January 26, 2026 — Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] It is 6 o'clock, so we'll call the meeting to order. We have a quorum. Would anybody like to make a motion to approve the agenda from November? I'll do it. Thank you, Mike. Is there any discuss… Second? Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Bernie. Would anybody like to comment or, any discussion on this motion? Alright, carrying opposition, the motion passes and the agenda is approved. I will now turn it over to the director for our, for future programs. Thanks, folks. For those in the audience, my name is Allie Rhodes. I serve as the Director of Parks and Recreation. During this portion of the meeting, we just give an overview of upcoming items for the board members. It's also where they can flag items they might want to bring back under matters from the board for the Chair and Vice Chair to consider with agenda setting. I think most relevant for you all is just noting the recruitment process has now closed to fill our two seats, so that we're not worried about quorum and can have an active, healthy board.

[1:05] We have those two vacancies applications. I know I have not received an update as of last night, but as of early last week, we had received nine. We typically see it about double in the last week as folks wait for that deadline. What'll happen over the next several weeks, there is a committee of council members, myself and Clarissa sit in on interviews that are recorded, and then available for all of the council members to listen to as they deliberate those appointments, they will be made at the March 6th meeting, and so we have no outgoing members, our new members will join at the April business meeting. And then the other notes I'll just call out for your, City Council on February… that says the 19th. I thought the meeting was the 16th. I might have mistyped something. It's the 19th, I'm wrong. February 19th is when City Council will have their second reading for the potential annexation of the properties that are adjacent to Keywaney Drive, formerly known as Hoven Pancock's, just south of the East Boulder Community Center. There will be a public hearing on that. That is their second hearing. The Planning Board has already had their public hearing. There was some participation.

[2:20] What possibly can happen when there is a matter relevant to city property, at the council agenda committing leading up to that, they may ask for a representative of PRAD to be available at that meeting. If that happens, then we would reach out to the chair to figure out how to facilitate that. So, that's the big one for you to have on your radar. It'd be the first time we've added parkland in over 20 decades… er, not 20 decades, 20 years, which is 2 decades. I think those are the big highlights for you all to be aware of. Any questions? As a reminder, this is also where members of the PrEP can suggest any items to be considered for scheduling in the next agenda meeting, is there anything to suggest?

[3:05] Well, I have a question. I'm Ali. Do you… can you give us any kind of read on Sorry. That was a really bad choice on my part. One more chip there, and it looked really tasty. Gotta get back in the game. We've all been there. Can you give us any read on, like, where the City Council's mindset is on that, on that annexation? Do you have any sense of what their thinking is? Not able to speak on behalf of any member of City Council. I can tell you that just informal and by-the-side conversations, folks are thrilled to see some community benefit coming from this community property. The city bought it in 2019. I've not heard… concern, and have only heard support from members of City Council. I suspect their conversation, might look similar to the planning board conversation. Great. Thank you. Okay, any other comments or feedback or suggestions for Allie? All right. Thank you very much, Allie, for your presentation.

[4:05] Okay, moving on to public participation. This portion of the meeting is for members of the public to communicate ideas or concerns to the board regarding parks and recreations issues, for which a public hearing is not scheduled for later in the evening. Tonight, there are no public hearings. During this public participation time, the public is encouraged to comment on the need for parks and recreation programs and facilities as they perceive them. All speakers are limited to 3 minutes. Depending on the nature of your matter, you may or may not receive a response from the board after you deliver your comments. The board is always listening and appreciative of community feedback. And I'd like to mention, too, before I pass it over to Clarissa, feel free to stand where you are for public comment, or you can move to the front of the room, wherever you're comfortable. And I'll pass it over to Clarissa for, additional guidelines. 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.

[5:17] For more information about this vision and the community engagement processes, please visit our website at the link and view 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 attendee shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any board 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 board.

[6:00] Only one person may speak at the podium at a time. Unless an accommodation, such as an interpreter, is required. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No standing in or otherwise blocking the aisles in violation of the fire code, or in any way that obstructs the vision or audio of other audience members. No signs or flags shall be permitted in the meeting room except for one per person that is no larger than 11 by 17 inches and 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 items to the podium, dais, walls, or other surfaces. Signs, flags, or other items used to communicate must be held by one person when displayed. Obscenity, other epithets based on race, gender, or religion, and any speech or behavior that disrupts or 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 American Sign Language applause or jazz hands.

[7:15] Right. Our first public participant is Jim O'Neill. Please, yeah. I can kind of, kind of see how brief faces. He preferred it. My name's Jim O'Neill, and Thank you for having me here this evening. I'm president of Boulder Community Rowing. I've been rowing for that club for, 22 years. Boulder Community Rowing is a non-profit member-run sports club that's been operating out of the Boulder Reservoir for the past 25 years. In recent years, reservoir management has aggressively increased fees to the club, and we have adapted to the best of our ability. Our cost to members for a summer of rowing programs costs a minimum of $1,750.

[8:11] And, our programs have been cut from 4 days a week to 3 days to try to control our costs. For many community members, the cost of participation is too high. Membership has declined by more than 25%. Depending on how far back from years ago, it's actually more like 40% if you go back, about 5 years. There's also been a shift in demographics with fewer members in the 30 to 50 age ranges. We believe this is due to our… to affordability. 25% of our members are now 60+. We've operated at a deficit for the past 2 years, and we can't survive as a community resource unless we receive some kind of relief. Adult rowing programs require access to the water in the early morning hours before work and school. Our practices typically run between 5 and 7 a.m.

[9:02] The largest expense for our club is a $300 per hour fee to access the reservoir before normal hours. In 2025, we paid $28,000 just to access the water for 2 hours, 2 days a week. We believe this fee is excessive and unfair as it's not related to actual city costs. The $300 charge is based upon the total operating expense for the RES divided by the number of hours the RES is open. Problem with his calculations during… Closed hours, the operating expense of the res is close to zero. The res has determined that a gate person and leg patrol are needed for our practices, which results in a cost of approximately $50 to $60 an hour. Charging us $300 an hour is a 600% markup. Or $250 an hour profit. We believe 100% markup is reasonable for a fee of around $100, $120 an hour. Growing teams and aquatic… and Boulder Aquatic masters are the only organizations that were charged this fee during 2025.

[10:11] A charge of $100, $125 an hour would allow a reasonable return to the city and be consistent with charges to other groups, This will also access the rest outside of normal hours. Reservoir Management has been pretty inflexible to reconsider this fee. We've been discussing it annually for 15 years. Jim, your time is up. Okay. You can finish your sentence. We just ask for your awareness and support in the modification of the speech. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Shari Hack. Hello, my name is Sherry Hack. I've lived in Boulder since 1999.

[11:02] I'm here to discuss Boulder Rec Pickleball. I'm here to advocate for two things. Separate pickleball open play times for beginner-level players, and affordable pickleball lessons through Boulder Rec. Currently, the pickleball open play times are not separated into time slots based on ability level. That said, it's dominated by intermediate and advanced players. Intermediate and advanced players do not want to play with beginners. I have a friend who was treated very rudely at Open Play because she was a beginner. She was very discouraged and won't return. Frankly, I'm intimidated enough not to go to open play at Boulder Rec, also. Every weekend, I desperately wish I could just go to my local Boulder Rec Center to enjoy the pickleball open play. When I have gone, I just watch, knowing there's no way for a beginner player to enter those games. I read that Boulder has the highest per capita in the world of ex-Olympic player

[12:03] Athletes. Ex-Olympic athletes. That's a high bar to compete with, and there's no way beginner players are comfortable playing against such elite players. However. Broomfield Rec and other cities do have designated times for the different levels of pickleball players for their open rec times. They also have reasonably priced pickleball lessons and clinics. I drive to Broomfield and play at their rec centers and enroll in their pickleball classes, even though I'm a non-resident and have to pay non-resident fees. Brewfield Rec really has their act together when it comes to pickleball. The current price for pickleball lessons in Boulder Rec is run by a private enterprise. The current price for lessons is $175 to $205 for 4 90-minute sessions. That price is absurd. I can get pickleball classes and clinics much cheaper in Broomfield as a non-resident. For a non-resident, for, class, I pay $41.

[13:04] Residents there pay $16. I was told that Boulder doesn't separate the open play times by level in order to be equitable. But it's not equitable at all. In fact, it has the exact opposite effect. It excludes beginner players like myself. Beginner pickleball players need welcoming spaces and special times for open play so that we can enjoy the sport and improve. Boulder's always talking about affordable housing. We also need affordable pickleball classes, not run by a private company making a profit. I would be most grateful for specific open play times for beginner pickleball players that include weekend or evening times so that working folks like myself can go. Thank you for your kind attention. Thank you, Sherry. Next is Christine Bresco. Thank you.

[14:09] My name's Chrissy Brescoff, and I'm part of the Reimagine South Boulder Rec Center group. We launched a petition 3 weeks ago concerning the South Boulder Rec Center. We want to make abundantly clear that, at a minimum, the community wants and expects to keep the three core features in both the current South Boulder Rec Center and in any new or renovated South Boulder Rec Center facility. As part of this petition, we have teams of volunteers, including myself. Going door-to-door, block by block, every single day, including today, Super Bowl Sunday, the two previous really cool things, knocking on every townhouse, condo, house, and even ADU to talk to people about their rec centers, including South, East, and the potential aquatic Center, and to hear what people think. We've already covered 1,100 residences, and we're just getting started. There have been two consistent takeaways. First. This one's kind of obvious, but consistent petition. People obviously want to keep the form athletes itself at the work center, just lap pool, pool-size basketball gym, workout stuff.

[15:08] This is also consistent with the city survey last year, where the community said we wanted basic dispersed or distributed rec center amenities. It's also consistent with the city's goals for walkable, bikeable, 15-minute neighborhoods that have dispersed neighborhood, scale amenities. And going door-to-door, personally, I've heard, actually repeatedly, that people don't want the new South Boulder Rec Center that has, you know, fancy amenities, or magnet amenities, things that require additional payment to use, or that are set up for, expensive youth club sports team rentals. But rather, they want core amenities, and if possible, a variety of small or medium-scale amenities that don't require… additional amenities that don't require additional payment to use. The second, and perhaps more interesting takeaway, is about the indoor turf field, or field house idea, that Parks and Rec has been floating for a few years. So yeah, people don't want it, but what's interesting isn't that, but that there's actually, unlike with the other things we've talked about, there's

[16:14] often, like, a visceral anger about it, and those feelings are not because of some preservationist ideology to keep Harlow Platz exactly as it is. And no, to the contrary, people are excited about, many ideas, for instance, that a former Prab member Sonny Vanderstar has drawn up. for improving upon or building upon Harlow Platts. So it isn't just about keeping it. Rather, those feelings or that anger, it's because the community's been using for decades that portion of Harlow Platts, there's this portion that's already a field. for volleyball, soccer, flag football, you know, schools, cross-country practice, meets, and just unstructured play and hanging out from kids at the seven neighborhood schools, including directly adjacent Fairview and Southern Hills. So, what's upsetting is that, or why I'm really upset about it, it's the prospect of converting that free community-use field, that portion, into a walled-off indoor field that the community would have to pay to enter and use. Oh, sorry. Anyway, we'll keep you posted. We go every day. Thank you so much.

[17:22] We'll move on to virtual participants, and the next one is Bill LeBlanc. Hey, Bill, can you… can you speak, please? Yeah. Can you hear me now? Hello, low? Can you hear me? Alright, can you repeat that, please? Can you speak, please?

[18:01] Yeah, can you guys hear me? Yes, thank you. Oh, finally. Okay, good, good, good. All right, I'm not going to take up a whole lot of your time. I'm from the… I'm on the board of the Boco Pickleball Club, so I do want to make a comment on the prior request for, I believe that's the indoor rec pickleball to be, divided into beginners, advanced, and immediate, intermediate, makes all kinds of sense. And the one comment I want to make on that is equity and, Equity and equitable and equal are not the same, so she's absolutely right in saying that beginners need to play with beginners, they don't want to play with advanced, advanced doesn't want to play with beginners. And it's not healthy, and it's not addressing equity at all. So please, please deal with that. My request in general is that we, the Vocal pickleball community, and the club, and the board in particular. are involved earlier and more often and more directly than we seem to be today. We just have the, you know, the pulse of what's going on around the city all the time, and it seems like we're a little bit in the dark on what's going on with the construction at both East Boulder

[19:16] and out at Tom Watson. We were a little bit in the dark when it came to the Chautauqua courts not being available because of the wind damage. We were kind of surprised that, wind could damage, Chainlink fences, so that was… it would be nice to get a little more explanation on whether that was a design flaw, or, something else happened, but it seems like everything's back and intact. We're asking about benches. I think we had duplicate benches at Chautauqua, and we're trying to get them up. to the right place in, North Boulder, where we have no place to sit. Everybody brings their own sling chairs, but we'd like to get that done.

[20:00] And… I think that's about it for me. So, if anybody wants to respond in the 1 minute and 15 seconds that are left, you're welcome to. If not, I will just… Yield the rest, and look forward to working with you guys more closely, than we ever have before, because this is a really critical time in the… in the racet sports for… for the city. Thank you, Bill. L… Alright, next we have Desiree. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Hello, my name is Desiree Casarosian. I live on Emerson, which is by the South Boulder Recreation Center. We moved into this neighborhood in 2019, and I have lived in Boulder since 2004. I grew up in Lafayette, in Boulder County, starting in 1975.

[21:00] Since we have moved into our current home, the South Boulder Recreation Center has been compromised, underutilized, and scheduled for closure. I have had written and verbal conversations with Allie Rhodes, City Council, planners, employees, and organizers trying to save the Rec Center. The Rec Center houses a swimming pool, a commodity lacking in the City of Boulder, and utilized by Fairview High School. One of my four daughters who attended Fairview used it when she was on swim team. I would like to pursue swimming in a master's program at the pool, potentially. In a time when there are fewer amenities available privately and publicly, why would we consider closing this existing public resource? The gymnasium offers a public resource for youth and adults alike to participate in basketball and other indoor accessible activities like tennis and pickleball in the winter months. With very limited indoor recreational opportunities in the city, why would this be under consideration for closure?

[22:01] Having experienced a family-friendly youth program and growing up in Lafayette, I am continually surprised by the lack of programming for youth and their families. The City of Boulder seems to depend on and expects families to participate in private clubs, lessons, and leans on vendor management of their programming, instead of building a robust, family-friendly relationship with the citizens where their children can grow, progress, and thrive recreationally in a public program. I would expect more of an innovative city than I have seen. The citizens have rallied and organized. Our voices have been raised to you to oppose the city plans and prioritization. What has been told to me by a city representative, that is if we want a rec center in South Boulder. We, the citizens, need to figure out how to pay for it. Please consider using the bond funds that are not designated to any specific project to do critical maintenance at South and East Boulder Recreation Centers, and if needed, add another bond to complete the non-critical work.

[23:01] While other recreation centers are taken care of by the city, and we are left to fundraise for ourselves, it is inevitable. I thank you for your time and consideration of my comments. Thank you, Desiree. Next is Lynn Siegel. There needs to be better long-range planning so that we don't find out, oh, whoops, you know, 40 years later, our rec center needs to be replaced. When we build a rec center, we need to have it… the longitudinal financial demands from the whole thing embedded in it. And the way we do this is that we stop these subsidies to these developers. You know, there's a house over on Alpine and 5th. It's 8 bathrooms and 5 bedrooms. what does that say? You know, like, there's… and there's Sundance coming. These are not…

[24:02] things that are gonna benefit, you know, our sales tax revenue will go up, but it won't go up nearly enough to… to help all the people that can't afford housing here, because the housing's also gonna go way up. Everything's up, up, up, up. And… And smaller micro-efficiencies for $2,700 a month at the Olive, you know, for, like, less than… for a couple hundred feet. Nope, this is not… this does not help… Affordable housing. And then people can't afford these fees that you charge them, like everyone's spoken about. And they're also confined to a smaller space, particularly if they're in a micro-efficiency versus communal housing, which Marpa House was… you know, undone. That's the model for affordable housing in Boulder, and it was taken over by a hill developer, basically, who wined and dined the residents and the neighbors that were trying to help them buy it, and the owner in Halifax outbid them.

[25:11] So, why do we have… then he… then he did a bid on the iris fields. Along with Michael Bosma, through the Mapleton Academy, and Rubicon, which is also Michael Bosma. So, there were, like, two competing bids from the same person, basically. That's the name of his contracting company, Rubicon. So, there's a lot of corruption in this town, and too little time to deal with that. Especially when people are moving here like crazy, and driving, you know, every house is, you know, much, much more expensive than in Denver. And… And driving up the cost of everything. And… our rec centers, and even figuring out a long-term plan to replace them. You know, I had a swimming pool in Martin Acres in 1961, and it was in the summer. You know, you could do summer swimming. You know, I have to…

[26:16] basically hibernate all winter, because I'm saving for a heat pump, and I'm at 20 degrees right now in my house, except the part of the house that has the pipes, 54 degrees, but the part where I live is 20. So, let's see… Thank you, Lynn. Alright, that concludes all of our advanced sign-up public comment. If anyone else would like to sign up in person, you can raise your hand now, either in person or virtually. All right. Thank you to all the speakers for your comments. Since there are no other community members who would like to speak tonight, I will now close public comment.

[27:00] Would staff like to respond to any of the comments that were, spoken today? Yeah, I'll speak generally just on funding the recreation centers and that effort, and then let Scott, our Deputy Director, take, on the… Mr. O'Neill's comments around Boulder Community Rowing's fees and the comments around, pickleball coordination and the other comment regarding pickleball updates generally. I will note on the construction projects, I know that our team is looking forward to the next meeting with Boulder Pickleball, and we have project updates tonight that you all will get in that next coordination meeting. But as it relates to Fund Our Future and the recreation centers and long-term financial strategy, I know our team just provided some updates on the webpage. I know folks are eager To hear about next steps, and really what people are eager for is answers. We have been doing a lot of work, you're gonna hear about some of it tonight, you're gonna hear it in depth in February, but really when we're gonna start seeing discussions

[28:00] and answers in April and May. And I think that's part of what we know. We know folks, we know there's lots of stories being told, and I continue to do everything I can to really address rumor control. We are not asking people to fundraise for the replacement of the South Boulder Recreation Center. The city's been saying for a while now, we fully intend to figure out solutions. So I just give that as an example that that, I mean, is concerning and worrying to hear that, you know, those are the beliefs folks have, and we're really working hard, and actually, I see our communications professional in the audience, I appreciate it, just getting help to get the message out to people, keep the story straight, while also being clear where we don't yet have answers, and that's some of the places that we see some of the… just the concern and worry growing, unfortunately, and I appreciate, I'll build on the public comment. One of the things we know is that our, unfortunately. the… are, as cities had explosive growth in the post-World War II era, Boulder had its most significant growth in the 50s and 60s, and into the… even into the 90s, we had growth booms.

[29:01] folks were building to meet that need, and we did not have the long-term plans, not only for facility maintenance, for replacement when they reach the end of their life cycle. So we are being incredibly thoughtful about what gets built, not only the capital cost, the capital cost, but the impacts on energy, the impacts on operating expenses, and what will it cost to replace those facilities. And that just takes time, and it's coming. So, I just wanted to comment that on long-term financial strategy, if any members of the community want to hang around for the meeting tonight, one of our key outcomes for tonight's meeting is to map out the work ahead of the year so that the board knows what's on their plate, knows what's on our plate, and the community knows where conversations are coming. So, we just appreciate folks' patience as we work through this work, and what we really appreciate is folks' engagement, because it does help us. Obviously, we are trying to meet community needs, so just appreciate folks weighing in, appreciate folks advocating for Parks and Recreation and for their community. Scott, did you want to add anything on rowing or pickleball? Yes, I would be happy to. Scott Schutenberg, Deputy Director. I guess I'll start with Jim's comments on Boulder Community Rowing and the cost of fees, and how those have escalated over the past few years. And yes, they have gone up. We all know fees have gone up for

[30:11] pretty much everything in our lives over the last few years. Our expenses have really, escalated as well at the reservoir. Not only do we have additional costs related to, staffing and operating costs. We've come into Eurasian Water Milfoil in the reservoir, and I want to remind everyone that that is a drinking water source for our community, and so that's another factor that we have to consider above and beyond just the recreation aspects of the Boulder Reservoir. What I will do, Jim, is go back and talk with our business services staff, as they have helped us to set fees in accordance with our fee policy and determine What those fees are for each of our rental groups, and, and following our fee policy, and we'll continue to look at things. We do want them to be equitable, and we're disappointed to hear club numbers are decreasing, and so, we certainly want to make sure that we're communicating and being very transparent as we try and make ends meet at the reservoir as well. So, I can go back, and we'd be happy to follow up with you. Thanks. Yeah. Sherry, as for the pickleball, thank you so much for expressing your thoughts and opinions.

[31:19] on open play. I will go back and talk with our staff. Connor Bulger on our team actually oversees a lot of the open play times and how that is laid out. We'll certainly look at Broomfield and how they've developed a model. I did want to point out that we do have a contractor, Gonzo, that we work with that does pickleball lessons, and so Just some pricing on those lessons so you know we have a session that starts March 31st and runs through April 28th, and that's Tuesdays. for Boulder residents, that's $174.25 for that duration. So you can, and that is beginner lessons for pickleball that we offer. In comparison, if you go to, Boulder Pickleball, and, what they charge, they do a beginner 2-hour class, and it's $99 per player. So, it's much more affordable through

[32:16] us to do a class that lasts several weeks for $174, and we have a pretty dedicated staff that want to help people learn, and then we'll also look at those open times to see what we can do to make it a little bit, Easier for those beginner players to jump in and play and have fun. Broofield only charges $16. I'm not supposed to talk? Yeah, you can't. Okay, sorry. But if you have questions, feel free to, Sorry. You can put them into an email and send them on over to Scott, and he'd be happy to answer. Yep. Okay, anything else from staff? Any comments? No? Good, thank you. How about from Pratt?

[33:03] No comments. I'd love to just hear about, what the communication looks like with Boulder Pickleball. Yeah, just sort of the process, to communicate with that group. Yep, and I, you know, I was, chatting… I'm not quite sure it's possible we missed meetings in November and December. I know one of the liaisons we have with them was out of office for a bit, had a medical procedure and recovering. So it's possible that we're… I can understand they might feel out of loop. I don't know the facts there. We have been, both Boulder, Boco Pickleball and Boulder Tennis Association, been meeting with them monthly to keep them up to date since the court system plan on capital projects, as well as the operating adjustments that folks have been making. So we work closely with Vocal Pickleball on adding, adjusting schedules on a regular basis, Megan and her team, for the indoor facilities and others, and so the cadence has been monthly meetings. We might have missed some at the end of the year. Okay, that's great.

[34:00] All right, Bernie? Yeah, I've got, Scott, I know that you're gonna speak with Business Services on behalf of Jim O'Neill and the Baltimore Community Rowing Association. Was the calculation that he shared with us for how the fee was calculated accurate? It's a little bit more detailed than that, but yes, we do look at our annual operating costs. We look at the hours that were open during the high season, during flank seasons, and off-season times, and that calculation is determined to figure out the rental fee for before hours. The piece I would add, though, that for our fee policy and our costing definitions that is missing from the analysis is that adult community members in our fee policy pay 100% of the costs, and Jim mentioned some of the direct costs, but that includes indirect costs. So folks who are at the reservoir before operating hours also need to contribute to the upkeep and cleanliness of the entire facility. They also are wanting exclusive access and for folks to be there when nobody else is in the facility, and so it's a little more nuanced than presented. I understand their challenges and share Scott's interests.

[35:05] that if there's something to figure out, but what we cannot do is allocate very limited subsidy to this group. It doesn't align with our fee policy. I have… and this is a question based on something you said, Scott. And maybe… well, I'll ask the question now, but if it's more appropriate for the consent agenda, we can revisit, but are we controlling Eurasian Milfoil for… Water quality purposes, or is that a recreation issue? I will say that it's actually both, but primarily for drinking water, but I think, depending on how it spreads, and as it grows, it impacts areas like the Twin Beach, where we know we would lose revenue if you step out into the water and there are weeds everywhere. So, it really impacts both sides. And do we bear the total cost for that? We do not. So, we have partners throughout the city, as well as Northern Water, that are also contributing, and then we also receive grant dollars to help, offset costs as well.

[36:05] Thank you. I'd love to add that we're actually paying the smallest fraction of costs representing the impact on drinking water. Northern Colorado and the Utilities Department are picking up a much higher portion of the tag than Parks and Recreation. Thanks. All right, any other comments or questions on public comment from… All right, thank you very much. Thank you again to all the speakers. We really appreciate you coming. Always. Public engagement is the best. All right, we're going to move on to consent agenda. Before we make a motion, Allie, would you like to… is there anything you want to mention about, any of the operations updates? Nope, I'll just note, we always… certainly, there are a lot of folks here tonight, which I appreciate. So this consent agenda are non-controversial items that we want the board to be aware of, but don't require discussion or information, and so we don't have presentation, we don't have materials, but we certainly have a lot of really smart people here if anyone has questions on anything.

[37:06] Great. Would anybody like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Thank you, Bernie. Second. Thank you, Pyra. And, any discussion? On anything in the consent agenda. Marine? I just need to refresh myself for 10 seconds, if you don't mind. I can start if nobody's… Go ahead. Is that alright? Okay. I wanted to ask a question about the, the minimal feedback to the increases. It mentions in the… in the update that there's a… there was minimal feedback to the increases. Can you expand on that? To Recreation center fee increases, I think… is that Scott or Jackson, I believe? I think that was your item, Jackson. He's coming on our Senior Manager for Business Services, Jackson Haidt.

[38:03] Hi there, my name's Jackson Hyatt, Senior Manager for Business Services. The feedback that we received was verbal at the recreation centers. Some folks were, very verbal with our staff about what the fee increases were. We did go through a formal process called the City Manager Rule, where we published everything and looked for written feedback, and with that, we did not receive any formal feedback. We did follow up with, any constituents that were responding with, feedback to let them know of our price increases. what the rationale was behind it, and most of that was resolved. The other big change I'd like to call out is we had heard a lot of feedback on the household size, going from an uncapped number to 4 individuals. We did make a last-minute pivot and increase the size of household to 5 individuals, and that made a lot of, individuals very happy about, our definitions of household.

[39:03] Thank you, and have we seen a good… Have we seen it? Is it remaining steady? the revenue on… on passes, have we seen a drop-off? Is there any information that you have on… We… yeah, we switched, recreation membership softwares on November 14th, that aligned with the new membership structure, so we're still tracking that data. Currently, we are… we did see a slight decline in December revenue. compared to December of 24. The difference between 24 and 25 is in 2024, we had a membership sale going on that was our largest growth in membership over time. We did not offer that sale in 2025, just given the new membership structure, as well as the new software. We were attempting to stabilize everything. What we did see is revenue through, the end of 2025 did grow year over year. And we do see positive trends in our membership data. We have over 35,000 members in our membership database right now. Not all of those hold an active membership, but they are participating in our activities, renting, different facilities, renting shelters, renting courts as well.

[40:18] I'll add to that that we do… our team has a dashboard that's tracked on a monthly basis, and so I know Megan and the team and our marketing team will be tracking really closely, so that we can figure out if, how to adjust. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Jackson. It's good to see you. Good to see you. I want to add something, because it's in the… oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jackson, what was that? I was just saying, thank you for being virtual. Waiter! The virtual thing, sorry, buddy. Sorry. My bad. That was awful, Jackson. I… it's important, because there's a theme you're going to be hearing.

[41:00] With our 22 department plan, we were very clear that without additional revenue, we would be reducing services. For the recreation centers, that means less classes, less operating hours, less pool hours, and so the 2026 budget did show revenue increases. We also are aware and tracking that while we've not seen price sensitivity in the past, we're nearing market rates, and there is a perception that our facilities are aging and not meeting their needs. This is something we have to pay very, very careful attention to in 2026 and 2027, certainly as we plan for the investments in the recreation centers, but as we try to maintain service levels, we are reaching a point where fee increases are going to be problematic. Thank you. I have two things. Go ahead, Bernie, yeah. First of all, I really enjoyed reading about the partnership with YMCA, it seems really, positive and exciting. Thank you for that. And with regard to the naming of the civic area, also very exciting to read about that, and,

[42:02] Fernando wasn't on the board, the naming of Free Bus Park was a really cool process to, experience, and, you know, got to a place where we had a name, that the community really felt attached to. I'm just wondering if there are opportunities for us to attend any of the public engagement work that will happen, if you can let us know what those are. Yeah, that's a great question. I believe our Senior Planning Manager, Mark Davison, is popping in from… Hi, yes, thank you, Good question. What I'll do is I'll work with the team. They're setting up the meetings, and we've been partnering with Growing Up Boulder to work with UFAGain, very similar to Primos, and so once we get a sense of when those meetings are going to occur, we'll happily share them with the board for attendance, obviously being, you know, two members max, typically, to not create a public meeting. Thanks, Mark. Great. Anything else? Just one question. So for the Tom Watson Pickleball Courts update, it looks like the next milestone is in November, so just wanted to check that everything was on track, for it opening over the summer. We have a full slide on, courts updates for both Tom Watson and East Boulder Community Park, the sites where we will have construction on courts, so if you don't mind holding that question… Sure.

[43:21] It'll get answered in just a little bit. Is there a reason why the next milestone is November? It's the next major… we're at the point where we're advancing from design into construction, so it's the next major milestone for prep. And I will say one other thing, just on the same item D with the major projects. I have had a lot of feedback from people around North Boulder Park, That feedback was, that they are thankful for the community engagement that we've done. And they, they like the feedback that's listed, on the, on the park's website. They were slightly concerned that, some of the feedback about leaving the ball fields where they are was not mentioned, due to the swamp, and,

[44:13] they're curious as to what… what we'll actually do to address that public feedback when it comes to final design. And with that same question, will July be the date that we're… that's our next milestone for Prabh? Is that when our next… presentation will be for the design for Northwilder Park. I… Mark, I wonder, so you… part of your work plan overview tonight is the timelines for all of the planning projects, so we can either answer that question now or hold it when we look at that whole timeline together, and either works for us, because… Let's hold it. Okay. Does that work for you, Mark? Absolutely. Okay. Turn my camera off. No, you're fine. You're welcome to stay here. It's good to see you. All right.

[45:01] So we have a motion and a second. No further comments on the consent agenda. Alright, then we will… vote for, here… all of those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, consent agenda is approved. Alright, we have no action items tonight, so next we are moving on to our presentation. of matters from the department, our 2025 Progress Report and 2026 work plan. Yeah, thank you so much. Madam Chair, and I appreciate there's… there are questions on the work plan that we'll… we'll get to specifically in that, so please do hold those, and I know Mark was listening carefully. So the intent of this item is two things. One is we… we don't often, it's something actually the team and I have been talking about, the, you know, you heard the young people

[46:00] talk about their findings. In the fourth quarter, you heard At North Boulder Park, you heard our team talk about the work we're doing with Nature Play. We don't often fit into the agenda, just an overview of the work and Talking about what we've been up to, because you're so busy. And so, we're… and we have… we have lots of needs for your input. So tonight, we are taking time to give an overview of what was accomplished in 2025. It'll help with a level setup, what… where we've got nonspecific efforts, including the long-term financial strategy. And then we're going to give an overview of our 26 work plan, and it'll help with that holistic view of what's coming and when, and how it all fits. And so. I hope you'll bear with us for this. We're okay if you ask questions at any point, so you can just raise your hand, and we're happy to pause. I'm gonna go through the City Council work plan. We're going to go through progress on our 22BPR plan by the six key themes. Woven in there will be an update on our capital improvement program. And so that's the order of operations there. You'll see in there where and when the Prabb touchpoints are specifically for capital projects.

[47:03] Not all of them have we spelled out the PRAB engagement, and we welcome if you have questions or thoughts on any of those, and it's certainly also an opportunity to make notes for Jenny and Bernie as far as what you'd like to bring to the calendaring meetings. Any questions before I begin? All on the same plane? Alright, let's dive in. That's… yep, so I just went through that. Great. And I just… this is a slide that I repeat when we even bring this to our team, because it's really exciting to talk about the major projects, it's exciting to talk about the new initiatives. But it's really important that we remember, that the board remember, that the community know that most of our time and resources are spent simply operating a system. A system that is nationally recognized as one of the best. I hear it when we recruit, I hear it when I have conversations with other people. I know, the community wants more of us, I know we have high expectations, but it's important to balance that with, that we just have

[48:09] a well-situated system, it's a robust system with 3 recreation centers, 2 outdoor pools, a reservoir, a golf course, a bike park, 1,800 acres of parkland. We operate the Pearl Street Mall, we operate our downtown park, and we do a lot, and the feedback we hear from most people most of the time is that we do it really well. And again, I say that recognizing we have opportunities to improve, but whenever we do a statistically valid survey. There's a format that's used all over the country called the National Citizen Survey. Anytime Boulder has asked, issued that survey, we do it every two years, and we ask the community, have you visited a park? Have you visited a recreation center? How was it? Folks tell us over 9 in 10 rate us positively for the health and wellness opportunities, the qualities of our parks and recreation, and those ratings every single time are higher than our benchmark. communities and higher than others. And I say that because it is important in, you know, and you even hear it in my words, of course we want to be better, and of course we're doing… trying to do more.

[49:08] But we are benefiting from a really high-quality system, and we have really skilled teammates that are doing really solid work. I just learned one of our teammates last year gathered some of our sustainability stories for the works we're doing in park operations. And it's now on our National Association's webpage, and I've gotten two emails from folks saying, hey, tell me about this, we want to do this more. They're not doing work like we are, and that's the case Very often. So before I get into the shiny, to the new, the work we're doing to be better, smarter, faster, I just… I have to recognize that, what we have is pretty good. This graphic is one that is shown on a regular basis, and it's… the intent is to show just the funnel of work. So everything we do is, fits in the city's sustainability, Equity, and Resilience Framework. That's out there. 7 goal areas there. For example, one is that we want to be a healthy and socially thriving community, and our work fits under, those, and it cascades down to even just each of our own individuals has very specific goals.

[50:09] For how they advance this work. I'll highlight that next layer down as the Buller Valley Comprehensive Plan. Of course, we're undergoing an update. You will hear from those folks in March. The citywide strategic plan is also in year three of a three-year plan, so by the end of the year, we will launch a new 4-year strategic plan, four years to align with Council terms versus 3, and we expect Council to be more involved with this development of the strategic plan. Underneath all of that is our own department plan. We call it the 22BPR plan. And that's what we'll spend a bit of our time talking about tonight. But first, do want to let you know about City Council's work plan that they just finalized at their… Clarissa, if you'll advance to the next slide, they just finalized at their… they had a retreat just a few weeks ago. There are two priorities from their work plan that are carrying over the long-term financial strategy that you're going to hear specifically about in a moment, and the Boulder Valley Comp Plan.

