https://otter.ai/s/4EZhmgOfS0a2_7WnYoCHUw
0:06
Now like to call the May 19 2020, Longmont, city council, regular session order. Could we please start with the roll call?
0:14
Yes. Mayor Bagley is not on the meeting yet. Councilmember Christiansen? Here.
0:24
Councilmember EW.
0:26
Here. Councilmember Martin. Here. Councilmember Peck. Here. Councilmember Rodriguez here.
0:36
Councilmember waters here. Mary, you have a quorum Mayor Pro Tem you have a quorum.
0:42
Thank you. At this time, we will do the Pledge of Allegiance.
0:47
Everybody ready? All right. I pledge allegiance to the flag. States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation is gone. God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
1:03
for
1:05
all right? That always sounds so good.
1:08
All right. First, I’ll do the reminder to the public for anybody wishing to speak during first call public invited to be heard on our public hearing item on our any of our public hearing items or for our final call been invited to be heard, you’ll need to watch the livestream with a meeting. instructions for how to call in to provide comment will be given during the meeting and displayed on the screen at the appropriate times during the meeting. Comments are limited to three minutes per person and each speaker will be asked to state their name and address for the record prior to proceeding with their comments. At this time, we will do the approval of minutes. I see no approval of minutes for this session. Is that correct? All right, and that we shall take agenda revisions and submission of documents and motions direct the city manager to add any agenda items the future agenda is alright, the second here let me maximize my screen so I can see everybody. Council Member pick
2:01
Marshall
2:04
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Oh, because I actually have two motions tonight. And I’m bringing them forward because when we were on WebEx we didn’t have any way to do public input. And now that we’re on zoom we do. So I’m going to move to direct staff to bring forward the second reading on Metro districts at the next regular session.
2:26
Can I have a second?
2:28
All second that second?
2:32
Okay, we have a motion in a second. Any discussion on this item?
2:39
Councilmember waters
2:41
Yeah, it won’t surprise.
2:43
Councilmember Packer the others on this program are on this in this meeting, that I’m I think that’s a bad idea. I’m going to vote against the motion. And I understand you know, the fate of Metro districts may be done. I will say I think anything to do that we do right? Now, under these conditions that make it more difficult to house people in Longmont is irresponsible. And I just think generally, we ought to wait until we can have a fuller face to face more robust discussion and carefully analyze the implications of doing what it seems like we’re going to do but to do it under these circumstances, feels to me like it is it’s a disservice to a whole bunch of people who are housing insecure in this town right now are going to be more so when we come out of this pandemic, so I’m going to vote against it. I think it’s a bad idea. I think it I think it does not keep faith with what we said we’re going to do it from the public input.
3:41
Just remember, Martin.
3:44
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.
3:47
I have a different reason for wanting to postpone this, which is that as people have become housing insecure as a result of their layoffs or because Have this strange circumstances of being homeless during a pandemic or whatever. I have a short list not a huge list, but a short list of other housing related items that I think should be considered by the Council. And so, my belief is that we should consider them close together, one after another at an appropriate time so that we can see how they interact with one another. And for that reason, I would I would rather postpone because for example, I don’t think that the staff has the time to get together a sources of income ordinance for a long month right now.
4:49
Thank you, Councilmember Christiansen.
4:58
This is something that we have Carefully discussed and analyzed since November, the seventh. And
5:06
this leaves developers hanging. I don’t think that’s appropriate. I, this is the second and final reading. We have disgusted and disgusted for months.
5:17
Everyone has had many, many opportunities to weigh in. And
5:25
I cannot understand how people think this has to do with providing portable housing. It does not. And we need to get this out of the way so we can discuss other housing options. This has just been hanging, and we need to be moving along through some things so that we can start dealing with all the things that we’ve loved hanging during the Coronavirus and this is something that’s just been put off and put off and put off and as Councilman Peck says now that we have the ability for people to, to voice their opinion, again, albeit on a zoom meeting, it’s nevertheless appropriate to move on and go forward with all the other things that are piling up. So this is one thing we can just have a final hearing on everybody have their voice heard and make up, take a vote, make a decision and move on to something more productive.
6:33
All right.
6:35
Well, I suppose I’ll just chime in real quickly that part of the reason it was postponed in the first place was due to the lack of the ability to have a proper public hearing. And in my opinion, wallet, we have been able to have comments from the public during these zoom meetings. I’m pretty sure most would agree that they are not as robust as they normally would have been in an in person setting and I’m concerned that And there was a somewhat of a tacit agreement that we try not to bring things that are particularly controversial to our constituents during this time where it’s difficult for many of those to be able to participate in this process. So I’m concerned about that. I’ll probably at this time, vote accordingly. Councilmember Peck.
7:24
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Um, I disagree with you in that we have had several several meetings about this. We’re all interested parties have weighed in. We’ve had letters from the chamber we’ve had
7:41
in
7:43
losing my train of thought here. We’ve had discussions from the Real Estate Association from LDP from the chamber. We have had at the last robust meeting that we had, we had investors flying from Canada That made their their reasons for wanting to do business in Longmont heard we had people fly in from Chicago. We’ve had three robust, or the ability to have robust comments about this issue. I just want to get off of our plates, some of the issues, rather than keep dragging them out that we can actually get it get off of our plate. It also leaves the planning department kind of hanging. They don’t know whether what we’re going to do if this is going to pass or fail. And this is about six months now that we’ve been saying we need more input from the public. We need more input from developers. At what point do we say we have enough we have enough input? Um, no matter what, no matter what our platform is, they’re going to people be people who who say we need more input? I disagree. And that’s why I brought it up. Because when I look at our agenda, we don’t have very many things that can just be an up and down vote and get off of our plate.
9:15
So that’s why I brought it up. So I call the question. Let’s vote are
9:22
I have a different
9:26
I would like to amend my own motion, if that’s possible.
9:28
Absolutely.
9:30
Okay.
9:31
Yeah, I would like to change this motion that we may move to direct staff to bring forward the second reading on natural districts at the first meeting that is held in a public venue, probably in our council chambers. It looks like from the emails that we got today from dawn that we’re looking at July, possibly to be moving back into our chambers. Once they’ve been reading modeled. So I would like this to be on the first agenda of the regular meeting when we are back in the public domain so that’s my amended motion
10:17
by Councilmember Christiansen second to
10:18
that. Okay. Any
10:24
any conversation on the amended motion beyond what may has already may have already been said
10:31
doesn’t appear so so let’s take a vote. Okay.
10:34
Well doesn’t the right hand vote this time is did have a verbal so we can actually see so john prior can see who votes for
10:44
this cool. Let’s go person by person. Call the roll.
10:48
Okay, we’ll do it. We’ll do a vote roll a roll vote. Okay.
10:54
All right. I guess I’ll just go based on my screen. Councilmember Martin. No
11:01
Councilmember doggo fairing.
11:03
I will support the amended motion. Councilmember Christiansen
11:07
Yes.
11:11
Councilmember Peck support. Councilmember waters?
11:15
No.
11:17
Can I vote no. The motion fails three to three.
11:26
Yet another motion Councilmember pack?
11:29
Oh, yes, thanks. I do. So using the same criteria that we can now have people call in. I’m going to direct staff to bring forward the Longmont development code amendments, including a wildlife master plan at the next regular session. The Wildlife master plan has been done for a while. And from my input, they’re just waiting for counsel to give him to go ahead to implement that.
12:03
Do I have a second?
12:07
chance remember Martin? Yes statement?
12:11
I
12:12
am not seconding. So I wait to comment. I
12:18
we have a second discussion, Councilmember Martin.
12:23
Yeah, I don’t see any problem with bringing this forward. But normally we have a little discussion with the team that’s bringing it forward. And I don’t know, you know, I know that the the wildlife management team is having technical issues, but rock right now and they’re having issues at Union reservoir and they’re having issues at Creekside and so the plan may be done, but they may or may not be ready. So I would entertain this motion happily next week or the following week, but I’d like to ask them first.
12:58
Then see Councilmember Dog fairy. No. Was it Councilmember Christiansen? I saw somebody retained.
13:06
I it was me actually. Second her motion.
13:10
Okay. Councilmember waters.
13:15
Thanks, Mayor pro Tim.
13:19
I would not I wouldn’t be disinclined to oppose this except
13:26
I don’t know how I,
13:27
I wouldn’t have to
13:29
go through this without putting the SS next to it. There is this relationship. We have the report on the SDS. We know it would be nice to know what the status report is on that. What parts of that have we concluded can roll up at this point in the wildlife management plan? I understand part, I don’t know the thinking behind the motion. But based on on what we’ve seen in the last 24 hours, about what’s going on in a riparian area in the level of public interest which seriously disturbed To me, as I look at the photos of this, not Pat, you know, approving the plan wouldn’t change that it might give more visibility and certain summit, certainly some enforcement capability because I it’s it’s, I think appalling what we’ve seen. So if that’s the motivator, I get that. I just
14:20
I’m not clear on what these relationships are now between the SDS and the wildlife management plan. And, and to me, it’s going to be a mistake if we’re if we’re not all real clear on what those are, and what the timelines are for the SDS in relationship to the wildlife. So
14:36
and I don’t know that this is the
14:47
I would definitely
14:49
like to hear kind of a timeline or status update from staff that deals with those various code amendments, so we know where they are in the process without, I guess kind of artificially printed pressuring them to bring something forward if it’s not yet quite ready for public consumption. I don’t know how you feel about that Councilmember Peck or get it maybe something from assistant city manager marsh.
15:17
Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez and members of council Jodie Marsh, assistant city manager. So we are prepared to bring the SDGs forward at
15:24
this time that is done and completed. The riparian setback criteria that are the other code component are in final legal review right now. So those are nearing completion. If there’s another component, I may not be aware of another component that Councilmember Peck is referring to with regard to the wildlife management plan itself but we are close and we should be able to get those scheduled if council so chooses. Okay.
15:52
What about Councilman waters? Would you be adverse to bringing back the FCS plan By itself,
16:03
I wouldn’t be i’m not i’m not averse to either of the two either the wildlife management plan, the code changes that go with it. But those things that wildlife management plan and code in the CSE code seem to be go hand in glove. I mean, we’ve got to do that in a thoughtful way together. So, you know, it reflects what are those expectations and, and gets translated into decision making. At the same time, it just seems to me so I don’t know what the best sequence is. Councilmember pack. I just, I just think we ought to have those together in some fashion. I don’t know which leads we have on the same agenda. That’s my concern.
16:51
So are you happy with your motion as Councilmember Peck?
16:54
No, not because because of what assistant city attorney JOHN Marsh brought forward but
17:02
whether we
17:06
put them together or not.
17:10
I think that we I’m going to make men amend my motion to bring back the FCS plan. So we get some of this done. We’re not we’re not moving forward on anything. And that that bothers me a little bit when I look at our agenda is basically about COVID most of the time, which I understand, but I’m very concerned that for three months now, we haven’t really moved anything and some things are ready to be moved forward. So I am ended to bring back the CES plan at our next regular meeting.
17:44
I’ll second that.
17:46
Thank you.
17:48
Any further discussion?
17:51
All right, we’ll take a vote similar to the last one I’ll call roll by the way. Our council members appear on my screen. Councilmember Martin
18:01
Yes.
18:02
council member doggo fairing. Yes. Councilmember Christiansen? Yes. Councilmember Peck? Yes. Councilmember waters?
18:13
Yes. I vote yes as well.
18:16
That passes six to zero with Mr. Paglia absent but it looks like he’ll be joining us momentarily. So why don’t we wait a few minutes for I believe somebody else had an agenda revision or something direct. Okay. There was
18:33
see if he gets gets on with us.
18:50
Mayor, can you hear us
19:01
He needs to unmute himself.
19:05
Now.
19:06
Yes, we can.
19:08
All right. Great. Hey guys. Sorry about that my computer decided to install 45 minutes of updates. So I apologize.
19:17
So, Aaron, we’re already
19:20
Councilmember Barnes up next with her agenda revision or motion to direct.
19:24
Right. Why don’t you go ahead then.
19:28
Thank you, Mayor, Bagley and Mayor Pro Tem.
19:33
It’s not I hope it doesn’t need to be emotion. I would like to request a report from the airport manager on to matters of airport finance as soon as possible. And I did check in advance and I think that the staff is ready to do this, or will be by the next regular meeting. One is I’d like a report of the past grants received by the airport And any remaining financial obligation, but they’re from. And second, I would like an explanation in detail of the funds transfer from the city’s general fund to the airport detailing what services
20:22
that Funds Transfer represents.
20:32
Does this need to be?
20:34
Oh, yeah. How does that translate into direction? Mirror bagger? assess your request? Is it is you’re just requesting information. Right. Well, I think I would be curious about some of the same.
20:48
I think I think we’re all allowed to, like technically we can use a couple hours a week to ask staff around. queue just get that information to her.
20:58
Okay, I think that’s all we need. To do,
21:01
yeah, I think everyone that have it.
21:03
Okay, how can you get us a keyboard at all to us? Yeah, we’ll pull that together
21:07
and send it to all the council members as quick as well. We’ll try to move quickly as possible in this week or two, maybe
21:15
not three.
