City Council - workshop

Well, hi, everybody. It's really great to be back after council recess and welcome to folks that are here for presentations and welcome back to the council and staff. We will go ahead and kick off this meeting with a roll call and then we'll move into interim budget changes. Clerk? Corliss? Here.

Halliburton?

Here.

Morales?

Here.

Nash?

Here.

Ted? Here. Willits? Five present, one absent. Thank you. Alicia? Welcome.

Hi, good afternoon, mayor, council members. I have just a handful of interim budget changes for your consideration this afternoon. The first one is from city council. This request is $170,000 for sound dampening improvements at the Bowne Crossing and Colon Eustick libraries. Both libraries were designed as large open spaces and noise has created ongoing challenges. for programming, customer service, for patrons and staff. So Public Works has evaluated both locations through the library facilities plan and developed the proposed improvements. This is a budget neutral ask that'll take general fund dollars from council strategic planning funds and transfer them to the Public Works major repairs and maintenance budget. And then any remaining funds after that will be used to support deferred maintenance. The second request is from the fire department and this is to approve $375,000 from the fire heritage fund. And that is donations from the national park service. And they'll use the funds for pre-design work for phase two of the fire training center. This will include updating the master plan, advanced programming, site planning, conceptual design, and preliminary cost estimates for the next phase of that facility. And then the third interim budget request is $395,000 of regional park impact fees to close the construction funding gap for Alta Harris Park. So bids came in higher than anticipated due to construction cost escalation. And this additional funding will allow the construction to continue for the phase two of the project. Phase two includes the primary amenities of greenbelt connection, sports fields, shade structures, and parking improvements and landscaping. Number four and five of the interim budget changes I'll do together, and this is $3 million together, $500,000 in fiscal year 26, and then $2.5 million in fiscal year 27. from development impact fees, excuse me, development fee revenue with PDS. And this will give additional capacity to help PDS keep pace with anticipated workload because it will be allowing them to outsource the plan review to an external consultant. So with Micron's multi-year expansion, there is just an incredible amount of work coming at them. And so this outsource plan review will allow the work to continue, allow the project to continue, and the funds will come from the development fee revenue. And under the proposed agreement, PDS retains 45% of the plan review fee revenue and then they'll administer and oversee the work and then the vendor will receive 55% of the fee revenue to perform the work. And it's expected that it'll take nine to 18 months for this outsource plan review with the additional capacity. And then the last item for your review this afternoon is related to affordable housing impact fees. It's $448,000 of existing. It'll take existing housing investment funds to support the Hillcrest Apartments affordable housing project on the Boise bench. City ordinance allows qualifying affordable housing projects to receive an impact fee exemption, but that impact fee must be reimbursed. And so this is just taking affordable housing funds to reimburse the impact fee fund. And that concludes the August interim budget changes. I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.

Madam Mayor. Bishop, thank you very much for bringing forward These interim budget changes. I had a question on number five for the planning and development services. I know you'd mentioned it may take nine to 18 months. Is there work that's going to be performed during that time?

Madam Mayor, Councilmember Corliss, yes, there is work that will be performed during that time, both by city staff as well as by the consultant. I think this is in response to the opening of the second FAB, is my understanding. and just due to the the volume and the complexity of the plan review activity that is that's expected it's increasing significantly um and so this is allowing additional workload to um to be shared across both the city and with the consultant madam mayor quick follow up alicia thank you very much so so we're not just waiting a year and a half for a plan

This is, we're contracting out for people. They will actually be doing the work reviewing applications that are coming through from Micron. Is that correct?

Madam Mayor, Council Member Corliss, yes, it's associated with the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and other supporting permits and reviews.

Right. Okay. Thank you. The plan with this, I think this is really exciting to see so much now moving forward, especially as they move into the second FAB. The reason that we would do this is because those development fees that we receive from their permit applications can only be used in the development space. And so by hiring someone, a third party, someone to review this work, it means that nobody else has to wait for this work to be reviewed to get in. So a developer of one home, an ADU, a subdivision can move along while we're using development fees that come from Micron's permits to address the needs that are coming there.

Yeah, and they are just making sure they're actually reviewing the work in this time, so it's not being pushed off the work itself. Great. Yep. Thank you. Councilmember.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, I could probably just save these for the comments after our motion's made, but just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work, Alicia, and then for the staff navigating, trying to figure out how we can keep a lot of these projects going forward. The Alta Harris Park one is one that I'm really, really excited to see. It's a bummer that they cost continue to go up over time, but I think it's kind of an example of the construction for any of these projects is not going to get cheaper in the future and so getting them done as fast as we can. allows us to get in there and to save some costs and then also just wanted to provide a little bit of context to. Item number one with the council contingency funds in the library. I think it's always exciting when council can find ways to use our limited, but like sometimes very impactful council contingency funds, especially I think for one-off projects that are solving a problem. And I think that I knew that there was, you know, some issues over at the USIC library with how loud it got. But then I visited the bound crossing library when school was getting out and really couldn't believe how difficult it was. um to actually communicate in the library for the librarians for the people using it as well and so i think this is just a really great opportunity for us to use some of these one-time funds to solve a really specific problem and to make sure that the libraries that we've got are more usable for the folks that are going in there and enjoying our libraries every single day but also for the staff you know who are working really hard to make sure that that's a good experience for everyone so again i appreciate all the work from everybody that went into these

Madam Mayor, I'll just add also to the library piece here. I think that's a great example of us continuing to invest in the facilities that we have to be sure that they're fitting the needs that are changing needs over time. So I'm really proud to be part of that and and look forward to some expanded uses for those libraries with that investment. And then Alta Harris Park is really exciting. I hear from my constituents about that at least weekly, I think, on what's the timeline, when are things happening, when will we see work out there? And there has actually been work going on, I would say the last year or so, with some road improvements in the parking lot, And things like that. But this is kind of the first big chunk that is more, you know, more usable community focused. It's gonna be I think we break ground next week for that. Maybe in a couple of weeks, next week. But really exciting. And I know that there's still a third phase that's coming after this with additional funding that is already lined up. But I'm really excited to dive into the second phase that will green up the space out there. Thanks for all your work on this. And I appreciate all the staff behind the scenes that are making this happen. I know the constituents will be thrilled.