[51:04] And then they have a draft list of priorities. These will be finalized at their February 5th meeting. These projects are being scoped right now with city staff to understand what does success look like? What actually is your priority in this area? And really importantly for them, what does a doable do in this one-year term? So we have, I believe, five council members up for election in November, including the mayor… sorry, four members of council and the mayor. And so they want a one-year work plan and items they can accomplish in this cycle. So, the new priorities, they want a cost-benefit list of measures that would allow Boulder to become a fire-adapted community, and they want to launch a wildfire home hardening implementation hub. This would be an online library of resources for communities as we seek to be more able to mitigate against the wildfire risk our community experiences. The next is about exploring the city's authority to modify the TIP credit. The TIP credit is a state-manded legislation around wages associated with those who are eligible for TIPS. There is interest from some in the community to revise that.

[52:05] Power resiliency. We experience that today at the East Boulder Community Center and South Boulder Recreation Center. This is about the planned public safety power shutdowns and how that's been an Excel strategy for mitigating against wildfire risk. We just experienced one of those again in December, right before the holidays, and since we saw you last. I'm thinking now we should give you all an overview of what that means for us and how it impacted us. You'll see some of the highlights for our forestry team, but if… Megan and Scott, if you could help me with a follow-up on that, it does impact our recreation centers. Most deeply, because, they're the ones who need power. Our parks are still open, not that we want people in them in a high-wind event. But power resiliency is just about, how… what do we need to do? to address these issues. Sister city language updates, this is just some charter language, pretty simple and easily done through the Charter Committee. And then Council's interested in reducing, bike theft and improving bike security. So…

[53:02] If you have questions about those, I can note them. Again, they're being scoped and finalized now, so I probably can't answer them yet, but I'm happy to take notes if you want us to bring anything back to you. Any questions from Brad on that? What's our role with respect to the, comp plan? I mean, do we have input into that? Absolutely. So… I can't remember the last time they came to this board, but they are coming in March. Meetings ago, I think. Yeah, so with what… it's been one of those funneling processes, right? Where they start really big and wide, and they called it, you know, they did a current state analysis that was a Boulder Today, and we've been talking about a Boulder Future is what they've been calling it. In March, you'll see some of the draft policy changes and land use changes, and those will be fed into the City Council and Planning Board conversation in April. They'll want feedback from all the relevant boards. So your role is, is to provide critical input that Planning Board and Council consider. And just as a reminder for folks, the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan guides development in the Boulder Valley and the areas identified, and it requires a four-body approval. The Boulder City Council, the Boulder Planning Board, the Boulder County Planning Commission, and the Boulder County Commissioners, and all of them will certainly appreciate critical input from the Parks and Rec Advisory Board.

[54:17] Thanks. Any other questions? Thanks. Alright. Moving on, I do want to do a little bit of a, an overview of the long-term financial strategy, and the intent here is a process update. We are bringing some of the subject matter experts to you as an agenda item in February for a deeper dive on actual content, timing. So, again, I may, if you have questions I can't answer tonight, I'll note them, and we'll answer them at the February meeting. This is the timeline you all saw last year. Some of those of you who were here will remember we had the city's budget officer come and give an overview of this work. This was a two-year plan to address many unmet needs across the city. We did advance this work in 2025, the most successful accomplishment being that we prepared and got successful community renewal, the Community Culture Resilience and safety tax.

[55:18] really critical, because it does support addressing many unmet needs across the city and allows us to think about the other unmet needs. You'll hear more about that for sure in February. I know there's questions about, and I think I heard one of the public comment speakers talk about what does it mean that the community culture resilience, or CCRS tax was renewed. What does it mean for the recreation centers? We'll be able to address that in February. We've completed a comprehensive fee inventory across the city, and that… many city fees haven't been revisited in quite some time. Others don't have the same, rigor of approach that we have had to have, and I'll just note that, you know, without additional general fund subsidies, which we've not seen an increase for recreation in over 20 years, we have had to be rigorous about fee-setting policies and where and when and how we increase fees. That's not the same across the city, and that was one of the findings, that our practices

[56:10] Are pretty sound, that we're regularly reviewing them, that we're thoughtful about what costs are included, and that we have consistent transparent policies for how fees are applied. That fee inventory is really helpful, because it allows the city to see where there are opportunities to increase revenues, and that will help all of us. They've, advanced some additional revenue streams, such as the transportation maintenance fee. That's a subject of a lot of community conversation. It's intended to be implemented later this year that would facilitate, improvements to road infrastructure. They also… we have completed a comprehensive inventory of city services. That is all being fed into the community engagement that is coming in Q1, and with that, Clarissa, if you'll switch to the next slide. This is a high-level overview of what is coming in 2026, and I think for the folks paying attention to Recreation Center funding, I think you'll see that a lot of the work is happening now and coming to conversation soon. So, February through April is when the community engagement will happen on the Thunder Future. What we really need to hear from the community is input on prioritization. So.

[57:16] One of the challenges with the way City plans is that we have an open space master plan. We have a Parks and Rec Department plan. We have all these siloed plans, and when you ask the community about just that thing, they say, yes, I love that thing. And so we know the list of wants in a silo. What we don't know is across all of the needs across the city, how do people prioritize them? And so what we will be looking for with the community to help us with prioritization and choices. And, you know, if you had $100 and only $100, how would you allocate that? How would you choose? Because we know what people want. Really, this is going to help us answer how do people choose and what are people willing to pay for? I know folks are eager for those conversations. We are also developing the facility strategy and funding scenarios to address unmet needs across the city, including indoor recreation and

[58:06] South Boulder. Again, we're not expecting folks to go out and fundraise. We are evaluating scenarios, and again, I want to highlight here, that work includes that thoughtful analysis of not just capital costs. It has to include the operating costs. Impacts on energy consumption and the cost to replace them eventually, so that future us is not in this situation with failing buildings. In May, there will be a City Council study session on the long-term financial strategy, and they will weigh in on ballot scenarios. That will inform community polling that will happen in May and June. The City of Boulder is thoughtful always about ballot measures that we advance. We have a very good tracking record of how we advance ballot measures, and the polling is really helpful in informing that. It tells us people's priorities, it tells us methodology that is helpful, it tells us types of questions that are helpful. City Council will use that language to finalize the ballot in the summer. We do expect there to be ballot initiatives relating to the long-term financial strategy and funding some of these unmet needs. And then we'll have an election in November, and we'll go from there. And then over the winter, there will be a long-term financial plan beyond 2026.

[59:15] to address some of, financial policy and gaps, and again, to address some of these challenges we're learning about. We want future us to not be having these same conversations in 10, 20, 40 years. I'm gonna pause there, because that was a lot on the long-term financial strategy. Any questions? Anything from… I have a couple. Go ahead. Unless someone else would like to go first. Yeah, please. So, Allie, we heard earlier this evening about a, what do you call it? A, survey? that the Rematch South Boulder Community Group is doing. How does something like that differ from the polling City Council will do around the ballot metro? Sure. So, when polling is done, it is done by experts who get a statistically valid sample. They will oversample to certain populations to make sure that it is representative.

[60:15] They will use tested measures and questioning to, get valid responses. So I think the biggest difference is that it's more statistically valid, because even though, I mean, I… hearing about the walking home to home, I just… that passion for parks and recreation is incredibly valuable. But this will be, statistically valid because of the methods by which it's conducted. It also will have the choice-making. It won't be just, would you like this thing? It's, would you like this thing, or this thing, or this thing, and how would you prioritize? So it'll pose some choice making. That would be a citywide survey, right? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Citywide, just, I want to clarify, not just across the community, but across city needs, right? Certainly there's unmet needs in parks and Recreation.

[61:04] Across the city, we have unmet needs related to public safety and taking care of our, public safety buildings, our fire stations, roads. And utilities, there's just… there's unmet needs across the city. And just to clarify, it's not a citywide, like, not everybody in the city will get that. Of course, yeah. But we will… Good question. …pull from across the community. Yeah. That's actually the only question I have. Anything? Could you talk about maybe some of the other mechanisms to understand this part of Fund Our Future? how residents are prioritizing their needs against the resources? I'm gonna kick that question to February, because the details of that engagement is one of the… one of the… they're in the final stages of drafting all of that, and so in February, you'll hear about the methods, folks will know about dates.

[62:00] And this is where, again, I… with members of the community listening, I really would encourage folks to make sure they're signed up for city e-blasts and newsletters. We hear from folks, like, I didn't know, I didn't hear, and it's… this is one of the biggest challenges we face. We do have, you know, e-blasts that go out. We try and communicate through social media, but just really need folks to opt into those communications so that they're aware of those opportunities. You will hear more about them in February. Are there any specific communications they should opt into? There's a citywide newsletter. There is, on our, Parks and Recreation webpages, just from the very big homepage, you can scroll down, and there's, I think it's Get Involved, and one of the links is sign up for Parks and Recreation email, and if you click on that, you'll see a variety of options. We have newsletters for our EXPAND program that serves people with disabilities. We have newsletters for our, folks who want to know more about volunteerism. There's a department-wide newsletter that would be the most Because that's where we'll share those citywide engagement news. I would just add, I think the city does a really great job of putting information out about projects when people have signed up for information about those projects.

[63:07] And lately, I've noticed that you're also doing a great job putting information on the general Instagram feed. You know, particularly there have been posts about, not park stuff per se, but about, like, the 30th Avenue road diet projects, and that's been helpful, just to know that there's information on other channels. It's… I'm glad Kate's here listening, I appreciate her being here in person. Kate is our… so our communications department is centralized, so those experts can work together and get that, because I'm not going to be the best person to teach Kate those methods, but our Director of Communications, sure, is amazing, right? But Kate is embedded in our department and focused on just Parks and Recreation communication needs. She joined us last summer, and we are seeing really great, I think, improvements in engagement because of some of the changes she's making. So I appreciate you calling that out. Yeah, I agree. It's just so important to be able to have that touchpoint with the community, and you know, I've signed up for all of the Parks and Recreation newsletters, but I talked to some of my friends, and they just aren't even aware of it, so I think the more that we can do at events to just really spread the word that these communications exist, it's so easy to sign up, we'll just make the communication that much better. I appreciate that. I'll just note that's an area where we're always open to suggestions. Signs do not work.

[64:21] People do not read signs, they're like wallpaper in a facility, and we just, you know, I can't… cush, I just… last time I was walking around North, a woman said, I didn't know about your new software! I had walked by a 3x5 sign in the entryway, I have seen the signs all over our facilities, I know the amount of communication we've done, and yet we still miss people, and it's just something we will… we will ever strive to be better at. I will mention, since Kate is here, I will mention that, I know it's not park-specific, but the poll… that comes out, the statistically valid survey, when it came out for the last ballot measure.

[65:01] a lot of people got it on their phones and just thought it was spam. So if there's a better way to, when it comes through on people's phones, to make it look like it's… something real, I'm not sure how, but you know, text messaging is… I think, personally, I think it's the right way to get in touch with people, but I also get, like. 10 spam checks a day, so if there's a way to make it, like, official Boulder, you know, survey, I think that would be helpful. Anything else from Crab on long-term financial strategy? I don't have them all spelled out beyond February. You will have multiple touchpoints on this project. Your input will be critical to City Council as they evaluate this. All right, this is now… we're going to dive into, the work we're doing to advance the BPR plan, and I just want to remind folks that this plan was approved in 2022. After significant, significant engagement, we hosted our first Spanish-only… Spanish-first open house with this. We did targeted focus groups. We did a statistically valid community survey. We got a ton of community engagement.

[66:10] it received unanimous approval by the Parks and Rec… or sorry, recommendation for approval by the Parks and Rec Advisory Board, by the Planning Board, and it was unanimously approved by City Council. And one of the things I remember to this day is one of our council members just saying that this plan is very good because of the way it dreams for the future. We want new facilities, we want unmet community needs. It also acknowledges where we are, and so with that, I am just bringing back, Well, I'll just remind folks, this is the process we have committed to. It is one of our, principal points that we do not do plans and spend both, taxpayer dollars and community voice to let plans sit on a shelf, and so every single year, review the system, we review the plan, and we select projects based on what's most important next and what we know about what's going on in the community, and so that's what you're going to hear a little bit about.

[67:02] I'm… I brought back this slide. Again, you're hearing a theme in some of my comments tonight, but we showed this slide to every single board that saw the plan in 2022, and we needed to acknowledge that with no additional funding, we would be evaluating levels of service. And identifying community-supported reductions. We are in that position for 2026. I am anticipating that without additional funding, we will be making service reductions for 2027. And because, of how challenging that is, all of this feedback is going to be helpful for us What is hardest about our business is that those services that are most costly or receive the lowest user fees are the ones that are most critical for public parks and recreation. They are services for people with disabilities, services for people with low income, and serving our young people and our older adults. It is hard work, and I am very grateful that we do have a solid fee policy, that we've done the groundwork on understanding costing. But the other thing, I guess the silver lining of that work is that we also said we would do everything we could to identify additional funding sources to maintain our existing levels of service.

[68:10] So as it relates to grants and philanthropy, just since 2022, we have added, staffing resources to help us increase our ability to make grants and to generate philanthropic revenue. We have sought additional tax subsidy. One example of that is that we now have an ongoing grant from the, sugary sweetened beverage tax that is funding some of our Requini program, which provides free access. And we also are working on revenue generation opportunities. You can see that we continue to work towards adults paying full-cost recovery almost entirely across the system, and this is based on community prioritization. We've been reexamining non-resident fees. In 2025, you saw how we're revamping our commercial use programs and other revenue-generating entrepreneurial opportunities. So, You'll hear in a minute about our work to increase grants and philanthropy more, and the conversations coming this year that may impact TAP studies, and just… so know it's a both-and for us. We have to be prepared for a world where we don't have additional revenues, but we're sure trying to avoid that.

[69:10] This is just a snapshot for you of the initiatives in the BPR plan. I meant to PDF and send this to you in advance, because I knew this would be very small. I'm sorry, we still will send this to you, if you'd like it helpful. By color, I just… this is a dashboard of the initiatives in the plan. Where there is dark blue, the initiative is definitely done, such as achieving a CAPRA accreditation. We can check the box on that. The other shade of blue indicates where we developed a new structure, policy, or framework that now guides our work. We call that built and living it. A few initiatives have not yet been started, or have been deprioritized based on what we've been learned since 2022. That is the work that is yellow. And then finally, there's a whole lot of green in here that is in progress. That doesn't mean we're doing 85 initiatives this year, or whatever number that is, 52. There's a significant portion of work here, because some of our goals, our initiatives were not written as SMART goals. They're not specific, they're not measurable. They're more vague. So, for example, in the community health and well-being pillar, there's a goal that says, encourage behaviors to reduce the collective citywide footprint.

[70:17] That's a great goal, but how do we know when it's done, right? And so, one of the work I've asked our leadership team to help with this year is, what might done look like as we work plan and to set the stage for the next department plan? So that's the high-level overview. Our goal is that by the end of 2027, and when we launch our next planning process, the most important initiatives are done. Any that are not yet started or deprioritized align with feedback we've heard from the community, from PRAB along the way. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Scott Shutenberg, our Deputy Director. He has oversight for all of our recreation operations and services, and he's going to talk through the first three themes of the department plan. Thanks, Allie. So the first name I'm going to talk about is Community Health and Wellbeing, and first and foremost, I wanted to start with rec center visits. This number is really phenomenal to see 459,000 visits to our rec centers this past year, which is a very solid number. We've also seen an increase in our drop-in fitness programming, and I really wanted to call out what's happening with our financial aid participants.

[71:23] And so, this is the number of unique participants, and so the growth in financial aid has actually taken us to a point where about 16% of our visits are through financial aid. It's phenomenal, and I'm glad we're able to serve our community that may not be able to afford to come into our centers. But we did identify in the 2022 plan, without additional resources, our financial aid program would not be able to grow and expand. We have allowed it to expand regardless, and so we've seen that incredible growth because there is such a high community demand to come into our facilities.

[72:02] And so that's something we need to keep an eye on, and Megan and I are doing some work together this next year to look at that information, and figure out how do we, make it affordable for people to use our facilities that may not have the resources to do so. So, I think the big thing is, right now, those that can't afford to pay are paying really high costs that help subsidize or cover the costs of those that are receiving the financial aid. So we need to look at that, really long-term on the best way to, to manage that. Some of the key accomplishments, this is a really neat number. So, 5.1 million visits to our parks. And this is the first time we've had this number. We use a software called Placer AI, and it actually tracks cell phone data to tell us who is in our spaces. We can actually, and Mark Davidson could probably go off and talk about this all night if we let him, but, it's really cool, some of the data we're able to track now on where people are coming from, where they reside, and

[73:05] which facilities they're using, or parks they're visiting, and it's really neat information, but 5.1 million visits is pretty amazing. You're all aware of the Smart Rec implementation. We have had really positive feedback about the ease of use and that system and how it's working, and so, as Jackson mentioned, 35,000 accounts have already been created in Smart Rec, which is really cool. A million in sales from November 14th through the end of December. And I do expect that number to continue to increase once we have our final January numbers. A lot of New Year's resolutions come about in January, so we're very hopeful that that number continues to, to increase. We did launch the Future of Parks planning, to understand how our parks are being, used, their condition, and how How we need to invest in them and what the community needs. And so, those are all real, positive steps forward related to community health and well-being.

[74:06] Alright, next slide. Can I just real quick add, when you said we know who is in the park, I want to add a disclaimer, both for the board and folks listening. We don't know specifically who is coming to the parks, right? Placer AI is anonymized data. It lumps it in aggregate, and it doesn't give any specific personal identifying information to us. Thanks for sharing that, yes. It is really exciting, though, to be able to have that information. Youth engagement is something that we take a lot of pride in. Allie mentioned our EXPAND program earlier, serving people with disabilities, and our YSI program, which deals and works primarily with youth and families in our community, and that number of programs and programming has continued to be steady and increase slightly there, and our participant numbers are still really solid. We do have a new number for camps this year, and how we track our camps, and so the number on the left in 2024 was just the BPR camps that we would run. So, our kids camp.

[75:11] our res camp, our MECO camps, those kind of things. And so, this year, the number on the right, we've been able to work with our contracted partners for Goats and Gardens, and Avid for Adventure, and Community Sailing, for example, Skyhawks, and some of those things, and so that number is, is increased. up to over 3,200 participants that have been involved in camps that we're either sponsoring or hosting directly. Our swim lesson numbers continue to be really, really solid in the community, and Megan and her team have done a phenomenal job prioritizing use for swim lessons, use of our pool space, but also meeting the needs of the school district as well. So, a few of the, accomplishments to highlight this year. Most of you, I think, went down to, the Civic area and experienced Wildwoods Nature Play pop-up area. It's so awesome, and people absolutely love that. And so, that was really a cool thing to see that and get that, tremendous feedback. We did translate our Junior Explorer Activities, booklet into Spanish.

[76:18] We gathered teen input for North Boulder Park. The concerts that we did in the civic area at North Boulder Park have been really well received, and then you read in the consent agenda today about the partnership with the YMCA. And so, a lot of really good things are happening there. In 2026, we're going to be working on finalizing our Youth Action Plan, which is also a really exciting thing. Alright, the next one, building community and relationships. And so, Brian Wagner on our team, oversees our volunteer programs. He also helps us, quite a bit with our grants. and philanthropy and those initiatives. And so, you can see our volunteer hours remain strong this year, and our number of volunteers is still pretty consistent across the community. And that makes a tremendous impact in how we're able to keep our parks clean and get things done. And so, some of the accomplishments this year, many of you were at the Chautauqua Grand Opening for the pickleball court there.

[77:22] We also were able to work with a donor there, and that generous donation paid for quite a bit of that project. We launched the new partnership at the Boulder Reservoir, and we have a liquor license, and we have food sales, which is really an exciting thing. You did hear, in November about the Community Access Framework, and how we intend to activate parks and work on partnerships with organizations to activate parks. And then in 2026, we're going to continue to evaluate service gaps and partner solicitation, and figure out what partnerships look like and how we define partnerships.

[78:02] and make sure that we're really doing our best to identify groups that we work with on a regular basis. And a partnership is… has mutual benefit, and so we look at what benefit do they provide to us and the community, and what benefit do we provide to them, and we're looking at a tier system to really identify where different groups fall into the partnership levels. And then certain benefits would be associated with those tiers. So, really excited about where we're at with recreation and programs, and kind of some of the things that have been happening in 2025, and the future, and moving forward. Allie, anything to add? No, that was great. Maybe we'll pause there and see if you have questions on any of that. Any questions from the board? I don't have many. I have a question, but it's… I'm gonna save it for later. Okay. I'll ask one question. The, can you go back one more slide? The…

[79:04] Youth Activity Engagement. No, one more slide. The one with the financial aid visits? Yes. Do you include Play Pass? Is that included in that number from Play Boulder, or is that separate? So that's a program, registration, so the Play Pass is for program registration. So, the participants in our financial aid program may have Play Pass, and they can use that to register for an activity, but no, that's just… That's just the usage at the facilities with their free memberships. So Megan said differently, a young person might have a recreation center pass through Requi. This is their visit to a rec center or a pool. They might also have a play pass that lets them register for gymnastics or other. That would be tracked differently. Is that accurate? Yes. Okay. And so, like, with our financial aid, a kid who's participating in swim lessons, who… they get 50% off of that, up to $500 a year, and the Play Pass covers an additional, I think, up to $250 a year, so they can use both of those things for the programs. Okay, thank you.

[80:08] Anything else? Okay. Financial sustainability has been a pillar of our department planning since our last department plan in 2014. So, just want to show these numbers for 25. Earned revenue is up. I want to call out that both the visits and the earned revenue… South Boulder Recreation Center was closed for 2 months last year while we made those two… those investments to prolong its operation, so the fact that we're up, I know it's ever so slight, but that's despite that closure and pretty impressive. Grants and donation, we saw significant growth. A lot of that is related to that one-time donation we got for the complete refurbishment of Chicago Court. That is significant. We would not have been able to advance that project last year without those funds. Actually, let me say that differently. That court was in the worst condition. We were going to advance the project. It means we now have additional CIP funds to address other unmet needs. So it's huge. We would love to see more of that, and we're working to be better at

[81:05] facilitating donations. And then this is the direct financial aid, and I believe Jackson can chime in if I'm wrong, but this is a calculation of the value we've provided in scholarshiping and the passes. I've already talked about the permanent renewal of the CCRS and the associated bonding authority, and we have the SmartRec software here also around financial stability for two reasons. One, it will really support the data-informed decision-making for costing and fee setting, and it's user-friendly, which is just aligned with some of the goals in that financial sustainability pillar. And then, for 2026, we've talked about long-term financial strategy. We have a project to stabilize Smart Rec, and that's the team continuing to work with the company to continuously improve and learn from, even though it's doing well. I know there's… we're one of their largest customers to date, they're eager to see us succeed, and so we're just working through things to continue to make it smooth like you do with any software.

[82:02] I'm gonna come back to measuring quality, and Jackson's actually gonna go over this one in detail, and with the next slide. This is one of our major… it's actually the… in addition to the long-term financial strategy, this is one of our key priorities for the year. Thanks, Allie. My name's Jackson Haidt, once again. I'm Senior Manager for our Business Services team. Measuring quality is really about, looking at how we describe ourselves as a, high-functioning organization. Last year, we received CAPRA accreditation, which really validated that on a national scale, but we're lacking the data to really share with our community as far as how we, define high quality. So. Throughout the course of this year, we're going to be looking at measurable outcomes across our parks, facilities, and programs to align with the 2022 department plan, have a shared understanding of what quality is, and then make sure that we are putting our budget towards investments that have those outcomes. So that's really intended to support the Fund Our Future conversation as part of the long-term financial

[83:03] Strategy, and will be part of our overall financial stewardship, in line with best practices. Alright, taking care of what we have, I want to just highlight that this theme is also… all of the key themes are carried forward with the 2014 plan, but it just highlights what you're hearing from folks around South Boulder Rec Center. People want us to prioritize fundings and take care of what we have, and so we're eager to find the money to do that. This is a summary of capital investments. You only see the reduction in 25 because we had those major projects in 2024. I have completely blanked what major project we finished in 2024, the golf course. Golf course. Yeah. So, UGC capital will fluctuate as we accumulate and save, save, save, and then spend, and so that number does does, vary wildly. We've got grants and donations here, again, because that does go to, caring for the system, but we mowed 12,000 acres of turf last year, and, that's a big number. Some of the accomplishments. So, folks, last year, the state passed Reg 29, which meant that, any, landscaping equipment under 10 horsepower had to be fully electric.

[84:20] 80% across our system, but our team had to work to get to 100% by June, and we did it. And it was just super cool because it, not only enhances eco-friendly practices, ensures compliance with that state reg, but it also improves air quality and supports other, other health benefits during that peak ozone season, June to August. And so, I guess I'll also want to highlight our senior manager for Urban Parks. You don't hear from a lot because they're so operational heavy, but she secured a grant to support some of the $30,000 expense this took. So that's just one more example of how we are working very, very hard to make every dollar go further. And then, of course, folks are aware we completed the indoor recreation needs assessment that integrated community feedback, recreation trends, demographic data, and

[85:06] inputs, so we know the state of the current system, and to inform that future facility work that's coming this spring. So it's informing the upcoming renovations of South. The short-term maintenance at the South Boulder Rec Center, and then the long-term plans for North and South. And I say, I say that we as the city's facilities department, the finance department. And then in 2026, we are… our asset management program, Mark and Planning and Urban Parks and others, are really working to mature that so that we have A work order system that gives us good data on a regular basis on the condition of the system. a good inventory, a complete inventory of our system that informs, then, capital spending across the park system. So, we have methods right now for prioritizing the CIP across the park system. We're continuing to improve them so that when we have $4 million a year in capital, we know it's going towards not only the asset in the worst condition, but those that have the highest community impact.

[86:11] increasingly going to be faced with choices where there will be 10 ways to spend every dollar, and so part of the data-driven work is to show the condition of the asset, the benefit to the community, and you'll see a whole prioritization system. I'm really excited for that work. One, because it's modernizing, but again, I'm anticipating hard choices, and the more frameworks we have, we've been through this before, the more frameworks we have to be transparent about decisions, the better folks could understand it, even if they don't like it. We'll go to the next one. Wouldn't, the courts plan also be something that was accomplished? 24. We're on to implementing it, which is such a great segue, Jenny. Time is flying by for me here. Yeah, I know. Mark Davison, our Senior Planning Manager, is going to give an overview of CIP projects in 26, so he's got a slide that talks about geographics, and then his next slide is going to talk about timing, which is where we'll come back to some of those questions you had, Kira.

[87:04] Yeah, thank you, Ali. Yeah, Mark Davison again, Senior Planning Manager. I just, if we just pause for a moment and take a look at this slide, you can get a sense of the capital improvement projects that are going on across the city for our park system. In orange is what we call our park refreshes. This is where we're looking at a number of assets in parks that are probably aging, or in need of a renewal, or we frankly might be adding some new assets based upon service levels or trends, like pickleball courts. The blue is where we're taking care of a particular asset. And then the purple is some of the work we're doing on rec centers. I think, as Ali pointed out, it's a… we're in a tough period. There's very limited dollars for our capital program, so what we're really thinking about is how do we maximize input, and how do we become more efficient in the way we spend those dollars? One of those is we've actually created more in-house work, less work with consultants, for example. We've figured out ways to recycle trees, to build play areas. So we're looking at all these different ways to not just maximize input, but frankly, make it a bit cheaper to build parks and renew them.

[88:14] Obviously, all of this is guided by the 22 department plan. And I think there's sort of four major themes you're seeing in this map. First off, I want to say you notice how it's spread out, but there is a focus on the downtown. We've got a bit of a civic area, the Pearl and Barker Park, are all part of a larger-scale downtown improvement effort that we are closely working with our other departments. We've also got a really good focus on equity. I want to say that Primus must be the biggest equity part project we've taken on. And feel, as a department and a city, really proud of the work that's moving ahead on that. At a smaller scale, you'll see on the top there, the reservoir, the ADA dock replacement. Sounds simple, but that's a two-year project costing $500,000, just to give you a sense of the work that's needed there.

[89:00] And then, lastly but not least, I really want… sorry, second from last, I really want to point out that we do have an aging park system. North Boulder Park is 100 years old. Bill will be coming to you soon with an update on that project. And Bill's been doing a lot of work on the history of the park, and you'll see how it's changed over time. The ball fields used to be in the middle of the park. the way the park was organized was very different. There was actually very few trees, and it's a good example where we've got a wonderful park, but the system, because it's 100 years old, really needs a lot of replacement, a lot of that sort of underground updating. And then lastly, I want to mention Boulder Junction. Which is over there, sort of in the middle of the map, and that's a great example where we've got new development going on in the city, and we're frankly just trying to keep up with park service levels to ensure people equitably and in new areas have access to parks. With that, can we move to the next slide, please? So you see here, you just see it in a tabular format, and you get a sense of the work that's going on.

[90:03] The, sorry, apologize for earlier, there was a typo. We will be coming back in Tom Watson in April with an update, and we are hoping for, I believe, an August opening of Tom Watson for the 12 courts. I'll talk about that a bit more in a minute. You know that I'm paying attention. I saw… I saw November on there, and I was like, I think that's a little late. I do appreciate that, I do appreciate that. I think that was left over from last year, when we were hoping it'd be a bit earlier. Nope. Basically, you'll see there, where we're coming back to Prabh, that the one thing I want to point out at the top is we've been discussing tonight, you've heard from Ali and from Jackson, what do we do about the, Finances. How do we better support funding for the parks? And then as planning manager, my role is to really coordinate the future of what parks, and we've already done the future of rec centers, and how we pull all that together so we can create a 2028 department plan that sets a course for the next 6 years.

[91:00] And that's the important piece of this work. While we're dealing with this major project work where you'll see construction in 26, you'll see that ramp up in 27 and 28, the goal is that the 28 department plan will land in a realistic and innovative way the work for the next 6 years of the department. And then finally, we'll go to the next slide, and I'll just do a couple of examples. You can see some of the work on the ground. Top right, Tom Watson, yes, 12 outdoor pickle courts with lights are first in the system. Three small court shelters, you know, just for the amenities, like the seating, and also a food truck plaza. We know that's something popular with the community aspect of pickleball. As we put that on the ground, hopefully by August, we'll also be having some things in 2027, because we do have to replace the play area there, we do have to replace the bathroom, so there's some other site elements that need to be taken care of. We want to get the pickleball on the ground, and then we'll follow up with some of the other amenities. And please, don't worry, we'll make sure there's porta-potties in the meantime while we get the permanent bathroom in place.

[92:04] On the bottom, you see Barker Park, that's the one I mentioned in the downtown Civic area. It's a one-acre site. And something that I'm really excited about here is we came to the Prabh, I think it was just before the end of the year, and we talked about some of our innovative efforts with play, and really reaching into children's mental health and physical health, and thinking that through. And we've seen the success mentioned at Wildwoods. This is our first permanent Nature Play, Nature Discovery Area. And the other thing that I'm really excited about this, if anyone's been to Bagger, it feels like it's almost like a kid's prison, with the way the fencing is around the outside. So we're really breaking down some of those barriers with innovative design and creating a lawn that'll also be a community gathering space, so it really does feel like a park again. And, we've had a little bit of a holdup there. One of our construction crew is going on family leave. For 3 months, so we've had to push that back slightly, because some of this will be in-house construction, again, to save money. So we're hoping for groundbreaking in the fall, and hopefully, opening in window of the end of this year.

[93:09] And that's it for me. Thank you so much, Mark. Organizational readiness, this is… I think we'll use a different word next time, but this is really just about the care and the development of our workforce. A lot of the initiatives around advancing retention, advancing diversity among our workforce. In 2025, we're going to keep celebrating it. We did achieve accreditation by the Commission for the Accreditation of Parks and Recreation. As a reminder, less than 2% of all agencies across the country have received this designation. on our 2026 work plan is really… we… one of the ways that we develop people is through internal teamings to advance some of the work. So we have a learning and growth team that is, every year they mature our learning and growth program, which includes Lunch and Learns, which includes attendance at various conferences, which… which includes,

[94:06] what am I missing that the Learning and Growth Program includes? It's robust, and actually, it's interesting looking around, because I know Megan, one of the key ways she's grown in our organization is through leadership on the Learning and Growth team. We also have a safety committee, so every single year, we are working to improve safety. This year, the focus is in safety in our outdoor parks, so our recreation centers, our pools. They do in-services all the time. They have… they are a well-oiled machine when it comes to emergency action plans. We're less… we're less well-oiled in our outdoor parks, and we need to make sure we're doing everything we can to support outdoor worker safety. And so, certainly, they do a job hazard analysis around operating a chainsaw. We're good in that way. I don't want to create concerns about, you know, operating heavy equipment. It's around what to do if you feel unsafe, what to do when there's a wind event and making sure we have really good protocols and folks know what to do when there might be a threat in the parks. We also have a department equity and belonging team, and that is focused this year on some of the ways that we communicate with community members who don't speak English. It's on ways that we include folks in our programs.

[95:14] Alright, that's our overview. I know you're eager to get to all the administrative business that you have on the agenda, but if they have any other questions, feedback, thoughts. We welcome them, especially as we calendar out your meetings. I'll tell you now, as I look ahead, to your future board items, we didn't necessarily talk about the Prabh work plan, but in February, you're gonna get to hear that long-term financial strategy process update and engagement overdue. We're gonna, Shihomi Kriagawa is gonna come talk to you about the Pearl Street refresh. At your March meeting is when the Boulder Valley Comprehensive, the draft plan will be coming to you. You'll be seeing civic Area Final Design and get an update on the naming process. So that'll be robust. We will also, prepare to onboard our new members, and then the April meeting, would have that mix of onboarding and Prab business to start the 2027 budget process. That's the first time I've said that, and it's January 26th. That's pretty good.

[96:15] Questions, comments from the board? Well, just wanted to say the average tenure, 7.6 years, very impressive. Also, nice to see that it goes up. I mean, it just shows that, you know, we're able to retain talent and people who know the community really well through working, for so long. With the City of Boulder. And then I also was excited to see the grants doubling, from, 2024 to 2025. Is there anything that we learned through that process, that can apply to maybe doubling again in 2026? Yeah, absolutely. So, finding grants is everyone's responsibility throughout the department, and so You heard Ellie mention this. Various people throughout the department have really been looking for grants and finding grants and identifying. And then Brian Wagner on our team helps with the application process and reviewing the content as we apply for grants. We've been very fortunate to receive several grants this year. Typically, success rates in grants is not real high.

[97:22] But we've been very strategic as to what we decide to go after, and I think it is a matter of continuing to apply. Our YSI program supervisor, Molly, applied for several grants, and there were several she didn't get, and it was very disappointing. But when we do hit, it makes it really exciting, and so our team is taking a lot of ownership in that, and Brian's serving as a resource to help with that, and Brian Berry, who's on the call, has provided great leadership in that area. And really, we streamline the process, and making it easier for people to, to go through and apply for grants.

[98:04] I'll add that when we don't get grants, and when we get feedback, certainly not all grantmakers have time to give individual feedback, but a common theme in the feedback is the perception that Boulder has neither the need For grants, and that we're resource rich, and so we're not as competitive with other communities. Where we are most successful in getting grants is when we're piloting or innovating something new. And so that's something that we're leaning into. Our grants team is actually coming to an upcoming leadership team to talk about goals and targets for you. Where I think we have more opportunity is in the philanthropy. I have a question about slide 3. And actually, this is sort of a question for Jenny. You're still on the playboard, right? Yes, but I'm going to bring that up when we get to matters from the board, but go ahead. I'll just ask a question, you can decide if you want to answer later or convert. I'm just wondering if it might be feasible for us to get, a representative from play to come talk to us about their activities and their…

[99:04] philanthropy activities that we might be able to support. Of course, yeah. I mean, that'd be something we could add to a future agenda. Absolutely. They would love to come. I mean, certainly, like, we keep hearing over and over again how there's just not enough money, and… I don't know, it feels like we're, Feels like there's more money in this community that is not being donated, and we shouldn't get it donated to us. Yeah, I agree with that, for sure. I had a question about the grants, too, and so the increase in grant was primarily due to the Chautauqua I might have misspoke. Did I attribute that in the wrong category? The grants was all grants. Grants was all grants. I'm sorry, I misspoke. And so, we did get the substantial grant, as you read about Eurasian water milfoil and your consent agenda. There was a, six-figure grant that we received to help, cover some of those costs. That was not one that we had originally anticipated, so that was a real positive one. And then there were just several other, smaller grants that we applied for. Our EXPAND program is regular grant writers that do a good job of receiving grants, and so we just had a few this year that went above and beyond, and, and helped us to double that money, and like you said, we're hoping to do that again.

[100:21] So, I may be speaking about the donations. That was the one that… was that the one that doubled, pretty much? I'm pulling that up now to confirm. One of the, one of the big increases, Boulder County IDD, so Intellectual and Developmental Disability Grant, we did see a big increase in that one for this year. It's… grants and donations doubled, and Scott, I just want to double-click on that. They're paying… and Jackson can… I might be missing up the details… I think they're paying for two, three-quarter time employees through that grant to directly support some of the programming for people with disabilities. And I believe that grant was just renewed for two… Jackson came down to save the day, thank you. It's a total of 60 staff hours that are being paid for by that grant in 2026. They also worked for us in 2025, same deal, 60 hours a week.

[101:10] Okay, not 60 hours over there, 60 hours a week, so yeah. That's huge, because, you know, I'll just note, EXPAND is one of the areas where we could grow, and it is, by policy, low-cost recovery, and so that means it takes additional funding to grow the program. Other questions? I'll, just wanted to highlight that North Boulder Park again, we didn't really touch on it, so… Mark, can you just… I think he had it on the slide, it's coming back to you all. It says July, I thought it was April. Can you check the timing on when they'll hear back on North Boulder Park? Yeah, I think what's causing the confusion is what's on the consent agenda, and then what's, like, matters from the department, so I'll make sure we get that updated for the next meeting. And so when in… are you… do you know, or do you need to check with Bill when that's coming back to Prabh? I thought it was April.

[102:05] Yeah, I want to check with Bill, just because we did a bunch of adjustments to the design based upon the public feedback, and we're trying to make sure they work with our engineers, so we… I need to get back to you on the exact month that'll happen. Perfect. And so, can I just check base on process, then? What I believe is happening is that we did take in a lot of feedback, and I appreciate your comments on that webpage. If you haven't seen it, we should have linked it in the packet or sent it to you all, but the team Did a summary of what they heard and what they're doing with it at that last December open house, and what I hear Mark saying is that they're working now with the design team to see what's feasible, what can work, there's some tricky water conditions in that site, and then they'll be bringing it back to the community and to Prab a final draft design. Where can I find that information? Because, I tried to get into that meeting, and after circling around the parking lot 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 times, I saw Scott leaving. Yeah, it was… it seemed like it was crazy madness, and then the next day, I got a bunch of

[103:01] I mean, I'm there almost every day, and a bunch of comments from people about how to go, and what was going on, and… Yeah. Bill has done a phenomenal job with the website, so there's quite a bit of information on the website, so I think that's a great starting point. We'll send that to you, yeah. Yeah, I'd love to see that summary. Yeah, so on the North Boulder Park project page, there is, About halfway down, there's a project update that says January 26th, Common Questions and Facts, and so I'll send that to you all. We should have included that in the packet, it's really well done. Does that answer your question, Jenny? Absolutely. Perfect. And, I wanted to mention that the link to the… webpage that shows… the, It says, the report, your work plan, the web, but when you click on the online, it's beautiful. Like, that is a beautiful web page. Which one? Oh! It's very well done. Well, Ms. Kate Hernandez, I'm glad you're sitting in the audience again. What good timing. So that's something that Kate has really helped us make happen. That's really nice, yeah. I like that the video's in it, and the way that

[104:17] I've never actually seen a web page function like this, so… It's kind of interesting. Yeah, I really, I really thought it was pretty fascinating, so… Oh, thank you so much. Good job. Any kind of… this is a dangerous question. Is there something important you think we're missing? I just think we're all very anxious for the work that's ahead in the next few months. Yeah. Eager for answers. I shouldn't speak for everyone, I am very anxious for that. Yeah. Can you translate anxious, meaning you're worried about it, or you're eager for it? Both. Okay. So, I mean, I have a lot of anxiety that, The community will not be willing to pay for the things that we want and need.

[105:05] And I also, like, I have anxiety that we are not going to get to a place of agreement where We can look at the entire city as a system and say, these are… what we all want and need, and we can all agree on. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I… I understand that concern, and certainly on… on how to get to agreement. I am grateful that we'll be asking the community what it's willing to afford. I feel like for a long time, the answer has been, well, we can't afford that, and I don't think that's advanced the conversation to a place that is helpful. I think it's… I am grateful that we're mapping out these conversations, and we'll ask people, and we'll know. I mean, Boulder has an incredibly high desire for parks and recreation, that's lovely, but funding has not kept up with that, nor has it kept up with the aging system, both across parks and recreation centers, and so… This… I keep telling our team it is on us to meet this moment, because it sure is an important one, and I'm grateful the conversation is happening.

[106:01] And I just think, you know, I've followed conversations, as I'm sure we all have, about the recent transportation fee that was passed by City Council, and… you know, in certain parts of the community, people are very upset about that, and it's like, we're kind of paid to fill the potholes, like, what are we doing here, people? And I'm worried that we're gonna get to a place like that, where folks are like, well, I don't… The rec center's fine, we don't need a new one. That happens in communities all over the country and across the state. I know, Megan, did you want to add something here? Well, no, exactly. I was like, I know that this process is taking some time, but I actually really appreciate that, because it means we're taking time to do it really well, and when you do something really well, hopefully we get something that the community is behind, and that actually they want. I mean, I've definitely seen communities post the same ballot item 3 times. for a new rec center, for a new something, and it's been not passed each time. And certainly, like, that's the choice of the community, but if you do it thoughtfully, and you take your time and do it well, you know, hopefully it's well represented what the community actually wants, and then it goes forward if that's what the community wants.

[107:06] There's a real challenge here in the limits on both property tax and just sales tax thresholds, right? Like, there's a realistic ceiling that'll be part of the math ahead. the, the concern, I mean, kind of the colloquy right off of what Bernie was saying, is I think that it's important that we look at all departments, but That's also a little scary in trying to develop a ballot measure that… hits what people really need. I don't know, so I'm also anxious about how we'll move forward, and what that survey comes back looking like, and then how the city decides to develop a ballot measure that hopefully Doesn't strain the city residents, but also Passes. Yeah. We'll have to see how it goes. really grateful for an advisory board that'll help us with the critical thinking. It's not easy work ahead, I'm not taking it lightly at all.

[108:07] Any other comments on the presentation today? Okay, thank you very much, everybody, for all the hard work you did to… create that for us, and I don't remember doing a presentation like that last year, so I thought that was a year since 2014. Okay. One of the things we're really proud of. Just, I mean, it is our commitment that every single year we're going to talk about the department plan and the work that we're doing. I mean, it may not look exactly like this, but I actually took last year's slide deck and updated it. Thank you for that. Okay, so we'll move on then to matters from the board. This portion of the meeting is for members of the board to report on CRAV's annual work plan. Goal of each member attending two or more Parks and recreation-related community activities per month, promoting parks and recreation through social media, attending site tours, and supporting the department's partnership initiatives.

[109:00] Before we get to that, though, in the agenda, we have a few administrative tasks listed. The first one being our 2026 meeting dates. So, we can take a look at those. Do we have a… Let me put that up on the screen. So I think, obviously January has been accomplished. The only… the only conflict, it looks like, oh, well, we have Memorial Day, and then Thanksgiving and Christmas are always kind of up in the air. So for Memorial Day, we would want to move that meeting

[110:04] Let's take a look at the count. So for May, is there any… does anybody have any input as to how you would like to handle the May meeting? I would just suggest that we move all three of them a week earlier, and, you know, December and November, if we need… if we end up canceling those, we can cancel those, but, Hanukkah is early in December of this year, so we can move a week earlier without having that conflict. And then we can clear the holidays. Okay, I like that suggestion, just making sure there's no other conflicting holidays on those. dates, I think that everything looks good. Does that work for staff? I'll review with the team. nothing is jumping ahead. I know, Memorial Day should be fine and great. Yeah, I'm not coming up with concerns. We will want to, with the proposal to move just the Monday before, we'll want to review… do a review of major holidays. I don't know off the top of my head.

[111:06] there are other religious major holidays that we try to avoid, so we'll check those, and so maybe we can bring that back to you. What I'm hearing is… proposed to move them all bump a week, and so Clarissa will be able to help us with just a review. The city has a calendar of all the major holidays and other board meetings or events that we might want to consider, and we can bring that back. Perfect. Thank you. Are we still considering adding another meeting in April for onboarding? That would be the board's purview. I can say that we found it helpful to onboard new members all at once, and would recommend doing it again. What do you all think? And does that have to… that would be one where we're not conducting any new business… any business, technically, so we could run it without quorum, because it would just be an onboarding meeting. Totally. Okay. Yeah, and you can… I just want to clarify something Mark said earlier. More than two Prab members can come to an engagement opportunity. It is city business, it's publicly noticed, and so in orientation, we would notice it, and if more than two of you were there, it's totally fine. Okay.

[112:10] Do we want to pick a date for that? It's a great idea. I believe last year we did it the second week of April. That would be the 13th, Monday the 13th. I feel like there's a BVSD long weekend in there. Easter Monday's the week before. And Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are the week before. So the 13th looks to be okay. Any input from the board on an onboarding meeting? Not mandatory, but we would love everybody to be there to meet the new members before their first meeting, April 13th. I have a very… I have a work trip that week, and I don't typically leave for the work trip until Tuesday, but it may be too much going on that week for me to be there. Okay.

[113:05] Anybody else have any… Questions or comments about that particular day? Works for me. Works for you, too. I wonder if it's worth asking, I mean, Mike and Kira, you were both new board members last year. Was that onboarding study session in April helpful to you? Should we consider tweaks to it? Definitely helpful. Yeah, I thought it was very helpful, as well as having a meeting with Bernie, too, I think. You know, that really… kind of made me feel comfortable and gave me ideas of what to expect, and I really appreciate that outreach, so… I mean, if maybe we can do that, be available to do that, too, I think it's helpful. I found it very helpful. Yeah, and like, I guess just to talk about that for a second, like, historically, we've had one or two new members. Last year, we had four, five. Five. So, you know, I met with all five of the new members. I think maybe you did too. I called, I talked to each one of them before the meeting. Yeah, so,

[114:03] this year, with two new members, I won't have to do quite as many copies, but we should… and we didn't want to do tonight, but I think, If… In the near future, you know, are entering your second year, entering your second year, maybe you would each want to volunteer, or maybe Yvonne would also want to volunteer to have that coffee with the new members. Yeah, no, I'd be happy to. I thought it was very helpful, yep, to talk to both of you. Great. I'm willing to do it, too. I'm also happy to. Part of your board rhythm on the calendar already, just as a holdover from last year, we try and bring to the chair and vice chair for agenda-setting things that happen every year in March. you'll know who the new members are at your meeting, because Council will have appointed them on March 6th, and you could assign and divide mentors and the support for the new onboarding members. You could have that as an agenda item. We've got it penciled there for you. Great. Alright, I think that sounds great. So, just to put a pin on the conversation, it seems like we should do that meeting. Yeah, she's got it on there, I think that we should, yeah. Great. I think we should do it. Yep, so that's, to…

[115:08] wrap that up, we'll… we'll consider that a date, and we'll have the, the staff let us know if there's any conflicting situations with that one, or with any of the other moving up a week. Perfect. So we'll bring that back as an item for you in February to approve final dates with some information from us. Great. All right, any other comments on meeting dates and holidays? Alright, next. Point of topic, item B, is meeting facilitation guidelines, which are the paper that were put out, also attached to the, Right? That's what this is? Okay. Also attached to this is, attach your… packet, it's the last slide in the agenda. This is based on some feedback from the board. Bernie and Allie created this document that is just an overview of discussion rules as based on

[116:09] Robert's Rules of Order and our, our, the Prab organizational documents. So, if you have any questions about any of these things, let me know. Or let Allie know, or let Bernie know. And, did anybody want to comment on these? Yeah, I was kind of wondering where they came from, I know we have a handbook, I think, and I didn't find anything in that handbook that addressed it in as much specificity as this proposal. So is this something that we're considering to be placed in the handbook, or is it… Bernie created it, I'll let him speak to it. Yeah, it's, you know, meant to be… we'll call it supplemental to the handbook, and I think we could certainly add it to the handbook,

[117:04] I received some feedback that, you know. not everybody's finding their voice in the room. So the intent of this document was to facilitate, a conversation that would make room for every single member of our board. I thought it was helpful when we met in November. Tonight, we have a small group, and it wasn't really… didn't feel necessary. I didn't… you know, I think we all contributed, hopefully as much as we wanted. I think it also helped that the topics on tonight's agenda were not as controversial. So, my hope is that, This is something that the chair can keep in the back pocket and, you know, implement when we need help facilitating our meetings, but maybe at moments like tonight, when it's not necessary, there's no need for us to follow the letter of the law every single What? So, in that regard, I was just wondering if, instead of calling them rules. Because it seems like rules are in the handbook. We either put it in the handbook, or maybe we just call it guidelines.

[118:03] So it's not, you know, somebody's not following this. You can draw attention to it if we need to, but not be so rigid about… you know, the rule connotes for me, we follow it all the time, yeah. No, that's fine. And I also, you know, our handbook does… specify that the chair runs the meeting. Yeah. And, you know, like. I think that's been interpreted very broadly. Like, our former chair, Elliott, he was… he had one style, Jenny has brought a different style, I introduced a different style. So I… I think that's fine if we call them guidelines versus rules. Yeah, that's just my suggestion. Thank you. I mean… No, I feel like since the… it's very meta to comment on it. No, I think it's great to, like, to just even have this document, because I think there will be certain meetings, that maybe a different style, could be helpful in creating more, productive discussion. And then there's gonna be other meetings that are just gonna be a little bit quieter by nature, and we probably don't need

[119:14] Heavier guidelines for those types of meetings. But, I mean, especially if we're… as we're thinking through, like, some of the big topics that are going to be discussed over the coming months, I think guidelines like this could help us as, you know, discussion becomes a little bit more, like, lengthier. Just… there's more viewpoints that people are going to be bringing into the conversation. Right, and I think to the extent that it facilitates, Giving people a voice, or the, you know, more… more opportunity to voice and feel more comfortable, and this is great. Definitely. Good idea. And we will have an open chair and vice chair position, as we do every April, so… Everyone's free to… apply for that position. So yeah, feel free to talk to your…

[120:10] neighboring Prab members about your, wishes, or if you have intentions to potentially run. I will not be rerunning for chair, so it will be open for sure, and… Anybody is welcome to, step in and lobby for that. Actually, just out of curiosity, this is semi-related. Do you know how many years you have left in your term? You know, I was asking my wife that tonight. She said, did I have a 6-year term or a 5-year term? I think it's a 5-year term, that's what she told me, so… Yeah, 4 more years. Okay, and you too, right? I think so, too. Okay. And Jenny, you have 2 more years? I have 3 more years. And then both of our new members will have 5, I believe. Because Rob had a 1.

[121:01] And I think the other one's a 5, and they're both 5s. So, everyone's got long turns. Hopefully that will lead to, better stability for this board. Agreed. You all just nailed that right off the top of your heads, that… So if we're cutting down. The only thing you missed, I think Yvonne was appointed to, a two-year term. I believe she was fulfilling Jason Unger's seat major, that he vacated with transition to school board. So, Yvonne's term is up in 27. Robert… Rob's was up this year. And so that'll be a 5-year seat. Caroline's term is up in 28, so that will be… This year, a 3-year… well, 2-year seat. Jenny, you're with us through Twitter. Alright, Mr. Mike and Kara through 2030. We'll update this, Clarissa. Will you have… this is… you know what document I'm looking at? Let's make… let's make sure to update this in April, just so we keep the seats straight and everybody's clear. Absolutely. So the ones coming out are 5 and a 3.

[122:09] For 5 and a 2. Caroline's is 2, so that's seat 4, and seat 1 will be 5. Okay. How many years do you have? I have 2 more years, yeah. Yes, I'm all hanging around. Yeah. Thank you all for your service, we're so grateful. Of course. All right, and then lastly, Prab Matters, which is the paragraph I read off before we began this conversation. So, we could start with… Mike over there, is there anything you would like to discuss? Prab-related activities, anything you've attended? No, I made an attempt to attend the, the North, Boulder Park thing, and I was really impressed at the turnout. Which was great. Even with the signs on the door, apparently people were focused on it, and people who go there all the time told me that they were gonna attend, so…

[123:08] If you could walk, it was great. That's… that's the extent of my involvement. Great, thank you for trying. Bernie? I… this is not really a Boulder Parks thing, but I had the opportunity to go a little bit behind the scenes in Haleakala National Park in January with a good friend who… he and his partner are park… national park rangers, and they're currently at Haleakala. And it's just… it made me sad that their park and all the parks that those two have worked in, just like our parks, are underfunded. And, just wish that we had more money for recreation and outdoor spaces. So, something for us to try for. Yep. So nothing to report recently, but I am really excited about getting involved with, the renaming of the civic area, and I am also just very curious just to hear what people

[124:06] like, what terms people actually use to describe the space, and I… because I think it's interesting, like, with Primos, I mean, it's like a new park, you can kind of give it a new identity, but this is, you know, it's such a core area for Boulder, but the name it actually has isn't the one that people are using today, so I think that'll be a really interesting naming exercise. Pretty comfortable. For me, I attended the North Boulder, somehow I found parking, and got in there, and it was lovely. They did a great job of making sure everybody was heard, and they took lots of feedback, and it was… everybody was there, so… That was great. Play Boulder, I mentioned to Scott, I was sick for the last meeting. I tried to sit on that one also, but didn't make it all the way through. I will remain on that board as the Parks Liaison through the new term, through April, but then I would like somebody else to kind of give play a fresh look, if anybody is willing to take on that responsibility.

[125:13] I figured I would leave it on through April, just so the new board members might have the opportunity to… put on a… you know, if they… if they would be interested in that also. So, I think it may be beneficial for one of our existing board members from now to be on there, only because they're more familiar with the program. Yvonne might be perfect for it, as well. She's not here, but I think I will talk to her about that as well, so she knows that that's available. position coming up. And I think that we have, boards and commissions conversation… or, boards and commission… We have… it's scheduled for one of the agenda, it's for next month? Is that next month?

[126:00] No, it's for March, or April, I'm sorry, it's the liaison role assignments. So that's in our regular meeting agenda item for April, which makes sense, because we'll have the new members there, so… We can… wait for that to happen, to make that decision. Again, I just wanted to make it. Aware that that was available, and it is a lovely… A lovely board to be on, they're really great people, and they do really great work. Can you tell us a little bit more about what your work has been? you won't have to do everything I did, because I went in there and immediately had to redo all of their organizational documents, which was not on job description when I got in there, but, you know, I've been on so many boards and created a couple of nonprofits, and so a lot of my background is just in board administration, and so I… I was able to help them do that rather quickly, and so now they have a lot of great onboarding documents. with, good information about what that, what that organization does and what your expectations are as a board member. Really, they have one month, one meeting every month, and then a lot of different engagement opportunities that you're not required to go to, but from their,

[127:08] Play Pass opportunities and their Tree Trust opportunities, they're out in the community all the time. There are lots of different parks, events, and… So it just kind of gives you the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the equity side of things because of Play Pass, and then about forestry, which is something that I didn't know very much about when I, began, and now I have two complimentary trees in my backyard has given to me from Gold Park to play. So, and they do a lot of fundraising. That is, they were a partner in the Chautauqua Pickleball Courts. And so that, is something that, if you're talking about fundraising, that is a great place to start, for sure, so… And they have really good… board, and then obviously their director, Angie Jeffers, does a nice job as well, so… Yeah, I would say it's not a super heavy lift at this point. They've got a lot of things going. They've got… we've got new board members, most of which came from people who had applied for Prabh and not gotten on, so you have a lot of people who are really interested in our park system and the equity piece of it. So, I will stay on their golf committee for the golf outing that we do with play every September.

[128:14] I've been involved in that. That also was kind of a heavy lift, because I got on the summer before the very first one, so we were, like. on fire trying to figure out how to do that. Last year was… second year was more successful, so I'm happy to stay for the third year for that. So that's just… that's just an attendance issue for somebody who's on the board now. And I'll continue my work there. Any other questions about plate? Thanks to the run out. Yeah, absolutely. One meeting a month, really. That's all the time you spend on documents and making the golf tournament happen. Yes. Well, that's also too bad, so yeah, always happy to help. And we have either Scott or Brian there every month, so there is another representative from the Parks and Rec Department that are there. So the job's really like a liaison, like, you're here to kind of report on what they're doing, and you're… then you go there to report on what we're doing, but Scott O'Brien does a really nice job with that, at that meeting specifically, so they've got a nice agenda item that… I also did the agenda for a long time there, but I'm not doing that anymore, so now they've taken that back internally, so…

[129:15] We've got some really nice structure going to play, I think, right, Scott? We're getting there. Alright. Is it still just Andy, or she has staff? She has a staff, yeah. She… I think they have now 3 full-time? 3… 3 full-time? 3 Trust, and then Greta… And, yeah, that's right. They have a development person, someone who manages the Play Pass program, and someone who manages the tree tenders. And they're all great, great people, young, great people, so… Alright, so that is, matters from the board. That takes care of everything on the list. Our next board meeting, we know now, is listed as January 26th, so we'll see everybody back here then, and if… That's today. I mean, February 23rd, today.

[130:06] We're not, yeah, we're not going to redo this one, so we'll be back for February 23rd, and if there's no further business, I will adjourn. Thanks, everybody, for all your hard work. Thank you. It's really helpful. Thank you. I say a less meaty meeting is maybe a nice…