21:21
We lost you
21:25
on agenda items in the future that I missed by any chance?
21:29
Yes, there were two. What whatever you want to go with us?
21:33
Yes, Mayor Bagley Councilmember Peck made a motion to bring back the second reading of Metro districts at our first in person meeting. The vote failed three to three. And then the second measure or the second motion was to bring back the SGS tool as it is ready for council consideration to be adopted into the land development code. past six to zero
22:03
in the metro district of that Fallout just out of curiosity
22:09
who wants to read that?
22:10
Councilmember? Pick, Councilmember you dog referring Councilmember Christiansen voted for
22:17
this curious. Sounds like fun first 15 minutes. All right. Anybody else have any motions to bring back?
22:26
All right, great. Let’s go ahead and move on. You’ve already approved the minutes we already got COVID-19 update.
22:33
No, we haven’t
22:34
spoken about in Harrell.
22:37
The Dan even get online.
22:40
Yes, he did. Oh, he did. Okay. There’s Dan. Dan, do you want to go over any of that? Can you go over the county numbers and the hospitalizations based on what you’re seeing and then I’ll go from there. And I’ve got screenshots I can use if you want me to.
22:56
Sure can let me bring him up real fast here so I can go over him. I think in general, what we’re seeing is a couple of things. One is testing is increasing pretty significantly. test kits are becoming pretty rapidly available. I think you probably all heard the governor say that tests are becoming more and more available to anybody that is symptomatic. So as a result of that, certainly, positive cases are going up. But the hospitalization rates are going down. You know, they’re they’re 30% below where they were a few weeks ago. For COVID patients, the med surge beds are going up, which is a good thing. That means they’re starting elective procedures again. So all of those things are good. The trends remain really good on the hospital side of things, which is what we really are looking for. The case numbers are, you know, good to watch. But really, the increase is a factor of testing rather than anything else. So the hospitalizations are are decreasing as we hoped they would. So I think that’s all trending in a very positive way. And the testing is becoming more and more available in the county. So all those things are positive.
24:08
Harold, anything else you want me to touch on
24:09
there any questions about the testing and in that arena before we move on?
24:20
Okay, not seeing any.
24:22
Okay. You say, I shouldn’t move out the COVID-19 update,
24:25
correct?
24:27
Yes. All right.
24:29
The mayor Council, the one thing I wanted to talk to you about, start off with a little bit of current, an example of the amazing books that we have here in the organization. So as you know, we’ve had people at home and then it was more difficult for them to work from home and, and maka, who works at the museum came up with an idea to bring staff together, they couldn’t necessarily do their job from home, and we repurpose them and they actually were making masks. For the organization in the community, and the last count that I actually have, as of around last Friday, they were close to 1000 masks that they’ve made. And so what we’re going to do between that and what we’ve had through donations, once we make sure that we have provided everything that we need to our organization, we’re then going to look at how we can engage in certain neighborhoods in this process. And so when we talk about how do we creatively repurpose folks and bring them part in as part of a bigger initiative, this is a great example. And it was just outstanding work. They actually pulled it together in a day or two, and then went to make the mask. And so I believe it was around 10. Let’s just say a couple of weeks, they hit that number. So, you know, those are the kind of things that we have going on across the organization that I just wanted you all to know about and how folks come together to deal with these situations. Right now you may have heard the governors of date. And this is where a lot of the work is really starting from for us. When you really look at what we’re going, what we’re dealing with right now, the reopening process is significantly more complicated than the closing process. And it’s really because of all the nuances that we’re seeing in terms of group size, and what types of facilities can be open and what that looks like. And so we’re really working through any number of issues, having to frequently reach out to Boulder County, or then they’ll reach out to the state to get clarity on some of those orders and what they mean, and how does this actually apply to what we can open and when we can open. Another thing in the governor’s guidance that we’re starting to hear is there will be some guidance that will be released within the week regarding the restaurant openings. This is even going to be more Complicated in terms of how we look at those issues, because and then the governor will make the decision on May approximately may 25. The reason why it’s becoming more complicated is I think, as the governor has talked about this, and as we’ve seen from letters that we’ve received, he’s asked cities to really work with restaurants in terms of being creative to allow them to utilize sidewalks, alleyways, parking lots, so they can actually increase capacity for their, their business so they can, from an operational standpoint, you know, really have the magnitude of tables available, where it makes sense for them to operate. In addition to that, we were also looking at some of the guidance related to liquor licensing and business extensions and how we need to move through that so there will be changes coming specifically because when they allow them to open they’re still going to allow the take out component of alcohol sales to occur, which will create some other other issues within the licensing framework in general. So we have done in Germany and the judge and multiple people working on what we can do in terms of creating that process to help facilitate that reopening. There is a lot of work involved in this and bringing those in and assisting those businesses once they’re allowed to reopen.
28:27
The other thing is, as you all know, we have been incrementally reopening facilities. And we saw that we did a soft opening of the tennis courts and then we announced it. We also did the same thing with skate parks and moving to announce it. The issue and what’s driving those reopening is basically the the guidance that we received from Boulder County and the state of Colorado on these issues. One of the things that you all know that you’re probably still getting questions about his baseball field, softball fields and whatnot. That can look like the the issue with that is, and we’ve got this question into it because via the state orders, team sports are specifically prohibited, meaning they’re not allowed to occur. We’ve posed some questions based on the group size and what that can look like. And we’re waiting on feedback in terms of how we can operationalize that in a way, the one thing that I think I’m fairly confident in saying is, at least what we’ve heard to this point is, even if they are even if the orders will allow us to do something, the group size will still be limited to 10 unless that’s changed via a state order. We are also in the process of working in terms of what it’s going to look like in terms of the openings of our buildings. I mentioned this to you the last time we were moving forward and moving toward a target date and Then we have the employee advisory group, which is a group that I meet with from across the organization. And they brought some issues to my attention in that conversation. And those were issues that we definitely needed to take into account in terms of the reopening. It was great feedback. And that’s actually why we utilize the employee advisory group is to get that feedback and make sure that we’re accounting for everything that they’re concerned with. Because as you look at reopening, you have to ensure and I’ve said this before, the safety of the residents of our community and what they’re expecting, but we also have a lot of employees that want to see the same thing in terms of what they’re asked to do when they come to work. So we had to work through a number of issues, which delayed us a little bit and then based on that feedback, what we’re thinking right now, and this is assuming that there’s no significant change in orders, is that on May 27, we’re going to do what we call a soft opening. And that’s where we bring folks back into work. In a lot of cases, many of these individuals have been working from home. And so we wanted people to get the chance to acclimate. How do we manage wear a mask in the buildings where do we meet, wear a mask and to ensure that our reopening plans are appropriate. And then we’re tentatively looking for a June 1 opening again, and that’s to the public. So we want to give three days for staff to come in and work and then a public opening on June 1, but that’s only for the Civic Center, the development service center, municipal court in the service center, if you remember, those were the last four buildings that we actually have the ability to that were still open before the final stay at home order. In addition, we’re also looking at other components of operations. And you’ll see curbside service at the library in the near future. And so it won’t be that the library’s open, those are actually still we’re being advised close. via the state order, but we’re trying to open up components that still meet the intent of the orders, and continue to move forward. Finally, as you all know, Jim talked to you about the budget. And so we’re still working through a number of budget issues. In your remember his estimate, so we’re trying to deal with budget issues related to this year. We’re also moving into the budget for next year. And we’re going to be watching numbers real time month to month to see what it looks like in terms of the impact. But as we start thinking about what we’re going to do as an organization, I think the thing we have to be really cognizant of, is that this is probably going to be the tightest budget that the council’s had to deal with and that we’ve had to deal with probably since the oh eight recession. And so it will impact you know, the things that we do and how we do those over time and so I just wanted to keep I’m gonna keep talking about that as we’re moving through it, because that is going to be a significant issue for us to deal with as an organization,
33:09
not only for this year’s budget, but for next year’s budget. If you listen to any number of economists, you know, there’s not a lot of clarity in terms of the recession. But I’m hearing that it is more than likely going to extend to the end of 2021. That’s one thing I’m hearing the other is mid 2021. No matter what that answer is, we know that it’s going to potentially impact for 2021 budget. So we’re going to be looking at actuals and then making assumptions for what the recession will look like. And then move into our budget process. Just to let you know, some of the direction that I’ve given to staff is we have our level one request and those are essentially must must pay items and exist within our budget of limited to level Level two to a, a limited number think it’s no more than four, that they really need to be directly related to providing ongoing services in terms of what we’re doing. But it’s, again, just to reiterate with counsel, it’s going to be a significant challenge as we move into this budget here. And so when we’re thinking about the things we’re doing, we just need to keep that in mind. Other than that, that is my COVID update. There’s not a lot to this time, but I think there will be more after the 25th when we start seeing the next round of orders being released. Are there any questions?
34:45
You have is up first.
34:53
Here finally unmuted. I just want to voice my frustration with the baseball fields not being open. I am Understand the whole idea about the team sports and being able to social distance etc. But it seems like volleyball is as well as well as a team sport. When you’re playing competitive volleyball, as well as tennis, when you’re when you’re doing
35:22
doubles.
35:26
I just I am just concerned about the level of activities that we take away from kids who’ve been been housed for three or four months. And this is a huge, huge activity Actually, it’s a pretty good revenue source as well for the city if you want to look at it that way. So
35:55
especially for the kids. It’s not competitive for adults.
35:59
At least for the kids,
36:00
that is the very statement in question that I put in the, in a meeting that we had last Thursday that we’re trying to track down. Even when as far as saying, you know, if 10 people can gather, what’s the difference? And so that’s what we’re trying to get clarity on. It’s in the orders very specific to team sports. And so that’s what we’re having to manage. Okay, hopefully we’ll get answer. We’re working it because all of the issues you talked about.
36:32
Thank you.
36:36
And then your next
36:38
expert, Begley, Harold, at what point I’m not certain. Well, I’m certain that I’m not real clear on the criteria, the threshold we met, we’re past that that triggered the emergency declaration. No doubt to me then. nor has it been sense that we were managing a crisis or an emergency. But as we met, the question is, what’s the what’s the threshold that we either meet or fall below? That would cause us to say we’re no longer under a an emergency declaration? We’re still managing many crises. But we do that every day all the time. Right? That’s part of the job of managers. What’s the one of the criteria that we should be thinking about that you’re going to be using those that can’t come back to us through a formal action? We say, as of tomorrow as of some date, we’re no longer operating under an emergency declaration. How does that how do we get to transition out of that?
37:46
So generally, typically, in any event, what you look at is when you are no longer operationally overwhelmed by the event itself, and but what you you’d use to trigger the disaster declaration is when the event exceeds the capacity of the organization to deal with the event and the ongoing operations that you have to deal with to keep the city running. And and so that is the highest level of trigger that we have to deal with. The other thing that comes into play is really also tied into some of these other orders that are being issued. Now really more by the state level and what that means to us in terms of how we operate, what are the restrictions that we put there put on ourselves in those issues. And so that’ll be a another component that we look at in terms of making that decision. But it’s really those two issues that are going to drive that conversation.
38:48
So what we’re so what would be translate those conditions into what we do, or what you gave us or do you believe this anything at what point
38:59
I would bring
39:00
too, I would personally bring it to Council and say, here’s where we are. And here’s what we, here’s where we think we’re going to be. And we’re at a point where we can effectively manage our ongoing operations, all of the items that we have to work on and this event itself. And in granted, not everything’s going to be there. I mean, it’s similar to the flood, when we had the flood, not everyone was was out of the woods on that. So
39:31
that would be a recommendation you bring to us or action or consensus or
39:37
I typically bring it for consensus to go, here’s what I’m seeing. That’s just the way I approach it. Okay, generally, thanks.
39:44
But not everybody’s going to be out of the fire in some cases.
39:53
I think two people have their hands up Councilmember fairing.
39:58
Okay, so you talked about some of the issues that the employee advisory group had brought up. What were some of the specifics that
40:08
generally there
40:08
were questions in terms of,
40:10
you know, how are we
40:14
handling the creating a safe working environment, whether it’s Plexiglas, and when you would interact with the public, how are we going to handle masking? It was also issues. How do you deal with coworkers who are failing to wear their mask? How do you deal with the public that’s failing the weather, you know, it’s not doing this. And then they brought up individual issues related to their workplace. Some of it was just needing to have more clarity. So every one of the directors had been meeting with all of their folks that are going to be part of the opening and talking them through. This is what it’s going to look like, this is how we’re going to do it. So part of it was really just making sure everyone understood what the situation was going to be like. For those of us that had been working, it’s a much different person. perspective, because we’ve been in it versus those who haven’t been working. And so it was really closing a lot of those gaps and giving people the opportunity to really talk about what were their worst fears and their best hopes. Because the point that I made to my team, and that we talked about is we can drive into a date. But if everyone’s not really on board with that, and there’s still questions or concerns, then that’s going to create other issues for us. And so what we were trying to do is take a true collaborative approach to make sure people were comfortable with the plan. Now, not everybody’s going to be comfortable. But we were trying to deal with as many issues as we possibly could also then basing it on what the governor’s doing in terms of what they’re releasing and how they’re releasing it. You know, there’s nuances in this things like rec centers and swimming pools, I mean, those are still closed via the orders. And so we have, you know, obviously We can’t do that. But then even when they can open up, there are different restrictions in terms of the numbers that people can get in there. So typically in a gym component, the number is not 10. It’s four. And it’s personal training. And then we found out late, late last week that we thought, well, that could apply to swimming to lap swimming. Well, they actually thought 10 could apply to lap seven swimming, they actually said no, and until the swimming pools are close, generally, via these orders. So those are the nuances that we get into, but it’s really just making sure everyone’s comfortable.
42:37
Okay, and so I guess that’s another reason why it’s really important that we have concrete guidelines that are consistent, correct, forward. And in line with the messaging we’re hearing from our governor and our county. Yeah, and then one of the other things and this was something that was brought up to me by a constituent and I had seen I think Denver is doing something about closing off certain sections of roads to allow for outside seating of restaurants. Has the city looked at some of those options? Is that something feasible to get businesses open a little sooner?
43:15
Jimmy Kimball resigned. But I know Joni and Kimberly and Jessica and Scott cook in our economic earn our business group that we talked about that has presented to you, they are in the middle of that issue. I’m also working on the licensing issues that are going to be associated with that because it will create different venues. So yeah, we’re working on that are hoping to hear the guidance so that we will be ready for options or you know, once we start getting clarity,
43:43
okay, and I do have other questions, but I think it’s more in line with the ordinance that will be okay.
43:55
Thank you, Councilmember. Pick out a question.
44:00
So I think that’s it. Anybody else?
44:03
All right.
44:06
Let’s move on.
44:11
Can we go ahead and do that?
44:19
All right, for those of you want to call in, go ahead and please dial 1-669-900-6833 and for the IV code, so let’s go ahead and wait 60
44:33
your honor now, by the way,
44:55
while we’re waiting for people to die, when
44:58
are you prepared to time people Tonight.
45:02
Yep. Okay, I read your lips
45:51
who’s in the queue?
46:00
Mary looks like we have one person that called
46:02
in.
46:04
Oh, there’s another
46:06
one. Yes.
46:07
Oh, well then
46:11
we’ve got three people, four people. Oh, they’re starting to pop in.
46:14
Yeah, if you just give me a minute we’ll let them all queue up and and then I’ll
46:22
start them this way.
46:25
The screen is still showing on the live stream. So when that ends
46:31
then we can begin.
46:33
You will meet them Susan. Yes, I can do that. Thank you.
46:39
Alright, so it looks like the screen just came down from the live stream. And I’ll admit them all. Mir did
46:51
you want to close the
46:54
public invited to be heard so I can
46:58
lock the meeting.
47:00
So, let’s go ahead and close it. Lock it out. Okay, those looks like there’s four people.
47:08
Right? No, six people. Six. Let’s go for Let’s lock it up.
47:14
Okay, guess we’ve got quite a few of you. I will begin by introducing you by calling out the last three digits of your phone number. And I’ll unmute you at that time and you can give us your name and address. And you’ll have three minutes.
47:34
Guest that ends in 536. Can you hear us?
47:45
Yeah. Hello. Hi, good evening. All right. Go ahead and state your name. Go ahead. Thanks.
47:52
I’m Gabriel Schmid, and I live at 1060 cane drive. Thank you.
48:05
Go ahead.
48:08
Yes, I can hear you.
48:11
Would you like to speak on public invited to be heard? Go ahead. Sorry.
48:16
Okay. I’m one of the many teams and others who are using the jumps left hand Creek Park. I’m very grateful to here today what they are holding off to the end of the year project to restore the Creek Park. We found out from some of the neighborhoods in this area that people have been using this since late night. Nine DS. Those who use these arrived jumps for the last seven to more recent years.
48:56
No, I was still gonna go
49:02
On a visit of the park, you’d see different races and participants working together to bring this to a fun park where there’s multiple jumps. In a short 200 meter span we’ve got 10 jumps and that go from one to another, easy to difficult. There are side paths for younger kids who do not can’t ride those jumps. In four days, we’ve raised $500 on change.org to add to the simple track or bike jumps to on one of the existing parks in South Longmont, we’re hoping that the city can open up a space where we can help alongside city park members to build public jumps. We know that this is important because of that when kids are able to give the opportunity to two Be able to make jumps, they give ownership and responsibility to these jumps and take care of it. And so we’d like to put together something where we can raise money to rent equipment or stuff that is needed that the city needs since we’re on a tight budget right now.
50:24
Yeah. Thank you very much.
50:35
All right, our next caller, your phone number ends in 663. I’m going to unmute you if you can. Please state your name and address.
50:44
Clark Allen. Twin Peaks so called Longmont. Longmont continues to have the highest rate of COVID-19 cases in Burleigh County. I heard Never want to be one who infects someone else and causes their death. So if wearing a mask will help and I will mask, there are really four components to mitigating the spread of COVID-19. One personal hygiene washing your hands eight to 10 times a second wearing a mask or any public. Even if you’re practicing social distancing. You never know when you will encounter someone while biking, running or walking. When you cannot maintain six feet of distance most bicycle pals are not at why participate in practicing social business in public. If you can’t maintain six feet of distance when running, biking or walking, you may have to wait to pass or get off your bike to let others pass safely was six feet distance. Finally stay at home if you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 there are existing apps that will push you about your health and help guide you make this decision about going out
52:10
around
52:13
these practices will not stop the spread of COVID by themselves. A drug cocktail that has been used to effectively attack diseases. It works for SARS. Putting all these together, we’ll walk down the virus. These steps have been affected in years at Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, a hospital of more than 70,000 people with minimum infection rates. So the council should consider passing a resolution adopting these practices as we move forward to open the city for citizens and for the senior citizen of one month and help to get Longmont Colorado. The BDS position of being number one in Boulder County for COVID-19 cases. Thank you very much for your time.
53:10
Thank you.
53:12
Thank you.
53:13
Next.
53:17
Our next caller, your number ends in seven to two. I’m going to unmute you. Please state your name and your address. Please can you hear us?
53:26
Yes, my name is Lynette McLean and I live on gunpoint drive in Longmont. According to the field inspection by the Colorado oil and gas conservation committee to co GCC, dated April 22 2020. There’s a week at the stamp well located very near union reservoir. City deputy city manager. City deputy city manager Darryl Rademacher assured the city council in a recent council session that everything was fine with the stamp well and that they rebel reeks when he knew this was not true. This one has had many problems with leaks and groundwater contamination in the past. So your GCC records show that the world was stimulated in December and based on a rig seen at the site was also stimulated in March. The round has also been producing recently without doing the required mechanical integrity testing 30 days in advance of any activity, but well has been flaring late at night, which aligns with the data from the air quality measures done by Dr. Helmick on March 30 2020. The work offers in December and March are not in accordance with the city’s contract with the oil company. Who owns this well. The Times commas also complicit in misrepresenting the activity at the stamp well, Please investigate this and stop this activity to keep our air and water safe. Also, please sanction city staff like Mr. Rademacher who are not being transparent about this dangerous issue. You may refer to can dikes and A trial which was submitted to the clients call but not printed by them, but was all in the long run observer for further information about the recent work over activity in this abandoned website. I was going to send care about a torial. And the photo of the stamp well reference to the editorial along with the field inspection report that I reference to in all the city or to other city council members. My final ask is please work with the Colorado oil and gas conservation committee to determine if there is groundwater contamination that might flow into Houston reservoir. Thanks.
55:40
All right, so the next one.
55:44
The next caller, your phone number ends in eight to six.
55:49
You’ve been unmuted. Can you hear us? Could you please state your name and address for the record?
55:56
Hello, I’m Sean McCall. Trying to drive. And just talking about the whole COVID situation, just curious, generally, how people how many how much people have done, or all the different data and different perspectives on this whole thing because it seems like it’s overblown to me in the end, where there’s a lot of people have gone there that haven’t had much symptoms. And we’ve, I can understand at the beginning, we didn’t know going on to lock things down maybe but after if he’d be truthful to the data that’s out there amongst everywhere. For example, I saw one chart where the states that are locked down more I’ve actually had worse situation with it. Compared with the stations that have locked down, have, we need to lock down they’ve been locked down and you got everybody’s viruses, you can have fix them. So the flu virus, it mutates and comes back consumers know that, for example. And I think if we look at all the data, they’ll show that because it would have been about the same as the flu virus move a little bit worse, but not a great amount. So I’m thinking, we need to open things up more to let people let it circulate. People that are reasonably healthy, those that are old and have problems. Sure, they maybe help them to stay safe. But we need to get everybody infected. So that we can love the older people to get out. Because they’ll be cheap in the right fit under control more and fewer people getting it or people have already gotten so we won’t be spreading anymore. And that allowed the economy to go. Now that’s that’s the greatest amazing thing about this whole covered is the economy. Economic destruction has happened. So might one might say, oh, you’re selfish. You don’t care about people that might die. Well, how about being selfish and destroying people’s economic lives? So that’s my point. Thank you.
58:14
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
58:22
The actual
58:29
doing this one?
58:31
Sorry, I was muted mayor. Caller 369 your next please state your name and address. Can you hear us?
58:42
Yes, I can hear you. My name is Gretchen Schmid at 1060 cane drive.
58:48
South Moorpark neighborhood self online.
58:51
And
58:52
I was calling in today
58:57
first with a different plan but then I had a great time. Conversation with timber, the park superintendent who had planned to level the jumps that the kids have been riding on for the last 30 years over by Creekside oh by the creek and Creekside Park. And we had a great conversation, talking about how the city has really been racking their brains about how to help the situation and how to also meet the demands of restoring the creek bank. And I just really hope from this, there’s a lot of enthusiasm and support among the youth in this south central area. I guess I’m not sure if you’d call us all the neighborhoods that border pike. There’s kids from all those neighborhoods who use that jump. And we’ve learned in last week that it’s been happening for a lot longer than than these kids have been doing it. But we talked about some of the expansive areas and some of our parks right around here. Kanan moto Park, even Creekside Park has area, large areas of grass. These kids have been getting miles and miles of enjoyment out of a 200 meter span where they built 10 jumps very effectively. And so we timber and I kind of spoke and brainstormed about what could that look like for the city to collaborate with? liaison of the community in this area. And you know, the kids on change.org they raised $500 just over the weekend. You know, what would that look like to an over 2000 signatures to to help pay for the heavy equipment to come in and maybe a corner of pain emoto expansive grass area that never used? We’re always over at the park. There’s there’s areas that are not used, and have the city do the part of doing some contouring and the kids are experts with their shovels to do it. The crafting and actually making the jumps. So this has been such a great benefit during the quarantine, they’ve been on their bikes, they’ve been keeping the area free of trash. Yes, there is concerned about the floodplain. But, you know, my question now, you know, being grateful that everything was postponed till the end of the year so they can have this for the rest of the spring and over the summer and the fall. how, you know, the possibility of there’s many supportive parents who I believe could create a coalition to collaborate with the applicable city, Superintendent managers, you know, the those who would be doing the work and, you know, to create a little track, you know, in one of our parks right here, we are all not really up for sending our kids down the path to the east, where it goes under 287. There’s been several adults that have been attacked by homeless on that path, and they’re not going to go back to that dick, one that we’ve created those four jumps, they’re all really spaced out. There is a book by Mr. Lewis, last file butts in the woods. And he talks about how it’s actually been proven when we engage the youth in actually actual creation of the parks and not just say, here’s your park. It was created by the professionals. But when the youth are engaged, that they actually have ownership and they take responsibility and they want to take part in it. They want to take part of keeping it nice and being responsible. And that’s what these kids have shown over every side.
1:02:43
Thank you. All right. And then the last person in the queue.
1:02:51
Caller your number ends in 697697. You’re unmuted. Can you hear us?
1:02:58
Yes, yes. Go ahead.
1:03:00
This is your name. Thank you.
1:03:03
This is Kevin Hart again, with your drive in your loan that they’re watching the meeting today. And the reason I’m calling is with regard to granting the city the authority of the broad brush authority to require p p and an emergency situation. And as I’m listening to the meeting tonight, I’m thinking about the fact that I just read earlier today that Colorado is already running out of unemployment zones, which means we’re gonna have two federal funding. And I’m hearing that there is significant work to do to help businesses be creative and figure out ways to protect their employees and their customers. And what’s that gonna look like? I’m hearing and I’m reading but you guys are focusing in g on trying to decide about voting for this broad brush approach to allow city council to have an authority over mandating and even possibly arresting and funneling citizens for not wearing masks. And my concern is, one, we already have state rules, recommendations, we also have better attorney rules and regulations. I’m just curious why it is that the council feels it’s prudent to spend time on something like that type of ordinance, when you should be focusing on helping businesses get back open, so that we can get people off of unemployment and remove the debt that the state government is going to have to take on from the federal government. If we can’t get businesses back open. Thank you.
1:04:58
That’ll conclude first call publican badly hurt. Let’s move on to everybody. Okay, who wants to know actually, you guys been having the last time now you guys know on our
1:05:09
break we okay
1:05:13
let’s go ahead and just close to the consent agenda and then we’ll go on to ordered sunscreen. All right, Don, we’ll be back that one resolution. All right. You bet summer.
1:05:27
You want us to count the number of
1:05:32
water? You
1:05:35
know,
1:05:36
you need to fill up my water.
1:05:38
Stay hydrated go hard. Oh, cool. Let’s go ahead
1:05:44
and write a meeting. The consent agenda is resolution 2020 dash 43. a resolution of the Longmont city council approving the first restated
1:05:52
and amended intergovernmental agreement between the city Boulder County and the city of Boulder
1:05:57
for cost sharing for the COVID net Recovery Center for the homeless.
1:06:06
All right, motion counselor one.
1:06:09
I move the consent agenda.
1:06:13
agenda has been moved and seconded. Seeing no further debate or discussion on favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right resolution 2020. That’s 43 passes unanimously. Let’s move on to ordinances on second reading and public hearings only matter at this time. We go ahead and throw up and dial a number again, please, Susan would ask the members the public who might call in regarding ordinance 2020 dash 23. A bill for an ordinance amending section 1008 180 the warm up code and disaster emergency orders that you call in now. So we will go ahead and start. First of all, let’s move on to that which I just read. We have emotion
1:07:03
I lost the screen I can smell one
1:07:07
yes I I can’t see the number but I I’m I moved emotion just read. All right.
1:07:17
It’s been moved by Councilmember Arden and second by Joan. I also have an open to public hearing is there anybody in the queue?
1:07:28
Mayor it hasn’t been quite a minute that it’s been on the screen yet. Oh.
1:07:35
We do have
1:07:36
one new guest and we have the last guests that I put in the waiting room is has not hung up so I will check in with them as well.
1:08:05
agenda on the screen big.
1:08:11
Let’s go ahead and put it back up. Alright. Let’s go ahead and open this up for public hearing. You want to remain please.
1:08:25
Okay, we’ve got two callers, one caller. You are returning I, you spoke previously. And I’ve brought you back into the meeting your phone number ends in eight to six. I’m going to unmute you did you want to speak at this public hearing?
1:08:55
Color phone number ends in 082. I’m going to unmute you if you can
1:09:01
State your name and address for the record. You’re unmuted. Go ahead.
1:09:06
Can you hear me?
1:09:08
Yes, we can. Thank you.
1:09:10
Okay. My name and address.
1:09:13
Yes, please.
1:09:15
Patrick Munson. I’m at 2201 mid Street. Go ahead.
1:09:25
Okay, this is just comments for the City Council.
1:09:30
Yes, it is. Okay.
1:09:35
Well, first of all,
1:09:39
I don’t understand why there’s such a continuation of wearing the masks and the social distancing when there’s hundreds of immunologist all over the internet saying this is suppressing the immune system. I’ve studied natural health for 25 years. To raise three kids without doctors, because their immune systems were able to develop naturally. Keeping masks on healthy people is very unhealthy. Dr. Fauci even says this to see the World Health Organization is now saying it’s unhealthy for healthy people to be wearing masks. Second point is the city of Longmont has no delegated authority in the Constitution of Colorado to put any sort of limits on people. You’re a private for profit corporation on Dun and Bradstreet. You have DUNS number, you have q sub numbers, you don’t have the authority to tell anybody. They have to wear a mask or they have to do anything. The only authority you have is if somebody breaks a law that violates somebody else’s Right. So this whole thing is ridiculous. I don’t know if you’re aware, but the state of Wisconsin Supreme Court just ruled all this stuff unconstitutional. They’re completely open now. And I believe Oregon did the same thing. It’s going to happen state after state after state. And I’ve already got several people in the county that are very eager, eager to join a class action lawsuit to sue the state, the governor, whoever needs to be. And I’m telling you right now, if you continue suppressing, right, the city of Long month is going to get sued. And if you violate the law, which you’ve already done, that you’ve violated the Constitution, you have violated us Code Section 242 and title 18, which is violating protected rights under the color of law. That’s a federal law that you have violated. So we have every reason and right to pursue suing the city of Longmont in federal court. I’ve looked up the legal standing, it’s there. The legal precedent says there. And because if the city council members violate the law, they lose their immunity from lawsuit. So you better do the right thing for the people. Because you can be open to lawsuit in your individual capacities. That’s all I have to say and I’m not threatening anybody. I’m just being very serious and telling you the way things are. Thank you.
1:12:54
Thank you, sir. That will conclude that will conclude our public hearing on this matter.
1:13:02
With a hand cast
1:13:06
Yes, it is. Hold on you.
1:13:11
Yes, I did the little spacebar, but it’s too long to hold. So a couple of things. One of the things in
1:13:18
the ordinance on page
1:13:23
27 of the actual document, not the whole packet of compromised is it’s comprised or compromised. I think there might be a typo. I saw
1:13:42
what
1:13:44
typo, okay,
1:13:45
so that would need to be corrected. And then the other thing is, where did this I think we did talk about this before. I can’t. I don’t I didn’t have it written down on this verbiage. Where did it come from was it cut from another document existing document and placed into this particular emergency ordinance?
1:14:13
barren council Eugene Bay City Attorney, I do believe we plagiarize this from some other emergency PP ordinance within the state.
1:14:24
Okay. And so specifically the purpose of this. So I mean, in my mind what I had intended was that because we have a portion of long month that is weld County, rather than having a patchwork or different guidelines depending on where you’re at in Longmont, it was just seems like it’s in much better to have concrete set guidelines said throughout the city of Longmont. We had already adopted The belief the statement that we would support the governor’s ordinances and guidelines as well as the boulder counties. And also to I was made aware of this evening or this afternoon at a at a school district union meeting, that the Sacred Valley School District is also utilizing and supporting and going through boulder County’s guidelines even though we have a portion of the Sacred Valley School District that is weld County, we are under that same that same umbrella and under their guidelines. So for consistency sake, I had wanted, what I had wanted to see was just what we as a as Boulder County that Boulder County has recommended we as the city would adopt and recommend that as well. Um, so as far as the wording On this, rather than having it be because it is kind of it is kind of subjective like what who is determining imminent danger? Where’s that coming from? Is it something that is implied? Is it set through Boulder County? Is it through the governor? Is it us as we deem necessary? So should we have an a particular amendment or stipulations on here is who is deciding who’s determining what is that imminent danger? Does that make sense?
1:16:35
Yeah, okay.
1:16:37
I’m
1:16:40
gonna go and gentleman, Paul.
1:16:42
Okay. I have another question, but I’ll do that later.
1:16:46
Go ahead. You’re in the queue. Go ahead.
1:16:48
So, so that was one section of it. And then the other one was in regard to masks. You know, we’ve heard a lot of comments about the dangers the risks of masks. I’d like to know what research supports, or that notion that the master dangerous that we shouldn’t be wearing them. We are inhaling too much co2. So where’s the research that supports those claims?
1:17:20
And what is the research telling us? Thank you. So in
1:17:30
terms of the the co2 issue, so I’ve had some conversations with Boulder County Health and this issue today, they were getting some similar questions on this issue. And at this point, they’re continuing to dig through the research in terms of the sources that they’re looking at on the co2 issue. There, there’s different sources but in terms of being associated with The Royal Academy for one, which I have up here, and I will send you some of these documents, they’re not necessarily seeing that. I think it also depends on the type of mask. So anticipating some of the questions also talked to a family member who works at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati and asked this question, and in their
1:18:23
requiring
1:18:25
people to wear masks coming into the facility. Typically one of the articles that I read in terms of wearing masks for long periods of times, surgeons do it, doctors do it. different professions have to wear those and and they haven’t seen evidence in those professions in terms of that. Now, what they did say the in 95 that are more form fitting on your face if you read the research, that that may have different issues, but it’s not the same type of mask in terms of the cloth mask or the surgical mask There’s completely different issues, but even then, the medical staff were those for extended periods of time. So, at this point, I haven’t been able to find anything on that issue. What I can tell you is that the World Health Organization, and a document that they had in this really gets
1:19:21
to the heart of the issue.
1:19:24
If you look at it, there’s two things on the on the World Health Organization talking about does it protect you? Well, that’s a different question than versus does it protect someone else? And the guidance of the World Health Organization, the CDC and the Surgeon General have all said is, these masks are designed to protect someone else in terms of reducing the droplets. And specifically the World Health Organization says studies of influenza, influenza like illnesses, and human Coronavirus has provided evidence at the use of medical mask off mask and other studies. can prevent the spread of infectious droplets from an infected person to someone else in potential contamination of the environment by these droplets. The Royal Society also looked at this, we’re looking for evidence supporting the potential effectiveness. And they analyze several things one, the incidence of asymptomatic and pre symptomatic transmission, the role of respiratory droplets in transmission which can travel one to two meters studies of the use of homemade surgical masks to reduce droplets spread. In they said that their analysis suggests that their use could reduce onward transmission by asymptomatic and pre symptomatic wares, if widely used in situations where physical distancing is not possible or predictable. And I think that’s a key point in this because if you look at the border County, order on masking, the first thing that they say is physical distance, you know, six feet, six to 10 feet from each other. It then says if you can’t achieve that physical distancing, then you wear the mask. And that’s really the crux of the issue. When you can’t physically when you can’t physically distance yourself from someone else, you wear this so that the droplets are actually more contained
1:21:19
versus, you know, if
1:21:21
you’re not wearing it, and then in other documents that they really talk about. It’s the pre symptomatic and asymptomatic transition that they’re seeing transmission that they’re seeing in the numbers that comes into play in some of these guidance documents. where that is part of the recommendation.
1:21:40
Probably gave you more information than you needed,
1:21:42
but no,
1:21:44
it’s kind of what we’re looking at. There’s other studies that I can send to counsel.
1:21:48
Okay.
1:21:48
And, you know, as far as and I guess this would go geared towards more towards you, Jane. Um, but, you know, I look back, when I hear the idea,
1:21:58
the notion that it’s unconstitutional
1:22:01
You know, I, I look back at the February 20 1905, Supreme Court case, Jacobson versus Massachusetts, and that the court Supreme Court did reject his claim and it was a it was around the smallpox vaccine, claiming that it was a violation of liberty. And it was deemed so according to justice john Marshall Harlan, you wrote about the police power states to regulate the protection of public health, the good and welfare of the Commonwealth, of which the legislature is primarily the judge is the basis of which the police power rests in mass in that case, it was in Massachusetts. So Harlan said, upon the principle of self defense of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself from an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its measure of itself. Members. And so this case is still being looked at at the scholar level, but also to in the matter of public health
1:23:09
protections,
1:23:10
especially with the threat of pandemics. So, again, I don’t feel like we’re kind of out of line as far as constitutional rights go with this if we’re looking at the safety of public health.
1:23:30
Yes.
1:23:31
Okay.
1:23:32
Yeah. So thank you. So there’s a few points that I want to make. From this speaker we just heard, I’ve been hearing from a lot of people who have essentially the same talking points and some other people who just have some genuine confusions. So first, we just want to say that intensified mask wearing is in fact a measure that is for reopening not flattening the curve. When you’re flattening the curve, you don’t need masks because you’re staying at home. So, you know, people are just getting confused about why we’re doing this and we’re doing this so that we can safely reopen.
1:24:16
The second thing
1:24:20
us is that that we aren’t really calling for any of this long term continuous mass wearing or I have to put on a mask if I’m just gonna step into my front yard or walk my dog
1:24:38
you know, a block down the street.
1:24:42
The you should have a mask with you if you’re going to walk your dog anywhere, but you shouldn’t have to wear the mask unless you encounter a crowd in which case you should put on your mask. So all this stuff about whether you’re going to hurt your own health by not getting enough oxygen or getting too much co2 or your mask getting disgusting if you wash your mask, it won’t get disgusting.
1:25:11
And
1:25:13
so we need we need to look at this in the kind of proportion that we have. Finally, the idea that
1:25:27
that we’re
1:25:30
the the emergency order that we’re talking about giving the city manager the power to in step up the use of ppppp required in the city. It does not automatically mean that if we pass this, he’s going to say everybody has to wear a mask.
1:25:54
Now. What this is
1:25:59
is just extremely Standing the emergency capabilities that the city manager naturally has when we are in a state of emergency. So this the reason that we’re doing this is that so if we should have a sudden uptick in, in in infections, the city manager could do something in 15 minutes, whereas it would, if we had to start with a city council action, it would take three weeks, we don’t have three weeks, if we’re getting a sudden uptick in infections, or all of a sudden the hospitals are overwhelmed. And this has happened in other places where they thought they had things under control, they reopened, and then all of a sudden there was a reversal. So all of this is doing is just feeling a little gap in the emergency order that we already had and that the council already ratified. to affirm that we need someone who can act quickly able to act quickly. And who by the way is always every single day in touch with Boulder County Health and the state health department. So it’s not like this. There’s this amateur out there calling the shots. I just want to defend what we’re what we’re doing here. And finally, I would like to say that the source of all this talking points about constitutionality and weakened immune systems and all that stuff in there is something that if you were kept in a bubble, your entire life, you would have a weakened immune system, a little bit of mash wearing is not going to have that effect if you have a normal immune system that is developed over your life. All of those talking points come from a website called citizens for free speech,
1:27:53
and it is maintained
1:27:55
by former neurosurgeon Dr. Russell boy Our former doctor, I think Russell Blaylock, who is a well known 20 year conspiracy theorist. I don’t give a lot of credence to what he says and I think people should do their own research. So I am going to support this. It’s just filling a little gap in the in our safety net right now during this time.
