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Hey, #Boulder. Are you stoked? No? Well, get stoked: It's the last city council meeting before summer recess!
Full agenda tonight, including a muni public hearing, transportation master plan update, a discussion about living wage for city workers + moving janitorial staff in-house, more board and commission appointments....
And two council members will be picked to hear an oral report of the independent investigation into the arrest of Sammie Lawrence.
Some haggling among council members about when to do the board and commission appointments. That item got put on the agenda for July 16, but some members want to do it tonight. Bc of the scheduling snafu, at least three members didn't review the applications. They want to wait.
Morzel: We interviewed these ppl once, we read their applications once, or I assume.
Wants to do a 15-min break tonight so Jones, Yates and Brockett can review the applications and make appointments.
Wants to do a 15-min break tonight so Jones, Yates and Brockett can review the applications and make appointments.
Weaver suggests only doing appointments for boards that have a meeting between now and July 16. Brockett disagrees. Says he will abstain from appointing "under significant protest" if it happens tonight.
He has noted how important these boards are: Housing, Environmental Advisory Boards and Open Space Board of Trustees.
Yates suggests doing just EAB tonight since they are down two people.
Young: Didn't we already reach a consensus about what we want to do?
Young: Didn't we already reach a consensus about what we want to do?
EAB meets on July 10
HAB and OSBT don't meet until the end of July, so EAB will be appointed tonight.
HAB and OSBT don't meet until the end of July, so EAB will be appointed tonight.
We're in open comment. John Tayer asking council to prioritize funding for transportation, which is facing "grave needs." (About $41M in unfunded maintenance and capital projects.) BUT asks not to put all the taxing burden on businesses.
76% of businesses in Boulder have less than 10 employees, Tayer said in an email to council earlier today. But doesn't want to tax the big biz too much either: says several are considering moving out or expanding elsewhere bc of the high tax burden here.
Council probably OK with that, tbh.
Reminder: Longmont's Pride is this weekend! Go. Support one another!
Charissa Poteet (such a lovely name) saying Ponderosa residents *are* in fact being displaced by the city work there. 8 families have moved out, she said.
Lisa White, from the pedestrian advisory committee, wants to see more focus on reducing vehicle miles traveled in the transportation master plan. Multi-modal is important, but only reducing cars will make roads safer and help fight climate change.
"We currently subsidize driving by giving away public space for little or no cost."
Well this is a first. Mark Hemphill is here asking city council to allow more freedom around use of city rec center diving boards. No backflips! No gaynors! (sp?) No "handstand-based" jumps of any kind!
Andy Brecter is asking council to appoint someone to OSBT who has agricultural experience and the vision for what agricultural practices will be in the future: growing local food and improving soils.
Gregg Thornton is here to complain about his neighbors who own the Swoon Art House. I'm so excited bc I interviewed them about their cranky neighbor but never did anything with it. He's here! In the flesh!
The city prosecuted Swoon for doing too many fundraising events at the home. Very interesting ruling (being appealed) in terms of implication for such events, since they are common in political circles. Could force them into more secrecy.
Gary Urling speaking on local minimum wage. Cities can set their own as of Jan. 1, 2020, but will be capped at $1.75 or 15% above state min wage ($12/hr in 2020, increasing with inflation annually after that) and only 10% of cities can do it.
Nikhil Mankekar of the Human Relations Commissions supports bringing custodial workers in-house. (Which will be discussed later tonight.)
James Feeney is here again.
This is actually an interesting issue. The city's dark skies ordinance doesn't apply to individual mobile homes in such communities, bc they don't have property lines between the lots, and enforcement is limited by those.
Debra Ordway, our last speaker, has a parking problem with one of her neighbors on the cul-de-sac.
More deets on the mobile home dark skies thing: City CAN enforce wattage/lumens of lights on mobile homes, and the position and "shielding" (idk what that is) but there's another provision related to light being emitted at property lines that can't be enforced on individual homes
It's enforceable at the lot line of the mobile home park.
