will share the final report and a set of preliminary design options for the renovations at East And so what I wanted to do tonight again. Some of this work has been summarized in past memos, but sometimes it's nice to just sort of hear it explained, and then happy. To answer any questions is to just highlight some of the feedback from this engagement that we've heard, we have guidance from decades of our department plan, where we have a set of priority populations that we, as providers of public recreation centers, are obligated to engage and support and serve

[28:20] and so we made an effort through what we call micro engagements to go out and talk to these different groups. And the feedback that we heard in these various locations was, was it confirmed a lot of themes that we've heard over the years, and some new things as well. Teens are interested in team teen rooms. You know. Sometimes I find myself. No matter how much I work with youth, I find myself surprised when they want something analog, you know, in person. But that's actually, really, what they're looking for is community gathering and even food service at our rec centers and ways to support gathering and classes and other things. Our older adults are really interested in seeing opportunities for warm water. Wellness expanded across the system, and the idea of indoor jogging and walking came up as something that we don't currently provide. But there was a lot of interest from not just older adults, but from a number of cross sections of the community.

[29:19] People with disabilities. Really, swimming is an important activity to them, as is community gathering. We met with community connectors who are individuals that help us reach deeply into traditionally marginalized communities. And some really creative ideas emerged from there in relation to ways that rec centers could support. Kind of a family experience. In ways that we're not currently whether it's monitored indoor play areas instead of a room where you just kind of shut your your kid away while you're working out somewhere else. How do we engage them in more playful ways and connect with nature? Through indoor outdoor spaces? At the same time. So

[30:00] we took this feedback into a much bigger engagement. With 50 invitees from all different cross sections of the community. This is in January of this year, and asked this a diverse set of participants to engage in prioritizing those activities and amenities at each of the centers in ways that you had to kind of do some horse training and and work on understanding the perspectives and needs of other demographics or experiences or participants. And we through that evening engaged a graphic artist, graphic recorder who captured some of the major themes that emerged from that evening. And that is the graphic that you're seeing here. And this was replicated and put in each of the centers for a couple of weeks also, and community members were invited to identify which of these activities they most resonate with and put a dot next to those things. Help us understand if there's anything missing.

[31:10] and excuse me throughout all of these engagements and and engagement windows. It helped us distill and understand sort of how again, the community sees our Rec centers in the mix of indoor recreation across the city. And not surprisingly, the bread and butter is the fitness piece and this desire to see some of our strength and cardio areas expanded. We have places, if you know, haven't been recently, like North or at east, where things are exceptionally crowded, even south. Also and gyms lots of interest in in expanding and enhancing those as well. Aquatics also not surprising. Really, we have a strong swimming community here in boulder and that emerged as a top priority for us to continue exploring, whether it's adding lap lanes at an individual center and or exploring partnerships for that potential 4th facility or something like it.

[32:10] And I'll go through these others quickly. The again. This information is in past packets, but mindfulness and wellness also showed up really strongly. indoor racket sports did as well, and of course we do to some extent provide multi purpose spaces in our gymnasiums for indoor racket sports and the possibility of future dedicated indoor court spaces. Certainly came up here, although it wasn't the focus of this report. this is something beyond what our rec centers can fully accommodate on their own. And then, again, this sort of idea, or this value around lifelong wellness continued to show up strongly whether it's in here supporting children and youth activities, but also all the way through older adult recreation as well.

[33:04] in addition. So those things I just summarized are things that the community consistently said. No matter what center we're talking about. There are additional priorities that emerge for each of these centers that the community is interested in advancing into future projects or conversations. Warm water is a priority at East, and especially in relation to the co-location of the East Agewell Center, that that has a lot of value in that location, and a lot of interest in seeing whether that indoor track is feasible at East making connections with nature stronger, and, moreover, expanding fitness classrooms the South community, confirmed that, you know, in in their ideal state. That the the replacement facility, if it were funded, would still have those core amenities than any rec center typically does. But in addition to that, you know, there was a lot of interest in the possibility of having indoor field sports available at that location. Also through the potential of a field house which might be an extension or an addition on to a potential replacement facility. Beyond that kind of core rec center function.

[34:25] at north. There was a lot of like we love North. It's just crowded and busy. Is there any way we can just have have more, but also more more programs, but also more spaces to do them in and obviously, parking is an issue, and so on. But you know, that's another location where maybe an indoor track might be a possibility in a constrained environment. But we're just not sure yet. These are ideas that emerged from the community and what our job is now, what we're working through right now, both for design options at East

[35:00] as well as as we think about all, all of the needs that are kind of converging is, how do we align? These community priorities or desires with realities? In relation, for example, to the the these 3 pillars which our guidance for our facilities and fleet department, and in their their department plan, where they talk about that a building is not just a building that it serves multiple purposes. And one of those is around environmental sustainability. And in order to advance citywide climate goals, these rec centers need to have significant energy upgrades to reduce energy waste and consumption. and energy codes have, among many other types of codes, really expanded over the years. And so our facilities are not meeting current codes in a number of different ways. And so how do we lay those kind of basic functions next to the recreational amenities and integrate those in a way that the budget can accommodate it.

[36:03] And that financial stewardship pieces is something that you know. Obviously we have a confined budget for for the design of East and so how do we fit all these things into just that? And then what leftover needs does that are are still remaining, that we might need to consider in a future work in both North and South boulder and so again. As we're pulling this report together, we're gonna really be shifting emphasis. And the conversations will change. And so once we have this report together and we close that phase of work out? Then really, it shifts to. Okay. How? What? What will that budget at East help us accommodate? What are the preliminary design options, and then the preferred design option that we want to move forward with And beyond east. Then that's where this citywide team that's managing a project called Fund. Our future will really pick up and facilitate a set of conversations with the community again around how our needs stack up against all the other citywide needs, and how those may or may not be accommodated in future tax initiatives to find that funding.

[37:17] and so just to wrap us up in terms of where we're headed. Next, there is a Community Council Forum on June 12th that this other citywide team is facilitating. This is a somewhat new forum for the city, and the communications and engagement staff are piloting this and it's a it's a creative way of trying to engage diverse interests. And so they this week are going to be releasing a press release with more information about what this Forum will look like. So stay tuned on that. and then we'll look in the summer to do several things. I had mentioned. This next engagement window will be an option to look will be an opportunity to look at the potential designs at East and weigh in. We'll release that final report for the needs assessment and close that project out. And then we will be

[38:14] getting down and dirty at at south, and there will be. There will be some closures there, and we'll be communicating well in advance and working with stakeholders and visitors to let them know and work through any impacts. But that, again, is is Gonna extend the life of the building and really improve experiences while we're waiting on these longer term plans and funding opportunities. And then the Funder future team is looking for additional opportunity for additional engagement in the fall to continue conversations with a broader subset of community around what the city might move forward with in terms of that longer term funding strategy. So that is the conclusion. But I am here. We had plenty of time set aside and happy to answer any questions that you might have, or a bond that you might have.

[39:04] Okay, thank you for your time. When do you think the final report will be ready? So it's probably gonna be late. June or early July would be my guess. Yeah, we we got a lot of detail pull together. Yeah. I had a question or 2 about engagement. This is because you talked about how engagement was solicited, was it? It seemed to me, to be focused primarily on users or information from users did. Did we also seek out input from other potential users, for example, or people from Bbsd or people like that? So Bbsd has definitely been a partner in this project, and they, have contributed to the development. An aspect of this needs assessment has been to identify what is their aquatics demand? So that we can understand to what extent do our rec centers actually meet that demand or not?

[40:04] Some of those micro engagements I mentioned earlier. Are, for example, our community connectors program. We met with folks who live next to north or and but may not, may not go as often because it is too busy. So we did make an effort through this, through the process, to actually reach these underrepresented populations. Whether or not, they do or don't go. okay, get to sort of what you're speaking to. Yeah. I was just wondering. you know, that- that input would be important to maybe increase usage, or, you know, address of maybe unmet needs that. Yvonne has her hand up. Thank you. Thank you for that. Update. That was very helpful. Appreciate that very much. I'm 1 of the newer board members. So really appreciate that I have 3 questions, and I can ask them and pause or ask them all at once. However, you want to do that.

[41:04] Do you want me to just ask one question, or all 3. You can ask all 3 of on. I'll take some notes. Yeah. Okay, okay. The 1st question I had was on the fund. Our future. Is that something that we, as board members, are asked to participate in, or just as individual citizens of Boulder? That was the 1st question, because I would be very interested in participating. The second question was, if you could please elaborate more on what's going on at the South Boulder Rec Center in case I'm asked by any. I live in Table Mesa, and if there are any South Boulder community members asking me about sort of what is happening, what the scope of work is going to be. And then the 3rd question I had was more around, what I love about East is that you located or we as a community co-located aging wellness, the wellness center.

[42:02] And I'm wondering on the South Boulder Center whether, has there been any discussion with Perkins and Will around co-locating and sharing services that other county and city government agencies need I'm thinking of like, is there a need to share more aging type services? But in the South location or climate programs or sustainability programs that could be hosted there again. We're hopefully sharing government funds if they need to. They need a place to do these things. Could they occur at the South boulder Rec center. As we're thinking about that. I'm also thinking about the library across table. Mesa is, you know, pretty old. I don't know if they're considering, upgrading or renovating. But again, co-locating services and facilities. So we're sharing resources from various government agencies, local government agencies to to maximize and optimize and make that the most powerful hub that's going to mean the most for the most people in the community. So those are my 3 questions. Thank you.

[43:10] Absolutely. I will take 2 of them, and then pass one of them off to Megan to describe more of what the maintenance itself will look like so I'll start actually with your last question, Yvonne, about the possible co-location of services. So we are, because we're partnering with the facilities and fleet department. On this assessment. They also manage a much broader portfolio. City facilities. And so they have elevated the similar building condition needs in in that broader portfolio, and we've also been partnering with housing and human services. And so there has been a discussion about the value of co-location, and whether

[44:03] there is an opportunity or need to to do so in either north or South boulder. But because this project didn't go into site specifics or site feasibility. We don't expect to have a clear recommendation or decision on that, because it's a separate effort that the housing and human services department needs to do, to really understand their demand similar to how we identified our recreation demand. But we do expect and hope that those threads come together as we continue these conversations and move them forward. Is there anything you would want to add, Ali, to that? No, only just that again. And I think you mentioned earlier is that of course, we're talking to the school district, and that is one of the intergovernmental entities, and I do think there are other potentials. But until we figure out our path forward internally, it's hard to open the doors externally.

