October 20, 2025 — Water Resources Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] Good evening, everybody. Follow the meeting to order. We have a meeting for October 20th. 225. And our first item is to approve the July Meeting minutes. Anyone have any comments on the July events? It'll actually be a September mix, right? Yeah. You bet. Mine too. I like that. Any comments? Nope. Thanks. There's a motion to, accept as approved. Okay. All in favor? Thank you for hearing that meeting, Amy. And now we have time for any, public comment. Do we have anyone that wants to… speak tonight, Jonathan?

[1:01] We do have a… community member with their hand raised, let me go ahead and I'll read the participation rules, and then we can invite them to speak, if that works. All right, so… good evening. I am Joanna Bloom, and I'm serving as the technical host for this meeting. We'll start with sharing a few slides of the virtual meeting rules that we follow. These rules are in place to find a balance between transparency with community members and security that minimizes disruptions. Please include a full name with your participation in open or public comment. I will go ahead and change it for you if you need assistance. You can send me a message in the Q&A function, or you can text me and I'll give you my number in just a moment. There is no chat feature for this meeting. The Q&A function is enabled and can be used to address Zoom connectivity questions. And that text number that I mentioned, my cell phone, is 303-817-1742.

[2:08] If you need to reach me otherwise. Members of the public may be unable to control the audio or video features. Video is limited to city officials, employees, and invited speakers only. I'll unmute you when you're recognized to speak. And let me just check real quick if we have anyone on the phone. Does not look like it, but I will go ahead and, Read the phone instructions if someone joins. I'll go ahead and call your name when it's your turn to speak, and we'll begin a 3-minute timer that will start once you begin your comments. Thank you for your participation. All right, and with that, I do see one virtual hand up. If anyone else wants to speak, go ahead and virtually raise your hand as well, but Elizabeth, we can start with you. And you should be able to unmute.

[3:04] Can you hear me okay? We can, thank you. Right. Hello, Rab. I have submitted a policy change request for the Boulder Valley Comp Plan update. My, policy change says Boulder's ag water delivery system depends on 160-year-old legacy irrigation ditches, which present many opportunities for system upgrades to minimize water loss and maximize the yield of dwindling water supplies. The city and county will partner with local ditch companies, farmers, and ranchers to upgrade our ag water delivery systems to maximize ag water efficiencies and to ensure the survival of viable agriculture in the Boulder Valley. I hope that RAB will support my proposed policy change to the Boulder Valley Comp Plan. I'm sure you're all aware of the severe challenges the Colorado River is facing. I fear that as Deadpool on Lake Mead and Powell approaches, California and Arizona will strong-arm Colorado into sending more water downstream to them, and Boulder's share of Colorado River water, that is, CBT water, will become much less firm.

[4:14] This is why I believe it is necessary to start upgrading our ag water delivery systems now. Many folks view ag as a greedy, ignorant water gobbler who must be taught a lesson. However, our ag water reality is much more nuanced and complicated. Boulder Valley farmers have been dealing with chronic water shortages for decades and have developed creative strategies for dealing with shortages while still maintaining viable farm businesses. However, their water delivery systems depend on local ditch companies with shoestring budgets and with limited capacity for infrastructure upgrades. Upgrades to ag water systems are also out of reach of many OSMP and county open space ag leasees, because they only have 3- to 5-year long lease contracts.

[5:06] City and county government partnership is needed for ditch companies and leasees to make the necessary upgrades to our ag water delivery systems. The city and county could help by increasing investment in their own open space ag water delivery systems, mobilizing more work crews to maintain ditches, providing grant writing assistance to ditch companies and lessees, and funding a grant program for ag water upgrades. These actions would ensure the survival of Boulder Valley agriculture, local food, and the green fields which surround and cool our city. Our citizens valley, Boulder Valley agriculture for the local food and many ecosystem services it provides, but ag cannot survive here without water. A firm ag water supply will prevent desertification of our open space lands, and will prevent dust storms, grass fires, and soil erosion.

[6:02] I hope you agree with the importance of making ag water delivery system upgrades in this time of increasing climate change and water supply uncertainties, and will support my proposed policy change to the Boulder Valley Comp Plan. Thanks very much. Any questions? Patience? I might want to speak to that. Good evening, Elizabeth, thanks for being here. Good evening, board members. I'm Joe Tanayucci, I'm the Utilities Director. of the City of Boulder, and Elizabeth is a very respected member of the community, works a lot on irrigation ditch issues. She's been following closely this Boulder Valley Comp Plan. generally coordinating with us as staff and asking, like, how can I plug in, and how can I get my…

[7:00] Ideas considered for… for, inclusion in the, in the comp plan. And historically, the Boulder Valley Comp Plan has had language in it, really prioritizing local agriculture and supporting it. And I know our staff have been working with the planning team On that language and wanting to enhance it. And so, Elizabeth brings up some really important points around, I know she's interested in efficiency of, irrigation systems and agriculture. It needs a lot of help. We do work on that in our role, in the city on irrigation ditches. She mentions the Colorado Rips, which is something that we're tracking really closely and appropriately is an important item. for us as staff and community members, and I know it has been for the board as well. And so…

[8:00] We will be talking on the upcoming agenda. The next touchpoint for the board on the comprehensive plan will be in the November meeting, but there will also be a return trip from the planning team and the comp plan team early next year, too. Come back to the board with… final recommendations and things like that, so the board will have an opportunity to weigh in. So, for sure, you could consider the, the input and the feedback that you heard from Elizabeth tonight as… as you put forth any ideas that you have. So… I'll assume that Elizabeth's input can share with us. She said she had a submission, did I understand that correctly? Yes, for sure. Yeah. Okay, great. I'm not remembering if it… if it got the meeting, Chief, or your staff to, you know. I was gonna say, I think it may have been, I've lost track at the moment, but we didn't receive something as…

[9:04] Okay, thank you, Elizabeth. Thanks, we have two more community members ready to speak. We have Kirk, Vincent, and then Lynn Siegel, and Kirk, you should be able to unmute. I'm… am I unmute… unmuted? Yep, we gotcha. Yeah, thank you, everybody. I served on RAB for 5 years, and now have been serving on the South Platte Basin Roundtable. for 5 years, and I learned something that might be germane to tonight's discussion, and that is that the Colorado Water Conservation Board staff At our request, has been working on trying to get a consultant to do a statewide inventory of water use by so-called CII customers.

[10:05] Commercial, institutional, and industrial. And, Greeley Water brought this up to the roundtable. as a problem that they were facing a couple of years ago, and I enthusiastically supported the idea because I think it was in 2016, RAB was tasked, it was a big project of the year, to examine and tweak, if necessary. The… the, water customer, rate structure It was really a challenging project, but I feel like we did an honorable job But one thing bugged me was that, how do you know how to encourage using less water during a drought if you don't even know what the average is for that that sector. And I may not have this quite right, but, you know, CII, the institutional churches and schools, well, there's quite a few of those.

[11:08] The single family, there's a bunch, so you can look at the histogram and know who's a miser and who's not. But with the commercial industrial, it's hard to know. I mean, I may not have this quite right, but Boulder has one server farm, IBM, and has three car washes. I think it's three. But it's like, how can you know How to encourage Reducing when you don't know what is average. And so that was the one single thing. out of the, I think, honorable job we did. was… we're kind of guessing at the user types where there aren't very many of those customers in your internal books. So, I don't know where the state staff are in accomplishing that.

[12:06] But it is… in the works somehow, and I can work with my friends and figure out where… where the progress is on that, and I'll get… get back right to… I'll write to Joe or something. But anyway, thank you. Thank you, Kurt. Okay, I might want to comment on that as well. Received a chat message here letting me know that our water conservation program is connected to that. CII research effort, and, just wanted to say hello to Kirk, and he wasn't… I can confirm he for sure was a board member for 5 years, and, really appreciate him, serving on the South Platinum Facing Roundtable as well, and… Providing good inputs there.

[13:05] Okay, we do have one last community member. Lynn Siegel is signed up to speak. Lynn, you should be able to unmute. Yeah, it's hard to talk about water here when in Gaza, they don't have any water at all, or it's, you know… been given in aid trucks that have been reduced, and they're still bombing people, and etc. But, you know, I… I'm sorry. Once up at CU, someone tried to… I was trying to get someone On a water conference. about my concern of, I'm just using water, just waiting for the warm water to come on, and that this is not a big deal, because it just gets recycled anyway. Well, recycling takes some… energy and water treatment. My brother is in water treatment for years with the city as a water chemist, and

[14:05] I think if… if I have any use that I don't want, you know, that… that should at least be encouraged to either get, you know, direct heater under your sink, or whatever, to minimize the use of water that way. I was watching the… water restriction issues coming up before the City Council last week, and it really concerned me that gray water is prohibited in Boulder still. It just seems like I've come out of another century or something to be in Boulder and have gray water prohibited. I don't know the rationale behind this, but, it's a concern, and… And just the growth in Boulder, mostly. is definitely gonna use more and more water when we've got people starving and having no water in Gaza, and in the Middle East and all over the world, and why are we so excessive in this country that

[15:14] That we can just, you know, drain it out, waiting for warm to come. And I understand that there's… you know. energy intensity to getting installation of these, features where you don't have to just be putting it down the drain. But I'd just like to see some more output into the community about how this waste is occurring. I mean, I haven't irrigated for 20 years, 25 years. So, it's not like I'm using any there. I was really thankful that Joanna called me, back today, because I've been draining some, probably out of one of my toilets or something. Really appreciated that, Joanna, to follow up on it.

[16:05] And avoid any waste that I possibly can. And meantime, I appreciate all that you're doing. There's nothing… there's no other board that's more important than yours. It's absolute… Thanks. Bye. Did you win? Anyone else? Nope, we're all set. Great. The main, main body of the meeting tonight is a couple of information items. staff, and so I'll turn it to Joe to, Introduce the folks who will… For sure, and I'll keep my intro super short tonight. We do have the two information items. As luck would have it, each of our deputy directors are kind of overseeing one of those items, and so… I'll turn it over to them to do the intros, but on the water budgets, from my vantage point, it's one of the more important policy things and operational

[17:11] things that we look at as a staff and as a board every few years, and so that's… that's a really important one. And then broadband is an item of community interest, and as you'll find out tonight, our water utility staff have a role in supporting getting the next phase of that off the ground, and so… Those are the two items we'll have tonight, so Joanna will tee up the water budget item, and Chris will take care of the broadband one. Over to you, Joanna. Thanks, Joe. I'm Joanna Bloom, I'm one of the Deputy Directors in Utilities. I'm over the policy and planning side. I am… I also oversee utility billing, which we have some staff here tonight. That is supporting, that is from the Utility Billing Group.

[18:04] And I'm also supporting the broader team in looking specifically at water budgets and how they will inform the water rate study that we have coming up in 2026. So Crystal's going to give you a lot of the details, but just as a high-level background, water budgets were started in 2007, after the 2002 drought. And they were put in place as a water conservation measure, but then also to support, drought response. So, while we believe that they can be a valuable tool, 18 years of operational experience have kind of led us to ask the question about whether or not they need some fine-tuning or refinement. So we're undertaking a process now to understand how budgets are working from the customer standpoint, from all of our customer classes, CII, but also residential. And then also just looking at the administrative complexity and seeing if there's ways that we can streamline. And then again, all of that information will be used with stuff and the broader water rate study that we have coming back next year. So…

[19:10] super high level. Crystal's going to kind of give you an overview and a primer, and then there's opportunity for public comment, board input, And that going forward to shape the process. So I'll pass it over to Crystal. Sounds good. Good evening, Rob. Crystal Morey, Senior Water Resources Engineer. Tonight, I'll be providing an overview of our current water budget policy and the planned process for evaluating and potentially updating that policy. I have a good stopping point in here for questions, and then we'll have time at the end for discussion, too. I think you're all aware, but in Boulder, we bill for water on a monthly basis, and that bill includes multiple charges. These charges include both fixed charges, which are tied to operational costs that don't change, and variable charges tied to incremental costs for treating and transporting water.

[20:08] The water budget policy is applicable to only one of those charges received on a customer's monthly bill, which is that water usage charge. That charge is typically around 35% of a bill, and it's a variable consumption-based charge that's determined using the rates you all help decide every year and the water budget policy. So, water budgets are an estimate of water needs for individual customers based on a variety of factors. The water budget isn't a limit. But rather, it helps determine the rates, so that dollar amount that each thousand gallons of water consumption is charged at. Only a handful of Colorado communities have water budgets, along with a number of communities in California, too.

[21:02] So here are our 2025 rates for reference, with relative cost increasing as you go up the graph, and relative water use increasing as you go to the right. As you can see, customers are billed at a lower rate for water usage that's below their budget, which is that green area. And build more for water use that's above their budget. So, water use from 0% to 60% of a customer's budget is charged in that Block 1. And then as their water use exceeds 60% of their water budget, that additional use from 60% to 100% is charged in Block 2. And Block 3 is for 100 to 150% of their water budget, and so on. So here we have the account summary and graph sections of a typical bill. This is a September bill for a commercial customer. Their water budget for the month is 108 kilogg, and their actual water use for the month was higher than their budget, at 212 kilogg.

[22:12] So, because their use was higher than their water budget, this customer is getting billed in multiple blocks. Block 1 and 2 are those first lines highlighted in green. For use in those tiers is charged at a lower rate. Then the use beyond their budget is getting charged in blocks 3 and 4, and those lines are highlighted in yellow and orange. And the customer didn't exceed 200% or double their budget, so no water consumption is getting charged in Block 5 here. So, water budgets were one of Boulder's responses to an extremely severe regional drought in 2002. Many communities, including Boulder, had to issue watering restrictions for the first time ever.

[23:00] In Boulder, restrictions were limited to outdoor watering and resulted in minor landscape loss. After that devastating drought, there was a combined regional push to update planning, policies, and projections to be more resilient to drought in the future. Boulder did many things around that time, including developing its first drought plan and updating its planning scenarios. And water budgets were one tool developed to support drought response. So, by calculating an efficient water use for each customer in advance of a drought, those customers can be engaged during a drought and encouraged to save water by reducing those water budgets down. This is a table summarizing our recently updated 2022 drought plan. As you can see, with each drought stage. The city has water demand reduction goals that increase as drought gets worse.

[24:01] So water budgets are just one drought response tool. Drought response really needs to be comprehensive in nature, and would include community education, watering restrictions, and related enforcement. So, many other communities have similar drought response plans that simply don't include water budgets and rely more heavily on education, enforcement of restrictions, and general rate increases. So, our water budget policy impacts all of our customers in different ways. Here's a graph of the distribution of different account types within the city. So, the vast majority of accounts are tied to single-family residential. And I want to call out that multifamily and commercial, industrial, and institutional, which I'll call CII because it's a mouthful, are largely… those two customer classes are largely indoor uses only.

[25:01] So those customers typically have a separate outdoor meter, and that outdoor meter is classified as a metered irrigation account. So, number of accounts can be just a bit misleading, because the water use per account can vary dramatically. So, as you can see here, with those metered irrigation, CII, and multifamily accounts. Although there's significantly less accounts, they still make up a good portion of water consumption within the city. Each of these account types have a different calculation for determining a customer's water budget, ranging from fairly straightforward to very complex. And in general, the more predictable the use, the simpler water budgets are. So water budgets for single-family residential, where use is really predictable. are much simpler than water budgets for those CII customers, where use is really variable.

[26:01] So again, we have those four primary account types, and each has a different way of determining a water budget. We provided detailed examples of water budget calculations as an attachment to the RAP packets, and they're also described in the policy itself. And so, for time's sake, I'll just walk through kind of those driving variables for different customer count. For single-family residential, the driving variables to determine a water budget are number of people and the size of outdoor area that needs water, and we call this irrigable area. We multiply those driving variables by standard efficient water use values that are listed in the policy to kind of come up with that total water budget. Our next account type is Commercial, Industrial, and Institutional, or CII, which is pretty much the blanket term for non-residential indoor uses in the city.

[27:00] Indoor uses can include things like stores, restaurants, offices, hotels, breweries, and manufacturing, so a wide range of uses. For that indoor CII use. Under this account type, for some, their water budget is based on historical use patterns, and then for others, it's based on set amounts that they selected at the time of development, when they got their new tap. For multifamily residential, which is largely indoor use for multifamily properties. Their water budgets are driven by the number of units. And for metered irrigation, which again is typically that outdoor use for CII and multifamily customers. The driving variable for their budget is that irrigable area. So, the driving variables I've just described are much more nuanced in the policy itself, which is attached to your memo, but this is a good time to stop and answer any questions you might have about the water budget policy.

[28:06] What's an example of the metered irrigation customer? Who… who would that… who would be customers? So, typically, if you think of a multifamily apartment complex, they will have an indoor meter, and that's classified as multifamily residential, but they will have a separate outdoor meter for irrigation of their property, common areas, things of that nature, and that'll be classified as metered irrigation. Can the rates be adjusted during a drought? Raised? They fixed. Multiple years, or… So, the policy is flexible. The primary method the policy was set up is that we would reduce the water budgets, so we would reduce everybody's water bottle by, say, 10%, and then they would naturally experience those higher price points.

[29:03] And then there was somewhere I was reading about CII criticism based on historic water use, because what if… business chain, one type of item, goes from an office to a restaurant, or vice versa, is that, is the type of, CII a factor, and… Right. Yes, yeah, so it's an excellent question, yes. So, we can reset it to the customer class average if the business type changes, so let's say if you went from, like, a retail store to a restaurant. We can reset it based on the meter size, but typically, like, the budgets right now, they aren't fast enough to do it. more frequently than, once every 12 months. So, you might, as a business owner, have a several-month period where you're paying higher rates until your budget catches up. within a year. within a year, if that's your budget type. Sometimes it's within 3 years. There's several different types of budgets for CII, so it gets complicated pretty quick.

[30:07] More so than I'm comfortable with. Single family, I'm interested, because, like, I know it's households up to 4 have the wider budget. How many, like, what is the percent of households with 4 versus more than 4? Do people regularly call you and say, like, our household size changing? What does that look like? So, yes, we do get water budget adjustment requests fairly often, and if Vanessa could chat me a number, if she knows off the top of her head. Vanessa Bonner is our billing supervisor, and she's over here, but You know, I would say… I don't know the percent off my… the top of my head I could get back to you, but it's a steady diet where people will call and say, oh, I have 5 or I have 7. That resets on an annual basis, too, just because families change and grow, and so,

[31:00] There's a steady down of it, but let me get back to you with the number. On a related question to that, how does a… how does a customer go about bequesting a change in their budget. Let's say I take out website and foot travel there. You know, changes like that. How do you go about changing that, and do people even know that I can do that? Some people know. The community is rather educated, and they might do something, like, for example, you can include right-of-way, city right-of-way, in your water budget if you're adjacent to… you're not a corner or something. You can ask for a water budget adjustment, and there's a… there's a form online that you can fill out, and it's… Staff tries to keep up with that on a monthly basis. Typically, we… we do get water budget adjustment requests, but there tends to be a lot of confusion where people feel like, hey, I have… my water budget is 7,000 kgals a month, and I only use 2K gal. You need to reduce my budget. And so the conversation we have more often is.

[32:06] You don't want to reduce your budget. You… that will make your bill go up. And so right now, you're fine. You're within that 7K gal. there's some people that get it, and they… and it does… it does work for them, particularly families in Ponderosa. They will have a lot of family members in a house, and the water budget adjustment does help, but that's kind of an outlier. At the time you designed the system originally, each individual property was… looked at on some kind of GPS basis, and… Yes. Yes. Irrigable area was somehow estimated. That's right. That's exactly right, but the data over time, there isn't an API with our billing system, and so it doesn't… That GIS data is pretty static, and so it's on a case-by-case basis whether or not it changes over time. typically because, and you can correct me if I'm wrong about this, but the arable area for single-family residential doesn't change that much because we give big blocks. It's, like, up to 5,000, and then 5,000 to 10,000. That's for stormwater.

[33:09] There's… oh… But yeah. Yeah, so it's not real-time data, so if we wanted to go back and really have a lot of data integrity, we could probably update those GIS values, but… One thing that struck me when taking some pain medication, so maybe I didn't try to get it all over. I mean, it struck me as an extremely complicated A system, and at what point do you reach That's sort of a point of diminishing returns. I mean, I understand what you're trying to do, and to be fair, to be equitable, and to be efficient, but at what point does the mechanics of the system outweigh the benefits that it's conveyed? Yeah. That is the million dollar question, right? Like, I think that's how staff is feeling, where it's like, hey, this… there are a lot of diminishing returns, and we could probably right-size them so that we get that sweet spot a little bit better dialed in. Right now, I don't think we have it nailed, especially for CII. Single-family residential, it's probably not all that bad, and this is now 100% my opinion, and so we… I would also like to hear what the community has to say, but…

[34:15] We want to get it a little more dialed. So, when Kurt was talking about the Colorado Water Conservation Board doing this, like, statewide survey on CII, I mean, is that going to be down to the NAICS, like, level of each one of these types of business? It's a restaurant, so it should be in this box. I mean, that seems, in a way, to give you so much data to make it so much more complicated by, like, having much more granularity around the classes. Yeah, so the statewide study is that kind of benchmarking study that'll say, like, for restaurants, here's a good metric to use. I will say, we see a lot of variability in the CII class for restaurants, even when you get that average.

[35:02] the spread between the lowest water-use restaurant and the highest water-use restaurant is far greater than what you see in the residential side of things. And with benchmarking for CII customers, it becomes really difficult to find a driving variable that is reasonable to include in a system like this. Like, for example, car washes are really good identifiers, how many cars are going through the car wash. And we can't, like, tie that as a static value within the billing system, because that fluctuates all the time. So, benchmarking will certainly help, but there's so much variability in a class that there's still challenges. More customers, more revenue, more… Yeah, that's very fills, yeah. Thanks, Devin, and I know you can probably restart, but Vanessa did chime in, and, thanks, Vanessa. And there's less than 200 accounts currently for single-family residential that are adjusted for family size. So, out of 22,000, we have 200 adjusted.

[36:11] So it happens, but to stop. K- what? Veronica? Can you say more about agriculture, given Elizabeth's presentation? I mean, how is that, for what share of CII is going, culture, but also, how is the, the billing for them? Budgeting for them compared to other uses. I can chime in. Kim Hutton, Water Resources Manager. So, the agricultural sector is not receiving treated water from the city boulder, for the most part. We do have a couple customers that may… or, like, you know, residential. Backyard gardens do, but… but those are separate systems.

[37:04] Okay, so I'll hop back in, and we have time at the end for discussion, too. So water budgets were established in 2007, but not much has changed since that time, and I'll just go through some indicators that signaled to us that it was time to dive back into water budgets. So, I've shown you all this graph before, just illustrating that water demands have dropped significantly since the early 2000s. Those bars are total municipal use, and those lines are per capita of water use. So water budgets were established in 2007, that yellow bar, and as you can see from that time, water use has continued to decline. So what that means in relation to water budgets is that efficiency amounts that were set prior to 2007 likely aren't a great fit for our community anymore. And so, here's an example of what I mean by not a great fit. In dark blue, we have percentile distribution of water budgets across single-family accounts in 2024, split out by month.

[38:09] And then in light blue, we have actual consumption for those same customers. So on average, actual consumption is significantly lower than the customer's water budgets. Which means they're experiencing little to no price signal compared to, like, what the policy intent was. Sorry, can I… quick question while you have that chart up? It is interesting, because it does look like in summer months, when you're doing outdoor watering more, that it is going beyond the budget, and so I guess, as you're looking at this, is it going to be more seasonal, or… Because, like, I think in, like, it looks like January to June, like, the top end of the whisker is below the budget. But then, from July to November.

[39:02] the actual is above, but the end of the whisper is above the button, so it seems like when you have outdoor watering. there's more variant, I guess. But is that accounted for in the CCAL? Usage? So, the water budget policy includes two components, which I'll highlight. One is, like, a monthly ET distribution, and that's what's determining, kind of, that water budget for UC there. And then another component is, like. For single-family residential customers, they are not blanket allocated a set amount. for their whole landscape. As the landscape gets bigger, they're allocated less and less per that landscape size, and that's kind of, like, a heavy nuance of the policy. Yeah. And so that does lead to some of that extreme end water use, but I will say overall, There's opportunities to improve our education with the community in terms of how much their landscape actually needs versus how much they're using, and a lot of,

[40:06] A lot of landscapes take as much water as you give them, and look beautiful in a variety of irrigation schedules, so there's opportunity there for continued education. Okay, so some components of the policy are extremely complex and require resources beyond those initially anticipated. So, for example, the policy for our CII customers results in 10 different account types. Significant time goes into researching account variables for initial account setup. And then once they're established, most CII water budgets are calculated every year, which requires IT experts and additional customer support. And then customer requests for CII water budgets. Occur year-round, so people are calling in to request adjustments to their water budgets, and we have to manually make those account adjustments, which kind of results in inconsistencies across those accounts.

[41:12] And so, because of this, the majority of staff time for administration, IT, and customer service really goes to providing support for CII customers. Which, again, represents around 7% of accounts, and around 20% of city water use. So, equity is also a strong emphasis for the city, and there's a lot of assumptions made within the water budget policy that touch equity considerations. For example, there's mixed opinions from the community as to whether homes with larger lots Deserve larger water budgets. And so, outdoor water use is well correlated to irrigable area, and it's important to keep our landscapes healthy. So, the practice overall is considered equitable.

[42:03] But it would be good to confirm that folks still feel it's appropriate. It's now on to process. The water budget policy evaluation is just phase one of a much larger and more comprehensive rate study starting next year. And any specific water budget policy changes would be rolled out alongside new rates following a rate study. We've already completed initial scoping and research. We're in the middle of collecting feedback from the community. After we collect that feedback, we'll develop and analyze some alternatives. Then we'll return to RAV in 2026 to summarize themes from community engagement and seek feedback on those alternatives. Preferred alternatives will be carried into the rate study. And there will also be touchpoints with RAB related to the rate study. And depending on the complexity of the changes, implementation of new rates could happen in 2027 or 2028.

[43:10] Community feedback is a big chunk of this effort. So, on September 3rd, we opened up an online bilingual survey, and we've had an exciting amount of responses. We attended What's Up Boulder, a community event where we had information available and chatted with passionate community members. We're here with you all tonight, and we'll return back in 2026. And we also have a CII and multifamily meeting coming up this Wednesday. So far, we've heard a few key themes from engagement, but we'll be back in 2026 with a more complete summary of what we've heard. So, a decent amount of single-family customers do seem to understand their water budgets, which is a good thing. Many single-family customers indicated that the price signal is too small.

[44:01] And this is related to that distribution of fixed versus variable charges on a customer's overall bill. But it's helpful to consider, like, how little the water budget policy actually impacts a bill when you think about how complex the policy is. There was a strong theme in the comments wanting more flexibility. For example, carryover of unused budget from one month to the next. Or an increased budget when it's a really hot month, things of that nature. From CII customers, we've consistently heard over the years that the policy needs to be simpler. And CI&I customers have also consistently expressed interest in reducing the sensitivity of the budgets. So, for example, you have a building that sat vacant all winter before you were able to refill it and find a new tenant in the spring. And because that customer account type is based on average winter consumption from December through March, that customer's budget will be low for the rest of the year, until it resets. And that's not because of inefficiency, which is the policy is aiming towards, but it's just because the building sat vacant.

[45:19] So we're really just starting to dive into the current policy and identify areas that are working really well, and areas that might need improvement. And as we comb through data, staff, and community feedback, we'll be looking for opportunities to simplify the policy so that it's easier to explain to our customers and more sustainable to administer And we'll also be looking for opportunities to improve its effectiveness. With those two key goals in mind, we also need to balance a wide range of considerations, and so we have a team of folks with different lenses working on this to ensure a balanced approach.

[46:00] The four primary lenses we anticipate using when evaluating any water budget policy change are customer experience and equity, ease of administration, water conservation signals, and financial performance. So, thanks for your time. I know that was a lot to digest, and maybe a little bit boring, but excited to hear your initial feedback, and a reminder, we'll be back in early 2026. One more question. I was really curious to read, I think it was, the… a slide, like, two back that said, the customer said there wasn't that much sensitivity to the tiers, and I'm curious because I think one month, we did hit, like, the fourth tier, doing a lot of ways we work, and we for sure noticed that, but, like, month and month, I certainly don't notice the second, and so is it more we just need fewer tiers with greater difference, or is it more, like, we don't notice Like, the lower tiers, or, like, could you speak a little bit more to…

[47:02] Yeah, I think the general theme of the community feedback we're hearing is, like, it doesn't matter how much I use, I'm not seeing a change on my bill. And so, what that typically gets at is that the budgets are much higher than consumption, so normal fluctuations in your consumption aren't even hitting Tier 3. And Tier 1 and Tier 2 are pretty similar, so you don't really see, like, bill impacts that are within that budget. But certainly, when you start to go over, or when there is a leak, we will often get calls. Do you get a lot of feedback from CII customers, that are surprised by how much their water bill is, or, you know, that are… that have hit the block, the third block or fourth block, and are like, oh my god, we can't afford this? Is that something that… Yeah, we do. We do, and I think… it's hard for them to understand, depending upon what type of water budget they have, how to influence that, because as Crystal described, the average winter consumption, it defines some of the budgets, and so…

[48:13] That doesn't always translate into use, and so we will typically get calls if the budget seems too low and the bill really spikes. That is absolutely noticed. And we can't always… like, sometimes we can reset it to the customer class average, or we can make the adjustments that we can make, but it's not really… unless we went way customized, like we were talking about, we really kind of have blunt tools to address it. I'm wondering, like, with all of the administrative burden that comes along with a really complicated system. If you simplify it, but then you have a handful of folks that sort of get hit hard because of the way it's structured, if there's some way to Alleviate the strain on them while you, you know, tweak according to their budgets, but it's a very small number.

[49:07] If you have the affordability fund, you know, for residential customers, if there's something similar that you could use for, like. New nonprofits, or businesses that are just starting up and, like, didn't quite have the handle on what their bill was gonna be. It's… For sure, we can… I mean, we can definitely look at that. I think the people that we hear from are typically businesses that are newly occupying a space, and the type… the business type is not fixed, or the residency is not fixed, right? So, like, for example, we heard from a shared working space, a co-working space, where they were doing fine for a long time, but then all of a sudden they saw more users, which is great. But then they had a hit in their water bill, because they were using more water, and it'll take a little bit for that to adjust, right? So if the business type were static, or the car washed up the same exact number of cars per month.

[50:05] then you would be fine, but it's the variability, I think, that accompanies businesses that makes it really hard to even, even with a customized budget system, right-size it so that it works throughout the ages, right? You might get to work for a year or two. Even if you're, like, it's a boutique that sells, you know, camping gear. Like, even if you had that much, like, detail around the specific type of business, you're gonna still have that kind of fluctuation, and if you have new businesses that are, like, getting their feet under them. Maybe there'd be some kind of… community insisters. Yeah. You might want to, chime in a little bit here. I think the board is naturally hitting on some of the things, and it's great that that's coming out in the discussion here, and we're hiring a consultant to work with us on this, and help us figure out the mechanics, just like you were saying, Amy, of, like, well.

[51:08] How do you rebalance this, and… So tonight's intent was to just give you a background and introduction to this, and we'll be coming forward in the schedule, as Crystal said. when we've done some of that analysis, and I say we're hiring a consultant, but we have some pretty… we're lucky to have some pretty sharp people on our staff team, too. Some of them we stole from those very consultants. And so, And back, I think it was 2018, the last rate study got adopted by Council. We as a staff team had some very specific things in mind at that time. And we got some very specific community input, and there was an inequity that came to our collective attention, the board, staff, council, around the way we charge stormwater fees, and we ended up

[52:07] Addressing that in the… in the rates that got approved. And I think we were also looking at the amount of fixed versus variable charges, and there were other things on our mind, and so it was like, it was stuff like that back in 2018. I think this time, as a staff team. The complexity of it. Is definitely one of the things that we would like to look at, and just… More broadly and holistically. I think it was… it was a great effort. It was put in place in 2007 or 2008. At the time, I think it was more of an academic exercise in theory, but we put it in place, and now we've got the experience to be able to after 20-plus years, or whatever it is, I guess it's not quite 20.

[53:01] Just reflect on that and work with our lessons learned as well. You said not… there aren't too many other cities that have a similar I mean, it's really kind of industry. Best practices type thing that you could… Learn from… Yeah, so there's a handful of communities that use water budgets in Colorado, and a few more communities that use it in California. I think just recently, the AWWA manual on rate setting just recently got updated to include, like, water budgets and recommendations there. But out of those communities, it's even more rare to have water budgets applied to that CII class in particular. So we have seen some success in the residential sectors, but that CII still continues to be a tough nut to crack. Many of these tiered rate structures, but not necessarily the water budget component. I'm also curious with residential, I know you mentioned it's not a problem, but I was curious, for non-owner-occupied single-family residential, are they… do they ever get the bill? Are they aware of water usage?

[54:12] Like, is that… What does that look like? Yeah, so multi-family residential, is that what you're at? Or, like, even, like, single-family, just non-owner-occupied. A rent situation. Yeah, so it's different. The answer's different for both. So, the tenant and the owner get to determine who gets the bills and who pays the bills, so that's kind of… property-specific, you absolutely… an owner can absolutely have the tenant get the bill, so they can see their use, but that's really based on preference. Multifamily residential most often has, like, a property manager, and so they have a third party paying their bill. And I almost never see their bill, and don't really know how it's distributed. And again, that's based on, kind of, the owner of the property management system. It's related… my question is related to that, but have you heard anything from the community about the multifamily, like, sector, and some of the challenges that they see with the water budgets, and any, like, ideas they have to make it less complex for them?

[55:15] Yeah, so hopefully we'll get some feedback on this meeting on Wednesday. We did invite property management companies and others that kind of interface with the bill to get some more specific feedback. I think typically the feedback that we get from multifamily residential is, like, they… they don't even know what a water budget is, because they just don't… they don't have to. They don't use it. And I think you're less incentivized in a multifamily residential setting, because you might conserve like crazy But if your water use is distributed evenly, you know, you might be offset by a neighbor. So, it's a little… it's one step. So it's intriguing that you're getting feedback that people don't feel a lot of pressure, so that is interesting that there might be some public support for, you know, maybe lowering some of those amounts so people do occasionally get a hit from a high wattage month. I think that's… that…

[56:09] That is interesting to look at. It's also interesting that with the timeline, it looked like the big reduction came in after the drought, but before the budgets were put in. But it does look like a small, and it's hard to reach the… statistical analysis, I've looked in my eye, like, a smaller, actually, maybe that's technology improvement, low-flow toilets, whatever. Interesting to see on that. Is there… is the budget… is the first tier, is that just for indoor use? Does that include… that first tier and second tier have been pretty low. Is there… is there a tier just… is people for just for indoor use? So, the water budgets were established with that concept in mind, but at the time, around 60% was indoor and around 40% was outdoor. Okay. But how the policy is carried out is, like, the budget… the total budget gets determined first.

[57:02] And then it gets distributed. 60% goes to Tier 1, and 40% goes to Tier 2. So… it's not necessarily tied to indoor use patterns. It could be. The other question, really, is not so much on budget, but this is part of the whole package, so you've got the the water budget you conserve is kind of a stick to get you to conserve. What about incentives help for people if they don't want to say, okay, I'm using too much water, I need help? you know, changing my, my turf or whatever. Are there other programs? to, to help people pay for those conversions, or other water saving techniques? Yeah, so we do have a suite of programs to try to support water conservation, and we're working on increasing that suite. I think from the survey, we're seeing definite opportunities to better educate our community on, like, what opportunities are available to them. And so, for example, we have a turf removal rebate that can help them remove their turf and plant native gardens, things of that nature. Sprinkler audits?

[58:12] Any other questions? Thank you, Christian. Thank you so much for that. Should we move on to the other information topic? We should, and I'm gonna just turn it right over, as promised, right over to Chris. You do a trip. Screen share here. I'll make sure my… Lines were ready, I'm gonna run them. Alright, good evening, Board.

[59:07] I think you might have had that shared in the regular mode versus the presentation mode. Sorry. I thought I had practiced that earlier. Apologies, let me start. Good evening, Board. Kristen Bill, Deputy Director of Operations for Utilities. It's good to be with you tonight. So we have an item that is kind of outside of the normal realm of white utilities, for you to learn. We feel it'll be of interest to RAB because of just the overall significance of this item in the community, and also just, want to explain briefly the role that our department's playing. So, for those two items, we're bringing this to you, now we're advancing this initiative. So, the brand or title of Community Broadband, that's what the city has established. To represent how we're gonna deliver high-speed internet to residents and businesses in Boulder. And so, as you'll learn, we've actually been investing in and using high-speed internet for a long time in the city for city buildings and facilities.

[60:07] we're on the doorstep of an exciting new phase of this work. So, because of some strong experience we've had. administering and overseeing programs and projects and construction with, ferry utilities. Our team got asked to, help lead this next, step for this important program. And, we were able to bring a few new team members on board, Marie and Randy. We will meet officially here in a few minutes, and they're going to help us succeed in this effort. So, our IT department, Innovation and Technology, have typically led this kind of work. They're going to stay involved, they're not going away, but again, it's kind of our turn to be more prominent in the lead of this. We have other cross-departmental teams as well that are helping support this overall effort, so it's not… it's not all on us.

[61:01] So, we believe community broadband's gonna have increasing visibility over time, so tonight's just about getting you up to speed, sharing what the city's doing, explaining, like I did, our department role. So I'll now turn it over to Maria Rotzanda, who's our Community Broadband Program Manager. She's going to do the sharing tonight, so… Just give me a minute to pull up the slides. Thank you, Chris. Good evening, RAB members. My name is Maria Rotunda, and I joined the team here at the City of Boulder about 4 months ago in the role of Community Broadband Program Manager.

[62:12] to lead the rollout of the community broadband program. I'm here tonight, as Chris said, with Randy Reese, who's sitting back here. Randy is our Community Broadband Construction Manager, and he's overseeing the construction process of the broadband build-out. Tonight's presentation will hopefully add some information to the information you received in your memo, and further explain what community broadband is, how we got here, what we're currently doing, and future opportunities. The Community Broadband Program is built around four goals. These are citywide access to achieve near- ubiquitous fiber optic coverage by 2030, a competitive marketplace that offers at least one fiber option and supports multiple broadband providers.

[63:09] Equity and inclusion means our broadband providers will offer low-income subscription price points. Future-oriented ensures the network is scalable and serves the needs of future residents. Net neutrality ensures that the provider will not impose caps or usage limits on the use of data, and our final goal is consumer privacy. This is a recap of our timeline, how we got here, and our story begins in 2015, when city officials began searching for broadband solutions, inspired largely by examples of nearby municipalities that were developing their own publicly built and owned Networks to compete with regional and national service providers.

[64:02] That next year, in 2016, a city-owned community broadband fiber optic backbone was discussed with City Council, and a feasibility study was completed. In recognizing the long-term value of owning the infrastructure, in 2018, Council approved the build-out of a fiber optic backbone along major transportation corridors. In 2019 and 2020, the fiber backbone design was completed, and then construction began. In 2023, Council and staff evaluated various options to proceed with community broadband, including creating a new dry utility department within the city to directly provide that service, or a public option. going with a 100% private model, or a hybrid option. That year, Council voted to move forward with the hybrid model, which included a public-private partnership.

[65:03] To build out that last mile fiber infrastructure for retail internet delivery. In 2024, the backbone was completed, and then this design and construction of the backbone, that period of time that went from 2019 to 2024, is what the city refers to as Phase 1, and was a $20 million investment for the 55 miles of infrastructure. Later that year, the City issued an RFP for service… for a service provider, and ALO Communications was selected. The City and ALO signed a 20-year lease agreement, and now here we are in 2025, and ALO is beginning construction. This map represents the city's fiber infrastructure investment that runs across the city. Most of the utilities, facilities, systems, and stations are connected and benefit from the high-speed fiber.

[66:01] You will note two lines heading west into the… into the foothills outside of Boulder. These fiber circuits serve both City of Boulder facilities, as well as Boulder Valley School District facilities near Netherland, including the Silver Lake Watershed and Barker Dam. The Eastern Loop is also part of the fiber network that serves the city's project with BBSD. These next few slides are going to address our construction, build-out process with Allo for this, last mile internet retail delivery. This agreement is valued at $9 million. It's based on Ala's initial payment of $1.5 million, and the expected monthly fees from subscription services. So there's a map of the city. ALO has divided the, the city into construction zones. It calls PONS, which is an acronym it uses for Passive Optical Networks.

[67:04] Construction will occur in different ponds across the city simultaneously as ALO builds out the network. The city provided ALO with locations of affordable housing, and ALO took those locations and overlaid them, on their pond designations. for Alice lease agreement, they will build out in the affordable housing locations in conjunction with the rest of the city, for their build-out. the lease agreement mandates build out within the city limits, and for adjacent areas within Boulder County, that is to be determined, and we'll Come after the city build-out is completed. For this and the next slide, we wanted to share with you some of the main elements and stages of construction that we will all see and encounter across Boulder as ALO performs their work. Allo began construction in the Chautauqua neighborhood in September as part of a larger set of infrastructure improvements involving electric utility undergrounding, minor wet utility work, and repaving of streets.

[68:12] This image on the top right, shows construction crews above Chautauqua supporting the work at the City Radio Tower and water tank. And Allo has two network operations centers, they call central offices. These operation hubs are pictured at the bottom of the slide. The modular units here, pictured, are located in Brighton, but Alley will have two central offices in Boulder. And one will be in the north, and the other one on the south side of the city. Here are some construction elements that community members are likely to encounter over the next 5 years. On the left, we have locate crews. On the right, potholing crews, and then bore rig drilling and pulling up conduit and cable in the center.

[69:10] This, lease agreement that Allo… that Alo signed with the city has several milestones and deliverables. First, for construction, it's expected to be largely completed by the end of 2029. As mentioned, the City has provided Alley with Income qualified addresses in order to meet equitable build-out guarantees. So, construction to income-qualified neighborhoods will occur in tandem with other areas of construction and also be completed by 2029. For service, Alla will offer all higher education students residing in Boulder the option to upgrade their service level tier at no additional charge. And through a program it calls Community Connector, ALO will select 25 nonprofits for free service for 3 years.

[70:01] And Ally will offer a discounted service to income-qualified residents. Final deliverable on this slide, ALL will provide the city with additional exchange fiber to dedicated for city use, which will also enhance municipal broadband capacity and future use options for the city. These are, wired internet providers, that are servicing Boulder. They include Comcast, CenturyLink, and Quantum Fiber. There are various wireless internet providers also, like T-Mobile and Verizon. And as was mentioned in your memo, the City also manages other uses of fiber on its infrastructure. One of these networks is the Boulder Research Administration Network that goes by BRAN. which interconnects the city with the University of Colorado of Boulder, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Department of Commerce laboratories, including NOAA and NIST.

[71:09] The brand provides local fiber optic infrastructure, and it gives these public institutions a competitive advantage in research, higher education, and administration. While also allowing for cost sharing and cost avoidance by the partners. And another one also mentioned, the BBSD is an exchange of long-term leases of city underground conduit and BBSD fiber strands. The city also leases fiber to Boulder County for its data center, through an intergovernmental agreement. In addition to these projects, the city has other unlit Unlit dark fiber that can be used for other applications, and we're in the process of creating a framework to evaluate projects for the city that might benefit the community. And some of the ideas that we are looking at are future smart city applications, like advanced metering infrastructure.

[72:05] Or smart meters, as well as connectivity for parks and Rec. Here's a link to the city's broadband, web resource page. And, available to answer your questions. Thank you so much. Can you speak to the terms of the lease agreement? What is… what exactly did we agree to over 20 years? What happened at the end of that 20 years? So some of those deliverables, if you have the deliverables, the deliverables sign. Basically, the lease agreement has the things that, that, you know, the expectation of when the construction is completed. It also has the… some terms of service that includes the, the,

[73:01] the guarantee of the income-qualified service for the individuals, and a few other things, and also the fact that Apple will be giving us exchange fiber. It also has terms about, like, payment of the monthly, subscription fees, and when those are due, and, you know, the the process which that Alo would pay us each month for the subscribers that it signs up. basically allowed them to put all of this fiber in and have that access to the market, and then they're compensating the city accordingly. And so, the $9 million is… It's monthly, is annual, the total value of all of the 20 years. He's kind of viewed as a net present worth… Okay. …for Dana. Recouping that much of our $20 million investment. I could maybe just add to what Maria shared. I mean, these are some of the key highlights, Katie, of the

[74:04] of the agreement. There's some other provisions, about, like. pairing, backbone, and so, yeah, just to emphasize, I mean, we're… we're giving up some of this capacity that we, put in the ground, And it really is a public-private partnership. That's the main takeaway here. So if you did, I think, for a time, consider, you know, if we could pull this off as our own, completely public offering, and then be, like, actual… provider of internet, like some other communities have done, but that would be lifting up a whole new department, you know, of 50-plus people to, you know, operate, maintain, have billing and customer reps and everything, so that was, that was a big ask. Did Longmont addict? Right? Yeah. That is what they're doing, yeah. Yeah. When this was studied, and if you dig farther back into the history, it's not… it's not an exclusive necessity, but it feels like communities that have their own electric utility, they are set up to… to deliver a fiber or broadband

[75:13] Dry utility as well. So, again, it's not an exclusive situation, but a lot of communities that are doing that, they do have their own electric utility as well. So would Allo be the provider, then, too? Retail customers, or would there be competition, or would it be… Yeah, so, I'll turn it back to Maria. Yeah, I was just gonna be another option here in Boulder, right? Okay, so you could still stick with… Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, so this is all about driving healthy competition, and so, Comcast serves most of the city. And ALO, per the agreement, will, will… be offering service to the entire Boulder community residents. commercial customers, so… And they're filling in that last mile gap, just to make sure that we have total coverage for us. That was what drove it originally, was a concern that

[76:08] That the commercial companies would not provide equitable Connections for everybody, or that there would be It wouldn't be enough, Bryce. Competition, or… is that what drove the desire to do this recently? That's a fair comment. Access and price. Yeah, I think access for everybody, and… and reasonably priced, and it was… it was, I think, difficult for some of the council members to… So… kind of let go of having our own utility and really owning it ourselves, so… Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, Comcast is here, and we'll continue to serve the community. I believe they're planning to, you know, upgrade certain dimensions of their network, but fundamentally, it's a coax cable service.

[77:01] So, aloe is going to be a fiber-based offering. Which will allow more higher speeds. Higher speeds. Okay. more reliability. Any idea what the price will be for a consumer? It's supposed to be at or lower than whatever their other offerings are in Colorado, so I think their low… the lowest price point that I currently saw that they have in Colorado is $67. Per month? Yeah. So, we… the utilities team obviously has a lot of really valuable experience with construction, underground construction, and cross-boulder. You mentioned that… you mentioned that Chautauqua was the first location, and it was timed with the resurfacing of all of these streets. Is there a coordination around some, you know, upgrades to pipes and transmission mains or other things that are going on that are also going to be timed with the LO construction?

[78:00] For, like, a total alignment between utilities and Allen? It's a great question. I think, for sure, we'll keep our eyes and ears open for any of those alignments. That makes sense, Amy. Most of what… where Al is going to be working is in, kind of, the public right-of-way, Outside of the main street corridors. So our… most of our wet utility projects are typically kind of in the roadway corridors, about exclusively. And then the other thing to keep in mind is there are necessary offsets between different infrastructure types. Not just putting it right in. Same exact. There's been concepts of running, yeah, fiber in storm sewers instead of storm sewers. We're not planning on doing any of that. Oh, thank you. But no, you asked a very wise, fundamental question. I think, yeah, we'll keep our eyes open for those alignments. It's part of the reason we have Randy involved, is to help us coordinate this effort overall with not only our utilities department, but the entire city, like the Parks Rec team and other departments that are doing work, so we can either stay away from each other or align those efforts

[79:14] And Chris and his team isn't a lot of what Elle was doing trenchless and touring, and so there's not as much opportunity to, like, share trenches. Yeah, excellent point, Joe. But another important part of the lease agreement, I think it's 90% needs to be, buried, infrastructure. To Joe's comment, most of that has to be a flooring, horizontal, directionally drilled type technology. They might do some open trench out of necessity, and there's some other forms, but limited aerial infrastructure. And Amy, you're… you're hitting that… you hit on the key point of, like, why is our water utility involved in this? And I think just the phase of… Where the project is at.

[80:02] we have the experience, did you oversee this kind of construction work and guide it? And, we also run 3 separate utilities, and so that… just, being able to contribute in that way, but we also have a connection with the city manager's office and the IT department, and there's a… there's a steering committee, and so we're not on our own. a really important distinction to make, and I can't remember if you said it in your intro, Chris, but… This isn't water utility funding. Like, we're… we're offering some of our time, and But it was separated out, and it's the general fund that it's really… Advancing all of this work. That's a great point. I didn't mention it, but thank you, Pho. Sorry, I didn't even say it that way. Put you on the spot. Any regulation of the rates, or is that entirely up to the… the aloe, or…

[81:05] It's kind of built in a little bit. agreement, so our agreement… Right, they have to at or lower than, so they can't go… and also then with the price point for the lower income tier. It's built in, yeah. It's 100% coverage within Boulder. Are there any gaps? No, that is… it's not 100%, it's near 100%, there would need to be some real… Find a reason why they couldn't serve a given area or whatnot. Maria mentioned, the equitable Build. So the manufactured housing communities in Boulder, those are absolutely planned to be served. It's up to the park owners, since that's private property, to allow a right of entry. Basically, fight them in to literally serve each each unit, but they'll be… they'll be going to the doorstep, at least, and then it's up to Allo to, again, kind of negotiate those

[82:02] Right of entry agreements to serve the parks. But we're hoping that's the case, and we're certainly motivating them to do that. That is their plan. So what if it falls short? What happens? Have to get back to you, Joel. But again, I mean, the overarching premise here is to drive healthy competition, provide access for the community, so it's a tenet of why ALO was brought on board as a private partner. yeah. Just one other quick mention, I… I wasn't personally involved at the time that the agreement was really developed and finalized, but… Council, this is a council priority, and they were honestly interested in more of the non-economic factors than just getting a rate of return and recouping our investment. So, I do believe there's strong momentum, and backing to ensure that the community as a whole is offered this service. But at the end of the day, it's up

[83:04] to, every resident business to, you know, hey, I'd like to try you out. So, completely optional. As part of the agreement, are Randy and Maria helping with Like, construction permits, or those conversations with the mobile home department, owners, and facilitating that construction? Is it… In a word, yes. But not, like, included in the exit. Yeah, so Maria and Randy were, were, Enthusiastically brought on board to… to really help with what you just said there. help with… connections and partnerships and discussions, and so Randy is kind of all things construction, but yet we'll have awareness of all the non-construction items and Maria's roles, yeah, just in a simplistic way of saying kind of all things non-construction, but we'll have awareness of those things as well, so…

[84:05] We have the dynamic to go here. And I think Brandy's role was really… to help facilitate the success of the construction. We had a bit of a bumpy ride on the first phase with a lot of our utilities infrastructure getting hit in the… in the construction, and So he's there to help the contractor succeed, but also… Looking after our… our interests. You mentioned that the fiber infrastructure would go up to Silver Lake Hydro and Barker Dam, and is that part of that recent project to get them, like, online in terms of seeing, like, the water rights? System, like, in live view. Didn't we talk about that recently? I can't remember exactly what we talked about when we were on tour, but just to emphasize, yeah, we wanted to show that map and just kind of give you the overall sense. So… so most of that map has existed for quite a long time.

[85:04] Right? And so the connections you just verbalized up in the watershed and to most of our city facilities, they're what we kind of call our legacy fiber situation. So, we do have some interest and thoughts on how to expand that even further, just… but that will have nothing to do with the Hello situation. Right? That would just be our ongoing set of investments and decisions. So that's just your question? I think so, but it's just, like, replacing the… The internet infrastructure that already runs up there, with this new… provider? No, no, yeah, sorry, I now understand more of what you're asking. Joe can actually speak to this. He helped, deploy that, that infrastructure that we're talking about, and he's Yeah, when I started at the city in 2005, I think we're… I don't know if it was Quest at the time, but we had a phone line to Barker. And the dial phone. The connection. Everything was manual, and that… and we had a phone line up to the Silver Link watershed, and it was hanging on by a thread, and at some point, it…

[86:10] 10 year of my tenure, that stopped working, and so I'm getting… getting… And for a period of time, the only connection we had up there were the operator… operations staff and their pagers. And so, getting connectivity up to the Silver Lake Watershed and to Barker Dam, getting some wireless provisions and things were… I've been super pleased to see those developments in my… in my career, and I think We have the opportunity now For remote operation and things that we've never had. But the… but the ALO project and everything that Chris and Maria are talking about tonight. It's separate from that, and it's really… that's focused on the city limits, within the city limits, for the most part.

[87:09] Any other questions? Thanks, Chris. You're coming to the auction. And just one last comment from me on that. We… I think 2018 was the last time that we had an information item with the board on our metering technology, and so all of this All of these communication upgrades create potential opportunities for us in the future to have Automatic metering and some of our water conservation. Goal, so… That won't help them. I should just do any other cities in Colorado doing a public-private partnership on, probably. I think so, but I could not name that. I think Centennial was exploring.

[88:00] Yeah. That's a great question. There's lots of history summarized. Maria has been digging through all of this history since joining our team. I, I can't pull it off. Okay. I mean, Al was operating in, Erie and Greeley and Breckenridge, a bunch of other Colorado markets, and there seems to be a lot of different players that are building out fiber infrastructure to different places across smaller ones that are even building that out. or contracted with bigger ones that are building it out that way, and so I'm… I'm not, I'm not really sure of the specifics. Thank you. Move on, then. He matters from the board, right? So, I just have a question, and I'm… I saw something in the paper about the council considering landscaping and watering requirements, like nighttime watering, and I'm just kind of curious what's going on. Is that something that's gonna…

[89:02] Seems like maybe too late over that. Yes, actually. Yeah. sometimes when those things get reported in the paper, the nomenclature might not be the same as what you saw, but I'm forgetting what month it was. I think there were a couple of touchpoints where the planning staff came here and briefed the board on those… on those updates. I believe it was July. So that's… that's in front of Council right now. they actually considered it last Thursday and decided to extend the meeting. They wanted to… they suggested some of the finance that They wanted staff to bring back. Any other items? Board? Yeah, a couple of things. I talked about the fire in Nederland, and we were contemplating on the agenda having a Boulder Valley Comp Plan further discussion tonight, which will be in November, but we'll talk about that a little bit under Matters.

[90:14] And so, just wanted to mention, I think most people are aware of the difficult situation with the fire in the Nederland Shopping Center, and definitely our hearts and thoughts go out to the people and businesses that were affected by that, and that Nederland community. For us, given the proximity to Barker Reservoir, it's right there, and the fact that it was an emergency, we were monitoring that, and closely, and also offering direct support, as often happens in emergencies to the town matter unless you've needed it. And our operations teams, and specifically our water quality team. was more active, and we were actually taking water samples in Barker Reservoir, because some of the firefighting, water and chemicals that were being used. I'm just concerned that that was getting into the drinking water.

[91:12] Our utilities maintenance staff went up there pretty early in the morning and put out some, straw wattles and things like that to try and contain the the runoff, and our water resources staff were communicating with other water users on Boulder Creek to just let them know that there was an incident, and… The state was in communication with us as well, so appreciate all the team members who chipped in on that. As a precaution, we slowed down some of the water that we were releasing to Boulder Creek, and we eliminated that source from our treatment, just to do some water testing and sampling and make sure it was okay.

[92:00] And our water quality team went out and did that over a period of a few days, and we determined that there weren't any effects. And so, within a day or two, I think we were able to return the Flows to the creek for aquatic habitat and things like that. Kind of back to normal conditions, but, right? It was a real bummer to see that. I turned on the morning news and to see what was happening. So the town of Netherland will be recovering from that for quite some time. So I thought I'd just mention that to the board before I move on to the next thing. Any questions about that? Do you end up using water from Bartford? Not that I know. I mean, they were just… There's a structure fire, so they're just using water from the trucks. Yeah, they tapped the town of Netherlands Hydrance, right, which is a total separate system, from

[93:04] the watershed up, but not for Parker. And so, some firefighting chemicals can have PFAS and things like that, and so we were just checking on all of that and taking precautionary measures just in case, but… It all turned out okay from the water quality perspective. I guess it's a good example of… I mean, it's a horrible thing that happened, but it's a good example of how we can… Shut off different sources and keep things safe. And it sounds like… seems like their team was on top of it immediately. Yeah, for sure. Wasn't there a, like, a forest health project above LARPER on that side? Yeah, I mean, there was one specifically up, Arapahoe Ranch, I think it was called, which was private property. That was the most recent one that Boulder's kind of been partnering.

[94:04] on, but over the years, I've been from various forest services and county that's, forced health projects in that visa. This was a structured fire, so… but in the event that it was more… Yeah. Aggressive. There's been marks there. Okay, I think so, kind of a blend of upcoming schedule and the Matters update, but we had briefed the board in September on the Boulder Valley Comp Plan, and showed you some topics, and had a dialogue, and you expressed interest in a few. We thought we might come back and have a follow-up discussion tonight to dig into those items, but… I think our staff team realized we just couldn't be ready for that. And so, Kim is here, and she and a couple of other staff members have been following that process closely with our planning team.

[95:13] And I think we've distilled some of the feedback we heard from the board in September. Kim, can they hit the highlights of… what we would be thinking to bring back in November. Yeah, so again, we'll come back in November. A couple of you were gone or missed the meeting, so if you have anything additional to add, but the thought being, So, the city is looking at just all the policies that are in the comprehensive plan right now, wanting to refine some of them. And… So we're seeking feedback from you all as to which policies you would like to provide input on. when we, so I'll go over the ones that you guys identified in the last meeting. If you have anything else to add, please let me know. And then just the schedule. We'll take your feedback. So in November, we'll come back to you and kind of do a deeper dive into the policies.

[96:06] And kind of talk to you about how the comp plan does affect our work, in our department. We'll take your feedback from the November meeting, provide it to the comp plan team, incorporate that into the policy revisions. And then, again, ultimately, there will be revised or a draft set of policies coming out in March of 2026, so, the comprehensive planning team will come back to wrap in March. Or in that time frame, typically don't do a March meeting today. It varies. We haven't done a meeting every month with the board, sometimes not in February, sometimes not in March, but… Yeah. We… We generally… set that up for whatever makes sense for the projects and programs that are going forward. So, if we need a meeting tomorrow, we'll have one. Alright, so generally, what we've still heard feedback on, from last meeting on is policies related to floodplain and flood management.

[97:10] Consideration of climate change impacts. I think maybe you specifically said in the flood management work that we do, but we can… we can take a look at that more broadly as well. Planning for development to occur in areas with adequate infrastructure. That kind of gets to this sort of the phasing of development. how… Utilities interact with surrounding communities with respect to climate change, growth, and other stressors. And then there was a topic related to, sort of, like, the financial component, so growth pays its own. Or it's fair share, and I think related to that is affordability and cost recovery. So those were… those were the… the primary… policy areas that we heard from you. Does that sound about right? We'll continue to build those. Is there anything else?

[98:05] That you may want us to… to highlight in November. Great, we'll be back in a month. Thanks. Looking forward. So if it works, I can move. Perfect segue to upcoming agendas. So, in November, we would plan to have that, follow-up discussion with the board on the comp plan, on the topics that M just highlighted. potential for a discussion around an annual letter to the board, and I'll come back to that, but more broadly on upcoming schedule. Have that comp plan update in November. likely no meeting in December, depending on what you all decide in a second here on the annual letter approach, and then in January, we would be back to a new calendar year, and a year in review is kind of…

[99:11] Primary topic there. So, big picture, that's what's coming to the board. And most years that I've that I've been with the City, I think, or at least since 2010, City Council requests an annual letter from boards, and I can't remember the exact years, but there have been a few years here where It may be even last year, Billy. They didn't have a new work plan, so they didn't ask for… it was the same council, they didn't ask for an updated letter, and so we didn't have that exercise. And they have shifted when they have their retreat City Council, so for the board, we've had our retreats a little bit in advance of that, to sometimes try and inform Council's discussions.

[100:02] bringing that all back to an annual letter concept, Council is requesting that of the boards, again, on a voluntary basis. I think RAB being one of the prominent boards in the city, it probably would be good for, RAB to consider that. And our city clerk staff sent us a template, and I will attempt to screen share here. Let's see what comes up. That was… what was the template? They gave us a template. And I talked to Steve a little bit about this before the meeting, but I think this year, and kind of the pattern that they have landed on recently. is the Council has its retreat. And one of the fundamental things that they want to do in their retreat is set their work plan. So we have an election coming up here in November, potentially, some new council members. I think all the incumbents are running, so it may be the same council, but they will get to set a new work plan.

[101:09] And the arrangement they have worked out with the city manager's office is, for them to land on 10 priorities that they set as kind of their council work plan. And, so I think what they're asking from the board, and what this template, gets at is… it's Rav's opportunity to suggest things that they might focus on. And so… some of the items, like we were just talking about the comp plan. It could be policy changes, or things associated with the comp plan. You heard from a community member that was… that was talking about things they would like to see in the comp plan. We briefed the board on the water supply,

[102:02] Situation earlier this year in water… water supply policy. We're headed towards an integrated supply plant. So that might be something that the board could… could look at and put in its letter. And in the past, when boards have… when RAB has sent letters to Council, they've emphasized infrastructure and investing in infrastructure and things like that. So, it's kind of the board's opportunity to do that. We've normally done that as a… coordinated effort between staff and the… and the board. We help you facilitate that. We've typically done it during the retreat. I think it would be hard to pull off a retreat. on short notice. This is due by the end of the year, actually December 19th, and to get a facilitator and really set that up. I think that would be tricky.

[103:02] So one approach that the board might consider is to have that as kind of an agenda item next month. where you work on that together, and you might designate a representative between now and then to work with staff to kind of give you a head start based on some of the things I've discussed tonight. So that would be one approach, or you could… you could probably do a retreat. what… what that would be… I'm sorry to interrupt, but… What that would really be is sort of like a consensus of the concerns that we as board members have, or hot buttons, or specific issues that we think might be useful to have in front of The city council, and it would be district. Sort of a bullet point and a paragraph of maybe 3 or 4 The issues that we might come to some agreement or consensus on is what… yeah, since I've been a director, and when the board… when RAM has done this, it's generally fit on the single page, and it's been 3 or 4 bullets with, like, an introductory, here's our stuff, thank you, and the bullets, and…

[104:08] Thanks for considering. We could even refer back to what was done last year, or two years ago, and consider if that still aligned… is still what we're focused on, and what we think that the City Council should focus on. And I wasn't remembering when I was talking to you just before the meeting, Steve, but the, I think what they're really looking for is guidance from the boards on what they should set their… what they should pick as their work plan items. Nice. We're… During their retreat. This is their work, their annual work. Were there… term. Their term… Their term. Term, yeah. Is it because of the… what years will the term be? Because of the elections, right? Because they're switching today. It's changing. There'll be another election next year, so it'll kind of be a quick turnaround, and…

[105:08] They'll have to choose wisely with their… with their priorities. I mean, that kind of has an impact on what we would recommend they focus on, if it's… This year, or 3 years. Well, maybe one… maybe one way we could purchase is just desk. I should ask everyone to think about that a little bit, and come maybe prepare next time with one or two. Ideas, and we could somehow… sort of consolidate those. We could condense it down to two or three priority Yeah. For those of us who… you said these letters were prepared in past years? Yes. From reps, so we could see… Yeah. I thought I could put my hands on it quickly. We were in 2024's better. There's also, like, what…

[106:02] you know, what we've heard and what utility is focused on, and so, like, the comp plan policies we were talking about, this upcoming rate study that's going to be really impactful in the way of what Collecting revenues for utilities. Yeah, I was gonna say, because you said staff is available. Before we leave, is that I could set up time and staff to… for that. You can. You're raising your hand. Be guiding me. We have a volunteer, is that? We could all bring bullets. We could all bring bullets. Part of the, It's great for transparency, but part of the tricky thing to facilitate is that we also have to absolutely respect open meetings laws, so you can't be coordinating all together behind the scenes to develop your… Letter, like we might if… as a staff team, but…

[107:02] So I think hearing what I've said tonight, and the fact that it's really focused on Council setting its priorities. I think one of the things that… To give an example, their last retreat, they picked something around supporting the manufactured housing communities and looking for opportunities to help them with their utilities infrastructure, because some of them are really struggling. In the paper. And so they picked that as one of their, As one of our priorities, that kind of relates to Utilities working. So, it's things that you've heard from us, or maybe is on your mind, that you would advance. Each year, the… the Council's request of the boards. Tends to have a… A little bit different.

[108:02] twist, I would say. One year, they asked the boards, what made you happy, what made you sad, and what do you think we should work on? They're not asking the question that way. I think they're saying, what do you think we should focus on for our retreat, for our work? So… Would there be time in a November meeting? Yeah, I mean, we could… I think the comprehensive plan update might take… 45 minutes or an hour, if I had to guess. And… I think if you worked on the… the letter, So, you could… from what I've seen of boards in the past, and the way you all work together and cooperate, I bet you could get that done in an hour, an hour and a half. Might have to be a slightly longer meeting. But, but also allow us to plan a retreat if we want to have one.

[109:00] So we'd have a discussion, and then some… we would designate someone. To sort of pull those ideas together and prioritize them and come up with a letter that we could shake your leg around, or what are the rules? Ideally, you'd finish it or get really close to finish that night in the meeting. And the… I don't know that it's absolutely required, but I think the board has formally Take an action on it. And made a recommendation to Council. That sound reasonable? What does the retreat look like, for those of us who are new? So, each year, we've historically had a retreat, and we hire a facilitator, and a lot of years go through an exercise and discuss things from the board's perspective. that were working well, things that might be on your mind that you would like to see in the future, or would like to change. It's also an opportunity for you all to get to know each other, and

[110:07] have some sharing that way. And then some years, we've taken a portion of the retreat, and Worked on the letter. And then have a subsequent meeting where it was finalized. took place on City of Boulder. Like, we didn't go away to… board work. Did we get swag? No swag. It's, like, the work of the board. Thank you. Yeah. And… each board has a little bit different style when it comes to a retreat. Some of them do them on the weekend, and it's all day. I think that the signal we've received over the years from the… from RAV is that preferred to do it on the weekday and not spend the, like, few hours that…

[111:04] Yes. You can send around, like, the last 2 or 3 of these, just to… help us get a sense of what they typically look like. Help you get a sense, and like, like I'm saying. It might be good to designate one or maybe two of you to work with us between now and the November meeting to kind of capture what you've heard from the board, what your sense is, what guidance you've gotten from us on the template, and maybe get a head start of some things that the board could consider. And you might… You might have… Whoever that is might come up with a bullet list of 7 or 8 items that you would decide Are these… are these the right candidates, and let's pick 3 or 4 of them, or something like that. Yeah. That might be, from kind of where we sit, and what's being requested, and the time available, in my mind, that might be an efficient approach. Yeah.

[112:05] I'll send you my thoughts. Yeah. No, I mean, I can help you. Maybe Katie and I could try to, yeah, talk and coordinate with the other folks. Get a few ideas, and if we could get those past ones to get a sense of the scope. I think that'll be a very… Huge. I don't think it's a huge… And I… I think it could be done in the night. Put that on the agenda for them. I do think, given, like, the state of Colorado's budget challenges right now, the city and county of Denver's budget challenges right now, a bunch of different communities reeling as we, like, resize post, you know. surge of federal funding or whatnot, this idea of, like, the Council taking a proactive role in establishing sustainable, liable, long-term financial planning and how utilities fits into that is probably a pretty good

[113:09] theme to happen. be aware of, or think about in their role on City Council. That's not one that we brought up before, I think, but just… Yeah, yeah, it's… So, that sounds good, right? Usually, the upcoming agenda discussion takes 35 seconds. I knew it was going to be a bit more to chew on. Are there other items? I don't think so. Okay, then I guess, anybody have anything else? We're ready to do an adjourn, then. Can I have a march to adjourn? Nice. Adjourn. Second. All in favor? Alright. Thank you, Brooks.

[114:02] Thank you.