1:28:28
You’re next.
1:28:40
You want to go I didn’t thank you. I was on I didn’t hear you. So I want to thank both of the previous council women on their comments. I agree with them. And the other thing that according to a lot of the emails that went out to all of council, they weren’t, it was pretty much a blank slate that that that a lot of those emails went out
1:29:02
that the common
1:29:04
theme in some of them was if you are sick stay home I’m going to remind people that you can be infected before you know you are going to be ill. And then it’s the problem with this is that you do not have the symptoms even though you’re infected, which brings it on the two week or 14 day quarantine period. I also want to give a little background in that when I was a little girl we had a we had another huge, huge epidemic, pandemic, I guess have a disease. And it was called polio. We had to wear masks. Everything was shut down in the summer, all the swimming pools, people were kept in and told to be quiet. During the middle of the day when it’s hot. It was very scary. And I you know, I remember my parents, they were constantly talking about what To do and, and this epidemic reminds me of that in that we did not know our parents did not know the total effect of polio. And we don’t know that either the unintended consequences of this virus, we are seeing something’s come out as far as the immune system overreacting in some kids, and they think that it might be related to Coronavirus, but nobody really knows at this point. We’re still learning. And I want to reiterate Councilwoman Martens statement that we are saying we want to reopen this economy and in order to do it, we need to follow some of the statements that have made by Boulder County and the governor’s protocols. I was reading you know, when I read the italicized part in this in This ordinance or this code, I’m sorry, it’s not an ordinance. I was a little concerned that the word mass was never put in here. And it sounds a bit overreaching because we use words that are honestly kind of scary biological, chemical, radio, physical, electrical, mechanical, but we never say anything about masks. I know this came up last week. And you said that was covered in the the PE portion. But in fact, if I think that if we’re going to say something in here about all of these results from where this can result from, we should also put in some wording about viruses or pandemics or something that actually relates to what we’re doing today and why we are bringing this up. So Those are my comments. I do support this. It does sound a bit overreaching, and I can understand that. But I also want the public to know that the reason for this from my perspective is that we cannot when there’s when we have to act quickly, we cannot call a city council meeting on every single issue. We have got to give some power to the person who actually runs our city, who is our city manager. So for me that this is huge if we didn’t have the ability to put power in the city manager’s hands, who knows where we would have been during the flood. So um, I do support this and I think the other councillors for their comments
1:32:49
Christiansen sorry.
1:33:02
I want to also
1:33:02
thank Councilman
1:33:06
Hidalgo firing and Councilmember Martin for really intelligent
1:33:12
points that actually
1:33:15
our job is to try to explain this to the public and also, of course, for Councilwoman pecks intelligent remarks. I want to thank Suzy for reading out loud the discussion that the Supreme Court had. To me there is really nothing more key to being a public official than to protect the health and safety of our citizens or residents of the city. And this is a worldwide pandemic. This is clearly an emergency and as Councilwoman Peck said, we have to be able to act quickly. And as a council, we’re supposed to be doing policy Well, our policy is to turn over the decisions on a day to day basis to the person in our city that city council chose and city council supports. And that would be the city manager who has a great deal of experience and skill and connections and is far more suited to making these day to day decisions. Then, than all the rest of us probably put together, and so I people who think that somehow um Mr. Domingo’s is going to seize power and go haywire. That isn’t going to happen. He isn’t a politician, and that’s a good thing. We need to listen to doctors, scientists, and people, health care workers, and not all the time. My dad used to have a sign overhears shop that said, you always end when my nose begins. And I think that’s good to us to remember, I do not have the right to run around and threaten you, I don’t have the right to run around and infect you. So I am perfectly willing to be uncomfortable. And it is uncomfortable and it and it is annoying. We all know that. But it’s not as annoying as my neighbor Avon who’s on the long run United Health COVID word of periodically because she’s a nurse and she has to wear huge amounts of protective equipment every time she’s on this and it’s and she has to wear it for her whole shift which is very long. So what we’re being asked to do is just to protect each other. And as Councilman Martin said a few weeks ago The much of the information that is coming from this website. And thank you for telling us who’s sponsoring this because it clearly comes from one in one website is misinformed. And partly people do not understand that this is, as Councilman Wyden said several weeks ago. They’re asking a different question. This is not to keep us from getting it. masking is to keep us from giving it because we don’t have sufficient testing or haven’t. Up until now, we have no idea who has it. And so all of us needs to do this, to protect each other. This is, people ask us why we need to do this when Barbara County already has this. Well, it’s because the city of Long Run also is in weld County. So we need to be able To control that part of our city that is in weld County, which does not. It’s not doing any of these protective measures or was not last time I checked. And that’s the reason if this seems overreaching, it’s because we are trying to
1:37:16
reach a branch, which bridge
1:37:21
two counties. And that’s because our city unfortunately, does bridge two counties. So we had to do this in order to take care of that part of things.
1:37:43
Okay, maybe that’s all I need. Right now. I just I really appreciate what what Clark Ellen had to say that was a very, was very intelligent, these, each one of these comparing it to a drug cocktail, which is what people use for AIDS. Now. There was an Any silver bullet for AIDS, or for many diseases, they have to be taken care of. With a little thing here and a little thing here and a little thing here, another intervention. And together, all those interventions help substantially. So washing your hands and distancing and staying home are obviously the most effective things, but we’re not going to stay home forever. We can’t. So when we’re out in public, we need to wear a mask if we can’t stay six feet apart. We’re already and as as Councilwoman Martin said, this is how we open up this and we’re not imposing this to put more restrictions on people we’re worse we’re doing this so that we can get back to operating our businesses on some kind of sensible level. I can go to the grocery store, and almost everyone has a mask on and we give each other a lot of room. I can go down to the forbidden and By my seeds for lettuce and beets and my starters and things so that I can eat later in this in the season, and everybody’s got a mascot and everybody stays apart. And that’s how we can get slowly back into being able to get back to our society and lever up our economy. Again, I do think that it’ll be really helpful if we can figure out ways to help our restaurant businesses, because they’re a crucial part of our economy. And it’s not just that we missed them. But they are a huge part of our supply chain, which we’ve only some of us have only realized lately. Our whole food supply chain revolves around commercial supply chain, so commercial food supply chain so that’s why we’re doing this now is to be able to actually participate in life again. Thank you.
1:40:09
Mayor Bagley.
1:40:12
So do the same thing others have done acknowledge the color comments of, of the council members who have smoke. just so happens there are women that know that the man has spoken. So Nice job, ladies. All of you were equally brilliant. And I think spot on. And one of the things that we know that others don’t is both the volume and the nature of the income email we get on issues like this.
1:40:38
And
1:40:41
what folks might be interested in knowing is that all Tennessee were proposed and it hasn’t been balanced, although we’ve heard a lot from from residents who will appreciate us doing what we can to remind people of, of comments I’m going to make in a few minutes about the Good water obligations are right to protect one another, which was what what Councilmember Christiansen was just, you know, very clearly stating, but the emails, I haven’t tried, I’ve responded to one or two, only because I could not sit on my hands and not respond to one or two. I’d like to respond at all, but I would have would have made me nuts. And I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have been coherent. And I would have gotten more and more angry, I think is that if I responded to them all, because a lot of them were pretty offensive, in almost all of them. were intended to intimidate, with lawsuits, and you know, and we’re going to come after you individually. And so I want to say to my council members, those are your colleagues. I’m proud to be part of a group that refuses to be intimidated by that kind of correspondence. So good on you, but on us, but that’s not going to be the basis for us making a decision for First of all, second of all, I think the The fundamental issue here, not just for us, I think across the country, is the balance between our obligation and we have one to protect the rights of citizens, our constitutional rights. And as we pass laws, their legal rights, right, as residents of long mode as citizens of the state of Colorado, the fact it’s balanced without an equally compelling obligation to protect, to recognize and protect the common good. And that’s the tension it seems to me the independent has been, you have an obligation to protect my rights, my constitutional rights as a citizen and I want to say I get it. Here’s the other thing, I also have an obligation to protect the health and safety of your neighbor and my neighbor. So without without, you know, you are the you are made this the points that need to be made in terms of the reasons for this ordinance. I just want to say personally, for me, this is ultimately the research and I’m going to come to that and just In the research, the things we’ve already heard, and then in my own, but I feel to be my obligations as a citizen, are going to translate into a decision for me to support this ordinance. But as a personal and just as an individual. I feel like I’m not I take great offense to anybody who steps on my constitutional rights. But I also understand or have a view of the common good, that compels me to take decisions to take actions that protect the health and safety of others in service to others. One of the things that one of the experiences that I have, it’s kind of out of this for all of us, I think, is a new understanding of what that means. Or the number of times we’ve heard and I know it can get to be a mantra, we’re in this together. The fact is, we are in this together, whether you like it or not, because the common good is the health and safety, work, health and safety of all of us. When it comes to the time when we have a vaccination, a vaccine vaccine vaccine, we can do vaccinations. That will be a real test of whether or not those with means are willing to use them to ensure that every human being on this planet has access, real time to vaccination, because none of us are safe until everybody has the vaccination. That was the story of polio. Right? You You wanted your kid next door vaccinated not only your your kid vaccinated, we all have that as we were going right? It had to be everybody in the neighborhood, or everybody was still exposed, even if you didn’t vaccinate, vaccinate. So personally, my decision is going to reflect my belief that I have both obligations, protect rights and protect the common good. And if I’m going to fail on one side of that right now, it’s going to be in the interest of the common good, not in the interest of trampling on anybody’s rights, but on the interest of The greatest split for the largest number, in this case, health and safety. So people have talked about the fact that health was was very clear last week.
1:45:11
He’s paying close attention to what’s going on across the country, where the issues are, what the reactions have been. What’s the phasing of this? how strict to be the places where masks should be worn? There is no one size fits all approach. And we’ve heard a lot of that people have assumed a lot about what this would mean, much of which was inaccurate in terms of I heard from hero in terms of how situational the response is going to be a moment in health in terms of the health and safety of health and safety folks, but last night, we kept getting a lot of input on look at this epidemiologists that are ologists this respiratory therapists whatever. But so I did spend some time today going back to the w h o website, the Surgeon General’s website, the CDC website. Any website
1:46:02
and I’m not clear
1:46:03
on what the conclusion is from the help from the majority of healthcare experts around the world and I think killed was was quoting some of it when he you know, I’m gonna read it right this is today. This wasn’t this is kind of current as of this afternoon. The CDC continues to study this run effects of burnout not know Coronavirus across the United States. We know from recent studies with a good portion of individuals Coronavirus, lack symptoms are asymptomatic. And even those who’ve been this is what Councilmember Peck was saying. Even those who eventually develop symptoms can transmit the virus to others before showing any symptoms at all. Yeah, you’re walking infectious being without not without knowing that that’s why you wear the mask in deference to others. In light of the new evidence CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings or other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain grocery stores, always etc. Especially in areas of significant community based transmission. That’s exactly what we’ve talked about. That’s the over county direction. That’s what but the city manager has talked about. So based on what I think is stated in the Constitution, based on what I think is my obligation as an elected official, based on what my responsibilities are as a citizen, and based on the science, I’m going to support the ordinance. Thank you, Mayor
1:47:34
Bagley, I believe many great points have been made by my fellow colleagues on Council. Just a couple that I think don’t apply specifically to masking.
1:47:47
First of all,
1:47:50
I’ve heard the comments that if you’re going to mask we should have done it earlier. Well, we didn’t have the ability to move in an agile and nimble manner and that’s part of the impetus for This ordinance is you have the ability in, you know, in the coming weeks, but also in the future for any unforeseen epidemic or pandemic that comes our way because one will eventually come along again, for the city to be able to move in a quick manner, which will could be more effective than the response that we were able to mount in the initial stages this time. Now, the other thing I would like to say is that people will talk about, at least in some of the correspondence that I as well as probably all of you seen on council about an unelected official wielding this power. Well, hell doesn’t come without accountability. He is accountable to the city council. And while I also believe he does a great job, he does answer to us as a body. And so we are accountable to our constituents, as Harold is technically accountable to us, and I hope people realize that if we weren’t just pleased or disagreed with a move that Harold is making, there is recourse. For it outside of that, I will be supporting this ordinance.
1:49:10
Um, I will be supporting this ordinance, but I
1:49:14
do have a recommendation that we add
1:49:18
on let me
1:49:21
holding the spacebar down. I’d had some suggested, like just really focusing on or as defined by Boulder County public health or just some kind of slip in there that would keep it specifically to, to I guess so it’s not so interpretive and not some subjective but just very concrete.
1:49:56
Um, yeah, I think that the council member is algo fairing has a good point, except that we are in an emergency situation. We are coming into the point of reopening where the risk of reinfection of a spike kind of scenario comes into play. And we’re not talking about some an ordinance that’s going to be in effect for years and years and years. And, you know, we’re talking about getting the ability to act
1:50:35
quickly. You know, we could
1:50:36
get new news coming out that saying yeah, you need to wear gloves if you’re going to be shopping because you’re leaving behind viruses that last for three days. And so held would need to be saying you know, okay, cause you need to enforce glove wearing in in in your reopening protocol
1:50:58
and for that reason, And
1:51:01
I don’t think
1:51:02
getting the wording exactly right is is something we should do because the emergency should could come up in two weeks. And we’d like to make sure that recommending a change in the PP protocol would be something that the city manager can do immediately. So I would, I would go for not mucking with it and just get it done.
1:51:29
Thank you very badly.
1:51:30
This is actually a question for
1:51:32
you, Jean. Jean.
1:51:34
By the way, this reads it says, injuries and illnesses may result from contact with biological, chemical, etc. Do you consider the word biological being related to any kind of a pandemic? Or should we put the word pandemic in this? I don’t think that this is going to be our first rodeo. I think we’re going to be doing this again. And down the road with other viruses.
1:52:04
So should we
1:52:07
it could be passed with
1:52:11
an amendment to put the word pandemic in it unless you think that biological covers that. Can I have your response? Marin Council,
1:52:21
I do think biological would cover a virus. And this ordinance was drafted to be utilitarian and quick. So, if council would like to clarify with an amendment, you know, we’re certainly happy to do that. You know, mass is is the commonly accepted term yet Boulder County uses face coverings. So, you know, and this ordinance which I will admit we cut and paste, put it in, got it in the packet. You know, there’s respirators running respirators are kind of a technical OSHA like term for things that you put on your face. But these are illustrative non exhaustive list. And so we’re happy to make amendments if council would like to pass those via motion.
1:53:16
Okay. Um, I personally would like to word of either face coverings to go along with Boulder County, in this wording when you say but it’s not limited to includes but it’s not limited to facemask loves, etc. So
1:53:33
I’m going to move
1:53:36
ordinance zero
1:53:37
20 2023
1:53:39
of Section 10, eight 180
1:53:42
with the
1:53:43
inclusion of the word
1:53:47
face coverings
1:53:49
we have motion right or did we
1:53:53
did we?
1:53:54
I didn’t know I think there is a motion on the table.
1:53:58
So we’ll go ahead and pick that as an amendment. Thank you. Yes. So they’re sending to the member.
1:54:06
bars for lack of a second. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, I was I couldn’t get unmuted. I’m sorry.
1:54:16
All right, let’s go ahead and
1:54:19
cast members. Barton.
1:54:21
Just a clarification. Can this with an amendment can this still be a second reading? It seems like sometimes we’ve gone back to first reading.
1:54:29
We’re voting. This is the second reading or vote. Yeah, we’re not going back.
1:54:35
Okay.
1:54:39
On favor the amendment to include face covering? say aye. Aye.
1:54:46
Opposed say nay nay. Passes six to one. say nay. All right. I’ll see other hands. I guess what I’d like to do is I mean, on one hand, I think that everybody’s I think that everybody’s reasons were sound but what if the masks were not achieving the endgame that anybody is saying? So a lot of the things that we want to build right from our movies from say the cloth masks are still asking everyone to wear cloth mass produce COVID-19 but people have the disease but don’t realize it they agree. But just look at this as
1:55:29
look at this and say okay, well what what theoretically would happen I looked at is what’s actually happening. So the mechanic says All Things Hair, hair all set off master cheap and simple to make. They can be made from common material. But what they also say is there’s good instructions on how to learn. First of all, soft mass should include multiple layers of fabric. Multiple how many of our masks are well, this one is t shirt. Right.
1:56:02
Next, they should ask about the nose. Look how many people are wearing masks about covering the nose.
1:56:10
To make sure it’s known smell, don’t touch your mask while you’re wearing it should be one person wearing a mask that doesn’t touch it. If you accidentally touch your mask, wash or sanitize your hands
1:56:27
without touching the front of your face, wash your hands immediately after removing your mask. So I understand what everybody’s saying. But it says on droplets put on a mask and actually popping your hand
1:56:43
on here.
1:56:44
So it’s not necessarily protecting. Firing. This is really when you face masks for cautions masks on anyone who has trouble breathing. Don’t use face masks as a substitute for social distancing. So, I mean, so I mean, again, on one hand, people say this, we need to burn off masks. What I see is a whole society, new people that don’t know how to follow instructions, and they don’t social distance, they don’t wash their hands. And the question is, is,
1:57:17
in fact,
1:57:19
asks, more than eight weeks ago and I said, Why are we doing this? So that’s the other thing is, Oh, I
1:57:36
can’t hear you.
1:57:38
Oh, there’s a lot of confusion among
1:57:40
people and misinformation surrounding face masks.
1:57:45
The masks are important
1:57:48
for someone who’s infected to prevent them
1:57:51
from affecting someone else. Now, when you see people and look I
1:57:58
can’t hear it.
1:58:04
Dougie says it makes you feel better, but it doesn’t do anything.
1:58:10
So while we’re about I believe, so we actually got a 60 Minutes interview with Dr. Fauci did. This quote was wearing masks. I have a little bit, but all you’re doing is making making people think that they’re doing stuff. And so often, I just I hesitate before we start telling people that there were things or do things. And again, we’re, again, we’re double body taking action without any data. So go ahead and tell me that I’m not intelligent, and was the other word that was used to give compliments to each other. What did you say? This was brilliant, brilliant, my
1:58:55
custom reaction fair.
1:58:58
So Harold, this question is For you, um, is the county adjusting to situation. So as new research comes up as things evolve and change, is the county adjusting their ordinances, which in turn affect how we
1:59:17
pass ordinances?
1:59:20
Yes, in terms of their
1:59:22
the order that they’re issuing, they do evaluate the data.
1:59:27
So right now the order is in effect until May 26. They’re in the process of evaluating some data to figure out what does that look like going forward in terms of the situation and as I indicated, I know there was some comments about co2 and other issues and they’re actively doing research into that to get understand what that world really looks like. They’re actually doing that in conjunction in conjunction with the other health departments in the metro region, region based on that information that they’re getting in. So the answer’s yes.
2:00:02
So then if they determined that it’s not effective, and it’s more harmful, what would what would be the implications for us as a city?
2:00:12
Well, if Jefferson in and they felt
2:00:14
that it wasn’t there, they would remove the order.
2:00:18
Thank you, David, can earth the data,
2:00:20
lead them to another conclusion? That was what he talked about with me today.
2:00:27
And I think the data is going to go until November fourth, and we’ll see Councilmember pushes.
2:00:40
Sorry, the date of the
2:00:42
interview, the 60 Minutes interview was March 8. And the CDC has since reversed its and Dr. falchi has since reversed what he said. And as I said before, as Councilman Martin said before What he was being asked was if it prevented us from getting it, not passing it on. So it’s taken out of context.
2:01:10
And again, that’s not what it said.
2:01:23
Thank you Mayor Begley. I’m stubborn, I think is is the word you were looking for. Mayor Bagley but I would just like to remind everybody, that we are not deciding what orders to change tonight. We’re only deciding if something comes up. Let’s make sure that we can turn on a dime and change the orders. And in fact, it could mean you know the if if Boulder County is slow to do something that we No on the basis of evidence needs to be done in Longmont, which is different than the base than the rest of Boulder County, who might be able to do that really fast. And and that’s all it is. I would probably bet and I bet held wouldn’t hold that would hold the stakes, although he wouldn’t take the bet. That that he won’t ever have to issue any proclamation under this order. But we want it to be in place just in case and that’s what this is. This is just in case and it’s like going out without an umbrella in April, you know, you want that umbrella and you hope you don’t have to use it both at the same time. So let’s
2:02:47
just I woke up with a point of order on the southern comment. I would just correct you.
2:02:56
Bring it in pragmatic. Okay, Dr. Walker.
2:03:02
Thanks for Begley just use your the microphone in your system, you fade out sometimes just just know that with people if they’re not responding, because sometimes you can’t we can’t hear you. But if you want to unmute, would you want to go back and forth? I have a question or two for you. It sounded to me. So you can correct me if I’ve misinterpreted that, that at least part of your case against adding a minute amending the ordinance and authorizing Harold to require mask wearing under certain conditions is that people don’t comply perfectly, according to the mayo, the Mayo Clinic website with their guidance, because if you don’t do all these things, the way they’re recommending in Europe, you’ve concluded we ought not to require that at all. Is that did I hear that Kind of I guess what I’m saying is that don’t tell me to wear a mask. The whole point is cover your mouth when you cough. It’s also ignoring the fact that this isn’t transmitted just by coughing and sneezing or breathing. It’s also transmitted by touching the surface and somebody else touches it touches us. I’m not arguing with that I get all that. Here’s what here’s what I’m trying to reconcile in my, in my mind is I listened to you. And I want to I want to listen to you seriously, because you’ve been consistent with your position on this. But if we apply the standard, that I think if the Mayo Clinic represents a standard for compliance with our ordinance, right, follow these eight or nine, whatever those steps were to get it right. If we held every ordinance, we passed to the same standard, that if there’s not perfect compliance and the part of residents don’t pass the ordinance We will pass more ordinances. We’re never going to have perfect compliance. And then we’re gonna we’re gonna have approximations of perfect for everything. Our job is to do we are we have our job is multifaceted, it seems to me. Whenever we do with an ordinance, there should be some degree of pedagogy, right? In the ordinance, it there’s a teaching opportunity and learning itself as a chance to do some teaching. This one baby doesn’t do enough. I don’t know if the audience doesn’t do our job. Councilmember Christiansen has commented on this several times she did tonight. Part of our job as elected officials is help to help with that. Right in terms of helping people understand what we do and why we’re doing it. What is compliance require? What are the degrees of freedom are the consequences if you don’t, all that kind of stuff? Part of it’s the city’s job. What the city does with PSAPs and all the communication teams outreach to the community is all an attempt. help people understand how to translate what we do into what they do. And the reasons why. And it’s never going to be perfect. We’re human beings, right? We’re we will always be approximations of what we’d like to be. But if that if that’s if this, we’re going to apply that standard to this ordinance. Either we should apply it to all of them or that’s an unreasonable standard, even though the guidance from Mayo Clinic is his guidance we have to be taken seriously. Boy, yeah.
2:06:32
I was gonna say that,
2:06:33
yes and no, I feel uncomfortable forcing healthy people to do things to protect other people or themselves in general. And so for example, I don’t drink. But that would be like saying, well, let’s go ahead and take away my dad’s car keys just in case he’s drunk. You know, in this particular case, I just think that there are other ways to spread or not To avoid spreading disease, the event of coughing sneezing, and you don’t need to do it by telling healthy people to wear a mask. And I think that that simple. I mean, it’s one vote, but can push back just on that. I understand what you’re doing if you did, right. Or if someone you do, who does? I do? Like, like me. I don’t hold myself to the same standard in terms of imbibing as you do. But if you had somebody if you knew somebody who was drunk, and didn’t realize it, would you take their keys away from?
2:07:40
Yeah,
2:07:40
yes, you would now be finished. Okay. People who think people who are drinking don’t understand it, count on people like you to take their keys away. We got a whole lot of people walking around who think they’re healthy, and they’re infected. What’s your obligation, man?
2:07:57
Okay, so they’re fun. They’ve done the work.
2:07:59
People by answering my
2:08:01
question what your obligation was infected and don’t know it was a false analogy. It’s like going for the bar and just taking everybody’s keys.
2:08:13
There’s no one
2:08:18
right? Let’s just get on with it. And when we did so, all in favor of the current ordinance, which gives her the ability to make us all dress and Moon suits and breathing apparatuses, and masks and galoshes and whatever the hell wants just to pee, etc. Um, say aye. Aye.
2:08:41
Opposed say nay nay, the order passes six to one.
2:08:47
All right.
2:08:49
Let’s go ahead, we have no items removed. Let’s go ahead and have a discussion of the orders prior to this matter bicycles and other vehicles on Main Streets. Let’s go ahead and take a five minute break since it’s my All right. I love you all back soon.