All right, I really am looking forward to that groundbreaking because we've talked about this park and planned for this park and waited for the funds to line up for a long time. And the second phase will provide so many of the amenities that residents are looking forward to there. And I want to thank Council for your use of Council contingency funds to address some of the library's needs. This is something that's been on the list. I know that Jessica and our team are really excited about it. And this makes possible moving up a project. So thanks for that. Clerk, will you call the roll?

Madam Mayor, I don't think there's been a motion. Oh, gosh.

Oh, that's right. We were all making comments.

This is what happens after recess. We start being all loosey-goosey. Okay, I'll take a motion.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the interim budget changes.

Second the motion. We have a motion and a second. Are there further comments? All right. Clerk?

Clerk?

Horlice. Yes. Halliburton. Yes. Morales.

Yes.

Nash.

Yes.

Fez. Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

Thank you. And next up, Lauren Hamilton is here. And I want to point out Jay's story. You're still chair of the board, right? From the Downtown Boise Association. And Andrea Cantor is up. They have an update. And I'm kind of about all the work that's been done the last six months, but also talking about the future of Boise. what we need to be dealing with in terms of ensuring that we can provide the right level of service and meet the needs of our downtown core. And so this is a long time coming. Appreciate the work that's been put into it and look forward to the discussion today. Your mic is a little, is not on. How about now?

Yep.

Okay, great. Madam Mayor, members of council, good afternoon. For the record, Andrea Cantor, Economic Development Director here at the city. I'm joined here today by Lauren Hamilton, as Mayor had mentioned, the Executive Director of the Downtown Boise Association, and Jay Story, who leads their board. Our presentation today kind of centers on the work that the DBA has been doing with city support towards an ordinance update that would change how DBA administers its member assessment. With that, this is kind of the first step and a few other steps that we'll talk about at the end of the presentation. But before we begin, I just want to really thank Council for the direction and support on this project. And extend a special thank you to Council President Stead for kind of really helping us along the way with some different check-ins, knowing there's different pieces to this project. While DBA is an independent entity with its own board and authority, state statute allows cities to establish business improvement districts, which is kind of what the DBA oversees throughout with city code. So that's kind of the framework that's enabling this partnership and kind of why we've been doing it together. With that, I'll just let Lauren kind of introduce the DBA, its work, and kind of the project ahead of you. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. Oh, no.

Oh, no. All right. All right. Thank you, Andrea. Hello, council members. As Andrea said, I'm Lauren Hamilton. I'm the executive director of the Downtown Boise Association. I've been in this role since February of 2025. You'll hear a little bit more about that later. And I'm just so thrilled to lead this organization. I was born in downtown Boise. I went to high school two blocks away from here. And it just thrills me that I get to help lead this organization to ensure that downtown is successful moving forward.

Mike, how do I...