[45:03] Yeah, and then, as it relates to the fund or future. Again, I'll I'll start the answer. And, Ali, you may have something else to add in terms of what crabs role is I can say that the the team running that honestly are experts in engagement and have been working with a project around the center. For I think it's called the center for innovative democracy. And they're really trying to design a very fair process to get a cross section of input so that they really understand where voters are. and do that in a way that's transparent and and open, and engagement with city council, the mechanics, or the details of what that process will look like are still unknown to me, as it's a separate project, and I think a lot of that. Those opportunities will emerge in the fall. In addition to this Community Council Forum in June. But I think there'll be a lot more opportunities in the fall. To more fully engage whether that's as an individual or through community

[46:15] anything else valid. Nope. I'm thinking, back through the questions. And yeah. think so great. So there was a request for bid submitted for repair work at the South Boulder Rec Center. That work included, and you'll have to forgive me. If you want a detail of everything that was in there, I'd have to look it up and send it to you all after the fact. But it it did include a replastering of the pool and install of some really big fans in the Aquatics area to help air circulation repairs to the Hvac in the gym, and then a full actual paint of the pool area at the South Pole Direct center. If you've been there recently, you've seen that's in in need. And so those are the things that are called the top of my head. I know that we've identified a timeframe over this summer. That is ideal for that work to happen in the pool area, because it could lead to a bit of

[47:19] an extended closure of the pool, because you need to take water out the pool, build scaffolding, to install fans, to paint the whole area, and then ultimately you do the replastering right before you refill to ensure that that plaster sets correctly. And so we've given them a window of when that would be least impactful for the aquatics area to potentially close for all those repairs. So that the outdoor pools and all the other facility pools could be open. And we would intend to keep the rest of that building operational while the pool is doing the extensive repair work

[48:04] good. Any other questions? I guess I have one just in light of what Clarissa sent out to us. Which we're going to see in the maturity question. The fund our future I'm thinking of, like the aquatic center in comparison to the tennis facilities that they're building in East and the revenue generation potential from see you or other places. Has that been looked into at all for aquatics, I mean, I hear all the time a huge demand for swimming. When you say, Can you be a little more clear? Has that been looked into? What has, what a community piece of it! And then also more of an enterprise prize piece of it to recapture some of the costs and expenses. there is an aquatics coalition in town that we're talking with closely, and they're reviewing a lot of case studies. We've yet to find one that is revenue, profit generating right? A lot of aquatics. Facilities bring in revenue through fees. None of them that we found are enterprises, and if if the ones that get close are very exclusive and private, not open to the community.

[49:17] That being said, we're well aware, this community said for a very long time. We sure love to swim, would like to swim more. And so we continue to have conversations with the aquatic coalition with others. The school district to figure out how we might meet this community's desire to swim more. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. as far as the breakdown between sustainability and financial stewardship. If, for for example, the Re, let's let's just say we're gonna spend 10 million dollars to

[50:00] retrofit north boulder. Rec, how much of that percentage wise usually would be put towards environmental sustainability. That is a fine question that we are. It is a moving target. If if I can be honest. So as we're looking at east costs are escalating, as we speak right now in such a way that it's a little hard to predict, but we do recognize that these facilities were built so so long ago that It's very hard to adapt an existing building to current energy codes. We are learning quite a bit about just how difficult that is. And so the percentage is, I can't give you a number, but it's a substantial portion of the budget. I was just kind of curious as to how those energy codes the folder has implemented are impacting things like this. I think that that's just something to take into consideration as we

[51:02] significantly, yeah, significant. Yeah, just like they impact all building costs. Simple, right? I mean, building in boulder is expensive. We we have really high expectations for thoughtful design for setbacks. We have a height limit. We have, you know it. It there are. There are. Boulder is what it is because of decades of thoughtful planning and development of the built environment. And that doesn't come for free. Otherwise everybody would do it. Okay? And then scary question. what happens if we put together all this stuff and fund our future comes on to the 26 ballot and does not pass hard choices, really hard choices with our community about what is most important. And you know we have already talked about, and part of what deepened this conversation around the future of recreation centers was the reality that that we have been duct taping and mandated the South Holder Recreation Center together. And

[52:02] you know our asset management strategy was kind of cross your fingers and hope it doesn't fail, because if it does, we're going to really have to prioritize more than anything pool time gyms their substitutability in the community, right? Every elementary school, middle school, and high school has some level of a gym, but to lose a pool, and especially October through March, would be a real impact on our community. And so you'd have to start making choices. You also would look at other things right? And I'll speak specifically to schools. I I grew up in Minnesota and in Minnesota. The ice is available from 6 am. To midnight, because ice is really expensive, and there's not a lot of it. So you optimize the crap out of the schedule. Right now, that's not a very professional way to say that I'm sorry right now. You know, there is a lot of demand on our pools. They're fairly open after 8 o'clock at night. We're like almost 80% open after 7 o'clock at night.

[53:02] So is there a plan, B, or Plan C, if fund or future doesn't pass. it's it's to prioritize and reduce service levels. I mean, we've said this even without fund, our future since 2022. So the the costs of providing services in Boulder have not kept case pace with the revenues you've seen. We've increased fees last fall. This board really struggled with the fee increases. We had to pass to balance our budget, and we already are. if fund our future passes. Yes, glory days are ahead. If it does not, we really, we are doing everything we can to Rob's question around. So you know, how can we generate revenue here in the department? We're leaning in hard on that at the golf course. We're doing work this year to get that way at the Boulder Reservoir. A lot of the services we provide, and I think it's next month or some months soon you're going to see a beautiful presentation from Megan that talks about the extensive community benefit that we provide at the rec centers means that I think about 40% of our users are not paying the full cost of the service. And and that's the role of public parks and recreation right to make sure that you're removing physical barriers, that you're providing a place for young people and older adults and people with disabilities and people with low income. But that that comes at a cost. So

[54:18] that that was a really long explanation. But I just if there's not additional funding, we will be reducing services. And then my last question is, will the report that comes out this summer indicate whether we think like I think that we we know this helpful direct is a total teardown rebuild. Will it indicate East Boulder and north boulder we're talking about just maintaining and maybe adding on a running, a running track, or something like that. Will the report indicate what we think we'll need to do. as far as additions or tear downs and all. Oh, sure, sorry! Yes, at a very high level. Absolutely. Yeah, we. We're we're trying to identify again. How like of all the needs? Where can we fit things in? Where might they work best? But again, it's in the absence of site feasibility. We're really, you know, for example, those just as Jenny, you and others may know the current location of the cell phone facility is

[55:23] in a very high water table location, which is what's causing the issues in the pool. In some ways. The pool is lower than the lake itself. And so there are things like that that will constrain what we can actually do. Once we get into that additional feasibility which it's a chicken and egg in terms of. Is it fair to say, Darren, we've penciled in a park plan follows to complement the work. So we can have a better understanding. Yeah, yeah, we'd want to look at it holistically, because we might need to shift a few things around in order to make it work. Yeah, thank you. I think Yvonne had another question.

[56:03] Yeah, sorry. So to. I didn't see who was asking this question about what the plan B was, and I hear Ali saying, you know we reduce services. Do we? Are. We were actively working on creating what that plan? B. Those reduced services are. I don't want to scare anybody, or you know the public or anything. But do we already know, generally speaking, you know what that you know a ranking of which services are gonna go away first, st or anything like that. We have not formally done that work. Okay, and then this is something I probably should know. But does funder is the Funder futures. Initiative is that parks and Rec only, or it's a number of different services. Can you broadly tell us what else is included in that or or no.

[57:02] everything. It's citywide. So it is it the intent? Actually, I'm gonna have Jackson answer that question because he's been one of the core team members working to. Yeah, citywide. Every department is being asked to submit what's unfunded on both the capital side as well as operating budget. A preliminary list was shared with city Council back in April. That was included in your packet, and that has a list of everything from advanced life support for the fire department. New software for the courts department, additional police officers. The Rec. Centers. So it is all encompassing across city services. Is there a number yet assigned to this a total number that is due on Friday. I think next month we will probably have some information that we can share at least at the department level. Curious what that total number of underfunded or unfunded across the departments looks like all right. Any other questions on the future of our Rec centers.

[58:05] Thank you guys so much. That was wonderful presentation. It was really all encompassing. We look forward to hearing more about it as we go forward, bringing that needs assessment to you all in July. And so I do appreciate you coming, Darren, to give that process overview. We'll be able to dive right into that conversation. So thanks, Darren, thanks. And next we have budget summer. Wonderful time of the year. Alright. I'm Jackson business services manager presentation. And then we have Mark covering sip. I know we sent you the presentation a few hours ago. There's no expectation that you reviewed it. We will talk through everything. We got a little bit longer than we expected. But I still think we can fly through this in the hour that we have allocated.

[59:19] I'm gonna turn it over to Stacey to start off. Good evening. It's a pleasure to be with everyone tonight. Stacey Hopkins, Senior Budget Analyst for the Department this 1st slide right here is just really our budget strategy goals with the Preb. We showed this to you last month. This is just really just a reminder. We're looking for your input in the 2026 budget development. And it also goes over what your role in the development would be. So it's really kind of a reminder slide there. Tonight, we are going to take a look at our timeline. We are going to give you a budget development update. We are going to take a little bit of a dive into our fund financials, which is what this handout is. Just kind of. Go over how to read those, what information is included. And such just because we do have a lot of new board numbers so that everyone becomes familiar. Fund financials is just basically our financial statement.

[60:14] We will be looking at the fee policy introduction, the long term financial strategy. And then also taking your second touch on the capital investment program. So this slide does give us our timeline of the next few months. So we are obviously at the main meeting tonight and we will be with you over the next several months to kind of walk through and give more information as the budget is further developed. throughout the summer months, and then coming back with you through basically August through the fall, to make sure that the Prep. Is well informed of budget decisions and final appropriation from council.

[61:00] So Budget Development Steps did share this with you in our April meeting. But this is basically the steps that we take when we are putting together a budget proposal. Base budget increases have been completed. We are in the process this week of doing all of our realignments within the department and realignments is basically those changes in the budgets that result in a budget neutral or net 0 change. Right? It's really where we are taking a look at our budgets, and we're directing funding where it's going to have the greatest impact or areas that it may have the greatest need. So completing that exercise this week. From there we will start to work on our enhancements. I will share a list of some of the enhancements the Department has identified that we will be moving forward and putting into the budget. Mark will touch on the capital investment program, and then by the end of June we will have that department budget, and we'll bring back some numbers to share with you at that point. So because everything is pretty much preliminary, we will share base cost on the fund financials that have already been submitted, and then next month we'll come back later

[62:08] with some more fund financials that was submitted with our enhancements, questions so far. All right. So on your fund. Financial, which is your handout. You do have 3 fund financials for the department. We'll be taking a look at each of them. The 1st is the point 2 5 cent sales tax fund. The second will be our permanent parks and recreation fund, and then the 3rd Fund financial is the Recreational Activity Fund or the raft but just before we take a dive into these just I'm not sure how many people are familiar had gone on the city's website to look at fund financials in the past. But just some key information as we're reading, they do provide the prior year's actuals. So you will see where we do have 2024 actuals in that 1st column. It will provide you the approved or adopted budget for 2025. The Revised budget would be anything that had carryover, or for projects that weren't completed. This is mainly due to capital improvement. Carryover for multi-year projects.

[63:19] We are building out the 2026 projected. But then do do our budget out fund financial out into the out years, through 2020, 2031. Excuse me. And the numbers there are basically, we use inflation for our uses, and then we do calculate out to and project what we think our revenue projections are going to be for the 0 point 2 5 cents sales tax fund. Those are revenue projections for sales and use tax. We did flag that as one of the concerns that it was revise down from cus work that they had done with the city and our Central Budget team here in getting a good projection there. So you will see that this fund financial does have that numbers in it.

[64:07] And all of our sources basically are standardized across the city. So you will see that they are just in general broad categories. So you're not going to see in a way, specific type of revenue. Right? It's gonna be part of that categorization level below our sources of funds. We do have uses of funds which is categorized by budget program area. This could be very specific to all the departments across the city for our department. We do have a program areas, including our capital investment program. And then kind of down towards the bottom. We will see ending fund balance before reserves. This is basically the remaining balance in the fund after the costs have been subtracted from the revenues. Then we have our reserves. We do maintain an operating reserve which is a guideline from central budget. In within the city. Our operating reserve is at 16.7%. And then you will see, too, that we do have a sick vacation reserve that is based on basically a 3 year average of usage. So we do put that in. Our reserves are basically

[65:16] not planned to be spent within the current budget year. Hold on to those, and then you have at the end what is your ending fund balance at the reserve? So when we look at or talk about fund health or being balanced in out years. Really, we are looking at this bottom line number questions on just the kind of layout and the contract. Do you have a question about the 16.7% for operating reserve. Is that something the city requires? Yes, it is okay. And I will just elaborate on that. That's recommended best practice from Gfoa Government Finance Officers Association. Basically, it's 2 months of carrying costs. If we were to experience an emergency. We do think it's best practice for most funds, you will see, certain enterprise funds are higher utilities are typically in 40 to 60% range.

[66:09] It is something that we've always questioned for a recreation activity fund. Just user fees contributing to reserves in a rainy day. We could very easily turn down, turn off programs a lot quicker on the recreation side. Thank you. The other thing. I'll just point out where the because the point 2 5 has such mixed uses. We subtract out any cip capital projects before we calculate that reserve level, because every project carries its own unique contingency to the budget. So we don't include that number when we calculate the 16.7. Okay, so looking at our point 2 5 cents sales tax fund, this does have our base cost increases, built into the 2026 projected. This does give us the budget that we'll build upon with our enhancements. So just as a reminder we have gone over. Base cost increases with you.

[67:05] Prior. And those basically are cost driver increases. So we're talking about inflation contractual or any city guidelines which would be energy, fleet or technology. So those are all reflective in these numbers, and then from here, next up would be to put in the enhancements. So as we do look through this fund financial to the bottom, we do have an ending fund balance after reserves of about 7.3 million. We will be programming in about 400,000 or 2.4 million over the next 3 years is what we're projecting out for the next step in our process for some enhancements here, but you know the fund is healthy, and when we look at 2031, you know, we do have an ending fund balance of 3.6 million dollars and capital has been basically carried over from what we had costed out last year. So that is a stable number right now. And that's another area that we'll be looking at, too. That may fluctuate a little bit.

[68:13] beginning fund balance that decreases because of carryover from capital projects. Your beginning fund balance will basically decrease based on what your spend is. So if you look at your 2024 actuals column and you go down to ending fund balance before reserves. You'll see that's at the 10.6 9 4 now becomes your beginning fund balance. But then, as you spend down great? So if you are spending more than your sources of revenue, or if you have higher sources of revenue and less expense. that number will change year over year to become your new beginning fund balance. And I think there's 2 reasons that you see such a large beginning fund balance. The 1st is for the last 3 years our revenues have done much better in 1.2 5 than initially budgeted, so that revenue comes in and then is available to spend in later years. And then the second part of it is just the cost of delay. With our planning projects and going through more thoughtful processes.

[69:20] We used to think that a cip project would be 10 to 12 months. We know that that's not the case that we are trying to do better with our cash flow management that we aren't budgeting all of the budget in year One. We're spreading that out over a 2 or 3 Year project to account for basically over the course of the Cip project and for 2025 reduce the the adopted was, you know, does increase up with that carry over, and that was for the capital improvement. And then specifically The sources of funds are the

[70:02] why is there such a oh, I guess you is it? Are these all blank because you just don't know you don't project out. What you don't know. So what we'll do is we will take a look at where we ended for 2024 actuals. This is just the base cost. So where you see other revenues, came in at 112, and right now we have about a projection base budget of 67, that is, for revenue at Delmont City Park. So we will take a look at the last 3 actuals and basically put in an enhancement right? And probably bring that number up based on actuals. We, as a department, do not put in the budget any grant revenues. We do use the Atv or adjustment to base process twice a year to record that into our budget, once those grant are secured, and we know what the funding is, so that is not budgeted for and then also your leases, rents, and royalties fall into that same category. If we do have, you know any additional funding coming in, we do use the Atv process for that.

[71:10] And what are charges for services charges for services would be anything for fees. So for the point 2 5 cents sales tax fund, this basically encompasses a lot of mitigation fees for forestry. So if there is damage done to the trees, and people are paying fines in such, that's what a lot of that revenue accounts for. And again, because that is pretty much unknown. That is not something that we've historically put into the budget. But it's something we're talking about internally. Again, looking back at those historic actuals. And does it make sense to start putting something more into the baseline for this fund? Okay. once something I'll note. And it's a little thing. But typically it's practice not to include like 3 grants for those unimposed fees. And I've I've asked this question before. There's a correlating expense in revenue with each of those that they wash out. The minute you add it into your projected expense. It adds more 16%. Basically every dollar we plan to spend cost us a dollar 16.

[72:16] And so for some of these things that are best practice, it actually saves us money, and it's not that in the number varies so much that one, it's best practice. but it also benefits us not to program in the spending of the revenue. Thank you. Bye, a little bit. Okay, any more questions on the point 2 5 cent sales tax one before we or 2 permanent parts. Okay, permanent parks and recreation fund. This is where we do fund a lot of our capital improvement program. And then the operational expenses that pertain to the work that Mark's team does.

[73:08] So the fund financial is basically set up exactly the same way. This main source of fund is property tax for this and based on projections that we did receive last month. Those have been all updated into the fund to get that base cost increase. and such and other revenues, leases, rents, royalties, same thought process. Those will get put in there any adjustment phase. As we look to 2026 projected, we do have an ending fund balance of 5.8 million. And then, as we look to the out years, we do have an ending fund balance of over 2 million for this fund. we will be looking to program in through enhancements about 200,000 per year, about 1.2 million over the 6 years, and that will really be more to support those capital projects

[74:02] in nature. So this one is pretty straightforward. I was just going to add that I want to make 2 notes one. This fund is currently dedicated to either buying land of which we're not in acquisition mode and haven't been since 1995 or permanent improvement. So you can't use this for anything related to operations of Parkland, and so there is a proposal to the. It started 1st at the Council Financial Strategy Committee, and now has advanced to the full Council. It's part of the polling now. Council will follow up on it at their June 26th meeting, but there's 2 proposals on the table. One is to expand the pie so that it can benefit the entire public realm, not just recreation, and that the pie is bigger. So it currently is 0 point 9 mills, and it would go to 3 mills. And this is also the fund that we will be looking for approval.

[75:07] The Board has to approve. I charter expenditures from the firm Parks and Recreation Fund expenditures. Okay? So when we get into the budget for 2026, this is the only fund that needs correct. Yeah. And so that will be when Mark shows you the cip in a little bit. Some of this fund is the staffing for the planning team and then other is the actual capital projects. And you can see that there's the just. The function of planning. And our construction team is about 1.7 million, and then there's an additional money on that cip line. can you one? The public realm is going to increase the mills. but not take away from our

[76:03] our fund right? I mean. So if they're increasing from 0 point 9 to 3 mills for the public loan tax, so they're increasing the 5. So they're going to be using those mills on things other than parks and recreation. They'd be a much more broad definition of use. Okay, so is that a way to undedicate? I just don't want to get caught in losing money from per park. So if they undedicate parks. money. Is that a good or a bad thing. my personal? Oh, I'll let Jackson go first, st I'd say both. I think it's very good in the fact that we have a very compelling story. Our unfunded list is incredibly long. And there's a lot of work to be done. It is a gamble that it's no longer dedicated to parks and recreation. But I think the benefit is, it's showing we're a team player and putting the funding towards the highest and best use in any given year. It could be that we get all 12 million dollars hypothetically one year. And the next year it's split 50 50 with another department. I think that it's really just focusing on the greatest good for the city as a whole, and sometimes there would be no money.