Also an update on the diving board issue from Tom Carr, city attorney: There were a spate of very serious diving accidents 20 yrs ago and many public facilities removed them completely. But Boulder lets ppl do all sorts of crazy things on our property; we're pretty well protected
Oh no. Jeff Rifken, during open comment, asked that the citizen-proposed upstream concept be considered for flood design on CU South. Councilwoman Young is asking staff about it.
"For me, it opens up the possibility of opening up" to more designs, Young says. Asking for a check-in on where the city is. We literally *just* had a meeting on this. boulderbeat.news/2019/06/08/wit…
Another update happening July 16.
Brautigam: I guess you could tell staff to do a completely different design, but we're not looking into that just now.
Brautigam: I guess you could tell staff to do a completely different design, but we're not looking into that just now.
Young: Other question it raises for me is the CU berm and what we might be able to do for flood mitigation in a more immediate timeframe. I'm wondering if we could have WRAB at least take a look at removing the berm immediately.
Jones: Can we discuss this July 16 rather than right now?
Weaver: Maybe a Hotline post? (Public email)
Weaver: Maybe a Hotline post? (Public email)
I should note that Gordon McCurry designed the upstream concept. He is now on the Water Resources Advisory Board, having been appointed earlier this year.
Carlisle: I would like to get some sense from WRAB of what they're thinking. Even though CDOT did make concessions, there are new factors to contend with, bc staff told us all along we could put the floodwall in the right-of-way.
"The community has been asking us to move on this, at least look at other options so we don't have to reinvent the wheel."
Brautigam: City staff doesn't have capacity to look at any other options right now. Working on staff direction. Stopping that or look at other options is not something we can do right now.
Carlisle: I'm not asking for staff to do this. I'm asking WRAB to look at the Variant 2 with modifications.
Brautigam, Jones and Weaver: Variant 2 is off the table.
Brautigam, Jones and Weaver: Variant 2 is off the table.
Weaver: We're trying to drop the variant nomenclature moving forward, but the detention McCurry is talking about could still happen.
Requests that staff attach the consultants' analysis of the upstream concept.
Morzel: I would like to know, can we do something removing the berm, sooner rather than later?
Brautigam: We can look into finding information on what removing the berm would do. We can't remove it, bc we don't own it. (CU does)
Brautigam: We can look into finding information on what removing the berm would do. We can't remove it, bc we don't own it. (CU does)
Carlisle: Not only that, but what kinds of constraints we are faced with would that remove.
Weaver: The plan is to remove it sometime; the q is can it be done sooner and what protection would that provide?
Weaver: The plan is to remove it sometime; the q is can it be done sooner and what protection would that provide?
Consent agenda: It's all approving meeting minutes, but Carlisle is not OK with the minutes on the large lots, large homes discussion bc of the lack of public engagement. "Ppl in these (zones) may wake up and find a cottage development or duplex or triplex next to them."
Nagle goes with Cindy.
Yates, too. "It's not so much I don't agree with the notes, but the notes are unclear."
Yates, too. "It's not so much I don't agree with the notes, but the notes are unclear."
"The minutes don't reflect" council's direction to staff, Yates says.
Those minutes are being pulled and amended; not approved tonight.
Those minutes are being pulled and amended; not approved tonight.
Carlisle also concerned about the minutes around the discussion of Diagonal Plaza. (I don't remember that they discussed that in-depth, tbh.)
This is all coming up bc "some community members" reached out about the meeting minutes.
City staff is developing a prospectus, which would "lay out the kinds of things" we could do with Diagonal Plaza, Brautigam said. Any actual changes would have a very robust public process. "It would be an invitation."
Carlisle: An invitation to land owners to see if they're interested in doing anything?
Brautigam: An invitation to land owners, developers, etc. It's a very preliminary step
Jones: You would bring that to us?
Brautigam: Before it was made public.
Brautigam: An invitation to land owners, developers, etc. It's a very preliminary step
Jones: You would bring that to us?
Brautigam: Before it was made public.
OK, gonna start another thread for muni.
@threadreaderapp, please unroll. Thx!
@threadreaderapp, please unroll. Thx!
