https://otter.ai/s/KlCJvoa9TPeWhEHjm79aTw
0:09
Councilmember Martin here. And Councilmember double ferry, your mayor, yo. All right, great. Just a quick reminder, anyone wishing to speak during public invited to be heard, will need to go ahead and watch the livestream of the meeting. And then we’ll throw up the instructions. That one right there when the time comes, you’ll need to dial that number. So all right, if we could take that off the screen. Great. And then, so let’s go ahead and start with the roll call on a plant or a side pledge. Why don’t we go with Paulie could you lead us in the Pledge tonight?
0:50
There’s a new the mute section is in a new place. Um,
0:54
I pledge allegiance allegiance
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to the United States of America.
1:00
A
1:04
nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. All right, let’s go ahead motions direct the city manager to add agenda items for future agendas, anything
1:20
like waters. I don’t want to add something I just want to confirm if he got from David Bell earlier today, he made rough prints to updating us during this meeting. I assume he’s going to do that during the city manager’s report. Could we just confirm that? If not, I’m gonna I’ll make a motion now correct. Because of the timing of getting an item on the agenda. He’s gonna update tonight and then we’re gonna bring another item back. Thank you.
1:48
All right. Great. See counselor Christiansen.
1:59
Go back to the
2:00
Wait.
2:03
Because this is a very difficult time. And also because we’re changing our Director of Public Safety.
2:10
I would like to have a report on by the police department on what our public policy is on the use of force by the police force. I feel like we have a very good police force. But many, many people have been asking us for this. And I think we owe it to them to have a report in a fairly short amount of time by the police just a short report on what our policy is on the use of force.
2:45
Harold, let’s just go ahead and put that on the agenda. Keep it to three to five minutes. I know that it’s on our website, but it would it would take it’ll be it’ll take more time right now to talk about it and discuss it then that it would actually get the report. So if we can
3:00
Yeah, that was just mayor’s prerogative. Okay, great. Anything else, everybody?
3:05
All right, cool. Let’s go on to public invite Have you heard? Let’s go ahead and wait to see who who joins us.
3:25
Are we going to get the city manager report after that?
3:29
Yeah, I’m looking. That will be number four on the agenda, special reports and presentations COVID-19 update as well as La che.
3:43
Unless you want to go now.
3:46
I don’t care. No, I’m good. I was used to the regular number. I’m good.
4:21
Let’s go to the 60 seconds
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cut off
4:27
brother is anybody in the queue Yeah.
4:31
Man we have one person so far.
4:37
Looks like we have another so we’ll give them another minute maybe. Is to you to Marsha Martin piece to you.
4:45
I know you’re saying to just.
4:59
Alright, let’s go ahead and wrap up
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it up let’s go ahead and cut off the public invited to be heard list. Let’s start with the first one showing Susan
5:09
yes Mayor one minute
5:12
I will start the timer
5:22
there we have looks like four guests the first guest ending in 532. I’m going to unmute you if you could please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes
5:36
I think that’s me.
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This is okay this is so Holland I’m a 1400 Third Avenue
5:45
and
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I’m calling about traffic situations and town.
5:53
I have spoken to probably over 100 people from 90
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Nine Collier down by the Rec Center Spencer Fordham Mountain Dew over 17. South Platte Parkway, draped over, over by the airport cross, Harvard. Third name, you get the idea.
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And
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proof that the noise and the speeding all night long,
6:26
then I’m not the only one.
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And
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then we’re not asking for anything extraordinary. I think when I’ve talked to Tyler a couple times he sort of gives me the sense that he thinks I want to stop all traffic or something. We’re just asking for some help to mitigate the speeding and annoying so like when we’re in our backyard, we don’t have to feel like we’re on the speedway. It is really rough.
7:00
It’s really bad.
7:03
And we keep coming to city council. You know, all these people. If you look on the next door app, it’s a hot topic of conversation. And the theme there is there is speeding there are these people who are making all this noise. They have called gone to city council they have called Tyler they called the police. And our pleas for help are falling on deaf ears.
7:32
And I don’t know if you can hear that going on right now. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Maybe have the people obey the law and that we have some quiet in our own yards
7:49
or in the middle of the night?
7:53
Oh, here we are in
7:59
one question.
8:00
I have if I was looking at the traffic mitigation online that is dated 2006 and I’m curious if that is still valid or if it’s been updated
8:15
we usually don’t respond during public invited to be heard. That’s why you’re hearing silence. We listen but Okay, so but what we can do is we’ve got your name and contact information Harold, can we shoot her an email with an answer? And I don’t know if your computer but we’re getting a head nod and city manager. So do you want to share your email real quick? Um, Mayor, perhaps it would be best if she emailed support dot web at Longmont. colorado.gov.
8:48
Okay, perfect. Email it and then we’ll respond. Okay.
8:53
That would be fantastic. All right. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Next
9:02
Guess seven two to your next I’m going to unmute your line. If you could please state your name and your address for the record. You have three minutes go ahead.
9:13
My name is Lynette McLean and I live on Sandpoint drive.
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I served on the Council of Climate Action Task Force. And I just wanted to request that a survey be sent to all of the participants in that task force so that we can give feedback on the process and the results.
9:35
And I just want to say a few things. At first, I was disappointed to see the composition of the group included so many city staff members, and later I realized that the staff members were able to provide much necessary information about the budget, the programs and the services that were already being provided, but the group’s group process, even though it was very pragmatic and functional, it was less than is to for inspiration, aspirational and inspiring.
10:00
To the COVID and the loss of several participants, after we no longer able to meet, a document was created that appears unwieldly that I hope that the council will be able to identify action items and measurable goals that they will be able to track. I hope that the council will make climate change a priority. And they’ll be able to identify those climate action priorities
10:25
and hold the city accountable to take action on this urgent issue. Thank you.
10:32
Thank you. All right, next.
10:35
Oh, are your number ends in eight to zero? I’m going to unmute you.
10:41
Hello, can you hear us? Yes. Okay. Please state your name for the record and your address. You have three minutes.
10:49
Thank you. Hello again. My name is Katherine Bay log and I’m calling in for the fourth time about short term rentals in the city of Longmont. I live at 1920 spruce Avenue, the house
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Behind us as a short term rental property this house
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overlooks our backyard their hot tub, their deck. Everything in their backyard overlooks our property. Since early May, we have had different people or guests watching us and our children play in our backyard. Every week there are new people vacationing and watching us. This is a privacy and security issue. The last time I called in, I brought up that this is a hotel in our backyard. hotels are not allowed by zoning laws to be in residential neighborhoods due to the inevitable disruptions of tourism. Why is it okay that we have this hotel in our backyard? big cities all over the country have protected the residential neighborhoods from those short term rentals and from what my neighbors and I have been dealing with all summer long. City Council Can you please revisit the short term rental laws and consider banning short term rentals in residential neighborhoods so we can have our privacy and security and peace of mind back? Are you thinking about that?
12:00
Talking about this issue. And please help us. Thank you.
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Our last caller, your number ends in 119.
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I’m going to unmute you if you could please state your name. Hello.
12:22
There you are, can you
12:25
can you guys, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Hi, this is Karen dike. I’m at 708. haven court, mr. mayor and council members. When a group of us met to discuss asking the Longmont city council to adopt a resolution for the coming climate emergency, we had no idea how this would intersect with a worldwide pandemic. I realized that resources and plain old attention span are both strings with the pandemic. However, there are two main thoughts that I have about this sentence.
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Section. The first is that we as a society need to understand the cost of not acting. Much of the misery of the pandemic could have been averted with a swifter reaction from our government, starting with preparation for pandemics that was woefully inadequate. Well, we could try to list blame, we should start by saying what can we learn from this that will help us with the coming climate crisis? One good example I can list as Longmont working closely with Boulder County Health Department. This type of coordination at local levels will be needed and should be emulated. The second is to realize that the coming climate emergency will once again have health consequences. Our warming world will allow diseases previously only seen in the tropics to migrate to our area. Zika already proved that diseases can migrate. Just as this pandemic taught us that those at the front lines are most affected people and
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Place to scroll once again not be equally affected. As you review the entirety of the report from the task force. Please note that their ideas to attempt to work on the cause such as that theme and the renewable energies, suggestions, as well as those ideas to work on solutions, such as those seen in the public health section. Also their ideas on how to make sure we don’t leave some residents behind. In the section completed by the just transition Task Force. I ask that you not put off implementation plans, I realized that there is a currently a shortage of funds, and also people power as we try to complete work through less effective means, such as zoom meetings. However, a recent article in The Washington Post gives the alarming report of warming in the Arctic that is occurring several decades sooner than predicted. As someone said, the pandemic doesn’t care if we are affected
15:00
Have it, the pandemic hasn’t tired of us ship. The same is true of the climate emergency. It will come regardless of how broke we are and how tired We are from the pandemic, just as COVID-19 as alarming us with it. So Verity, climate change will be much worse if we don’t act in a decisive manner. I urge you to spend some time deciding on priorities, cost, and what can or should perhaps come from state or federal resources. Please don’t just put this on the shelf. Thank you.
15:35
Hey, sir. Good, good timing there, by the way. All right. That will go ahead and conclude our first our only public invited beard session tonight. Let’s move on to a special reports and presentations. Harold COVID-19 update. All right, Mayor Council. I’m going to go over some numbers with you all.
15:57
Since that 10 everyone sort of wants to see
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where we are today? Can you all see my screen? Yes.
16:05
I’ve got some issues with things moving around. Okay. So this is the most up to date. This is updated at four o’clock today in terms of where we are looking at the number of cases that were reported.
16:21
Obviously, you can see the spike that Jeff was talking about the last time he was presenting to counsel. This is the most recent number, this is 10. And this is 15. So you can see that trend in terms of what we’re seeing number of cases.
16:39
When you slide down to the five day rolling average
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percentage of COVID PCR tests with positive results. You can see that came down and we were below that 4%. We moved up, moved up and again, that’s just based on the testing that’s occurring, but we’re still holding in that it 3%
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drange in terms of the percentage of positive test,
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this is when you’re seeing the number of tests per day.
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And that we’re doing and then the light blue again is the number of positives that we’re seeing in terms of the county, again, you know, improvement from where we were.
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Then
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you can see the, this is important because you really look at the know the residents who an age range and you can still see this 20 to 29 year old core cohort with a fair amount that are positive. Again the five day average of the number of new cases and this is really what we want to see happening as we continue to move in move forward and then you know, this is based by municipality per hundred thousand population based
18:00
On projections, but this is the one that I wanted to show you all. We talked about this a little last time. So as you can see, the major change in this graph is that boulder has now surpassed Longmont in terms of 550 cases versus 542. And I think that’s important, because if you remember, and it was
18:21
three weeks ago, three to four weeks ago, somewhere in that range, and we were double the number of cases that boulder really had. And so, you know, this has been a significant change for the city of Boulder in terms of the caseload
18:40
and talking to Jeff associated with the cases. I know there’s been some questions regarding protector neighbor phase, and when can we move into that section of it? The the state has put some fairly significant requirements. And the most significant is the data and so you have to
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14 days of declining cases. And as you can see from that, we’re still working on that, that 14 days, you also have to have tracing capacity. And you have to have the testing capacity. And so they’re continuing to work through that. If you all saw Jeff’s update that Mariah sent to you all today, they’re working on a dashboard that will actually show where we set in terms of accounting, in terms of moving into protect our neighbor. One of the questions that I’ve had is I’ve talked to staff is what can we do that as a community, the state did not set it up that way. The state set it up where it has to be a county and or a region with multiple counties moving forward to try to move in to protect our neighbor. And as Jeff indicated, it’s it’s a number of folks within the county that have to sign off on it.
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OEM Office of Emergency Management has to sign off on it.
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city councils and mayor’s have to sign off on it. County Commissioners have to sign off on it Department of Health. And so they’re really pushing for that broader decision making as a county in a region in order to move into the protector neighbor phase.
20:14
So that’s really all I had to add there. I know that there were some questions on those issues that I wanted to touch on. At this point. I’m going to turn it on over to Sandy, because she’s been working on the motion that you all made in terms of the fu tokens. And I wanted her to talk about how we plan on implementing that, Sandy.
20:35
Thanks, Harold, Sandy cedar assistant city manager. And I’m here to talk a little bit about the strong man voucher program that we have branded based on the same strong language that we’ve been using for businesses this this grant. So the way that we are going to work the program.
20:51
We were able to contact the Chamber of Commerce is going to help us with the administration of the program. And we also are working with Tinker mill be able to create 20
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$5 strong month tokens. We will mail those out with a letter with your signature that I think we’re I sent you early last week out to folks that are cares recipients from the rebate program. Also folks that are working in the community farm share program, as well as some of the kiddos from their families from the
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food distribution site from the youth center. So the 400 tokens are going to go a long way to be able to give some food to folks that are in need in Longmont. And then we also have 146 businesses that will be able to accept the tokens. So we’re in the process of notifying them and sending out the tokens. We’ll start the program in late July and run it through the end of October. A very cool story that I’d like to share with you is that because of our partnerships with the youth center and children, youth and families, we’re going to work with some of those neighborhoods to be able to bring in eligible food truck so that people won’t have to necessarily go to one of the rest
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They’ll be able to have some of those restaurants come to them. So it’s going to be a really nice program. I’m really excited to go ahead and implement it.
22:09
there
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any questions for Sandy?
22:17
Sandy, what else you got for the hell? So I want to talk to you all. One of the things that we also talked about when this came up was the conversation on utility bills. And we indicated the state had a program. We also had the carrier’s funding that you all were going to look at. And so we’re really hitting the point on utility bills where we need to start working with folks and ensuring that they’re contacting us.
22:44
Excuse me, today, we know that we probably have about 2.9 million and utility bills that are passed to
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what we were really waiting on in that process was trying to understand that legendary
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That state passed in turn in terms of the utility assistance program. We started getting that guidance late last week, early this week. So what the state’s going to do is they’re actually going to push that money into the leap program. And so individuals will have to go in into the leap program and get qualified. The interesting piece that we learned in this is that it’s only going to be allowed to be utilized for electric electricity. It’s not going to apply to water, wastewater and some of the other bill structures. As we were looking at this one of the things that we feel like we can do in terms of tag teaming This is when we look at the carrier’s dollars that we received, that you all voted on last week that we’re going to get from Dola as we will look at taking the lead program as a mechanism for us to bring the additional carriers dollars and I want to be clear, there’s there’s so many cares programs now. We have the cares program that you established in terms of
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The rebate program, then we have the cares dollars that we’re receiving. And they’re the federal dollars are being channeled through dollar. So if somebody needs utility assistance, they need to a go into the LEAD program and get qualified, or if they’re in our existing cares program will start there. And then if they’re not in the existing cares program, but they get qualified, and the LEAD program will then look at the other care spending that we have in place. If they can’t qualify for either one of those programs, we want to work with those individuals to set up some type of payment arrangement within our system. And then finally, I think the challenge that we have is that we’re really nearing the point where we’re going to have to start notifying folks to say, We need you to do a couple of things. One, we need you to contact us if you haven’t been paying your utility bills, because we want to connect you in
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To the LEAD program, and we want to look at connecting you into the cares program or using the lead to connect you into the other cares program.
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At a certain point, though, if they don’t go into lead, and they don’t go into the cares program, and they don’t contact us to to set up payment arrangements in which we do on a regular basis,
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probably in the September ish timeframe, October after we have enough time to notify people, we’re really probably going to have to start moving into our more traditional practices. So I think what we’re telling you is there are a lot of programs out there and there are there are programs out there now that can assist people. We just need to really encourage people to to go in and engage in those programs. And if nothing else works, we’ll work with you on the payment arrangements. But if you don’t do any of that, then we’re really going to have to move to our more traditional processes. And I know you all talked about different options. We think there’s money in play. It’s really getting
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folks to come in and access those programs. Is there any questions about that?
26:07
All right. don’t see any. Harold Anything else? There’s a very messy one. Who Kazmir Christianson Peck. Oh, sorry, Casper Peck way down there on the bottom of my screen.
26:19
Thank you Mira Bagley
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Herald, I was going to ask, What?
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What do we do it? I’m sorry? How do we get this message out? Do you want us to go on social media to tell people about these programs to go on next door? Jesus, our email list.
26:40
Is there any way that as council people, we can help you get that message out? That’s my
26:48
Sorry, it’s coming in. Yeah, so what we’ll do is we’ll work with our public information team and get you all information that you can share and what we need to communicate to people. We also
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I want to take him. As I, as I mentioned this, I talked to you all about this before, I want to take a more active role in reaching out to folks in order to establish that contact, that contact so that we can really get individuals into the programs that they need to be into. Because one of the things that I’m really concerned about is we can’t let individuals get themselves in a significant position where months down the road, we actually have more significant issues, and it’s almost impossible to get out of that situation. Right. So while we have these programs available for people to get into, we need to get them into the programs. So we don’t end up in November with people you know, having significant utility bills in the thousands of dollars and it’s almost impossible to recover from. So we’re fortunate right now that we have these programs we just need to get people to go into exactly and I think I personally would like to help you get that message out. We will be will be in contact
28:00
With all of you and getting you that information, we still have some work to do on some of the state programs. We have enough now that I wanted to talk to you all about it today to understand what was there. We still want to understand some of the details to make sure we’re putting people in a pro into the correct locations with accurate information to make sure we know that. Okay, thank you.
28:24
Councillor Christiansen
28:32
the
28:35
I know Jeff isn’t here tonight. But um, I was reading something very interesting. A few days ago, I was thinking because I’m a woman. I’m thinking, Oh, I bet all women are getting this at twice the rate of men. Well, actually, women and men are getting this at about this. I’m talking about COVID
28:55
19 are getting this at about the same rate but men are dying.
29:00
at twice the rate, and
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I’m wondering if which is, you know, really appalling. And, and a few weeks ago, we took a look at the rate that Latinos
29:16
in Boulder County are getting this at a much higher rate and yet the death rate is far, far lower. And those are interesting statistics I’m because,
29:30
you know, if we don’t gather these statistics and actually analyze them, then we’re not learning anything at all about how this works. I’m just wondering if Boulder County Health is paying attention to trying to determine why it is that
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Latinos fortunately, unfortunately, are getting this at a much higher rate, but also are not dying at a dying at a lesser rate, which is a very good thing. But men by and large are getting this
30:01
are dying at a much higher rate than women. So I’m just
30:07
thinking that this is something Boulder County Health should be checking into.
30:13
So um, that is it’s interesting. So women do have a believe it’s a couple of percentage points higher in terms of cases men do are higher on
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passing away and when they get it. I think one of the things and we and we have kind of talked about this so when we saw the growth in cases in Longmont, one of the things that we really knew was in many cases it was a result of multi generational households. And so as we were looking at that that was part of it, but one of the things that that they’ve talked about and i think you know, we need to really look at is also the age of the individuals that are that are getting diagnosed which case because one of the things we do know
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That the younger the person, although that data is kind of changing now, as they’re seeing other things happening, but the younger the person, the more likely they are to have, you know, not have the same high level issues that you have with COVID. And so
31:19
what I would like to see as we’re going through this is also the demographic breakdown by age in these categories to really see Is it a product that we’re seeing more younger people and in these various categories being diagnosed with COVID. Thus, you’re not seeing the death rate in the hospitalizations at the same level. And so, because it’s interesting if you look at
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15.5% of the number of deaths and Hispanic Latin x category,
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white non Hispanics is at point three
31:57
in terms of cases
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57.6 and the white non Hispanic, it’s 38.2. In Hispanic Latin x categories, if you remember, that’s actually going down a little bit. And we think that’s also a product of what we’re seeing in terms of where the cases are coming from today, in that you’re seeing boulder really start elevating, in terms of the number of cases. So I think those are all things we’ve got to look at. And we’ve got to talk about and I think the challenge is, is a novel virus. And so, you know, they’re really seeing that interesting story was how people reacted this differently. There was a Tony Award or Tony nominated actor who is 41 years old, that just passed away and when you hear about it, they said his lungs looked like he smoked for 50 years. And so they’re also finding situations where young people have different issues associated with it. And if you start reading through it, you know one of the things are looking at is that is their immune system. actually going to
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on overdrive and creating other kinds of problems with it very similar to what somebody with them, you know, as an affiliate occurs when they over produce white blood cells. Right. So I think there’s still a lot that folks are learning and we’re going to continue working on the data. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
33:19
I’m slowly becoming more and more educated in epidemiology as we go through this conversation. At this point, I’m going to
33:28
I’m going to turn it over to David because one of the things that council wanted, and you all directed us to do this was a report on what’s happening in our parks and open space.
33:39
That directions last Tuesday, we wanted to get the agenda out. So we wanted to put David into this spot. Let him talk about what they’re dealing with, what challenges we’re facing, and then get some information from you all and then we’ll also then, if necessary, bring it back in a more comprehensive report when, when David and his group has some time to do
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They were also getting ready for the holiday, which they had a ton of work
34:05
to prepare and get ready based on what we were seeing in our facilities. David, are you on?
34:17
Yes, I’m here. Oh, Harold a chance to really talk about how much time we had. So did you want give me a quick little Would you like to see us in Scott and I can adjust pretty quickly. Just move with pace. Okay. I’ll keep watching you and you can keep me moving.
34:33
Bear Bagley and council members, Dave Ebell, Director of parks and natural resources, and again, as Carol mentioned, as to come and kind of talk about what we’re really doing to kind of make sure we’re managing our natural resources in our parks during this pandemic. And I feel very fortunate now that I’m going to be able to introduce Scott seavers, who is our first white certified wildlife biologist for the city of Longmont, and he has been offered just over a year. And he’s going to kind of kick this off with a little bit of overview of what
35:00
He’s been seeing out of the parks and kind of what the direct impacts have been to our wildlife. And from there, we’ll kind of go into how we have been managing responses of what we’re seeing from Scott and his group.
35:12
Hey, good evening, everybody. I just wanted to give you a little primer on wildlife.
35:19
Looking at both direct and indirect impacts.
35:23
And let’s jump right into this direct impacts can be things like flushing of wildlife, through boat traffic, foot traffic or dogs.
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direct impacts might be nest destruction. Or we’ve also had reports of people climbing on Beaver lodges at Golden ponds.
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indirect impacts that might be unauthorized trails like what we saw at lefthand Park, removal of vegetation that might indirectly impact wildlife and their habitat.
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Or off trail use,
36:03
again like at sandstone ranch. So, you know, people are looking for outlets for outdoor activities during this pandemic. And of course, having all those visits on our properties can impact wildlife. So, what are we doing?
36:24
And so I’ll talk about some of our current solutions that are in progress.
36:30
One of our great projects that’s been going on for multiple years since Jim Couric was hired as your natural resources specialist is monitoring Raptors, through volunteers, and staff. And we have a great interplay in the natural resources team, with the engineering team, and projects that are going on on city and making sure that our Raptor nests aren’t
37:00
being impacted by city projects such as paving or water project, and that’s run successfully, actually by a cadre of volunteers. And we’ve allowed them with the managers, the city manager’s office permission to continue to monitor rafters during this period because they’re socially distance. They’re in their cars, and they’re giving us great information and feedback. And so far, all of our Raptors did are doing as expected
37:35
quite well during this year. The biggest issue actually for the Raptors wasn’t people it was the smart the
37:44
the Easter snowstorm which took out several nests.
37:50
Another big part of our project is restoration of habitats through weed control and native planting and that has been a big part of our project.
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Almost my daily project is removing weeds and making more room for native plants on our trail system. And my colleague, Jim Couric this year said it’s the best he’s ever seen. And I would encourage you if you’d ever like to come with us, we’ll take you on some of our trails. And you can see
38:20
the reduction of invasive weeds and the native plants coming back. And that’s been quite amazing. We’ve also had several really good establishments of native vegetation in restoration areas.
38:36
Long term studies of birds, we have a long term study of bird populations and golden ponds, and we have a long term study of birds at per shell. And I intend, although,
38:53
you know, the pandemic kind of got in the way but we’re going to try to add additional places where
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City projects are playing like union reservoir. And
39:06
trying to think of the other Oh, the, the eastern extension of St. Drain Creek Trail to the State Park. So we want to look at those areas and get some good baseline data on those. And then finally, this year with my colleague, Danielle Cassidy, and Devine and David, we worked on a group of educational sun signs that are that Macintosh. They’re going to get placed here within the next week or so on the importance of prairie habitats and prairie dogs to Raptors, and those will be mostly established up on the north side. And
39:47
so let me summarize by saying our challenges have been staffing levels this year.
39:57
Some unforeseen circumstances and
40:00
Right now, the open space staff is operating at about 50%. So that makes it hard because our, our mandate as stewards of our state mandate as stewards of land is weed control. And we’re doing a great job of that.
40:17
But it’s also made it difficult for us to implement all the wildlife projects this year, I had a whole agenda of those things, and I’ve pushed back on them because I wanted to make sure that things that we did have stablished or were still in effect.
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And then just the other. The huge thing is just managing people on public lands in this time of a pandemic.
40:46
It’s difficult for us
40:49
to to
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manage that amount of people. But let me just summarize that wildlife is very resilient.
41:00
We have now the buoys in place a Macintosh reservoir so that the birds can come back to their roots there.
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None of the species that might have been impacted by the amount of boating activity at Macintosh, for example, our species that are endangered. And so I guess that’s, that’s kind of just a quick summary of the things that I’ve been working on and what I’ve noticed and what I can report to you.
41:33
David, yes.
41:39
So
41:41
thank you, Scott. And again, I just really want to Scott to lead this off for the fact I think that as you can hear my quick presentation here,
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wanting you to be assured and publisher that we have great staff on who is dedicated to watching monitoring and approving habitat longline one things I always go back to in this position is the fact
42:00
We have done such a great job since the establish a long line in the Chicago colony even with our early parks that we have more than we have 4042 parks in this time we have over a dozen open space properties. We have 100 miles of trail. And I think during this time period, we saw important those areas were to our community, for people to get out and when they the government is first stay at home order. He left that door open for people to get out. He has encouraged people go out and enjoy the great outdoors in Colorado and people really took that to heart and I think that’s what we’re really seeing. I think what really has been the push on counselors we’ve kind of worked with those calls that we’ve seen as people got out we saw people that maybe had never thought about paddle boarding and now they’ve picked up a inflatable paddle board they’re showing up with Macintosh so we have that increase use it with your typically have the typical things you see in our parks is dogs off leash and crease crash but as we were as we were dealing with that we’re also dealing with, how do we keep our staffs
43:00
How to keep the public safe. And we’re doing some of those masking issues as well and how we implement those those policies in our parks. So be sure to save us to ship resources over to helping deal with this increase use, we were being pulled in the direction of trying to do sort of pandemic pieces. And as we move forward that as you remember how we kind of gradually move through this. It really was let’s now open up
43:25
tennis pickleball then was skate parks and basketball and volleyball and all those took resources that would have been out looking at how we help educate the public in our parks and make sure they’re, they’re following what I think are really good rules and regs to help us maintain what we have. So as we talked about those parks, open space and those trails and the wildlife that Scott mentioned, the sea has also done a great job of working with the public with private and their groups to come up with management plans and rules and regulations that really help protect those. The challenges. How do you
43:57
educate that number of people coming to parts of new time when they may
44:00
have that background in that history with our parks. So, again, we felt the being spread thin and I’d be able to have that engagement in time one.
44:08
Public Engagement was a challenge to you need to be out talking to public and you’d be signing with the public but we’re putting signs up on how to social distance in a skate park. So it was a it was definitely a different challenge that we had as we saw that increase use we saw the request from the public to make sure we’re dealing with the dogs off leash the increased use in our in our natural areas. We also had issues such as people deciding to time to jump off bridges, people deciding it was time to vandalize restrooms, increases in graffiti. So again, that spread got cold even even further as we’re trying to manage these areas. But the thing I’d like you to know is that as Scott, under Dan Walker’s direction, they were back continually monitoring that wildlife population out there and giving me information so that when we got those trigger points, we felt that it was now time to engage
45:00
staff to wear mask and do do projects and put them in close proximity we could do that. So as Scott had mentioned, we got to a point where I got a update from Scott that we needed to put the boys out of Macintosh because of the impact you’ve seen there. We went ahead and did that as well.
