https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvlFMd1Wpqo
Video Description:
City Council Pre Session – October 15, 2024
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So what it called this pre session to order? It’s October 15, 2024
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and this is very informal for people. Here is just a way for counselors to talk to each other, give updates on the meetings that they are boards and commissions, that they are liaisons to, and what’s going on. So do a roll call real fast. Jonah PEP,
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no titles in this
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Marshall,
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Martin Andy
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cedar, Don quido, Eugene Williams,
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Sean McCoy, Aaron arrighino, Susie
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and Diane’s first is delta bison working here, so we’re just going to do the updates, and at the very last minute, I have don’t send out, send out Diane’s updates through email, because she’s right here. So you may not get the term.
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So I’m going to start in what are these things? These are
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the Metro mayors in their meetings have said that they are getting a lot of very angry
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people at their meetings, and counselors are becoming angry with each other, and so they the the head, the chair of their Metro mayors, reached out and said, anything that we can do to Going into this toxic time after the election, possibly of how do we treat our residents? How do we talk to each other? So I went online, and you don’t have to follow this, but it’s basically one of them is about the intelligence to replenishability. I don’t think as leaders in our city, we need to show
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how we interact with each other and
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with our residents. So it is. This isn’t appointed. If anybody I’m just going to pass it out. You don’t have to follow them or anything, but they’re just one of them. Choose your emotional intelligence to reclaim civility, and then promoting civility in our public spaces, a crime of local officials. How do we talk to each other? How do we talk to residents? And very appropriate. I don’t know
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how to respond to this
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if you want them, grab them and
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keep them in your back pocket.
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Yeah, just we can pass them
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around.
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There’s two of them. There’s two of them, but yeah.
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So thank you for that. And anybody who’s here just to listen,
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here’s an agenda.
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So I see we have public and the other thing,
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so we’re here to talk about minimum wage. And the reason that I wanted to talk about minimum wage is that I think it’s important for
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us to hear each other on council, on what we think about it, what we want to do is really too late. Thank goodness to do anything about it for January of 2025,
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and I did tell a commissioner who kept emailing me about what are you going to decide? What are you going to decide that you know, all businesses in the cities include, never any other budgets, so for next year. So for us to change something in that budget, for me, is not
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it’s not an appropriate thing to do this year. But I think that Susie, why don’t you tell
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what you just told me about? Why this one business? Oh, yes, so because I had called the mayor asking why this was all you should discuss. So I had some questions. Since we’re not making a decision, it’s just really to kind of get feel for where everybody’s at with this.
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So I had an opportunity to speak with the owner of bikes and
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spice and bikes, yes, and she was at the at the sustainable, resilient Longmont electric.
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Vehicle event, and she was mentioning how with the state rolling out the rebates for their the EVS, she has to wait several months before she gets reimbursed for that. So that has added an additional constraint. And so as we were looking at, okay, what are you know, as we are making decisions that have potential impacts to to business owners, how can we balance, what are some of the nuances? What are the some, some of the challenges that they’re already experiencing and making sure that what we do doesn’t provide an added burden, but how, how we can kind of support that, one of the things that I wanted to so that that raised some concern to me. So then immediately after I left that because I went over to the state of Colorado booth to talk to them about, what are they doing to streamline the process? There’s a lot of red tape happening. I believe they’re making some changes that will be in occurring in January that will allow them to get their funds faster and
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or some kind of grant, grant opportunities. I don’t have the specific details, but I did collect her her information. So you know, I said, as this starts rolling out, please contact, contact me, and I give her my information so we can address that. But so those are, those are so many nuances that
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I wanted to consider Okay. At the coffee with council that Marsha and I attended, there were quite a few folks that
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came and spoke at the strike back community in the community event, the night before. And so, you know, they they were feeling that this,
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it had been tough enough to get through covid, and then they were getting to the situation where they were at a point where they felt like they were kind of finally, kind of getting somewhat of their sea legs back underneath. And then this sort of conversation comes up, and they’re, you know, they’re finding hard
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to to think that they would be able to survive this one. And
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it’s we’ve seen before. You know, downtown, we’ve got this vibrate downtown, and we’ve seen for some economic downturns that have really hurt the community. And so
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a couple of them were business owners that just felt like they didn’t want to see that again. They felt like things were finally the place where people could actually
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run a business downtown and be successful.
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I reached out to big Bella from the Latino voices, and
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this made me kind of sad, because I said, I can you get a group together of business owners of the Latinx Latina population, as well as residents, I would like to talk to them about the minimum wage.
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And he called me back. He said, John, I can’t get anybody because they are telling me they’re going to do what they want anyway.
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And that made me really sad, because that’s not true.
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So he said, I’m still trying, so
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it’s going to be a while before,
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but I look on one of the meetings
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Russia, I think that
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obviously we missed the window this year.
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And everyone is kind of meeting a sigh of relief that we missed the window this year. I think doing it in the early presidential election is probably a bad
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plan from the start.
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I think
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that the county commissioners took the wrong approach. They tried to put a forced inflation on us by saying we’re going to do it, and you guys follow along.
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I strongly believe that we have to raise the minimum wage, because in the interest of social justice and everybody, you know, if they’re ironic that we have civility letter here, because the letters that I’ve been receiving, and they’re pretty much the same that everyone’s been receiving,
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you know, if you Just take away some of the Civility words they’re saying, my business won’t survive unless I can exploit the people on the bottom and pull the roll over the people over the eyes on the next tier, you know, the second lowest group of people, because otherwise they won’t make enough more well.
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You know, there’s no justice in that. It’s wrong, but we have to find a way
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to make the change happen in a way that will be acceptable, because we all know from studying history and economics that there have been times when we had a better balance between what things cost people and what they earned. And so we know that businesses work that way, and what we’ve had is a period of time in business where profits were squeezed
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kind of up to the top, like a toothpaste too, and and we need to change that. But I think what we need to do is change it
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from the bottom up. We need to build in one of those little pieces of tubes, you know, that you put on the bottom of your tubes so that you roll it up. That means training our businesses so that they understand they’re gonna there. They all those letters say, in five years, it’s gonna be $25 an hour, and they’re assuming that all the other factors in their business are held constant. Well, that’s not what’s gonna happen, you know? So
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I think
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the city doesn’t have enough money. My original idea was that we should teach them, you know, we don’t have the money to run the Walmart University for the next few years,
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if ever. But I think that we need to put
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get
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progressive businesses together and find ways
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for businesses to support each other and have institutions that will that will help you know the large primary employers already know that the economics of a higher minimum wage are favorable to their businesses. And so Okay, you guys, if this happens and this economy gets hotter, so that your businesses drag more money out of the rest of the economy and into Longmont, which is what a primary employer is for,
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then
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that you need to pay the piper a little bit and find ways to help these mom and pop businesses that feel like they’re going to die,
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not die. Need to find, need to find
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ways to help them by, you know, want collective business promotion. You know, advertising is a big cost for a small business. Well, if that gets collectivized the way the DDA, for example, tries to do, or is it long month tries to do, if those get more effective and
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then those businesses
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lose a cost and so they can pay it as a wage. Instead, we need to,
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we need to spend some time, probably two years, not one,
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two years, re educating our businesses and changing the culture, the business culture, so that it becomes possible.
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That’s what I think, because I think we should be ashamed of ourselves if we don’t get it done.
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So
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we are not changing counselors this year by the same group of people. I think that overall, it’s a good group.
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I agree that we need to wait. We should along with the county raising minimum wage, the $25 an hour does not even have to be part of the conversation. That is exactly what the commissioner said,
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adopt that Lafayette is waiting to see what we do. So they didn’t do anything.
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But I do think we need to address it, and we have a year, because next year
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we should think about what we’re going to do and let the
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business community know if you agree that that we are going to
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consider raising that minimum wage so that they can prepare their budget. But I did hear from Kimberly McBee, when we went to the site selection dinner, that she’s very nervous that some of her small restaurants have said that they would just go to bread with a Firestone.
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Will they do that? I don’t know. Is that a threat? I don’t know.