[77:22] I don't get the sense that there would ever be no money. I think that the point 9 mills that we currently have is kind of the bottom line threshold that parks and recreation would be guaranteed each year. I don't think there's any guarantee. I mean, here's what I'll offer. Just so I've worked with the city for 22 years, and for all 22 years of them it's been problematic and constraining. The amount and quantity of dedicated funds we have. It is higher than other cities. It limits policymakers, ability in the pandemic. When the recession of 2,008, it it makes it really hard to prioritize citywide. The hope is that by making the pie bigger

[78:02] and broader, that there's more opportunity to address unmet needs across the system, and there and there are no guarantees. The one. The the one that I say is a guarantee is that this community values parks and recreation more than almost any other I know of in the country, and so I don't see it as a as a defunding of parks and recreation. But there's no guarantees. What other can you tell us what other, what other are, what other funds are dedicated rough, roughly like. There's a total of 40 funds in the city. There's dedicated for open space. Lotteries quasi dedicated towards whatever the Lottery Board says, we have the point 2 5 cent sales tax. There's the art culture taxation tax. So this would be the only one they're looking to undedicate. It's for now. Yes, I think I mean, if you look at the out years in the planning as taxes come up for renewal. I do think it's long term plan that you would continue this conversation. Okay, part of the long term. Financial strategy is to undedicate a lot of the dedicated funding across the city. Just because it does provide greater flexibility to support highest and best use.

[79:11] Okay? And then this is a totally I don't know if this would technically be budget related, but where I grew up we had a park district. It was the Palatine Park district. Yep. would that be a conversation in the long term financial strategy that we would talk about a district like the library district or the downtown district. Boulder considers itself a full service city, and parks and recreation is a key part of that. It's not a conversation I've I've heard, brought up in our community. there are park districts in Colorado, and they've evolved and and come about for a lot of different reasons. But I know our city takes pride in being a full service city, which means we provide parks and recreation. Thank you. So doesn't the flexibility make it difficult to Budget Bill? Yes and no. Spoke about like 2, 3 year projects. We see like projects, 2 to 3 years, especially nowadays with more complex needs.

[80:11] and then a good example of the minute is, how can be around about 4, 4 to 5 million apart renovation projects around about 8 or 9 million now. because costs have gone up from a hundred dollars 5 years ago to $180 today for the same materials. So the having that sort of increased pot larger pot means we could be like, Hey, we actually need to fully renovate the park as opposed to value engineer it. So as we grow the pop, we can sort of plan ahead, as Jackson pointed out over multiple years. ask the city and hopefully be seen as a priority need. Let's do that. So it means we can fully renovate Parks as opposed to at the moment, frankly, with a dedicated fund value engineer, and do half of the park. So it's an interesting way to think about how that new and dedicated fund could really help us. But, like your question was, does does broader funding mean less? Did you say predictability? What was the word you used

[81:05] more flexibility? Does that mean less predictability? Because I think Jackson talked about, you know, one year we could get, you know, 100%. The next year we could get 50% or even 0. Or, you know, back to that point, 9 notes. I actually view it being a challenge for us, having 5 different funding sources that we rely on each year. It means that you're balancing 5 different budgets, different revenues, different expenses, different allowable expenses. We are sitting here debating. Where does this person spend their time? Is it really an allowable use? Whereas, if there is more flexible funding, it would be broader. I will say. Generally the city as a whole has 50 to 60% of their budget going towards personnel and supplies of materials that that's not going to really change substantially year over year. Having a singular pot of money to allocate funds, for you still have the exact same funding sources. It's just in a consolidated pot that everyone has their hands in, but I think, on one hand, it would make our lives so much easier. You don't need all 3 sheets of paper here, and the 2 others that exist. Thank you. And at the end of the day Council will decide for them.

[82:14] And it. And it looks like this is a average of 5 million dollars. So if we were to have it reallocated, it would. That would be what the loss would be roughly based on your projection. I don't think it would be a loss. It would be that this fund would grow 3 times in size, so there would be 15 million dollars a year instead of 5. Correct. But that would be split across all the public realm. Jackson, what was the percentage parks received from the recent Ccrs tax was that around about 50% in terms of how much 50% from the Ccrs tax in 2021. If you factor in the East civic area and Pearl Street, we received about 50% of the overall budget. It's a nice example of how city prioritized progress through a general tax.

[83:04] And I think when you zoom out, our portion of the overall city budget is actually only 6% so there's and that we like to think that we have a lot going on, and we do but at the end of the day we do share the resources with so many other departments. You guys are really good team player for sure. Yes, I I don't think I mean, I'll build on what Jackson said. It's not just about being a team player. It's that we all get financial guidance from the Central Finance Office, from Gfoa and and professional institutions, and the reality is that dedicated taxes are are pretty limiting for communities. And when we look at durable funding and ongoing funding, dedicated taxes are problematic, and and this one. And if you look at the timing and the needs it, it makes sense. It's really restrictive. I think, when we haven't really acquired New Parkland since 1995. That was 30 years ago, and that is still one of the key sources. We can use this fund for

[84:07] Parkland, did you say? Yep, acquiring parkland. Okay, thank you. Is there any other questions about this one from Eva? I'm curious why the property tax for the projected for 2027 seems to go down a little bit. Great question. There's legislation approved last year at the State level that does decrease. I'm not even going to pretend I know, for free tax bills. But basically there was a trade off where the amount that municipalities receive decreases by about 5% and then you see that assessment years is every 2 years. So that's why you have the exact same dollar amount in 2029, and then 38, 31 can give you a much longer. No, that's fine. That makes sense.

[85:06] All right. Moving to the last fund we're going to review this evening is the Recreation Activity Fund. Just as a reminder. This is more of the Semi Enterprise Fund. We do treat this fund a little bit more like a business and do expect things to be balanced at the end of the day. This does have a lot more categories for your sources of funds, because this is what is basically supporting all of our recreation services across the department. So the golf course, the reservoir, all of the activities within the recreation centers, all the recreation services, sports programs, gymnastics, and such. So we do have a few more categories in here. and then you will also see that we do receive a subsidy from the general fund as a line item in here that has remained pretty much flat for the past 10 years. This does support our age-based discounting, and then a lot of our community benefit programming through expanding. Ysi. This fund also has been taking in a transfer from the 0 point 2 5 cents sales tax fund to support community benefit

[86:14] programming as well. You can see where that does kind of decrease and drop off. There's 2 line items and ongoing. And then a conditional. The conditional is programmed to kind of stop on 2029 for that last year there. And the reason behind that is, we do want this fund to be very self sustaining in the out years, however, did need that conditional transfer to come over to support those community benefit programming within the Raf. But we know that does have trade-offs and taking away from needs within the point 2 5. So just something that the department is working on with the long term financial strategy. The last line item up under our sources is implementation of fees.

[87:01] policy, and business plans. This is really a placeholder that we put in the budget, knowing that we're going to be doing work in out years. This accounts for any of fee updates the increases that we may have, if played as any fundraising for the department. We do have a placeholder dollar in for that, and then also have used this in the past, just for some of those reoccurring grants that we do typically get year over year as a department with our recurrey through the Health Equity Fund that supports equity at the Rec centers. and then also ysi, and then just a few other grants that come in year over year. So that is why that is in yellow. The next time you see that our 2026, 750,000, we've been spending the last couple of weeks just taking a look at our 2024 actuals for revenue within this fund, and basically realigning all of that up into those above categories, charges for services, lease rents, royalties, other revenues

[88:07] to where we did actually come in in 2024, and in which program area? So the department is pretty strategic and actually taking a look at all the single line items that make up their short 5 with all the services that we offer, and putting that funding up there. So on the next one you will not see the 7 50. It will actually be above that questions on our sources at all. What is transfers, and I'm sorry if you sorry what is transfer and transportation fund? Yup. This is a small amount that we have received back to 1996. Something about the remodel of the north boulder rec center. Transportation demand management. Basically, this was a subsidy and it is fixed at $13,000 as an ongoing amount. And we've been through 2 financial system updates since then, and the money keeps showing up

[89:12] all right. And then sources uses of funds, community building and partnerships. And then the rec operations, community building and partnerships is our expand programming and our Ysi inclusion programming. And then recreation operations basically encompasses everything else. You will see as we look through our expenses for the out years we have called out that we have projected out the regional wage minimum increase impact from 2027 to 2031 knowing that that increase is going to go a little bit higher than our typical 3% for our inflationary. So that is built into our budget as we do. Go down and look at the bottom line. Here you will see 2026 does end with a

[90:05] fund balance of 3.1 million. But we do go into the negative in 2029, through 2031. Normally it has been requested, you know, that we do have a balanced fund financial. This fund has not been balanced in the out years. The past 2 years about that we have been submitting it because we do want our storytelling to be heard. that we are looking at long-term financial sustainability, that our expenses, as you've all heard, are increasing and outpacing our revenues in that the Department will have to look at some decisions to make sure that we can balance this fund in the out years like is the storytelling for like fund, our future is the storytelling for fee increases. I think we're aware that we're at the top of the market, that every organization does do. Minor fee increases on a certain cadence. The fee policy that you approved so that we would revisit fees every 2 years. This really ties into Funder future

[91:16] the General Fund subsidy has remained flat at 1.6 million. We as a department, have chosen to fund recreation activities through the point 2 5 cent sales tax fund. And that is a choice policy question where we are no longer funding capital at the full amount or land operations at the full amount in order to subsidize recreation for the priority communities identified in the plans. But we would really benefit from additional funding. Or we're going to need to reduce levels of service. So so this reflects the value of the plan B, or plan C that we were talking about. If correct, it's more stark and recreation because there's a dollar amount to what you do or don't do. It's much harder on the other funds, because you don't see the cost of

[92:04] not fully funding maintenance. You don't see right? That's a whole separate list to see. Okay, we're not doing service A, B or C, and you don't see the cost of that. But the reality is when you underfund maintenance, there is a cost to that. So I'm just. You can see it visually here because we're maintaining those services. You don't see it in the same way when it's land based. Thank you. And I also just connect out to you, Jenny, you asked if it's also it is about fees you're gonna hear over the next several months about post fee increases. We know there are areas where there is some room. So, for example, the golf courses in the bottom 3rd of the market. It's been that way intentionally. And it's gonna change intentionally, because it it doesn't make sense any longer for us to be in that spot in the market. Okay? And I think what you'll see when we come back next month is we will identify where we're proposing the revenue adjustments. We'll give you a heads up tonight. The hard part for us is we're putting a placeholder budget in. Now that when we ask you to approve this budget in July. We think all of the adjustments we make will be able to afford that. We wait until we see actual visitation over the summer months, and then come back with a proposed fee schedule.