2:10:00
Korea
2:14:58
Good evening
2:15:00
Council. So again, all transportation planning manager with the city. Just wanted to go forward really quickly and talk to you a little bit about new ordinance that you actually brought to staff back in December. The idea of bringing an ordinance to, to the city council or up to the city, regarding dismount zones along Main Street. So wanted to go over those kind of quickly with you tonight. Obviously, we’re gonna try to get this quickly going here. But just want to remind you that the idea is that we’re going to ask you at the end, whether you want to direct staff to leave the voluntary dismount zone, which we have right now on Main Street, if you want to, if you want us to keep that going in place with no new ordinance, that’s an option. You could direct us to move forward with the ordinance that you have in your packet tonight. We have a draft ordinance in there right now. So we can go forward with that. Or you can direct staff to move forward on an ordinance with some changes that we’re asking for actually, so Susan, if you don’t mind, just need to go into the next slide. So one of the issues I mean, I think that’s pretty pretty basic. We’re talking about bicycle riders on the main street sidewalks and that that safety issue right there. We’ve had a couple of close calls reported to the Longmont downtown Development Authority to the LD da. I’ve got Kimberly McKee, the executive director of LDA on the line with us for any questions you might have. I should also mention that Ben Ortiz, our transportation planner did a lot of work on this as well. But I guess I pulled the short straw on this one to do the to the presentation. So anyway, we just wanted to talk to you a little bit about this we’re seeing from Are you talking about the community Rangers when they were in a forest last year,
2:16:48
for about two and a half months they they have
2:16:51
activity along Main Street and saw that there was about 82, bikes, bike riders and didn’t dismount. There’s other issues out there as well as As you know, the ad, a community that’s having issues with, whether it’s a hearing issue or trying to navigate using a mobility device, such as a wheelchair, that difficulty with having bicycle riders come up behind you, and you can’t hear them, and they’re trying to still call out, but you’re trying to use a sidewalk has become an issue as well, as well as just when we’re trying to talk about you, you talked about it earlier in this in this meeting is the idea that we’re going to try to expand restaurants eventually into this into this area of this, you know, there’s already seating areas with Main Street, we’re going to try and do more of that, try to move some people back into the alleys as well. So we’re talking about all these different issues. Adding bicycles to the mix is really going to complicate that and really provide more of a safety issue. So right now we do have that voluntary dismount zone, in effect, or in place, it’s not very effective, quite frankly. And so that’s one of the reasons for I think that You as the council move forward and ask for this ordinance. Next slide, please. So we’re talking about other options for bicycling. And so we have had discussions with the bicycling community about this. And what we’re getting back from most folks is that people are on board. The bicycling community is on board with this. The tenants that occupy Main Street, businesses and other establishments are for this as well. But the issue really becomes what is your other option? And so we do have that alleyways in the back half block, east and west of Main Street that provide that level of rideability. So we’re talking about that common Street, we’re actually going to be, you know, investing $7 million in Kaufman street in the next two to three years, as far as trying to build that as a more comfortable level of writing, as well as doing some other improvements for transit. So carpentry becomes a very viable option it is right now, quite frankly, it’s easily written, we don’t have kinberg on the list because we don’t feel like that’s as safe as as Kaufmann, Terry, and Emery streets, which are more low traffic. So those are the other options that are available to the bicycling community. And so we wanted to put those out there. And again, the bicycle community is generally behind this, but I’ll go over in the next slide, kind of where we have some contention with, with some things of Susan, if you could go to the next slide. So the council did request the dismount ordinance in December. And with all the things going on, we are now finally getting back to you and we appreciate your patience with this. But the question is for Council and really the really the one question that we really want to change or ask you to change in the ordinance and have us move forward on this and in first and second readings in July, is expanding that zone up to long speakers right now. And as it was stated, when you for it, it really was just going up to Sixth Avenue. And that’s the current. That’s the current, voluntary, standard or voluntary, this mountain zone. But we were asking that you allow us to move it up to long speak in the ordinance language. And so that’s going to be the first question that we propose for you, and then just ask for your permission on that. Also, the idea that we’re recommending adding signage to the lineage zone, I don’t think that’s going to be important in this in the ordinance. And so, since we put this together, and as we’ve talked through it with different folks, we’re going to put signage, if you want to go forward with this ordinance, we’ll we’ll just provide the signage as part of the ordinance. And we’ll put those key locations as you enter into this dismount zone so that people understand where it starts and stops. So that’s just part of how we would do any kind of thing like this. But if you want to add more to this, that’s certainly your prerogative. as well. And then we we talked about recommending including breezeways, as far as the dismount zone, and that’s where we got the pushback from, from the bicycling community that you really utilize those breezeways to be able to cross over and be able to bicycle across the zones from the alleyways. So that’s the one thing that will just kind of give you a heads up that that might come back when we’re talking about the ordinance. If you wanted to move forward with including the breezeways in this ordinance, that’s something where we’re going to get pushback from the bicycling community. And there will be some comments so at this point, if you want it to leave that out, but certainly something that we would we would do in the ordinance that you bring up. So those are really the things that we wanted to bring forward to you. And again, try to quickly put together the conversation here and get your responses back.
2:21:54
And if you have any that would be great to hear at this point.
2:22:09
All your calls on you remember Christian?
2:22:11
Oh, yeah.
2:22:14
Now can you tell a little bit to, um, okay, since I was the one who brought this forth, I believe the real impetus was all the things that you mentioned, Phil, it is a hazard for disabled people, for children, for dogs for elderly people, for people who can’t hear for people who are trying to maneuver wheelchairs.
2:22:41
It’s and also as, as Phil pointed out,
2:22:46
we are talking about trying to extend restaurants, perhaps a little more onto the sidewalk, which would be really helpful. And we can’t do that if we’ve got people whizzing by on by knocking over people who are going in and out of restaurants. The reason I brought this forth in the first place, though, remember is because someone died, he was riding on the sidewalk that he whipped out into traffic. And I’m not saying this is his fault, but I’m just saying, This creates a it’s a creates a situation where more of a hazard. It’s just a dangerous situation. I would like to ask why we’re talking about extending it up to Long’s peak, which doesn’t seem to be a very busy part of downtown, and I don’t see a need personally to extend it too long to speak. And the other thing was, oh, freeways. I didn’t understand Phil, whether you meant that the bicycling community
2:23:53
does want to include
2:23:55
being able to use breezeways or does not want to include PCBs, too. To me, I, um, please, my eyes aren’t very wide either because they have landscaping. And so then you’re talking about the same sort of situation where it isn’t really a very good situation for somebody to be whizzing through the breezeway when somebody is not expecting them to be, you know, somebody going 20 miles an hour through the freeway. So could you clarify for me whether what the bicycling community
2:24:35
what they wanted on that or didn’t want?
2:24:39
Yes, Mayor and Councilmember Christiansen I’ll take your last question first and then I’ll pass it on to Kimberly for the question about extending the zone up to along speak. So the breezeways are a bit wider. There are some instances that do impact the breezeway. So we are concerned about that. What the breezeways are kind of For right now is really the ability for people to be able to access Main Street and be able to walk their bike but able to get to Main Street through those breezeways on their bicycle. And they, you know, we ask that they slow down, obviously, and that they take it, you know, be careful in those areas, but they’re a little bit wider than our sidewalks along Main Street, quite frankly. And so what we’re doing is we’re just, of course, if you want to include the breezeways, that’s fine, but just to give you a sense of the comments that we’re getting back from the bicycling community that there’ll be some, there’ll be some comments on that and some pushback. So we’re, we’re trying to kind of balance that. But the idea is that we feel like the breezeways do provide that cross access for bicyclists. And at least let them get to Main Street so that they can dismount and then get to their front of their business, or be able to use the only way to get to the back of their business. So those are the things going on there. And then I’ll pull off I’ll turn it over to Kimberly for the
2:25:58
one more question though. That
2:26:02
the breezeway is not very long, it’s the length of the building. They could just as easily and get through there by walking their bike which they can walk their bike up and down Main Street anyway. I mean, and they can walk through the breezeway. I don’t know.
2:26:24
Okay, keep
2:26:28
your hands up.
2:26:29
I thought Kimberly was going to answer.
2:26:34
Mickey.
2:26:36
Um, Thank you Mayor Bagley members of council. You know, I do think it is important to extend it up to long speak. We have heard from several property owners up there that they are also experiencing the same issue. You know, there’s a dairy queen there and there’s the dance dimension. So it is actually there’s a lot of kids there. And people continue to go up there so it does seem like too often for consistency to keep it throughout the PDA that that would be important.
2:27:00
Okay,
2:27:01
as philosophy correct All right.
2:27:06
You don’t think you are
2:27:09
Thank you, Amir badly. my idol. I think you should extend it to long speak. I think that’s a good idea. Um, the thing with the broom, the breezeways. I can see that as controversial, but the breezeway is at the sidewalk and then goes on to the street so people are walking at the end of the breezeway on the sidewalk. So, um, there’s no way to control that speed through that breezeway when it hits the sidewalk. Has this been a problem or as it’s been a concern, Kimberly, have you had complaints about the breezeways
2:27:53
you know, not so much about the breezeways you know, much more on the sidewalks. You know, breezeways I think They could be added now or or maybe added later if the breezeways continue to evolve as gathering places. I think that it’ll be harder to have cyclists on it, it’s probably a little bit easier right now, there’s not as many people hanging out there ever as we look at, I think all of the real estate that we have downtown, any public spaces breezeways alleys, sidewalks are going to be so crucial the rest of this year and probably into next year for additional outdoor seating for being able to make sure people have social distancing, that type of thing. So I really think now is the time to act on on these bicycle things. So we don’t have continued conflict. So I think the breezeways You know, I think main three is the most important but I also think breezeways could evolve into being just as important. As we look at alternate solutions.
2:28:57
My concern is that we don’t have competing visions and competing goals for our city. For example, we’re trying to get people out of cars making more walkable bikable community. So but if we keep limiting where the bikes can actually ride to get down to the businesses that we want to reopen and be sustainable, so it is a it is a kind of a tightrope walk here with those breezeways. Um, I don’t want to limit the access to downtown from people on bikes. I think that’s a dangerous way to go, especially when we’re looking through Dr. cog at Vision Zero and other methods of transportation. So for right now, I don’t think we should include those breezeways I think we should wait monitors See, see how it goes. My only concern with them is that they go too fast when they hit the sidewalk at the end. The breezeways and there can be somebody pushing a baby carriage or the couple I always see in their remote control wheelchairs, which I kind of want one. So I think right now from my perspective, we leave the brace Bay raised ways out of it, watch make certain. So we don’t take away our ability to have people on bikes get downtown. Be very careful with that. Thank you.
2:30:31
Thank you just move back button. And then we’ll go just remember was after customer.
2:30:38
Thank you, Mary Bagley. So what I’d like to understand is what the objection of the cycling community is to dismounting in the breezeway, because, and, you know, as somebody pointed out, it is like 10 steps to get through a breezeway. Why wouldn’t you dismount in the alley
2:31:01
And walk over to me.
2:31:04
And Councilmember Martin, excuse me. Um, I think that the reason it goes back to Councilmember pecks point that just accessibility through you know, we’re kind of removing something or accessibility for bicyclists bye bye providing this does not sound though you can still walk your bike obviously on the on the sidewalk but that was part of the issue was people use those they feel like they’re really good ways to transect the corridor and they you know the people that spoke to us obviously try to do in a careful way but that’s not to say you know everybody’s going to do it that way but they try to do it in a careful way and they want that access and be able to stay on their bike through that through that as you transect Main Street there so obviously they’re gonna have to slow down anyway for main street so they have to slow down for that was crossings as well as mid block crossings. So That’s part of it. But I think it just goes back to the idea that we’re eliminating accessibility for bicyclists by by not allowing them on Main Street and they want to have as much accessibility as they possibly can get.
2:32:13
So they’re essentially defending a territory. I know you don’t want to say that, but that’s what I want to say. Okay, it’s not like if they had or if they had a reasoned argument that was involved, it’s going to cause some problem or another than I wanted to be able to hear it. But if it means I have to slow down 200 feet earlier.
2:32:47
I kinda am with Kimberly. Okay, thanks.
2:32:56
Thanks, Maggie. I’m so
2:33:01
It’s not a piece of a catchy question I come down I think we’re Councilmember Peck is to say, I don’t certainly want to restrict that. Now I, let’s kind of learn our way forward on it. Because it’s going to be discouraging enough to bicyclists who we’re trying to. We’re trying to generate more not less enthusiasm for bicycling. But I do is that I guess it’d be helpful. Kimberly, did he?
2:33:27
It’s hard I understand in all the unknown.
2:33:40
For two, the places that we’re reading about that are maybe this consummate version of a fairy.
2:33:48
They’re closing off streets we saw Seattle has now permanently closed off 50 miles of streets or whatever. Some time I do the same thing to encourage to create more space for people. To be out in distance, but also to encourage bicycling. And mean as I’ve thought about this, it’s like how cool would it be if you blocked off traffic from first belongs peak on a Friday and Saturday night for four o’clock till 10 o’clock. But that’s the primary way to get there. It’s gonna be bicycling, right? So it’s like, if you’re not going to change the trees, you’re going to have to have a lot of bicycle racks. And where are those going to be placed? And kind of what is that vision because it would be helpful if I had to get stoked to know what, you know, what is the breezeway fit into the Gestalt and how much of an imposition isn’t on the bicyclist to have to dismount at the at the edge of the sidewalk to walk across the street into the you know, the next breezeway because I get that, I get Phil’s point that you know, that’s the way he did it. East West in town, if you’re going downtown and that slows down your commute. If you’re You’re on a bike to help us with that with with what you see is the big picture here.
2:35:05
Sure, Mayor Begley members of council, you know, certainly I would love, nothing more than to have more people bike downtown then drive. And so this is certainly no way of us hoping that people don’t cycle I think the thing that we realized was, no matter what you’re doing, everyone becomes a pedestrian at some time whether you drive or bike or whatever. So making sure that industry and friendly happens first is a need for everybody. I would work with you to do everything in anything to close Mainstreet during these times. Have it be out there, it’s probably unlikely so we’re looking for other solutions and other real estate. But you know, Phil and I have talked a lot when we did the voluntary just mountain zone. At that point, we added 30 bike racks I think since then we’ve added 35 more bike racks throughout the DDA we’ve talked about on the avenue is taking parking spaces and putting large bike racks there. So we would absolutely evolve any bike facilities as this continues to happen. One of the things that I’m always talking to Phil about and I think when we were talking about the steam corridor, or one of my visions for transportation is that there would be bike routes that all intersected through downtown. So every neighborhood led to downtown. And that became the intersection to connect all the neighborhoods together. And I think having a very robust network of both pedestrian and cycling, amenities is very important, you know, this summer is we’re social distancing and things like that. And again, I don’t want to say that we’re being very cautious of how we’re going to have people come together. But in the past, we’ve talked about how could we do bike in movies? How could we do different things like that to really encourage the cycling community? So I think our vision is, how do we keep everyone safe? I mean, keeping people safe is all I talk about these days, whether it’s a They’re going into businesses, how are they getting here or those types of things. So I would love to see cycling take a front seat, especially this summer, especially as we’re trying to encourage people if they aren’t comfortable going in places at least go out and get exercise. So cycling into downtown and walking around and looking at the public art or window shopping or picking up food and taking it home is really important. So we will continue to work on that as alternate transportation and certainly look at all of that infrastructure and add to it as needed. breezeways are 125 feet, I cycle to work almost every day in the summer I will say I have walked my bike through breezeways and when no one else is in there I have cycled for three days. Right? So I think that people will will will do it either way, but as we encourage maybe cafe dining or more seating or whatever, it could become a problem but we could grow into that and amended and add those as needed, they still could be voluntary. Hopefully as people get used to dismounting they will just walk it anyway if they see a crowd in there, so we hope like that education would would take forth but, you know, a lot of the times of cyclists that we see are just broken it and they’re not. They’re not coming to downtown. They’re coming through downtown and every street has bike lanes, Terry has bike lanes, there’s so many easier and quicker ways than dodging pedestrians to do that.
2:38:30
I favor that dismount zone. And in my I think I’m leaning towards going slow on the, on the restrictions on the breezeways until we you know, we figure out what the outdoor dining is going to be like and, and and obviously Phil and his crew will do a whole lot of work with with our bicycling community to understand, you know what, what’s at stake if we can’t get it right
2:39:10
I guess I’ll go.
2:39:12
I didn’t quite catch that. Anyway.
2:39:15
Thank you very badly. So
2:39:18
I agree with what Kimberly was telling Matt that I think a lot of the the problematic
2:39:26
bicyclists and skateboarders and longboarders and things are simply commuting through downtown. I see that more than folks that are riding to downtown as a destination. I just wanted to mention some of the things I saw in the 2012 survey that was provided in our packet that I really enjoyed reading as far as alternatives to or ways in which this would be effectively enforced. And that would be possibly using the restorative justice technique as well as Taking a while to use signage as well as, you know, a period of time for education before the the mandatory dismount zone is fully fully realized in some sort of punitive way. Those two things really stood out to me and then while you know who was interesting reading that surveys saying that they expected a lot more traffic when the Roseville apartments opened, showing some of the dated information and I thought that that was telling if you will.
2:40:36
I do
2:40:38
hope that you know, there’s time when I live close to downtown rub bicycle down there more often than not, and I would actually use the alleyways much more than I would use the
2:40:51
the sidewalks him.
2:40:53
I think that
2:40:55
going to that issue as well.
2:40:58
I can see how that’d be dangerous. If not trying to obey the same the similar rules have one way that the cars have to obey in the alleyways as well. Those are just a few of my observations from reading through the packet on these issues as far as specifically the the breezeway, I’d be inclined not necessarily to include that in the mandatory disappearance zone at this time.
2:41:22
I guess what I’ve asked you is rather okay. So this is a motion I’d like to make instead of just look we can Sara Higgins, but somebody makes a motion, or do I make a motion? Casper Christian sitting on make a motion?
2:41:35
I’ll make a motion that we pass. I don’t have the number before
2:41:42
we move the ordinances at the first meeting. Oh,
2:41:53
you’re muted.
2:41:58
There’s a motion on the table from Kelsey Mr. Christiansen to move this ordinance to first reading. Do I have a second?
2:42:03
Second?
2:42:05
Second by Councilmember peck on favor say aye.
2:42:09
Aye. Aye.
2:42:11
Aye. All opposed say nay.
2:42:14
Motion carries unanimously.
2:42:20
Kimmy, if there’s anything you’d like to change in the ordinance between now and then I’d like that feedback between now and first ordinance. That’s okay.
2:42:30
All right, cool. Thanks. All right.
2:42:33
Councilmember Christiansen.
2:42:36
Just to clarify,
2:42:39
what we passed was to also extend it up to Long’s peak, and leave out the breezeways.
2:42:46
Yeah.
2:42:47
Yeah, it’s probably about the same words in our packets, yes, up towards peak, no requests.
2:42:54
And then so what is that some often we can motion.
2:42:58
I also think that You know, some of the breezeways, as Kimberly has said, if some of them are used for people to extend their businesses out, bicyclists are smart people plow into something that has a bunch of people sitting there or a bunch of
2:43:15
dress racks out there. So
2:43:19
each Raceway will will generate depending upon how it’s used. its own sort of
2:43:27
behavior, hopefully. I mean, I’d much rather people just
2:43:33
dismount voluntarily, but they have not done that. So that’s why once again, we have to pass an ordinance.
2:43:44
And it will be back to in July with those ordinances.
2:43:47
were cool.
2:43:50
All right. Let’s move on to Mayor council comments. Does anyone have anything else to say? We go home? All right. All right. We all want to say stuff. Councilmember Jago fairing. The dark waters too. Customer Martin and Councilmember Christiansen
2:44:03
Okay, so the first thing is typically when school is in session we hear from the Longmont Public Library about their summer reading program. But because they don’t have a way to get disseminate that information I kind of wanted to I want to make public you know, make this public that the summer reading program will be continuing this year from June 1 through July 31. I think they typically have done in the past tickets to Lakeside, but we don’t know if it’s not going to be open. So they did through the Friends of Longmont
2:44:43
library receive donation to provide books to winners
2:44:48
or people who turn in their the kiddos who turn in their summer reading Bingo. So I wanted to get that out there to
2:44:55
be active. drop off if you have books that you still need to turn in.
2:45:01
You can drop those off as well. And then the other thing is, I found out from CDE that we, the district
2:45:10
will receive. We have earmarked $15 million
2:45:17
for COVID relief funds. So that’s exciting news. That’s, that’s great news. I guess this would be a reason to push filling out your census. So we can have numbers. We were given that amount based on the numbers that we have
2:45:36
different defined in our in our district, fill out that census, so we’re eligible for more funding. That’s all I have to say good night.
2:45:47
All right.
2:45:48
Just remember waters
2:45:50
do things very badly. I want to just go back to the old report. He shared the results of the work of a group and maka had and organize through the museum in hand is our education curator. I’ve had a chance to have like half crossers, I want to say, nice going in, into those who organized around in with and that’s that’s a great example of the staff rising to the occasion. So I five the other observation would be that it’s simple I since we we postponed interviews from Saturday, we had to get on the calendar when we’re going to interview candidates for boarding commission positions or appointments. And prior to that time, I think we we ought to have a session like this to talk about what we want to learn, what’s the protocol going to be, how we’ll be learning virtual five minute interviews, what we need to learn, what have we heard from staff about what their needs are in terms of boards and commissions so that we can have an efficient process And is our time, the time of the applicants. And in the end what we’re asking of them as volunteers on behalf of the City one. So I’ve got my kick, I’ll get my calendar out if we’re ready to pick a date that’s ever been put on an upcoming agenda. So talk to me just throw
2:47:26
your hand up. You want your
2:47:27
next Yeah, I was next.
2:47:32
I’m going to be something of a curmudgeon. We’ve been talking a lot about the common good. And that is really important to me. It’s more important to me than my constitutional right. Not to wear a mask or a funny hat.
2:47:53
But
2:47:57
I think that The common good is tied together with things that are constitutional rights like respect for one another’s property. The city has the property. We don’t have homesteading here. We respect each other’s property rights. We don’t face each other’s property rights. Yet we seem to have rewarded a group of, of
2:48:33
children families
2:48:36
for defacing,
2:48:40
sensitive riparian preserve, and I don’t like that. I mean, it’s great that we are we’ve come to kind of a solution where well, we’re going to let the kids use it during the summer because they don’t have any place to write. Right But then in the fall We’re going to restore it to what it’s supposed to be and this time we’re not going to reclaim it. You know, everybody says, Well, they’ve been doing that for years. Like, that is some reason why it’s okay. You know, you’ve been camping on my front porch for years, and I never noticed. But then this morning, I noticed and it scared me and I called the police. And it’s not a defense that well, she didn’t call the police last night or the night before, so I must have a right to sweep on this porch. No, you don’t. And this community at large number of members of this community
2:49:45
have fought hard
2:49:47
to protect our riparian areas. And I think that it’s a duty of parents to let their children know that we don’t have homesteading here. That we do have property rights that the city has property rights. And that destroying a nature sort of a nature preserve is vandalism. So I just want to get that side of the story out there. I’m sorry, folks, but that’s the way I feel about it. Oh,
2:50:25
thank you, man. Actually, um,
2:50:26
I think this, I think this issue deserves a larger conversation. You know, maybe 20 years ago or 30 years ago, that was okay. But things have changed. And I’m not going to demonize children for being creative. I did like the idea that the last caller made where the community gets together in conjunction with the city. I think that would be very creative. It would be enabling the residents to have a buy in what other way would be Good to have children get involved with their city, other than, you know, to plan their own play area and what they need, and the parents help build it. I think this deserves a bigger discussion, and I will, if nobody else does. Next week, I’m going to move that we put it on an agenda to discuss because it’s interesting. And I will never demonize children for being creative. Even if it was 20 years ago. 30 years ago,
2:51:28
life is out of order.
2:51:31
Yeah.
2:51:34
I don’t like being accused of demonizing children. I am not talking about the children at all. I’m talking about their parents.
2:51:44
Because I don’t think Councilmember Peck was saying that. I
2:51:48
don’t think i think i think here that I
2:51:51
can understand where
2:51:52
she was, but I don’t think she was. But
2:51:56
what else counts? Remember back. I just agree that
2:51:59
we should get casis perhaps in a bigger discussion at a different meeting, and I will make a motion next week if nobody else does to put it on an agenda to discuss.
2:52:09
Okay. Can
2:52:11
you say anything? It just pushes
2:52:15
your follow?
2:52:18
Follow Your turn.
2:52:24
Oh,
2:52:27
thanks Susie, for
2:52:31
centers that’s kind of get people to fill out the census. It’s only 65% or something. And it’s not good enough. You know, it’s, it is your obligation to fill out the census. And we much prefer to have people do this remotely on their computer or by mail, both of which are very easy to do, as opposed to forcing somebody to come to your house and knock on Doron, try to get you to answer questions that you could it really takes five minutes, so just do it. I appreciate what Councilman Martin said. And also Councilman Peck, I do think that this, I would, according to some of the information we’ve gotten about the
2:53:22
by jumps.
2:53:25
This whole thing is going to be demolished this Friday. So I would like us to put that off a little bit so that we could have a discussion. I think there’s a huge amount of community interest in this we got a petition with 2000 names on it. So I do think that before we demolish something, we have a responsibility to have a discussion about it and let people know that this difference between kids having fun which we were all kids is And we all loved our bikes. And we all you know, we want, we all want our kids to have fun. But there’s a difference between private property and the city’s property which we have liability for. And we’re also trying to develop this right hiring area and we’re also trying to restore the flow, the damage done by the flood. We have to be able to do those things and but I want kids to be able to have a voice in what goes on and they’re doing, you know, creative stuff. This happened in Council, I mean, mailbag leaves neighborhood, and the city worked with them to a happy situation. We have a bicycle area down at Dickens Park. And that’s not very far from where these kids are anyway. And so I would like Just to see if we can make a compromise and give the kids agency in what they’re doing. But also, this is a big liability issue too. So there has to be discussed. And we have to see if that’s possible. Anyway, so that’s what I would like. And also, I would just want to say to everybody who’s out there. It’s tough. I know, it’s getting very tough, but just be patient. Be strong, be patient, Be courageous. And know that we’re all we’re doing the right thing by taking care of each other. So this will not last forever.
2:55:42
We are holding off on the motion. So it’s an opportunity to have that discussion.
2:55:48
Yeah.
2:55:50
All right, cool. Count.
2:55:53
The other thing
2:55:54
that I just wanted to clarify that were stated earlier, we’re going to deal with this in the fall. And so in the meantime, we’re going to work with him. So that activity on Friday is not going to occur. So that was a conversation that David had.
2:56:09
Anything.
2:56:12
Comments, Mayor,
2:56:14
emotion, Katzman, back to john.
2:56:21
I’m really glad I have a job on this council makes me feel so important. It is important, though important.
2:56:29
Moved by Councillor Martin, second by Councilmember Pat. All in favor say aye. Aye.
2:56:36
Opposed say nay. All right, passes unanimously. Well, adjourn. See you guys later. Bye.