Oh no, you guys, it's amateur hour. No, there we go. Okay, the DBA was founded in 1987, established by or authorized by the city of Boise to manage the downtown Boise improvement or business improvement district. Really came from a 1985 study of city leaders commission to kind of imagine what downtown Boise can be. As a note, we provide some advocacy for downtown members, property owners, business owners, We also provide downtown maintenance support, events and activations that bring folks into downtown Boise, and then promotion and marketing of downtown businesses and activities. Oh, I'm going to keep doing that. There we go. This is our six-member team. If you have seen folks around town, this is the team that is making the DBA happen. A special attention to Abby Berg, who sits on the Special Events Team Committee for the city. And then this is a list of our board of directors. You'll note that we do have some fantastic city-connected advisory board members, including Chelsea Harada from the mayor's office, as well as Council Member Stead. So this is the Downtown Boise Business Improvement District, again, authorized by city and state code in 1987. The boundaries have not changed since 1987. So that's an interesting fact. Downtown looks a lot different today than it did in 1987. The yellow outline that you're seeing, that is the true boundaries of the Business Improvement District. Every property within there changes. is a member of the DBA and also is a paying property owner in that business improvement district assessment that we'll talk about. The red line indicates DBA's associate member boundary. These are kind of periphery businesses, organizations that can voluntarily become associate members, take advantage of our benefits relating to events and marketing from the DBA if they're in that associate member boundary. And then as a note, I have emails going back 15 years in a file talking about bid expansion. So it's definitely something that the DBA board has flagged as an organizational goal. Although I think this ordinance update is important to make that happen. So just some information about the DBA. The Business Improvement District encompasses about 60 blocks. There are approximately 700 businesses in those. 300 of those businesses are at the ground level. In 2026, we had 591 individual parcels. That parcel number is constantly changing based on businesses selling, combining, annexing things. But for right now, 591 individual parcels And then of those 591, we build 191 property owners in 2026. And then some of the things that we do that you are used to seeing, Downtown Maintenance Team, which is a partnership between the City of Boise and the Downtown Boise Association, provides street sweeping, garbage collection, and maintenance of our downtown core area. banners and flower pots that add color and activation to different parts of our streetways, and then annual events such as Live After Five, First Thursday, our holiday tree lighting, Father's Day car show, and Small Business Saturday activations. Here's a visual representation of some of those programs and things that you're used to seeing. And then how did we get here? Why am I standing in front of you right now? So as I mentioned, I started in my role in February of 2025. The week before I started, I attended a board meeting. And at that board meeting, our friend Jay Story over here brought up that a couple of his properties as a property owner, he had just received his assessment bill and they were being billed at... pretty different rates and they were two buildings that were adjacent to each other with one building in between. So in the same core location and built around the same time and should have been a little more consistent. And so that led to some involvement from Emily Allen Special Projects to City Council and you all to help us with a City of Boise audit with your auditor And we completed, I had weekly meetings with Brian, the city auditor, from April until about September, kind of going through with a fine-tooth comb all of our assessment billing data and what we had billed in the past and how that system currently runs. And then you all received on September 22nd an audit memo from Brian kind of explaining some of his findings, and I'll get to those a little bit later in the presentation. At that point, we knew that we were going to have to inform some stakeholders that their bills may look a little bit different. They may have been billed for the first time in 30 years, even though their building is 30 years old. We found some of those things in that audit. And so from October to December, we engaged in some stakeholder engagement. private meetings just saying, hey, this is what happened. This is where we're at now. And we're not looking backwards. We're not going to charge you if we've never sent you an assessment bill before. But moving forward, this is where we're going. And then in January, those new assessment bills were sent out to constituents. This is the current rate structure for the DBA assessment. And I apologize for the tiny, tiny print, but I'll just kind of outline it for you. It talks about, first question is, is the property a parking lot or a parking garage? If it is, we know what you're going to pay. If it's not, we have several other questions. When was the property built? where is the property zone located in downtown? So the closer you are to 8th Street, the more expensive your property is as far as assessments go. And then if it's a new build after 2013, doesn't matter the location, those rates are set based on square footage and usage. And then you'll see that on the core, we are assessing ground floor retail, other ground floor, other retail, other commercial, vacant ground floor, theaters and hotels, all at different rates. And it's cumbersome and it's complicated. And when a property owner contacts me, they're interested in buying a building or they want they're going to annex their property. What does that mean for their assessment rate? Takes us a little while to walk through what that would look like for them. So the conclusion of the city audit is that downtown has experienced significant growth since 2012, which was the last time that the ordinance was updated. Our current ordinance structure includes a complicated matrix of fee schedules, as you all saw in that last slide. The process is very difficult to administer, and the complexity of the fee structure no longer really reflects the economic realities or the development patterns of downtown today, that core or that zone structure where the more valuable property is at 8th Street just really doesn't exist anymore. 5th Street and 13th Street are just as valuable as the things that are happening on 8th. So what we're proposing is a values-based bid assessment based on property value. This is uniform formulas. It's gonna adjust with market conditions as downtown Boise continues to do well. So will these assessment fee structures. And if there is a downturn, we can readjust our budget knowing that it's coming and knowing that we're gonna focus on maybe supporting small businesses in different ways and keeping folks afloat there. So this is gonna streamline the administration of our assessment fees and our assessment billing. It's also more transparent and more equitable. The minute that a property owner gets their assessment fee or their assessment from the Ada County Assessor's Office, they're gonna be able to pull that into a calculation and know exactly how much they're gonna pay before we even bill them. And then it allows us to work in tandem with the Ada County Assessor so that if there are any questions about what a property is valued at, those questions go to the Assessor instead of building owners sending me plan permits, me calculating square footage and all of that. Just a little ordinance history. The ordinance in 1987 in the resolution establishes the bid. Again, those rates are based on geographic location and building usage. And then at that point, we were billing individual businesses. In 2003, we updated to increase the assessment fees and add a base rate assessment of $100 and $225 to properties. In 2008, the collection authority moved to the DBA and then that ordinance also gave us the ability to collect on past due assessments. And then in 2012, we moved from a billing business owners to property owners. That was a huge win for us because we no longer had to crack down 700 business owners and explain to them why paying their DBA assessments was important. So the proposed 2027 ordinance update, again, a values-based assessment, eliminating those outdated zone territories. We're asking at a rate of 0.06% of the fair market property value as determined by the Ada County Assessor. We're going to maintain a homeowner's exemption for less than five units. That is what the commercial real estate industry considers commercial housing versus private housing. And then if you are exempt from property tax, things like utility companies, nonprofit organizations, we're asking that those properties be billed at five cents per square foot, increasing at three percent each year. And then, as always, our government entities, the United States, the county and the city of Boise will remain exempt from those assessment fees. Here's some comparative rates from other cities.

This is you're seeing it based on a mileage. I'm just going to do a quick time check. Beautiful. You've got till 430.

Excellent.

Millage rates.

Again, we can send these to you. And then this is probably what you're most interested in. The invoice is increasing for about half of properties. It's decreasing for about half of properties. And 52% of those properties are seeing less than $500 change in that rate. So while it may be going up, it's pretty small. And then we're seeing a median rate increase of 4.6%. So that's what we're seeing. And I'll just skip forward. Again, Andrea talked about this coordination with you all, hopefully a public hearing, and then an adoption with an effective rate of 2027. And then I will stand for questions now if anybody has any.

I have a quick question. Lauren, thank you so much for the presentation. I know that a lot of work. went into getting us here. Can you just real, because I know that there was kind of a different approach that rolled out in January of 2026 versus what you're proposing will roll out in 27. Is that include the five, like the rounding up 5% increase on the 27 rollout?

Um, madam mayor, uh, council member said, I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'm going to try and get there. So this is a completely different, um, right structure. So anything, the changes that we saw in 2026 were, uh, due to an audit. So we were finding new properties that had never been charged before. Um, and then they were, um, that increased last year was, um, per the ordinance, the CPI increase of 2.7%. And so this with the, if we run this calculation at a like 0.05%, which is about what we're charging now, we're going to see pretty much no change in the income of the assessments. Whereas if we run it at a 0.06, we're seeing a little bit of valuable increase for us.

Okay, Madam Mayor, I just wanted to add, I am fully supportive of this. I think that tying it to the assessment office makes a lot of sense. It kind of takes a little bit of the pressure off of your office and having to justify how things are calculated. I'm all for a kind of like transparent, easy-ish to follow calculation that's based on real market value and factors that makes sense that it would flex also with market conditions. So appreciate all the work on this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just a question. I think the nonprofit one probably makes sense because they're not getting the property tax assessment. So it's hard to figure out exactly what it is. And so we're doing it per square footage and then 3% increases every year. Does it cap out at some point? Is there a point where it's going to end up getting above where it would be if it actually was assessed? So I think that that's kind of my only kind of question is that nonprofit area and the increasing amount each year.

Madam Mayor, Council Member Halliburton, that is a great question. We don't, as the draft ordinance that I have written and provided to the city doesn't have a cap out at any point. What we are seeing in the current ordinance, there's a CPI increase each year. No more than 3%. And so that is provided in the ordinance as it's written now, based on cost of living, but we would be amenable to maybe doing a CPI instead of an automatic 3%.

Yeah, and you know the details more than I do. I think that that's the only thing that kind of flagged out for me a little bit is there a certain situation where if somebody's been around long enough that it ends up getting to a point where it's beyond their fair share. My guess is right now it's probably pretty equitable and maybe even a little bit under. But over time, does it potentially add up? I don't know what the answer is, but maybe just something to look into. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Just a quick question, Lauren. Thanks so much for this. For those of us who don't live and breathe downtown, this is really helpful information to understand all the organization does and the work that they're continuing to do. I just had one quick question, and that's if there was an organization, a nonprofit or a business that just doesn't feel maybe the assessment they have isn't quite accurate. Is there a way for them to appeal or to bring to the attention of the board to take a look at that?

Madam Mayor, Madam or Chairman Corliss, there right now, the appeal process is send me an email, send me a call. We got a lot of those questions with the rollout of the 2026 audit updates and we are looking at those. It really is helpful. The ordinance as it's proposed or the proposed update is helpful because if there is a question on on equality or if we're calculating that fairly, it is really handy to send them over to the county assessor and say, this is how it was calculated. As far as nonprofit organizations or those property tax exemption organizations, I think as long as we have a consistent rate that we're applying to every organization, I think that that helps with that.

Thank you.

Well, I appreciate the presentation and the work that's gone in to get you to this point. I feel really good about the opportunity to have the public hearing look at the ordinance and the rates. And given the way that I've said this to you, but I just want to say it to everybody, given the way that you rolled out some of those corrections that needed to be handled, in such a personable and professional way. My expectation slash hope is really that this is delivered in the same way I expect that it will be, as I saw a great partnership between you and your board and the businesses downtown. And so it's good that we've done that once. And now when we really look at what needs to be done, change so that we can move forward in a more modern way, reflecting the needs of today, I'm optimistic and just really appreciate all that you, your board, and your businesses do to keep our downtown so vibrant and thriving. It's a really special place. Thank you so much. Good to see you.

Good to see you.

All right. Emily Allen and Jen Halliburton, you're up too. Oh, and the chief of police. We got all of you today. Thank you. This is an update on e-mobility. And just a reminder for the public and folks with us today, we passed the ordinance related to e-motos before council recess. Today, we have more information on steps we're taking to address overarching e-mobility needs so that folks can get around in all different ways, as well as safety expectations moving forward. And with that, I'll kick it back over to these three folks that have been working diligently on this during the recess.

Hi, everybody. Emily Allen, City Council Policy Advisor for the record. Happy to be back. Happy to have you guys back, basically. Here to talk about e-mobility. So wanted to give you an update on the work that we've done since we last talked to you about this in late June. Throughout spring and summer, we heard from residents all over Boise, as you well know, about their concerns related to the use of fast e-motos in particular. But we know that the concerns extended beyond the newly defined e-motos and related to e-bikes broadly, as well as electric scooters and other electric devices. In response, you all passed an emergency ordinance to define an e-moto and clarify that they are prohibited from being used on the Boise Greenbelt or sidewalks and certain foothill trails. Knowing that Community Members had a lot of expertise to tap into you directed us to create the mobility task force. and open to Community at large positions that the public could apply for as we continue to examine what other measures we could take as a city on mobility. Between July 16 and August 2 106 people applied for those at large positions, and it was a very strong group of applicants. In addition to preparing to launch the task force, our community engagement team has been busy developing a public education campaign to encourage safe behavior on the Greenbelt. You'll hear from Jen Halliburton from their team next, and then we'll wrap up from an update from the Boise Police Chief Denison about what enforcement looks like on this issue and findings from their speed study that they conducted on the Greenbelt this past month. So why a task force now? To sort of recap, the 2018 ordinance was an effort to recognize e-bikes as kind of coming onto the scene. And now they are everywhere and the market is expanding with new electric devices like e-motos. This task force is intended to support the city's effort to modernize how we approach e-mobility. Electric transportation devices are here to stay and provide a lot of benefit to our community members, but they are still fairly new and increasingly popular, which means we need to adapt and find solutions that work for our city. Task Force members are going to hear from healthcare experts who will provide data about the usage of these devices, by whom, and what kind of accidents or risks they may be taking by using these. But we'll also hear from Parks and Rec officials about how they are being used in our shared spaces. We're going to make sure that the Task Force hears specifically from law enforcement about some of the challenges around enforcement because we're hearing a call for that. And we're also going to have the task force directly engage with our community engagement team so that we can talk about best practices, about where we're needing more messaging and for whom regarding the best use of these devices and how to do so safely. If the task force wants to hear from other experts, we can bring those folks in. We want to give them a chance to ask for what they need as well. The primary goals of the task force are number one, to bring together community stakeholders. impacted by the rise in e-mobility to help inform the city's approach to policymaking, enforcement, and educational efforts. And the second goal is to identify needs to improve safety of our shared spaces and establish guidelines for how we can coexist. The timeline for the task force began in June when we were directed to establish the e-mobility task force. And then in July, we opened those at-large applications. And they were open for about two weeks. And we had a steady stream of applications the whole time. In August, just next week, we will have our first meeting. And then we will hold monthly meetings from September through December, finalizing with recommendations for city council that will be presented to you in February 2027 through a report produced by staff. And I am thrilled to share that these are our task force members. Each person has accepted enthusiastically and each person is really well suited for this group, we think. It's extremely important to the city that we have a breadth of perspective and we feel like this group captures the e-mobility conversation across these different perspectives and values. I want to please note that the at-large positions are unnamed here as we're in the final stages of notifying everybody and want to make sure that we get across all the entire list before we share specifically who has been named. So if you want to take a look at that briefly, we will also release this on some of our socials and make sure that this is public. It's very exciting. Thank you. And I am happy to stand for any questions that you may have before I pass it on to Jen to talk about our public education campaign and then the chief.

Madam Mayor, Emily, thank you so much. I'm so excited to see this work continue in the task force. We hear so much from the public. Just a quick question. Can you help us define what e-mobility is and isn't? For example, does this include electric wheelchairs?

Yes. So the scope of the task force will include looking at all these different types of devices. We're very intentional about ensuring we're all grounded in the fact that this task force needs to address the different types of devices and what any policy or public education needs to include in order to effectively address that, because we know it's kind of expanding all the time.

So this includes our electric devices for scooters, bicycles, we're saying wheelchairs, but it will not include, does it still include emotos within here?

Mayor and Council Member Corliss, yes, absolutely. I think we need to have a comprehensive guideline, but also we're going to let the task force inform that work and tell us what we need to make these sort of guidelines clear for the community.

Excellent. Thank you.

Yeah.

Madam Mayor, perhaps it's too early to ask this because we don't know what's going to come from the task force. But do we expect an update to our existing e-bike ordinance that was created in 2018? Or is that something that's on the table for them to be looking at?

Mayor and Councilmember Halliburton, I certainly think that all possibilities are on the table for us to look at. We want to really hear from these experts that we've asked to serve about what they think is missing in the city's response or what we're doing well. So if that is an amendment or if it's an update, then that is certainly on the table to examine closely.

Hey, Jen, thanks for your work on this. And I just want to say thank you to everybody that agreed to serve on the task force. Really appreciate the time and attention they're going to put into this.

Hello, Marion Council. I'm Jen Halliburton from Community Engagement, Marketing, and Digital Comm Senior Manager. Thanks for the opportunity to present our community engagement campaign on safe e-mobility in Boise. E-mobility is changing how Boise moves. I think this is going to be a through line as we go. It gives residents more ways to get around town and recreate in a climate-friendly way, but it's also created concerns about speed, unsafe riding, and confusion about where different devices are allowed. The goal of this campaign is to educate the community to help prevent conflicts before they happen. Working across departments, we saw an opportunity to build on a message that Boise potentially already recognizes. Don't be a speed demon is actually a vintage green belt symbol that originated from a parks department in the late 70s, early 80s. The amazing graphics team in CE refreshed the look and adapted it slightly for e-mobility. You see the little battery in there. After seeing the success of the Keep Boise Cool campaign graphics, we wanted to mimic that concept and create fun, colorful, memorable graphics that would appeal to young riders and give a familiar message new life. As a mom to a soon-to-be teenager, I know firsthand that teens can be a tough audience to reach. Don't be a speed demon is a little edgy, and that's intentional. We wanted something young riders would connect with and something they'd be excited to put on their bike or on their helmet. The message behind the design is ultimately positive. Have fun, ride smart, and look out for the people around you. That being said, we'll pay close attention to feedback from riders and parents and schools, our community partners. And so if any part of the campaign isn't landing as we intend it to, we can always adjust along the way. The campaign has several objectives. Encourage slower and safer riding and promote helmet use and safety. Improve understanding of e-bike classifications and e-motos and where those devices can and cannot operate. Reduce conflicts by reinforcing that safety is a shared responsibility. And these objectives will guide us as we approach our messaging and our materials. We'll create specific messaging for each audience. For youth, we're focused on helmet use and making smart choices. Parents need information they can reinforce at home. Everyday riders need clear expectations about speed and courtesy. We'll continue to push share the past messaging for Greenbelt users, and the broader community needs clear, accessible information about the general rules when it comes to e-mobility. The marketing plan is designed to build recognition through repetition and consistency. Success simply isn't producing the materials. It's residents seeing the campaign in multiple places, recognizing it, and carrying that safety message with them when they ride. We'll place information where riders already make decisions. Think yard signs on the greenbelt access points or congested areas and stickers and posters and more at bike shops or schools. Stickers and yard signs are visible reminders while parent brochures, youth flyers, and our city website can provide a more detailed information for people that want to dive in. The communications plan focuses on clear, accurate, and accessible information. Residents should be able to find a consistent source of truth about device classifications and where you're allowed to ride, and how to safely share Boise streets and our Boise River Greenbelt. Across departments, we'll coordinate the campaign through our newsletters, social media, media coverage, the website, and then also through our partner channels. With the goal of building a culture of safety, our engagement plan brings safety education directly to the community through city events and partnerships with local organizations. These opportunities allow us to reach riders where they already gather, reinforce responsible riding, and emphasize that safety on our streets and the green belt is a shared responsibility. We'll focus on places and organizations where engagement can be most effective. Think pop-up events along the Greenbelt or outreach on a busy Saturday at Camelsback Park. We'll also partner with organizations that already have trusted relationships with riders. Community Rides and the Traffic Garden at Ann Morrison Park both offer additional opportunities to turn education into practice. The goal is to provide useful information in settings where riders can immediately apply what they've learned. And again, we've taken from the Keep Boise Cool campaign. When it comes to behavior change, in-person engagement is typically is the greatest impact. Permanent and temporary signs serve very different purposes. Permanent signs provide consistent year-round reminders that high use or high conflict locations and temporary signs can be placed strategically during peak writing seasons and moved as conditions change. Using both allow us to maintain a core presence while responding to seasonal patterns. For the temporary signs, the one on the left would be more like a yard sign. I'm envisioning small groups, maybe five to seven, placed in a row in congested areas to create a noticeable cue for writers to slow down. Big shout out to the Crovert Parks for helping me put this slide together. They identified that are currently 79 of the yellow flow congested signs and 12 of the share the path signs on the green belt. At council's direction, the congested area signs were added just this last year and the locations were selected based off rider volume, high use path intersections, access points, et cetera. As you can see on the three mats, it's tiny, but you can see there's a lot of yellow, and that's 79 signs is a lot of signs. Given the amount of signage that's already out there advising writers to slow down, I don't recommend additional permanent signs unless we have a new message that we need to communicate. Signage fatigue is a real thing. Too many signs means writers aren't seeing them at all. And this is actually a great place to be. It means we've already done the work of getting the signs up, and we can look to other options to get writers' attention on the green belt. Like I said at the start, e-mobility is changing how Boise moves. And adapting to that change means all of us to adjust how we use and share our public spaces. We're asking e-mobility users to slow down, ride safely, and be aware of their surroundings. And we're asking pedal-powered riders and pedestrians to welcome e-mobility and share the path. We can measure campaign reach, but ultimately we need to look at community outcomes. Website traffic, material distribution, and social media analytics tell us whether people saw the campaign, but community feedback, fewer reported conflicts, and an overall safer writing culture will help us understand whether writing behavior is actually changing. The don't be a speed demon sign has lived on the Greenbelt for decades, a simple reminder that the Boise River Greenbelt is a shared space where courtesy and safety matters. As bikes and other e-mobility devices become more and more common, we're building on that recognizable message with a modern community education campaign that gives today's riders clear information and expectations, building a safer riding culture.

And I will stand for questions. yes i love the speed demon stuff by the way it's fun i feel like i've seen those old stickers or bumper stickers on something in boise somewhere because i even think about it sometimes when doing it so it's great really love it i was just going to say it normally would stand for the separation of church and state but if we are going to take a position anti-demon seems appropriate so thank you great we'll pass it on

Afternoon, Mayor and Council. This first slide that we have up from BPD, I'm going to be clear, this isn't a complete picture of what we've done in the area of traffic enforcement for e-bikes or e-motos. We are having a very difficult time right now parsing out that data only because the systems in which it lives, we don't own, whether it's our ticket writing system or our computer-aided dispatch system, either it's the state or the county. So we are working through that. We're having to actually hand go through quite a bit of data just to get some of this out. We know these numbers are really low compared to what we believe is actually occurring out there. I can tell you in the month of July, we had over 101 incidents specifically where officers had contact involving either e-bikes or e-motos. And a lot of those actually fell into community members contacting us, asking specific questions about the ordinance and where they fit. So there's a lot of education that's being done from our patrol officers. I do want to highlight, though, that in July, we did have six collisions involving an e-bike or e-moto, including the fatal collision on July 2nd. Only two of those six incidents was the actual operator of an e-bike or e-moto cited for the violation. The others involved the other vehicle. So I think it's important to be clear that just because you're operating an e-bike or an e-moto doesn't mean you're violating the law. In fact, these are very useful means of transportation. We just want to have the enforcement to ensure it's safe driving. I did want to throw this in. It's just a metric that in addition to the traffic stops that we're enforcing that we do on the e-moto and e-bikes, that our traffic numbers are up significantly again this year compared to 25. Year-to-date, we're already at over 29,000 traffic stops. That will include bike traffic, e-moto, and stuff like that compared to where we were at 2025 at this time at about 22,000. And we are seeing a downward trend in overall collisions, including bike, pedestrians, and motorcycle crashes. I wish I could say the same for overall crashes. June was a rough month for us as we entered the first 100 deadliest days, but we're hoping to see those numbers flatline out. We did conduct our speed study. We did in two locations. So Julia Davis Park was the first location we did from July 23rd to July 29th. And then we did a follow-up on the north side of the Pioneer Bridge from July 30th to August 5th. As you can see, in that time frame, we had about over 5,600 reads that occurred on either bikes, scooters, whether it's an e-bike or a bicycle, whatever, a scooter. And we calculated an average speed of about 13.97 miles per hour. That was accounted for about 75% of all riders were under 15 miles an hour on the, 75% were under 15 miles an hour on the, On the Greenbelt, if you look at the 85th percentile, that speed only moves up to about 17 to 18 miles per hour. So very few were going over 15 miles per hour. And then we had the highest number recorded was in Julia Davis at 34 miles per hour on the Greenbelt.

What percentage was that?

That would work. probably just a handful, not even a percentage. I mean, it'd be like point of a percentage. There's a very small numbers that high. So we estimated roughly about 10 to 15% were exceeding 20 to 25 miles per hour in the green belt. So very small number. We're getting that high even.

Okay. Thanks.

So. Um, as we, uh, are looking ahead, uh, there's a couple of things that we're considering. We have the greenbelt considerations. Our bike teams are doing proactive enforcement. getting the emotos off of the green belt, surviving those contacts. And then with schools coming back in, our SROs, our bike teams are going to be doing events and working on the safe biking, working with the schools on getting that messaging out with the kids. And then we'll continue our enforcement of illegal emotos. And I think one of the other things we'll probably have to delve into is is I've been hearing complaints from more than just one person, but complaints about community members following kids around on bikes, videotape them, putting them online, just because they're on an e-bike or an e-moto. And that doesn't, again, necessarily violate the law that they're using these devices. So I think we just want to be clear that we don't want people chasing kids around on these things and scaring them. If there is a legitimate concern, then contact us and we can dispatch officers out there to assess. So, and with that, I'll stand for questions.

Madam Mayor, I'm really grateful for this data that you're working on and the enforcement that you're doing. We, I mean, I would, e-motos, e-bike safety is, I think we could probably all say is the number one issue that we hear about right now. As we know, I think in most sectors, technology usually outpaces policy. And I'm so glad that we're able to put resources towards taking this as seriously as we need to right now. I had previously been pretty hesitant about considering something like a speed limit. on the green belt um because i want to i want it to be a place for folks to um use for commuting and for practical purposes and you know every bike on the green belt is in theory one less car on the road um and i want to continue to promote that um however 34 miles an hour on the green belt I think we could probably all agree is not the place for that speed.

It's 14 miles over the speed limit in the North End.

In the neighborhoods, yeah. That's so concerning to me. So to be able to really evaluate the data and look at ways that we could accommodate 85% of riders or even more than that, and really look to prevent those those dangerous speeds when you know you have first-time bike riders on the green belt and everyone in between on the ability level. So I'm really grateful for this information, grateful for the mayor and for council in pushing this forward and continuing to see how we can make our pathways a safer place for all of our community members. Thank you.

Madam Mayor. Um, chief, thanks for the presentation. I know the data is really tough to get, and it's not just tough to get here in Boise. It's across Idaho and really across the country. Um, as council president said, mentioned like the technology has moved a lot faster, even than just the reporting mechanism. So in the past, you know, if there was a crash, it might be recorded as a bike, but it may not necessarily be recorded as an e-bike or something else along those lines. I'm curious, even if it's just anecdotally, um, some of the either the tickets or the warnings that have been given since we enacted our Emoto ordinance. I know it's really challenging sometimes to figure out what is or is not just by looking at it, a bicycle that has over 750 watts or can go over 30 miles per hour. Do you know if most of the tickets were issued because of other improper road behavior, or were the tickets issued because somebody saw someone using a bike that they identified, like, this is an e-moto, this isn't allowed here?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, Councilmember Halliburton, yeah, when we look at the traffic, the traffic citations that have been issued, it is for another violation that drove the officers to the stop. So it wasn't looking at something and saying, okay, that looks like it's going to be an e-moto. We do have a couple violations on there from the data we're able to pull, but the vast majority are other violations of law that led the officers to the stop.

That's kind of what I figured. Again, like the enforcement, even the cities who pass things like this far ahead of us, I think have really, really struggled with that component. And it really has been the unsafe riding behavior, other laws that were being violated. And again, I would say that I've seen some of those videos that people have posted of folks driving around. teens, you know, heading down the road on a variety of different bikes. I always find it interesting because they're probably using their phone and recording, which is also against the law, which is ironic. But I think that that's sort of one of the challenges here. And one of the things that I hope that we can figure out, and I think that the SROs may be able to do a valuable job at that at the school when they're parked there, it's probably a little bit easier to see what's what. But really making sure that We know that enforcement is happening, but really it's a lot of that bad behavior that's being seen out on the road that makes it easy to enforce until there's other technologies that are out there for folks to do it. I guess just the other comment that I would have is when we see some of the reports, it's really challenging because we just had our traffic fatality review task force and we can see fatalities, we can see serious injuries, and they don't always match up with the hospital records that we see. And this has been something that's been ongoing with bikes and peds for a very long period of time. If there's a crash, oftentimes those aren't reported in the same way that they would be if there was a car because then the insurance gets involved. And so one, I think it's good that we encourage people that when there is a crash, that it does get reported, whether you're on a bike or an e-bike or something else, because a lot of times we only see those in hospital data and the hospital data is so far the numbers exceeding what we're actually seeing reported with the police. And so I think that that's gonna be a big challenge, but also probably the big opportunity is how do we work at the state level? How do we work at the federal level to make sure that there's better reporting mechanisms so that we can actually tell how big of a problem that we're seeing in these areas, because it's a little bit tough.

Madam Mayor, Great. Chief, thank you very much for the report. And yeah, I just want to thank you and put a shout out also to Jen Halliburton and Emily Allen. I appreciate your work. This is something, as Council Member Stead had mentioned, that we're hearing a lot of from the public. And I feel like we're being very responsive and transparent on not just what we did for emergency ordinance, but what we're going to continue to do going forward. And that's through the likes of you guys. And really, really appreciate that work. Kind of just jumping on what we talked about with the data and it's being very difficult and can definitely understand that. I guess, is there a plan to take a look at new mechanisms or new software for at least for the police that we could use to help track this information?

Madam Mayor, Council President Corliss, yes, we are looking, one, can we enter a code within our CAT or computer-aided dispatch through the county that will capture it? We're doing that now. It's just a little sloppy. The other thing we're going to look at is working with the state on the traffic citation form to see if we can have a drop-down boxes for e-bike, e-moto, and even e-scooter, because we're not capturing that appropriately either. So sometimes they're classified as a bicycle. Sometimes there's just nothing there. They're handwritten tickets. So it's kind of all over the place. We're We're going to be working with our partners, see if we can streamline this specifically for Treasure Valley and potentially the state through ISP.

Great. One last question, Chief. Do you know, I guess with the team also and the new task forces coming up, are we also going to be gauging other municipalities, especially along the Greenbelt, I'm thinking county, Garden City, also to just at least share out what we're doing here in the city?

Mayor, Council Pro Tem Carlos, yes. In partnership with the Mayor's Government Affairs Team, we're working at a bunch of different levels to address how we can have uniformity around licensing and registration, enforcement, definitions, all of that. And it's a pretty active effort with that team across different jurisdictions.

Wonderful. Thank you.

And a mayor question might be for Chief, might be for Emily, but have there been any conversations yet about e-bike testing? So like a testing station where I've seen these devices in Europe that, you know, you throw the bike on the rollers and you gear it up and show you how fast the device is just to be able to help people classify them, you know, day at the park, testing station, something like that.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, Council Member Morales, no, that hasn't been discussed with BPD, but that's something we could potentially discuss as part of the task force.

Mayor, Council Member Morales, I've never heard of this. This is a really good thing to bring forward to the task force and look into and sort of direct some research around to see if that's something that we need to be aware of in the city. So thank you for that idea.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll just say I got that feedback from a constituent. I think like a lot of us, we get emails all the time. I just checked my email and have two from the past week about e-bikes and e-motos. And so, yeah, Constituent had actually provided that. Just interesting tools and tech to be able to help people recognize what they have, because I think a lot of people probably aren't aware of these things, right? And then once they test their bike, they realize the capabilities or not. So thank you.

All right. Well, there's many more conversations ahead. because of the work the task force will do, appreciate the three of you working on this. And then Emily and Bree, who will be working with the task force on this item. Did you have something you wanted to say before, Zach?

Yeah, I've moved parts. Okay.

Madam Mayor, if I could just one more comment for the end.

I had a comment.

Okay. I thought you were going straight in.

But I was getting cut off by the council president.

Yeah. All right. You can wrap us up. Just a couple of other things that I hope we can keep in mind. One is that it really is sort of the wild west when it comes to a lot of these different types of e-mobility. And it's not just the wild west out here in the west. It's the wild west all over the place. Europe, North America, everybody is trying to figure out how do we keep up with all this different technology. I think we see it even more in Boise because we have more and more people who are using the green belt. And so sometimes it's not just... the e-bikes or the e-motos or the whatever it may be. It's more people in general. For the Greenbelt, I think one of the things that would be helpful with the speed study is really understanding over 20 miles per hour because our current ordinance really reads the class one and class two e-bikes are allowed on there and they top out at that 20 mile an hour speed. The class three ones that can go up to 28 miles an hour currently are allowed on there. And most folks, including myself, who ride bikes quite a bit, aren't going over 20 miles per hour, despite our best efforts, unless there's a slight downhill. So I think it would be good to know with our speed studies when we're seeing sort of that percentages of the over 20 miles per hour, because I think that that would kind of show us how many people are using devices that are maybe not currently allowed on there right now. And the very last thing that I just want to say is I am very disheartened by some of the attacks, I think, on our kids and our teenagers who are using a variety of different devices. There are kids out there that are trying to connect to our community that want to go out there and have fun. And to place a lot of blame on them, I feel, is quite irresponsible. I think there is a huge responsibility for the parents. And so I hope that with our education campaigns that we can put a lot of focus on those types of things and have the eMobility Task Force look at that as well. The other... I think that we need to figure out how we can address. It really reminds me of, of smoking in teens. You know, there was a long period of time where marketing was directly related from tobacco companies to get teens, get youth, you know, using tobacco at a really young age. There's a huge responsibility here for the manufacturers and the retailers who are marketing these to youth as a lifestyle thing. showing all the different types of inappropriate behavior that's against the law um that's out there and so i hope that as we go through this process we can also kind of address it at the at the root of these folks who in my mind are really taking advantage of some of these teens and placing them as the culprits when really they're the victims of some marketing and some really uh directed efforts to encourage them to use things in ways that aren't appropriate. So I appreciate all the work that goes into this, that is going into this, appreciate all the folks who signed up to be part of that task force. And I hope that for all the folks who didn't get on there, that they continue to engage. Cause I think throughout this process, there'll be lots of opportunities for that engagement and to stay involved and to keep sending those messages to council, but also as their surveys, as there's other sort of community input, opportunities that sit, they stay really, really engaged in that way because there were so many incredible folks that signed up for that community or committee. So thank you again for all that work.

We're short on time. So what Jimmy said, and I'll take a motion for Zach.

I move, oh, I move pursuant of Idaho Code section 74-206-1J to enter into executive session to communicate with legal counsel on labor negotiations.

Second the motion.

Clerk. Corliss.

Yes. Halliburton. Yes. Morales. Yes. Nash.

Yes.

Stead. Yes. All in favor, motion carries. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you at 6.

Yes.