Video Description:
City Council Pre-Session – August 2023
Read along below:
Unknown Speaker 0:02
We are in our pre session. Let’s go around real fast. You
Unknown Speaker 0:11
know, you’re just, we’re just resting here. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 0:15
yeah. Aaron. Marsha Martin Jones.
Unknown Speaker 0:20
Comparing two orders. Here ordering is
Unknown Speaker 0:24
talking time. Did you make
Unknown Speaker 0:28
Publix?
Unknown Speaker 0:31
So let’s go round really fast and give our board and commission updates. No. First of all we’re gonna go with Sam cedar. You want it the first five minutes? Yeah, that’s okay. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so Valerie Dodd sent you this last week? And we’ve heard back from a few people. I just wanted to make sure yes, thumbs up.
Unknown Speaker 0:52
Change? And do you want to bring this back for a formal adoption at the next regular session? I mean, I feel like we’re a bit late because we’ve been working on all these things for a while.
Unknown Speaker 1:08
And nothing’s changed from the
Unknown Speaker 1:13
Yeah, I mean, I thought it was an excellent castle as what we talked about at the retreat. So I thought that we had to have good consensus of that time.
Unknown Speaker 1:33
I got a lot of improvements I wanted to make to the transportation picture, because I felt like it started in the middle and ended in the middle with without, you know, a clear statement of objectives and stuff. And I just got behind it in real life. Today was the day that the comments were due.
Unknown Speaker 1:52
So like my heavens, he did night?
Unknown Speaker 1:56
Yeah, of course, of course. Absolutely. We just want to make sure that it reflects what you’re talking about, because we will base communications and things around this. I mean, I would agree with you Russia. In my mind, this is exactly what you talked about during the retreat. But we want to make sure that as we produce packages for you, so that you can take to the public. So that we posted really is what you’re looking for. If you are talking about this picture, this is the transportation roadmap with the ability plan. Yes. So we’ve already approved that. I know.
Unknown Speaker 2:31
Yeah, the future needs to be That’s right. Yep.
Unknown Speaker 2:35
More serious. And a lot of stuff has happened since then. That is not shown here. Yeah, I think that’s true, too. And will always be the case, because we’re always moving. Yeah, hopefully, we are always moving forward to meet the goals.
Unknown Speaker 2:51
Yes, yes, we absolutely. Part of the need for the timing issue is. So as we go through the budget,
Unknown Speaker 3:00
a bunch of guys that are putting on documenting
Unknown Speaker 3:04
the process of aligning the budget with this plan to want to make sure that in general, in the right direction.
Unknown Speaker 3:11
Yeah, so what you’ll see is, I’m creating a matrix of positions. And
Unknown Speaker 3:17
it’s a little nuance because things are getting multiple categories. But I’m taking Well, we’re gonna find this position at his core work, and it also been housing. And another position may hit core work, may not directly hit some of these things, but it actually hits your goal and character will illustrate a goal
Unknown Speaker 3:41
in terms of
Unknown Speaker 3:46
where children are most fortunate to be born and raised. And so things like that may be things related to race, which is really hitting shoes. So while it doesn’t necessarily hit
Unknown Speaker 3:59
transportation, early childhood, or housing, and sitting poor work that we’re doing, but it’s also getting aspirational goals. So we’re working that out. So when you see the budget, you’ll see things presented as it relates to Islam.
Unknown Speaker 4:15
Addition, you do have to evaluate your
Unknown Speaker 4:18
maxima
Unknown Speaker 4:20
to
Unknown Speaker 4:22
another thing that I have concern about is is that we did discuss
Unknown Speaker 4:30
looking at the poet who’s
Unknown Speaker 4:34
managing the street segments of the homeless population of St. Louis, and we were going to have a study session or or a free session, which is going to be a study session
Unknown Speaker 4:47
on that, and
Unknown Speaker 4:50
it hasn’t happened yet. Does that mean that there’s going to be no priorities in the budget in the 2024 budget to address that and
Unknown Speaker 5:00
We have to wait to 2025. Because some of the things that, you know, I think
Unknown Speaker 5:10
we’re talking about getting feedback from the people from more street teams than just ours. And, and we’ve gotten the new older county efforts for soft attention and stuff like that, that is really important and, and aligns with what their recommendations are, and and also aligns with the public’s feelings, which is miraculous, that never happens.
Unknown Speaker 5:40
And so I really feel like it will be important to get consensus about that at some time. I do believe that so scheduled, I know Christina was working on
Unknown Speaker 5:52
September. Okay. And I feel like that too far. Athletes? All right, right. It’s too far out to affect to budget much. That’s what I wrote this budget has some funding already. Right? So
Unknown Speaker 6:05
we have the mental health fund or two that I don’t think we’ve tapped into the mechanical look at because it’s
Unknown Speaker 6:13
worse seeing the issues there. In a lot of cases. I think there’s overlap with that, and housing board games are issues.
Unknown Speaker 6:22
So don’t think we’re gonna cry that Marshall.
Unknown Speaker 6:26
That failure in your direction was to bring back a larger group of folks and have Christina was working on that.
Unknown Speaker 6:34
Okay, yeah, these are the only things we’ll be doing.
Unknown Speaker 6:41
Yeah, that’s exactly right. That course should be 90 plus percent of what we’re doing, right? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 6:49
Because I’m not going to be in this conversation for long. But when I opened this up, and I see tasks and timelines tied to our priority, I like that, then I asked the question. So this is going to be a killer. What do you need to filter?
Unknown Speaker 7:04
Because I see a lot of staff where I see I don’t see the sign anybody but I’m making assumptions that the staff past the staff desk staff ask you, do you need anything from counselors? And if so, what is it? And why would be better? Well, now it becomes real work. For for Grayson County, I think the first piece of it is making sure that if these are your priorities, understanding what other things are not the priority. And certainly, you know, a huge piece of your job is to improve the city budgets, that’s going to be aligned with this. And that’s that’s a role of the City Council is to ensure that when we see the budget coming to our peril, that it is aligned with the priorities that you’re supporting.
Unknown Speaker 7:45
And that as other things kind of come up because of the things always do come up recognizing that, you know, keeping your eye on the ball is really the importance
Unknown Speaker 7:54
of receiving. Do I have anything? Yeah, I think.
Unknown Speaker 8:00
So I think when we look at this, I think a, what Sandy just said is the most important piece is keeping our eye on the ball. Because
Unknown Speaker 8:10
it’s always really tempting. When we have a document like this, and people start bringing issues to us, then we start, oh, let’s do this, let’s do this. Let’s do this. And we’ll get into that mode where we actually serve in this capacity. And that actually slows everything down. Because we’re not able to handle that. So that’s a piece of I think what we mean, you know, when we talked about affordable, attainable housing, and when we look at all the work that we’re doing on housing, I think the the other piece on that, which I think is the most critical piece from a council is, you know, if we’re going to be I’ve said this before, we’re going to be committed to this and how to do it, because oftentimes, probably one of the most common, whatever I’m trying to say, one of the most difficult areas to deal with is affordable and attainable housing, because we know that’s going to create growth, we know that’s going to change character neighborhoods, every time we go through that. And I think it’s probably going to stay focused on this because as we connect it to the budget, when we look at, you know, tell you, you know, we have a million dollars annually that we put in for affordable housing,
Unknown Speaker 9:26
we will have another million dollars. If you all approve it.
Unknown Speaker 9:32
At least today. me just preface that because we’re still
Unknown Speaker 9:36
working through issues, you know, we will have moved up and attainable housing up to 600,000 and ongoing with 400,001 time again trying to hit that million dollar goal and we have all the state office and we’ll talk a little bit about it and Housing Authority. But, you know, for us to get in the state and get this money once you sign the agreement. You gotta go out
Unknown Speaker 10:00
because if you don’t, then they are putting some pretty hefty clawback provisions in it’s I think it’s staying focus being committed. You know, I think to your question, there are times where I don’t think we know what,
Unknown Speaker 10:14
until we bring something back.
Unknown Speaker 10:17
Here’s where we need help. I think we need to do better.
Unknown Speaker 10:22
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 10:24
You know, the first time, which was now five years ago that I think Tim asked that question about, well, what part does the council play? And we ended up with a word plan that had things on it like Council readings and children,
Unknown Speaker 10:38
which is not really what that question means the council is it really is let areas of policy are insufficiently defined. So I can think of a good example, I was at the, at the big meeting, a week or so ago. And
Unknown Speaker 10:59
that they were talking about will so when we put is implementing Vision Zero, do. And Phil and Ben, were there? And they said, well, we don’t really know we don’t have a policy yet. We have to define it. And no, you have to implement it fill in men, the council should define it. And there are some priorities.
Unknown Speaker 11:25
That Well, you know, so for example, bikepath, conductivity, right, when we tear up streets, we put a bike path on the new street, but it may not connect to anything, they can be bridges to nowhere. So a policy change would be changed the order of priority in which
Unknown Speaker 11:49
of the algorithm that decides when we do street payments. So that bike path connectivity card, you know,
Unknown Speaker 11:57
bite his head
Unknown Speaker 11:59
is a higher priority than it is now. And that’s a policy decision. Okay, that’s a really good point. And another thing is that I think the council needs to support each other. For example, when I asked him about the early childhood, I felt that maybe more of a should have gone to testify at the with the Fulton County Commissioners, on the early childhood, instead of just usual. And I feel the same way about RTD. I don’t want to carry the water. We need more people screaming and yelling at them at their meetings and say, This isn’t going to work. This is what we because it’s just like a Jones here again, you know.
Unknown Speaker 12:45
So anyway, do you have what you need? I think this was good. I think so the other thing I was gonna say is, you know, this is the city’s priority. So, evangelizing that in your public meetings, and in your discussions with this with residents on a school, what is
Unknown Speaker 13:01
the value or the system? If you have changes, you know, by tomorrow morning, tomorrow?
Unknown Speaker 13:07
How can I stay up is
Unknown Speaker 13:11
completely up to you. Tomorrow, do you have that luxury, if
Unknown Speaker 13:18
you have any final wording changes? You want me to bring this back for for official adoption? Or it’s?
Unknown Speaker 13:25
Oh, we’ve been working on it since we got that direction from Council efforts. But we didn’t know whether you wanted us to bring it back for adoption. Do you have to let me hear yes or no? Do we think we need to adopt it formally at a council meeting?
Unknown Speaker 13:40
I would say yes.
Unknown Speaker 13:43
I was gonna get picked that graphic that you brought up and posted someplace, so we can turn to him and say, How does this square with this? Okay. All right. Everybody agree with that? Yeah. I said, Yes, I use that laminated.
Unknown Speaker 13:59
Yeah, no, we can bring that back for formal adoption. You know, I do have a question. So, you know, our work plans, you know, we have listed the housing these three components. Were equity, safety, sustainability, I guess, you know, if an issue comes up, that is in regard to to equity. I mean, it does have impacts on all of these. Is that something that then because even though it’s not stipulated on these down D, but as things start to pop up, well, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 14:36
There are plans. Yeah. It’s not like there isn’t a plan for equity and sustainability, right. Yeah. So the previous session, you will talk about equity. We talked about really, when we looked at this with the core services, and I think where we get the puzzle piece is equity, safety and sustainability is really integrated in the core work that we do. And so it’s how do we now start?
Unknown Speaker 15:00
building that into the fabric of the organizational DNA. So you all made a motion budget cycles ago, in terms of our priority based budgeting
Unknown Speaker 15:12
components. So.
Unknown Speaker 15:17
So for example, on the transportation side, you know, I’ll give you an example on the transportation side and the future of transportation division zero. You know, when we started looking at how we layer physicians in that, you know, one of the things we realized is, before we had an engineer, we actually need to add somebody in the neighborhood services, because we need to add a planner, because that’s really the foundation of zero. So what we’re putting on is that equity lands to try to go, how are we engaging in that conversation? And it’s not necessarily an engineer that first. So that’s where you start seeing it really embedded operationally, what we do, even to how we look at how it’s been in money apart is how is it distributed? How are we spending our transportation dollars, so that’s really starting to just get integrated into what we do daily, everything we do, should have, should be having an eye towards an equity lens.
Unknown Speaker 16:21
And we’ve always had very strong
Unknown Speaker 16:24
when you have a fully ethical system, people from all walks of life to feel that impactful feel see the results. And so that’s, you know, I think as we start moving along, and we’re hearing from constituents, hey, you know, you know, this kind of Harbor, you know, whatever I’m thinking, places in your three, that maybe are neglected, or are kind of, like, put off the radar, what, what are we doing to kind of bring that back. So give me give you a real world example. So we’re looking at cameras, carbon came in and said, Hey, I have this money from the Neighborhood Improvement graph. And we need to look at how to put this in these parts, because these parts have been impacted in this way. So we start shifting real time, so that we can take our qualified census tracts and put money into those and the onset of others.
Unknown Speaker 17:18
Okay, thank you very much. There are two things I’m going to flip this agenda to the board commission updates last, because there are two things that have I think, that we need to really talk about. And the first one is the minimum living wage. And
Unknown Speaker 17:35
both commissioners levy allowed me to talk to me twice this week. And Commissioner watching said she was gonna be talking to all of us. Well, I don’t know if she has. But this the conversation I had with Commissioner levy today was interesting to me, because she explained to me that the county was only asking for the very first part of this minimum wage, I heard this before, which is the 1561 versus 290 per hour increase, the rest of it is going to be a different compensation at a different time.
Unknown Speaker 18:12
And the incremental increases that I’m talking about with the $25 an hour wage, we’ll be discussing in a future date. And I said, I never had heard that.
Unknown Speaker 18:27
So, and I have just talked to Marta on Friday about this trying to get us to put in an ordinance. I personally feel that they they’re not on the same page. And it’s really difficult to put in some kind of an order. You don’t know what you’re talking about, because that was not what I personally heard at the presentation they gave, and she said, Oh, it was only the coalition that was pushing the incremental and up to $25 down. And I thought I thought launch over
Unknown Speaker 19:05
true labor organization. So I texted Aaron Brocket this afternoon and said where’s your counselor? He said we are unclear and we will discuss it on the 24th
Unknown Speaker 19:20
but
Unknown Speaker 19:23
can meet your launch mean is sending a minimum and I emailed you to see if she gave us it for that survey.
Unknown Speaker 19:29
She told I said send it to Sandy and also to Scott Cook. But then I emailed her later this afternoon before the meeting and said I’ll second thoughts send it to all Council. It’s basically a survey on the minimum wage. I have no idea what it says. So I would go around really fast and get everybody’s feel on this because Commissioner levy also told me she wants an ordinance from the two highest employee
Unknown Speaker 20:00
It’s such as in the county, which are Boulder and Longmont. And I said, I didn’t say anything but I thought, you know, you want us to make a law, I have a really hard time to put an ordinance in on our employers telling you what they must do at this point. So that’s my opinion was to remind you all the current direction is for me to sit on the steering team members Sorcha and do community involvement as well as an economic analysis to bring back to you so that you have what you need for a 2025 potential implementation. If you were to do that in the first place, right. So that just say to us current direction, I know the Chamber’s have freaked out. And they’re sending surveys also right now, about the counties, our data.
Unknown Speaker 20:51
But just FYI, Marta, Tony, she has never seen either one of those things. Why is there what are the minimum wage, that the consortium
Unknown Speaker 21:03
has to be a different so according to the bill,
Unknown Speaker 21:06
and among
Unknown Speaker 21:08
local government shall consult with surrounding local governments and engaged stakeholders, right, including Chamber of Commerce, all of our business. So we’re supposed to be having a board member in those meetings. And that’s the source of studies, which is made up of
Unknown Speaker 21:24
a consortium is doing, you all gave me the direction to sit on that staff team. So I’m on both the community engagement as well as the overall staff team on behalf of the consortium.
Unknown Speaker 21:36
Yes, you are.
Unknown Speaker 21:39
Cindy has been going to those in talking I had I even went to a few after hours, just just to ask some questions of junior members and talk to him about it and say, What are your thoughts because we hadn’t heard much from the chamber they kind of gave to the Executive Council. And then it just kind of sat there chirping, not due to the fact the lack of Scott making an effort to really try and get them to give some sort of feedback. So that was there. Then I have spoken to Ashley Salzman, and to mark Luqman, they all seem to want to push the this through. And I said, I was concerned because I was throwing up this idea that maybe you’d be better if we looked at things from the lens of, of, if you had some sort of certification because it kept going, it was never about this 1560 or whatever dollar amount there, it was about getting to any Famille point and 2028 of $25. And that was, like a lot of folks a little uncomfortable, because I think sometimes we want to encourage people to get some sort of education and better themselves and that sort of thing. And, and I know that we operate certain equipment in certain business settings, whether it is
Unknown Speaker 23:00
national standards are just the industry standard. They say, Hey, do the fryer, at McDonald’s, you have to be certified.
Unknown Speaker 23:09
To be a teller, you have to have yearly training to make sure that you follow all rules and regulations. Those types of certifications are what we’re talking about. That are great examples. But there’s also First Aid CPR for and babysitting training for people that are dealing with,
Unknown Speaker 23:29
you know, young children in daycare situations and other things like that. So, but the common I got from some members of the public, when I talk to them, we’re having to regulate that. So then that’s a problem. But there is some aspects of this that says how you would go about doing that, you know, and
Unknown Speaker 23:50
my feeling is, is that they’re pushing hard, but I’m not quite certain. I think they’ve kind of put the cart before the horse.
Unknown Speaker 23:57
And, and they just want some sort of reaction. And the thing is, is that
Unknown Speaker 24:03
I don’t see a lot of movement, even if Lauren is pushing really hard over Boulder, and that seeing them jumping out.
Unknown Speaker 24:12
And I’m not, you know, and so conversations we’ve had, people are like, well, you know, it’s a little awkward sort of question that has people that, you know, don’t make run businesses. I don’t know the business. I don’t assume that people are after the pandemic are prepared for that sort of situation, and everything. So it’s a real concern. And I’m trying to come up with active ways. Now. They haven’t said in the legislation that that certification part would be there but I think it’s really a valid thing to think about because it also encourages people to better themselves. And it’s not just saying a 16 year old it’s answering phones or or being host or hostess at a restaurant. Is you know you
Unknown Speaker 25:00
want them to help support their families. And I see the importance I know that worked with that population for 10 years. And while I was at orgatec, teaching vocational technology courses and things like that. So I understand that, but I do think that you still want to make sure that there’s an education.
Unknown Speaker 25:18
There’s tiny. Well, so can I, you are aware, Sandy just told me and I just said, are you aware of
Unknown Speaker 25:28
this press release? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 25:32
There were a lot of questions about that.
Unknown Speaker 25:36
So they announced that they’re going to raise the minimum wage,
Unknown Speaker 25:40
Incorporated parts of the county beginning January 1.
Unknown Speaker 25:46
They’re creating an ordinance. And my question is, because we must follow the county. If they put an ordinance in front of county, we do not have to follow that duty. Okay, great. You are right, you don’t have to. Okay. That’s what I want to know. My other question is, should we put this off? Because they need it? They want to they want an answer, should we? Well, Harold and I talked about this last Wednesday. And I think if I understood you correctly here on that, we would like a working group with some of the
Unknown Speaker 26:22
real local business people in our community, both. I always feel like Scott Cook is
Unknown Speaker 26:32
is the person who actually knows our local, not the corporate necessarily, but the locals, few small businesses, we should have two or three of those people.
Unknown Speaker 26:44
And also maybe somebody from the LEP type of like, smoke smokers or Latino Jr.
Unknown Speaker 26:54
We really need to talk to people before we make a decision, some of your irresistible your direction to us, is to be part of a consortium, which is what we are, what you have in this, I think in this decision is actually split for the consortium. And what’s being talked about right, to include everybody that you mentioned, and have those conversations. I think Sam saying that starts tomorrow morning is our kickoff for the committee engagement portion of the minimum wage discussion with the businesses. Great and everybody that you mentioned. Yeah. So then I think at a council meeting, that we should make a decision so that it’s covered. And everybody’s involved in that. And that message can go back to this county, because you could absolutely entail the whole thing. Yeah, either do 20 Or do something quicker, it’s completely your decision. We’re just working on this thing. Okay. And just to clarify, it’s the labor organizations that want a $25 an hour.
Unknown Speaker 27:58
I would say that we as the consortium staff group have not gotten started the economic analysis feels high.
Unknown Speaker 28:07
For for all of us started, but but I still have questions about how the county’s action affects the state law, the use some people, some
Unknown Speaker 28:21
alignments of cities, or regions to band together and set a common minimum wage. I thought they may have, they may have pulled the rug out from under us. And I think we need clarity on that from from somebody before we even start thinking.
Unknown Speaker 28:42
The other thing that I would like to say about this, I had a really interesting conversation with with
Unknown Speaker 28:49
one of our city interns who was serving Kennedy. Yeah, she works. She works at
Unknown Speaker 28:59
breaks, right. She’s,
Unknown Speaker 29:02
she’s a part of overall breaks. And she said her mother is crazy over the idea of minimum wage. She just has written a zillion letters to Scott Co say, you gotta stop this. And we talked about the data that was presented most recently by the Aw, that says,
Unknown Speaker 29:23
the disturbances are short, and then the economy improves for everybody. And one thing I did was ask them to resurrect that presentation that because we need to, now is the time to educate people. It wasn’t as big of an issue at the time and was actually maintained.
Unknown Speaker 29:43
But
Unknown Speaker 29:45
you were on the panel.
Unknown Speaker 29:47
It was it was Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 29:51
And the other thing is,
Unknown Speaker 29:54
just as during the
Unknown Speaker 29:57
pandemic, we gave small businesses
Unknown Speaker 30:00
Is some help in business planning so that they because they most most of them didn’t even have business plans, or had such trivial ones, to help them understand how to weather the storm. And I think we need to start teaching people and maybe even figure out a financing plan for helping them get over the hump of a minimum wage increase. So, basically, I want to know, should we put this on an agenda before November? I’d like to do before November before the election, so that this council has saying that as to put it on a council agenda, so that we have a voice with the direct message to the Boulder County commissioners
Unknown Speaker 30:50
in support of them, but I have a question for Sandy, you know, we have a livable wage here. 1740 An hour ish.
Unknown Speaker 31:01
And so how is it that we should be trailing, there’s this imaginary idea that were somehow trailing the county, in be proactive,
Unknown Speaker 31:16
and responsive.
Unknown Speaker 31:18
Our livable wage is only applicable to companies who do business with the city, not all businesses within the city. Oh, it just if you have some sort of contractual agreement with the city recently signed him small, which is to make sure
Unknown Speaker 31:35
they require that you pay a living.
Unknown Speaker 31:39
Okay, so the other issue that came up
Unknown Speaker 31:42
with this, and I took to Mishloach,
Unknown Speaker 31:46
is that nonprofits, a lot of men get all their money from grants, and they make their budgets based upon how much money they’re gonna get from grants, which affects their payroll. So they’re going to be any exemptions in this or nonprofits, because if they don’t get their grants, chances are they’re not going to be able to pay their people.
Unknown Speaker 32:11
I didn’t like her comment at all.
Unknown Speaker 32:15
And there won’t be any exemptions. So
Unknown Speaker 32:19
there’s a lot to discuss in this. And I don’t think that that kind of goes back to my whole point about the certification of some sort of thing, making it where there’s some sort of logical tie into why somebody, you know, like our relationship with businesses, that we say, this is what you have to have a way. Same thing goes to make it sensible to be Republican.
Unknown Speaker 32:47
Right? I have to have this guy, he’s got to be,
Unknown Speaker 32:51
you know, tip certified or whatever to do his job. We shouldn’t be paying him or her a
Unknown Speaker 33:00
wage, that is, I have a problem with government getting involved in businesses and in their hiring and what they pay.
Unknown Speaker 33:12
That’s not our role. But all with the pay. As long as we have a minimum wage job. That’s what is involved to tell them who in their employees should be paid. What? Based upon certification. That’s, that makes me nervous. Okay, so are there any more comments about this?
Unknown Speaker 33:31
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Questions. I mean, because I was frustrated that they went ahead. And before when I sat on the working room, early before councilmember McCoy cut on, you know, we were looking at having a regional approach, because if one City’s paying one amount for a minimum wage and other cities who were competing with each other, and it could negatively impact
Unknown Speaker 34:00
us in our municipalities. And so the fact that they’re going ahead anyways, in these unincorporated areas just seem to kind of go against what we were working group has
Unknown Speaker 34:14
had all the kind of consensus on and then my understanding, you know, reading the bill and talking to you know, kids are already CDA, the Colorado Education Association is very invested in this and there’s been a lot of conversations about about this piece. And one of the things was that the working group, I was under the impression that the stakeholder group was going to be the one that provides input on
Unknown Speaker 34:43
what that rate equal incremental rate raise would be so why are we sitting I don’t even like the idea of of seeing numbers right now. Because it’s supposed to be in the hands of the all the stakeholders are visited our
Unknown Speaker 34:56
chamber of commerce, what have you, the other league is
Unknown Speaker 35:00
I would also like to know how many businesses and I’m not, you know, thinking more about, especially our small businesses that are already paying their employees wage. So we’re already trying to set something. Maybe they’re already halfway there. So yes, exactly. So I think, you know, by just going ahead and moving forward without having that information, we just don’t have enough information to pursue. I want to hear what the students, so all of these comments, I think are what we should be saying at the council meeting,
Unknown Speaker 35:35
to backup how you’re going to vote. So just saying right now to us, we need to save to the public. Okay. That’s all I wanted to know is should we bring this forward in May in a timeline
Unknown Speaker 35:54
that works for the commissioner, so they have to get permits. So one more thing I know, I’ve already said a lot. But some of the suggestions being made here, I believe, are inconsistent with the state law. And we have to be the consortiums
Unknown Speaker 36:12
need to work within the framework of the state law. So I wonder if Sandy could give us
Unknown Speaker 36:19
a presentation and give a presentation before it Council. Because you know, when the union people came with their feet, they didn’t set that frame. And so if you can set that frame and sort of regularize the conversation, and make sure that everybody has the same idea of what the council’s prerogatives are, and what the Consortium’s prerogatives are, that would probably calm things down. Because, again, I think the union’s pretty aggressive proposal. It’s kind of stirred things up. Well, you remember when we did have that presentation? I was a little surprised that that group was going to be there. I thought it was going to be Jeff Calhoun. Yeah. And he’s the union. Yeah, it was thought I did not like that was a name there was not over at the last Yeah, it was representing that. Two things on this just to close up here. The folks that I am speaking with from other communities like URI, and and they are kind of they’re coming across in the way they have said things can be kind of a cold, sort of not necessarily confident sort of way to proceed with this. They feel like their communities would not be damaged, Marty’s supportive of it. And then
Unknown Speaker 37:43
the second thing is, is that I thought our interns were doing some surveys and everything. And so is that we’re just talking about are we getting some information from them. So I released the intern information back out to the our consortium on that partner. So they all if you remember, information I summarize that sent that to our other partners in Boulder. And in Boulder County, as well as to the working groups at this point. The economic group just started last week that economic,
Unknown Speaker 38:15
the economic impacts group and so I’ve sent them your feedback, our community involvement, one is tomorrow. So I have that feedback for that as well, tomorrow. The interns are done next week, they finish their 90 hours in their projects, and they will present to you all really soon. But it is the working teams now that will put out RFPs and actually trying to get that information based on the feedback that you gave the interns and then the other community.
Unknown Speaker 38:42
So right now we’re on a track to bring you back information,
Unknown Speaker 38:45
preparing for a 2025 implementation, if you made that decision in October of 24. So what I will do is I’ll put this back on the agenda, I will lay out the process that we are currently in, as well as the commissioners request for an earlier decision. Now for 2020. For implementation, I’ll attach the information from their press release. And then you guys can decide,
Unknown Speaker 39:10
thank you.
Unknown Speaker 39:12
Be helpful. If we’re going to use before Election Day. It’d be helpful when something comes out in the agenda. If we were clear on how we would finish the sentence, I will we will seriously consider a minimum wage initiative plan or F
Unknown Speaker 39:30
because how regional it is what we need to know for the commissioners, whether or not there’s some standards, you know, or expectations or whatever that is. Because as I’m sitting here listening,
Unknown Speaker 39:44
you know, you’ve got the county commissioners with one thing, you’ve got to do something else. You’ve got labor counsel, in spite of what Jeff Loomis folks said
Unknown Speaker 39:53
there’s no evidence that they’re working together which is Sunday. Yeah, that’s it
Unknown Speaker 40:00
I
Unknown Speaker 40:01
knew that I was could you set an example, for what working together looks like on this particular issue? It’s just gone in the opposite direction. But if you’re if we’re going to have some fun on that, I’ll tell you, when I see it on an agenda, what will be in my head? If the what I’ll be looking for is, what’s the checklist? Or what is the continuum from acceptable to excellent or unacceptable, acceptable on a set of criteria?
Unknown Speaker 40:25
Level of how much clarity is in the business? How does that vary based on business size? What are we to what to what degree is on a scale of one to five are other municipalities committed? Bing, bing, bing, bing, something like that. In every municipality, we can agree on that. It would be nice to put that in front of the Commission or the Labor Council to say you’ll get decisions from us, when you when you answer these questions, until then, go Go do your work.
Unknown Speaker 40:56
Tim, perhaps all of us should put down our questions and
Unknown Speaker 41:02
get understanding to make a list of what it is we would like.
Unknown Speaker 41:09
Not just answers to but a working group has the working group set was a framework like every every mayor protect that every counselor said, Look, that’s right. We’ve agreed on this or some approximation of it to hand back to folks, but we’re not going to waste our time. Right. So you’ve done your work. And I got a call from Martha as well. And I thought, you know, if you’re going to put together a survey that we’re, you know, one sort of a common data base to with surveys. But I said unless there’s a regional approach, I’m out there trying to get the regional approach. I get that by.
Unknown Speaker 41:46
Yeah. Yeah, I’m very nervous. And there I have that first summary from your first interviews. I’ll send it out tonight. Perfect. So can I ask a practical question on this? So please, we have
Unknown Speaker 42:02
executive sessions
Unknown Speaker 42:05
fairly blank. What is the agenda look like next week?
Unknown Speaker 42:14
It has that HPC appeal. Yeah. 20 seconds. Pretty heavy. 29.
Unknown Speaker 42:22
relatively light that’s not designed for action because of the study session. So we’re going to introduce the budget. And then in September, we’re in budget. October, late October, is fine with me. So you don’t need to do that immediately for the commissioners? No, he could also discuss it during a study session to get Harold in
Unknown Speaker 42:45
English and therefore it doesn’t.
Unknown Speaker 42:48
So thank you for listening and talking about this because it’s really difficult getting something from one Commissioner, something different from another commissioner is making me well, and I think for you all, you can always say here’s a direction.
Unknown Speaker 43:04
Okay?
Unknown Speaker 43:05
What you all said
Unknown Speaker 43:08
is the direction you’ve given us in public session to do all of these things. You could say we’re staying to that direction. We’ll bring it back in October.
Unknown Speaker 43:19
I think what I’ve heard you all say is what we’re doing. Exactly. So it’s October a good timeline for the rest of you, Sandy, I’m just going to chime in it cannot be until probably October 24.
Unknown Speaker 43:35
Just pointing that out is
Unknown Speaker 43:40
anticipating going fine publicly.
Unknown Speaker 43:43
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 43:46
I’ll do it right now to send you all the direction that I got from you last time as well as the Internet Report and summary
Unknown Speaker 43:55
calendar and first of
Unknown Speaker 43:58
all, no, I just
Unknown Speaker 44:02
need a pre recession
Unknown Speaker 44:08
to be
Unknown Speaker 44:10
sure the presentation is going to be a
Unknown Speaker 44:14
no Bob something for the public.
Unknown Speaker 44:17
That’s
Unknown Speaker 44:23
recording
Unknown Speaker 44:27
and it’s on.
Unknown Speaker 44:30
So I want to go through the ethics really fast. Um, I had Dawn sent out a I don’t know if any of you read it, but
Unknown Speaker 44:40
I wanted to just give a brief summary of what we’ve talked about
Unknown Speaker 44:47
and where we’re gonna go.
Unknown Speaker 44:50
Next steps. So
Unknown Speaker 44:54
I’ll just go over it really fast if you want. So it was about my meeting with Eugene and Carrie
Unknown Speaker 45:00
caos of Fort Collins in one month. And
Unknown Speaker 45:05
to the question of how many frivolous complaints that we had that we have. Not we’re sorry, it was for Collins Harry said that to the 36 years they’ve had this in place, they’ve had 144 complaints, and only six of them were about counsel 59 were advisory opinions, and 79 were other, which could be anything.
Unknown Speaker 45:27
And they all went through the review board, which carries out the screening process. And that I really want, because our staff has been doing too much.
Unknown Speaker 45:40
Working with too many complaints about council about other things that they should not be involved, because Be yourself.
Unknown Speaker 45:48
So
Unknown Speaker 45:50
and they have nine complaints from 2019 to 22. So there are not a lot of complaints. And I think that we will probably be about the same.
Unknown Speaker 46:02
First ethics board for Collins was made up of council members and the residents didn’t like it. They said it was biased, couldn’t be objective. So they their complaints are made by mail.
Unknown Speaker 46:16
They have a review board that meets publicly.
Unknown Speaker 46:21
And their counsel is self policing as well.
Unknown Speaker 46:26
But so what we did was discussed what so what we looked at other jurisdictions and Robert’s Rules and accepted that basically, we could only send your intake counselors off of boards and commissions.
Unknown Speaker 46:42
If you disagree with any of this
Unknown Speaker 46:45
information about the sale force and commissions.
Unknown Speaker 46:52
notices,
Unknown Speaker 46:54
and we discussed getting a 10 day window for the complainant to be addressed, this is very important to me, that whoever is being accused of something they have a right to be heard. So I did want to say that I know that
Unknown Speaker 47:11
the drop down menu that you kind of proposed or whatever, we probably just really suggestions more than it’s all suggestions, but a fair campaign practices should be I think, a separate thing, because that covers both candidates or council as council members.
Unknown Speaker 47:26
Okay, you know, I want input on that. So I just think that should be a separate process that had already there already is prescriptive penalties and things of that for campaign donations.
Unknown Speaker 47:41
And censure and removal from boards and commissions, I think is still just nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Unknown Speaker 47:50
That’s what we’re limited to.
Unknown Speaker 47:52
I think we are we can recall we can. That’s pretty heavy duty. And that would have to be a motor to do that, rather than can the council vote to recall or it doesn’t have to be publicly according to Robert’s Rules. No, according to Robert’s Rules and chip it up. See if I’m stating this correctly, that counsel can recall somebody
Unknown Speaker 48:17
they can put a vote of the call to.
Unknown Speaker 48:20
Oh, yes. Yeah, I said thank you. Yep, that’s right. Yeah. But I didn’t put that in there. That would have to be something you would want to put in there. I’m just going to soft.
Unknown Speaker 48:31
Well, I think that there are some actions that could be in the drop down list.
Unknown Speaker 48:37
That we they’re specifically the ones from
Unknown Speaker 48:42
the Little Red Book of ethics. I can’t remember what it was called. But
Unknown Speaker 48:49
chain of command violations is a good one.
Unknown Speaker 48:55
Chain of Command is is doing things that are outside of your purview. So if you are outside the council’s purview, so for example,
Unknown Speaker 49:07
interfering with another government’s process. What about interfering with operations? That too, that’s also a chain of command.
Unknown Speaker 49:16
So if I went to David Horton lockers stood on the table and said, I’m gonna make your life miserable. If you do not do this about the electrification process, that would be a chain of command and that would make me really mad as well.
Unknown Speaker 49:35
Writing these in,
Unknown Speaker 49:37
as you mentioned, yeah. And I think those are really the two chambers can come to nature of chain of command can do anything.
Unknown Speaker 49:49
You have to, like bullet point that under the interference situation, like if you hit some sort of thing, like a police reaction to the
Unknown Speaker 50:00
The revenue started coming in, say nine.
Unknown Speaker 50:04
Yeah, that would be changed.
Unknown Speaker 50:12
So we need to decide who reading the complaints. Remember, we talked about a board made up of a lawyer from another jurisdiction, aborting selected residents or our own police Review Board.
Unknown Speaker 50:27
So, in any other suggestions, that’s all I remember that we talked about.
Unknown Speaker 50:34
Let’s see what else.
Unknown Speaker 50:37
Oh.
Unknown Speaker 50:38
And the important part for me right now is I talked to three of you, and you were fine. With me taking parts of Fort Collins or the other ones that reflected what we talked about, and putting them together in a preliminary ethics draft that you everybody looked at and wordsmith and edited and added, you deleted because we don’t have a working document to work from. So I want to know is what made you do this, and you want to continue to
Unknown Speaker 51:15
talk about it a lot more. I mean, Fort Collins feels like they have a system that is working well.
Unknown Speaker 51:22
I think, you know, why are we creating recreating the wheel? Right? They’re the ones that hired all the consultants? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 51:32
Coming from the teacher mindset where we borrow from each other.
Unknown Speaker 51:36
So that’s that I think that’s fun for a starting point. Just adopted without us. No, no, no, no, no, no. I know. I’m not sure what that was. Oh, okay. No, I mean, to start to start off with and then you know, of course, we’re going to tweak it needs to be different. And then after we do that, it would go to Eugene to legal? No, can’t do that. Are you kidding? That’s against the law.
Unknown Speaker 52:05
So can I just, I want to know, before we leave tonight, is that, okay, that if anybody wants to work with with me to, to put this draft together, please, please do?
Unknown Speaker 52:20
That, if not, I’m going to start working on
Unknown Speaker 52:23
your name.
Unknown Speaker 52:25
I just have no questions. I’m not going to be next. I know. But for me, so my question is, is one of the
Unknown Speaker 52:35
whether or not it’s censure or whatever, I’m still, I think that’s an important question. So
Unknown Speaker 52:43
the what problem,
Unknown Speaker 52:45
I read the summary in the nine complaints about closing there was over a 40 year period of time, but there was no answer to your question about frivolous, you know, nothing about those complaints. Were they frivolous or not? And if not knowing that it’s hard to know whether or not that’s a good use of a process. There were four years ago, really complaints and
Unknown Speaker 53:10
it was just okay. So I still am not clear on what problem we’re trying to solve.
Unknown Speaker 53:19
When I read the list, the kind of starter list I realized that was off the top of your head, it did beg a question for me is who’s going to decide what’s in the drop down menu? Is it us here? Once I once I transition off, what I would say to you is as per year that you think you’re the only ones who should identify what are what are potential ethical breaches? I don’t remember the public I think, I think the public has will have a strong view on what should be on that drop down menu. So I think before we start building the list, we got to think about what, how credible will that was for the process? If the public has nothing to say, Well, I didn’t say that the public? Just question. Okay, who would? Who would have? Who would have? I did have a question as well. It got my attention that you can talk for three minutes. And I don’t want to fight. But I here was my reaction.
Unknown Speaker 54:17
I’m not one of those three. So who are those three, and I don’t really doesn’t matter. But how close does that come to being a rolling meeting? Well, it wasn’t really maybe it was after our last ethics. before they left. They said, leaving time to just do this. It wasn’t I didn’t call anybody. Anybody. It wasn’t a meeting. It was just like, I talked to them because they were in the meeting. That But that begs the question about ethical standards. You know, and I’m not making any accusations you I’m just saying we have to be really careful about
Unknown Speaker 54:53
the language we use
Unknown Speaker 54:56
in what we’re signaling to the community. That is if we’re going to do
Unknown Speaker 55:00
If it’s more than a virtual, virtual, virtual, virtual it more than a virtual server, it is we’re serious about this because we clear the problem we’re trying to solve and this is our result. So that’s, that’s where I am. And I’m not made good point and what. And that’s another point here. And final thing before it’s adopted, it has to go to the public.
Unknown Speaker 55:22
So that needs to be
Unknown Speaker 55:26
it was a good suggestion.
Unknown Speaker 55:28
And I did not have a role in meeting actually it was
Unknown Speaker 55:33
just as we were leading, gotten putting our way here is how important language is going to become okay. And that clarity is going to become once we set this up.
Unknown Speaker 55:44
Right, yep. Because because that, that invites, oh, wait a minute. What about this? Or what about that? And well, what you said, you said, what are we trying to solve? What I am trying to solve is having attacks on counsel, without the counselor having any way of defending themselves or talking to be shut down all the time when they want to speak about what they did, or how it was interpreted? That has to stop. And it has to stop with bullying.
Unknown Speaker 56:17
On Council, it won’t completely stop it. But there will be a process. If someone sees that this is not right, what’s going on. They can go on the website and make a complaint about it. And this is about Council. It’s not about the city employees. It’s not about dogs pooping in somebody’s yard. Not those are frivolous complaints. So just go backwards. And it’s about protecting consumers. No, it’s about allowing all council members to have a voice process and due process for a complaint to be made. That even if a counselor has a complaint about someone on council, they need to go through the process.
Unknown Speaker 57:02
To review or go back to the problem I’ve never felt that needs to be protected, or defended by well. I’m a public official, I knew what I was stepping into when I ran for election. If I don’t, I
Unknown Speaker 57:13
don’t want to be criticized or I feel like I’m somehow have to do battle with everybody or criticize.
Unknown Speaker 57:19
I would have been for the last six years. So from everybody else’s perspective, do you think we’re on the right, we’re on the right path or not? Yes or no. I do think that clarity is very important due to self, I think being very specific as to
Unknown Speaker 57:39
what this will be solving. And
Unknown Speaker 57:42
if you pull the draft together, and we review it and and look at it, making sure that it makes sense.
Unknown Speaker 57:50
I think that’s important. And I know that when we said if we were okay, if I was okay with to put the draft together and you do want to work out what Sure. So we can look at it and see, but at the same time, yes, I’m still fine with, you know, putting them back together. But I do agree that clarity is very important and making sure that it’s clear as to why this is needed. I agree. And that to me, that’s why a working document is something that we can work with tweak, add, delete, edit, wordsmith, all of it. But until we have that there’s nowhere to go to, from my perspective.
Unknown Speaker 58:35
What do you think?
Unknown Speaker 58:39
As far as just working
Unknown Speaker 58:42
portfolios,
Unknown Speaker 58:44
as are your perspective on like basketball?
Unknown Speaker 58:50
Well, it’s not to just work on.
Unknown Speaker 58:53
It was the other jurisdictions that people looked at, or had the opportunity to look at the other jurisdictions that Eugene brought up, as well as
Unknown Speaker 59:03
the Robert’s Rules of Order, and having some sort of sample ordinance or something that was a lot more easy and good conversation. And you can go back, you all got those other jurisdictions, ordinances, or processes. So you can go back and look and say, this wasn’t put in there or
Unknown Speaker 59:25
whatever March, right. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 59:28
Cuz Eugene sent us three. And then I got the one from Fort Collins.
Unknown Speaker 59:34
So we had Collin screens Denver.
Unknown Speaker 59:40
When we were in church, Grand Junction, right, and therefore cause so four plus Robert’s Rules of Order. So plus,
Unknown Speaker 59:50
I guess as usual, I’d like to say that I feel like restoring the political process, because there is no definition of the standard to which
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
Part of
Unknown Speaker 1:00:01
council members should be held. And so how can we have a procedure for enforcement Well, without knowing what we’re supposed to enforce
Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
perfect. So like a frivolous complaint would be social media, because it’s been deemed by legal that that is free speech.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:26
So
Unknown Speaker 1:00:29
at some point, we probably will be able to discuss that with the state and federal law approach that at this point.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:42
My last comment would be until there’s read clearly, I don’t think that’s a good use of staff time to be working with this. Given all Island staff and work on it at all. There was a reference to the task force. Oh, that’s
Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
a given the opportunity
Unknown Speaker 1:01:00
below save?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
So
Unknown Speaker 1:01:06
that’s all I have.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:08
So yes or no. Do you want me to work on this? And if any of you when
Unknown Speaker 1:01:16
we’re all busy?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:18
We’re all robots? I think you should?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:27
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:29
Oh, yeah, you can. I don’t want to be involved.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:35
That’s kind of what I thought from the last
Unknown Speaker 1:01:41
time. That’s it. And so I thought,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:44
we’re going to do the LGBT.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:48
We are doing updates. Last week, I wanted to repeat at the beginning. Yeah, go for it. Okay, you know, what, there was one update that I really wanted to bring forward and add a recommendation from staff and I’ll put it back on, because they told me Wait,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:03
read up during our update. And so I had and I know, met with a neighborhood group with Purdue. And it was really in relation to the issue of meth, meth houses, houses that are just contaminated with mass destroyed, we have a mechanism to test. One of the things that came up with and then the meeting we had our
Unknown Speaker 1:02:29
assistant, da, just Saturday was there, we had another way staff. And really the you know, what, I’ll just kind of make it short is really what what they’re asking of us, and I think even police was was aligned with this is really looking at what our ordinances, what do we have in place? What systems do we have in place? That might be prohibiting or, or making it a little more challenging for police to go in and
Unknown Speaker 1:03:00
or at least notify neighbors, as far as safety is concerned? I think some of the things that they had mentioned was,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:09
you know, the impacts to the neighborhood, not just property values,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:14
people for their safety.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:18
They’re not notified when a raid is
Unknown Speaker 1:03:22
until the Yes, so there, we need to either it is operational, or is it something that that we need to be tweaking out in our ordinances?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:35
So the, you know, the request was, well, one thing that they wanted to do was really bring in a task force to create a task force with staff and neighborhoods. And what I suggested was possibly having a free session discussions on the topic where police is involved.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:56
Police officers are involved
Unknown Speaker 1:03:58
and give their input, what are the challenges they’re seeing? And what are some possible solutions that can?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
Probably
Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
Probably a tech session because
Unknown Speaker 1:04:20
there are certain reasons
Unknown Speaker 1:04:24
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:28
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
That would be an
Unknown Speaker 1:04:34
executive session.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:38
Brainstorm and how I think there’s operational safety issues that
Unknown Speaker 1:04:44
we’re going to need to talk through.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:47
An example is
Unknown Speaker 1:04:50
we’ve seen this where things start rolling. Could you start moving in as someone that you knows things
Unknown Speaker 1:04:57
don’t want to notify neighborhood Did you definitely
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Selling neighborhood personnel. exactly happened and or they can also receive. Yeah, that’s why it’s good. There’s a big catch up of all ships and radios and when should the radius have scanners? can hear it? And so yeah, thank you for you.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:20
I mean, if council was to discuss it, we can probably do an executive session to discuss the links that are safety related that maybe spin off.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:32
But yeah, there are so many things that I think
Unknown Speaker 1:05:37
needed counselors.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:41
I think it’s a great idea.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:43
So
Unknown Speaker 1:05:47
I just want to give a shout out to Molly.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:50
Because she came to the consortium that she provided me the information from the cities, and the consortium facilities folks are just, she has been just such an incredible powerhouse.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:03
So it was great to see that and I emailed her and said how wonderful she was, and they were just so appreciative for Ben’s new experience in passing and sharing.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:19
I just want to say real fast that the
Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
transportation event fee idea is getting some traction. I talked to Senator winters about it and she’s said it’s definitely going to be in the list of
Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
finances, fiscal finances and stuff for transportation and her discussion.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:42
I’m meeting with Senator Marsha Zeleny.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:48
And a representative, Jennifer Peralta.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:54
So they’re all very interested because there’s dopamine tax people for transportation that we don’t have it
Unknown Speaker 1:07:03
just looking outside of the box. So that’s it.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:09
To
Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
two minute break
Transcribed by https://otter.ai