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They don’t think,
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and I believe that could have happened this year. Also, if Frederick or Firestone or both get ddas of their own, we.
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She would help them in a district to for marketing or whatever, and if they don’t raise their minimum wage, that would be a selling point for someone if they go to a different DDA where the minimum wage is status.
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So I guess what I think that we should do is really think about it this year and how we want to go about it. Because I do think next year we have to, we have to really
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make a decision about the end of the month at the consortium of cities. We
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have other topics to discuss there, but one of the topics is this, and I just want to make sure I’m getting flavor of this, that we’re not going to make any decisions
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at this point, before the end of the year, so
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that
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just add a general start,
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and anything else you’d like me To make sure I
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report it’s not, you know,
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it’s the consensus in general that we would kind of, you know, we’re still trying to feel it out.
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Well, me personally, I don’t think we’re trying, I’m not trying to fill it out. I think we need to get
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see what kind of system that we can help the businesses. Because I too, believe that we need to increase minimum wage. Yeah, I think that’s the main thing that do we agree upon increasing minimum wage, but what we also need to agree upon how we’re going to
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do it
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strong. I know from the businesses that I have talked to have
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had that had translated to me that they’re looking at that $25 an hour, and that’s scary. Yeah, it’s absolutely scary. And we do have businesses within our city who are hanging on by a thread, and just the thought of that is scary for them and almost make them look elsewhere.
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Whether they move or not is still an option for them if they do that.
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But we also want our community to know that we are supporting them, and we also want our businesses to know that we’re supporting them as well. So how do we create this system
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that will be as equitable and fair for our citizens and also our businesses. You know, I know you were saying, Marcia to educate the businesses. I think businesses know how to increase wages. Is how they can do it and be sustainable and still be operational and be able to save money into byproduct, and then we’re charging for
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recycling and compost all these things.
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So I mean, but yet,
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even me myself can’t even afford any more than my regular essentials of rent, insurance is sky high, and food is sky high. So with the with the wages that most people earn here in Colorado, let alone Boulder County, is not sustainable. So I know for myself, I think it’s a must that we have to increase minimum wage, but we also have to sit down and figure out with the chamber and other businesses and also the community, how can we create a system where it could be sustainable, where we are supporting as many as we can in an equitable way?
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I just when we discussed this last time, I thought you had made a motion. I thought we had a motion that we would be having a kind of a round table, or some kind of chamber or
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with us. So I thought, prior to us making any decisions, that we were going to do that first, I do know that Scott Cook has been putting that together. Okay, so
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we’re just waiting to see how he gets that done and when he he’s able to, because that’s going to address the how do we get there? Yes, yeah. So you know, just to clarify, I do believe that that we people are not making enough for the cost of living. I agree with you, however, how do we move from philosophical and ideological, and what I view is something right, how do we move this into sustainable policy and practices strategy, we need a strategy. So that’s, that’s what I want to see first. Yeah, I’d like to just, I know I’ve spoken already, but interject a couple things. And one is, I think we should work hard at the level of unions, because they do risky things like.
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This by protecting each individual, by sharing costs, right? You know, they have stuff like grocery funds so that they can have strikes.
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You know, people, people can lose pay and not starve their families.
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And so there are, there are not identically the same. But there could be some institutions that we don’t have now that would if our commercial communities participated in them,
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then
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changing the balance between incomes and costs.
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Yeah,
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good. Well, I’m glad the other thing is on the on the subject of the
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move to Frederick threat, just want to get this out, and then I’ll let Tron talked. But
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what
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for him?