45:16
Well, we’re out there doing these things again, spread thin. I just really want to also say that I think we got graded and the fact that
45:24
I just want to give I can’t give enough credit to Jeff reasoner, Jeff Sater, on how they stepped up to help us out because recreation staff that point there was not being utilized in the rec centers was out at McIntosh Lake talking to people there are a union reservoir talking to people about social distancing our rules and regs. So we had a great repurposing of people Jeff Saturday and Mike Butler had extra duty officers up at button rock reservoir floors to help with the increased demand up there and that that increased demand was something that everyone that county was seeing I was working in Boulder County. They allowed us to put no parking signs up on some of our roads, their communications group with PD
46:00
To help the communications trail up there so we have better communication so this was this was a huge community effort to try to deal with this increase use that, I think is natural resource management. We’re always trying to get more people out how to engage in in these areas but I think we always saw that happen not just one weekend where we had this kind of an increase but over time where we could develop programs to address that. So we really have been doing a lot of catch up. But I think these these practices and stuff in place and public being educated and we’re wrecking her crew really helping us out with getting information out has done a great job because I spent the Fourth of July up dead button rock which when I first went up there the first couple of weekends after the pandemic in the stay at home orders. There was no way emergency vehicle could have gotten down county road 80 people are parked on both sides. This weekend, people really I think circuit the message to look for other places the town of Lyons actually let us use their message board and town to let people know but rock parking lot was full. So this weekend, it really felt like a busy weekend but it was very manageable. So
47:00
starting to see that delusion. I think part of the fact that we have opened up rec centers and pools and swim beaches. You can get a reservation at Rocky Mountain National Park coming up soon you can walk down Main Street in our new public spaces areas, I think people are having some more opportunities to do other things besides just to go to our parks. However, the piece that I really like to share is that I think myself and other land managers feel like this really is the new normal, that family that bought the four paddle boards and they know about Macintosh now, they’re going to be going back to Macintosh. That person showed a button rock to hike and flip flops and now has hiking boots. They’re going back to button rock. So I do think that we as an organization just need to recognize that.
47:44
We do need to
47:47
provide the information, the education, the outreach to help people make good decisions, but also that enforcement component when people decide they don’t want to do that we can make sure we can hold people accountable to so
48:00
That’s pretty easy piece for me is that simple counsel Harold and say that’s really easy. We’ve had more resources. And I think Scott mentioned than being short in the open space program. That’s some that’s some health issues. And again, some of the seasonal hiring freezes and stuff. Those are things that everyone’s dealing with but the piece I would really pass on is I do you think this is a very creative group. I think our community is amazing. They have stepped up in the past and they’re again just like after the flood kind of chomping at the bit to see what they can do to get out and help them volunteer. So if you’ve been by the Rose Garden, that rose garden will not look the way it does today, if it wasn’t for volunteers out there.
48:37
them doing things like volunteer Ranger programs, education, outreach, engaging the community that way we’re getting the right data and stuff I think there’s ways that we can address this increase use
48:50
being creative, but it does take resources and how we achieve that is it’s going to take some work and Harold I taught this, you know, scaling back in some areas to to hit those areas that need work.
49:00
At one point, it really was that learning curve of how you address keeping staff safe in the public safe now we’ve kind of moved back. And I would say we’ve got that under control that sits back to looking at how our natural areas are doing. And I think Dan and Scott and his group are doing a great job at unit monitoring so that we can
49:20
do what I think my job really is to make sure that we provide access to our community, knowing how important these areas are, but that we pass it on in a way that the next generation has it is as good or better shape than they have in the past. I think we really do have the right people here right now to do that. I think we all like every city in play right now feel like we don’t have enough time to do everything want to do as well as we want to do it. But I think the staff has done a great job. I think community has done a great job helping us reach out to do some of these these issues. And again, I think the collaboration between different work groups is been invaluable and how we were able to address this and come through this and as Scott said, do we have social
50:00
trails. Yes. Do you have people in areas they probably should have been for dimensioned plan? Absolutely. Can we recover this point? I think we can. I know we can. And it’s going to take work. And I think like we heard Scott say everyone in these groups are willing to put their shoulder to the grindstone and make this happen.
50:20
All right.
50:26
So thank you, Mayor. bakley. David, I don’t know if you want to comment now or not. That’s fine. Yeah, that’s what I okay. So, um, I understand what you’re saying. And I agree, we have an incredible staff, and we don’t have enough resources.
50:46
But we are still getting a lot of emails and complaints from residents about these areas that they are not being managed. So my question is, how many park rangers do we actually have?
51:00
So, I’m sorry. Cuz like
51:04
our park rangers right now, we we currently have up a button rock we would have one FTV but Jamie Friel has left the city and that those positions are
51:16
being advertised up right now for Jamie’s watershed manager position so that was one position. Harold has worked with me and we’ve really said that one of the reasons I think ever knows that there’s just a lot of work out there as you see running that watershed the city’s primary water sources a huge job working with other agencies to deal with forestry plans that we were able to convert some the temporary dollars to over to making a second FTP so that’s why it’s taken a little longer because we will be advertising or we are advertising for a senior watershed Ranger who will be a lot more the planning and those sort of projects out in the park as well and then having a watershed Ranger button up so that’d be two positions there. They’re not filled right now but we are closing that on the tab
51:58
at Union reservoir
52:01
john brennan is our, our lead Ranger out there, our senior Ranger and then he has two FTS working out there. So we really at this point
52:11
have john brim and his two Rangers that really our three FTS are really covering everything we were very fortunate the fact that one game he left he had to seasonally he had trained for a year and miles has miles Churchill’s a great job of a button rock. But it’s really short. So long term right now, if I had everything filled, I’d have to up the dumb button rock and I’d have three Union as far as FTS. And just so you know, that’s why
52:39
it’s been such a great help having Rec and PD because if you think about how busy those two areas get in summertime, they really do get locked into union and button rocks. So everything in between becomes a challenge to cover during the summer months. And right now it’s it’s really hard if you think about that, if you’ve been by Dickens or if you’ve been by Macintosh on the weekends.
53:00
We cannot do without the help of eating right now from from TV and from operation. So, um, we don’t know how long this our COVID or if we’re going to have a surge or what it is. So my question is, actually, it’s a
53:17
suggestion. Have you as a city staff thought about and having citizens patrols to get out information about what our parks are and what the use is supposed to be and just having contacts? Because basically, we’re saying we have three FPGAs for how many parks and trails we have. Yeah, for one party doesn’t doesn’t open spaces and 100 miles of trail. That’s not enough people for the use that we’re getting and that and that’s basically why I wanted to have a discussion about what what can we do at some point I know that we’re What about the Rangers for the downtown
54:00
Is that feasible to use any of them even though I understand they’re being paid by LD da, it’s a different.
54:08
So only 50% of the time is being paid by LD da. So they would this is this is another challenge as to what Harold said, You know what, why are we short on some of these staffing pieces somewhere, really, because of health issues. And when we didn’t know our budget, we really tried scaling back in areas we weren’t sure about what we needed. So we did not fill those positions yet. So those are still sitting out there. LD da has their dollars, we have our dollars, but again, we just start trying to be very cautious in how we spend those dollars this year.
54:36
I just like to go back and just touch on how this this pandemic really has shifted things because, again, Harold were the fact he worked with me since I’ve got here. He knows my commitment to volunteer programs. And you know Daniel Devine’s job who is doing project management halftime about recording your halftime. We’re looking to split those into a program that allow for a full time volunteer coordinator and one of those top projects
55:00
was doing a community Ranger and community interpretive program and their models are out there Jefferson County, Boulder County where people are out on the trail and some sort identifying t shirt where they can just talk to the public that more that interpretive level. And then once it have that enforcement piece and they, they’re easy say we can do but again when they put that shirt on the representing the city. So it really takes training, it takes a lot of work to make sure you get good people on the program. We have a great program with our handicapped parking program. And we were without on how we could set something up similar Park. So those were kind of on track. And I think as Scott mentioned some of the programs he had on track they they got a little derailed this year, but I think we’re really trying to find that balance between right now how we’re managing the public and how we’re protecting those athletes. So it is a great idea and it’s something that we we definitely have been thinking about. So is there any way we can update our timeline to get people in our parts you
56:00
Nothing else to hand out literature to educate him to remind them that it’s not. It’s there not to swim in some of these places they’re not to. And then if it doesn’t work in for the police department or whatever, that this group is not adhering to the rules, Councilmember Peck, I would
56:25
I would be cautious about that. And here’s the reason I don’t have any analysis on from law enforcement or Jeffery wins on right now. I think what I’ve seen in the community right now, as people are being told what to do all the time, every day from staying in your house and who you communicate with and wearing a mask, and the simple requests to put your life vest on the simple request to put your dog on a leash or as being met with
56:53
huge disdain it the voluntary compliance that I was said I could have gotten, you know, a year ago just is not there. People
57:00
Whereas put the buoys out of Macintosh, it was I really got to see again, what my staff is going through as they’re trying to educate people, people, the responses, you cannot tell me what to do. Leave me alone go away. So it takes for me, I’m used to that as my background. But for a a resident to do that, that’s a very tough spot to be in. And I don’t want to set those individuals up for failure. I need me to set them up for success. And that does take time and I wish I had a fast
57:29
fix for you. But I get it. We think about this and discusses pretty much every Monday.
57:36
David, why do you think there is the disdain and is it a? Is it more to stay now during this specific time that we’re in? That’s hard to wrap my head around it as well? I definitely think it is. I think I say that people are really saying there’s a couple things that I did. I’m gonna give you my
57:58
my personal view. I think if they’re being told
58:00
What to do, where to go, how to act, how to how to distance where to stand, what not to stand on at the grocery store, to put a mask on or not to put a mask on to go to this friend’s house. But as parents house I think that overload of being told what to do is overwhelming. And I also think there’s a piece in there with all of this going on in our our world right now. Is my dog off leash really a problem? That’s what I’m hearing voices don’t you really have something better to do that tell us that we can’t stay cool in a public place in, you know, a year ago, it would have been a different conversation. I think you could engage in and help explain why we have those rules and regs why that water isn’t tested at McIntosh Hall as a health concern for them. And
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parents help that conversation too. And what we’re seeing now is when you talk to a younger person that parents jump right into defend their kids on this and say, it’s a hot day out and they need to be cool. I’m gonna hop in here on the weekend. This court is challenging enough as is and so I’m gonna I’m gonna call timeout on this person.
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ticular conversation. We could be here all night talking about thoughts, feelings, etc. I’m going to call on you counselor level fairing but what we need to do is I will unmute you and I will call on people, but we’re just bouncing in and talking. And so I don’t want to be here today 11 o’clock we’re going to follow the agenda and we’ll go from there. Councilmember Susie dolla fairing you’re up?
59:25
Can I get control over the mutes? Please, Susan?
59:30
I’m not not you Susan. Susan Susan Bullock.
59:38
Go ahead, Counselor. VloggerFair in Europe. Yeah, I don’t I don’t hear her. So, um, in the meantime, can we put up signage how something that we can have immediately so more signage around no swimming in these areas? I mean, Lake Mackintosh I’ve taken my dog over there for years. We don’t go in the water but all it’s I mean, it’s gross. I don’t under
1:00:00
And But anyways, that’s that’s something totally different, but to have designated areas around parking, I one thing I’ve noticed is that too many cars are parked far, far away from the curb. So when they’re parked on both sides, it’s really narrow to get through. So maybe so people are more cognizant if they have the signage in more visible places. Is that something we can address? Immediately?
1:00:26
Harold, what do you think about that idea?
1:00:29
I think we can we can get signage out there quickly on those issues and work to to inform people. I would just be upfront of what David said.
1:00:42
They may or may not
1:00:44
go for the signage. And we literally gated the bridge. And they were climbing around the gate and climbing on the structure. So I think we can get signage out there and we can definitely include Rob in terms of the parking in the distance.
1:01:00
It’s easy for us to do. Alright. Great. Councilmember waters.
1:01:04
You are? Susan, again. Can I get power to unmute because we spend a lot of time. Thank you. I’m unmuted, I think. Yeah, no, I just want to Susan, if you’re here, I just if I can unmute as we know, it would save us lots of time. mare I can’t do that. Unfortunately, that can only give you the co host rights that you have. I can ask them to unmute, but really, if they held down the spacebar that But no, I’m not talking about I want the power just like counsel, I want to be able to run this meeting. I don’t want to be here till 11 o’clock tonight just having a chit chat session. I want to call on people clearly they’re gonna have motions, or we’re gonna be I can’t unmute them either Mayor as All right, then we’ll just keep doing it as as the best we can. All right, Councilmember waters
1:01:55
in the interest of of not getting into a kind of free ringing free ranging conversation
1:02:00
We’ll only make this comment and then I do have a couple of questions. I think the question about enforcement and and what does enforcement mean and how much of the solutions to what’s happening with our parks, the risks, you know, the the outcry regarding fireworks in somebody, even what we heard earlier tonight in terms of traffic, I think we need to take a step back and have a conversation as a as a leadership group. And with the community, you have those who are willing to engage about which of the which of the challenges or problems we’re dealing with right now are going to be solved by somebody enforcing as opposed to us as a community accepting responsibility. And with that thought, I want to David I would like just on the on the number of Rangers you mentioned, I didn’t know Jamie left. You’ve got to button rock. You’ve got three out it at the union. Compare that to what numbers you had a year ago.
1:02:57
How many Rangers Did you have at this time a year ago.
1:03:00
At this time last year, we really saw your seasonal oil.
1:03:04
So we would have had one less. Button rock was still had the two because why don’t we put in temporary versus a full time is all we would have had the three union and then they have seasonals. out at Union, I think they probably have five. And we are, again, we’ve had recreation help us out over there. And then we would have the two community Rangers who again, we spent about 50% of the time in the downtown area where Kimberly was paying for them. And the rest of the time they were out on the Greenway and in those parks. So they’re the ones that really could have been at the Macintosh. It could have been at Dickens as far as where the funds came from, from the open space and the general fund to or the Conservation Trust dollars to pay for their time in those parks. In Jan. Jamie had a whole cadre of youth volunteers up at button. Yes, he had the he had the Youth Corps as well. I guess. I just want to get clear in my head. We are operating with an approximation right now.
1:04:00
have the capacity for enforcement that we had a year ago.
1:04:05
Very close. Yes. All right, number one. Number two, you sent us an email earlier today with some very disappointing information about vandalism. We’re going to touch on that at all in this in your presentation. I think as I kind of went through that, it’s just that I hidden in the fact that his staff is really out there trying to make sure. Again, our goal always is to be able to talk to the public engage, education, voluntary compliance, and if they’re out working on things as far as vandalism and just pulling those resources in different areas where we’re not had the chance to really deal with the issues of protecting our natural resources. Well, when before we start getting email messages from the community about about restrooms being closed, if sandstone Ranch, yeah, you know it what are the other two at Cana moto Park, in a left hand Park, it might be willing to have some public
1:05:00
disclosure of the number one the damage that was done. The cost of up to date of vandalism in our parks this year. I think the public got to know. You’re short handed. And we have. We have folks for mindless reasons, I think, doing serious vandalism to part two restrooms that are going to be closed, while the why and what it’s costing them. What’s costing the city in terms of real dollars and the public in terms of opportunity.
1:05:33
That the piece I’d answer back to that, again, I think working with the public safety and outreach and then put this on social media. I think we’re we’re, again trying to engage the community to help solve these problems. I hear Mike Butler a lot of time to that we can’t fix ourselves, we have to count the community too. So between the Rangers these partnerships with PD,
1:05:52
I agree with you that the committee needs to know this. They need to be aware of this and I think as we can lead those are happening in areas
1:06:00
They’re close to them that they can help you those eyes and ears out there first too. But the number you gave us earlier today was over $57,000 in costs for vandalism. As of today, that did not include those three restrooms. That was before those three restrooms. Yes, a year ago the number was for a year was 44,000. In the year before, that was an approximation of 44,000. The public gotta know. Right? It’s in a time when we’re stretched financially, and we’re stretched in terms of our capacity with people. But there’s a there’s something else going on here, that that is going to have an impact on the public. And they’re going to turn to you into us for answers and a solution. And it’s going to be more enforcement here or more enforcement there with less capacity in it, having directed funds to try to mitigate what is
1:06:55
behavior that’s hard to understand in terms of damaging
1:07:00
amenities that are that we’ve created for the public, I just think we ought to have more explicit conversations about, about what’s going on and in in invite the public into the solution. That’s part of what Councilmember Peck was suggesting. And I get that I get the security concerns, and not putting volunteers in a position to to experience what some of your staff has experienced. And my understanding is that your staff have people have had been spit on is that is that accurate? I have not heard that. Okay. Well, then maybe that was a rumor. I’m glad to know that that’s not that’s not accurate, if it’s not, but they’re subjected to a response that is unprecedented in terms of the reaction of the public. And I think we need to all just take a step back and say, Look, this is not who we want to be as a community. We have to figure out how we’re going to move forward with whatever the constraints are, in ways that are, are where there’s more sanity, if there’s more compassion, and there’s more patience. There’s more
1:08:00
acceptance. And if we don’t talk about it, given trendlines hard to see how it’s going to happen.
1:08:06
I’ll stop.
1:08:08
Alright, great. So again, so let’s, uh, Harold, is there anything else that you’d like to share at this point is a staff to city council?
1:08:18
No, I just think that I think the challenge is to the point that that’s been made. We have three restrooms, them severely damaged. We’re, we’re chasing folks all over. And so when you when you look at that, in terms of
1:08:33
questions about all of the enforcement piece we are
1:08:38
moving around this community, we were using code enforcement to help. Code enforcement’s now getting overwhelmed with calls because of just the volume of people that are at home, and so many of these mechanisms are being overtaxed.
1:08:53
As we get clarity on the budget, what I can say is it may allow us to pull the triggers on some of these business
1:09:00
positions that were funded out of some of these other funds. And so we’re going to be having, you know, that conversation. So there may be the ability to bring a couple more, but I don’t want to give anyone the impression that’s going to fix anything. Because the reality is, we are chasing many, many bad bad behaviors in many locations. And unfortunately, it’s not just us, as I talked to my colleagues, it is virtually every city on the Front Range that’s being challenged with these types of issues. And if one closes something, we see it move to another another city. So we’re actually talking collectively how we deal with these issues. So just there’s there’s not a panacea to this one. And the only solution is, I think, for people to
1:09:48
really approach it and respect it. But I want to be cautious on the volunteer idea and how you approach people.
1:09:54
Even we’re getting chastised, so be careful. Alright, so we’re going to go ahead and conclude this session.
1:10:00
The meeting. We can if anybody else has any other questions, I’d encourage you to contact staff directly offline. counsel will go with you. Go ahead.
1:10:09
I’m gonna push back on your comment earlier, this meeting when we asked the motion last week, my motion was to have a special session to have this conversation. So council could talk about it, but it was amended.
1:10:28
My accounts.
1:10:31
Congresswoman Martin, we have study session. So what counts? I think we’re getting it wrong. Councilmember Peck.
1:10:42
I made the original motion and you
1:10:45
substituted your motion.
1:10:50
Well, whatever. But I have to say that you don’t want a discussion Mayor Bagley that goes against our motion, no doubt.
1:11:00
No, no, no, I don’t I don’t care. We’re here till midnight to make sure that the residents here what were your
1:11:08
fear getting? And are we and the and the the feedback from staff and what our concerns are. And I get that counts for our pick. I’m just following the agenda. I have no problem if it’s on the agenda. We can discuss things all day long. But I’m just trying to my job as mayor in this party’s the chair meeting, and I’m just trying to keep us on task. That’s it. And right now, we’re on the COVID-19 update by the city manager.
1:11:37
That that is what is on the agenda. And it’s i’m not i don’t disagree with anything you said about putting this on a on a on an agenda study session to discuss what we voted on. I’m just trying to get us through the agenda. And in this particular case, this format it’s difficult only because to follow Robert’s Rules of Order.
1:11:56
We are all beginning to have conversations within digipen
1:12:00
Individual staff members. And if all seven of us did that, making three, four or five comments asking questions, we are going to be here all night. And there’s a difference between doing the people’s business which I’m all for doing, and each of us just sharing our opinion. So is just trying to get us through the through the meeting. So let’s move on to Longmont Housing Authority update by city manager. Harold, do you want to give us that please? We don’t have an update on that. Okay, great. Then let’s go on to our study session items number eight partners in energy a memorandum of understanding.
1:12:42
Susan, do you want to go ahead and put the slide deck up
1:12:45
on it right now. Great. Thank you.
1:12:50
Thank you, Mayor Bagley and council members. I’m Susan Bartlett. I’m a key account manager with one month power communications and
1:13:00
Tonight I want to update you on our partners and energy work with Xcel Energy. We introduced this to you last fall
1:13:08
Xcel Energy provides natural gas to much of the Longmont community partners and energy is an avenue for working together with another utility to reduce energy energy use in buildings. And
1:13:21
so
1:13:23
I understand that many in the community are keen to move away from natural gas. And our aim with this effort is just to make existing buildings as energy efficient as possible on all fronts right now, as we make plans for the future. Next slide, please.
1:13:42
So as a backdrop, just say that the climate challenge and working toward the city’s goal of 100% renewable like can keep by 2030 is going to take a concerted effort on all of these integrated initiatives, and the partners and energy work aligned specifically with the built environment effort.
1:14:00
And then it focuses on commercial building energy efficiency, as well as the energy efficiency and low low income homes in our community. And incidentally, it also supports the sustainability plan targets and recommendations from the Climate Action Task Force that you heard about last week from a synoptic. And you’ll hear a little bit more about yet this evening.
1:14:22
So, things did look considerably different in the fall when we presented this to you. But our aim is to be nimble and flexible and to make progress where we can. Next slide please.
1:14:39
So here’s work we are in the process, which includes a pause from the end of March until now just given the COVID-19 implications and other primaries that Council has had to deal with. So we introduced the collaboration in October last year and from October to March, we developed a work plan
1:15:00
With Xcel Energy, and we intended to present that work plan and the outcomes to the sustainability advisory board and council in March, but just given the cancellations, and all the other priorities, we’re just now getting back on track. Oh, really to start working with Xcel Energy on activities that we’ve identified in the plan, and especially on some personal energy benchmarking their efforts, or fan efforts will take us through November of 2021. And that will give us some time to evaluate our progress at the end of 2021 and report back to the sustainability advisory board and to council at the end of the year. Next slide.
1:15:45
So, just as a recap, because October was a lifetime ago, partners in energy, it’s an opportunity for us to have greater access to community wide natural gas data, and also just some other excellent energy resources to help us
1:16:00
And to support energy efficiency in buildings. So one is one community that’s part of a growing cadre of Northern Colorado communities that are participating and partners in energy. Some of these other communities include for Collins OFF AIR Erie superior was also quite a number in Boulder County,
1:16:21
Bill, really Westminster northglenn, all of whom are looking to make progress on their own climate and sustainability goals. And so this is a really strong a strong network for us to be a part of, so that we can share best practices and innovations and also share methods for increasing awareness around this important opportunity to reduce energy in buildings. And so the first phase of partners in energy, which started in October, included Xcel Energy, sharing some aggregated natural gas data for a long month. And you can see this chart here is just a single representation
1:17:00
Have some of the data that we received, but it shows our community wide natural gas data broken out by commercial and residential customers over the past four years. It also, this phase included a facilitated planning process, so that we could develop plans specific to long term priorities. And we completed that plan in March. And so here we are today. In July, we’re ready to implement the work plan. And we’ve got some built in flexibility especially given that we finished it up in March and so much has changed since then, but there like I said, there is some built in flexibility and given the continued implications of COVID-19. And the work and is built on three strategies that are already underway at the city. So definitely something specific to what what we would like to do in the city. And these three strategies aligns really well with a Climate Action Task Force recommendations.
1:17:58
In the work plan, we’ve identified
1:18:00
find specific ways to collaborate with Excel energy so that we really can have greater impact than we would have if we were on. And we’ll do that through continued data sharing. And also taking advantage of some benchmarking expertise, leveraging co branding and marketing resources as well as outreach channels and that sort of thing.
1:18:25
These are just a couple of examples of some co branded materials that partners and energy has helped other communities develop. The one on the left is when they developed with the city of Fort Collins to encourage residential energy and water audits. And then on the one on the right is one they did with Brookfield to engage businesses and energy efficiency. And these are good examples, I think because they come from communities where there are multiple utilities and a shared customer base and kind of that shared objective of conservation efficiency. Thanks, Mike.
1:19:03
So as I mentioned, there’s three strategies that are detailed in the work plan. The first one is commercial building benchmarking. I’m working on a benchmarking demonstration project this year. In fact, my colleague Debbie Seidman presented to you in May about the benchmarking demonstration. The goal here is to inform a broader program in the coming years. And we want to identify benefits for businesses as well as those for our community in terms of having this kind of program and our work and maps out how we can take advantage of Excel energies experience working with other cities like Denver and Fort Collins. They have their own benchmarking programs, and they want to use some of that experience as well as the needs that we’ve identified ourselves to inform our own development make our program as navigable and successful as possible for participants. So the collaboration that we built into the work plan
1:20:00
will allow us to draw on Xcel energy’s engagement and outreach now, it’s also going to give us access to some benchmarking staff that understand Portfolio Manager. And that’s the free benchmarking platform that we’re going to use. And it will give us access to that staff to help our participants access and upload their annual gas data to the platform. And then finally, it’s going to allow us to mobilize some excellent energy benchmarking training expertise. So things go as smoothly as possible for our commercial building owners. You know, there’s going to be a learning curve there as with anything new and we just like to make that as smooth as possible. And as Debbie mentioned, back in May, the targets that we have in the work plan and for 2020, our benchmark nine of our municipal buildings, as well as 10, plus other key commercial buildings and that will help us kind of test out our approach
1:21:00
Ultimately, we want to have all commercial buildings that are greater than 20,000 square feet be benchmarking over the next few years with an overall goal of of increased energy awareness and improved commercial building efficiency. Next slide, please.
1:21:19
So our second strategy
1:21:22
is a program that helps income qualified residents with high energy burdens, helps them improve the efficiency and comfort of their homes, helps them lower their utility bills and just create healthier living environments. And best practice particular strategy makes me think about what Harold was talking about earlier in trying to provide some assistance for
1:21:46
utility bills that are in arrears. We would love to have customers receiving those services. We would also like to help customers kind of lower their bills over the long term so it’s more of a manageable expense.
1:22:01
In 2019, the city supported 32 homes with program services. And we want to increase this level of support to more than 80 households over the next 16 months, we’ll probably need some additional funding we hope to get from Boulder County and some other sources. But we think there’s a lot of need. And we would definitely like to step up our game here. We’re also a realist, and we’re taking into consideration the complications of COVID-19. Right now, people don’t want other people in their homes. At the same time, there are so many who are just having a hard time making ends meet. So if we can provide some services to help reduce those utility costs, and improve efficiency for someone, we really want to do it. And if we can’t do it right now, we want to plan for what’s beyond COVID-19 so that we’re ready to mobilize time. And the way that we’re going to work with Excel, this is just to better publicize the programs that we the program that we have
1:23:00
available, Warren, anybody that’s eligible to know about this and benefit from the services and we can do that through co branded outreach materials and also being able to leverage some of excellent energies outreach channels so that we’re getting the information out to as many customers or participants as possible.