[93:13] I think that we're in a much better position right now than we were last year. And we heard very clearly from prep. That they want awareness as far as where the fee increases, will be, so that will be called out directly next month. and then the recreation operations. Is this the full cost? Or is it spread out over multiple? So the recreation operations for the wrap includes the reservoir is in here, golf course, all the centers, the outdoor pools, and then recreation services. So gymnastics, programs, sports sports turf is all in this. And it's just really underneath the one budget program. that's how it's structured. The finance term budget program, right? Recreation up in the city's budget, which is 9 billion lines. And you know, half a billion dollars recreation operations. One line which I know makes it hard. It drives us crazy. So you're not alone his. I watched the gentleman from Cu

[94:25] give his economic forecast. Is there another forecast that takes in the current administration the tariffs? And I, you said, 3% Cpi is back baked into this. Is there another worst case scenario that is on a high end. So we have actually taken a little bit higher in the out years than the recommended Cpi. That was provided. I think it was more at a 2.6 or 2.8, and we just based on what our historical spend, have been, have gone with the 3. Now this is not in there yet for tariffs and such. I don't think, really. But you know we do have those adjustments to base to make adjustments. If things do increase quicker or differently than we expected.

[95:16] rob. I think that the city has historically taken the stance that they go with a mid ground perspective of not the most conservative, not the most aggressive and aware of financial policies that are current at the time, so this could very easily change. But right now we're working off of our best guess. That said, I think last Friday City manager's office and our Cfo. Shared. We are in a fiscally conservative environment. We have no clue. What's happening with tariffs, with Federal funding for grants for other departments. So we need to continue to be fiscally constrained and just aware of highest and best use of every dollar that we're spending and that 3% to the Denver area. So our local market. It's not that any questions

[96:08] that's great. Thank you. Always break out so nicely. Thank you. All right, there are no numbers. These are just some of our 2026 budget enhancements. In June we will be coming back. Yeah, I just want to pause. Make sure everyone. Because I feel like all of these terms, and even like there's lots of finance terms that are even newer to us, and I feel like if they're newer to us, then they're really new to you all. So what this is is we just take everything we're doing. And we cost escalate based on what we know. That's what is in front of you. This is. Now, then, what else do we think needs to be happening. That's what enhancements are proposals. So that is the next step. And the proposals basically will have a change in service level right? Based cost increases where those base cost drivers. If we think back to those definitions.

[97:06] the realignments that we're doing this week has that net 0 and enhancements are things that will change service levels or have a significant change within the department. So we basically do take these and we put them into 2 different categories. One would be an ongoing funding request, and second category would be one time funding. So simple terms ongoing would be. We would need this funding in 2026, and beyond right, it's something that we are looking to get funded, and then it will be continuing in our budget. So when we do a plan for that. We will put that in the Fund financials all the way through the out years. Our one time funding request would be a 1 year. So this is just funding that we're looking for in 2026. And there's different reasons for that. So we'll kind of go over our ongoing funding requests the Department has identified. And then the one time we do have this broken down by more of a program area, not a budget program area, but just to get a little bit more granular, and then also by the fund.

[98:16] So for the general fund, we will be putting forward a request for forestry for the Commercial tree program and the commercial tree program was identified in the 2018 urban strategic plan. And this really pertains to funding tree replacement and also tree grates in those commercial areas throughout the city for forestry. When we move to the point 2 5 cent sales tax fund, we are looking at, establishing a current replacement value, revolving maintenance account to help fund new facilities. So we have brought the Boulder reservoir building flatirons, golf course building and Scott Carpenter

[99:03] Pool online since 2020. And it's really in the department's best interest to put basically maintenance funding aside for that on a revolving account to make sure that we are funding and taking care of what we have which is not currently established right now and then for business services we would like to, we'll be putting forward the proposal of a conversion of 1.0 fte fixed term back to an ongoing standard. So when the Department embarked on its capra accreditation. We did create a fixed term position out of business services to focus on that work. And this request is really asking for that fixed term to really go back into a standard meeting. What? I'm sorry. What's that? Just a full time equivalent employee so ongoing as opposed to having it on on the one year. Because we knew that project was going to be ending

[100:03] questions on that so far. So you'll come back with dollar values for those. This is the list that's been identified internally. Yes, thank you. So this is not re, this is not a realignment. This is asking for more. This is what we will be taking in our next step. Yep, so in in a proposal. So a change? Okay, yes. Yeah. Looking at the Recreation Activity Fund, we will be putting in a request for aquatics. This is for non-standard staffing, and this is really just to sustain level. So, looking at our 2024 actuals, having all of the pools up and functioning, looking at operating hours, and even keeping them at the same. We know that we do need an increase of nonstandard staffing dollars to keep all the schools at their current operational level.

[101:03] For marketing. Looking at that funding for additional marketing activities. Right? We need to generate revenue for the Raf and across our department. So we do need to invest in marketing to earn that extra revenue for gymnastics. This is really non-standard staffing to support with program growth. Gymnastics is doing tremendous. The program last year finished a little bit over 1.2 million. They're projecting out, probably 1.3 million a little bit more in the out years. So they do need to have that staffing to provide that programming there and then. We are also looking for within recreation operations and services, establishing an equipment replacement funding. We do put money in the budget now every year for about 130,000 to keep track and redo replacement at our recreation centers. This would be taking this and putting it a little bit more holistically, and looking at all of our needs across recreation and establishing

[102:10] one fund that we would just be putting money into and growing and letting people use it differently for needs as they occur. That would be ongoing funding requests. As we look to our one time funding request. This is funding that we would only be asking for in 2026. And there's really 2 reasons for this. Some of these are pilot programs. We want to see before we commit to ongoing, you know, do they have an impact? Right? Do they change things? So as we look to our point? 2 5 cent sales tax. Special events. We would like to do some more park activation with increased events. This is one area where funding has been decreased and want to see what that would do for our community. Also, urban renters do need a new vehicle, so that would just be for that

[103:02] and then within the recreation activity fund marketing. We would like to post a 1 year fixed term position to drive revenue through a focus on sponsorships for the department for fitness. We are looking to pilot out a 1 term position, to really focus on personal training, to increase revenue in that area, really having a consistent person can help clientele and such. So that would be a pilot program for expand and fitness. We're looking at funding for interns to support those programs. And then, Ysi, just, we did get a grant in. So it's really just offsetting expenses. So we already have the grant funding committed. So we would just do one time for next year. Pretty much. The requests do have projected. Revenue increases across marketing, gymnastics, fitness, and ysi, so we will be putting in an offsetting revenue proposal.

[104:01] So how? Who are you asking? Are you asking city council and city manager to adjust these? So we'll be coming back to you next month with a dollar amount, and then, when you approve the budget that is essentially asking us to take it through the approval process with the city, so it'll go from you to the Executive Budget team and then to City Council. So if you're asking for additions to the general fund and the 25% sales tax fund. I think I understand those because those are pot of money that are split between different groups. But the Raf is what it is. Right? So how do you get more money out of the Recreation Activity fund? If it's just based on feeds. This is where we're looking at growing programming that has an offsetting revenue. It's through grants, it's through sponsorships. It's still a budget increase that you would need to approve. That's so. I hear what you're saying like, who's gonna care? Who would say, no. But how do you get more money out of something that you already know? Kind of worth, you know, it's like a set dollar.

[105:03] because this is still a governmental fund. It does need to go through the approval process. But we are really looking at the business justification process of does this pay for itself? Who's benefiting the most from it? So and this comes from like fees at the golf, okay, fees or specific fees. So if we look at gymnastics, right? We're asking for an increase in non-standard staffing to support growing program levels. So we have a need where people want to take more programming. So we'll look, okay, we can spend $20,000 making this figure up right for non standard staffing. But we have the potential to generate $35,000 in revenue as opposed to saying, you know what we're not gonna ask for that. And we're just gonna keep service levels down. So that's where the proposals really do go into a change in service level, too. If we meet that you know, then we can grow it. The only area on this that was listed that didn't really have that revenue offset was aquatics. And that is really just because of the minimum wage increases and the number of lifeguards that we need to operate safe facilities at the scheduled hours of operation. Right? We do need more money based on 2024 actuals. So if that did not happen, then we have to talk about other things.

[106:23] It's beautiful. Any other questions. Okay, I'm gonna go over the fee policy again. I know that you all have seen this before. Prep had approved the fee policy back in 2023 with this we then set an annual fee schedule that's approved by the what we call city manager role. This means it's just not a codified fee that isn't in the Vrc. But it still does go through a noticing period with the fee policy. Our focus is really on this Graphic on the left, where user fees are paying for activities where individuals benefit, whereas taxes to the General Fund subsidy is paying where the community benefits the 22 Department Plan and the 2014 Department plan. Both said that people with disabilities, youth, seniors and low income individuals are who really benefits from the community aspect.

[107:21] So that's where we have continually invested our subsidy that we do receive with our fee updates, we are really focused on targeted areas, the facility access fees will be evaluating our membership structure. We last updated our membership structure in 2019, going into 2023 months later, recreation shut down completely. So since that time we have had Scott Carpenter Pool open as well as the Boulder Reservoir Main building open as well, that we really just want to look at this. Megan gave you a little preview of this in your consent, agenda tonight, and we will be back next month talking through this a little bit more

[108:03] probably already mentioned that the golf course fees are on the bottom 3rd of the market right now, and demand is still through the roof at the golf course that we really would like to look at fees here, leaning into the 22 department Plan, can we generate additional revenue at the golf course that then subsidizes recreation elsewhere. Can it pay for capital enhancements at the golf course? That's really what our goal would be here, and then we have a internal team working on a community access framework that really encompasses programming rentals and commercial use. So this is simplifying the process, making it more consistent. And having consistent cost recovery targets across. So you'll hear more about this. But generally the intention would be to update the fees as part of this engagement work that they've already been doing. And then the final area that we'd really like to focus on in 26 is court fees. Last year there was a court systems plan that was brought to crab. And this is really just implementing that, knowing that we have new courts coming online shortly.