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But
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you know, on the move to Firestone, thing,
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you know, we get one of our little data analysts to have a Google project where you get to spend 10 hours a week on it. They have to figure out how much it’s going to cost a small business to relocate to Firestone, and how many years of their margins it’s going to cost them, and then we can find out whether that’s a real threat for, say, a restaurant or a bar. Because I’m kind of thinking it’s probably not. I would agree with you. I did some research on this and looked at the Bureau’s
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delivering statistics about construct two sector sectors of the economy that we should be maybe looking at in regards to that and trying to promote, and that would be construction trades aspect of unionization. And the second one, because AI coming in the technology and computer programming trades, because both of those are one of the are two of the main staples that we have going here in Longmont. We have, you know, a lot of construction going on, and we have a lot of high tech businesses in Longmont and in the surrounding area, and we really need to focus on that. But I think that also ties into the idea of, you know, how do we get that heat, that
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that workforce here that’s maybe talking about me to use a little bit, and the the way we regulate corporate investors purchasing our housing here so that we can get folks where it’s these, all these things seem to be tied in together. Your our ability to house people is being stressed. Our ability to
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to make sure that people don’t have wage theft in regards to
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and have consistency in the price of what it costs me that, from a labor standpoint, to employ people for construction and everything. Of course, the issue around
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technology, when we have such a huge population involved in that industry, we want to make sure that
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AI doesn’t just wipe them out. Someday. We are all out here, but wringing our hands trying to figure out why what we could have done, what we could have done this, helped do this and and then, you know, we have to start addressing that housing issue, that because they aren’t just sitting here in silence, in isolation there, they’re actually, you know, intertwined to the point where we have to figure out, how do we make these
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make it more doable for people. We’re going to talk about helping them get across the finish line, whether it be that,
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you know, even even in a minimum wage situation, do we want to promote education to as a teacher? I kind of like that idea that we have a training wage. We also have a minimum wage for people who have certifications like, you know, people that can work in daycares and stuff like that. You know, they all have some sort of
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First Aid CPR, or, you know, some sort of background checks and things like that to do the job. And so we we need to maybe make sure that that’s tied into the
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minimum wage people are hired. There’s you hire them on different levels of education.
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I Well, that’s fine there, but I’m just saying maybe we need to help encourage what Marsha was saying, or unionization in some of these areas might stabilize some things, apprenticeships. Yes,
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I want the record just to show and state that we know that the city is paying our city the city employees are getting paid above minimum wage, as which most businesses.
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Are paying above minimum wage unless they are high school students. That we do know.
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You know, as you mentioned, childcare workers, they are not getting paid what they need to be getting paid to take care of somebody else’s kids. And we also know that that the childcare industry is so extremely expensive that parents are saying, some parents have to stay home because they can’t afford
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to take care, take their kids to daycare, and so you got that,
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and we can’t. I know that solve all these problems. We cannot. But it’s all it’s all intertwined. Yes, it is. So two things that Martha lunch mean stated that I thought were very good points. Number one, the minimum wage allows that no one would ever fall below that. So some people are making more. A lot of people are making more today’s environment, but it just, it just ensures that nobody will fall below this left.
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You can’t hire anybody, whatever, whatever the that is, and the other thing, what was the
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other thing?
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So I just think that that’s something to keep in mind when we our point is that no one should ever fall below this level.
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I don’t know that we have anything else to add other than let’s think about it this year. Talk to Scott, talk to businesses. Let them know we’re thinking about it so that they will that if, for the conversations, Council says yes, absolutely, we need to raise the minimum wage next year,
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then we can go in strong, and the city knows what we’re going to do. It won’t just be
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put in to it if other people No, not necessarily. The
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other thing that I was very frustrated with, with what the commissioners did, is that we are a very different city than boulder. Is Boulder has a lot of money. We do not we have a huge Latino population. We don’t have the university bringing in dollars.
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So I feel that we do have a lower population, socioeconomic population that needs to have a minimum wage security.
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So that’s all I have
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to say. Also contact me.
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Did you
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know?
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So I flipped it so that people here were interested in the minimum wage discussion. So let’s give Gordon
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so
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it’s Diane. What’s
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happening? Yeah, this is the NGO. You’re having something special.
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So if minimum wage comes out or
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so,
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and there is no public right here, so
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we should have, especially with your fishbowl,
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so
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I get I can go ahead. Oh, excuse me. I just have a couple
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of interesting board. Great thing going on
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by the reason I came back so early, because I’ve been always planning to be here next week for the final budget. Budget book
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was that Lucina block said
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I need somebody who’s not afraid to
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tell the truth to the sustainability advisory board
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because they are
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doing things that are wanting to do things that are
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insensitive to the process that The city has to go through and insensitive to our relationship with prpa, and insensitive to long term objectives like building efficiency that the city has, and they’ve got really varied political people, and then some of the usual. Some.
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Things that are just trying to be inclusive,
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but they don’t understand the problem well enough that you know you can include matter and anti matter and be inclusive. You’ve got to come down on one side or the other,
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and so I’m going to be there, okay? Because
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you know, if we don’t, they’re going to bring some
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resolutions to council that I think are
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quite exactly
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telling PRP that they need to go back to the drawing board on the irpi after they’ve already submitted it to WAPA and stuff like, stuff like that.
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And based on
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unscientific stuff, Harold actually had an interesting idea that maybe the board could be reorganized so that
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they, you know, so there was an energy segment that went that way, and there was a code for, you know, building codes that went with,
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I don’t know, planning and zoning, except that that’s not advisory. So I don’t know how that would work, but rather than put because everything is sustainability, you know? I mean, we should have we should have this. No, we should. Well, I don’t know how you when you want to reorganize something, you start stop and think about how you’re going to reorganize it, right? So I’ll have a suggestion. But the thing is, the thing is that
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everything we do has those three pillars. Now, you know, people, planet profit, or you know, cost versus the environment versus
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affordability for the people, economic affordability for people and
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so maybe that function needs to be redistributed among different operational groups within the city. I don’t know.
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And I have a question for Eugene. We don’t it’s just the counselors. What just the counselors, staff isn’t involved in our discussions. Oh, you mean he can’t talk just among us, so that we outside or inside? Okay? Then I will say, okay, that
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we need clarification.
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Boiled down, maybe even in a rules matrix or stuff, is one of the things is the sustainability board is trying to do is change their rules.
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But, you
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know,
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do, but, you know, so they’re trying to change their rules, and some of the rule changes that they want to make maybe are not allowed because, you know, some boards are statutory, some are chartered, and we have some things that are functioning, like boards that aren’t either of those things. And we need to get that straight away. Okay, so that is, that is the thing.
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The other thing is that
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the airport advisory board is actually being fairly tractable as a board themselves, you know, but they’re, they’re under a lot of pressure in the airport is, you know, Levi’s under a lot of pressure because there are more
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flight students than there have been for a long time. Everybody’s mad about touch and goes and in, you know, I’ve got dialogs going with a bunch of those. The people who are complaining, again, they mostly start out by writing to the whole council, so you least read their letters, and they’re mostly saying, make it go away.
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And then they say we’re not taking no for an answer, make it go away.
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And
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we need to.
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We need to do something first of all, because they don’t know that the public doesn’t know what we are doing and what and that we do have a vision for the airport, and it’s a staking longer than we wanted it to but we
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have done things to promote a more sustainable vision for the airport. See there, the airport Advisory Board has a sustainability function, and they’re handed properly.
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And I know that in November there is the public discussion, but
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I feel like we should be i.
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Should be helping the board and the public be good and ready for that.
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And so that’s the other thing, is engaging with the airport advisor.
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Well, welcome back.
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That’s fun.
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No transportation
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moved that meeting to Monday, so I didn’t go, I think, because Dale is out of the country,
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and I was out of the country for the other meeting, so I didn’t
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attend BBA,
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or since the city was due at the promise, yeah, yeah,
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yeah.
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So I’m sorry I don’t have any updates. That’s good, so just piggybacking a little bit of what she was saying, prpa
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getting a lot of letters that they want third party oversight review of the IRP
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from in route.
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It’s hard. It’s difficult being treading that line about the residents and prpa, because prpa
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did a lot of work on the IRP. I think they did a lot of good work on the IRP, but it is the residents that put us in, you know, that decided we all needed to go to consider renewable so for me, not listening to them totally is inappropriate, because it is their city. It is there. So I am going to, at the next PRP, make a motion that we have in real look at only because
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I want to, I want to see if I get a second, and I also want to hear the discussion,
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because we don’t have making the motion is the only way for it, for the board to discuss it, otherwise we just shut down. And I think that we owe it to the residents if it doesn’t pass, and I don’t think it will,
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did they have been the residents from their elected representatives. Know how the elected representatives feel as a body,
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because now all they’re getting is from staff. You know, the reports from staff as to what the IRP is and what they did, or whatever they want
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and deserve, I think, from their elected officials to make the stand, and I think making a motion,
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having a discussion and voting on it. Number one, I don’t get a second. Number two, if I do, we discuss it,
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it’s never gonna pass.
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And then then it’s dead.
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And that is what I that’s what I’m gonna do, because
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we can’t just keep having the same conversations about the same thing, and then that would tell your board, your advisory board,
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sustainability board, this is where we stand. Your resolutions. Are going to do anything.
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This is it. So
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I like, I am a person that wants to put things to bed. We either are going to do it
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and talk about it forever or not. The other thing is, front page passage and rail district is having a retreat Cafe retreats on Thursday and Friday. It’s going to be very interesting. And I
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I’m excited about the way we’re going, and at some point, hopefully next week or week after you come back with some news that is specific about the way we’re going. We did go on that site selection
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dinner and the one, the one business grows when they gave us their update on their I was very interested, because the gentleman who spoke said that they work with cities on building Tod around railroads. They build railroads. They
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they work with railroads. I really want to meet with him. And Aaron Fosdick said that she would definitely get his name for me, because I forgot who it was,
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so
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that those are the things that I’ve been working on, as well as I’m going to be the liaison after ngla Not having a retreat on Saturday.
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So
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that’s it. I’m having a conversation with Doctor I just emailed Doug Rex.
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That to have a one on one with Him conversation he is the director of Dr Cobb,
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because
40:08
we need a better so here’s my here’s my concern, and I’m going to talk to Dr cog about it is that we are doing BLT on 287
40:19
and then our mayors and commissioners coalition.
40:23
The mayor of Broomfield brought up that BRT is supposed to go from Broomfield to Fort Collins.
40:30
I do not want Boulder County planning on paying
40:37
from Longmont to Fort Collins, because that’s Larimer, and we brought up that we should have them in our meetings, because they’re not in Dr cock, but they have their own NPO, so they should be able to get general state grants through their own NPO and not have us working on that.
40:59
That’s been a frustration Mike for a long time is that we in Bowdoin county are having the discussions about the BRT on the entire 287
41:09
but we aren’t bringing in the people who are under a different financial structure
41:15
to see how they’re going to pay for it. John, I would like to ask a question about the prpa vote. We’re going to let all of this go around. Okay.
41:28
No, okay.
41:31
So,
41:33
so actually, I have a couple of other updates that are apart from just my general boards and commissions, I do need to connect with Sandy to select a date the November 12 for a council as the idea for a council and youth council
41:50
meeting. I was going to think I was thinking about that, but we’re out at National League of Cities. I’m like that date just doesn’t so we talked about so I said that I would connect with you and just kind of find out from Council. Are you all interested in setting some time aside? It could be prior to its council meeting to meet with the youth council.
42:16
Yeah, prior to so we would just come in a little earlier on that day. So I’ll work on, standing on setting the dates for that, if you all are interested, kids talk, so maybe 530
42:29
so that was, that was ladies working on dates
42:34
the let’s see. So in some of the updates with our cab, you know, Charlie Canvas is retiring. Retired, retired. So, yes. So we are, you know, this changing of the guard and leadership coming and stepping forward. So,
42:55
you know, so just introducing folks to RCAP, and
43:00
there’s been some changes among the board, and so we’re re relooking at our subcommittee work on composting zero waste. I believe there is another I’m on the composting one, but we have different subcommittees that work on different tasks and different priorities. So
43:21
what we’re doing is we’re kind of working in our subcommittees. I’m working on the composting one, and then we come back together and look at our priorities and direction. RCAP wants to go with
43:33
advocacy to the county commissioners for policy in
43:37
the future arts and public places. The St Stephen’s church on Main
43:43
did or is being worked on right now for their they need a new roof and
43:51
Arts in Public Places. Had some
43:54
there. I know the suggestion was, Oh, do you want to throw tarps on it? But they actually had to move, go in and move the statues. So I know that did
44:04
that, did impact cost to for removal of these large statues connect with the artist? Yes, there was one artist that had only recently put their artwork up there, and then they had to dismantle it and take it back. So the board decided to go ahead and let them have an extended year of thinking that, rather than going through the process of selection, that they’re just going to extend and honor that that contract,
44:35
so that, I think cost was it 1500 I think about the top of my head, I’m trying to remember. So that was there were some fiscal impacts to that. The other thing is that Arts in Public Places is they had to pitch in $1,000
44:52
to,
44:55
oh, to do protection of the other the rest of the artwork
44:59
as.
45:00
Well as so what so I asked that they had was, as these projects start getting put into place and things go down the pipeline, if they could just be well aware,
45:12
because they would not have had the artists put up that recently installed piece, had they known that they were going to do the construction, so they can kind of let them know further ahead of time.
45:27
And then it also looks like historic preservation, or the Historical Society, and LD ldda was splitting the cost on the St Stephen’s restoration, so I just kind of wanted to throw it out there. I was just, and this is my wondering, is,
45:46
why is, you know, the historical society, they don’t have a lot of means to be able to shell out that kind of money. So that was, that was just my wondering.
45:56
But I just wanted to throw out there publicly.
46:00
The other thing is that with the homeless regional group, we are meeting tomorrow, and so we are looking at, I’m going to make the suggestion that we continue with our meetings. Tomorrow is supposed to be the last meeting, but I feel like, remember, you’re done.
46:17
We’re only now getting a sense of what we want our priorities to we so whether it be advocacy,
46:24
local, state or federal level, so looking at policy support, the creation of affordable housing or provide supportive services. So there’s so much stuff that’s interwoven that I think to to prioritize or work within silos, it can be next to impossible. So I feel like I’m going to ask that we have further, you know, carry our regional group to meet more.
46:54
You know, one of the I did take back feedback that I heard from a couple of council people on what direction we wanted to be going, and we’re trying to itemize what everybody had said. I think there is some concern around the 1b funding and how that’s going to be allocated and
47:15
put into place. So as we look at regional groups, I ask that we have some
47:23
feedback or some training on looking at how we set policy through an equity lens, so making sure that what we do or what superior does is aligning, maybe with practices we’re already doing with the video project, with the suites, With wraparound services. So we want to show that each municipality isn’t doing something that’s going to contradict what the mission of our group has decided to go with. So
47:54
and then, yeah, I think, you know, we’re looking at advocacy and interweaving support and creation of affordable housing as well as the support
48:08
services, and then with the core and weeds team, and this was another one that kind of goes into the unhoused so We had a really
48:17
good meeting. We heard from Yeah, Rob
48:23
Andy Easter sorry, okay, from the core,
48:29
speaking about fundus funding staffing challenges. So staffing challenges doesn’t just mean not being able to hire somebody. It’s the time it takes from hiring someone making sure they’re well trained, and then they’re able to get out on out on the field. So it takes a long time, you know, up to a year it can be so, you know, we want to make sure that we have the right people in these positions.
48:59
And looking at what Michael homestead homesteader is doing with acquiring grants for the sustainability of the core needs. Team
49:11
currently
49:14
just received the grant, and it was a big grant that they just sent it in
49:21
that will allow us for to put in money for FTE. And
49:28
sorry, my notes are all over the place. There was a lot that they were doing so with FTE, making sure we have those clinicians out there and case manager, and it was through the Behavioral Health Administration, so it’s providing $4 for the budget. So yeah, I think that was it.
49:48
They’re going to be presenting at the state or at the federal level. So that was really exciting.
49:53
I think what we’re doing with our core needs team is really
49:58
paving the way for how we.
50:00
Look at public safety and policing in the future and how it ties so, so closely with
50:07
work that our nonprofits are doing, like for shelter and mental health mental health partners.
50:18
Well, you know that kind of leads in your mind that I’ll ask you. Okay,
50:25
so it’s been a few months since we’ve done one of these housing and Human Services met in July. They did not meet in August, and they met in September, as well as in
50:37
July was when they made the initial request to city council consider the down payment assistance program, which obviously Council get direction on. So after that, they’ve really been gearing up, because they’re now in the thick of their funding request hearings. And I believe after screening,
50:57
53 organizations were granted hearings, and so they had gone through a couple weeks. So far. They’ve got about three or four months on that
51:08
planning and zoning was off last month. The last thing they heard in August was the Westview concept plan amendment, which we’ve already, we’ve already voted on, and then
51:19
tomorrow night, they will be considering the remand of the McDonald’s decision that we sent back to them.
51:34
Okay, so consortium of cities,
51:39
so that it’s not too distant in our thinking process about homelessness,
51:45
and Christine Pacheco gave me a house PowerPoint to present to them, and so that we talked about the minimum wage and
51:54
Boulder County updates as far as the Callahan House, I filled in during the summer to do that, and they had a t just about a week or so ago, and then they had they’re also still doing they’re getting their video for the
52:13
hopefully they can get into the Colorado Experience
52:17
on PBS. They’re doing some voiceovers right now. As far as as the golf course, they haven’t met in two months.
52:27
I guess
52:28
no news is good news. So they’re supposed to be this one.
52:33
And so you probably have heard about something,
52:39
and you all got the updates in regards to the second quarter with along with public media and so that. And then just last night, we had
52:49
the parks and open space, and
52:52
we talked about, this is the thing that is going to come up and
52:56
email
52:58
Jim golden about it,
53:01
and they’re going to go to a new system. Or when they charge people at the door, if you use cash or or check, you’ll
53:14
to, let’s say, get into the pool or into the ice game, right? It’ll be whatever the price is, but if you use the credit card, it’ll be 3% and so it’ll be, let’s say, $7 whatever 3% is on that. And that’s something that I emailed Jim Goldman about to see if somebody have,
53:36
if they don’t have, let’s say, a
53:39
pass.
53:40
Would they have a ACH or some sort of thing like that. I I also include David ball on this so that he could, he’s the one that’s kind of the point person on this to explain what’s going on. But there’s a concern from the board that maybe that
54:00
would raise a few folks’ blood pressure in regards to that point of sale, we were losing literally $120,000
54:09
a year in covering that, that,
54:14
that charge at the bank. So it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a it’s, you know, it’s, it’s an employee or a couple of employees, and so, so we have to think about that. So we they’re looking at going in that direction for a kind of sale, when you use a credit card or debit card will
54:34
be added to it. So that’s it. That’s going to be a big deal. Then, of course, timber talked about Park health and, of course, I’m gonna get an email today.
54:44
You know, we have some some degrees of how things wear out and playgrounds and stuff like that. And then Mark, since March has been out. I attend the last two airport advice board meeting and meet.
55:00
And they had their
55:02
air show on September 16.
55:10
But that seemed to be quite the success. Of course, you know, the
55:18
modern West, one or two issues are still
55:25
and
55:28
so those are the biggies. So
55:33
yes,
55:35
prpa,
55:39
during the IRP, there was a lot of public pressure for prpa to do an all dispatchable IRP, or, I’m sorry, RFP, and the prpa didn’t want to do it, and we’re saying error derivative turbine, turbine, but then they did yield to public pressure and do issue an all dispatchable RFP. But then, when the RFP came in, RP came around, their rooted turbine, what did the board consider in between? Or were you presented with a decision? Or was the procurement
56:19
completely internal. Do you even know? Do you know how many
56:24
alternative bids they received, and were they all for gas turbines, or were they something else?
56:33
You know, I don’t.
56:37
The reason hesitating is that the time between I was on the board and Brian was still on the board. I don’t know if those RFPs came in.
56:50
I don’t know how many they got so
56:55
but I think they came in before I was on board.
56:59
All dispatchable RFP controversy was after you were already made
57:04
second term. In fact, I think,
57:08
well, we can go back and look what you know. It wasn’t Brian,
57:16
do you want me to go see Yes, please. That was the ask. I
57:23
Okay, is there anything
57:29
else
57:31
about two minutes,
57:33
659,
57:41
we are disbanded, people.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai