Thread by @shayshinecastle

I'm here! Another #Boulder city council meeting. Tonight: Board and commission nominations (with a public hearing) and discussion of traffic crashes / injuries + deaths, and efforts to prevent them.

The "official" name of that latter subject is Safe Streets Report (as in, a study Boulder does every ~3 years on crashes and trends) and Twenty is Plenty — the city's 2020 move to lower neighborhood speed limits to 20 mph

Lots of interesting data in that one.

First up: Board and commission nominations. Here is the list of available spots and applicants for each board/commission. documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

I believe nominations from council members will be tonight, along with a public hearing, and final appointments will be made during the next meeting, on the consent agenda. (Which usually isn't discussed, so tonight is THE night for these — next week is just a formality.)

These don't seem all that important or exciting, but they are. Some of these boards have enormous influence over big city projects, policy or processes (Planning Board, Parks & Rec, Water Resources, Open Space) and appointments are often political.

Replace "often" with "always"
Appointments to many of these boards (like Planning) are ALWAYS political.

No one signed up for the public hearing for these nominations.... so council will move to nominations. (There is rarely any participation from the public on this.)

Arts Commission - 1 seat, 5-yr term
Wallach nominates Gwenyth Burak (from BMoCA)
Joseph nominates Robyn (Yaelead) Mitchell
Yates nominates Alan O'Hashi (a writer and author)

Mitchell gets it with 5 votes

Beverage Licensing Authority - 2 seats, 3 applicants and Boulder city code requires that one member be a woman.

Lisa Spalding is the only female applicant, so she is essentially guaranteed a seat.

Folkerts (who was on the board/commission committee): We talked about holding open any seat that doesn't have any choice. This seems like that.

Yates: "We have never done that before." Sometimes we appoint someone who is the only eligible applicant; sometimes we keep it open. We need a woman and we have a woman. "I don't think we've every declined a person bc of their gender."

Yates nominated Spalding, who is / has been affiliated with PLAN-Boulder and is a long-time slow growth advocate. She was a big opponent of Bedrooms Are for People (as was Yates).

BLA is not typically a political board, but after the Boulder Reservoir thing... maybe that's changing.

Friend: We're doing things in new ways this year, so I appreciate we've not done this before, but we said we would not fill non-competitive seats, and this is that.

How long would we leave this seat open? Friend asks.
No particular answer for that.

Speer: For me, this feels like extending the decision we already made to not appoint folks who were the only applicant that fits the criteria for that seat.

Some acknowledgement from Speer and Friend that it's not fair to keep applicants waiting for too long. That is, they should make a decision at some point.

Winer nominates Michael Carr for the first BLA seat (5-yr term), and he gets it. Council decides to hold the second seat (4-yr term) open to get more applicants.

If you are a non-man and want to approve (or deny) liquor licenses, apply! (Must live in the city of Boulder)

Cannabis Licensing Advisory Board
Friend nominates Brian Keegan for the 5-yr term for someone with an education background.

No other nominations, so that seat goes to him

There is another seat for a biz owner/worker in the industry, but no applicants met that criteria. So if you're out there... apply!

Justin Kalvin is the only nomination for the Downtown Management Commission, so he gets that seat.

Still a spot left for a property owner or representative. Apply! Only a 1-yr term!

Environmental Advisory Board - 2 seats (5-yr and 3-yr term)
Benjamin nominates Jimmy Howe
Folkerts nominates Duncan Gilchrist
Wallach nominates Kathleen Hancock
Speer nominates Amanda Groziak
Joseph nominates Brook Brockett and Graham Hill
Winer nominates Chloe Constant

Brook Brockett is Mayor Brockett's child. The mayor has recused himself for this nomination process and vote bc of that.

And I should say Graham Hill volunteers with me at Feet Forward's weekly outreach

Not that I'm voting, but still. Disclosures are important! Gotta know when there's a conflict of interest.

5-yr term: Amanda Groziak, an environmental professor with CU and member of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society.

3-yr term: Brook Brockett, a CU student and perhaps the first nepotism appointment I've seen. (Not that Brook isn't qualified, and student participation is great) But still.

The EAB is not one of Boulder's more powerful boards, by my reckoning. (At least not yet)

Brook is trans; Speer getting a little emotional and saying that is the first appointment of a trans individual to one of Boulder's boards and commissions.

Not sure if that's true but quite possibly is. There were trans individuals on the police oversight implementation panel. (Not technically a board or commission)

Boulder Housing Authority - 3 seats, all 5-yr terms
Yates nominates Julie Schoenfeld
Wallach nominates Bob Walker
Friend nominates ex councilwoman Jill Grano
Benjamin nominates Mary Faltynski

Schoenfeld and Walker are already members of the Boulder Housing Authority — the board for Boulder Housing Partners

Grano gets the first seat, Schoenfeld the second and Walker the third

Housing Advisory Board (the city's more informal board that generally looks at housing issues, and which council generally ignores) - 2 seats, both 5 yrs

Speer nominates Julianne Ramsey, a CU student
Yates nominates Dick Harris, a former BHP and Thistle board member
Joseph nominates former mayor Matt Appelbaum
Friend nominates Jimmy Howe, a CU grad student
Folkerts nominates Philip Ogren, who hosts the Sharing Boulder podcast

Lots of CU students in this year's crop. Not typically what we see, but nice that they're getting involved.

Julianne Ramsey gets a seat, as does Philip Ogren

Human Relations Commission - 2 seats (5-yr and 1-yr terms)

Speer nominates Carlos Valdez, who gave the city's first Spanish-language board interview
Benjamin nominates Fikir Yacob, a CU student
Folkerts nominates Selasee Atiase, a musician
Joseph nominates Graham Hill

Valdez gets the 5-yr term, Yacob the second

Landmarks Board - 1 seat, 5-yr term

Folkerts nominates Chelsea Castellano, the co-organizer of Bedrooms Are For People and sustainability program manager for NCAR

Yates nominates Myron Gutmann, a CU history professor

Castellano gets that one, with votes from all the Progressive members of council

Library Commission will remain open, as there is 1 seat and only 1 applicant (bc the other one got appointed to the Beverage Licensing Authority).

Apply! You can talk about library things!

Open Space Board of Trustees - 1 seat, 5-yr term. Typically one of the political ones, bc of CU South (lately) and all things open space (generally)

Benjamin nominates Jon Carroll, who apparently got married on Boulder open space.
Wallach nominates Hal Hallstein, a current OSBT member
Folkerts nominates Bridger Tomlin, sustainability program manager for Westminster

Carroll gets it

Forgot to say Winer sat that one out, bc one of her family members applied for OSBT

Planning Board, another super political one - 3 seats (two 5-yr terms and one 2-yr)

Yates nominates Mary Cooper Ellis
Speer nominates Laura Kaplan
Folkerts nominates ML Robles
Friend nominates Mark McIntyre
Winer nominates Kurt Nordback

Lots of familiar names in there. Mark is on TAB now and ran for council at least once; ML and Kurt have been big on advocating for tiny homes and other, more diverse housing options. ML also an architect, which the board has lacked for a couple of years.

Kurt just generally is a planning junkie. V involved in a lot of housing and growth-related issues.

Kaplan, a facilitator and mediator, gets the first seat
Robles the second
McIntyre the third (2-yr term)

McIntyre will have to resign from the Transportation Advisory Board to start with Planning Board. He had one year left on his term.

I will cross-check these names with campaign finance records, but based on my recall of them, I feel like a lot of overlap between progressive backers and nominations.

Not that unusual; as I said, these appointments are always political. Still notable.

As we can see from 2 yrs ago... boulderbeat.news/2020/04/09/pol…

Parks & Rec - 2 seats (5-yr and 3-yr term)
Friend nominates Anita Spiers
Speer nominates Neal Henderson
Yates nominates Sarah (Sunny) van der Star
Folkerts nominates Carrie Tanner
Wallach nominates Tom Souvignier

5-yr term: Spiers
3-yr: van der Star

Transportation Advisory Board - now 2 seats, but lawyers say we can only fill one of them. McIntyre's will be filled after he officially leaves

Teresa Tate: You can go so far as to say who you would nominate if you *had* a vacancy, but you can't officially vote on a second one until that seat is open.

"My concern here is that we didn't open up nominations, vacancies for that specific seat," Tate says. Especially since it's only a 1-yr term; more folks might be willing to apply for something shorter.

Council disagrees, so they'll do a straw poll for that extra seat and then "officially" vote on his replacement next week (when they're officially voting on the rest of them).

McIntyre has texted Friend to say he will resign immediately, creating a vacancy.

Wallach nominates Megan Richer, who works for Via
Benjamin nominates Rebecca Davies with People For Bikes
Friend nominates Maria (Triny) Willerton, a crash survivor who runs the nonprofit It Could Be Me, to "re-humanize users of the road and change the 'Us vs. Them' narrative"

Joseph nominates Stephen Haydel, a multi-time applicant and bike advocate
Folkerts nominates Ariel Shlosberg, a CU student

Lots of deep experience and good choices in this pool. TAB always turns out the most impressive applicants for some reason.

Davies gets the only official seat
Straw poll puts Willerton in McIntyre's now officially open seat, as he texted the mayor to resign so he could be on Planning Board

Lastly, Water Resources Advisory Board - another one that has become quite political due to CU South.
2 seats, 5 years and 4 years

Winer nominates Barbara Amy Broughton, a consultant who helps cities with large infrastructure projects. She gets the 5-yr
Benjamin nominates Steve Maxwell, who also works on water projects and has published a few books and articles. He gets the 4-yr seat.

That is the end for these appointments. A more in-depth piece is coming to match all these folks to their political and other affiliations and activities.

Less tension than usual, perhaps because there is a 6-person majority instead of the usual 5-4 split.

Seems like more students than usual got appointed, and lots of politically involved folks as well (not necessarily more than usual... that's always the name of the game).

But again, that's TBD as I look through the applications and do some more research.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks!