November 17, 2025 — Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:07] I just told everybody about the microphones and then forgot immediately. So just a couple of quick notes for Prabh, as discussed, Jenny is not present tonight, Rob's also not present, Jenny, I'm sure, will be back next month. Rob, has been elected to City Council, and he will be transitioning off of our board, so we won't see him again at this meeting unless he is coming before us as a member of the community. That means that we're down to 6 members, our quorum's 4, so I would just ask that if you know you're going to be absent ahead of time, just let staff know so that they can whip, whip the necessary seats. And I'm also just gonna, ask… start thinking about who we might want to add to this board. We'll have an open seat to fill next year. It's never too early to start thinking about who we might want to encourage to apply. Okay, with that, we can open the meeting. The first item is the approval of the agenda. May I have a motion?

[1:02] Okay, a second? Okay, so we have a motion from Michael and a second from Yvonne. All in favor of approving the agenda? Say aye, please, or raise your hands. Okay. Any questions or discussion on the agenda? Okay, good. Then we'll, move right into future board items and tours, and we'll turn it over to, staff for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair folks. I'm Allie Rhodes, I am the Director of Parks and Recreation, and a few items to call out in your upcoming board meetings. One, I just, on behalf of our team, I want to, thank you for canceling your December meeting. It gives us precious time to close out the year, to enjoy the holidays, and As we didn't have business needs, to bring to the board, we worked with the chair and vice chair, and they agreed. So I just, on behalf of our team, I want to thank you for that, Grace, because it is a little break that is very helpful. Council takes a recess, so I hope you also enjoy your December recess. Calling out, just building on, Bernie's note, that in January, the recruitment for the new board members will launch, and we will share those materials with you, and really, we do find, some of our most effective board members through the networking, through the outreach to community groups that you might be connected to.

[2:14] And even through last year, for the first time, the, the clerk's office hosted an FAQ for board members, and I know I saw a couple of you there, where, where, Or a Q&A, not an FAQ, a Q&A, where board members could learn more about it, which is just a really way that makes it accessible. And I know we share Bernie's interest in getting other members of the community involved in our advisory boards and commissions, so just really thank you for your support on that. Looking ahead to the board agenda, I did want to give you a heads up that in January is when we bring you the progress report from the prior year and the work plan for the coming year, and we'll have that mapped out for you for the full year. Other than that, I really don't have, big items. I'll hand it back to you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thanks, Allie.

[3:00] Any questions on future board items from… No? Okay. Wonderful. So, let's move into public participation. Before we do that, you may have noticed that in front of you is a list of Pratt Discussion Board rules. Jenny has been running this meeting in a fairly informal way. I think that's been great, but I also think it's led to some… potential for going off-topic a little bit, so we're gonna try a slightly different, structure tonight. will… I'm gonna ask that everyone, When responding to members of the public, if you're so moved that we keep it to direct questions on clarifying questions or direct answers, if you have statements you want to make related to topics, let's save it for the appropriate part of the agenda, or for items from Pratt later in the agenda. Okay, with that, Clarissa, who do we have?

[4:02] First, I'll share the rules, just one moment. 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, lived experiences, and political perspectives. For more information about this vision and the community engagement process, please visit our website at the link below and the Boulder Revised Code. The city will enforce the rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code, including 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. No attendees shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any council meeting in a manner that obstructs the business of the meeting. This also includes failing to obey any lawful order of the presiding officer to leave the meeting room or refrain from addressing the council.

[5:15] Only one person at a time at the podium, unless an accommodation, like an interpreter, is required. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to Sydney business. No standing in or otherwise blocking the aisles in violation of the fire code or in any way that obstructs the vision of audio or other audience members. No signs or flags shall be permitted in council chambers except for one sign held by a person measuring no more than 11 by 17 inches, which is held no higher than the person's face. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. We ask that you not affix item to the podium or dais, or walls or surfaces of the chamber. Signs, flags, or other items used to communicate must be held by one person when displayed.

[6:02] 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. In-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with sounds such as applause or snapping, with the exception of declarations. Traditionally, support is shown through the American Sign Language, applause, or dress hands. Our first public particip… our first public participant today will be… Ted Colony. Or Connelly? Ted Connelly. And he's in person. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Great. Hello, my name is Ted Connolly. And I live in South Boulder and frequently use the South Boulder Recreation center.

[7:03] I'm also an active member of Reimagine's South Boulder Rec Center group. I'm here on behalf of my family and the South Boulder community to advocate for the future of the South Boulder Recreation Center. In the spirit of giving thanks, first, I want to applaud Boulder Parks and Recreation Director Allie Rhodes and the PRAB Board. and those sitting in the audience from the Parks and Rec Department for recognizing the infrastructure needs at South Boulder Recreation Center, and completing the repairs. I was fortunate to swim this morning at 6 AM, And it was wonderful to see familiar faces and feel that sense of community return after the closure. And it was a brisk 78 degrees, by the way. And the pool opening marks the start of the Fairview Girls Swim Team today, who started practicing.

[8:06] And, to me, this renovation is only the beginning. We know these repairs are an interim solution, and South Boulder will ultimately need a new recreation facility. I'm asking that we begin planning now. Both in funding and design, so we don't find ourselves in the same position as last year. Facing the potential loss of the facility due to building failure. With the passing of the CCRS funding. We now have the opportunity to envision a new facility that can serve as the epicenter of South Boulder, including modern amenities and state-of-the-art aquatic center for the community and our Fairview Boys and Girls swim team. Please consider funding and partnering with the Reimagine South Boulder Committee to co-create this new facility. Thank you.

[9:13] Okay, thanks for your comment. Our next participant is Kendall Marks. Hello. Whoa. Hello. I am Kendall, a mom of 3 young kids, and I am truly grateful for this opportunity to speak completely uninterrupted for 3 entire minutes. I am a resident of Boulder. Parks and Rec is proposing a major increase in its membership costs, one that disproportionately affects families and kids. I understand that costs have increased significantly. I am okay with increasing prices. However, we should increase prices equally, for all Rec Center members.

[10:04] I've heard from over 30 Boulder parents of young children, and I'd like to share their concerns with you today. The first concern I've heard is that Parks and Rec is reducing The maximum household size from 8 people to 5. This excludes families with 4 or 5 or more children. Our neighboring cities, Louisville, Longmont, and Erie, all allow unlimited kids under 22 on a household pass. Boulder is moving in the opposite direction. One Boulder parent told me, Boulder has become increasingly anti-kid. Adding one more expense to parents does not make it easy to raise a family here. Another said, families with 4-plus kids are almost non-existent here. Why make life harder for the very few who are left? The second major concern for families is that this new structure charges extra for access to the outdoor pools and the reservoir. Nearly every 5-year-old in Boulder swims in the outdoor pools. And most adults do not.

[11:06] So kids are being particularly hurt by this change. And it's not just about getting the kids to play outside, it's also about safety. Studies show that drowning rates increase when kids lose consistent, affordable access to pools. I know that the cost to run the outdoor pools has increased significantly since COVID. Rather than penalizing kids, we should raise the base membership price so the burden is shared. And Boulder residents seem to agree. In a 2020 survey run by Parks and Rec, 67% of Boulder residents said that they wanted access to all facilities on one pass. If there's a sense that public opinion has changed since then, let's bring it to the voters, put it on the ballot, see what they think. Under this new membership structure, my family will pay almost $400 more per year. My friend Emily, a mom of four, will pay almost $700 more per year. Meanwhile, most adults will have zero price increase.

[12:02] When told about this change, a third Boulder mom said, What a bummer. As a family of six, it's now cheaper for us to join the Louisville Rec Center as non-residents. Parks and Rec says that this new structure keeps equity as its core on their website. But it does the opposite. It places the greatest burden on families with children, the group least able to absorb it, and that is fundamentally inequitable. Boulder should support kids, not price them out. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Our next participant is John Schultz, joining us virtually. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, thank you. My name is John Scholz, and my wife and I are residents of Boulder, and we own a home in Table Mesa.

[13:03] And we have paid for and enjoyed the South Boulder Rec Center. And want to continue to have it available. I read the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Memorandum. And would like to comment on it. I asked the Advisory Board and the Director of the Parks and Recs to continue requesting the City Council to expand the use of the Permanent Parks and Recreation Fund. PPRF. to include park operations, and specifically to rebuild the South Boulder Rec Center as needed, and ensure that the South Boulder community continues to have access to a local community center, just as the North and East Boulder communities do, as it's been set out on page 37 of 38 in points 1 and 2. On the other hand, I do not support the Council asking or encouraging the Council to ask voters to let

[14:00] For an additional mill levy. As set out on point 1 on page 37 of 38. Because it appears that from page 37, that funds are already available in the PPRF. And taxes and fees being levied on homeowners in Boulder are too high already, and they're… were just increased, much to my dismay. Thank you. Okay, thank you, John. Our next public comment will be coming from Yvonne Bennett, and she is joining us virtually. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hello, my name is Yvonne Bennett, and I am part of the Reimagine South Boulder Advocacy Group. Yesterday, we co-hosted an event with the Parks and Rec team to celebrate the renovations at South. I want to give Megan a shout out for her partnership, and being an amazing tour guide.

[15:07] The turnout was incredible. Families, long-time members, and neighbors all came together. People stayed, talked, laughed, and explored the renovated spaces, and we enjoyed the facility tours. You could feel the energy, people were genuinely excited to see the progress and to reconnect as a community. This reminded me of what's possible for the Rec Center as a hub for the community. South Boulder has been very patient for a long time. We waded through closures, repairs, delays, and years of uncertainty about the center's future. Over the past year, our advocacy group has engaged with a thousand-plus community members through conversations, and we even conducted our own survey. The following things have been very clear and consistent throughout this past year.

[16:00] Our community needs and deserves a fully functioning recreation center, with the top priorities being a lap pool, weights, cardio classes, and a gym. We all feel a sense of hope that with the latest CCRS funding coming through, that South Boulder will finally receive a brand new, fully functioning recreation center that meets the city's climate goals that the whole city can enjoy. So, thank you for your time! Thanks, Yvonne. Thank you. We weren't. That includes our advanced sign-up participants. If you'd like to participate And sign up in person now. Please raise your hand. We'll work on it. I think my real nervous, because I sounded nervous, probably. moment. Forgot to mute them. Alright, and if you are online and would like to participate, please raise your hand.

[17:02] Alright, it looks like Lynn Siegel is going to join. Alright, Lynn? I'm so impressed that you aren't forcing me to sign up ahead of time. That is so amazing, I love it. I couldn't agree more. With the mill levy discussion that just happened, with the regressive taxes that we're experiencing, that the transportation maintenance tax, I know this is not TAB, but these are all impactful on Boulder… Boulder's, you know, individual citizens resources, right? So… What are we going to do about the South Boulder Rec Center? That guy articulated exactly what Iva wanted to, and I live in North Central Boulder. on the… north margin of Mapleton Hill. So this rec center doesn't even affect me, but the way things are done in Boulder does, and we've got a disastrous

[18:09] Situation with the budget, right? So, we're… Rising fees for seniors and for kids. at… on… on recreation center fees, this is not improving Boulder's bottom line. It's making people less able to pay into sales tax revenue, which is the big disaster that we don't have now, right, with our budget. That's why we need to bring Sundance to town to make it even worse. Because that's what it will do. Because the pressure for more population here brings this town down, not up. Contrary to popular opinion in the planning board, where they give you a subsidy for every single development project that comes along. So, what are you gonna do about it? That's the question, your Parks and Recreation. You're… the people that come here to Boulder come here because of you, don't they?

[19:11] Because they're recreationists, and Boulder's a big recreation town. And yet, The way they're dealt with. is horrendous. The South Builder Rec Center. The guy's exactly right. When you design something new. the East Boulder and the South, and trade them off in the process. You need to do this with a A long, long-range plan that includes all the full-embodied costs and lifecycle analysis of all the future costs, so that before you do it, you know what you're getting into, and we don't run into a budget crisis like we have now. And can't allocate funds, except steal them from the taxpayers, which are then less able to support the community with sales tax revenue, right?

[20:01] I mean This is not something… You know, at the risk of stating the obvious, this is something that you all know. That we all know, so why don't you all do something about it? How do you sleep at night when these kind of cost $700 more. and they have to go to Louisville to get their rec center. I mean, this is outrageous. What is going on? And that's the end of your time. That concludes our public participation for this evening. Okay, thank you, everybody. Allie, is there anything that you or staff want to respond to? I'll just echo the appreciation to Megan Lohman and the team in South Boulder for, one, coordinating with our facilities team all those improvements, and that lovely day yesterday morning at the South Boulder Recreation Center, and we really appreciate the partnership of the, the neighbors in South Boulder to plan the event, to coordinate the coffee truck and the tours. It was all delightful. And then, of course, if members have any questions on any of the comment, we're here to help.

[21:09] Alright, thanks. So, members of Prabh, do we have any clarifying questions or, Very direct responses to comments from, are… are public. Caroline? None for me, thank you. Michael? Nope. Kira? Could we just, talk a little bit about, some of the, like, the rationale behind changing the household membership, number of, members per household, and… My understanding is that it wasn't, targeted as much towards kids as there were a number of members who had, like, you know, 8, 9, members, associated with one membership. So maybe just a little bit more context around that decision. Sure thing. I'm going to invite up Megan Lohman, our Senior Manager for Recreation, because I know she's pulled up some of the stats, and then I'll also just remind you all to pull the mic. This system, one of the downfalls of being in chambers is that the mics aren't up in the ceiling, and so if you'll just lean in as you speak for the recording and the thousands that will want to listen to this later for posterity and good governance.

[22:17] Alright, just to make sure I have the question right, why did we limit the number of… total number of household members on an account, correct? Yeah, and I think if you could also just provide some of the data that, you know, you looked into when making that decision. Sure. So we actually did a market analysis across the state of Colorado, and we looked at 61… municipal organizations across the state. In addition to that, we did a local analysis… market analysis. So, like, all of the data or points that I'll bring up are based on that pool of information. Of that, most of the, most of the comparables all limit the household size. That's… the reason for that is it helps you be able to plan and budget according to the actual usage and the impact on the facilities.

[23:10] And so… sorry, just let me look up a couple of the data points here. A big one is that 89% of the existing household memberships include 5 or less members, and there's a substantial drop-off after households of both 4 and 5. So… of the households that include 4 members, that's… it's actually 70%, so 70% or less include 4 members, 89% or less include 5. And we did, actually, based on some of the feedback and some room in the market information, increase the household size from 4 to 5 to kind of say, okay, let's do a little bit better. So… And then, the other thing about the household fee is it's set at a highly discounted price, so even if you were to add the reduced fee to add household members, add up to a household of total of 8, you'd still be paying less than 2 adults, who are

[24:15] buying their passes separately. So I also think that's important to note. And I think of what I have noted right now, those are the most important things, but I can certainly follow up with additional From the previous packets. No, I think that's really helpful, and it just shows that a lot went into making that decision, and market analysis, and really just understanding what would be that impact, and what made the most sense for the community. Can I just add one element that I'm… that I'm… I think has maybe also… there's been some conversations on this. Megan, is it correct, the additional access to the outdoor pools and the reservoir in the summer, that price is set if you want the full outdoor seats, which starts at some point in May and goes through some point in September. Tell us a little bit about the summer and what you anticipate for families.

[25:05] Yeah, so in order… we're going through a lot of changes right now with our new registration system, Amelia, and also with our new membership structure, and so we… All of the fees that we advertise and that we post and put in the daily camera for the 30-day posting are all based on the absolute highest fees we would ever charge. Now, those fees are based on extended operating seasons. That's a 6-month operating season at the Boulder Reservoir, and up to a 5-month operating season at Scott Carpenter Pool. We know, and it's in our previous packets that we've presented to the board, that most families and a lot of people actually only use those specialty facilities Memorial Day to Labor Day, and so we have always had every intention of offering some promotions leading into the summer. We have not put those online yet, and I understand that not being online yet creates some anxiety, especially for families.

[26:01] And so we're… we're really hopeful that when some of those promotions that are better priced to match the length of the season people are actually using come out, that it'll be something that it… Will help anyone have the access, that's most beneficial to them during that real peak summer season. Okay, thanks, Megan. Yvonne, do you have any direct responses? Not to this issue, but… oh, yeah. Well, to the mill levy issue, I don't know if we're gonna… assume we're gonna talk about it when we talk about the council letter, we'll talk about the permanent fund and all that, so I… just letting folks know that we are gonna talk about that in a different… Part of the agenda, okay. Okay, well, thanks, everybody. I would just echo what Allison said, the… event yesterday with Reimagine South Boulder and SPRC was really wonderful. I was glad to stop by for a little bit and talk to some folks. I guess I missed it. You, Yvonne. You did the early shift, I guess? I did the earlier. Okay. Next time. Yeah, so thank you to everyone who's involved, and Megan, especially to you.

[27:11] Okay, so let's move on to our, consent agenda. Is there a motion to consider the consent agenda? Yvonne, let me have a second from Kira. Okay, Okay, so we'll consider the consent agenda. Does anyone have any questions, comments, concerns about last week's consent agenda? Last week's consent agenda? I'm sorry, this week's consent agenda from last month. Yes? Yeah, I had a question about Section D in the Parks and Recreation Planning, Design and Construction update. It was just, just a clarification question on the… the overview of major projects, and I'm sure I have received this information at some point in time and just don't recall it, but… under the North Boulder Park renovation.

[28:01] the design status, and then it says June. Does that mean it's going to be completed in June, or started in June? Apologies. We're actually doing the presentation tonight on North Boulder Park, and we're putting June down as the next update you'll get after tonight. Okay. Thank you. And then I had another one about, Chautauqua Utilities. What is that project? Yeah, bill Wilbinick, would you like to speak to that? Bill's our senior landscape architect who joined the department 3 months ago, and he'll be able to answer that question. Great, thank you. The Chautauqua Utilities Project is actually being led by utilities, and, you know, there's a lot of stormwater that moves through there, it's a 9% grade. In the past, especially in the 1890s, they tried to collect all that stormwater with stone swales, and if you get a high enough rain event, it just goes past that stone swale, and it erodes all over the place. So the utilities department is looking at other ways to slow down

[29:04] that runoff, and some of it is gonna be rain gardens, and some of it's gonna be underground improvements, like in large pipes. So, they're in the very preliminary planning stages, but that's where it's at at this moment. And is that a partnership with Parks and Rec and Utilities? It's a partnership, and there's people from a number of different departments on it. Climate Initiatives is part of it, OSMP is part of it, and Parks is part of it as well. Kind of like what's happening at North Boulder Park? Pretty much, yeah. But even more players, because it's Chautauqua. Okay. Yep. Thank you, that's all I have. Great. Is anybody else have any questions on the consent agenda? Okay, I'm a little bit loath to bring this up, but I was last… I was asked last month, to why we had not recommended landmark in Central Park, and I don't feel like I was quite prepared to give an answer, so I wanted to just add a little bit more color for the benefit of the board. The… as we all know, the structures around Central Park, including this building.

[30:05] The Bandshell, Pavilion, Penfield, excuse me, the Utah Bay Tea House and the Storage and Transfer Building are all landmarked already. The proposal we considered a couple years ago was to landmark the actual landscape architecture itself, so every single tree, every pathway, and it was our recommendation a couple years ago that we ought not do that so that we could Have… more flexibility for what we might want to do with our going forward. We were talking specifically about the ditch, and I don't think we… Gave that particular feature a lot of consideration a couple years ago, except that we wanted to keep the options open. That was quite a large conversation involving this board, landmarks, And, and the City Council, ultimately. If anyone has any questions about why we came to that decision, I'd love to talk more about it, but I just wanted to make sure everyone here understood that…

[31:00] The main driver behind that decision was to make sure we could do what we thought was best for the park in the future. Without additional oversight. And that's my only comment on the consent agenda, so if we have an open motion, does everyone approve Is everyone in favor of approving the consent agenda? Say aye, or raise your hand? Okay. Thank you. So we'll move on. There are no action items, and there's no matters for discussion tonight, so we'll move straight to matters from the department. launching Nature Everywhere. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. For this item, this is, one we want you all to be aware of, because it's implementing several initiatives of the 2022 Parks and Recreation Department plan, and really is targeted one of our most important demographics, the young people of Boulder, and so presenting this item are our Senior Planning Manager, Mark Davison, and a guest from our Open… our colleagues in Open Space and Mountain Parks. Corey Rosato is the Education and Outreach Manager.

[32:00] Thank you, Ali. I'll do the first portion of the presentation tonight, and then I'll be passing it over to my colleague, Curry. In a nutshell, if you want to know what Nature Everywhere is, and this could be a 10-second presentation, it's the goal of getting youth and children outside, into the outdoors, parks, and nature, frankly, more than they're doing currently. So, that is the initiative in a nutshell. We'll give you a bit of a presentation on it, though, if I can get on screen to work. We're going to cover four topics. Why do nature everywhere? Excuse me? Then, we'll dive into a couple of the main projects that are happening under Nature Everywhere, which is Nature Hoods and Nature Play. And then Curry will provide some examples from the case studies, the actual impacts on the ground that are occurring because of this effort. So, what is nature everywhere? Nature Everywhere is actually a national movement. We've been working for a number of years, approximately 7 years with the Children Nature Network, originally started by Richard Louvre, the author of Last Child in the Woods. It's now grown into a massive movement. And you can see there, it's that last sentence of the paragraph, children thrive when they have frequent access to outdoor spaces, experiences, and learning.

[33:06] And the goal of the national movement, because it's a partnership with National League of Cities and Kaboom as well, was to have 100 cities by 2025. I'm happy to see, as you can see from this map, if you look at Colorado. Very twitchy little button tonight. If you look at Colorado, we are well represented. You can see the 3 there in the middle of Colorado. City of Boulder is now a Nature Everywhere city, sandwiched by Denver and Longmont. So why would we do this? Well, here's some really… I mean, there's tons of data out there, I'll just provide a couple of examples for you. A generation ago, children spent 4-5 hours a day outside. They now, on average, nationally, spend 10 minutes. We actually did a local survey in 2023. 73% of BBSD students spent 3 hours a day on screens outside of schoolwork. So we know it's a serious situation, and then all the research out there now points to children's physical health, mental wellness, emotional skills, family connections, connections to nature. Frankly, spending more time outside in nature is incredibly important to youth development.

[34:14] So at Boulder, what we did was we developed a strategy. There's 8 city departments working together. Now for over, 7 years, just starting very slowly, this is when it's finally come together with this Nature Everywhere movement. And what you're looking at here is the major framework from the strategy plan for Nature Everywhere for Boulder. You'll see on the left, it's divided by the different age ranges, 0-5, 6-12, 13-18, along with parents and caregivers. And we have a strategy for each, for instance, 6-12, outdoor learning, play, and exploration. And then we have 3 ways to put that in action. The first one is placemaking, the design. You'll see that in North Boulder Park and Baker Park tonight. And with that, we, instead of doing it separate, we integrate recreation programs. And then finally, we think about who are the community leaders, the stewards who can support this effort.

[35:04] So with that, I'll then jump into nature hoods. What are they? Nature Hoods, it's a pretty simple idea. If you think about the city's strategic plan, it's to create 15-minute walkable neighborhoods. Well, Nature Hoods is piggybacking on that. It's a simple idea of, we can use the green spaces in a nature hood, in a neighborhood, to advance outdoor play, community wellness, placemaking, and space activation. Here's a little diagram. I like to call this an AI diagram, it's an artistic impression. And the focus here is to say, what would a model naturehood look like? It would be, obviously, a park, probably as a hub, the green schoolyards, looking at creek corridors, community gardens, and then some of the connections, like safe routes to parks or schools. In other words, we take an existing neighborhood and take advantage of those green spaces to help activate them. And this just isn't coming from city staff. Here's an example of, in discussions with teens, where… from Boulder High School, and they're saying, we really need open space to hang out, we don't have that.

[36:03] And can it be, like, affordable for the food there? And is it a place where we can play as teens, not just younger children? And then here's an example from Primos Park, where we spoke to the community of Primos and Crestview, and these are the values they set in their naturehood. What would it look like? Free play, accessibility, community gathering, loving nature. And these values are what we're trying to embody within a naturehood concept. And then I'll move to the next bit. If nature hoods are slightly larger in scale, nature play is the typical things you'll see in a park. We have 42 play areas in parks currently across our 96 park system. A little bit of history for a second, because everyone thinks nature play is new. I like to say nature play is old play. If you look on the right, typically, a current playground, across the nation would be 5 to 7 features that focus on gross motor. Typically not universally accessible. Here's a picture from 1560, Bruegel the Elder. It's one of my favorite paintings, if you're a Parks and Rec person, because it describes 250 children doing 90 play activities.

[37:07] And this is where you'll see a sort of shift in nature play. Yes, in the bottom right, you've got gross motor play going on. The bottom left and middle bottom is, using more fine motor skills. In the middle of the picture, you've got collaboration going on. In the top left, you've got kids able to have quiet. contemplative spaces. In other words, it's embodying all the types of play. Here's an example working with Horizon K School, which is next to Burke Park, and we asked the children about what were their activities they'd like to do, and what's their emotional response. We've done a ton of work working with various psychologists who've studied nature and play outside. And what the point is occurring now is we often just do safe play. If we just do safe play, children will typically go straight overwhelmed. We want children to be a little bit uncomfortable, and it's called… Risky play. It's safe, risky play. And the point of risky play is it's where it pushes children to do more, to learn, and that's frankly where all the learning occurs, in that uncomfortable area. So the more we have of that uncomfortable area, the more kids learn, the more they can pass that on to their other children they play with, and we create a broader range of play.

[38:12] So how do we do this? Well, what we've done is we've typically, on the right-hand side, you'll design and program play features, and then you'll expect the other three boxes to occur. So we're reversing that and saying, let's first off look at sensory inputs, let's look at how that informs emotions and decision-making, which leads to activities. And once we understand that, then let's start to design what play looks like. And here you see examples of sensory. I've just heard recently there's now 36 sensors. Don't ask me to name them, please. But we focus on the major six, and you can see there, if you start to think about sight, that could be another dapple shade of a tree. Smell could be the smell of a cookie on a ponderosa pine, that beautiful, sweet smell. So you start to think about those senses that inform play. And with that, once you've got that in place, you can then start to think about, well, what are the types of play? And I mentioned that earlier from that historic picture, we're trying… yes, we've got gross motor, but we're trying to add fine motor, loose parts, creative and collaborative, outdoor classrooms, quiet and contemplative, places just to sit and be alone, or even have a little nap.

[39:15] And with those four types of play, you can see here, we basically can describe all the types of activities children do, and then fit them under the four types of play to make sure there's a balance in the play area. And you'll see this from Emily's presentation later on, Barker Park. And finally, in terms of nature play, I'd just point out that at the minute, play is pretty confined to a very small area. If you look at studies of children playing free, it's over a much larger area, and this is an example from a project I've just realized it was 15 years ago I worked on this, time flies. But it's, pushing play out into a one-mile trail loop with various play pods along the trail, and it's also great for getting adults steps for the day off. In other words, the adults also participate in it. And so we'll move to just some case studies to give you examples of the impacts on the ground that are occurring through this Nature Everywhere movement. I'll cover the first one, and then I'll pass it over to Curry.

[40:06] I think you're all quite familiar now with the Wildwoods Nature Exploration Area in the Civic Area. We've covered it in previous meetings, but never presented it before. It really does inform the permanent design. I'm not sure if everyone's aware, but we had a great project working with the CU students from Environmental Design, and three of them got selected to work with us and help design the project, so that collaborative thing with youth. And we also use recycled trees from our forestry team. They would have normally gone in the chipper, because there would have been dead or dangerous trees on the street. And, by, byways, old-fashioned British word, on the medians of the roads. And so instead of chipping them, we're putting them back into the play areas. And what's interesting, the only other two points I'll make is, you'll notice when you're out there, it's a gathering space for all generations. It's intergenerations, and the families… the parents are actually… or grandparents are interacting with the children during the play. And then the other key thing, it's for all ages. In other words, an older sibling will… can teach a younger sibling how to play instead of separating the two age groups out.

[41:05] With that, I'll pass you over to Curry. Great, thank you, Mark. So again, to… getting on to, or speaking to the collaboration that this Nature Everywhere, the City of Boulder, is involved in, we'll… here is yet another Parks and Recs property, Primos Park, which I know you're all familiar with. This Nature Everywhere, Nature Hood site has engaged community in picnics and walking field trips from neighboring schools. Community leadership is being activated here through the Community Connector program. community member is helping to activate the space with, nature play. And at Crestview, I am imagining you all have seen this beautiful image of a student-informed design of the nest, and it's a great example of Nature Everywhere collaboration with different city departments. Our team at Open Space and Mountain Parks, operates a third-grade wildlife education program, and now there's a place to lead that program outside rather than inside. Next slide. Other… moving a little bit east, another example of where nature

[42:12] everywhere, or the nature hood approach is being activated, is in the Gun Barrel Hill area, so east off of 75th Street between Jay Road and Valmont, the beautiful Gun Barrel Hill Trailhead area. And then Heatherwood Elementary sits just to the north of a property, an open space prop-managed property, called Wood Brothers. And those two areas combined with not only Heatherwood Elementary, but also many preschools, and other schools in the area, we are working specifically, we've enhanced… open spaces enhanced the Gum Barrel Hill Trailhead to include gathering spaces and benches for classes to collect… to connect and relax as they're learning about the natural world. And also at the Wood Brothers area, we are now… we've been working with Growing Up Boulder and Heatherwood Elementary students and teachers to learn how might they want to engage and learn at the Wood Brothers area. And we're now working with an interpretive planner to develop an interpretive loop so that not only in guided ways, but also teachers

[43:22] May take their students across the street. To learn in the outdoors. Just south, down the road, is Saw Hill Ponds. I hope you're familiar with the area. If not, come talk to me. A beautiful area where recently, as a Nature Everywhere, Naturehood site, open space is enhanced with accessibility features so that all children and families are able to fish and play. And our first air… our first open space nature discovery zone, where nature play may happen, imagine mud pies and dipping nets into water. An exciting place for us, as part of this naturehoods movement. Next slide, please.

[44:04] And we wanted to just share with you, as we wrap up this section of the… as we wrap up our presentation, that not only do we have sites across the City of Boulder, but we're also working on projects to learn more and more from youth and community How might they want to, experience time in nature, and how might nature be healing? And a place of wellness. So that's why, after the Marshall Fire, we wanted to hear from young people about the type of nature play programs and media and interpretive facilities that would help inspire that hope and resilience and climate action in our disaster-prone community. So we worked with Growing Up Boulder and Parks and Recreation and Boulder Valley School District. with, and you can read here, with 115 young people, and we learned how… what it might look like to feel that hope in nature. And next, and last slide.

[45:01] is that we learned interpretive art came out as number one, and also places to be… other way… places to be with family, for time in nature. I think there's a slide coming up here. So, again, in summary, not only are we working together across the city on multiple, many sites, including Parks and Recs, Open Space. with our Climate Initiatives team, but we're also, continuing to leverage information gathered from community and from young people of how they want, not only to… how they might envision the design of those spaces. But also, the activities that they do there. And I'll turn it back to Mark. Thank you, Curry. And so I'll just finish up by saying, of the 100 cities across the nation, there was a recent request from Children in Nature Network. to, tell the story of some of the major work going on in the… what they saw as the best case study cities, the model cities. And of the three cities, one of them was Boulder.

[46:01] And frankly, that was due to a mixture of the staff work, working with our key partners, like Growing Up Boulder, and obviously the engagement of the youth themselves and that leadership. So that was a bit of an honor, and that'll be known as the ripple effect, and we'll be able to share that in the consent agenda in the future. So just next steps are to build out the interdepartmental approach to nature hoods. That'll be led initially by climate initiatives, working with the various departments. We'll continue the work on nature play development, and as we've mentioned a couple of times, we'll definitely be working with our partners, developing giving a youth voice, and making sure youth are sort of engaging us on what that placemaking is, and what that space activation looks like. And I'll just leave you with that diagram repeated of the strategy for nature… nature everywhere, and I'll open it up for next, questions. Okay, thanks, that was great. Really wonderful to see how you're pulling together multiple departments and programming to benefit so many different parts of our city. Yvonne, do you have any thoughts or reflections or questions? Just thank you for the presentation. That's amazing. That's why I love living here in Boulder.

[47:08] So I love the idea. The only question I had is, can you, provide any insight on potential impacts, funding impacts, challenges that you see based on, kind of, our economic environment, or do you feel like the, the plan… for embedding these naturehoods around Boulder is covered, I just wanted to understand a little bit about that financial overlay. Yeah, no, that's actually an excellent question. I think a key part of this is instead of the city departments working separately. and in some ways, potentially inefficiently, or doing overlap in their work. What we're doing is, because it's place-based at a site, we're able to combine our resources, not duplicate work, and frankly find cost savings within that. So hopefully the goal is that this actually saves money in the long run by working closer together as departments and with our partners.

[48:01] Yeah, very fully supportive of, all the good work that you're doing. It's very exciting. And I also just want to, like, compliment, sort of, the process of creating Wildwoods. I mean, it does look different than a pretty fabricated playground. I mean, just, it's something new and different, and there's a chance that the community could look at that and say, actually, that's not what we want. So being able to do something as a pilot, to test it out in an economical way, and then hear from the community and see that this is the direction we want to go, I think is just sort of like a process that I want to commend you for taking. Thank you, I appreciate that, and I'd be amiss, because a lot of staff worked on that with partners, but Emily Eckhart, our landscape architect, is in the audience tonight, who was the project manager, and she'll be presenting on Barker Park later. Yeah, I do. Pardon? Yeah, speak into the mic. Okay, thanks.

[49:03] I, I just, from my quick look at it, it seemed like it's primarily targeted to youth, maybe primarily, 0 to 5, and… maybe a little bit to 6 to 12. Is there a strategy to expand that to include, you know, the, the… I think it's… 13 to 18, as part of this program, or is it just initially going to start with the younger kids? Yeah, that's… it's, I'll give you $20 to ask that question, because it's such a good one. It's… it's serious, and we have… have focused… most park systems, frankly, from player, focused on the 0-6, well, 3 to 6, and then the 7 to 12. And what's happened is, we've heard directly from teens, you'll hear from teens tonight in regards to North Boulder Park, that when they go into the play areas or the swing sets and hang out, they'll move away as soon as the parents come in with the children for that, because they're like, hey, we're too old for this. And so that's why the teens have actually spoke to us at Boulder High School, about we need a third place, a place for us.

[50:03] And it is huge effort on our part to start really seriously thinking about that, so I'll actually wait till the North Boulder presentation tonight, and you'll get to hear directly from Teens about that work. And, of course, then including parents and caregivers to support youth And children in how they're able to activate spaces. Thank you. No, that's it, thanks. Yes, yeah, it's an awesome presentation, awesome ideas, I just… I love all of it. I guess my question's somewhat related to Mike, so it might be best for later as well, but since it is so targeted, or at least currently seems to be targeted towards, like, school-age kids, are there any sort of independent plans from the Parks Department to, like, market it? essentially, and, like, let people know, kind of, that these spaces are going to be popping up and existing, and go try them out, for people who might not be, you know, tuned into those spaces through their kids or their kids' schools. Yeah,

[51:00] Thank you, absolutely. And I would say, just to be clear, that when we see the nature play developing, that's been our initial effort, but you will see these teen areas coming through in places like Primo, the Civic area, and North Boulder Park, as we… frankly, no one else has built them, so we're even trying to understand what they'll look like still, working with… Teens. And yes, working with our communications colleague over here and our marketing folk, we'll be definitely looking at ways of getting this word out. Through, various media channels. And making it, frankly, easy for people to access. Thank you. That's all I have. Okay, well, thanks, everybody. We look forward to having you back and hearing more about this project as it progresses. Thank you. Okay, so we can keep on rolling to the North Boulder Park discussion. Thank you so much. We're going to need about 60 seconds to transition while we welcome up Senior Landscape Architect Bill Wildenberg and a couple of our young community members who helped with engagement for this project. So, if you need water or a restroom break, this would be a quick opportunity.

[52:48] All right, Bill, while you get wrapped up, I'll just share, an overview of this item. So, Bill and the team are here to talk to you about the latest,

[53:01] updates on the improvements at North Boulder Park, some of which, Mike, you mentioned earlier, including some of the engagement that these teams themselves have been conducting on our behalf, an updated schedule, and then next steps for the project. And so with that, I think I've bought Bill enough time and hand it off to you. There we go. all walks of people, and even moose, enjoy North Boulder Park. The young program space makes it appealing to multiple types of visitors, such as teens, volleyball players, ultimate frisbee, winter skiing, slacklining, and more. The program space is a destination for Little League Baseball, basketball, ping pong, fitness court users, birthday parties, and the tot track, too. Tonight, we will get to look at some of the updates since the last Prabh Touchpoint.

[54:02] Give me one second, sorry. There we go. The teen engagement is really going to be the focus of tonight's presentation, where we'll be joined by Mara of Growing Up Bolder, as well as Shelby and Jane, who hosted two teen events at the park. Following their slides, we'll see how Our other engagement events have influenced the design of the park. Oh, this… Good evening, I am Mara Minster. I am a co-founder an executive director of Growing Up Bolder. We are a nonprofit that helps our young people thrive through youth civic engagement, and that is what you're seeing in action tonight. And we're also a key nonprofit player, as you just heard, of the nature hoods and nature everywhere work. So that moose you saw before was an adolescent moose, and we're excited to share that adolescents of all ages

[55:04] want to be using our parks, and are already using them, but how do we actually be responsive to what their needs are? And I know there was a question before about, are young people who are teenagers included in the Nature Hoods and Nature Everywhere work? Absolutely. We actually heard from about 300 Boulder High students for part of the civic area work, so, that's just one example, but we have had young people giving input throughout with… in collaboration with the Parks Department, so they're well represented. So tonight. You're gonna actually get to see in action, a sort of new approach. Growing Up Bolder has worked with teens for the past 16 years. But we decided for North Boulder to actually hire two teen consultants, because who better to work with teens than their peers? It's peer learning. And so, through working with Growing Up Boulder and the City of Boulder Parks and Rec Department.

[56:02] Our adults helped create a framework within which our young people could actually work, and they're going to describe the process they used, as well as the outcomes that they've gotten. I just have to say, this is one of the most successful approaches we've used. First of all, it's been a pleasure to work with our young people, but second of all, they actually know how to get other young people to show up in a way that those of us over a certain age don't. And so, you're gonna see in action how that works. So I'm gonna pass it over to the rest of the team. Hi everyone, I'm Jane, I'm one of the teen consultants for this project, and I'm gonna start off by talking about our first focus group that we did. It was with… it was back in June, and we did it with about 10 teens, and here's just a list of some of the questions that we asked. We asked them about current uses of the park, their experiences they have there, and we also focused primarily on what they want for the future of the park.

[57:03] Such as activities, amenities, maybe paid roles, volunteering opportunities, and we also finally talked about how they think we can help make the park safer from things like graffiti and vandalism. Our first focus group, which Jane just discussed, led us to have further insight on what kind of questions we want to ask, and what we're really asking from teens our age, and what they want in the park. So, we then used that information to put together a larger teen engagement group. This event took place back in September. It was very successful. We had about 40 people come from Boulder High and kind of all around. It was very fun. We… took a while planning it with Growing Up Bolder, and decided to use a three-station setup for our event. These stations gave us the opportunity to ask all kinds of questions, like we did in the first focus group, but also expand on that.

[58:08] So our first station, we had people come and use sticky notes and give us new ideas they have, and also we set up some boards of existing, draft plans for North Boulder Park and had them comment on that, anything they like, anything they don't like. We accepted all kinds of comments and got a lot of input on that. Then our second station, we gave them dots to place on images that we chose that we felt kind of demonstrated what we want to see in the park, what we think other people want to see in the park. And they were able to pick their favorites, which we also did in the first event, and went really well. And then finally, my favorite station was Station 3, which is where we took a hands-on approach to letting them actually build and design spaces that they would like to see. They used… kind of some model wood and stumps and also drawing and stuff like that to build, a space of anything that they want to see in the park. So, yeah.

[59:08] So, after both of those teen engagement programs, we… this is kind of a compilation of all of the, like, main teen-specific amenities that were requested. A lot of people talked about full basketball courts, and especially this one was the most wanted, was volleyball courts. Everyone likes going on Sundays and… playing and having their own games, and so we'd really like it if there was nets and stuff like that. And then, also, teens very much want creative seating places where they can just kind of hang out, bring their own hammocks, use the light-up features, and stuff like that. So yeah. if I can add something, that image at the bottom left is kind of like an Amazon box when you go to, like, let's say, pick up your package instead of it being delivered to your door, that would have sports equipment in it. You'd probably have to use a credit card to open it, but if you returned all the stuff, it's free.

[60:06] So, with those two engagement events, Jane talked about a couple of the things that we gathered, but some overall recommendations we got, repeatedly from multiple teens. were to first prioritize teen-specific amenities. This was obviously the goal of the, entire project, but really building spaces specifically for teens with stuff that we like and we want to use, not just swings and play sets. And then also to develop some sort of sports programming, this could look like volleyball tournaments on the weekends, or Ultimate Frisbee, just casual but fun, something kind of organized you can go to with your friends. Another thing was to balance the new development with open space preservation. I think this was probably the most heard from a lot of people, and kind of what we heard was the open space, the multi-purpose field, and all of the green area was what everyone loved about North Boulder… er, loves about North Boulder Park.

[61:04] How they can really use the space however they want, play games, have a picnic, kind of whatever, and how we want to preserve that while also balancing building new, fun stuff that we can also… Use and explore. And then also, another thing that was super fun that we heard was some water elements. I know we're uprooting or up-earthing the creek. And that goes through, North Boulder Park, so something, like, to go along with that, maybe, like, a water feature, or ponds was something really fun we heard. Another thing was evening programming infrastructure, meaning maybe an amphitheater for live music, or a sort of drive-in movie feel in the park. Something like that, that we could do at night would be really fun. And then, upgrading the kind of core facilities, I know a lot of teens want maybe some upgraded restrooms or a shade shelter, somewhere to hang out when it's hot or raining. Something that feels a little safer, maybe?

[62:03] And then finally, to balance the usage across the site, meaning to not focus too much of our effort on one specific corner or area, not just the play area where kids go now, not just the southeast corner of the park, but kind of all over, so we can have a whole new feel. So, one question that we got asked a lot throughout our work on this project was, why does hearing from teens matter? And there's a lot of different answers to this question, but for me personally, I believe that teens just really experience the city differently than adults do. We're able to notice things that adults kind of overlook that are maybe more important to us as growing adults, and It's important to give younger generations, teens, and everyone the experience of getting our voices heard, being able to share our input on ideas, and then not only share, but also see the effects and see how we can make change. That's really important.

[63:03] As developing people, to know that we can make a change if we really put in the work. And I think, honestly, it's just incredible to be able to see our hard work In the form of plans and ideas. So, next I'm going to talk about some ideas that teens came up with that adults may not have considered. Obviously, during our engagement programs, teens pointed out several ideas, but I think a main focus was that teens are obviously independent, and they just want spaces where they can do their own thing. Kids really just, or teens, really just wanted to have open spaces to play the volleyball, play all of their games and stuff, and it's really important that they have that chance to be flexible and be creative in their own way, and feel very independent. And finally, not only is bringing teens into city planning and projects like this so important for,

[64:06] every… the entire city to have things for teens to do. But also, for us personally, I think there's a huge impact on teens, having our voices heard. Personally, I feel like being able to share my ideas and know they influence real decisions, like being here tonight and being able to share with all of you. is really important. It gives me a lot of confidence and a lot of sense of responsibility, and I think that's very important. And also, I just think, at the end of the day, it makes us feel seen and valued as members of our city. I think that this is just a really awesome… I mean, this is such a cool opportunity to be able to speak here tonight, and I think it's important that all teens have that opportunity. I know that me and Shelby have really enjoyed our time working with Growing Up Bolder and Parks and Rec and stuff like that, so… overall, just very grateful, yeah.

[65:00] Now you're gonna have to hear me for a while again. So, transitioning to the park design, it is important to look at how the park functions today. Please note we're looking at the park from the southwest corner, over by where Alpine comes back to the alley. This project was originally slated as a playground replacement project. However, with several flooding events impacting the playground, the project team sought to protect its future investment by addressing the stormwater infrastructure. And the location of amenities outside the historic flood zones. The project team also acknowledged that play happens beyond the playground, and has identified a sequence of discovery nodes throughout the park. The feedback we have received shows support of many existing amenities, which is why you will see the existing fitness court, basketball, multi-use fee. Fields and tree canopy is preserved.

[66:00] You'll also notice the pavilion restroom will remain as the park hub. The updated design already incorporates some of the teen feedback. Specifically, balancing new development with open space preservation. Incorporate water elements, create evening program infrastructure, and upgrade core facilities. We are working through design updates that will prioritize teen-specific amenities, and we'll be developing sports programming as we move forward. The proposed plan includes many amenities, such as stormwater features. Sequence of play and discovery nodes throughout the park. Little League ball fields have been shifted south, outside an existing marsh area, and oriented away from one another for safety, and so that they might share common amenities. The proposed plan preserves the existing fitness court and some of the other amenities I just noted.

[67:03] In turn, a lot of this amenity, preservation of amenities also ensures that winter skiing can happen there. And finally, the pavilion restroom will be the park hub and have a relationship to an event lawn that orients visitors towards a majestic view of the Flatirons. To me, that's kind of what you were talking about, of where can we have a movie event? Where can we actually have a stage to have a concert? All of this could take place in a space like that. These are my kids in there. The project team has worked closely with utilities and facilities to convey stormwater into the new channel being implemented as part of the West City campus. You might note that 9th Street is presently closed. Where Facilities is adding the channel improvements that will convey water from the park to this new stormwater feature between 9th Street and Broadway. Shown here are the two very different examples of how this water might be conveyed.

[68:05] That's on the bottom part there. A dry stream bed, which is the image on the north. Would convey water. north of Cedar Avenue. This is where most of our heavy infrastructure is located. Where a low-flow channel south of Cedar Avenue would impact anything with a 5-year storm event. This ensures that we're not, putting a dry stream bed in the drip line of existing trees. Once again. The transition from the dry stream bed to the flow full channel is being done to preserve existing trees, the multi-use fields that you can see here, flex places, such as the southwest corner where yoga and slacklining occur, as well as traditional Nordic and skate skiing in winter.

[69:07] Please note that the photo and plan showing the typical ski route are looking south, near the intersection of 9th and Cedar Avenue. Based on input from our community, we shifted native plantings from the east side of the park, where the skiing typically occurs. to select areas along the west edge of the park where excess water enters the park from residential sump pumps. The project team also plans to incorporate crossings of the stormwater features where it makes sense for skiing. One of the shifts from the existing to the proposed plan is moving what is currently used as an event lawn north of the pavilion and restroom to the south of the same building. This shift allows the stormwater infrastructure to be located in the area of greatest impact, while orienting visitors towards the Flatirons as the backdrop of future events.

[70:01] The proposed plan keeps the fun program spaces that many can enjoy. The program spaces and multi-use park features allow equitable access to health, prosperity, and fulfillment for all residents, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, or socioeconomic status. While some of the programmed activities will Shift to new locations, the core features of the park will remain. This includes the tree canopy that is used for picnicking, shade, or to test your climbing skills. For the new amenities, the emphasis will be on discovery nodes that can be implemented with natural materials by our in-house construction team. This will complement the Nature Everywhere initiative you heard about earlier tonight.

[71:00] The project team acknowledges that play happens beyond the playground, and has identified a sequence of discovery nodes throughout the park. Some of the examples above are from recent park projects, such as the Nature Play or Wildwoods Discovery Area, adjacent to the Farmer's Market, as well as the outdoor classroom at Crestview Elementary. We intend each known to look at themes identified by the community, especially our youth community, and apply infrastructure specific to each team… to each theme. The project team is identifying a main play area, too, that will complement the nature discovery notes. Above are several examples of play features that could be selected for the final design. Between the main play area and the discovery nodes, four types of play will be implemented, similar to what you heard earlier. That's imaginative and collaborative, alone and quiet, fine motor, and gross motor. The project team is also working with a local landscape architect to enhance the existing pavilion and restroom structure. The team has updated the space to have an eastern view towards the playground by removing the block wall presently there.