1:23:24
This third strategy builds on the inaugural success of stainable business program. It started last year. And it’s a response to the city’s sustainability plan and highlights actions to promote environmental stewardship, social equity, and economic vitality. And
1:23:42
it also supports your climate emergency resolution that challenges businesses to take action to combat climate change. 2019 there were 21 businesses that were certified and one of these three levels and our work plan targets are two
1:24:00
Inform and engage an additional 80 businesses beyond these 21 that are already participants and of those 80. We’d like to certify 50 of those businesses at one of these levels. And we’re also focusing on supporting minority owned and frontline businesses. And this is an effort that aligns well with Climate Action Task Force, and the just transition plan objectives. You’ll hear a little bit more about those later this evening. So the areas we want to collaborate here will good supporting, quantifying results of this of business activities. So you know, what are the impacts when businesses take on additional projects or activities that allow them to become certified or developing sector specific education and outreach in order to address restaurants because they’ve been particularly hard hit during the pandemic? What are some things we can put together for them that are specific to their operations to help them reduce energy and water use in their business?
1:25:00
We’re going to continue to leverage rebates, we’re going to develop some content for case studies so we can encourage more businesses to participate.
1:25:10
Next slide, please.
1:25:14
So you’ll note in your council packet that we have a letter of recommendation from the sustainability advisory board to move forward with this next phase of partners in energy and to get going on the activities in the workplace. So what what I’m asking for this evening, is for council to show support for our strategies to give us some direction and give us the direction for LPC to sign a non binding memorandum of understanding with Xcel Energy to proceed with the strategies that we identified in the work plan. The Memorandum of Understanding outlines collaboration through November of 2021 so that we can accomplish some of the things that we’ve identified. There really are no additional cost impacts to the city as city staff and partners and energy staff.
1:26:00
are already in place to support these strategies. And then at the end of 2021, we’d like to come back to council progress. Talk about where we are, what we have left to do and what what we might want to take on next to expand these strategies. That’s all I had tonight.
1:26:23
All right, great. We get the screen back and then we’ll pick out questions from council members. We’ll start with Councilmember Christiansen. Then we’ll go with Councilmember Martin.
1:26:35
I would move that we
1:26:37
move this memorandum of understanding forward. We discussed
1:26:45
this at the sustainability advisory board and while
1:26:49
there are problems with
1:26:52
Xcel Energy and all that this is they are a good partner in getting us together.
1:27:00
data we need so that we know what we’re doing. And that’s the point of this is to get a wide array of data so that we can understand what our energy needs are. So I would move that. We accept this. The Memorandum of Understanding non binding memorandum of understanding with Excel. Do I have a second? I’ll second that.
1:27:27
Other than other than other than I see a counselor Martin, I guess, Harold, just finally. Question is, is this coming back for a vote? Or is this is this just a resolution? I don’t know. I was coming back for a resolution. Do you need input now? Yes, this will come back for a resolution for you all to vote on if you okay. Want us to do that. Okay, so Councilmember Pat, can we go ahead and wait to vote on that? I’ll check it out. Guess we’re Christianson. Can we wait to vote on that?
1:28:05
Do you want to unmute?
1:28:07
Yes, sorry. I have four ways to unmute myself.
1:28:12
Yes, that’s four. All right. We’ll go ahead and put that on the next regular session meeting then. All right, Councilmember Martin.
1:28:28
Can you help her out, Susan?
1:28:31
All right, times my spacebar and mutes me and sometimes it doesn’t.
1:28:37
So, yeah, I have a question. I heard in the report that some data has been shared already. Who has that data and is it available to the public and it’s available to the council.
1:28:52
This is Susan Bartlett again and my parent communications has that data. It is in
1:29:00
The work plan and it is public data that Sure.
1:29:05
So we can share that with Council. So how does the council get the data like tomorrow?
1:29:11
Um,
1:29:13
I can just I can send you what’s in the work plan.
1:29:19
And I guess I would ask what type of date what types of data you’re interested in all of it.
1:29:30
Everything that came from Excel, we want to understand the energy usage by households and by business, the businesses we understand have to be depersonalized. But
1:29:45
and I don’t actually care about having anything personalized. But
1:29:51
I’d like to be able to tell one household from another
1:29:55
one second, Susan. So Harold, is it possible to get calcium or Martin that information
1:30:00
We can get that information to the council, we’ll have to scrub it to make sure that there’s no personal information that’s in there. But if it’s open record, we it’s open record. All right. So with more or less, when could we expect that information?
1:30:18
I can, I can send it tomorrow. The data that we get from Excel energy is not linked to customers, it’s aggregated to comply with privacy, customer privacy rules. And I’m in favor of that. So I’m, that’s that’s fine. When you have an aggregated number does it say how many households that represents? So essentially, the data that we have is number of residential customers, number of commercial industrial customers, and then we have total use in each one of those sectors, and then we have a grand total.
1:30:54
Okay, that’s not very much data, but I’ll take it so counsel. So what so counsel Martin, what
1:31:00
We’ll get the information to Council and then if you could look through it, and then let me know if it needs to go on a future agenda. We’ll just do that. Okay. Okay. All right, very quickly, if I may. Yeah. I’m Harold. I was of the belief that this just required council support and did not require returning for a resolution which is similar to the phase one that we went through with pies. So is can we confirm that? So if the issue is that it doesn’t require if it just needs your support when we need it, but if it requires an action of the council then that we need to bring it back on a regular agenda? I’m not sure what the if the Emily’s an IGA with other groups, then we need to bring it back on the for an action I’m giving if it’s an mru. It’s going to be coming back.
1:31:55
I’m not sure mean,
1:31:58
who’s the agreement
1:32:01
So the the agreement that it’s a non binding memorandum of understanding with Xcel Energy for phase one, Dave, it came to Council, you all
1:32:13
agreed to support the effort. Dave Hornbacher find that and then we proceeded. Standing was there was a similar process this time around. So David can sign it. We just need direction from council to
1:32:28
move forward. I will look for that clarity. Well, then let’s go ahead and vote on it. Now. Then we’ve got a motion on the table from Councillor Christiansen, which I seconded. So all in favor of supporting the partners in energy a memorandum of understanding and directing staff to move forward say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
1:32:49
All right, the motion passes unanimously. And if it does need to come back, correct, according to Eugene, just bring it back. We’ll vote on it again. Good stuff. All right. There
1:33:00
was one the presentation of the recommendations the Climate Action Task Force in education and outreach, adapt adaptation and resilience and land use please.
1:33:10
Listen.
1:33:14
Yeah. Hey, Mayor Bagley, members of council and Mr. McLaughlin sustainability program manager and in here, again for the second round of review of Climate Action Task Force recommendations, as well as the IQ equity recommendations developed by the just transition and committee. So then can you go home with my presentation
1:33:43
and you can go ahead and move it to the next slide. Great. So just a quick reminder, I know it was late last week, but we review the recommendations in the building energy use renewable energy and transportation topic areas, as well as a summary of community engagement activities and the record
1:34:00
Innovation regarding governance. And tonight, we’ll be getting into the topic areas of adaptation, finance, education and outreach and land use and waste management, as well as talking about equitable climate action, reviewing the equity recommendations developed by the just transition planning committee. And then we’ll discuss how council you all want to move forward. Now the report is completed. Similar to last time, I’ll be presenting the Climate Action Task Force portion with members of the Climate Action Task Force on hand to answer questions, if need be, or add anything that I may have missed. And then we’ll have francy Jaffe from sustainability as well as two members from the just transition plan committee, Garrett Chappell and Eric Peto, that will be presenting the recommendations. And one thing I just want to know before we get into the presentation is that what we’re essentially going to be looking at is two separate sets of recommendations that have combined been combined into one report and one being the recommendations from the Climate Action Task Force which you can essentially
1:35:00
Look at as the the what of how long one can go about addressing climate change, and then adjust transition plan committees equity recommendations, which can be viewed more as the how we would go about implementing climate action recommendations to ensure that the work is being done in an equitable way, and that we’re engaging the most people most impacted by climate change, and really making sure that we’re not leaving anyone behind. And I think that’ll become more clear as we as we get into the recommendations, but I just want you to keep that in mind as we go through them. And then when we get into the discussion for next steps, okay, you can move to the next slide.
1:35:36
So I’m going to just jump right into the topic area recommendations. Again, like last time, we have a lot of information to get through. So please feel free to jump in if you have clarifying questions. But otherwise, we’d like to hold this session till the
1:35:51
next slide.
1:35:53
So the first topic area is adaptation and resilience. And this section has three recommendations. The first was which is focus
1:36:00
on addressing public health in a warming climate, and this is looking at developing a coalition to identify issues and solutions for the impacts of warming climate on public health, particularly around things like heat waves with severe weather events, air quality issues, and the detection, surveillance and treatment of potential diseases, with a focus specifically on the needs of low income households, and those experiencing homelessness, people that are at most risk of those impacts, and the target is to have a plan within a year and a half or so or sooner depending on the timeline of the target pandemic. The second recommendation focuses on preparing the wreck the city for potential sustained drought conditions, and impacts to water availability due to climate change by promoting and incentivizing water conservation measures such as xeriscaping and the use of native vegetation. And the goal would be to reduce city wide water usage by 35 to 40% by 2025. And I do want to note that it was
1:37:00
requires pretty extensive financial resources and likely a significant redesign of our parks and golf courses in order to meet this goal, in further research and analysis would be necessary to understand the full fiscal impacts and identify a feasible path for implementation.
1:37:16
And the last recommendation focuses on launching a public education and outreach campaign that targets residents and commercial realtors to help inform them of the dangers of flooding and the value of investing in flood mitigation projects.
1:37:31
Next slide, please.
1:37:34
So in the education and outreach topic area, our first recommendation is comprehensive workforce development. This program would focus on building upon already existing training opportunities to increase training and incentives in the public and private sectors to expand and improve Walmart’s climate action workforce. And this really cuts across a number of the different recommendations to really get the work done.
1:38:00
You need to done while building jobs and income at the same time. The program has three main goals. First is offering career ladders, stable employment and a livable wage, expanding the number of green energy professionals and building a diverse and inclusive workforce, all of which are especially important right now moving into the COVID recovery process. Currently, there’s a pretty significant shortage of contractors in this field and a need for technicians, engineers, electricians, and other relevant types of workers.
1:38:32
The next recommendation is to develop and deliver a climate lecture series to raise awareness of and foster discussion regarding the climate emergency. The first series is actually already set to launch in the spring of 2021. And that was spearheaded by a climate action task force member Peter wood, which he received a grant through the CU Boulder center for humanities in the arts, to get that program going and that’s a great opportunity for us to get
1:39:00
The success of that initiative.
1:39:02
The next recommendation is similar but focused on creating somewhere in focusing on creating greater community awareness and engagement in climate issues. By developing and publishing a series of articles highlighting historically relevant stories coupled with current climate information. The article series would have both print and online versions, as well as the bilingual.
1:39:26
Next slide, please.
1:39:29
The fourth recommendation focuses on leveraging the existing Front Range rising exhibit at the llama museum to integrate the use of energy and climate issues in our area over time. It’s focused on elementary school students but is very accessible for all ages and there’s a lot of opportunity to include climate information into that. And then last recommendation is developing a community sustainability liaison program which would identify and provide resources to trusted members of
1:40:00
neighborhoods serve as liaisons to educate folks in their neighborhoods on sustainability, renewable energy, and other relevant matters to address the climate emergency. And this is a great opportunity to leverage our newly launched neighborhood programs that we’ve been developing in partnership with community services, and help us build a network of liaisons and foster diverse participation in this program.
1:40:25
Next slide, please.
1:40:29
And the topic areas land use and waste management. The first recommendation is developing and launching a program to promote incentivize and educate the public on local food production, and address potential barriers and existing code that might hinder that. So current zoning code allows for urban agriculture, excuse me urban agriculture in all zones but doesn’t allow for things like roadside farm stands and other things that might help promote the sale of President grown produce. This would also be looking at engaging the
1:41:00
School District to incentivize students to participate in gardening and food production efforts and helping to establish local food co ops for sale of Resident grown produce. That’s
1:41:12
the second recommendation is focusing on increasing commercial and residential composting by improving the ease and effectiveness of our existing curbside program through the right sizing of composting and yard waste and establishing composting as an opt out rather than an opt in service, increasing education programs and requiring certain higher organic
1:41:36
content businesses to participate in composting. And the goal is to increase the number of eligible households participating from the current 19% to 75% over the next five years and encourage participants encourage composting in the commercial sector through incentives and regulations.
1:41:54
And the final recommendation in this area is pay for parking so establishing a paid account
1:42:00
requirement in the downtown area to encourage low carbon forms of transportation, including public transit, biking and walking. There would need to be measures put in place to avoid disproportionate impacts on low income, mobility impaired residents. And there’s also an acknowledgement that this recommendation would probably likely need to be put on hold during the COVID pandemic due to the current impact on downtown businesses.
1:42:25
Next slide, please.
1:42:28
So with that, I’m going to hand it over to francy Jaffe and adjust transition plan committee members to talk to you about equitable climate action. Thank you, Lisa, mayor and city council I’m francy Jaffe, water conservation and sustainability specialist. And in this section, I will be focusing on how equity can be used as a lens and has been used as a lens to apply to climate action. I will start with a kind of a history and overview of equity and then I’ll be joined by two
1:43:00
Members of the just transition plan committee, Eric preeto and Garrett chapel to walk through their recommendations. I just like to give the city council and Mayor heads up that these sites will mostly be bilingual. So they’re going to be a little bit more text heavy. And I’ll go into why that is later in the presentation. Next slide.
1:43:21
Equity has been at the forefront of our community and a need to create a more equitable community. The Climate Action Task Force when developing their recommendations, work to select recommendations that had both a high climate impact and a high positive equity impact. And the resolution stated that’s important to engage communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change, also known as frontline communities when developing climate action, the importance of this is important for creating more impactful recommendations that impact our members.