[109:06] any questions on the targeted areas of few updates. I'm just curious about the golf course. How much is recaptured right now to cover expenses. We brought in 2.2 million last year and spent 1 point. Direct costs that Co is covering everything. What it is not currently funding are the capital improvements. and indirect cost, such as the beyond that. So everyone who works at the golf course, it's paying a hundred percent of their salaries. But we have a senior manager that it's, you know, a quarter to a 3rd of their job. We have deputy director. We have Jackson and his team. What we want to get to a place is where it's covering all the direct plus indirect, plus capital. And we'll say you know, from what I've heard from my girlfriends. It's true that demand is very high, and it's like, Oh, difficult to, you know you have to schedule that way out if you want to be able to. Every indicator says, Increase

[110:08] alright great questions. So within the fee policy there is a strategy listed for how we update fees. And I just want to be very transparent about this. We go through the level of community benefits. So that's really who benefits. Is it the individual, or is it the community we look at, supply and demand back to the golf course example. We look at market comparisons. We'll survey all of the golf courses in a 30 mile radius. How do their fees compare? Are we really comparing apples to apples, or is it apples to oranges? Historically, we have said nonresident rates higher than resident rates just because they aren't paying sales tax or property tax that contributes to the general fund and our other funding sources. Age based prioritization comes back to the 22 department plan, direction. And I think all of this just continues with, there's clear examples. So I'm not gonna go through all of it. But this is the philosophy that goes into any pricing that we do to track

[111:06] this is an example within the fee policy. We identified 10 different program areas. And then cost recovery targets for each. We've identified different examples here. If there are questions. I think we've gone over golf enough tonight, so we'll go into too much more detail on that. But something like recreation services. We do really offer the full breadth of that from community to individual benefits. Individual benefit is something that's a specialty fitness class. So we offer a 1 on one for sports, fitness as a better name than that, but basically one on one with a private instructor that would be at 100% cost recovery, where something like a aquatics lesson for someone just learning to swim. We would not achieve full cost recovery just because there's a community benefit for an individual being able to swim. This is you already have access to this. I'm not going to go through every example. But that really goes over a few policy process. Are there any questions on it?

[112:11] Cool? Is it one? Okay, long term, financial strategy. You guys have already alluded to this a whole lot. So we'll skim through it. Basically, the ask for this Friday is to submit a list of all of our unfunded, underfunded items for the Funder future. Ask. So that's why, we will have a better dollar amount next month. You've seen the slide before, but basically anything is yellow in yellow is underfunded. Anything in red is unfunded. This just goes through and shows that we have a lot of underfunded activities within our parks. The only thing that is truly funded is the baseline urban service plan for area 3 so that covers parks within facilities. You can see once again we have a lot of underfunded. We do have some funded very well.

[113:05] And then within our programs, we do have more funded here. But there is underfunded as well. So essentially, we're using this previous direction from the 22 Department plan, knowing that it had gone through significant community engagement. Perhaps city council. And all of this is feeding into what our list is for areas that we think are underfunded and we want to submit for fund our future. Historically, this list has only included capital projects. They're now asking for operating budget as well. So that's why you'll see some of the things of the subsidy that we're providing included. So just making note of that any questions on long term financial strategy. Okay, it's an exhaustive list, I promise you. Get a dollar amount next month. And you can take bets on what it's going to be. It's we'll do it.

[114:04] Alright capital investment program Mark and I are going to tag team this real quick. Once again. The ask, when we come back to you in July is to approve the 26 pro. 26 budget, which implies the 26 projects. Everything for the out years will just be a placeholder. So that's why we're really just covering the 26 projects with you tonight. We have Primos Park. I think you're all aware of that. Just north of us on Broadway. Barker Park, refresh, evange fine refresh East Boulder Community Park courts, and then the Tom Watson pickleball. The funding that you see here is a combination over the life cycle of the project. So just I talked about cash flow earlier. Some of these projects do currently have funding. This is the total amount for the project that's being requested over what we call the project lifecycle cost. Can you just expand on that a little bit more? So, for example, primos, just because I've been involved with that one since we named it. 4.6 is the total cost of the project.

[115:05] My apologies take that one. It. It has a budget round about 80 million dollars. So we're not showing here the contribution from the Utilities department in terms of watershed work that will be done for plane work, and also the bridge replacement for transport. Did you say, 80,000,018. 0, gosh, okay, all right. 18 million total with between all departments. Yeah. And that's not the exact number. So the 4.6 2 is what's left to spend. That's what we've got in cip from parks to spend on the park amenities in primos. But we're working really close with utilities. So as they work on the floodplain, we're making sure that can help like provide access to the Greek, etc, and the 4.2 on a sip is going to be spent in 2020. I don't remember the length of the goal with this project would be to finish it by 2027.

[116:08] So that's 4.6 2 spread over till 2027. Yeah, so this is just a nice way, as Jackson pointed out, for you to see the total amount. Okay? And we've already spent a good amount on the design work. Community connector some of the pop events there. So we don't have that full budget remaining. So these I just haven't seen like I don't know about. We're in the beginning of that one, so that one is scheduled to begin the design in 2026, and then construction in 2027. Thank you. Alright. holy cow! Here we are. More projects. Boulder Junction, Pocket Park is at 30th and Pearl, North Boulder Park. You got a preview from Christoph last month. Pleasant view sports fields. Some of the older members have heard about this before, but it really enhances transportation and parking options at the fields there. Bill Bauer, you heard last month is on hold, just pending the donors finding money. That's so sad.

[117:18] Yep. And then the Boulder Reservoir Access road. Has been on our list since 23 and will be completed before 26. Any questions on this slide. Is there a place where there's a total sip number that was included as attachment? D. We break it down by year, and then total amount. Ballpark, 60 ish 1 million, excluding the rec centers. And then we have park renovation projects. This is just an example of some of the projects underway. The Boulder Reservoir, Eda Dock, Belmont Park is getting new signage

[118:04] or refresh. You already saw earlier as well as Evan. Sorry for the duplicates here. And then our Ccrs projects are the bigger dollar amounts. And this is what really allows us to achieve the action level funding through voter approved additional funding civic area you've heard a lot about. This is a very large pot of money, Pearl Street, Mall. This is just a portion of the cost, and we'll really just focus on the design work and some enhancements. And then East Boulder Community Center. There's the nexus to what. Darren I talked about earlier tonight. The Ccrs projects. Is that dependent upon me an extension, or is that money already committed? This is already committed. This was the 21 voter approved. Currently, the product Ccrs has only been cash flowing. There's the ability to bond against this. So when we hit the point of needing 50 million for east construction, the city will bond.

[119:09] And back to the question. Earlier parks and recreation received about 50% of the overall portion of the Ccrs total pot of money. It's great alright. And then Mark's team is working on a lot of different system. Wide planning. You. Heard about the future of recreation centers tonight? There's a similar process being done for parks. There's an Updating of the design standards, manual universal access. And then the Bpr plan, basically a update to our 22 department plan, terrifying already, seeing that number, it feels like we just what's universal access. So typically in the past, you did a you were required to do an Ada transition plan about every 10 to 15 years. So rather than just to Ada which meets a certain level of requirements. Universal access takes you one step beyond that in terms of meeting people's community needs for folks experiencing disability.

[120:10] Thank you. All right. I'm done with the boring stuff markets the fun. Pretty pictures! Now it's it's my happy time of the year is just give you a little bit of background on the asset management program work we're doing. And you know, you've had a lot of questions on like, Why are you prioritizing this? Or where's this? You know how we're going to manage the funding. So the asset management program is really a deep dive into the assets across the department. But just before I get into that, I wanted to give you a little bit of context with this slide here, we, as you heard, we're looking at Darren, obviously presented on the future. Recreation centers the needs assessment. We're diving slowly into scoping of future parks assessment. And then the 2 will come together, and you'll see in that circle there we're looking at things like community recreation. What does it mean in terms of level of service across the system

[121:08] so that will help inform the future. 2029 Bpl. Plan. And hopefully, there'll be enough sort of under the hood. Comprehensive analysis that you will all be able to see that will help make. Let's just say more informed decisions, especially as we're getting into fiscally type period. So the current asset management program it's within the planning design construction team. Matt Pilger is our senior asset management program manager, and we also work with Sarah Saxon, who is our jis senior analysis. And they work and really closely with the other service areas. And when you think of asset management, you often think of like a picnic shelter, or you know, etc. But we also cover, for instance, our natural resource department in terms of forestry and natural lands. We also work with our recreation centers work with our regional parks and then more traditional park operations. So the asset management program is comprehensive across the department

[122:08] and some of the things we're rolling out with the program internally is like an overview of the program. Frankly. And we're trying to get training going. This is sort of 2 years in the making to get this ready we'll have internal sharepoint pages, and that's an improvement where everyone can access from their service area or their assets, and we'll have more field resources. One of the issues we've run into in the past is frankly collecting data has been tricky in the field overly complicated. So you'll see that next category there, where we're really looking to create things like I'll talk about in a minute. The report, card dashboards and all of this currently is internal, and you'll see it's in draft form. The goal is that we can also make that external for you folks. So we can finally make better decisions and be more informed, more transparency. And then, just to show you the breadth of the work, we do cover things like working with Jackson long term financial strategy. And then some planning projects.

[123:02] So here's see an example of how we're trying to improve field resources. And one of the things I'm excited about here is, you'll see there in green, it says, make it easy for the field stuff. One of the we've had many ways to collect data. I forget, check some 20 programs. and we're getting down to like one collector app that is sort of universal for assets in the field. That is literally press 5 buttons, and you build the note where it's at. What's really great about that is, as I'll show you in a moment that transforms live, as it were, in the background to update various dashboards, to analyze that information where you can see in terms of data collection. We were currently looking at vandalism, variation. irrigation repair. We're actually collecting data on vandalism graffiti. I know there was a question recently on that from the board and part of that is trying to figure out what is actually the staff time we're spending on that. Do we need, you know, extra fte to cover that increase. So we can analyze, not just the work we're doing, but the resources.

[124:09] Does it have a name like, is it like a database that has a name? Yeah, I'll I'll talk about that in a second. But that's okay. So you can see it. It's pretty exciting. So this is one of the improvements we're making. You know, it's funny. Next slide, please. I realized I was looking at my presentation. So this is exciting. This is an example where once we've inventory all the assets across the system, you know, like talks, picnic shelters, bathrooms. We also can then concentrate them by park. So Parks can get a condition report card. So in the past from sort of prioritized needs and come to you with the Cip Asset management work or the park refreshes. It's been sort of us going through a criteria and prioritization exercises. There's somewhat qualitative. This will get us to a much more quantitative assessment of what is the overall condition of a park

[125:04] or a group of parks rezone. Even so, we can get a sense of where the real needs lie in terms of condition. so will these automatically be generated. Yes, there'll be a report card for every part. Yes, it's very exciting, because what we're doing then, okay, I'll dive in. We we're using a the city's using an asset management system beehive. And because that's citywide, we'll still input the data into that system for asset management. We're finding, though, that the Svgis. everyone familiar with Gis. So Svgis is the tool we're using, whereby it's it. It talks to be hive, but it can also, if we have our inventory in there produce a series of dashboards or maps that can reflect sort of questions we want to ask. So, for instance, what you're seeing here is asset management data collection in a Gis dashboard.

[126:02] and you'll see I've put big red letters draft because people look at one little thing and be like, well, that doesn't look right about 70% there. So but you're seeing each park and can have a condition assessment. Also, you could change it. And that's the question. Well, rather than by park. Could we have a report on courts, and what the condition assessment is? So the beauty of these dashboards is. It goes into that one simple database that the person in the field is also able to directly update. And we're able to produce a series of dashboards depending on the types of questions. And this is a great example of this prototype show condition next slide. and then you sort of see under the hood here. This is something we're getting at. We're here. We've done a ton of work, you know, for the system plan. So for the 1st time, what you're starting to see is 1st off on the left, the assets issued, and you've got the Crv. What is that? Replace total replacement value?

[127:00] And and then you see what is the deferred maintenance. The interesting thing about that second and 3rd column is as a department. We've historically been able to sort of work to cover deferred maintenance. But we've never been able to set aside funding for replacement. And this is a problem across the city. We're seeing where a lot of things are reaching the end of the life cycle, and because costs have gone up. You know, I mentioned from $100 to $100 5 years ago to $180 a day for the same piece of material, also realizing that we really need to invest more in that placement. because, as you start to think about courts. Most of them will last 25 years. Well, this is where we made the decision to move to post tension courts. The reason being is, they will last 50 years and have a much better playing condition. And what's great about that is, even though the cost is higher. To do a post-tension court when you look at the cost savings over 50 years compared to 25 years and the amount of maintenance needed, we calculated to be an overall saving of I forget the exact number. It was approximately 9 million. And so that's where, you know, if you invest in replacement as opposed to just trying to keep it in good condition.

[128:13] If you're trying to keep it in good condition, it's past its life cycle. That cost of keeping it in good condition just keeps going up and up. And frankly, the activity experience gets worse. So that was through this analysis we were able to make that decision and work with the board last year. To talk that through the latest one we'll be looking at is play areas. and you'll see that the bottom line for the total cost to replace our players is 41 million dollars. Just pause a second because I need a gulp. Now, what's interesting about that is, I was just at a national Conference last week. Children nature network which focuses on youth outdoors and things like play areas. And it's very clear that the cost of a, for instance, prefabricated play area is now at a point where it's between 800,000 to 1.2 million. We currently have a budget per year of about 500,000 and other cities are having a very similar

[129:07] sort of analysis where they're realizing they now can't keep up with the cost of prepaid play areas because they've priced clearly priced themselves out of the market. The manufacturers for various reasons. So this is an example where, as we analyze this, we're gonna look at. for instance, what could we do more in house through a design build team? Perhaps we can get the cost down by even up to down from, let's say, a hundred 1,000 to play area if you thought of it just as a hundred 1,000 block down to something like 30 to 40,000. And most of this is like focusing on natural play which does reduce life cycle. But if you've got slightly reduced lifecycle, but are reducing cost of 10. Sorry down by 20 to 30%. It's worth it. So that's the sort of analysis under the hood we're doing for the various assets to figure out how, if costs are increasing. we don't just say we need more money. We're trying to figure better, design them and be more efficient as we get into the details of this, and I could talk all night about that, because it's exciting work.

[130:07] And and then finally, I'll just finish on a quick one. This is an example. We've talked about asset management here. Thank you, Jackson. and that is really, you know, what is the condition of the facilities. What is the cost of replacement? It's very quantitative. This is slightly more qualitative. You've probably heard of Park School. and that's, you know, there's national organizations to look at. What is the quality of part? What score would you give it from the visitor? Experience, the community experience perspective. So this is something we're looking to launch part queue for older parks. It's in its early nascent stages. But you're starting to think about things like economic vitality, placemaking community use equity and accessibility. So you're looking at some of these elements from the community's lens. If you have, like a park score along with the asset management score, when you combine them, you get a real sense of the need of that facility. How much the community wanted, how much they love it, how useful it is as opposed to just looking at the condition. So then you can start to make better decisions over time and next slide.

[131:08] And this is really nascent. But it just gives you a sense of it is this is, other systems have this now pretty well established, but this can be an internal and external score that the community help provide input on for the quality of our box across the system. And this was just us testing out what a dashboard might look like from that. So that's kind of the work we're doing. I hope at some point we can come back to you without the draft sign on it, maybe later in the year. And we'll be able to share more details. That's fascinating. Wow! How will you like will you use? I mean, will it be like just a dashboard on the website for people to view? Or will you use that information for the strategic plan? Or what is what is the master plan or the strategic plan?

[132:01] will you put those pieces of information in there? How are you? Gonna it's pretty easy just to type in Google now and say, Parks calls into the systems and you'll see you'll find within 5 min, like 20 other examples. San Francisco does a fantastic job frankly on that type of work, including building equity work through the way this call that parks. So yeah, it'll be used for internal prioritization decision making helping us to support decisions making as we get to these topics. And then yes, we'll we'll have to investigate and think through what an external dashboard will look like. But if you look at the examples out there. and it's it's become. And it's very easy now, like there's some really nice tools where the public can put in, hey? I'd like to see this, or I think we should really think about this, and instead of it being very random, it can aggregate it in categories to help sort it and understand the need. No, just that. I can't wait, because it really will be a helpful thing. I mean, you all are starting to hear it. I live right next to Park X, and I really want you to do all the things that parks at Park X

[133:11] part. B is, you know, has kind of factors A, BC, and D, that says, No, that's where we need to spend the money. That's all. Not very transparent or explicit right now. It's just going on what we say. And I'm really eager to make that really clear to the community how we're making choices. I feel like we're doing a really good job based on what I know happens in the black box of the Iris Iris center. But having the data behind it, having the community input to it is going to be really helpful. It will also tie to the long term financial strategy because we'll be able to show hey, play area. A is really in a critical area. To do it right would cost X 1 million of dollars. And we we could do that, but it means defunding. You know, all these other things.

[134:01] It's 1 of those things where start using it within like a week. Wonder how you ever did life without it, I know. Well, I wanted it for 10 years, so I know exactly how we're going to do with that. And it's going to be delightful. And I mean Mark and his team really are making, moving it forward in ways that are long overdue. That's really good. Is there an AI component to this that like takes all the quantitative data and makes it easier for your life. Yeah, I actually presented over the Ips last week, and this is a bad poem, but I showed a sketch map of a park, and I called it artistic interpretation. No, yeah, we we haven't looked into that yet, I would say, well, here's 1 example. We now have visitation data using Place AI which we've never had before for parks. and that's a consultant the city uses that is able to aggregate full data to give you numbers. So there, it's almost ubiquitous within systems or consultants, now that they use this. But there is a city wide policy to guide us as well as we do it.

[135:08] More to come on that, I think, for all of us, isn't it? Yeah, for sure. Yvonne has a question. More of a comment. Mark and Allie, your comments. I just want to applaud what you all are doing. It's just blows my mind. It's so amazing the fact that you are doing this. This is just a wonderful tool for public relations with the community, especially when we're thinking about capital investments. And just the transparency piece. It's just really amazing. And I want to thank you for all your hard work and deep thinking and open mindedness and exploring really innovative practices. This is just really great stuff, and thank you so much for sharing it with us. Thank you, agreed

[136:03] absolutely. The only thing I would add to that is just we. I didn't show it tonight, but we are obviously working with the equity mapping we did in the 22 plan to make sure we are folding in a real deep equity analysis to this work, to ensure. We also fulfilling that we did have 3 questions for you. I think we've talked about these throughout. but 1st one is, where would the prioritize funding based on current unmet needs. Second, one is focused on the fee increase strategy. And then the 3rd one is just our desire to develop messaging to include with the budgets. I'll go with Number 2. I do, I think. support that. I would just be careful that

[137:02] some of the things I mean, like, I mean, golf and gymnastics specifically are so well attended, and I think partially because it is cost effective. But you don't want to get into a situation where we start to bring up prices, and then you start to lose people, and then you still end up at a net 0, because you've increased your fees, but you've not made any more money. So you know that's just always my concern with fees, although I do like you, said all signs point to some very specific increases. I trust you 100% on on those increases. But in general, you know, increases. All things considered, I know prices are going up. They're just going up for everybody. So fee increases are hard to swallow, especially with from the future and public realm. And you know tax extensions and bonds and all things. So you know, like my thoughts on fee increases. Stay the same. But I do appreciate how you're managing it. I think it'll be good.

[138:08] Anybody else have a comment on any of those 3. Well, I'll say I agree. That there's definitely room to support. Some fee increases in those areas. You know I can speak, you know, for myself and my community with the people, while the fees are particularly low compared to you know, prices for more like private centers in the community. So I know that there's definitely some room where it I don't think it would affect usage and demand but I I think what I would love to see, like as as you're doing. The analysis is just okay. So if we did increase it, this much what would be the potential like is this, is there attrition? Because of that? I I mean? I don't really. Yeah, I ideally, I think it would be like what would be the the potential scenarios of increases like, let's say, like low medium, high. What would be the potential attrition under a low medium or high case? And then also, it just would this make a big impact to the budget. Right? So it's like, if we increase the fees from like 2, 50 to 3 50. Is this enough

[139:23] money that it's? It's worth going through all of this effort of increasing the fees. So just sort of just what would be the total impact of increasing the court fees? Or should we look at another area. Because if you increase the golf fees now, we're talking about something that's very substantial to the budget versus. Maybe in some other areas, the impact wouldn't be as great overall. Yeah, I support the general direction. And I like the analysis that was being used. I think it was 10 or 12 points to address

[140:01] I guess to analyze potential fee increases. I think that was really it's really helpful to see. And I think I'm probably echoing, echoing what's already been said. But it would be important to know. So you know, what does this actually mean in dollars? And then I thought, when we're talking about golf, for example. we're looking at potentially increasing the fees where it's a you know, it's a cost plus kind of situation, and then where would where would that plus be reallocated? If we're we're thinking about. you know, taking that as an additional benefit. And then, with respect to number one on that recommendations. That's a really hard one to answer, based on the information you have. I mean, that's especially as a new board member. It's kind of overwhelming some sense as to you know, where would we reallocate funding? Yeah. But I mean, if you look at you, look at that potential you know what the the unfunded

[141:05] needs are, and for I think the the top one for the city. The boulder wreck is like 135 million dollars. How can you even think about that? How are we ever going to address that so? I guess I would need a little bit, little bit more information. And I need to spend more time taking a dive on the budget to see about. But to provide any input on number one. and then a number 3, the the support. And I think it's something that you know we gain from attending these meetings is maybe, how to better communicate with for me, at least, to better communicate with the public and and people I run into So I'm kind of thinking about generating my own kind of elevator speech with respect to that especially when we have these potential ballot issues come up. It's gonna be really important to have a consistent message, and one that

[142:02] effectively communicates the need. So I think we could all work together to generate that, and at least make sure that my elevator speech doesn't step in it for you guys. Well, the messaging, I think it's to council right for number 3. That's what you're talking about. So they so they would like to know when we, when we approve the budget. Right? What would we say to council? But I think we also have to. You know there's another aspect to that, too, is, if if the ballot measures go forward, how and how can we communicate with the public about it. What do we need to say? And I know there's parameters that you know we can't exceed, especially, you know, if we advocate for something in particular so I think would be important to know the input from staff as to what we can do and can't do. I think you can say anything as an individual. Right? I mean, you have definitely have more opinions. You just have to say that it's right.

[143:01] The-the- budget submittal when that goes in that won't have anything to do with ballot measures, though. Right? That's just the budget plus. So we'll wanna we'll wanna discuss, probably where we have in conjunction with staff, and I think probably over the next. So that goes in July. Correct. So we have 2 left. Okay, so you have more time if you're messaging. And this should be clear. Jackson included this question. Because you all propose this is okay. I just wanna be clear. This isn't us asking you all to make a a political statement. You have a little more time in that. Council doesn't see the budget until a September study session. And so the Budget Submittal for the Executive Budget team that happens in June Council will talk about the ballot measures in June. And so if you wanted more time to think about that, you you would have more time if you finished it by your August meeting council would have it for their budget study session.

[144:09] Okay, they would not have your thoughts on. And this is something that may come to you at the June meeting. When they talk about ballot measures. They may say. We want to know what the crowd thinks, and you all then, would have to come up with talking points or delegate someone that you trust to speak on your behalf to the Council. Okay? I mean, I think. like, Michael said, it's probably we just need a little bit more information, some harder numbers to decide how, what messaging we really wanna send along or potentially respond to. If if that arises, you know, I'll I'm super curious to know, like what that bottom line number is of underfunded projects and unfunded projects. And then that would help also prioritization. I think.

[145:04] I don't. For me. You know the Rec centers are so important. But there's it's just. It's tough, you know, but it's hard. cause there's so many important parts are super important. And we have so many great things coming in civic center and sundance and all the things. So yeah, I think after next month I'll have a better idea of number one, and then number 3. We can just kind of do an overview discussion next time, you know, once. So we have a preliminary budget in our packet in June. Yes, that's the intention. Okay? So then I would just ask for everybody to take a little time before the meeting to dive into the budget. So we have some opportunities to really discuss to get into and ask questions. Instead of trying to be educated just right here at the meeting would be my request to the crowd for children's meeting.

[146:03] May I make a note for you, Yvonne? I am so sorry that you know, I didn't notice until this morning. We are 99% on time arrival with packet by the end of the business day on Wednesday before your meeting if it's Thursday, and you don't have an email from us saying we're late or you don't have the packet. Then something's gone wrong, because I can't remember the last time we were late with a packet. It's an expectation of ours that we will to, so that you all as volunteers, have that opportunity later in the week and through the weekend to review the packet. So I just wanted to let you know. That's another one of those onboarding things. Maybe we'll add, but our standard of practice is to have it in your inbox by 5 Pm. On Wednesday. Yeah, that's great. I was. I was gonna say, I wish I could respond to these questions. But I think I you know. I just want to be thoughtful and responding. I need a little bit more time to thoroughly review the packet and to just think through what was discussed today to be able to provide a thoughtful response. But yeah, appreciate that.

[147:03] Feel free to reach out with us, Yvonne. That is just to be fair. Yvonne got it this morning and was traveling, and so that's pretty fair to ask for a little more grace. And this was a really great overview, I think, for everybody to now, once we get those hard numbers and kind of understand what we're looking at. So thank you for putting together a really thoughtful presentation. I think it was very, very helpful for everybody, and you know, always remember. staff is always willing to answer questions. So as you go through the packet, or if you have any questions when you go home tonight or the next month. They're they're super responsive, so always feel free to reach out to staff and ask, please let me know if that's overstepping. No, just start with me always. because I can help manage workload for our staff, sweet. I would just add, for Number 2. I'm sure you have thought of this because you're way smarter than me. As far as the fee increase. Strategy. And attrition. Is this going to be rolled out over? The years increases or like, what is the percentage of increases year to year

[148:11] that you're thinking of for each individual potential fee increase. So we track all of our fee increases. I believe we can go back to 2016, or 2014 at this point. Okay, 2,002. Generally, we like to show you what the dollar amount is, what the percentage increases. For anything that is community or recreation. We have tried to cap increases at 10% a year or less just recognizing that those are really the people we're trying to attract for the individual benefit programs. We have done over 10% increases just recognizing they really are the ones who are benefiting the most. And we could be 30% under market. Obviously, we're not going to do a 30% price increase. We want to phase it in over time. So with any of these we would indicate. Is this a multi year phase up to get to a targeted number? Or

[149:08] is it a 1 year adjustment and we'll revisit it 2 years. Okay? Any other questions before we move on to matters from the board. All right, so matter from the board matters from the board. This portion of the meeting is for members of the Board to report on crafting the work, plan, goal of each member, attending 2 or more parks and recreation, related community per month, promoting parks and recreation through social media attending site tours and supporting the Department's partnership initiatives. What items would board members like to report on at this time? I will start with. I did attend the climate for classrooms. Happy hour last week. It's a super great organization. If you haven't heard of it. They're they handle a lot of different educational opportunities

[150:02] for elementary or middle and high school students that work in conjunction with the placeholder to do tree tree plantings and they have a a lot of good programming throughout. They work with bbs and a lot of stuff, and next semester they'll have 2 actual classes dedicated to climate education at the high school level. So there it's it sounds something like the Ccrs text. It's like climate resiliency in something or another. But yeah, there'll be electives for students to take to learn more about climate, initiatives and environment. So that was a really good meeting. And then I did not. I was out of town for the playholder meeting on Thursday, so I do not have a current report for that, except that we are still recruiting for the board and placemaking anything else from anybody on the board at this time, fortunately did not.

[151:05] It gets harder as the summer goes on. So you know, I would ask just Clarissa, if you wouldn't mind. I I know that there was something there was something on the schedule that I saw a date for in June. I think it was 6 12, the fund our future, if you wouldn't mind sending out just there's anything any community engagement opportunities for Prab. If you wouldn't mind just sending us a calendar invite, it might just be really helpful. I know we've done that in the past. So anything. You see, that's interesting. As long as it's okay with, I think both of those civic area ones would be great appointment ones. The concerts open house, the June and July. And then, as, Yeah. okay, great, sure. All right. Good. Good. Last. We'll say, you know. I think we all probably spend a lot of time in North Boulder Park. But it is really fun, like, you know, since our last meeting. That when I'm there with my friends, and we're having a picnic that can also just be like, oh, like, this is what the future holds for this part. So and I think, you know anyone that I've talked about the designs with? I think it. Their 1st reaction is always like, Oh.

[152:27] they're like, you know, going to minimize the open space. Are we still gonna have this? We still gonna have that. So I was really impressed, especially like with the presentation. So you know, armed with all the facts to show that, like all the existing activities that everyone loves are going to continue. But there's gonna be so much more added. And then when people hear that they're like, Oh, okay, there's like some exciting things to look forward to. So so far, I've been pretty positive. The people that I've talked to about it. So fun. It's a great place when there's good weather. Yeah, exactly.

[153:01] It's been pretty good lately. Yeah, even bad weather skiing alright. Well, yvonne's 2 h ahead, so we will, we will. Our next board meeting is June 23rd same time, I think. Same place in place. Yep, okay? And if there's no further business for the prep tonight, then this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for coming. Yeah, thank you. All for presentations. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. I hate that new board members start in April like in this 1st thing you have to dive into, because it's like Jackson and Stacy do such a great job chunking it out and trying to make it bite size. And it's still like it's just a lot, and so know that no board member says that they totally got it there right, like every Board members like. You're too so much.

[154:06] Bye, guys, bye, everybody see you soon. Make sure you hit your hat. Thank you. All have a nice day.