[72:10] Now, when I hear you talk about, having a safe space, it makes sense for that, too, because you'll be able to see in and out of that pavilion. The floor plan is being updated to include supplies for programming, as well as water and sink for arts and crafts. Finally, the south end will open up to the event lawn, where visitors can have an indoor-outdoor experience, all while viewing the Flatirons as the backdrop to their activities for the day. Here is one final view of the plan, showing how the new amenities interact with the existing infrastructure, including the existing trees. This view is from the parking lot near Delwood and Ace Street. The next steps are to incorporate teen feedback, share the design updates in an upcoming engagement event, and to move into more detailed design work.

[73:03] The park has evolved over time. Are there any questions? Thanks everybody, that was wonderful. Jane and Shelby, I really appreciate you both being here. That was a wonderful presentation you gave, and it's no small feat to get 40 of your peers to show up to anything, so congratulations. I think we all appreciate your work on this. With that, I'd love to start with the board. Caroline, do you have any thoughts? Questions? My only question was up there pretty quickly, and also thank you, Jane and Shelby, you guys were awesome. Is the current target date for opening, or I guess everything being completed and sort of a grand opening, is that end of 2027? It'll be most likely end of summer 2027. Okay. We may look at doing the restroom pavilion earlier, and the reason being is that it can be done earlier, because it's a renovation, and it would get everyone out of the way, so there's not building contractors there at the same as site contractors.

[74:04] Great, thank you. Sure, I have a few, and thank you very much. That was a great presentation, and I think it's great to see younger people I'm providing the input, because oftentimes it's overlooked, and… Especially, since it's intended to, expand the appeal of that park for you users, it's so important. Just a couple questions about… Some of the engagement. Is it your understanding that Boulder High students are the primary teenage users of that park? Due to the proximity of Boulder High to North Boulder Park, I mean, that's where we both go, and we both live kind of in that area, just, across this… across Broadway. So, I mean, I believe definitely that Boulder High is the main use due to, a lot of people living in Newland's area around there, they just walk, bike.

[75:03] Especially younger teens who don't have their license, don't have to drive, but obviously, I mean… people from middle schools, KC, Centennial, and then also, I'm sure, Fairview and New Vista attend, but we definitely were able to reach a wide audience at Boulder High School, due to both of us going there. Okay, and was that where most of the sampling was done, was at Boulder High School? It was all done. Our engagement events took place at Boulder… er, at North Boulder Park. Oh, cool. So we… advertised through, like, flyers and social media, but also, a lot of our people who came were from Boulder High National Honor Society, too. So, there was a lot of Boulder High people there, but it was open to all. Great. And I noticed one of the concerns was about safety. What were the… Do you know what the specific concerns were? One thing we heard, we did mostly about safety at our small focus group, and we learned that… the lighting was kind of an issue in the pavilion sometimes, especially in the,

[76:06] months where it's darker earlier. If you want to be there at sunset for a picnic, and then all of a sudden it's dark, and there's not really good lighting around the pavilion area, you kind of just get a little freaked out and kind of want to go home. And also, sometimes being alone there and wanting to go to the bathroom, and you're not sure like, I don't know, it's just a little scary with all the vandalism and everything, which is obviously not the city's fault, but, it's definitely something we want to look to alter. Right, right, you know, I had, my two kids went to Boulder High, and around 4th of July, it could get kind of crazy here. Definitely. One of the other questions I had, and maybe not for you, Jan and Shelby, but the structures, the play structures, are… I noticed that, one of the slides you put up showed that in the past, they were kind of exclusionary. Not everybody would have access to them, like disabled children, for example.

[77:00] Is the intent to, make those structures as accessible as possible, and if so, you know, what kind of structures would they, you know, would they be? It'd be… our goal is universal accessibility, which means not ADA, but everyone has an equal chance to play together. And a lot of the structures that go up taller, you would still want everyone to be able to access the bottom. So that they're still in a group, even if some people will be able to go higher than others. So that'll be an emphasis when the structures are replaced? For sure. Definitely. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the presentation. It's great. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much. It's great to see all the engagement, and to see all the plans coming together. Just a quick question around the fitness area. There was some vandalism that happened, to that, like, new fitness area that's been put up. How are we thinking about preventing any sorts of vandalism in the future, especially as we're investing, in some of these redesigns?

[78:10] I think lighting will be a little bit important, but I don't know if you can stop all of it, but if you're gonna have more people using the park for the right reasons later at night, like these people would like to do with some of our improvements, then you're going to see less of that over time as well. And then, question for Jean and Shelby. So I thought, it was great to hear all of the feedback, from all of the teens, and the… great that you were able to do those sorts of events and really hear, like, the direct feedback. I thought one thing that was kind of funny is it seems like there's actually a lot of overlap between, what the teens are asking for and, friends that I have, like, in their 20s and 30s, and how they use the park. So when you think about, like, picnics, volleyball, just, like, having the open space to play spike ball. So I was wondering, are there any sort of things that you think are, like, really, like, unique to teens that you want to make sure that we consider?

[79:09] I think that teens enjoy, well. obviously, teens live at home with their parents, and so I think that they like to get out more, and be kind of in spaces that are their own. And so I think for teens specifically, having those, like, we were talking about having, like, stones around an area so that people can, like, gather and hang out, I think that's more oriented towards the teens who want to… be independent, and kind of get out there. So yeah. I agree that there's definitely a lot of overlap, even as we were having our event. It was kind of open, and so, we had some other people come in, and I noticed there was, like, a yoga class with some older people who came and actually shared some of their input, and it was very similar. But, yeah, like Jane said, I think a big idea from teens was Having that space kind of to ourselves, and not as, not, like, near kids and parents, but…

[80:03] Yeah, just more our own. Yeah, thanks so much, and thanks also for just, like, gathering all those perspectives and sharing it with us. Just thank you, as everybody has said, appreciate all of your time and your input, and unique age group, you know, perspective. I think that's super important for us. I guess, I had a couple of questions. The first question was. I love the imagery that you shared, like, some of those really cool seating, lighted seats, those curved… is that potentially going to be, affordable, or something that can be integrated into the… into the plan, or… or an amphitheater? I didn't… know if that was actually going to happen, or… It's conceptual at this point, but we want to look into it and see how much it does cost, and have it fit into our budget if we can. Right. Yep. Okay, that's reasonable. And then that was my second question, budget. So, so how are things going right now, and where are you, just generally speaking, in terms of, trying to figure out, like, do we need to pull back on budget, or do you feel like

[81:09] We've got what we need to address the needs and wants of the… The users of the park? We have a consultant really looking at that more specifically. We gave them a final budget to use, and it has to back out any future fees that they may have, so they know that going into it, anytime they may ask us for more money, it affects the overall park design, and we just met only last Thursday or the Thursday before to give them that feedback, so it's now evolving. Yeah, so you're getting to a point where you have, like, this is the max price… We've given on the max price, yeah. Okay. Yep. Another thing about this particular park, too, is it's another partnership, so… we're getting considerable funds from stormwater to help with the dry stream bed, and with the low flow channel, and also with the water that's going underneath 9th Street into the West City campus. That's great, yeah.

[82:03] Thank you. I actually just had a couple quick questions about stormwater. Would you mind going back to the slide that showed the schematic? I just want to make sure I understand this correctly, so the… Sort of… I'll go a little further back to the actual plan view. Yeah, so, okay, so the… it's sort of an open creek bed coming in from Delwood, and then as it gets towards 9th Street, it transitions to that Shallow dish, is that right? To a low floor channel, yeah. Okay, okay. Great. Thank you. That's… That's really all I had. Any other questions? Anyone think of anything? Okay, well, thank you again. That's one of the areas that's still getting figured out, is what does it look like as it transitions from a dry creek bed to the low-flow channel? That's one of the challenges we're currently working on. Do you anticipate there'll be water in that year-round, or is that when it rains? Okay. Anytime it rains, otherwise it will truly be dry. Okay.

[83:10] I have one more question. If that's okay? Can you remind me, I think you said this on the tour, you all are designing the stormwater for, what, a 100-year flood? Is that what the… The dry creek bed is gonna be anywhere between a 25 to 100 year. More towards the 100-year, especially on the far north end of the park. And then it kind of transitions down into the 5-year… 5-year storm event once you hit Cedar Avenue. So the low flow is for a 5-year event, where if it floods, it's just going to flood over the top of grass. And everywhere we have infrastructure on the north end of the park, if it floods, we don't want to lose everything we just invested money in. Of course, right. Now, why would you choose 5-year, though, instead of 100-year for all of it? Because of costs? That is what Stormwater is willing to pay us, basically. Yeah.

[84:04] Yeah. Interesting. That's concerning, because, It all goes to the same point, though, if you see where number 15 is, where it's gonna go underneath 9th Street. I'll try to put my cursor up there. no matter where the water hits the park, it all ends up at this point. And we're still gonna have a major catchment area that brings water underneath 9th and is going to be conveyed, along Balsam Avenue, where the West City campus is being located. So the, the 2013 flood, what was that? Was that a 100-year flood? That was a 100-year flood. Thank you. I guess I have one final question. What is the budget for this project? Overall budget is, with Stormwater's, investment as well, is around $7 million.

[85:03] Alright, well, thank you all very much. Great presentation, it was wonderful to see you. Thank you. Yeah. Jane Shelby, come back anytime. Alright, so we'll move on to the, Barker Reservoir, excuse me, Barker Park renovation discussion. Alright, so joining us up here for this item, Mark is back with Senior Landscape Architect Shikomi Kiriagawa and Landscape Architect Emily Urquhart. And while they get set up and get started, I'm gonna snag more water, because I know what they're about to talk about, but I'll be right back.

[88:12] I think we're ready, sorry for that delay. We're gonna do a presentation on Barker Park tonight, and this, I think, as many people know, has been a great relationship. with the preschool, and we've worked with them, I believe, for nearly 100 years now. And so tonight, there'll be… part of this project is how we're collaborating with the preschool, but also how we're replacing the play area, but also ensuring it's also a community space. Maybe that's something that's happened over the years, with the way the fencing's gone up, and the way the… Operation of the place has occurred, so we're trying to make it more of a community space while providing play for youth, and working with our preschool partner. And with that, I'll pass it over to Emily to take the presentation away. Yeah, so I'll also be building on the excitement of nature play tonight. With Barker Park being the first permanent nature play, park in the city.

[89:05] And so, with Barker Park being at the schematic design phase, wrapping up schematic design, and hopefully moving into construction in the spring and summer of next year, just wanted to give Crab an update here on where the design is at. So, I'll go ahead and take you through the project context and timeline, our planning analysis, site analysis, things that went into informing the design. And then the design, as well as 3D model views, to really feel like experience what the park might feel like. And then we'll get to the questions, which will be, do you have questions about the project process, and do you have questions about the schematic design? So this is our park site, which is, between Spruce and Pearl Street downtown, at the corner of 15th and Spruce, and as Mark said, it's connected to Boulder Day Nursery on the right there.

[90:02] which, Boulder Day Nurseries has been… Providing affordable early education to the city since 1917. And they moved to the edge of the park in 2001. Er, sorry, in… Yeah. They started leasing part of the park space, in 2001 for their outdoor play area, and so this, park site is a really unique opportunity for partnership with Boulder D Nursery. So, a little bit more about the project background, This park is a refresh to replace the aging playground, seating, and fencing as things reach the end of their life cycle. To reiterate what Mark said, we are looking to make this a vibrant community space. provide sensory-rich nature play, and then build on our partnership with Boulder Dane Nursery and… build on this opportunity for early education through play in the City of Boulder.

[91:03] Our timeline for the project, we started scoping around this time last year. We kicked it off in February, we went through planning analysis and site analysis, we worked with the community in Bullard Day Nursery. over the summer to get feedback, which brought us to our concept design. Now we're in schematic design, we're wrapping up schematic design. We'd like to move into construction documentation at the end of the year, and then start construction in the spring of 2026. Okay, so our planning analysis. That informed the design. So, some of the major factors that came out of site analysis that informed the design. Definitely the existing tree canopy, how to preserve the existing canopy and build upon it to create more shade opportunities. Building on universal design and accessible, play experiences.

[92:03] As well as, how to add more seating opportunities and make this a community space, and then balancing the existing flexible park space with the nature play experiences that are going into it. And then lastly, the, the existing fence. So, making this a more welcoming park to the community. The existing fence is chain link. And doesn't feel the most welcoming, so really welcoming the community, locals, and tourists alike into this park. And then, along with site analysis, history going into the, integrating into the design. So, yeah, in 1911, Hannah Barker donated the land for this space, who was a civic leader and one of Boulder's first schoolteachers. And then in 1929 is when Boulder Dainers removed the park's edge, and like Mark said, we'll be… really celebrating a milestone of partnership, 100 years of partnership with Bullard Day Nursery coming up soon in 2029.

[93:02] Lastly, the… there was some historic operators on this site, the Tomadge and Lily Livery, who provided stagecoat services and facilities for Teamsters visiting Boulder. And then our community engagement, main public priorities that came out of meetings with Boulder Day Nursery staff and parents, As well as having an open house at the park site. We also did walking field trips with Boulder Day Nursery from Barker Park to the Wildwoods play area to really have parents, and students experience what nature play is like. So, main priorities, flexible, balancing that flexible space with programmed elements. Having sensory-rich nature play that's inclusive and universally accessible. Increasing shade and seating opportunities… Keeping access for people using wheels, dog walkers, diverse users, really integrating nature, art, and history into the space.

[94:07] And then on a more basic level of play, wanting to have swing… swinging, sliding, climbing, and learning opportunities. So all of that going into our design, and I'll start with just a really high-level overview of what the space, May look like in the future. So, there's a line dividing the middle of the diagram. And on the north side of it is the Boulder Day Nursery leased area. Where there will be an early childhood nature play focus, so kids 0 to 6, and, expanding on that partnership to open this space to the public on evenings and weekends. And then to the south of that line, having that big flexible lawn space. And then an All Ages Nature Play area. As well as big welcoming entries and gateways to the park.

[95:00] And then the, dotted line is the proposed circulation, so expanding on the current circulation in the park. So you can kind of start to see how that diagram overlays on the actual schematic design here. the Boulder Dana, Surrey side to the north, and then that big… Dynamic nature play zone with the flexible lawn space as well. I'm gonna take you through 3D model views of the park, but just a quick, overview of… thinking about that reverse engineering of the design process that Mark brought up with Nature Play. How do we look at layers of universal design and accessibility, as well as sensory experiences and the four types of play? And this is really just showing… All of the types of activities and features in the proposed design. And everything with an asterisk serves accessibility and sensory design, so really just… A check and a layer of analysis for us to make sure we're really achieving that goal of having

[96:04] Accessibility throughout the park. Similar diagram here, again, analyzing, are we creating sensory experience that hits the whole spectrum. Feel, touch, smell, hear, even vestibular, which is, like, moving on a swing, or bumping down a pathway in a wheelchair. So… Just doing this layer of analysis, check, yes, we're hitting, this sensory experience in the proposed park design. And then moving to the four types of play, again, There's 4 different symbols representing the four different types of play, and, you can see all four symbols are used throughout the park, and so we're making sure that we're… Capturing all four types of play in our proposed design. Okay. Moving into the actual park design. Here's our 3D model.

[97:02] Starting to see… so, we're looking from the entrance of… Spruce and 15th. Starting to see, that flexible lawn in the foreground. the dynamic nature play area in the background, and then the fencing dividing the BDN side from the public side. So we'll kind of take a walk through the park here. This is our welcoming gateway entering from Spruce and 15th. Walking onto that flexible lawn space, starting to see that… Dynamic log type of climbing feature in the background. And then on the bottom, a closer look at that, play feature, so… Kids can climb on that sideways log on the right. There's an accessible swing in the middle, a… a nest. little rope gathering feature on the left side there. So tons of what we would call play value within this log, play feature.

[98:05] And then the log shade shelter on the left. there's a sign on it that says the Talmadge and Lily Livery, so really integrating the history of those operators into the space. And then the platform underneath the shade shelter is a great accessibility feature for children experiencing disability to really just have a space to get out on a platform and be able to move around and pivot. And then another look at what's happening here. You can start to see some of our sensory features popping out, the red and blue. circles being something called a thunder drum. It kind of, like, vibrates the ground, and you can bang on them, and it creates sound and feeling. On the bottom left, there are windpipes that you can stomp on, and they make sound, a slapophone that you can play with to create music. There is a accessible sand table that a wheelchair can roll up to on the top left photo there as well.

[99:05] And then, major, I guess, features that kids are always a hit with kids. Big sand area and a water feature, a water pump that, Cascades down into the sand area. And then moving to look at the Boulder Day Nursery side for early childhood play and education. A couple of different spaces for different age groups in this area. See-through panels between spaces so kids can watch each other and interact, even though they need to be separated for preschool licensing standards. Things like sensory stations to get more of that sensory experience into the space. There's a slide on the bottom left. You can see a kid at the top of it there, and then, an outdoor classroom space as well. So, next steps for this project,

[100:02] Like we said, we're wrapping up schematic design here. looking to begin construction in April of next year. We'll have a consent agenda item for Prabh when we do kickoff for construction. And then, there'll be an opening ceremony that we'd want Prabh invited to, of course, in ideally July of 2026. So with that, I will put it back to you all for questions. I… two questions. What's the budget for this project, and, maintenance and op… maintenance of the… or durability, I guess, of the materials? What sort of the life cycle of the materials that are being specified here? Yeah, so the overall budget is around $650,000, and part of the advantage of Nature Play is it costs a lot less. than traditional playgrounds. And that will be kind of a… joint effort. Oh, thank you.

[101:00] And that will be kind of a joint effort between our in-house construction team and consultants, so, with Nature Play, our in-house construction team is able to be a lot more involved, which also reduces costs. What was your second question? Oh, sorry. The second question was related to the materials being specified. I… are you all doing the, reuse of the timber, like the other play area? And then, I just… I don't have a good sense of what the life cycle, maintenance. challenges might be of the fence, for example, that you all are incorporating. Are they… is that real wood, or is that, you know, timber tech kind of stuff? Yeah, so definitely reusing wood from forestry… from our forestry yard to create these play features. They do have a shorter life cycle, and that's sort of, we're working with our maintenance team at the moment to create these park management plans so that They tend to take less maintenance throughout the process, but they do have a shorter life cycle and a shorter replace…

[102:02] Lower replacement cost. To traditional playgrounds, and… I don't know if, Mark, you want to… Yeah, thank you, Emiad. Just to add to that, the… for prefabricated playgrounds, the current life cycle is 12 years. It used to be 15 to 20. For various reasons I won't go into, that life cycle's reduced. Sometimes it's now to 10 years. A typical play area like this, as Emily pointed out, the first 2 or 3 years is when the, typical natural features sort of settle in. So our in-house construction team will provide almost a warranty on that to take care of those initial needs, and then for the… the good news is Nature Play tends to last 10 to 12 years, so we've seen the life cycles come together. Frankly, because we've got better construction skills for nature play areas now. So, in fact, as Emily pointed out, we're using local materials instead of, for instance, at the civic area, play area, we've got to import features from Germany if we have to replace parts, and we can wait 12 months, and it's incredibly expensive. So the goal here is that using parts that we've got in-house, it will be quicker and cheaper over time to do that work.

[103:05] But what about, I guess, labor? Do you anticipate? And the answer can be no, but do you anticipate that, because you're using natural materials, you'll have to have more people on staff to kind of be… maintaining these types of facilities? Actually, no, what we've seen the nature player now, because I agree, initially, some… and to this day, some nature player developments that go in there don't have the best materials or the construction. Going into them, we're really confident that this will take the same amount of maintenance. Over time, and by having an in-house construction team for that first 3 years as a warranty, it won't put pressure on our Park Ops team. So that'll be like, hey, this tree happened to split. It had something inside we weren't aware of, great, we've got a spare part for that, we'll do that with our in-house team. And obviously, that'll keep costs down immensely as we do the project.

[104:03] So I can definitely second, the fact that the existing park isn't that welcoming. So I actually live, like, blocks away, so I pass by it pretty often, and it does feel very closed off. It doesn't really seem like a open space for the full community, so I really appreciate, the designs that take that into account, and really, Just, like, open it up to a broader user base. Just my only question is, just zooming out a little bit, can you talk a little bit about, why, we're focusing on Barker, Park versus some of the other parks that could probably use a redesign? I'm happy to… Yeah, no, it's… we have ranked our 42 play areas, in terms of condition assessment, replacement, you know, etc, and use, and actually, Boga play area is currently closed, the playground equipment, because of the poor state of the equipment.

[105:05] As in the Boulder Day… I always get the name wrong, the Boulder Day School Nursery, whatever the name is. They can't actually access the play equipment at this point. There isn't another playground in the system where we've had to actually shut the play features down. So that's… it came to the top for basic condition assessment purposes. Yeah, thanks, that's really good context, just to understand, because, you know, there's a lot of parks that people care about, and just to understand why we're focusing on this one. Pants? Yeah, I want to echo a little bit of what Kira said. That chain-link fence really makes it feel like it's a, not for the public. I used to work pretty close to that, and yeah, so it's a great idea to change it, and I really like the imagery of that fence, it's really cool. One of the questions I had is. Is it… and I think I heard this, but I'm not entirely sure. Is the BDN side gonna be open to the public in the evening?

[106:06] Yes, and in the… on the weekends and in the evenings. And then how… how does that… is there a sign that says that, or is it just, like, the gate's gonna come down, or… The gates will open, and we'll be working on… signage to make that very obvious, and also marketing that to the community. And BDN is excited to kind of share that message as well with the community. Okay, and then, kind of related question, is BDN partnering for some of the enhancements on its side of the fence, or are we doing the whole thing? We are, funding most of the enhancements on their side, but they will be maintaining the space for the most part. And that leads me to the… third question that I have is, based on my experience, do you anticipate using, these, like, park champions to help with, maintenance? I really enjoyed my experience at the park down here. Yes, yes, we are looking to expand the Park Champion program, Nature Play Champs program, to include Barker Park. Great. That's cool. Thank you very much.

[107:12] Yeah, Mike took my first question, but I was wondering about, on 15th Street, there was something called, like, play nodes? Were those, were those kind of, like, the… the drum things? Like, were those some examples of, like, what play nodes are, or might be? Yeah, like, drums, loose parts, like, just sticks that kids can, like, sticks, pine cones, rocks that kids can build with, so some of those fine motor skills. So yeah, just, like, some of the smaller elements in the park. Okay, great. Yeah, and thank you. I'm always so impressed with these schematic designs. They look great, and I love the thought process put into, sort of, the four types of play, and all of the maps showing the different sensory experiences. I think it's really cool, and I just… I wish the public knew more, including myself, I suppose, as a member of the public, about the extreme amount of thought that goes into these projects, so thank you. Thank you.

[108:07] Okay, well, thank you, everyone. I don't actually have anything else, so I think, we look forward to hearing more. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. I'm sorry, you're not. I didn't mean to cut you off. You are certainly welcome to email staff, and they can forward questions and answer. Okay, so we will move on to, matters from the board. Before we do that, I'm just gonna take a quick survey. How's what we're doing? Do we need 5? Do you want to keep rolling? How's our… Let's roll. Okay, let's roll. Okay, so I'm gonna just do a little bit of, Scene setting before we get into the discussion about our memo. And I'm gonna start by just apologizing for, emailing everyone to abruptly change direction from what we talked about at our last meeting, and then subsequently asking Clarissa to email y'all. So I realize there's been a lot of,

[109:06] offline discussion of this, which is not typically how I do business, so, I hope that we can, understand where that came from, and then move forward, in the next… next little bit. Okay, at our October meeting, we, tasked Jenny to write a letter that would be a, you know, a memo from our… our board to the City Council, suggesting they will take a hard look at How to address South Boulder Rec Center, During their winter retreat, which is coming up, soon. Although I think we all agreed to that in the meeting, I… it didn't sit well with me when I went home that night, and I was thinking more about it, and trying to think more about, like, okay, if we're gonna ask City Council for the one thing. That we really want them to be thinking about. To address the Parks Department's greatest needs in their next year of legislative work. is that South Boulder Wreck, or is that something else? And, as you all know from my many emails, like, what I came to is that there's a funding gap that we need to address, and we cannot do it

[110:07] in this room, we need the City Council to intervene. there are two potential options that… I mean, there's… they have many options. One easy one would be to ask the voters to expand the use of the Permanent Parks and Recreation Fund. That's an existing fund that exists for the acquisition and development of new parks. So expanding an existing fund to allow its use for operations could be a way to help bridge a lot of our funding gap. Another would be to increase mill levy, which would have been that effect of increasing property taxes. Of course, living under Tabor, that has to go… either of these things has to go to the voter. So we are… So, that was my proposal. I sent it to all of you. Yvonne got back to me and said, I really think it's important that we use SPRC as an example of what happens when we don't have proper funding. So what you have in your packet today, and printed out in front of you, is,

[111:02] is… is a draft letter that, that Yvonne contributed to. Thank you, Yvonne. And… it does, at the top, say that this is from Alley Rose, it's not, it would be from us, we'll strike that. Has everyone had a chance I'm sorry, before I ask the question, Yvonne, is there anything you want to add to that, those comments? Okay, so what I would love to… well, first of all, has everyone had a chance to read this letter? Okay. This is updated from what was… This is updated as of this morning? Yeah. Okay. But not since this morning. Got it. Okay, okay, so, My hope is that we can talk about this as needed. and then vote up or down on it, do we want to send this to City Council? I think it's a little bit too late for us to just change our minds and say, actually, we really want to send a letter to City Council about Eurasian milfoil. That ship has sailed, I'm sorry.

[112:08] So, okay, with that said… Let's… let's chat about, do we want to make this our… one issue that we sent to City Council. And I guess, Yvonne, I'll start with you, what do you think? I support the letter, and I appreciate very much the collaboration on the back end, to adding South Boulder Rec Center as sort of the poster child for why we need more funding. I think, absolutely, I support that. I have a question, though, and I don't know if you want to do that now. I have questions… not that I… I'm good with the letter, so… but I'm good with the letter. Overall, I just have questions, like the questions that I emailed you and said. I still have questions. Okay, let's say that… Let's, let's address the letter. Okay. Then we'll move into other matters. Sure, sure. Okay, so then,

[113:02] But it's not really other matters, it's kind of related. Like, I don't… what I don't fully understand is… I guess maybe we hear from staff, is, does staff have any sense, or do you have any sense, whether or not this… they have… there's an appetite for City Council to expand the use for the PPRF, or is that what it's called? PPRF? Yeah. Because… just offline conversations, it sounded like there was this Fund Our Future, pathway, and, you know, maybe there's concern around putting out to the voters multiple asks, so I just… some clarity around that. Okay, so my understanding is that the PPRF is something that City Council addressed earlier this year, and they opted not to put it on the ballot this year because For reasons I… I don't know. However, the City Council, both as it was 2 months ago and as it will be next month, are well aware of the funding challenges, and they will be talking about the Fund Our Future

[114:06] ballot measure, and expanding the PPRF can be part of that conversation, can and should be part of that conversation. Okay. Yeah, Allie, do you want to add anything to that? How much is in that fund, too? Well, I'll just clarify that I could never speak on behalf of City Council. Of course. And am not, but here's my perspective, both on, I'll just share a little bit about the conversation in April and May. So, as I think you all are aware, this Council, on their two-year work plan, prioritized a long-term funding strategy. And so, in April and May, the, City Council's Financial Strategy Committee And staff from the Central Finance Office, our Chief Financial Officer, had brought to Council several options to explore to address the structural imbalance the city has between the expenses that are doing this and revenues that are doing this. There were a myriad of options there that they explored, and then they eventually pulled some of them. The idea of expanding the permanent Parks and Recreation Fund was explored as a public realm tax.

[115:08] I've heard members of council say the polling was not done in a way that they thought was very helpful. It didn't poll very well. I forget what the numbers were. They weren't awful, but they're not the numbers we like when we're gonna put something on a ballot. And then there were other questions around just the mix of property taxes, and so they decided to hold that item and move forward with the… what just passed by over 70% approval with voter holders, the… the extension in perpetuity of CCRS and allowing to bond against it. That's a tool that I believe they consider as remaining in their tool belt as a method for addressing the long-term financial strategy. So, Fund Our Future is a community engagement conversation. It's not a strategy. Fund Our Future is the name for the conversation that is being outlined to have with the community. in the first months of 2026. That's when we intend to go to the community and say, here are all the needs.

[116:01] Here are all the things that are happening that we hear you, you want more, or we have these fire stations that are falling apart, we have this public safety building that is falling apart, we have the South Boulder Recreation Center that is falling apart. There are more needs than there are in current funding, and so the question is going to be, what is most important to you? And are you willing to pay for those things? And that's the conversation, and so just to build on what Bernie said, what I believe is that one does not preclude the other, because one is a conversation about the challenges, and one is a potential solution. Does anybody know how much is in the PPRF? I can tell you that the… well, when you say how much is in it, do you mean how much money does it generate every year for the department? Is that… is that your question? Yeah, I guess that's a better question. Yeah, so the, funding, I just want to flip to and give an exact number. The number that is coming to my head is… Between $4 and $5 million a year. But I think it's a little more than that, and I'm gonna grab you the exact number. The,

[117:07] the number that was explored for an increase was a 1.3 mil increase, which would have brought in an additional $7 million a year, for expanded uses to address in the public realm. And I, I'm gonna grab the current number, just give me 30 seconds to find it. Alright, in 2025, the approved budget, the Permanent Parks and Recreation Fund, is supposed to bring in I'm so glad. I said between 4 and 5 million, right? It's, $4.4 million in 2025, is the source, and so the discussion in the spring was to increase it that would have brought in an additional $7 million.

[118:01] So… okay, and… I think Jenny had asked, I'm not speaking for Jenny here, but, I think Jenny had asked There was a question around, if we somehow… like, I guess consequences, like, if for some reason, We get approval, voters say, you can use this fund for not only land acquisition, but for maintenance and operations of parks, amenities, and facilities. Is there any, I guess, risk? And I'm not saying Jenny said this, so I… let me take that off completely. Just, is there any risk on, if somehow we're using the funds for maintenance and operations of facilities and amenities, could it… could that fund somehow impact… development, or, I guess that's kind of the question, is there… are there any risks for doing this?

[119:03] So, Jenny and I went back and forth about this letter a little bit, and she was supportive of of asking City Council to expand PPRF. There was a sentence in the original version of this letter that she found a little bit confusing, and she thought, there's a sentence that might imply that we could sell off parkland for development of homes or commercial, which was not the intention, so I did rewrite that sentence. All right, so… and so that answers my question, thank you for that explanation. Can we talk a little bit about the mill levy? I'm sorry, I'm not as conversant about that, but… What were the challenges or opportunities with that? I might ask Ally to address this one. I'm gonna speak at a very, very high level, and then we can certainly come back to the Prab, or it would be part of the conversation should… if and when City Council discusses this in 2026. I would say at the very highest of levels.

[120:02] The city is overly reliant on sales tax for funding most of our operations. We have a higher mix of sales tax than most of our other benchmark committees… communities. Sales tax is also seen as regressive because it disproportionately impacts people. It's not… it's not means-tested. And so it impacts everybody the same, which then means it impacts people of lower income disproportionately. Property tax is seen as a more equitable source. because it taxes, folks who have more, valuable homes are gonna… while it's the same proportion, right, they're gonna pay more than folks who are renters who wouldn't pay anything except what is passed on to them through their landlord. And so, at a high level, that's one of the reasons the city is interested and has talked about exploring greater diversity in our funding to reduce that reliance on sales tax. So that's one consideration. There are other considerations, and I'd be happy to share with you all, In May of 2025, City Council had a full analysis on this from the Chief Financial Officer that I'd be happy to pass along to you all.

[121:04] That includes information about the current property tax cap. Boulder has one of the lowest. The current mix of property taxes that we can pay, I can tell you that, you know, for example, So, of every dollar of property tax that is collected in the City of Boulder. I just had this in front of me. So, the city receives 14 cents of every property tax dollar that is collected in the City of Boulder. Most of our property tax dollars go to Boulder County and to Boulder Valley School District. So, of every dollar in property tax collected, 14 cents goes to the City of Boulder. And out of that 14 cents, Parks and Recreation gets… gets 1. That's the current state. So I think probably I left some things hanging with your answer there, Yvonne, with a little more, preparation or notice. We could share a lot more.

[122:00] But I think… Sorry. The, the mill questions. Like, should voters be asked to increase the mill per the bill levy. That would give the city permission to collect more property tax. Right? Yeah, at the, like, the very highest level. Yeah, and so that is one potential funding mechanism. The objection we heard from the public this earlier, I think, I don't want to misstate him, but I think he was saying He was opposed to it, because he was saying that puts an additional burden on current residents in Boulder who are already struggling to, you know, just make ends meet, and that… what I heard… tell me if I heard it wrong, but what I heard was that it puts a burden on people who are already here, who may own property, and, you know, you're just putting more on us. Am I right? That's what I heard, too, and I think we could safely assume that a lot of homeowners would feel that way.

[123:00] Property taxes in Colorado are third lowest in the nation, and we get a lot of value for our tax dollars. I'm a homeowner, I would be glad to pay more if it meant that I had an amazing rec center on the other side of the neighborhood. That's just me. I will say we also heard that in the comment. It was, you know, I don't want to pay more in taxes, but I really care about the South Boulder Rec Center, so those two things are truly at odds with each other, and we have to consider all the different options in order to fund South Boulder Rec Center. No, I do support the letter, and thank you for some of the rewrites that happened over the weekend to make it happen. I think it's a great thing to put before Council. I'm not sure that, you know, they will want to take this, and, you know, put it on a ballot, but I think it's… it's definitely worth addressing this as an individual issue for them to consider.

[124:06] Yeah, I kind of wish that we had done, two matters. One, like, because I know that the last… the form that we had last time had three items in there. So I think, South Boulder is very important, regardless of how it's funded, and I, you know, it may be… we can do that through the CCRS, or, you know, emphasize its importance that it should be done through the CCRS, and maybe Emphasize its importance through through the Fund Our Future kind of program, but… But this letter is… is fine, and I can support it. I am not optimistic that it will have an impact. I think the… the Realm text, discussion, as I recall it, pretty much… The sampling that they did did not support it. I think it was under 50%, and they're pretty cautious if they're gonna put a ballot measure out. I think it's gonna involve…

[125:07] A charter amendment, which is what it's gonna involve, to change the structure of the, the Permanent Parks Fund, and it's also… There's a cap on the mill levy that, the city can charge completely, and… My understanding is, and I don't… I'm not completely facile with it, but that we're bumping up close to that cap, and the city may decide, or it might be prudent for them to decide. We don't want to get any closer to that, just for the permanent Parks and Rec Fund. So, it's not going to give them that much flexibility, I think. But I think, you know, to the extent that The purpose of this letter is to say that we are woefully underfunded, and we need to be funded, at the appropriate level. We have you know, X hundreds of millions of, you know, unfunded maintenance projects, South Boulder Rec being the top priority for me, at least, and from the public that we hear consistently, then… then, if that's the purpose of this letter, I'm all for it.

[126:13] Alright, thank you. Yep. Here. We're both brunettes, so I understand. No, I support the letter as well. I appreciated seeing the new version in my inbox this morning, and appreciated the collaboration. to sort of get everyone at least somewhat on the same page today, and to be able to send something to City Council that we can all support, even if we have certain reservations that we can address at later times. But, yeah, so thank you. Can I add one, Bernie? Would it be okay if I added… I just… I was… I found, while you all were deliberating here, some of the… I just wanted to add one other fact that I thought would be helpful to answer to Yvonne's earlier question, that… so the additional mill of 1.352 mills on a single-family home of a million dollars.

[127:00] Would be an estimated annual property tax increase of $80. And so I just… I thought that would be helpful in the context of talking about the concerns that you heard. Obviously, you're not deliberating on a tax tonight, but I do think that's just an interesting tidbit that also talks about the property tax. cap that, what I recall from the conversation is that the mill would… there would be room for it under the cap, but it would be close… close to it, and so part of the discussion was also, is there also a conversation about increasing our self-inflicted cap? Because it is a… it's a choice. Okay, thanks, everybody. I… Would like to ask everyone, For… I guess I'd like to ask for a motion to approve sending this memo to the City Council. Okay, in a second. Kira? Okay, all in favor? Raise your hands? Okay, wonderful. So, motion passes, we will… Remove Allie's name from this letter, and then send it to City Council.

[128:00] Yes. Okay, good, and then we are now just into, matters from the board, so if anyone has any other parks matters, that they'd like to talk to us about, we can… we can do that now. Caroline, I'll start with you. The only thing I have to say is that Tom Watson is just bumping these days. I know it's always bumping, but I've been out the last couple weekends, and it's just great to see, and I'm excited for the improvements that are going to be made there, and just make it an even more inclusive and welcoming space. I just want to thank Scott and Clarissa for the hat, so thank you very much. It was well-earned, I understand. I just want to reiterate what I said earlier, the, the Imagine South Boulder folks have left, but the event they put on yesterday was wonderful, very well attended, it was nice to see, so much excitement about SBRC, having it sort of reopening, pool reopening, certainly. So the weather has been unusually very nice, and so the parks are full.

[129:05] And just, like, I mean, just to set the scene, North Boulder Park, it was, like, a couple weekends ago. It was incredible to see how many people had set up volleyball, badminton, spikeball, and then just to see there was someone who was, like, coming over and, like, seeing if other people wanted to play, and, like, I don't know. people were, like, mixing it up, but yeah, I think it just… sometimes maybe we forget, just how many people, are using some of these parks, and have, like, just the… sort of the community spirit, too. That you feel in some of these parks, And I will also say, other feedback from my friends, so they were, you know, yesterday, beautiful day for skiing, and then also playing sand volleyball in the afternoon. And so my friends are trying to figure out which courts, to play volleyball on, and, they were like, oh, maybe at CU, we could use those courts. But they were like, oh, no, actually, it, you know, we want to go to the rec center, because the sand is so much better.

[130:06] So, positive feedback all around. So I had some questions, so not to take us back into the rabbit hole, but here on, sort of, substantive issues, and we could potentially address these at another time, or via email, or me meeting with staff, but I'm just gonna put it out there so we have it on the record on some questions I have. So, one thing from the October meeting that I've not quite felt, like, a sense of clarity on is… I know we've talked about South Boulder ad nauseum, but I'm still gonna have to talk about this. These are questions related to that. at some point, I would like to get some clarity from staff on how we're working with the, you know, the architecture firm in terms of just really early, high-level design concepts, in terms of

[131:05] I would like to understand, are we starting with the concept that the indoor assessment said. We want more pull lanes, we want more cardiovascular, we want more weight rooms, don't take that away. That was the indoor assessment at a high level. So… can we all sort of start from that point that South Boulder Rec Center, whenever it is built, and whenever it is funded. will it include pool lanes? Because there has been some conversations offline about a potential water feature, using that sort of phraseology, and a water feature is not a… not pool lanes, and so I'm concerned that From the get-go, we're starting kind of in this position of. South Boulder Rec Center's gonna get built, but we don't know if it's… a pool's gonna be included. I'd like to start with, it's gonna have a pool, now we gotta figure out how we're gonna afford it, how long it's gonna take, how do we, you know, shape the budget to maximize the facility for all of the City of Boulder. So that's…

[132:09] Question number one is, is it gonna have swim lanes? And I'd like to get some clarity around that. We can either answer that today, or we can… table that. Why don't you just go through your questions? Okay. So that's one question. The second question is if someone could offer some clarity on the CIP list. And I apologize that I don't understand this, maybe I haven't done enough homework, but… I understand the CIP as… this is… once you get a project on the 6-year CIP list, you're now sort of in the queue for the city… for City Council to prioritize that project, to, start figuring out how we're going to afford it, what pools of funding we're going to access to move it along in that 6-year process. I don't understand, number one, is South Boulder on the list? Because I don't think it is, maybe I'm wrong. If it is on the list, great. If it's not, what does the process look like for us to get it on the list so that it can at least be in the 6-year queue? That's…

[133:12] just sort of a basic question I would like to get answered. Third question, is around the East Boulder Rec Center investments that are sort of being discussed or being, conceptually designed. Is the 53 or thereabouts money that has already been approved by the voters to utilize in maintenance of our infrastructure and facilities. Is that $53 million Is it only for East Boulder Rec Center, or is it for firehouses? Can just someone just clarify What are we… what's happening behind the scenes with East Boulder Rec Center in terms of You know, improving it, what's on the table. how much is that gonna cost? Just give me some clarity around

[134:02] around that, because I think there's a lot of folks confused in the community on why East Boulder Rec Center might be invested in prior to South Boulder, and so I just want to make sure we all understand what's on the table, as… to be as transparent as possible, what's on the table for investment in East? How much are we talking about spending? Because the last meeting left me concerned that, I believe it was the Director of Facilities had said, back of the napkin, in order to bring East Boulder Rec Center up to energy code, it's gonna cost the full $53 million. Maybe I misunderstood that, but that's what I heard, and it was alarming to me. And in this financial environment, I think 20… what we heard from the City Council in the May meeting. it's very… it's gonna be a stressful 2026. I don't think 2026 is gonna get better, at least that's not what people are expecting. So it's not, in my opinion, as a steward of the taxpayers' dollars, it's not, in my opinion, prudent to be investing

[135:10] tens of millions of dollars to bring one facility up to code when we've got so many other programmatic needs that need to be addressed that potentially are more of a priority for our taxpayers. And those are my questions. Thank you. Okay, Ivan, I want to make sure I heard you. You asked… can we… when we get into the design process for South Boulder, can we start with the assumption that we'll have a lap pool? you asked… how does a project get onto the CIP list, and what exactly does it mean to be on the CIP list, right? Are the funds that have been approved for East Boulder constricted to that project, or can they be used for other things? And will the price tag for that renovation cost the entire $53 million that had been allocated? Okay. Ellie, are there any of those questions that you want to answer tonight?

[136:04] Yeah, I… Yes, I think the second and the third ones have easy answers, and the first one does not have an answer at this point, and so I'll come back to that. So, I want to explain something on the six-year CIP that maybe we don't do a good job of when we spend those several months talking about the CIP in June, July, and August, so… When the capital improvement program is approved, it is a 6-year projection. Only the first year of funds are actually appropriated when the budget is approved, meaning the money is put into an account, it is allocated for a project, and the decision is made. Everything else is a projection based on What we know about condition of the system, what we know about community needs. It all starts with the 2022 Parks and Recreation Plan. And so, the… That's how the CIP is developed. The out years are flexible, because they do adjust based upon available funding, based upon emerging needs, if something breaks in the system, for example, like we've reprioritized a parking lot to fund the recent $2 million we spent at the South Boulder Recreation Center, so there are now unfunded

[137:13] needs at, Pleasant View Soccer Complex. There's no extra money, right? So when we made that decision, we defunded another project to give us more time to figure out South. The South Boulder Recreation Center is not on the CIP, because as we said in the 2022 Parks and Recreation Plan, as we've queued up with City Council's prioritization of the long-term financial strategy, there are not funds in the budget to build a brand new building. And that is the need. And East was prioritized by both City Council and the Boulder voters in 2021 because it is a candidate for a renovation. The building systems need modernization, the building is intact, and so both City Council and the Boulder voters, with approving that round of CCRS in 2021, And that funding then was allocated in the CIP, and that's why I had made the comment it was hard to be virtual, but that it's not up for re-litigation. That project is in the pipeline. We've now spent the money on the design.

[138:10] And we want to catch it before we're in the state that we are in itself. So imagine if we decided to re-litigate that at City Council, which they would not. It's against their policy, their rules of procedure, I think they call it. If they chose to relitigate that and we didn't make those improvements, we don't have a backup for when there's a replacement to address recreation in South Boulder. And so that's… I'll just share that, that… one of the talking points we've had for a couple of years now about East, and so I have heard, I think sometimes election season. can contribute to messages getting muddy, and there have been differing opinions about what should happen at East. But our message has been pretty clear and consistent, and I'm happy to, work with Yvonne and Ryan and the folks in Safe South Boulder to make sure it stays really clear that East was prioritized by both City Council and the community.

[139:05] And certainly, I understand that neighbors of South Boulder or others might… might not be pleased about that decision or wish a different one had been made, but… but that is where it's at. So I think… so I've addressed the CIP, Sorry, I'm sorry, can I ask one more question on that? So, you're saying that the ballot measure that said, and I don't have the language in front of me, I wish I did, sorry, but you're saying the ballot measure where voters approved where it said such as, or it referred to East Boulder Rec Center and other fire stations, etc. that it has to be used only for East Boulder Rec Center? I'm saying that that was a project that was, The language such as does not mean it's legally tied. to East, whereas if it would… there's other ballot language that say it is legally tied. You wouldn't have to go back to the voters to make that decision. We think it would be a credibility concern when you've advertised a ballot measure and given examples of projects to then not fund those projects.

[140:05] And again, City Council has approved it not only in the ballot language for 2021, but then in appropriating the CIP. So how much, at this point, is being dedicated for whatever these modernization investments are going to be just for East Boulder? I don't understand your question. I'm confused about the $53 million, is that… or what… thereabouts, maybe it's 52-point-something million, is that money you're saying has already been… that whole fund of 52-plus million is going to be invested in East Boulder Rec Center? Correct. And… Because your feeling is, at this point, it's already been, you know, the language is out there, the voters already… because it was listed in the, sort of, potential projects. it has to be spent on East Builder and can't be spent on North or South, right? Is that what I'm hearing you say? I would suggest it's more than a feeling. It's also supported by the Council actions, the multiple actions that appropriated the funding for the project.

[141:07] And so… the scope of that work, can we get a better sort of visual into what that's going to involve? Because if we have to stay under the 52-plus million for East Boulder, what is that going to be? So, I think the best way to answer that and come back to the first question that I don't have an answer to is that with the, voter approval of the CCRS last week. What I believe is going to happen is that the facilities team is prioritizing taking a look at both east and the plan for all three recreation centers over the next 5 to 7 years, and I expect that we'll be coming back to you with that sometime… I don't want to commit to a time frame, certainly before next April, May, to give you more of an insight onto both. what is happening next with East, and what is happening next with South? You asked a question about South and what amenities it will include, and I can't answer that right now.

[142:04] So… I guess, then, is it that you're feeling that you're not going to exceed the $52 million for East investment? Or, I mean, is the… are you leading the charge for investing that $52 plus million as, this is all we've got, and this is what we have to work with on East? Or we might do this bigger thing, and add pool lanes, and then find money somewhere else. Can you help me understand the… what's the question behind your question? Help me understand… I'm concerned about scope creep on east, and the fact… well, I'm concerned that, number one. I think what's… if I understood the director of facilities last time, and my memory has faded, so I apologize, I do not intend to misstate what she said, but if I understood her responses, she was saying, just to get East Boulder Rec Center up to Energy Code. We're gonna basically use all of that 52-plus million, that's what I recall. And so.

[143:07] Is there… are there conversations with… that staff is having with the architecture firm to say, okay, if it's… if we're gonna use all of it just to bring the facility up to code. Can we also address some of the programmatic, the broader system challenges where people want more pool lanes? And then, if we do that, then we're gonna have to find some money somewhere else, because I think that would be terribly inefficient, personally, to completely remodel East Boulder Rec Center. So I'm just concerned about the optics here. As a taxpayer. Spending $52-plus million just to bring one facility up to code when they've… we've conducted a year's worth of outreach and surveys with the community, trying to figure out what do they need, what do they want. and then they see this big energy retrofit for East Boulder, but they're not getting pool lanes. I'm just concerned about the optics here. The financial landscape is going to be so challenging.

[144:05] We're raising fees. I just want to make sure I understand what are we planning to actually spend at East, and what's that scope, and are we going to scope creep? Gotcha. So, I would love… I'll report back at our January meeting on y'all's next touch on the Recreation center plans, scope, funding, etc. Okay, thanks, everybody. Since we did get into substance, I feel compelled to ask, does anyone have any questions on this topic? I don't. Okay, Caroline? I also do not. Gira? I'm good, too. Okay, then I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Okay, in a second. Okay. Alright, our next meeting is in January, everybody. Thank you very much for, your work. Have a wonderful holiday season, and we'll see you next year. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.