1:44:00
of our community. For example, as the climate warms there are expected to be an increase in high heat days in Longmont. This could be especially detrimental for those who both have underlying medical condition and have do not have access to adequate cooling. So to create a climate action strategies that also mitigate this potential health risk, it’s important to understand and address those barriers. Next slide.
1:44:29
Part of how to do this is through a process called adjust transition, which involves increasing inclusive engagement recommendations and practices for climate action community health as I highlighted in my previous example, basic needs as if you’re having trouble affording housing, it could be hard to participate in climate action programs, and jobs as highlighted by the Climate Action Task Force recommendation. It’s important to create equitable access to new green jobs. Next slide.
1:44:58
The just transition process
1:45:00
US has been guided by two city resolutions. The first one was in 2018 to transition to 100%. renewable energy, which called for the city shall consider the needs of lower income residents that kicked off the just transition plan process. then more recently, the climate emergency resolution stated that frontline communities must actively participate in the planning, decision making and implementation of climate action, which transition the focus of the just transition process to from just the transition to 100% renewable energy to actual climate action. Next slide.
1:45:34
So the logistics of how we’ve been working to do this is last summer, we distributed a survey and 10 listening sessions to learn where we are today. The results of that are included in the appendix of the report. And then more recently, last fall, we started working on developing policy and program recommendations that can be brought before City Council. And that’s where the just transition plan committee comes in. Next slide.
1:45:58
So in this section,
1:46:00
We’ll begin with giving an overview of the just transition plan committee. And then Garrett and Eric will join me later to share their recommendations. And just to restate, the Climate Action Task Force recommendations were more than what and these recommendations are more of how you can apply these how of how you can apply these recommendations and increase equity in the recommendation so they reach all members of the community. Next slide.
1:46:31
So as you’ve noticed, on these slides have become much more text heavy and also in Spanish. The reason we are doing this is because we practice language stress tests when the group we wanted participants at the group to be able to choose the language that they are most comfortable speaking and presenting in and we wanted to continue that practice for this presentation. Next slide.
1:46:54
Just a quick overview of the group, we had eight residents and three staff that are listed on this slide.
1:47:00
Next,
1:47:02
the group met for a total of eight meetings similar to the Climate Action Task Force over a span of six months. And their goal was to develop an equitable climate action definition using equity lens and advise the Climate Action Task Force. So I’m now going to transition it over to the to just transition plan committee members. I’m going to start with Eric preeto. And he’s going to start with the actual climate action definition. Next.
1:47:40
Okay, believe you’re still in my mute. We can hear you. Okay. Thank you, everybody. And Hello.
1:47:48
This is um, this is the definition we came up with and it’s in Spanish and English and the new readiness Spanish is our it’s extremely martica kita. Tila plan
1:48:00
program our local cambia vetoes Cara lucilla contamination. Well as you know Hakuna tema reports Allah, the capacity is soon in Laconia symposium, Daniel appa yonder Adonis Kimani is in Barcelona as soon as he is.
1:48:19
Can we go to the next slide please?
1:48:25
Before we start, we, we are did the COVID part in the presentation, and we have to we would like to highlight that the Hispanic communities represent 13.8 of builder boulders County’s population. But right now we have 38.7% of cases. And that has been
1:48:51
our latest update. So,
1:48:55
yeah, and we have to make sure to engage your communities
1:49:00
So can we go to the next slide, please?
1:49:03
All right now we have
1:49:06
the two broad categories. The equity assessment, the over arching, equitable actual recommendations. can go on Next slide, please.
1:49:22
This digital commendation they it’s about
1:49:28
evaluating the
1:49:34
essentially evaluate evaluating equity.
1:49:38
Can we go Can we go to the next slide?
1:49:42
So we have this section we are
1:49:46
highlighting overarching, equitable climate action recommendations
1:49:53
and can go to the next slide.
1:49:56
Oh, okay.
1:50:00
The here we have the marketing on the outreach. And this is a we have some of the examples of how to engage the community.
1:50:16
And now some of the examples would be building nonprofit and partnerships, or, or creating, creating our targeted outreach.
1:50:30
Can we go to the next slide, please? And the Dutton research, it’s about understanding the community needs.
1:50:39
And
1:50:41
this
1:50:43
this
1:50:46
will this. The rest of the recommendations will have it explained but Yara Chappell Thank you very much.
1:50:57
Thank you, Eric.
1:51:01
Can I get the next slide please?
1:51:04
So once we have access to the community wide data, we will be able to identify potential barriers or issues as to why people may not be able to participate in the programs, issues going all the way from citizenship status to potentially How would they be hindered if there was an emergency if they were engaging with this program.
1:51:28
Next slide.
1:51:32
We we do also want to take a moment to recognize that some workers in our community will be displaced by some of these actions specifically in the oil and gas industry. So it’s just further more of a priority to make sure that we develop some job training and workforce development that is very equitable and accessible to the full community. Next slide.
1:52:00
We need to understand how the community’s health and safety will intersect with these programs. A good example of this is trying to recognize that a lot of renter’s may not have full autonomy over how their living space is conducted or how the health and safety in their home is enacted because of situations with their landlords.
1:52:25
Looks like.
1:52:29
And then, another thing that would be an extra burden to to renters would be if the program is encouraging building upgrades or anything in that vein, would the cost be eventually passed down from the landlords to the renters? And would there be any extra burdens because of this? Obviously, we don’t want people having to choose between supporting these climate actions and trying to pay the rent.
1:52:57
Next slide.
1:53:01
We would also like to recommend that action should be taken not only on the large city level, but on the micro level, closer to the individual neighborhoods and communities to build that kind of personal resilience and that self reliance within the coming crises.
1:53:23
Next slide.
1:53:26
And then lastly, something I know that has been brought up a few times is how, how are we going to deal with this? If there are potential budget shortfalls? How can we ensure that these programs still happen? So it would be our recommendation that we do focus on probably the people more at need in the lower income areas, but then also potentially adopt a pay as you go program or mimic something from an adoptive Parker’s Adopt a Highway System that local businesses could partake in or even
1:54:00
other athletes, community members.
1:54:04
So this is the end of our recommendations. I would like to thank the mayor and the council members for letting us speak and I will turn it over to Lisa Knobloch, for further discussion.
1:54:19
Thank you all so much. You can go to the next slide, please.
1:54:25
So that concludes all of the recommendations brought forth by both the Climate Action Task Force and the just transition plan committee. And now I want to take some time for discussion and get some direction from Council on how you all want to move forward. Next slide, please.
1:54:42
See, sorry, if we want to know, just good, just go ahead. I was just gonna say are you calling for questions now, or do you have additional I see seven more slides. Yeah, so I have, I’ll go through if there’s if we want to take a moment to stop and if there’s clarifying questions, but I have a number of
1:55:00
To get direction on calcula. Let’s go with that. And then we’ll we’ll come back to the individual questions from Council. Sounds good.
1:55:09
Okay, so first, first of all, as I mentioned last week, we’ll be taking the Climate Action Task Force recommendations to advisory boards in July and August. And I’d like to know what type of information and feedback is most useful for you to come back from those boards? And when would you like to see that information come back to you. And I do want to note that the July meeting for crab was was cancelled, so we won’t be able to go to them until August. So I want to make sure that that timing is taken into consideration. So I’ll put that question for the council. Okay, so let’s go back can you can I kept the screen back place. And so if you have so format, and timing is what we’re responding to briefly. So if you’d like to provide your opinion on format and timing, let’s start with that. Councilmember Christiansen? Do you have an opinion on that?
1:56:02
Let Marcia speak first. I’m just going to go through everybody on my screen. So my question is, do you have an opinion on that or no?
1:56:11
Oh, yes, I have a lot of opinions. That’s why I’m letting Marcia speak first. Okay. Okay. Councillor Martin. Thank you, Paul. I really appreciate that. Um,
1:56:24
the first thing is
1:56:27
that regardless of of
1:56:31
what the board’s say,
1:56:34
I would like us to possibly accept now the just transition teams report, because they have described a way of approaching all of the projects recommended by the Climate Action Task Force, rather than additional recommendations. We’re doing different things.
1:57:01
And so
1:57:03
I think it would be good to,
1:57:09
to just,
1:57:11
us as a council say, yes, we’re going to, we’re going to look at it this way. We aren’t going to leave people out. We aren’t going to leave people behind. And we are going to consider social equity when we make changes.
1:57:26
So that’s my first recommendation in terms of format. And what was the other one?
1:57:35
I want Lisa. timing. Okay, so, so timing I, I think it is really important and
1:57:47
that we
1:57:51
can look at the individual recommendations in time to assign
1:57:58
budgeting
1:58:01
priority to some of the early items on it.
1:58:07
And I’ve read all of these recommendations had input on most of them. And what we’ve got is they have timelines that extend from between three and four years to 15 years.
1:58:24
And
1:58:26
they need to get they need to get started or at least plan for a plan level of starting
1:58:35
in in the years that are that would belong on the City’s Comprehensive Plan. So I would like to see all of the recommendations unless some end up being rejected, placed on the city’s comprehension,
1:58:53
comprehensive plan
1:58:57
in in
1:59:00
So they don’t get lost and and in time for the prioritize budgeting exercise for next year to include them.
1:59:13
And so that really speaks to the format, which means that they need to be by big recommendation on the comprehensive plan and
1:59:26
interim goals stretched out by year.
1:59:31
Alright, so is there anyone who has anything different or something to add to what Councilmember Martin just said, Councilmember Christiansen?
1:59:45
Yes. First of all, I wanted to thank the Climate Action Task Force. This is a really large, detailed, cohesive piece of work.
2:00:00
It’s
2:00:02
I think it’s an excellent piece of work despite the fact that I disagree with a great deal of it. I do not disagree, of course, with the
2:00:10
intent of it, we must do something about
2:00:14
climate action, otherwise, we won’t be here. Um,
2:00:20
I have numerous problems with it. And I would like us to I don’t know whether any of these meetings have been open, but I haven’t been aware of when they take place. I would like to attend some of these meetings. And I’d like to be able to give some feedback and detail over this 200 page report close to 200 page report. There are many, many things I have profound disagreements with. The most basic thing I have a disagreement with, or a bore a problem with say, is the term frontline communities, which I looked all over here to find the definition of that and I finally found it I think on paper
2:01:00
21 it refers to low and middle income communities. And it includes well, anybody who’d be affected by it, which is low and middle income communities, the elderly, the disabled, people of color,
2:01:20
basically 80% of the town so I’m wondering how useful that terminology is. Let me just read you and I keep doing this but people keep ignoring me. statistics from the American Community Survey and from our up and from the American Community Survey, remember comes out every year and the US Census comes out every 10 years. The average or the the median per capita income in my zone. My my zip code is 28
2:02:00
Thousand $653 long man as a whole is about $6,000 more than that it’s this is the median per capita income 34,440
2:02:17
I’m sure that there were some people on this task force committee who made something like that, but it doesn’t sound to me like they were. Um, and the reason it’s it’s critical to talk about per capita income is that we perpetually get reports that give us Boulder County, unbroken down Boulder County income, which is you know, is about 15 or $20,000 more per capita than Longmont.
2:02:50
So, and then we talk about household income.
2:02:57
household income is really not what we need to
2:03:00
Talking about because it’s this is the demographics have changed. Only 20% of the population is a standard nuclear family. Now, this has totally changed from the last over the last 50 years.
2:03:14
28% of people are living alone and 48% of adults are single. We need to be talking about per capita income. That’s the only meaningful way that we can understand this. And by that per capita income,
2:03:30
almost everybody in the city,
2:03:34
about 80% of the people in the city would qualify as frontline communities. So
2:03:41
how is this a meaningful term for talking about equity? We, if the majority is elderly, disabled, low income to moderate income,
2:03:56
then breaking this out in terms of equity. I mean,
2:04:00
It obviously, we need to be making sure that these things are not affecting people, but they are going to affect most people in this town and we need to own up to that. And we need to be thinking about what we’re going to do for that. So I don’t want to accept the
2:04:19
equity thing, even though of course, I am all for equity and inclusion for everyone. But to me, it’s not it’s not meaningful because you’re talking about most of Longmont, which is a low to moderate income town. Just like the United States by the way, Longmont pretty much tracks
2:04:40
income wise with the median income of the United States. So we keep getting things from the labor Bureau, which are averages and their household income in the labor Bureau is statistics from
2:04:59
employers.
2:05:00
It has nothing to do with employees. So we need to be using the right measurements and we need to be talking about
2:05:10
the reality of this town.
2:05:13
So, I would like us to be able to have more input on this before we just. Okay, it. I think there are numerous problems with some of these recommendations.
2:05:27
And I don’t want to you know, we don’t have time to discuss these tonight. So I would
2:05:33
we don’t, you know, we need a special session just for this. We’ve had two sessions, but mostly they’ve been the presentation, which is good. We need to do that, but we need to be able to discuss it amongst ourselves. Thank you.
2:05:50
Yeah, I think that that there is a misunderstanding of the forest and trees sort in the way council member
2:06:00
Christensen is interpreting the intent of both the just transition committees report and the way that the recommendations of the Climate Action Task Force are structured in every case, both in terms of intent and in terms of specific recommendations on
2:06:26
their setup so that regardless of what percentile you are in, in the community,
2:06:33
these things have to be implemented in such a way that they do not make people without the agency to decide where they fall on the spectrum of investment in renewable energy are not harmed
2:06:50
by the transition. So that means if you’re going to take natural gas out of a community, whether it is
2:07:00
block by block thing, or whether it is a neighborhood by neighborhood thing or a new development thing, for example, then we have to find ways to implement subsidies for the people who can’t
2:07:17
afford to do it on their own. Plenty of people who can afford to do it on their own are already doing it on their own.
2:07:26
And we, you know, we we need to acknowledge and thank those people, not disincentivize them from doing that because they are well to do.
2:07:39
We, you know, we don’t want to interpret equity in that way.
