Thread by @shayshinecastle

Last item: Scheduling discussion for Part 2 of homeless services / enforcement. Where we landed: boulderbeat.news/2021/01/21/bou…

Weaver: We weren't sure what we were scheduling. Tonight is to scope that out.

I find this to be really odd. Like, anyone watching can tell what the conversation will be: Does council support staff recommendations for increased enforcement? Do they want to explore more services instead/in addition to?

It's not that hard, bro.

I'm guessing the "confusion" is because council already said no to safe camping and parking.

As Yates says: I think staff was pretty clear, and the majority of council was, too.

"I don't think that falls under this umbrella," Yates says.

"My preference would be not to include sanctioned campground or safe parking in what was a pretty narrow discussion," Yates says.

That means "hypothetical" questions about private bankrolling of these programs... which aren't hypothetical, because safe parking IS coming to Boulder. boulderbeat.news/2021/01/08/bou…

Here's also the story from when council turned down safe camping, parking in the summer: boulderbeat.news/2020/07/18/bou…

This may be a candidate for "revisiting" a decided issue, given that new information has been revealed since that time. Namely, that staff left out positive outcome data from its presentation to council.

AND that now there is a new spending request for more enforcement. Some on council have said that the city should spend on services instead.

Weaver: I was not suggesting that we revisit city-sponsored safe camping or parking. Idk if we want to talk about it; I've just heard from council members on this.

Brockett: I want to make it clear ... I do want to have as part of the discussion, additional service alternatives that we might offer for folks experiencing homelessness. That may count as a revisit.

We are proposing significant additional expenditures, Brockett says. And we have a recent example of quite successful safe encampments. Denver voted 10-1 tonight to expand that.

Friend: When we were taking the vote last month, several of us wanted to talk about this holistically.

"It would be poor form for us not to include that in Part 2 when we agreed to do it in Part 1," Friend says.

"I found it really hard, almost like being asked to pick a favorite kid. It's really hard to pare down. ... All I want to lift up is I think we need to have more space for us to create some ongoing, substantive, creative discussions on this issue."

"We're not going to get through what we're going to get through in one more meeting." Suggests public hearing as well.

Swetlik: This does seem like an additional funding discussion. It's pretty clear there is a split on council as to whether should that all go toward additional enforcement or additional services.

"I'm not going to vote in favor of an all-enforcement regime going forward."

Weaver: We have a camp that wants to take the elephant in bites, and we have what Friend just argued for, which is a holistic discussion. ... I have a hard time seeing what that looks like.

"What are we trying to do?"

If we're looking at this holistically, that should be a special meeting, Weaver says.

Setting it up so that if 5 council members DON'T want that, it won't happen.

Young: "I'm not entirely sure what a holistic discussion means either."

*sigh*

Young: "For me, a holistic discussion and reorganizing an internal team is like apples and oranges. So we've got the apple part being held up by the oranges."

Reminder: ONE of staff's recommendations is to bring the encampment removal team in-house, which would add ~$170K to the cost.

Young: "A holistic discussion is not going to be addressed by city resources." It needs to be regional.

Young: "I really don't want to revisit the encampments and safe parking, in terms of having it be city-funded."

Young: "I think they're two separate discussions."

"I really don't see us having any kind of impact, holistically, with city resources," Young says.

Brockett: I think the holistic approach is being portrayed as somethign bigger than it needs to be. I just mean that we talk about the staff recommendations together all at the same time along with service alternatives. That's really it.

Which makes sense, given that when council turned down services, they said it was to not take $$ away from housing first. But suddenly, when it comes to spending $ on enforcement, suddenly that needs to be separate.

Young: "I could see the discussion including some service alternatives. If we had a list of what those service alternatives might be, I think it could be a manageable discussion."

Brockett: I'm just bringing forward the safe outdoor space model. Other people might hve other ideas.
Young: I thought that was safe camping and parking? Which we already said no to.

Brockett: It's pre-set up. There's a nonprofit that sets up ice fishing tents with heaters, some shared spaces.

Yates goes with the apples and oranges comparison. "Staff asked us 4 questions and we didn't answer any of them." None of them were about safe campgrounds.

Yates: "The topic of our meeting was keeping our public spaces safe and clean. ... I think we should just take care of that business first."

Yates: "I think revisiting a safe campground is a long and complicated discussion." It will take a lot of staff effort. And it does a disservice to staff who have already brought us all the research and we made a decision.

Wallach agrees with Yates. Shocker.

"I'm a little reluctant to start re-litigating" something we've already decided on. But "I'm receptive" to expanding the discussion to hear from staff what new programs are in the world, what is working, etc.

Would be "more than happy" to hear about the Denver program or national development that might "change our view of the world."

Wallach: Council members need to "bring us information that shows why we need to take a new look."

Um, how about what staff left out of its report to council? Which HAB/HRC already pointed out?

Firnhaber: Once a year, we've been trying to have the annual homeless update with city council. It's normally a very full night, often the only item on the agenda. We haven't scheduled that yet for this year.

Quite frankly, I was waiting to see how these conversations would play out, Firnhaber says. Last year's update was in July.

Firnhaber: We could have taken the encampment removal team in-house without council's OK, but that has budget implications.

Swetlik to Wallach: There is new info out there. HRC/HAB sent a very thorough report to us.
Wallach: HRC did a very interesting analysis of safe parking. They did almost no analysis of sanctioned campgrounds, and they made a request for tiny homes with also very little data.

Wallach: I don't think they really addressed any of the major questions with regard to campgrounds. I have 12-15 questions. "It's not the case that they gave us the report that fully addressed all the core issues."

"They made a very interesting case" on safe parking, Wallach says.
Swetlik: Essentially, we're being asked to allocate new, additional funding toward enforcement.

Without also talking about services, I'm not inclined to support enforcement spending, Swetlik says.

"If you want my vote on some of those, we have to look at the other side."

Weaver: Do you view the city removal team as enforcement?
Swetlik: It is technically an enforcement mechanism of our camping ban, so yes.

Brockett: My understanding is we're proposing spending significant additional $$ to deal with encampments. We need to look at service alternatives. "This is all apples."

"If we're going to spend a substantial amount of additional $$ on these issues, I think we need to consider what we might do with those dollars. It belongs as part of this discussion."

Just to clarify, council members are saying "clean up" but that terminology has been rejected by national homeless experts (as well as judge in Denver) as in accurate. These camps aren't being cleaned; they are being removed.

Friend: I feel like there is a bait-and-switch if we only do part 1 (more enforcement) when we said we'd get to part 2 (services). "It doesn't feel like follow-through to me."

"This issue really has us chasing our tails as a council all year," Friend says.

Friend: "Most of us agree on the progress we want to make: We want to help individuals and make spaces safe. How do we get there?"

Nagle speaks!

"I know that last time it was getting late and we agreed to put off the meeting to have a more robust conversation."

She agrees with Young. And is stoked that private citizens raised $$ to put ppl in hotel rooms.

"It's going to take community to jump in and third parties to jump in."

"It sure seems like we're leading in a lot of ways and doing a fantastic job," Nagle says. Wants council just to address staff's recommendation. "It would be great to have unlimited funds but we don't."

So... council doesn't have the money to house/help people, but maybe they have to money to ticket/arrest/move people along.

Weaver: There are some things that don't involve money — ordinances around safety (propane tanks, tents on public property) — and things that do.

Weaver: It sounds to me like we can address spending and non-spending policies in two separate meetings.

Yates: I don't disagree. But if we put all the $$ things into one meeting, the q I have for staff is: When could you be ready for that?

Firnhaber: From today we would probably need at least 6 weeks. Possibly 8 weeks.

Firnhaber: I do think there's additional info we'd want to bring you on enforcement options. "We didn't really bring you a real proposal."

"Relatively close" on bringing the removal team in-house
"More time" needed to finalize proposal for more police / urban park rangers / ambassador program (in partnership with Downtown Boulder Partnership)

Police Chief Maris Herold: We'd be looking at that as an integrated program, maybe not relying on the police so much if we have an ambassador program.

Weaver: Would it take a lot of work on your part to put together info/proposals on services like safe camping and parking?
Firnhaber: We'll meet whatever timeline you give us.

I normally don't like to shit on staff, but they've already given incomplete and misleading on this before. Tasking them with it seems problematic.

Would hope to see HAB/HRC recommendations included in officials notes to council. They've been left out twice.

Young: Meth recovery should be part of this discussion. "That is something that could actually have a great impact on people's lives."

Joseph noting how long this meeting is.

She supports bringing the removal team in-house (extra $170K annually) and additional services for meth users (cost unknown) and the ambassador program.

Everything on this list is a health and safety issue, Friend says. Someone froze to death last week. I would be leery of prioritizing one over the other.

Wallach: "This started out as a public safety discussion." I can't think of anything that would have a bigger impact than more services for meth users.

Our first Wallach sigh of the night! And so late into the meeting.
Wallach Sigh-O-Meter: 1

Weaver to Friend: I'm sorry to do this, but I'm going to push back a little bit. These things are all important, but we need an agenda.

Echoes comments on meth treatment.

Weaver: "I'm going to come down firmly on the side of we need to answer staff's questions." But to make that fair and consider service alternatives, that's maybe a 1-2 hr discussion.

Yeah right. We've been talking about WHAT to discuss for an hour already!

Weaver already setting council minority up for disappointment: "Not everybody's going to be happy with where we land, but we will at least have discussed everything together."

Now that we've settled What, gonna talk about When.
Yates suggests April 6 - 7 weeks from now.

Wallach: I think the money discussion might go for 8 hours and the policy discussion may only be 75 min.

"That's going to be a long one."

Nagle speaks again! She has a biz trip the first two weeks of April, so she won't be at either of those meetings.

Friend: We extended SWS to 60 days. By March 10, people will have used those up and when temps drop March 11, we might be having this same discussion. "That can of worms is going to reopen."

That's in the Policy discussion bucket, which will likely be a shorter discussion, so it could happen sooner.

Firnhaber: All the staff that will be working on these options have other full-time jobs. This is sort of on top of what we do. We have other programs we're trying to keep going.

Weaver to Brockett, Swetlik: What do you want staff to bring back info on RE: services?

Brockett: I've already proposed sanctioned campgrounds.
Weaver: Do you need anything from staff?
Brockett: Not a lot. If they want to look at Denver's program, great. If not, I'm fine talking about the concept.

Swetlik: I do want to take on the safe parking discussion at some point, I don't want to overextend. There's already info that's been provided. "If that's not compelling enough" I don't think it's going to make a difference.

OK so we won't decide When; the council scheduling committee will. I'll be watching to make sure they don't pull any crap. (As they have in the past.)

That's all for this one and the meeting.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you.