Thread by @shayshinecastle

Council moves consent agenda. I don't think there was anything exciting in there.

Gonna vote now to call-up (review) design plans for Hill Hotel.

Unanimous vote for that.

Weaver: Yates and I have been getting daily briefings from Brautigam to see what's changed from previous day. Can we do that for all of council?
Carr: I think that would be problematic. That comes pretty close to a meeting.

Weaver: Is it OK that we're getting briefings, Yates and I?
Carr: As long as you're not directing her to do anything.

Young: How are briefings different from updates we've been receiving?
Brautigam: Briefings are phone calls. They ask qs that I can't answer and have to research.

And Weaver shares info he's gotten from Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

Young: Could we just send our qs to Jane and then have them answered in reports we receive? Rather than briefings with 2 council members every day?

Friend: I'm pretty uncomfortable with 2 council members receiving briefings given that other of us might have different questions. And we're supposed to have equal standing.

Yates: I agree with Young and Friend. "I don't feel super comfortable ... having this exclusively be" Weaver and me.

Suggests rotating who those members are but keep the mayor in there bc he's connected with other communities.

Wallach seconds Friend's points.

Brockett: I agree, but I'm concerned about overburdening Brautigam and staff with questions.

Brautigam: It would be too much to do. Those phone calls happen at 5 p.m. and go for 45 min. Questions are asked of me like, "What have we done about rental assistance?" If I were to try to take notes about those qs and answer them all, I'd be working until midnight every night.

She wants to keep chatting with Weaver but let other council members send in questions.

Weaver: This got started bc Mayor Hancock got us together 3X in a week as he was preparing stay-at-home order. I didn't want Brautigam "to get blindsided by it" as things were moving quickly.

Things won't be moving as quickly now. We've got center for unhoused ppl set up; order out.... "I'm happy with stopping those calls every day."

Young: Media questions. I'd just like to suggest we spread that around. All council members are essentially equal. I understand how other cities tend to view mayors, where they elect them, they want to center them.

We should all talk to the media. Spread out those opportunities.

Young said. Sorry, lost the thread for a minute. My roommate is home and distracting me.

Yates: I agree with Young RE: media. Idk how best to do that.

"If we could encourage Patrick (Von Keyserling, communications director) to spread (media) requests around to other members," Yates suggests

Young talking about a webinar she attended with American Psychological Institute on leadership in a time of crisis.

This is related to op-eds to the Camera. Suggests they rotate them among members on a weekly basis.

Op editor Quentin Young has OK'd.

It's times like these I feel like chopped liver. Like everyone is just humoring me with my cute little news project.

Friend and Brockett like that idea.

Wallach, too. He was once quite the prolific Camera contributor.

Von Keyserling suggests (through Brautigam) that staff review what members write "for accuracy."

Yes, Young says, we need to make sure we're conveying accurate information bc "we don't want to be like leadership at the federal level."

Weaver: I will defer some or all media inquiries to you guys. I will be honest it's been a burden, more than a pleasure.

I thought I could tell he was less than pleased each time he talked to me.

Friend suggests "spreading it around." Mentions KGNU and Boulder Beat.

Yay! I've moved from chopped liver to maybe like canned tuna.

We're talking workplan priorities now.
Some concern with fitting stuff in bc COVID updates take so long.

Brockett: I would really encourage CAC (scheduling committee) to "take a sharp pencil" to agenda items. Our focus should be on COVID right now. "Things that are not extremely time-sensitive," I would recommend they get put off.

Yates echoes.

Tonight's COVID briefing took 2.5 hrs. "No reason to believe" they won't be that long every week, he says. "That's got to be absolutely our No. 1 priority."

Nothing else on the April agenda "that's even as close to important" as that, he says.

Wallach: "This is absolutely not the time to be focusing in on e-scooters (on the April agenda). I'm not even sure the library district" rises to that level.

"Frankly, I don't even want to focus on these things at the moment. It's not our job."

Friend: That's what we're asking community members to do right now, put off things the are not essential. We should "role model" that.

Also, I don't think we should fight with each other right now on things that might be controversial.

Young echoes all her peers with one exception: We need to appoint board and commission members.

Swetlik said something but I didn't understand it at all.

Nagle: it's great that boards/commissions can meet via video, but staff is really thin right now. It's not going to cause staff to work on stuff they don't need to be working on right now, is it?

Brautigam: Some things need to get done. Arts Commission has to award grants.

The plan was to try out remote public hearings April 7, she says. But if we pare down and shed library, e-scooters, we won't need a public hearing.

In answer to Nagle q: We would only hold board/commission meetings that has matters we need to move forward on.

TAB, OSBT, Planning Board, WRAB, CU South subcommittee, etc.

Those board meetings will restart in mid-April, with public participation.

"We do have some capacity to be able to hold those meetings and we'd only do ones that we thought had a matter that needed to get decided in the near term."

Weaver: Wasn't there urgency on e-scooters to extend moratorium?
Carr: Yes. Expires on 12 or 21 of April. We could just do extending moratorium on consent, though.

So I think we're doing board/commission appointments next week...? Seem to be wrapping up tonight.

Friend RE: appointments: I think it's going to be us bickering when we don't need to be pickering, publicly.

Weaver: Would you do an extension of current members then?
Friend: Yes. State leg shut down under emergency. We should too, for non-COVID stuff.

Carr: No provision for extension in the city charter. We're already violating that bc we were supposed to do it at a regular meeting in March and that didn't happen. (These are special meetings.)

Friend: This feels low-risk to me. I would stick to health and safety.
Carr: It is a crime to violate the charter.

Laughter from Friend (and me).

Carr: I don't think anyone will lock you up in charter jail.

Yates: Could we just reappoint incumbents until appointments are made, whenever that may be?

Carr: I would not advise doing that. They serve until replaced. If you do nothing, their terms don't expire.
Yates: Oh, that's better.

Wallach: "I think that's an excellent solution. On this I'm prepared to take my chance on the gross illegality."

"I've always looked good in orange," he adds.

Brockett on board, too.

Swetlik: It's.... um ...

He forgot.

Somebody visited the dispensary recently.

Friend wants to skip library district; Yates agrees.

Young still wants to do appointments on March 31. "We don't know much about this pandemic, but one of the things we do know is it's going to get worse before it gets better."

As time goes on, council will have "less and less appetite" to do appointments. We should do it now. "I don't think we're going to bicker that much. We may, on one or two boards."

"We never have bickered much on these appointments."

Yeah, last year the majority just steam-rolled everything and voted in some seriously questionable candidates. Yates and Brockett barely made a peep of protests bc they had no hope.

Nagle agrees with Young.

Swetlik: If we extend it, we need to touch base with applicants.

"I assume pandemic is going to create a lot of uncertainty for ppl who are on the boards. If we get any withdrawals, we'd want to know that as soon as possible."

Wallach concurs.

Weaver: "I can only think of one really rough" appointment in my 6 years on council. He would do those, but most of council doesn't.

"My guess is if COVID briefing takes a long time, we'll only have bandwidth to revisit workplan."

Fine with "punting initiative petitions" to a later meeting. Forgot that was on the calendar, too.

Weaver: "This was an exciting council meeting."

Lots of kudos to staff.

Young: I want to ask community to please comply with stay-at-home order. Use common sense to determine what is essential. "Look within (your) hearts ... this is not a time to do things about *me* this is a time to do things about we. Think collectively, act collectively."

Yates: Most cities are 2-3 weeks behind us. Our staff is doing stuff that other cities are just staring to think about now.

"While we're on really uncertain ground here and some stuff we're making up as we go along, we have the smartest ppl leading us."

"Most" of their decisions are smart ones, he says.

OK, that's it for tonight folks. @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!