2:07:45
But rather make sure that when we make an absolute change, we do it in such a way that people aren’t worse off than they were before. And I think if, I mean, maybe we need to take a
2:08:00
Look at the recommendations of the just transition committee and make sure that that’s what it really means rather than looking at the terms that it introduces. And if that’s the case, if everybody agrees with that, then I will withdraw my motion that we just adopt that as a starting point. But that’s what it means to me. And I think that the people who were here speaking about it would agree that that’s what it means to them. To Lisa, maybe you can speak to that is, is that what it means to you that when we make one of these changes, we have to do it in such a way that people who don’t have the agency to afford it themselves are not harmed or not worse off? Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll let Francey jump into she has anything to add because she was much more deeply involved in the job transition plan committee. But yeah, so if you go back to their equitable climate action definition, it’s very much focused on
2:09:00
Making sure that there’s no harm being done. And while while making progress on climate action, and in the recommendations that they developed in that equity lens tool that they developed that we utilized with a couple of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations, we didn’t have the time to run every single recommendation that the Climate Action Task Force came up with through that, through that assessment that they developed, was identifying who could potentially be impacted and in what way and if those are potential negative impacts, what are the measures that can be put in place to mitigate those? So that’s Yeah, that’s exactly exactly right. Nancy, do you want to add anything to that?
2:09:48
This is Fred to our conservation sustainability specialist. No, Lisa, I believe you covered it. And if you look at the recommendations, a lot of the recommendations are phrased as questions
2:10:00
questions you should consider when implementing climate action. So again, it’s it’s a lot like a lens that you can use to kind of reach to make sure that folks are not being harmed, and that all are being benefited.
2:10:15
And I just want to quickly speak to the term frontline communities. So I know that that’s probably a newer term. It’s a term that’s pretty commonly used now in the world of sustainability and climate action, particularly in this realm of
2:10:31
climate justice and equity work. And it’s really trying to get at looking at those that are most impacted by climate change impacts as well as compounding factors. So other systemic inequities that, you know, we’ve been seeing in terms of COVID and economic justice issues and all of those sorts of things. So it’s really those folks that are being most impacted really across the spectrum. And as Garrett mentioned, part of the recommendations are focusing on
2:11:00
Especially when we’re looking at how do we prioritize recommendations, if we have constrained budgets or whatever it might be to focus first on those folks with the most needs. So, although I recognize that they Yeah, I think that there’s a large portion of the population that you could say is considered frontline communities. I think what that says is that the impacts due to climate change are going to be vast across our community. And that also speaks to the need for much greater community engagement to make sure that we are we are getting this right as we move into implementation. All right, let me just jump on. I’m just going to jump so I still have the floor mayor, I believe. No, you don’t have a question. No, no, no, hold this. Hold on. I get it. Okay. So my question is, before we go on there, the the real question is, I mean, we are not going to solve climate change tonight. And I did here. So the real question is there’s there’s two paths
2:12:00
To go down, except it let staff continue or have a special session when we get together and have this conversation. And so my question is just raise of hands, how many people here would want to have a special session to discuss this particular issue?
2:12:19
I see Paulie and I see gentlemen, how many do not want to have a special session to address this issue?
2:12:28
12345522 All right. So what I would recommend is just knowing how people are feeling and thinking is, we’re going to call on Dr. Waters. Okay, then Marsha, I’m gonna come back to you. Just go ahead and make a motion.
2:12:44
Okay. All right, Dr. Waters.
2:12:48
Well, I was or you could make the motion. I wasn’t gonna make a motion. I was responding. I think I’m going to respond to the question about format and timeline. I thought that’s what we were asked.
2:13:01
We were Alright, so
2:13:04
I just so I just want to be clear.
2:13:07
First of all, I want to, like Councilmember Christiansen thank the a lot of good people who did a lot of hard work and thoughtful work on this, both on what we see last last week and what we got tonight. So good on everybody who made the commitment. I know, it was a lot of work to do under under challenging circumstances. We got a we these are both interesting sets of recommendations. Last week, we got,
2:13:32
you know, organized by kind of sectors or
2:13:37
not themes but
2:13:39
areas of potential impact or remedy I guess. I’m not certain what language you have applied to it. I didn’t see lat I saw areas to be to work and opportunities. I didn’t see. Anything that was a measurable goal that I recall. I did see a template in the dependencies for smart goals.
2:14:00
My my assumption when we looked last Tuesday at this was that the next phase of work would be to take that template and actually develop goals with timelines, and performance targets.
2:14:12
In response to that set of recommendations.
2:14:16
Tonight, we saw recommendations that work were collections of activities.
2:14:23
I was I was looking at that thinking are these supposed to be strategies to help accomplish what we saw last week? I understand it’s with an equity lens. These are activities, not strategies to ensure that what we do in those areas from electrifying everything to water conservation, etc, that we saw last week, that those would be these would be the activities that would help us bring an equity lens as we set SMART goals
2:14:50
helped me with in terms of format, if you want me to if you want my vote, ultimately to support something, I’m going to want to know that there are number one, we’re going to be
2:15:00
able to measure and put timelines and budget numbers to goals we’re trying to accomplish in the what we saw last week, and that these are activities to help us accomplish those with an eye towards frontline communities and disproportionate impacts, etc.
2:15:15
It How do I interpret? I don’t know if there’s I guess it’s the Lisa, by the way, I think Marshalls idea, ultimately seeing this reflected in the comprehensive plan is a good one. That’s where this ought to be codified it eventually, so we don’t lose track of it. But when we do it, I’d like to know, Lisa, are we going to see measurable goals? You’re going to use that template? And then I said, you got you got my question?
2:15:39
Yeah, so that template was used, and if you look, I know it’s a long document in the in the main body of the Climate Action Task Force itself. It goes through each of those, we call them topic areas. So building energy use, adaptation, resilience, etc. And each of those recommendations has a SMART goal. That was the
2:16:00
Developed along with it. So the Climate Action Task Force Did that work of doing the templates and they came up with those SMART goals, that to the best of their abilities depending on the recommendations themselves.
2:16:13
goals that were measurable that were time bound, that were specific. Go back and look, if that’s the case, I simply looked at the template, I didn’t pay enough attention to the to the specific SMART goals in each of those topical areas. So I’ll go back and
2:16:32
say,
2:16:34
well,
2:16:36
just to speak to the way to read the recommendations.
2:16:42
If you think about as essentially we the the Climate Action Task Force took on the entire breadth of a transition to a zero carbon society
2:16:55
in a three month project
2:17:00
So you we’re not going to get a breakdown of the individual rec milestones in the individual recommendations into
2:17:13
a project management sort of measurable goals and it would not be reasonable to expect to read it that way. Um, the concept of, of putting pins in the comprehensive plan
2:17:30
will work this way. What you have in those SMART goals is our timelines with milestones, a milestone might be the city should have to pilot projects for distributed energy resources taken from
2:17:49
a list of possible technological, logically feasible projects. Okay. So you put those on the comprehensive plan when they go
2:18:00
onto the comprehensive plan, the staff is going to work them and come back with project proposals. And those project proposals will have in depth measurable goals or we won’t pass them and we won’t fund them on the budget. But I’m
2:18:21
you can’t have the expectation that a 15 year beneficial electrification plan is going to have measurable goals at each milestone. All you can expect in the SMART goals is, here are the milestones. And we’re going to drill down to the next level at the next step in the process. And so what you should be looking at now if you want to say no, we can’t adopt this plan is are these at a gross level, the wrong things to do? Should we not try to electrify our city and get rid of natural gas in fifth
2:19:00
Yours, should we not continue to push our generation and transmission electricity provider to make the transition to renewable energy on? You know, that’s the kind of thing that we’re trying to do.
2:19:18
I’ve got it I’ve got a suggestion is it will go to Councilmember pack after this, I guess, is it possible to get the questions? I mean, there’s seven of us. Many of us are opinionated and have different opinions.
2:19:32
And and we literally could spend decades on this particular topic, would it be possible to get the questions and then we can respond in email saying what we each think should be the format, the timing and whatever else you need us to do? Because it would be hard enough if we stick to the questions, but we are going to invariably be be driven by my passion on this particular issue. I think
2:20:00
And get sidetracked. Is that an appropriate way to communicate our thoughts and feelings on this particular issue?
2:20:09
Because I think like I, for example, don’t have a particular passion or opinion on format or timing. I leave that up to staff. But Councillor Christiansen and Councillor Martin have different opinions on that, etc. And I’m just wondering if it would be better time better served to for those of us who were who care to, to draft an email way of responding to your questions, Lisa, would that work?
2:20:38
Yeah, and I can quickly run through the remainder of the slides that have all those questions as part of them. And then, you know, we can follow up at that at the end. If there’s any remaining questions that people want to ask as far as discussion. Let’s do that. And then also, so go through the questions that I’d asked. Could you send us an email after
2:21:00
The meeting or in the morning with the questions prompting us to respond. Did you do that?
2:21:08
Yes. Okay, let’s go through the questions. So the Councilmember pack before we do this, your hand was up.
2:21:16
Yes, thank you. Amir bakley, I was going to respond to the timeline in format, which was actually what we were, you know, to agree with, with Councilman waters. That was what this discussion was going to be about. And should it go to the boards, the advisory boards, and I think it should go to the advisory boards. I had a question about a lot of these timelines. And, you know, to,
2:21:48
to keep it at it at a reasonable
2:21:54
amount of time, discussion time, I’m not going to go through all the timelines.
2:22:00
But there are many areas in this
2:22:04
town that the task force has put out. There’s many areas in this.
2:22:09
Oh, gosh, it is late in this document that I would like input from the boards on. And I would also like input as far as the format goes.
2:22:20
How soon can we get a report back from the individual staff members that are working on specific segments of this report? As part of the format in that that hasn’t that timeline hasn’t been established? I would, I would like to know
2:22:40
how fast we can get questions and I also want to know if
2:22:46
how the council is going to measure the implementation of these recommendations. What is our
2:22:54
what is
2:22:56
what is our goals? What are our time
2:23:00
lines. Were up for all of this. I don’t know, I just think there’s too much information here just to pass it on first response. That’s why I wanted a session to actually talk about it.
2:23:15
So it’s so I want it to go to the board’s and for their feedback.
2:23:22
I want something from staff who’s going to be working on the different segments of this. And what is their
2:23:32
How soon can they get back to us? Is it going to be for their report on how they’re working on it? Are we going to meet the timelines that have been set up?
2:23:44
So I don’t think that I want to just pass it on first response here.
2:23:50
I would like First of all, to get the feedback from the boards. So hopefully, that made sense. I’m very frustrated with with this whole thing that we aren’t really
2:24:00
discussing it in depth. And I do not want to just answer the questions by email because we don’t hear what the other council people have to say. That gets to be breaks the sunshine law, if we’re,
2:24:14
if we’re all just answering Lisa’s, and I have no idea what anybody else is saying. My understanding is that these questions are process rather than substance. And I’m not advocating we have a discussion. I’m just trying to, I mean, this will go for forever. And so I’m just so given that five of us don’t want to have a special session to have is do know
2:24:39
that Yeah, I’m just trying to look at how to how to get us to a point where we can have that discussion discussion. So go ahead. Sorry, you still before. I know, I don’t want to do it by email. I want to hear what the rest of the counselors have to say. So I’m against that idea. Just for Martin
2:25:01
I still think that this is a misinterpretation of what these recommendations are supposed to do. There cannot possibly be staff members assigned to every recommendation, it will take 15 years to assign staff members to some of these recommendations. This is a roadmap. It’s not like saying,
2:25:24
Are we going to
2:25:27
update our land use codes in 2022, based on some recommendation from Europe, you know, this is not where you can staff it.
2:25:39
person by person. And point by point. This is, are we going to make a commitment to energy management? Are we going to make a commitment to load shifting Are we going to make a commitment
2:25:55
to reconditioning our soil so that it sequester more carbon
2:26:00
You know, those are not things that anyone on the city staff with a couple of exceptions because they’re interested in it can talk about now. And that’s not what I meant. So you’re misinterpreting me. So
2:26:18
I would actually say that was an interruption. Councilmember pack.
2:26:23
Timeout. I’m gonna I’m gonna take the four back now. So the unless somebody really says, Mayor, well, we’re totally in disagreement. I’m going to have Lisa na block, go through and give us the question so we can think about them.
2:26:37
We’re going to give staff our input based on the questions, we’ll send it via email, and then we will have a discussion.
2:26:47
After staff gets the process questions answered. And let’s just go with that. See how it works. Because I don’t want people to get I mean, we’re all on the same team. Meaning we all want
2:27:00
To address this particular topic and have it done as is as good as possible. And so we just need to get these let’s get staff these answers and then we can get ready for, for putting our heads together to figure out how we can make it the best, best process possible. So Lisa, why don’t you go ahead and just give us our throw up the slides and let’s see what those questions are. Amir Bagley and council members. So the first set of questions is focusing on what type of feedback and information do you want from the boards and what what timing do you want from that given that? The last for presentation will be August 10. Next slide please.
2:27:43
The next question is on the governance section. So if you recall from last week’s presentation, again, I know it was late but as a reminder, the Climate Action Task Force wanted some form of accountability or oversight in terms of implementation of the book.
2:28:00
Climate Action Task Force recommendations. And they’re recommending that that oversight of the in progress reporting be incorporated into the scope of the sustainability advisory board with the formation of ad hoc technical committees as needed to support specific implementation of specific recommendations, and then also incorporate climate action recommendations into the council work plan. So the second set of questions is on the governance pieces. Are you okay with that approach? Or do you have any other additional thoughts or questions in terms of addressing governance and fly?
2:28:37
frequency and format of reporting itself? So I think this gets to what I understood, I think this Councilmember pecks question around when staff can bring back reporting on progress of the different topic areas and recommendations. And that’s really the question that I wanted to bring to you also the resolution, the climate emergency resolution, in notes that Quarterly Review
2:29:00
courts will be brought to council after the initial report is completed. So is that the frequency that makes sense for you all. And in terms of formatting, we already do provide quarterly reports on the implementation of the strategies within the sustainability plan. And there are a number of recommendations from the Climate Action test scores that are already in the sustainability plan that are just expansion of some of those strategies. So we could very easily incorporate that into that existing reporting process and find a way to highlight specifically the climate action recommendations because I know right now, it’s just a big one spreadsheet and we can find a way that that pulls those out more specifically, or if you want a different reporting process.
2:29:45
Next slide.
2:29:48
You can skip this slide in the next slide. I don’t need to go into that right now. And then when I go to one more second, great and then really the final
2:29:58
section is really
2:30:01
First of all, are there any recommendations that council doesn’t want to support pursuing at all? So that’s one, that’s one piece. And the the approach that that really we think makes the most sense in terms of the next phase of reporting, or in next phase of implementation is to ideally complete a prioritization process of the recommendations, dialog in interaction with the advisory boards,
2:30:29
as well as broader public through the private public through the community engagement process. So that’s been spoken to a couple of times that there needs to be greater engagement before we really prioritize the recommendations, and then do that further planning and analysis that needs done, understand more deeply the fiscal and community impacts of implementation. And so so that’s really the question of are you good with that being our next step and then
2:31:00
The final question is, is counsel supportive of staff continuing to work with the just transition plan committee through the implementation process? So as you’ve seen tonight, that just transition plan committee has really been invaluable on providing guidance and perspective to ensure that as we move through climate action, it’s done in an equitable way. And we would like to continue that process. So those those are the questions that I am putting forth to you all for direction. All right. So what I’m what I’m proposing then is email goes out, we respond, and then Could you please
2:31:37
condense those responses, send them back to Council, and then we’ll put them on a future agenda to address those issues where there is disagreement. Is anybody in opposition to that plan?
2:31:51
Councillor Martin?
2:31:53
Thank you Mayor Begley.
2:31:56
I think that that there is a
2:32:00
problem with the idea that the projects in these recommendations are different in somehow and will remain different somehow from the other projects that the city takes on. So, you know, once they are on the council work plan and the comprehensive plan,
2:32:23
because those things are different, right, the council work plan makes policy changes and starts initiatives but but when something is like build a solar community solar garden, it’s not a council workplan thing anymore. It’s a comprehensive plan thing, just like widening the street is. And so the idea that we would
2:32:50
leave all of these Climate Action Task Force recommendations separate from the city the regular processes that the city does
2:33:00
goes through,
2:33:02
just doesn’t make sense to me. And it makes it sound like way more work than it really is. Because there’s this some this idea of, of keeping these things separate all of this time. Um, you know, so what really needs to happen is Yeah, we need to have a final review after hearing from the boards that says, we think we need to pull this recommendation out, or we think we need to pull this recommendation sooner in time than the task force recommended. Some things like that, that’s that’s the purview of the advisory boards.
2:33:43
But once things make it to the contract to the to the comprehensive plan, then they’re treated like any other city project, and that’s when they are sub subject to the process metrics that Dr. Waters is talking about, but not
2:34:00
Not now this is policy in concept. And so I think that we need to compress this whole project and look at it with
2:34:14
a different kind of lens, we need to, for one thing we need, we need to look at at
2:34:26
the social equity lens that’s been explained. And we just need to decide, well, you know,
2:34:34
that’s going to be part of priority based budgeting here to four, maybe we can implement that change until 2021 or 2022. But that’s our goal. Everything the city does should happen through the equity lens and it’s going to matter a lot for some things and it’s going to matter hardly at all for other things.
2:34:57
But But we
2:35:00
cannot just decide that everything from the Climate Action Task Force is a separate project that’s going to be evaluated and staffed separately because it’s special because the Climate Action Task Force came up with it. Most of these things are things that the city would have had to do anyway. And we should treat them like that.
2:35:22
All right, thank you, Councilmember Martin, so, okay, Councilmember waters.
2:35:29
Thanks very badly. So I just want to Lisa as I’m scrolling through last week’s materials, I see pages 4383 were that that collection of
2:35:41
of what were proposed as goals can be found. So I see it there.
2:35:49
Are you going to want reactions to those
2:35:53
in in you just asked a series of questions. One of them was what what are we
2:36:00
Gonna support this. There’s a there’s a ton there to digest. I understand what Councillor Martin just talked about that it’s got to get folded into the comprehensive plan and then treated like, like every other recommendation. One of the differences is that, that not everything in the comprehensive plan and the same kind of urgency as a crisis, as as these recommendations. The one other piece to this and maybe it’s not for us to worry about because in the priority based budgeting processes where it’ll be handled
2:36:31
in all those recommendations,
2:36:34
even as I’m scrolling through them, wondering about which of the what’s going to be the impact in terms of reducing carbon footprint,
2:36:42
at what cost over what period of time as a way to score kind of like we wouldn’t be scoring these in the priority based budgeting process.
2:36:52
That’s a whole different level of analysis as I look at these, I think, and I’m certain I don’t have enough knowledge in many of them to be able to
2:37:00
Scoring, but somebody does. So at some point in time, that’s going to be helpful as well, in terms of ultimately, blessing these are how are we going to handle them? I’m certain there’s not a recommendation here. This is not a good one. You people put a lot of thought into this. I’m just trying to wrap my head around.
2:37:18
What’s the action we take? I guess it would be for me then the action we take after we hear from boards with some idea of how it gets folded into the comprehensive plan. And at some point in time, some understanding of how we’re going to how we’re going to score these recommendations based on their impact on the climate or reducing carbon, at what cost and then we can see what kind of timeframes we have in here.
2:37:47
Alright, so I’m going to Okay, so I’m going to actually ask a question, and that is a mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. I see all these hands go up. We could do this all night. And if you guys want to do that, that’s fine.
2:38:00
But I’m gonna probably bow out and say I’m getting the sniffles or something. But Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, what? What do you think we should do? I proposed an idea.
2:38:10
How do you what format Do you think we should follow? going forward? Because I noticed as a couple of us, were just silent here tonight. And I want to know what you are thinking. What do you want? What do you think we should do to resolve and answer the questions of staff tonight? And what process Do you think we should move going forward to
2:38:30
most effectively and expeditiously tackle this topic?
2:38:36
Thank you, Mr. Bagley. You know, I kind of got the impression when I read the report as well, that seemed to be very high level to me in the concepts that were presented, and there was not the level of specificity that I think we need to, quote unquote, make the sausage with right now.
2:38:55
I think there’s still, you know, some more work as far as getting
2:39:00
Some more input is concerned but outside of that, so in as far as what was originally asked,
2:39:07
I was fine with the schedule as far as when they were presenting to boards. And then my answer to when would that be brought back to council? You know, and ASAP is kind of my answer to that as well not knowing exactly how long it will take to compile after the August 10 meeting.
2:39:26
But going back to what I started with, as far as it being kind of a high level thing, it sounds to me like, regardless of what we’re doing, it’s going to have to be dug in at
2:39:37
that vast, you know, detail as far as incorporating it policy wise, and that’s going to take, I’m assuming multiple chunks going forward, as opposed to, for instance, thinking that we’re going to approve this one report and then you know, the machines working
2:39:56
on autopilot at that point. So that’s kind of where I stand
2:40:00
As far as our motions, you know, as far as our, our way forward or paths proceed with this, and I don’t mind the the email portion as long as with I believe you, you added that the council responses would be sent back to all the other council members. I think that that is important as well.
2:40:21
Same question to you customer. What do you think moving forward what we need to do to be able to move forward expeditiously and effectively? Oh, you know, I guess I really wanted to know if we direct staff to proceed to the next phase. But and so they’re able to continue the work. But then in the meantime, we’re getting the you know, we can direct so you come back to us and give us a more detailed account of what is happening with specifics in regard to targets and goals and
2:41:00
And what your what, what and timeline? So then you come back to that, and then we can make recommendations throughout the process. Is that something that’s feasible? So then we are not holding up the program, but we can provide input throughout the process. Does that make sense? Harold? So that question ties into the same question. I asked both Mayor Pro Tem and council member, you know, fairing so please answer. Please answer that. Can you do with Councilmember toggle fairing just said in the same question for you? How do you want us to move forward?
2:41:38
So I think the I’m gonna touch on a couple of things. Think of it as an inverse pyramid.
2:41:45
We’re up here. And this is pretty high level. And so we need to take it to the boards and commissions to get their feedback and input. And then that was Lisa’s first question. Here’s the timeline on those days. We will
2:42:00
consolidate that input, and then we’ll bring it back to the council to go. Here’s what all the boards and commissions said. And I think the question was, do you want to have another presentation? Or do you want that in an informational item? So then we’re gonna update you on that piece. Once we take care of that. Then Lisa’s next question is, is that as we look to the future in terms of governance, do you want that to sit with the sustainability advisory board? Give us the ability to have ad hoc technical committees, or whatever the other piece was? What was the last the third question and incorporating the recommendations into the council? council work planning comp plan? So the answer is council could say today, we want you to go to boards and commissions and we want you to bring that recommendation back. And then we’ll look at the next set of questions. Once we see that and we can find it incrementally. Or you could say we just want to answer all
2:43:00
There’s no
2:43:02
so answer the question.
2:43:06
Does that answer your question? You know, it did, I guess what I envisioned is that we were going to be discussing the overall, you know, looking at what the recommendations are, if we are in alignment with if we are in agreement with what they’ve recommended. Let’s move over to the next phase. That’s where the board piece, then they together, figure it out, and then they’re presenting, they’re walking us through the process. I guess that’s what I was envisioning. Am I correct? And that’s, that’s one question in there. Okay.
2:43:42
Yes. And I’ve read the slide. So yeah, I would like to see it in that format. But I don’t want to delay any progress in the plan by just having us all reconvene to discuss this at Mass does that make I’m actually gonna make a motion I actually moved
2:44:00
We rather than doing the email, I’m actually going to move that we actually asked the parrot, Harold and Lisa, give us a proposal moving forward. And then we can respond to their proposal, because we’ve got seven people and I don’t see any of us coming to any type of agreement on and I really think that the staff is best qualified to actually give us at least a starting point.
2:44:29
For Christiansen,
2:44:35
I was gonna suggest that I think what you suggested buying is a good idea. I also was going to suggest that, you know, just for the opportunity to have some input that Lisa send us those questions, and that we respond to her and that way we can read them at our own leisure and we all have a chance to respond. However lengthy we want to, um, but Lisa, if you send us
2:45:00
If we do do that, would you please send us the slides that you did? Because we don’t have those?
2:45:09
Yeah, I just don’t want to rubber stamp things and have them go forward. I mean, we have very specific recommendations, like all parking downtown needs to be for pay.
2:45:20
People need, you know, we have some very specific
2:45:25
recommendations in this and
2:45:28
I wouldn’t I just wanted to go to all the boards and the boards that were suggested so that they have their ability to input give us input and give the climate sustainability or the climate task force feedback to that’s why they’re advisory boards.
2:45:51
Anyway, um, so I would suggest that we do both, but I you know, I have a lot of faith in Harold and Lisa
2:46:00
So, so here’s I’m going to redo my motion. The motion is I move that we asked Lisa to send us the questions. We all have the opportunity to respond in whatever way we feel appropriate. And that Harold Lisa and staff take those responses provide us with a proposal as to how to move forward, at which point we’ll put her on agenda, talk about ways that we may or may not disagree or how to tweak it. That is my motion. Do I have a second?
2:46:26
I’ll second it. If you let me talk. I counselor mourn. I will let you talk. Thank you. Then I second it. There’s something that I think everybody’s missing out on, which is that the recommendations of the Climate Action Task Force are not a project. They are recommendations for dozens of projects, which are to be considered by this council and BY THE STAFF individually in the future as we proceed with
2:47:00
turning this into a sustainable community turning Longmont into a sustainable community. But everybody is trying to treat this as though it’s this huge, gigantic, unmanageable project. And it isn’t. So, once the board’s have said, You know, I mean, what’s the board’s going to say? They’re going to say the same thing as the Climate Action Task Force. They’re going to say, we like community solar gardens, let’s put that on the comp plan. Or they’re going to say community solar gardens are going to be obsolete in two years, we should pull that off and not do that one not put that on the list. But that’s the entire level at which these recommendations need to be considered. And we don’t need the kind of deep dive. That seems to be we keep returning to, because we’ll take that deep dive when we come to it in the comprehensive plan.
2:48:01
Because that can’t if we can’t get our heads around that, then I don’t know how we’re going to make any progress. What? I personally am trying to get us there. And so we’ve got a motion. And we’ve got a second. And let’s go ahead and vote on it and get this thing moving. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Hi. All opposed say nay.
2:48:24
All right, motion passes unanimously. We’re moving forward or clarify the taskforce plan. That’s awesome. All right. Let’s go ahead and go with mayor and council comments. Mayor, Can I do something real quick?
2:48:38
Absolutely, Harold. I think one of the issues we wanted to be true to the work or the climate action committee did and what you’ve done is now with we will frame it in what we were hearing today in terms of working through those pieces and, and breaking it in into its functional chunks. To help answer many of these questions. Let’s just stay true.
2:49:00
What the Climate Action Committee is developed? Thank you.
2:49:04
All right, Marin council comments.
2:49:10
Councilmember Christiansen
2:49:14
The museum is open again. Yay. So go to the museum and everybody
2:49:22
trying to be kinder to each other and try to keep the community in mind and do the right thing wearing a mask wash your hands, stop being so mean to each other. It’s really gotten quite ugly in the last few weeks. So thanks,
2:49:41
Amanda, that one. Anybody else?
2:49:46
All right, city manager any remarks Herald?
2:49:51
No remarks Mayor council I did.
2:49:55
send you on email feel. Make sure to check that out. Regarding me
2:50:00
This week. Great. We saw that.
2:50:04
All right. Eugene, are you here? There is still here, Mayor. No comments. All right, great. Well, thank you very much, guys. And I will see you all later and we reductions. We have a motion to adjourn. Sorry.
2:50:20
Can we just adjourn by consensus? Anyone opposed to a journey?
2:50:24
All right. We’re adjourned. All right. Good night, guys.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai