Thread by @shayshinecastle

New topic, new thread: open space tax. This is scheduled for two hours.

There isn't a staff presentation on the city site. Here's my recap of where we stand.
.15% sales tax extension to fund open space and maybe other things.

Weaver, Morzel, Nalge: Want it all to go to open space ($5.3M a year)
Jones and Brockett: .10% to open space, .05% to general fund ($3.5M/yr to open space, $1.76M to GF)
Carlisle: .10% to open space, .05% to transportation ($3.5M/yr to open space, $1.76M to transportation)

Each of those can be extensions for 10 years or 20 years. So really, 6 options.

Young, Yates last time said they weren't in favor of an open space tax right now (bc of our other needs)
Since that time, Yates and Young have proposed that .15% be extended for one year to pay for Longs Gardens conservation easement, to protect the property from development.

This has been a priority of council for years, but the city doesn't have the $$ for it.

Jones asks what staff thinks.
Carr: "We didn't feel it was appropriate for staff to weigh in. This is really a council discussion."

Jones asks open space director Dan Burke how the Longs Gardens conservation easement purchase would fit into the open space dept.

Burke: With our budget becoming less and less, we have developed a pretty robust internal evaluation for identifying possible acquisitions. "How does this advance open space charter purposes," guiding plans, etc.

Longs Gardens, "we felt for a number of very specific open space purposes, we felt it was a low priority."

Uses don't really fit open space charter purposes, Burke says.

Jones asks what Burke would prefer: Using open space $$ or general fund $$, "if we're telling you" we want this acquisition to happen regardless of what you say?
Burke: "It does meet open space charter purposes, so it's not way out in left field. It's just low on the priority."

The concern is we have other high-priority issues we might not have $$ for that are actively being negotiated, Burke says.

Burke: Staff preference is it wouldn't land in open space portfolio. But if it did, we would take it on.

Almost completely full chambers now. I see just a handful of open seats. Everyone here for Longs Gardens is wearing green shirts. (Or so I was told by a board member.)

Morzel: If we bought it with general fund $$, is there a way we can transfer it to open space land so it would take more than a future council, it would take a vote of the ppl, to turn that property into something other than open space?

Burke thinks there's a good argument for that, but defers to Carr.
Carr confirms city could buy it with general fund $$ and then place it under open space purview.

Carlisle: My understanding is we want to do a conservation easement, but it will be held by the property owners? (The Long family.)
Carr: No. The city would hold the easement. That could be under the management of open space and subject to the city's disposal requirements.

Some back-and-forth with Carlisle and Carr about who can hold the conservation easement. Carlisle asks about giving that easement to another party or organization.
It's complicated, Carr says, bc it would be a gift of city assets to an outside entity.

The intent of an easement is to "extinguish" development rights, Carr confirms in response to Young q. (Young used the word extinguish.)

It puts a "burden" on the property, Carr says, effectively presenting development.

Burke: Land management is different from the easement. It's still privately owned, unless the conservation easement dictates how the management would be done. It's up to the city to oversee the terms of the easement are being adhered to.

Weaver to Burke: Do you ever do payment plans for land acquisitions or conservation easements? Would that affect how you rank things for acquisition?

Burke: When we don't buy with lump sum transfer, it's usually through BMPA with a down payment.

Lippincott Ranch is an example of this. dailycamera.com/2018/07/14/bou…

Weaver: If you can make the payments over time, would it change the way open space staff prioritizes acquisitions?
Burke: "We're really looking at resources on the property. Money... obvs we wouldn't look at a property if we couldn't afford it" but it's more about resource values

Very Boulder statement: Money ain't a thing if you got it.

Another Young q: Any desired properties coming available within the next year or so?
Burke: We're currently in active negotiations on 3-4 properties. One is "pretty significant acquisition" close to being finalized.

$$ is being put aside for that already.

Morzel re-asks Weaver's q about payments over time.
Young asks if this qualifies for BMPA
Burke: We're not that confident BMPA could be a tool to be used in initial talks with our counsel, but we have stopped pursuing aggressively that path.

States again: BMPA could probably not used in this situation.

Burke: If it wasn't a BMPA mechanism, idk how the city would be able to make payments over time on this.
Carr: You've got a TABOR issue with multi-year fiscal obligations. BMPA is a court-approved way to get around that.

Carr: You could do a contract subject to future appropriations. We'd have to ask Long family to agree to that bc a future council could refuse to pay it.

Though we generally can work around TABOR, Carr says, I'm not sure BMPA is appropriate here.

Why not? Weaver asks.

Carr: I've never seen us do a conservation easement through BMPA, not in my time. And there's a 30-yr lease on that property.
Burke: BMPA usually requires property to be free and clear.

Carr: If council directed us to explore that, we would happily do it. But I can't guarantee we can do that.

Jones: But if we pass a ballot measure saying we're going to do a tax to buy this, we'd be OK with TABOR?
Carr: Absolutely.

Yates: Can we write the tax and multi-year obligation into the ballot measure?
Carr: Yes. We've done that before.

idk if this is making sense to you all, but they're moving so fast I don't have time to explain BMPA and all the intricacies to you. Will do later.

Nagle: Assuming we want to do everything we can to protect Longs, and assuming we're going to do a .15 tax, which option would open space prefer?

She restates: Would you prefer .15 to go to you knowing you have to deal with Longs, or .01 and not have to deal with Longs?

Burke: All .15 to open space for 10 or 20 years would honor the board's wish and what staff would want.

I'm not sure that answers the question for me, but I'm admittedly a little confused.

Jones: We just want to make sure if we have a ballot measure that says "buy Longs" that open space actually buy it.

Kurt Brown from OSBT is speaking. "This has not come before the board, so I wouldn't want to speak for the board as far as Longs (Gardens). What you propose seems workable."

Crap, it's Curt, not Kurt. My bad. I always forget bc of the other city Kurt who is here frequently.

It's the cost of dealing with prairie dogs that complicates our long-term projections for management of our lands, Brown says.

"You had to manage that one," Jones jokes.

Morzel wants to make a non-motion for ppl to speak to during the public hearing. A pre-motion, some would say.

Jones: If there's anything ppl are wrestling with they want the public to weigh in on, let's hear it. But don't make a proposal.

Carlisle takes off the table her option to put money toward transportation. "We need to put those costs on commuters and business."

Jones: "When we deal with transportation, it's going to be a lot more than this. Rather than do something little this year, we might want to take a comprehensive approach."

Funny, that was the Yates/Young argument for pushing off the open space tax to next year.

We have affordable housing, transportation, library, fire, police, infrastructure needs.

Jones: "We know that next year, I'm pretty sure ..." transportation and affordable housing taxes.

Yates adds the things I just mentioned: fire dept, police, library. "Some of those burdens may be county-wide, etc. but they're all going to affect city taxpayers."

Young asks a slide to be put up about unfunded needs. "It occurs to me that what we do every year, we look at the budget in single silos. As we're moving along the year, we see the needs. We wanna fund this one when we see this one, and that one when we see that one."

"We're not looking at the whole picture."

This is a great opportunity to share this from the Library Commission: A great look at Boulder's budget: drive.google.com/file/d/1ZFLmsn…

Slide 13 shows that OSMP gets 10% of city's expenditures (excluding utilities). Slide 5 shows that OSMP and Parks & Rec get the most funding behind police and utilities.

Ok, we're in public hearing. 18 speakers, I think. (Unless it was 80 and I misheard. I really hope 18, but there are def more than 18 ppl here.)

First two speakers are kids from Longs Gardens, talking about goats and volunteering.

Peter Mayer, co-chair of PLAN but not speaking for them, is speaking in his trademark Volume-turned-up-to-11 voice.

"Let's get this done," Mayer says, doing a portion of the open space sales tax extension for Longs Gardens conservation easement. "It's quite obvious that our open space needs (more) funding." Doesn't want a separate ballot item for Longs.

Rebecca Hammond: "I challenge you to find any place else in Boulder where you can walk out ... and be taken back to 1955. This is an asset we could never, ever regain if we don't preserve it."

Jones reminds the speakers: "We're gonna do something, just so you know." She had asked previously that speakers tell council *how* they want things done. So far, only Mayer has done that.

I'm probably gonna not tweet every speaker, given the seemingly overwhelming support for this. I'll tweet novel ideas or interesting quotes only.

Taylor Clay says "thanks for being here until the end."
"Oh this is not the end," Jones says.

Brief update: Up to speaker 11 and everyone so far for the conservation easement on Longs Gardens. Only one speaker addressing council's request for how to do it.

Vanessa Keeley becomes the second: She wants it to not be a standalone measure but to be part of the extension to open space. And she doesn't want the easement to be paid for over more than one year.

Sales tax extension, I should say.

Q from Yates: Is there a legal reason you want the easement to be paid for all at once?
Yes, Keeley says, but someone else will address that.

Allyn Feinberg speaking for PLAN wants a .15% sales tax extension for 20 years, all going to open space.

"While the funding's declining, the funding needs not to decline."

Referencing increased visitation, deferred trail maintenance, prairie dogs, etc. An extension won't pay for everything, she says, but it's a good start.

Also for the conservation easement on Longs, paid for from the first year of the sales tax extension.

City should hold the conservation easement and have OSMP oversee it, Feinberg says. "Please pass this tax and help us with open space and Longs Gardens."

Raymond Bridge from the BoCo Audubon Society is getting specific, too: Also wants a .15% extension for 20 years, all to open space.

Sally Powell-Ashby asks for "tourist dollars" or "flood mitigation dollars" to go to Longs Gardens bc "there are ppl from all over the world who come here" and bc in 2013, that land absorbed a lot of water that didn't go into homes.

A little late, but Lynn Segal was the first and only speaker against a sales tax extension. "I'm on strike," she said.

18 speakers was correct. That's the end of the public hearing.

Justin (Spring, I think) is talking about why not to do a conservation easement with multi-year payments.

It's impractical, he says, and if payments stop, there's no easement. "It greatly complicates the equation. I've done this for 17 years; I've never seen a deal where you pay for an easement over time. It can be done; I think it's really messy."

Jones asks how to write a ballot measure that pays for Longs all at once.

Carr says they can write the measure to dedicate the first year of revenue for Longs. A .15% extension is $5.3M, and the last estimate of Longs' value was $4.8M, so it's "in the ballpark."

But the way revenue comes in from sales tax is not all at once. "They would just get their $$ at the end of the year," Carr says. "I assume they're not going to develop it in 2020."

Yates is suggesting a 2-3 year period to build up the revenue but then have a closing date when the $$ is all paid.

Young has a q: Does it make sense to include in the ballot language who will manage the land?
Carr: "I don't think so. The owner still owns the land; they have all the obligations and rights to use the land except the ones we've stripped away."

Open space's job is just like it is with all their conservation easements: To make sure the property owners are abiding by the easement agreement.

Jones: My understanding is there would be a management plan that does with the easement.
Carr: My preference would be to have the deal done that's conditional on the tax passing, by October.

Burke confirms the management plan will be agreed to by Long family and Boulder.

"You need a mechanism to keep agricultural means on the property alive over time, that has to be renewed every 10 years at least." (Burke)

Q from Carr: You're expecting the purchase price will be paid for all by the tax, not out of open space? So up to $5.3M.

That's correct, council says.

Morzel is proposing 20 year extension of .15% sales tax.

Young supports 10-year, with first year for Longs, then .1% to open space and .05% to general fund.

Yates agrees with Young, though his first choice would be just a one-year extension for Longs, but admits there isn't support for that.
"We've got some other needs coming down, so I feel uncomfortable committing to (20) years. It was only 6 years we took $$ away from open space."

Weaver wants .15% extension, all to open space.
"There are other ways to fund" our other needs. "I don't want us to be siloed into just sales tax as a way to fund it." Open space is very popular; poling was "crystal clear" on support for this tax.

And I think he wants 20 years.

"I can fully support a strong, long tax." (Weaver)

Nagle agrees with him. "I hold open space as one of my highest priorities personally."

Carlisle with them both: 20 years. .15% sales tax extension.

"We couldn't foresee back then (in 2013) what our open space needs would be. It's really incumbent upon us to take care of what we've got."

Jones: "I was being practical in suggesting .1% for open space, but truthfully, my heart is" with 20-year, .15% extension all for open space. "To heck with being practical."

"In hindsight, it wasn't a smart thing to do," to phase out those taxes for open space. "We know ppl love open space and they are using it at levels we've never seen."

"I still hope this next council supports affordable housing and transportation, bc that is important. But I do think it's why ppl live here is open space."

Carr is crafting the ballot measure, but the majority is for a 20-year, .15% extension all going to open space, with the first year of revenue going to buy a conservation easement on Longs Gardens.

That's what will appear on ballots this November. Again, council isn't doing a final vote tonight: That will be Sept. 3 with the other ballot measures.

Burke is back up clarifying why Longs Gardens is a low priority for open space. "I love Longs Gardens, but I have to wear that open space hat."

People in the audience groaned as he talked.

Audience is clapping and standing for, I think, a member of the family who owns the gardens.

She's taking the podium.

It is. Catherine (Kathryn?) Long. "It's very lovely, but it's all of you and all the ppl who have come on our property who have made this possible."

"It's not about me; it's about the community. That's what all of this is about; preserving something that is beneficial to the community."

Spelling of her name is indeed Catherine, a quick Google search confirms.

Vote is unanimous.

And there was much rejoicing.

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