City Council - Special Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Thursday, July 30th, 2026 special meeting of the Boulder City Council. I'm going to go ahead and call us to order and ask Alicia for a roll call, please.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We'll start tonight's roll call, as usual, with Councilmember Adams.

Present.

Benjamin.

Present.

Mayor Brockett.

Present.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Present.

Marquis. Here. Schuhart.

Here.

Speer. Present. And Mayor Pro Tem Weiner.

Present.

Mayor we have our quorum.

Fantastic. All right now I'd like to request a motion to amend the agenda to add item 4A direction on the wildfire resilience on open space ballot measure.

So moved. Second.

Got a motion second. All in favor please raise your hand. All right that passes unanimously 8 0. That's right. We count to eight now. So the agenda has been amended. So let's go ahead and move to the consent agenda, please.

Yes, sir. Our consent agenda is item number two on tonight's agenda, and it consists of items 2A and 2B.

Very good. Any questions or comments on the consent agenda? Or perhaps a motion?

Make a motion that we pass the consent agenda. I'll second that.

We've got a motion and a second. If we can have a roll call, please, Alicia.

Yes, sir. We'll start the roll call for the consent agenda items 2A and 2B with Councilmember Adams.

Yes.

Benjamin.

Yes.

Mayor Brockett.

Yes.

Councilmember Cafflin.

Yes.

Marquis.

Yes.

Shuhart.

Yes.

Speer. Yes.

Yes.

Wallach, I'm sorry, my apologies, moment, brain freeze. Mayor Pro Tem Wynne.

Yes.

The consent agenda items 2A and 2B are hereby approved unanimously.

Thanks very much. Can we go to our public hearing now, please?

I thought I deleted it all. Thank you, sir. Our public hearing is item 3A on tonight's agenda, and it is the second reading and consideration of a motion to amend and pass ordinance 8754, amending chapter 12-6, minimum wage of the Boulder Revised Code 1981, setting a local city of Boulder tip offset amount for food and beverage industry workers and setting forth related details.

Nury, would you like to take this?

Thanks so much, Mayor. One of the things I love about city government is the ability to have staff do a variety of things, even outside their area. And today you're going to find somebody who's usually speaking about water in our utilities department, Megan Wilson-Alcott, who has an interest and a huge skill set in all things legislative. And so she will be joining us for a presentation. But tonight we're going to talk about A MOTION TO AMEND THE CURRENT MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE TO SEE IF COUNCIL IS INTERESTED IN A TIP OFFSET. SO WITH THAT, I'LL PASS IT ON TO OUR ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER, MARK WOLF.

Good evening, Council. Mark Wolf, Assistant City Manager. I'll be very brief. Just really appreciate the project team, including Megan, bringing forward this project on a condensed Council priority timeline. So you will see, based on our last discussion with Council this evening, the results of the additional analysis that we were able to complete over the last few months. and the results of some engagement we were able to accomplish during that time. And then we will go through the different options before you this evening. So we'll get right to it.

Okay, thank you, Mark. Good evening, mayor and members of council. My name is Megan Wilson-Altcult. I'm a senior manager with the utilities department. And we are here for the second reading and public hearing of proposed ordinance 8754.

And Megan, if you can get a little more into the mic, please.

Sure, thank you.

Thanks.

So tonight I'll go through the proposed ordinance and the previous council direction in our project timeline. I'll provide some background and updated context and data as well as the results of our community feedback process. And then I'll go through the options before you tonight before the public hearing and proposed motion. So for this ordinance, staff have drafted drafted it with a blank tip offset amount for 2027, recognizing that there are several options on the table. In 2028 and beyond, the proposed ordinance has the tip offset increasing by the rate of inflation similar to minimum wage. If council chooses to amend and pass the motion tonight, council will also be requested to determine a local tip offset amount for 2027 and fill in that blank. If passed tonight, a final proposed ordinance would then be brought back for consideration at a third reading, likely on August 20th. Council identified exploring the city's authority to modify the TIP offset as one of their priorities at the January 2026 retreat. Staff brought four conceptual options for Council's feedback on April 2nd, and at that meeting, Council provided direction to continue to explore options for the TIP offset that would not result in a reduction in base wages for tipped employees below the 2026 hourly rate. And I'll get into more detail about the options before you later in the presentation. After the April meeting, we quickly pivoted to our community engagement process based on the desire for a local tip offset if passed to go into effect in 2027. First reading was in June, and here we are tonight on July 30th for the second reading. Again, if this motion is amended and passed tonight, we will come back for a third reading in August. And if adopted, a tip offset would go into effect in January 2027. So I'll now provide just a quick refresher on how the tip offset works and provide our updated data on the restaurant industry in Boulder. The tip offset is an amount that restaurant employers can deduct from tipped employees' paycheck as long as the employee's base wage plus tips equal at least minimum wage. So this figure shows the 2026 tip offset of $3.02 and the base wage for tipped employees at $13.80 and the current Boulder minimum wage. Last year, the Colorado General Assembly passed a law that allows some governments to increase the tip offset if their minimum wage is higher than the state's minimum wage. By law, the base wage for tipped employees must be equal to or greater than the Colorado base wage, which is shown in gold on this slide. So by law, currently the city of Boulder has the authority to increase the tip offset to $4.68. There are several rules that apply to the tip offset in terms of who is eligible, how tips may be pooled, what counts as tipped work, and so forth. For the purposes of the discussion tonight, I'll just highlight two key rules. One is that all employees, including those who earn tips, must earn at least minimum wage. If tips plus base wage don't equal minimum wage, the employer is required to make up the difference in the employee's paycheck. And the second rule I'll highlight is that in Boulder, the tip offset only applies to food and beverage service establishments, and I'll just use the term restaurants throughout this presentation for brevity. There are three jurisdictions in Colorado, in addition to the city of Boulder that are eligible to adopt a local tip offset. Boulder County is not currently exploring a change to the tip offset. In the city and county of Denver, there is at least one council member who is interested in increasing tip offset, but there are not currently plans, formal plans to do so, as far as we know. And the city of Edgewater passed a one-year ordinance, effective January 26, that froze the base wage at the 2025 rate, thereby increasing the tip offset. That ordinance will expire at the end of this year and the tip offset will revert to $3.02 if another ordinance isn't passed. So I'll now go through some trends in the restaurant industry in Boulder. This graph shows City of Boulder sales tax revenue from 2019 to 2025. The top black line represents overall sales tax revenue and it tracks to the right hand Y axis. Um, and the bottom three lines represent, um, the industries that generate the highest amount of sales tax revenue in Boulder, just by way of comparison, the blue bolded line on the bottom represents the restaurant industry. And you can see there was a significant dip in sales tax revenue in COVID during the COVID pandemic followed by a few years of recovery. And then over the past two years, relatively flat sales tax revenue. We also looked at job trends in Boulder. This graph shows all jobs on the top line and restaurant jobs in the blue line. Similar to the previous line, there was a dip in jobs during COVID, followed by that period of recovery, and over the past couple of years, a decline in jobs in Boulder. And then finally, we looked at visits to restaurants using Placer AI, which is a platform that approximates visitation based on cell phone data. I wouldn't look at this as precise numbers, but again, looking at the overall trends, look similar to the previous two slides for restaurants. So taken together, these data suggest that growth in the restaurant industry is slowing or even declining, and there are likely many factors contributing to slowing growth, including inflation and consumer behavior, as well as the cost of doing business, including wage pressures, rent and utility costs, insurance, and regulatory requirements. We also updated our data for restaurant wages in Boulder County. This slide shows the range of wages among different restaurant occupations in the county. The left two sets of bars represent bartenders and waitstaff who are often tipped employees. And you can see that there is a wide range of wages. from employees earning close to minimum wage at the left-hand blue bars to $40 or more per hour at the high end of the wage range. According to this data set, median wages for bartenders and wait staff were between $20 and $24 per hour in 2025. This data set comes from the Colorado Labor, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. It's gathered by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, and it is not available at the city level. So with those updates, I will turn to our community engagement process and results. Our engagement process really centered on an online questionnaire available on Be Heard Boulder, and we modeled that questionnaire after the minimum wage questionnaire from a couple of years ago. We tried to get the word out about the availability to take this questionnaire through a variety of channels, including our normal city channels, social media, press release, it was in various news outlets, as well as working with community partners such as the Boulder Area Labor Council, the Boulder Chamber, CU Boulder, and other partners to use their means of getting the word out. And then the team and I also visited more than 100 restaurants in Boulder We handed out flyers with the QR code to the questionnaire and were able to talk to a number of restaurant employees and owners. We had about 280 responses to the questionnaire. About 100 of those were from people who work in the restaurant industry, about evenly split between restaurant owners and workers. The questionnaire included open-ended questions asking about the positive and negative impacts of increasing the tip offset. About 90% of respondents took the time to provide written feedback. And there were several themes that emerged from those responses. In general, across the board, what stood out was really a shared concern for both business owners and workers recognizing the difficult economy that we're living in. And there was also appreciation for a thriving restaurant industry in Boulder. Um, the image here is the flyer that we handed out in terms of the positive impacts that people expressed. Um, some of those themes were, uh, an increase to the tip offs that would support the restaurant sector. with many restaurant owners sharing that the tip offset is a critical part of their operations. Positives also included combating inflation, maintaining staffing levels, and supporting back-of-house staff. Negative impressions included concerns about affordability and cost of living, particularly for lower wage earners, concerns about equity, less wage predictability if you're relying more on tips for your income, and concerns over how the savings from the tip-off set will be used by restaurants. We also asked the question, how much change to the tip-off set do you support? This bar graph has responses from the general community in blue, self-identified restaurant employees in yellow, and self-identified restaurant owners in red. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of restaurant employees favored no change or minimal change to the tip offset, while restaurant owners favored a more substantial change. Community members who responded to the questionnaire overwhelmingly supported no change to the tip offset. All of the raw data from the surveys, which we conducted in English and Spanish, are included in your packet. So turning now to the options before you tonight. Just as in April, we made a few assumptions in order to kind of demonstrate the impacts of a change to the tip offset. We assumed an inflation rate of 3%, that a tipped employee works 40 hours per week, recognizing that many tipped employees work part-time. That's just the assumption we used for this analysis. And we also assumed a restaurant that employs 10 full-time tipped employees. For each option, you'll see a bar graph that looks like this, that has the impact of that option over time. The top red line is the minimum wage. The green line is the base wage for tipped employees. The dotted black line is the maximum tip offset allowed by state law, just as a point of comparison. And the gold line is the tip offset. So for each option, the green and the yellow lines will change. And then I'll also show the impacts from 2026 to 2027 for both restaurants and the tip offset and employees. The first option is to retain the $3.02 tip offset. That's the status quo. So in this slide, you can see the tip offset is the same over time. The base wage for tipped employees is simply the minimum wage minus $3.02. In 2027, this would result in no additional savings for restaurants. I'll note that with the current tip offset, a restaurant that employs 10 tipped workers would see about $62,800 in savings for a year. For tipped employees, this would result in an almost 10% increase in their base wage, or $1.35, which equates to about $2,800 for the year for a full-time employee. The second option is a moderate tip offset, and for this we have the base wage increasing at the same rate as minimum wage. And so you can see the goal tip offset line increasing slowly over time, and the base wage for tipped employees also increasing. In 2027, with this option, the tip offset would increase by 25 cents, which equates to about $5,100 in additional savings for our model restaurant. The base wage for tipped employees would increase by 8%, which is the same as the minimum wage increase for 2027. That's about $1.10 an hour or $2,300 for a full-time employee for the year. The next option is a slightly higher tip offset increase, and we set the tip offset equaling 20% of the minimum wage. And so both the base wage for tipped employees and the tip offset do increase over time. The base wage increases at a slightly slower rate, and the tip offset increases a little bit more than the previous option. In 2027, this would equate to a 61 cent increase in the tip offset or about $12,800 in additional savings for a restaurant with 10 tipped workers. The base wage for tipped employees would increase by 5% or 74 cents per hour, which would equate to about $1,500 more in their base wages for the year. Before I move to the next slide, I'll note that staff brought a third option for consideration at the April meeting, which would have set the tip offset to the maximum amount by state law, thereby decreasing the base wage below the 2026 hourly rate. Council decided to take that option off the table. Option four was brought forward by Council Member Benjamin at the April meeting, and this option would freeze the base wage at 1380 for up to two years. thereby increasing the tip offset. This ordinance would sunset at the end of 2028 and the tip offset would revert to $3.02 if another ordinance was not passed before then. So looking at our bar graph, you can see the base wage for tipped employees remains the same through 2028. and the tip offset increases more than the other options. The dotted lines represent what would happen if this ordinance sunsets and the tip offset again would revert to 302 and the base wage would increase substantially in 2029. So looking at our bar graph, this option would have the tip offset increasing by $1.35, which represents about $28,000 in savings and additional savings for a restaurant with 10 tipped employees, while the base wage would remain the same. This table summarizes the options. I won't go through line by line, but you can see as you go through the options that the increase in base wages goes down while the increase in restaurant savings goes up with each option. This is another way of looking at it. The blue line represents the options before council tonight. The gray line reflects the maximum amount of the tip offset allowed by state law, which is not currently under consideration. And so the proposed motion before you is to amend and pass Ordinance 8754, setting a local city of Boulder tip offset amount for the food and beverage industry. And I am happy to take any questions before we move to the public hearing. Thank you so much.

I can think so much for that. It's very helpful and well put together. So I'll ask council members if they have any questions I'll say maybe one question each for a first round and if there are any follow up questions we can do a second round. Does anybody have any questions. Tina.

A really quick question in the sales tech chart was that inflation adjusted. No. OK. Matt.

Thanks, Aaron. My question has to do with slide 24 regarding the status quo. I'm not sure I understand how the restaurants would be perceived as having a $62,800 in total savings. I don't understand that.

Thanks for the question. That just reflects what they currently save by virtue of the $3.02 tip offset.

That's kind of misleading because they're not really saving money because they're going to have a higher cost. They're going to be losing that money with the status quo in 2027. That's added cost. They're not saving any money. And so I think that that's misleading to community. And certainly, I don't think any restaurant would show their bottom line having any kind of savings when they go into next year and they face a higher base wage for all their staff. So I think that that is just concerning the messaging that that shows is that somehow restaurants have all this money, which they don't have. There's no savings if you are participating in the tip-off set.

Thank you so much for that comment.

I just don't understand how we get to that. That's all.

It just simply reflects the amount that they don't have to pay their TIP staff in base wages.

Okay. Matt, does that answer your question?

Not really, but we'll move on.

Okay. Does anybody else have any questions? All right, looks like we don't have any other questions, so we will go to the public hearing. Alicia, if you can read the guidelines for the public participation, please.

Yes, sir, thank you. Thank you all for your participation at tonight's council meeting. We ask that you abide by the rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code, which includes participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by. Individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. No attendees shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any council meeting in a manner that obstructs the business of the meeting. This also includes failing to obey any lawful order of the presiding officer to leave the meeting room or refrain from addressing the council. Our remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business, No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. And lastly, obscenity, other epithets based on race, gender, or religion, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the meeting will not be tolerated. Again, thank you for joining us and thank you for listening.

All right, thanks so much for that, Elisha. All right, we've got 28 people signed up to speak, which means everybody has two minutes to speak, and I will be strict about that time limit in the interest of fairness. I'll call three names at a time. As your name is approaching, please come on down towards the podium. And our first three speakers are Matt Kelly, Peter Salas, and Aiden Reed.

Thank you. My name is Matt Kelly, and I am a resident of the city of Boulder and a volunteer organizer for the Boulder County Democratic Socialists of America. I'm grateful to be here with you tonight in person. Thank you for choosing to have this hearing here in Penfield Tate. Zoom has made important improvements in our lives, but in a healthy democracy, constituents and the representatives need to be able to meet face to face to gather in person. So thank you for making the decision to be here. I am here along with those wearing red behind me to encourage you to leave the tipped credit offset untouched and allow tip wages to rise as scheduled next year. As an extraordinarily expensive part of the country and state, cutting worker wages is the last thing Boulder City Council should be considering. I want to place tonight's meeting in the context of the history of the city's decisions on minimum wage. The city voted for minimum wage increases at the end of 2024 And the first of these increases only went into effect at the beginning of January 2025. But by the end of 2025, the city was already going back on its decision and re-debating minimum wage this year in 2026. It is far too soon to judge whether the offsets themselves or the increases themselves are affecting the minimum wage or affecting restaurants here in Boulder. Instead, in order to help struggling restaurants, next year the city should look into any number of other routes instead of cutting pay to those in Boulder who make the least. I encourage you, in particular, to look at the challenges sky-high rents present small business owners. It's been frustrating that the debate around the tipped offset has been framed as an issue as a conflict between workers and restaurant owners, when the people making the biggest profits are landlords and developers. Why is City Council protecting the rich at the cost of both small business owners and workers? I encourage you to vote tonight to preserved the current tipped offset and support Boulder's workers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Folks folks sorry. No noise in the chambers. If you agree with something that's been said you can do jazz hands. Thanks so much. We want to make sure everybody feels welcome in their testimony today. Right now we get Peter Salas and then Aiden Reid and Alejandro Beatty.

My name is Peter Salas and I'm here representing the Boulder Area Labor Council and I am not going to go over all the data. You've seen the data. I'm going to tell you about the work that I do in community and the work that I do in community involves people who have the least voice and the least power when it comes to decision-making, who are often not at the table, not because they don't want to be, but because, for many of them, it is a fearful place to be. And when issues like this come up, they don't often show up. This whole issue of paying for restaurants and restaurant expenses on the backs of working people who can least afford it is offensive. And it's offensive to the communities that I work in. And the messaging that you send them around this is just hurtful. That you're even talking about it is hurtful. We should be talking about how we can increase these wages and provide a better standard of living for the people who do the hardest work in our community. And that's across the board. So I just, like I said, I just, I don't get it. And I've seen their struggles. I've had a 50-plus-year career working in community and organizing and working with low-income constituents. And it appears that it hasn't changed much, that there's always this struggle and asking, you know, businesses get into business. They take the risk. That's, you know, that's what they do. If they can't I'm sorry but if they can't make it they can't make it. But you cannot ask working people to cover the expense when all these other things as was illustrated have not been taken into consideration in my mind and people are making money and it's not the workers. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we have Aiden Reid and then Alejandro Beatty and Evan Ravitz.

Good evening council. My name is Aiden Reid. And I'm here this evening to urge you to keep the current tip minimum wage schedule in place, not increase the tip wage offset. Boulder is undergoing a rapid class stratification, wherein the wealthiest people can afford to live and recreate here comfortably, and the middle and working classes are increasingly squeezed. Raising the tip wage offset will not ease the woes of the restaurant industry, but it will punish workers who already have a vanishingly thin margin of financial room to work with. Rather than cut workers' wages, councils should think creatively about ways to ease the burden restaurants face, particularly the exorbitant rents they must pay. A commercial vacancy fee, for example, might be a compelling place to start. You have a well-resourced staff at your disposal. Put them to use. Taking money out of workers' pockets will accelerate Boulder's widening class divide and reduce community economic well-being, not improve it. You can ultimately control the city's drift. What do you want your legacy to be? Would you like to be the council that presided over widening, or pardon me, that presided over cutting workers' wages during an economic downturn under a fascist president, or the council that put workers first and found a way to support small businesses and their workers? Tonight's vote ultimately is about what kind of city we want to be. You were elected to serve all Boulderites, not just the wealthy few. I hope you will do your duty and declined to increase the tipped wage offset. Thank you.

Thank you.

Now we have Alejandra Beatty, Evan Ravitz, and Lynn Siegel.

Hello, Boulder City Council. Alejandra Beatty, president for Boulder Area Labor Council, representing thousands of family in this area. and happy to introduce some new family members as Unite Here Local 23 moves to a vote and getting their union. We're growing and we're getting bigger and we're going to get ready to fight. So I'm here to tell us like I want to take us back to why we're even here and we're not actually here to talk about should we modify TIP credit. We're here to talk about the commitments that we made together as a community two and a half years ago and we said, let's increase minimum wage, let's only do 8%, this is what's gonna work for the business community, it's gonna work for the workers and let's get moving. That was what you committed to and that is what you should stay accountable to and hold to. It's called option one for everybody else who's really confused about all these gazillion options getting thrown at us. Let's keep the wage schedule as is that we committed to and let's get back to the conversation about how we're actually gonna help these small restaurants. Because better wages help everybody. More wages means they get to spend more in their community. Means maybe some of these folks might actually start being able to move back into Boulder. Good wages help an economy. You had the economic study that told you that. So we should have been helping some of these small restaurants with programs and other initiatives to help them over the hump to get past that. I didn't see anything. A vacancy tax proposed for commercial rent shot down. Boulder Chamber says, no, no, don't do that. Maybe because who funds the Boulder Chamber? I got to wonder. So I think I'm putting it out there to all those restaurant, small restaurant owners. Let's build a good wage stander regardless of what the city council votes at. Because if we can build good wage standards together, we can make this community better.

Thank you. All right, now we have Evan Ravitz, Lynn Siegel, and Mac Cohen online.

Good evening. Let's leave bad enough alone. When I was younger, a minimum wage worker could afford an apartment in Boulder, a car, food, health insurance, and some fun. Now most have to choose between renting out of town to afford a car or living in town without a car with which to get to the mountains. Now most have to get food at the food bank and have little spare time to enjoy. Instead of leaning even harder on them, please address the fundamental issue. The rent's too damn high. That's both the rent that restaurants have to pay and the rent that service workers have to pay to live here. Thanks to our governor, rent control or stabilization is illegal in Colorado. The sycophantic media say this is because he's a libertarian, but it's because he's a big-time landlord. He's what you call a self-servative. Council should look into whether you could impose a special tax on landlords who've raised the rent faster than a certain threshold or charge more than above a certain threshold. The tax money could be given directly to minimum wage workers and or rebated to perhaps the most affordable restaurants. Or maybe you could charge more for or refuse rental licenses to those who've raised the rent too high or too fast. Our legal department should be working on these and other possibilities. Don't kick people when they're down.

Thanks. Now we'll go to Lynn Siegel then Matt Cohen online then Rebecca Mitchell in person.

Lynn Siegel. There should be no tips at all. I'm in, I'm across the wrong sea, you know, like I should be in Europe where they don't have tips. You know, my dental assistant today pays $200 a week to drive here from the airport, not the Boulder airport, the airport in Denver. Like people have said, and they're going to say, you pay people. They spend money. The people that make the less spend the most, don't they? We all know this. It's all obvious. It's like it must be so horrific having to listen to someone telling you what you already know. But it needs to be manifest in Boulder by staying with option one and ultimately raising wages for waitresses and the restaurant industry people with inflation. Raise it. And follow Zoran Mondami. He's very successful in all of the stuff that he's doing in New York. And free Palestine.

You can cut me off now, Erin.

Please stay on the topic of the ordinance. Thank you. All right, going on to... Okay, no, that's... Okay, your time is up. Your time is up. I'm taking your time. Okay, quiet in the audience, please. All right. Okay now we're gonna go to Matt Cohen online then Rebecca Mitchell and Samuel Cena in person.

Mayor I do not see Mack online tonight.

Okay is Mack in the room. Doesn't look like it so we're gonna go to Rebecca Mitchell.

Hi my name is Dr. Rebecca Mitchell I'm an assistant professor at the Leeds School of Business. In my day job as a social scientist I evaluate whether the evidence supports the causal conclusions being drawn. The June 2026 report does not do so. Instead, it reads as a post hoc justification for a policy direction that appears to already have been chosen. First, the city cherry picks evidence from the 2026 Colorado Business Economic Outlook to support their own narrative for transparency. Leeds publishes that, but I don't have a role in preparing it. The city highlights slowing growth and attributes this to rising labor and food costs while ignoring the outlook's discussion of rent, utilities, insurance, credit card fees, tariffs, declining sales, regulatory burdens, and changing consumer behavior. So why is the city only looking at labor costs and not other avenues for helping restaurants? The outlook never shows that labor costs are the decisive cause of slowing growth in restaurants. Second, the city's own survey shows little support outside of restaurant owners. 83% of restaurant workers and 77% of the community supported no or only slight change. Owners were the only group favoring change. Yet the report does not establish that this is a representative sample or that owners already using the offset haven't disproportionately driven these results. And third, the online calculator and the survey procedures themselves reflect a bias towards adopting the policy. A tipped worker's wage loss was visually framed as a green wage gain when, in fact, the tipped workers will be making less money next year than they would if the city adjusts the tipped offset tonight. Staff also changed some of the survey responses after the fact without reporting a transparent coding procedure. So I am here to talk about the data, but put simply, the city's report does not justify the policy it is being used to advance. And in my mind, more egregiously, it presents a selectively assembled causal story as evidence-based policymaking. So before taking away wage growth from Boulder's lowest paid workers, The council should at least demand direct evidence and examine alternatives to release.

Your time is up but thank you for your testimony. OK now we'll go to Samuel Cena and then Aaron Zimmerlin and Jackie Richardson. Quiet in the audience please.

Hi I'm Sam Sena I'm a student at CU Boulder and to be honest I'm disappointed that I even have to be here tonight to talk about this issue. In what world does it make sense for us to be cutting the wages of tipped workers while costs are skyrocketing all across this country? In May, inflation reached 4.2%. Reckless fiscal policy from the federal government has caused disastrous consequences for anyone who is not an oligarch, and in a time of skyrocketing costs, we should be raising wages for tipped workers, not cutting them. There is no good moral or economic reason to make this change to the tipped wage offset. To those who claim it will help boost employment, Card and Kruger have a very famous 1994 paper that found raising minimum wage does not lead to more unemployment. So changing wages does not influence unemployment is what Card and Kruger found. And that's a very famous paper. But it's not a economic issue fundamentally. It's a moral one. Is it moral to take money out of the pockets of workers and hand it back to owners? Is it moral to slash the take-home pay for workers in what are already dire economic times to create even more hardship? Should it really be our goal to create more economic inequality? Does anyone think that should be our goal? Ultimately, this measure is a litmus test for who this city council feels responsible to. And my question is this. Why would this city council feel responsible to anyone other than us, the people and workers of Boulder? The issue at stake is not just the future of labor in Boulder. The issue at stake is what kind of city Boulder is going to be. And I, for one, want it to be a city of and for the people and of and for labor. That is why I think this city council should protect workers' pay by preserving the current tipped wage offset. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, quiet. All right, we'll go to Aaron Zimmerlin, then Jackie Richardson, then Mira Blair online.

Thank you. I'm Aaron Zimmerlin. I'm a local activist and part of Boulder DSA. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela wrote, a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones. Tipped wage workers are not, traditionally, considered the lowest amongst us, but anyone who's worked a service job likely has a story about being treated as such anyway. The work that these folks do is often thankless, grueling, unenviable, and is treated with contempt by society. These jobs do not deserve a living wage is a familiar refrain among those with the privilege of not needing to work them. Fortunately, the city of Boulder has been better than most in making sure these workers are compensated fairly, but this is a naked attempt to reverse that progress. I understand the position of the proponents of this measure is this is not a wage cut, as it is money the workers don't have yet. But in this world of increasing costs of living, costs of gas, cost of food, the effective result is the same. The dollars they earn will not stretch as far in the future as they do now. I sympathize with the restaurant owners, I really do. Restaurants are often a low margin business. There's volatility in supply and demand, as with the current vegetable crisis. And the aforementioned rising costs mean dwindling clientele, as we've seen in your helpful information this evening. But there are other ways to help the restaurant owners without impacting those that have the lowest guaranteed wage. A rent freeze on commercial property throughout the end of Sundance is one among many options that could provide similar relief without impacting workers negatively. And I know rent control is illegal in the state of Colorado, but if you read the statute, and I have handy little handouts, it's actually only residential rent control. In considering your vote, I urge you not to think of the tip worker at Frasca on a Friday or a Saturday night, but one at a small restaurant at the edge of town on a Tuesday afternoon. This person deserves the ability to support their life just as much as the other, but is much less likely to receive the tips to do so. Thank you. Please keep the tip offset where it is.

Thank you. All right. Now we'll go to Jackie Richardson, then Mira Blair online, then Douglas Hamilton.

Good evening City Council, my name is Jackie Richardson I work in the chemistry department at CU and I urge you to vote no on increasing the offset. Boulder is one of the most expensive places to live in Colorado average rents are around $2,400 a month and even a single adult needs to earn more than $27 an hour just to meet basic living expenses. For many tipped workers, every dollar matters. We've already seen what happens in places like Vail and Aspen. When housing costs soar and wages fail to keep up, the workers who make those communities function are forced to live further and further away or leave altogether. We don't want Boulder to experience the same hollowing out. I understand that many restaurants are struggling, but workers didn't create those challenges and they shouldn't be asked to foot the bill for them. High commercial rents, delivery app fees, and rising operating costs are real problems. Yet the proposal before you addresses only one thing, reducing workers' earnings. There are better ways to support small businesses without shifting the burden onto the people earning the least. If the city wants to help restaurants, there are better options to explore. Let's look at capping third-party delivery fees, providing commercial rent relief, or better yet, working towards a vacancy tax on unused commercial properties such as empty restaurants. But it's not right to balance the books by taking money out of the pockets of tipped workers. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to Mira Blair online and then Douglas Hamilton and Chris Hatfield.

Okay. Good evening. My name is Mira Blair. I first moved to Boulder in 2013 when I was 23 years old. I lived near 16th and Spruce, and I got my first Colorado restaurant job in downtown. Coming from California, I was shocked to learn that my base wage would be just over $3 an hour at that time. After several months, I calculated that with tips, I averaged a little over $16 an hour. My hours weren't guaranteed, and I never worked full-time. I had no health insurance, and even then, my rent was only $700 a month for a room and a shared house. and housing still consumed at least half of my income. That was 12 years ago. Today, restaurant workers face rents that have more than doubled. Many can't even afford to live in the city they serve. They're commuting from surrounding communities while the cost of groceries, childcare, transportation, and healthcare continues to rise. It was difficult then, it is far more difficult now. I understand that many restaurants are facing real challenges, but last year this council adopted a wage schedule that would raise the tipped base wage to $15.50 next year. Tonight, you're deciding whether workers will actually receive those scheduled increases or whether part or all of it will instead become savings for employers. If restaurants need help, let's address the real pressures they're facing. Commercial rents, delivery out fees, and the rising costs of doing business. Those are real problems, but they shouldn't be solved by asking the lowest paid workers to give up income they were otherwise set to receive. If you increase the tip offset, or freeze the base wage, those changes will take effect just before Boulder welcomes the Sundance Festival, bringing one of the biggest boosts to the restaurant business our city has ever seen. I don't think it's right to ask workers to sacrifice part or all of their scheduled raise just as a business is expected to grow. Boulder has always said it values workers' fairness.

Your time is up, but we thank you for your testimony. Right now we'll go to Douglas Hamilton and then Chris Hatfield and Matthew Bennett.

Hello, my name is Doug Hamilton. I'm just a guy that lives here in Boulder. And I'm here tonight to urge you to not modify the tipped wage credit. Voting to expand the tipped credit is a direct transfer of money from tipped workers to the people and corporations who own the businesses we rent our labor to. And we all suffer a little so our bosses can get rich. When you wonder why so-called progressives and Democrats have lost the working people of this country, why so many people are apathetic to politics, it's because time and time again, When faced with decisions on who to favor, these so-called progressives continually adopt policies that favor the ruling elites at the expense of the working person. Your own polling is clear. The people of Boulder don't want you to change a thing. People's lives are made and destroyed by policy choices like the one tonight. For example, jobs in factories did not mysteriously move overseas to ship their products back home in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Our politicians chose policies like NAFTA and others that gutted American cities to benefit of the capitalist class and allow a few millionaires and billionaires to have their net worth go up by 2% while families lost their homes. An injury to one is an injury to all. Less money for workers is less money for all of us. Don't cut our wages. Thank you and good night.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Chris Hetfield, then Matthew Bennett, and then Tammy Doerr.

Hello, my name is Chris Atfield, four-year server at the Hotel Boulder Auto and 20 years at the Chop House before that here in Boulder. Thank you for letting me speak. I'm not sure why our city council is considering these changes to the tipped wage offset. Our state legislator voted to enact. I'm sure far more of the dollars earned as wages by service staff will be spent here in Boulder, far more than the dollars we send to AJ Capital, the Nashville-based private investment firm that now owns the Hotel Boulder Auto. As I said, I've worked in the service industry in Boulder since 1999. I haven't always been able to afford to live here, though. I do well. I've been waiting tables long enough to be very good at it. But that extra dollar an hour was influential enough for me to feel safer about moving back to Boulder after the Marshall Fire in 2021. As a waiter, I never got a raise until the state of Colorado took action. And that action made me very proud to be a Coloradoan. At the Hotel Boulder Auto, as she had said, we are currently seeking a fair process to decide on a union. We want to protect our jobs and our current wages. We see the push against that from billion-dollar corporations and private investment groups. We are asking you for the city and people of Boulder that you represent to recognize the importance of local workers and having the ability to live locally. This action you are considering would literally be a pay cut for myself and all service staff in this city. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we have Matthew Bennett Tammy Doerr and Avery Powell.

Good evening council members. Sorry I'll figure this out. My name is Matthew Bennett. I'm an organizer with BALC the Boulder Area Labor Council. I'm here to ask you to vote against pretty much any increase to the tip offset. I do want to say I did notice that none of the options reduce the tip offset. Peculiar. If there's folks who are uncomfortable with the savings that restaurants are currently making, we'd be happy to see somebody suggest something like that and put that money back in workers' pockets. I've spent about 10 years working in the service industry before I ended up in my current role. Every single month of those 10 years, I stressed about rent. Every single month, I was rent burdened. I spent my entire 20s stressing, essentially. there's no reason to make that a structural component of people's lives. Pretty much every worker who ends up leaving the city because they don't have the capacity to remain takes another dollar away from a different business or a different worker somewhere else that they're gonna spend it. It's really just something we shouldn't be doing while cost of living just skyrockets. When I was a tip worker in the service industry, I occasionally asked for a raise. I was most often too scared to do so. And the times that I did manage to get the courage up and be brave enough to do so, I was either laughed at or kind of told it just wasn't in the budget. Or very frequently I would hear the term or the phrase, this is a business, not a charity. It took me about 10 years and a bunch of union brothers and sisters understand that that phrase cuts both directions. Washing dishes, preparing food, cutting food, cooking food, and serving people endlessly day after day is not charity. It's labor. And so if anything, I would just simply ask, no changes, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Tammy Doerr, then Avery Powell, and then Raymond Napoleon Rodriguez.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Tammy Dorr, CEO of the Downtown Boulder Partnership. Boulder's restaurants are more than places to eat. They are gathering places, first jobs, family businesses, and a very important part of what makes our community unique. In Downtown Boulder alone, 85% of our restaurants are locally owned and operated. Independent restaurant owners know their employees personally. They work alongside them every day. They aren't asking for relief because they value their employees any less. They're asking for the ability to continue to employ them. Many independent restaurants operate on margins of just a few percent. While facing rising food costs, insurance, utilities, and labor expenses, they cannot continue raising menu prices indefinitely. At some point, customers dine out less, spend less, or stop coming all together. When that happens, everyone loses. If a restaurant closes, it's not just the owner who is affected. Servers lose jobs, bartenders lose jobs, cooks and dishwashers lose jobs, suppliers lose customers, and downtown loses activity. The city loses valuable sales tax revenue. The restaurant is one team. Every meal depends on servers, bartenders, hosts, line cooks, dishwashers, and managers all working together. Yet only some of these positions receive tips. As labor costs continue to rise, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up their businesses. Regardless of how you vote tonight, I respectfully ask you to establish a restaurant industry and workforce task force. that brings restaurant owners, workers, labor representatives, and independent experts together to develop long-term solutions that both sides can support. Rather than asking council to referee this same debate every year, let's create a collaborative process that examines Boulder-specific data and explores innovative compensation models for the future. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, let's go to Avery Powell and then Ramon Napoles Rodriguez and Christine Burke.

Good evening. My name is Avery Powell, also commonly known as August Powell. I'm a six-year resident of Boulder and I bartend at the Hotel Boulder Auto currently. As you may know, the last year Hotel Boulder Auto was purchased by AJ Captable, now being owned by a large private equity company. My coworkers and I fear for our job stability. This, on top of potential tip minimum wage changes, has caused uncertainty and fear for the future, and we're striving for a fair process to unionize currently. And we hope to see Boulder County support us in the next couple of years or months here. A big first step to show that Boulder County supports its workers is to retain the current tipped wage increases as scheduled. My entire residency in Boulder, I've worked in the service industry. Every year when my apartment lease renews, I'm met with the fear that my wages will no longer be enough to compensate for the ever-growing cost of living here. Living in a city that is okay with rent increasing but wages not is damaging and demoralizing for residents, especially as a young adult trying to build a future here. I have watched many coworkers at many jobs over the years have to move away from Boulder, unable to support themselves and their families with our steep cost of living. When the city of Boulder adopted its local minimum wage schedule, we acknowledged that workers should earn enough to meet the cost of living in one of the most expensive countries in Colorado, and this was the right call. Boulder is special because of its people. We bring character and forward momentum to this town. Boulder is nothing without its workers, and if we refuse to support the working class, we will lose them and all they provide for this county. TIP minimum wage workers are not just young college students supported by their parents. We come from all walks of life, and we're just trying to make enough income to get by. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Ramon Napoles Rodriguez, Christine Burke, and Noah Maruska.

Good evening, City Council. My name's Ramon. and I'm a houseman at Boulderado Hotel. I worked there for like nine years and I've been in Boulder for over 35 years and I have seen how the city has changed and grown. We need the city council to take care all about the jobs in the city and we asking you to protect workers pay by keeping the current tape wages offset in place. The way the town is changing is for the worse. Boulder has always been a very open mind and affordable place where people look out for each other. It's becoming very hard to make rent. And for those of us in the service industry who get tip even harder, I think how people are being pushed out as corporations coming in and promising luxuries, it's just not for all of us. Me and my co-workers at the Boulderado Hotel, we are seeking a fair process to decide in the union in keeping the current tip wages offset and Boulder wages in Boulder not going to a multi-billion dollars national wealth company. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Christine Burke, Nora Maruska, and Danny Polaris.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Christine, Christine Burke, and I've lived and worked in Boulder for the last six and a half years. I'm here tonight to ask you to not cut the tipped minimum wage increases and to instead stick with the scheduled increases you have already passed. When I first moved to Boulder in early 2020, I got a job at a tea production and canning facility off Walnut making $16 an hour. I rented a room in a shared house, and I felt anxious about money every month. I haven't personally worked as a tipped worker, but I have worked low-wage jobs, and I know what it's like to stress about whether my paycheck is going to cover my rent and groceries, let alone have enough savings for an unexpected car repair or medical bill. The fact that in our town, where the average house price is $970,000, you are considering cutting wages for tipped workers is morally egregious. I think the part that makes me most disappointed that you are considering rolling back the planned wage increases that council already passed, that this council already passed, is that it is so cliche and uninspired. Have an economic challenge? Take it out on low wage workers. I was raised to believe that with privilege comes responsibility. Your privilege of serving on this council gives you immense and difficult responsibility of serving your constituents, who are mostly not restaurant owners. You were elected to be smart, thoughtful, creative leaders for our community. I don't have some clear-cut solution for our economic woes, though increasing taxes on the wealthiest would be a good start. but I implore you to think more creatively and be more inspired than hurting low-wage workers. I believe that you and our town that we all love are better than that. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Noah Maruska, Danny Polarius, and then Rachel Rose Isaacson.

Good evening, council. My name is Noah Maruska. I just wanted to bring the mic up, please. My name is Noah Maruska. I just want to take a minute to say thank you Mayor, Mayor Persham, council and city staff for this opportunity to speak. I am very sad that I have to be here tonight to discuss this because this is just blatantly unfair to the workers who make restaurants possible for Boulder. It is great that the city has made progress on increasing wages. And to see that slide backwards now is incredibly disappointing. I don't think that anybody in this room who has spoken here tonight does not understand that restaurants have costs and that employees are certainly one of those costs. But to cut back on what would be people's rent and food and beyond that, just desire for a better life. I don't know really what else to say. So thank you.

Thank you. Now we go to, um, Danny Polaris, then Rachel Rose Isaacson and Neil Cease.

My name is Danny Polaris. I am against the alteration of the TIP offset because low wages are inhumane, bad for the economy, and disproportionately impact the young worker and overall destroy our city and morale. Additionally, the TIP credit is frequently not utilized correctly, and this results in steep amounts of wage theft. Higher wages for the working class, especially minimum and sub-minimum wage earners, stimulate the economy. The Urban Institute summarized in March of 2026 a 2012 report by Aronson, Argabal, and French. The findings reported that a $1 increase in the minimum wage caused a $700 increase in spending per quarter in the following year following the increase in wages. The tip credit does not actually help the economy and has been found to be improperly utilized at many restaurants. by a 2014 EPI report written by Algredo and Cooper resulted in 1,170 tip credit infractions being discovered amongst 9,000 restaurants. The result was 5.5 million back wages. Table two within the EPI report shows that at the time, 13.6% of the total workforce was 16 to 24 years old, while 16 to 24 year old workers made up 37.2% of tipped workers. Young people are already struggling and surviving in Colorado and especially Boulder. The Colorado Center reported in 2024 that 60% of young renters 18 to 34 years old In Boulder Pay, unaffordable rent, this is rent that costs 30% or more of their income. 30% of young Coloradans have even skipped groceries to afford rent. But what should scare you is that 36% said they would leave Colorado for cheaper and more stable housing options. Why would we ever permit an employer in our town to pay our neighbors a wage so low they can't afford groceries? Especially when we're supposed to be bolstering our community into a strong future and we fail to do so by repeatedly not looking out for our newest generation of workers and renters. What exactly is Boulder planning on doing when the young workers leave in droves as a consequence of the depressed wages and high rents? Will we have no one who works here who actually lives here? Will anyone be around to do beginner level jobs or wait for your tables? Do we want a future like Vail, where only 30% of the workers actually live in Vail, as reported by In These Times by Bullington in 2023? Whose interests do you truly have in mind with such a provision? The workers who truly make Boulder great, whom are proven by data to put their wages back into the economy when paid more, or the interests of people who want to pick from the pockets of our working class and weaken our city?

All right, quiet, but thank you. And now we've got Rachel Rose Isaacson, then Neil Cease, and then Matthew Logan.

My name is Rachel Rose Isaacson. I'm a tipped wage worker and I'm aspiring city council candidate. Last year when this conversation about the tipped wage credit began during the city council race, I was grateful to be running for city council as a tipped wage worker and able to participate at those forums and to be part of those conversations where no other tipped workers were in the room. Those conversations were hard as someone personally impacted in speaking to the on the ground realities of the devastating implications undercutting tipped workers base wages would have. I felt alone in this conversation while it felt like my community was quiet on this issue until recent months. I arrived here tonight knowing just how important those conversations were and how important it is to have workers at the table. Those conversations led to additional safeguards and the options considered tonight that would actually raise my base wage in scenarios where I'm not at least making the minimum wage with tips. I want to thank our council for that harm reductive consideration. None of the options on the table tonight were as aggressive as they could have been. However, the reality is that these options still reduce my base wage during times when I'm earning enough in tips to reach minimum wage, and tipped workers would ultimately make less than we would under the current minimum wage schedule. As this choice gets made tonight, I want our community to be aware that EFA has run out of funds for the rest of the year, and homelessness services are cutting programs and laying off staff. We are in a major economic downturn, and our community has exhausted our safety nets. people who are already under precarious circumstances are more likely to fall through the cracks as we are also discussing potential wage decreases. Regardless of the vote tonight, I'm committed to supporting both workers and small businesses and will be strongly advocating for holistic solutions to address these complex challenges facing our community. I don't believe these interests are or should be in conflict. Our local businesses are essential to what makes Boulder special and the people who work in them deserve to be able to afford to live. Much love to our service community. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we have Niall Cease, then Matthew Logan, then Jonathan Christensen.

Hello, Council. My name is Niall Cease, and I've lived in Boulder for eight years. And for the first six, I could never afford to enjoy any restaurants downtown. But today I can because I enjoy the benefits of a collective bargaining agreement. And I'm against an increase of any amount to the tipped wage credit. But the working class is under attack from every single angle, and we don't need to be under attack from our own local government as well. Local government should be acting as our last line of defense. Sales tax and restaurant income are down because people's incomes aren't keeping up with inflation and they are losing jobs. Cutting wages for 10% of Boulder's workforce will not help with this, especially for workers with a median income of $22 an hour per data from the city. These workers will reinvest their dollars in the city, spending on necessities that all generate sales tax instead of putting money into vacation homes or retirement accounts like business owners will. Additionally, this proposed policy is coming out very rushed without time to see how our existing minimum wage adjustments have affected our economy. At our initial hearing in April, the city didn't even present the correct data on how the sales tax income has changed in 2025. So please do not vote to continue the abandonment of the working class by the Democratic Party, which is what got us to this president and our current economic situation.

Thank you. Now we have Matthew Logan, Jonathan Christensen, and Jonathan Singer.

Is Matthew Logan here?

Not seeing. Then let's go to Jonathan Christensen.

Good evening, Council. My name is Jonathan Christiansen. I am not a resident of Boulder. I live in Erie, but I will say that one thing I really enjoy about Boulder is the small restaurants. That is true. I come here frequently and frequent the restaurants, so I'm not attacking the restaurants when I say this, but I do urge you guys to vote no on changing the tipped offset schedule. I just want to point out what a lot of other people here have pointed out. Boulder is one of the most expensive cities in the state right now. The MIT Living Wage Calculator has said that a single individual needs to earn at least $27.09 an hour to afford to live in Boulder. That's just one person, no family, anything like that. According to the city data, the average tipped worker makes roughly $24 to $25 an hour. That means they are really not making a living wage in the city of Boulder. But beneath some of these statistics that they have shared, I wanted to dig into that a little bit because they're not getting the full picture here. Part of the problem with the tipped wage, which we should just be abandoning eventually anyway, is that there are intense racial, ethnic, and gender inequities built into the tipped wage system. So multiple studies have found that black tipped workers make significantly less in tips from any race of customer that comes to visit the restaurant. This is consistent across the country, everywhere in the country. It's not something in the South. I'm sure it happens here in Boulder as well. In addition, tipped workers are overrepresented among people living in poverty, and people of color are overrepresented as tipped workers. Furthermore, there's gender inequity built into the tipped system. Female workers who live in states that have a $2.13 an hour minimum wage find themselves experiencing far greater sexual harassment than women who don't have to work so hard for tips, basically. I'm looking at my time, it's running out, so I just want to urge you guys to vote no on the changing the tip schedule, and thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, our final three speakers are Jonathan Singer, Jadri Wood, and Carl Lapham.

Good evening. I'm Jonathan Singer, senior director of policy programs with the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, mayor and city council. Tonight shouldn't be about choosing between workers and restaurants. It's about ensuring Boulder has both. The Boulder Chamber actually supported the statewide minimum wage increase with the inflationary accelerator because the time demanded it. Now we know that restaurants are struggling. And the overarching component of this is labor costs. Now, you're hearing a moral argument today, and I agree with the moral argument. The question is, how do we meet that moment? Costs are going up. All costs. You heard about those already, so I'm not going to repeat them. But we've also seen the canary in the coal mine. That is the city and county of Denver and what they're experiencing. Since the pandemic, they have 10 to 15,000 less workers than they did before in the restaurant industry. I don't want to see that happen here in Boulder. No one wants to see that happen here in Boulder. Poverty rates, they haven't appreciably changed either. And when businesses close, no one wins. So there's another option. That other option is what you heard about a little bit earlier. Let's form a task force in a work group with industry experts, with labor workers, with economic analysts that don't have a stake in this game other than getting to the right answer. Because it's time to move from conflict to collaboration. Let's take the politics out of this and move into progress and create durable solutions. Tonight, there's gonna be a vote. but tomorrow we've all got to work together. So let's build a table where that work can really begin. Thank you.

Thank you. We've got Jaydree Wood and then Carl Lapham online. And then I also see Matthew Logan online who was missing a minute ago. So we'll give him a chance as well.

Perfect. Good evening, Boulder City Council members. My name is Jade Rewood and I'm the Government Affairs Coordinator for the Colorado Restaurant Association here today to urge you to consider policy options that would provide meaningful financial relief to restaurants. The CRA represents nearly 5,000 members across the state and the message we consistently hear is that restaurants are struggling under the weight of rising labor costs, increased food prices, administrative costs, inflation, and everything else in between. Restaurants are closing at an alarming rate. In 2025 alone, 498 restaurants shuttered their doors, and their situation is unfortunately not unique. We are seeing that trend continue this year, and we need policy interventions to prevent this from continuing in Boulder. Right now, many operators have profit margins of 1% or less, which is unsustainable, especially as the industry continues to shrink. It shrank by 3.7% last year alone, and consumers are simultaneously dining out less. These are not isolated challenges. The hospitality industry is under extraordinary strain. There are multiple options for this council to consider when it comes to supporting your local restaurants. While the tip credit and minimum wage issue will continue to be brought up as a pain point for operators, there are other levers this council can pull, such as the task force that was mentioned before. Ultimately, we encourage you to take the time to consider what is available to you. Operators face the daily question of whether they will be able to keep their doors open and employ others in your local communities. And now that answer depends on how this council chooses to move forward. Thank you for your consideration. We're happy to provide any other further information upon request and answer any questions.

Thank you. All right, now we'll go online to Carl Lapham and then Matthew Logan.

Good evening council members. My name is Carl Lapham and I'm the Boulder Regional Lead Organizer for New Era Colorado. Thank you for making the time to hear from your constituents for the fourth year in a row that cutting the wages of your most marginalized community members is dangerous and antithetical to a city council member's role as a public servant. New Era serves as a vehicle to drive young people into action and advocacy, and as such, strongly encourages no change to the current wage schedule. In Boulder, our mission is often expressed through the education, agitation, and mobilization of students at our university. And I can't help but notice that this is the second hearing in eight months held at a time inaccessible to many of the affected parties. Passing a wage cut during a portion of the year when much of Boulder's young working population is unable to make their dissent heard makes it seem like the only time that you show up for students is when you need their votes in November. It seems like every year, Boulder government introduces a way to put the profitability of landlords over the livability of working families. The conditions that led to the 2024 minimum wage schedule have not improved. They have gotten substantially worse. Local businesses and especially restaurants should not be pushed to the side but this constant scramble to cater to the landlords actually responsible for putting restaurants out of business over the thousands of workers you represent has to stop. This wage cut is going to force thousands of your community members already struggling to afford basic necessities into further crisis. And if the goal of Boulder, Colorado is to be become a city that caters to the wealthiest of citizens while tossing scraps in the general direction of families that make this city function, then voting to pause or increase the tip credit is a stupendous way to do so. I implore you to vote against a change in the wage ordinance you already voted in. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last speaker will be Matthew Logan.

Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Matthew Logan, and I serve as the Senior Policy Manager at New Era Colorado, a leader in activating young people in our political process and an enduring champion of economic justice. In a national moment where affordability is at the center of every debate, It is astonishing that Boulder is cutting the wages of working people. Young people and families in Boulder are already stretched to the breaking point. Housing, groceries, childcare, and every essential cost continues to rise. Slowing wage growth now doesn't close that gap, but widens it. We know what young people and workers are facing. Cuts to programs like SNAP and WIC, rollbacks in Medicaid, and soaring health insurance premiums hit low-wage earners the hardest. These are the same workers who keep our city running every single day. Boulder is already the most expensive city on the front range. You've been hearing these stats today, but the average rent is over $2,400 a month, which young people are spending majority of their income on. The median home price is $935,000. And according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no dependents needs to earn at least $27 an hour just to meet basic needs. For two parents with two children, each would need to earn nearly $39 an hour. This shows that these are not luxury wages, but survival wages. And yet workers are being told their pay is once again on the chopping block. We've heard the argument that wages must be cut to save our restaurants. But this debate is not just about our restaurants and our businesses. It is about whether Boulder will protect thousands of workers or cave to a handful of business and landlord interests. Young folks are struggling and workers are drowning. We cannot allow Boulder to become a place where its residents are priced out, pushed out and left out of the prosperity they helped create. I urge this council to reject wage cuts and commit to policies that lift our workers up. Thank you.

Thank you. And that is our last speaker for this evening. Thanks everyone for coming out and testifying tonight. We appreciate you taking the time and being here for this public hearing. All right. So that I'll close the public hearing and now bring it back to council for discussion. We have a proposed potential motion that we saw on the staff presentation. Who would like to begin the discussion about that? What's that? We have a request to put the motion up on the screen. who would like to begin the discussion about this potential motion. Nicole's going to go for it.

I have some words, so buckle up.

Got some stories to tell.

I just want to start by saying thank you to staff for working to get us answers to some of the many questions that we have been asking over the past few months and for basically doing exactly what we asked you to do. So thank you for that work. That water lawyer is diving in here, no pun intended, I think really speaks to how strapped you are for time this year and everything that you're working on. I think as we head into this discussion, we're in quite a different place tonight than I thought we would be a week ago. If I'm reading it right, we seem to be on track to vote against making any changes to our minimum wage ordinance tonight. And while I should probably just take the win and go home. There's a lesson here. You know I can't. I need to tell my lessons. There's a lesson here related to how we move forward that actually echoes some of what Mark Wallach was saying last week, except for the resignation part. So if you're a hater, please don't get your hopes up. Before I go on, I really want to lift up the workers and the labor advocates who are here, especially the Unite Here workers who gave up their time yesterday evening to pick up for their own working conditions at the Boulderado and are back here tonight to make sure that we understand the consequences of this decision for them and workers across the city. I really wish you all hadn't been put in a position where you needed to do this. And that's why I'm feeling sad, despite feeling like we're going to get to the right policy outcome tonight. We lost so much time with this process. Yours, ours, our local businesses, and our own staffs. When we passed the minimum wage ordinance in 2024, we said we'd revisit the TIP credit in a few years when we had data and could make an informed decision. We didn't have to take this up in 2026. We chose to before we had the data, analysis, and voices that we needed to find a mutually beneficial solution to the problem that we were trying to solve. This breakdown in how we govern as a body is what Mark was speaking to. We can't keep moving policy forward that doesn't reflect the full diversity of perspectives involved. Because if we aren't solving for all of us, we're solving for none of us. At a Christmas sermon in 1967, I'm going to do the white people thing and quote Dr. King, his last sermon before he was murdered, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about our interdependence and the importance of solidarity, a point that is at the heart of every major religion. One of the lines that came to mind as I was reflecting on where we find ourselves tonight is, quote, the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we're all going to perish together as fools, end quote. We can't find solutions for our small business owners by excluding workers. We can't find solutions for our workers by excluding small business owners. We are interdependent, but I think we forgot that here. And in forgetting that basic principle, we created a process where workers and small businesses weren't able to collaborate on shared solutions to common challenges. like high rents, inflation, delivery apps and credit card companies extracting exorbitant fees, and workers leaving town or spending less as they experience economic stress. Now, six months later, we still don't have solutions for workers, we still don't have solutions for small businesses, and the economic situation we're in is far worse for everyone, and I fear it's about to get even worse. Someone asked me earlier today how we help our small businesses. My answer is the same as it was last summer, and last fall, and last winter, and last spring. It's actually very similar to what the Downtown Boulder Partnership and Boulder Chamber asked for tonight. We need to put all our heads together. No one constituency has the solution to a problem this big. It is bigger than our city. If workers, business owners, labor advocates, banks, commercial landlords, residents, and consumers started coming together, we could at least start building the relationships that will lead to solutions. I'm still here for this work, and I welcome everyone who wants to partner in it. You know where to find me. We can't give workers or business owners or our staff their time and energy back, but we can commit to solving problems more democratically, and I really hope we will, because it is none of us. It is all of us or none of us, and the faster we recognize that fact, the faster we'll solve all these problems. Thank you.

Thanks, Nicole. Who'd like to speak next? Ryan.

I said when we started this process that I don't think changing the tip credit is the right approach. I do think there is a good approach to what a few of our commenters said. Aiden Reed, Christina Burke talked about rising tides for business and workers together. And I think that is the right approach. And I don't want to make light of the struggles of business owners or be vague about what we need to do. We've had business owners share their income statements. One restaurant showed they're grossing 200K a year, making 50K net income after expenses. We have to take care of our businesses. We need to reduce the cost of doing business in the city. We need to end these destructive power outages. We need to encourage residents who can afford to to come downtown and spend a lot of money. We need to turn these languishing commercial vacancies into sources of value for the community, and we need to help. our aging business owners to create ways for their businesses to go on with local workers and local owners. We also need to take care of our workers, and that does mean not changing at this time the tip credit, not changing the tip credit at all, especially not in this economy. It also means recognizing that this is such an incredibly stressful time and a lot of work for so many people, so many of you who have come out here, and for your families. And just to go through this process, many of you don't feel like you have good job security or somewhere else to turn. And we know as council members, the families are stretched and that a missed rent payment is the first step to losing a home or transportation. So I hope that going forward, we can look towards solutions that are thinking twice about looking at workers. to find money and that we can collectively set our sights next year and in the year after that on ways to help businesses thrive that are not about reducing our wage worker earnings as we go forward.

Thanks. Tina.

Yeah, thank you for coming out here today and thank you for those who took time to speak with me yesterday in front of the Hotel Boulderado just to understand more on that related but different issue than what we're talking about today. So yeah, this is I appreciate both of Ryan and Nicole's comments and I do appreciate all the speakers who recognize the difficult times we're in both from the side of our small business operators And also with our workers, it's clearly a difficult issue to resolve and one that we're all deeply concerned with because our restaurants play such a vital role to what makes Boulder, Boulder. And it's what brings people to here to visit us and to spend money in our town. And one of the things that, and also I'll just recognize for those of you who have been following this all year, I think I voted for four options last time, including keeping, making no change, and that's how I'll be voting tonight. and waiting until another year as we had originally committed. But I do want to just remind us all that we are going to have bigger challenges this year for everyone. Workers, I would imagine, will continue to see inflation. We do have some rents coming down is what the rental associations saying, and so that could be good, but probably not enough. And then our restaurants will, as you all know, there's going to be another 8% wage increase this year that's coming forth that our restaurants will be managing and working through their budgets to accommodate. And also it's likely that we'll, and I'm hopeful actually, that we pass an additional property tax for early childcare. But as you know, the way that we're structured, that tax will also impact workers significantly and finally another fee that I supported was the transportation maintenance fee which has not yet started being collected but will also be passed to the restaurants and so I just want to give that larger context of the different ways we are creating an environment that is difficult to operate in. So the other thing is, when we embarked on this three years ago, I wasn't on council yet, but there was a working group that was assembled. And the idea was to create a wage structure for the county. So that includes the county and the different municipalities in the county. So the county did pursue the most aggressive wage structure and then rolled it back a little bit. Boulder picks a middle lane wage structure and the other towns like Louisville, Longmont did nothing and are still at the Colorado state wage. One other framework that I'm thinking about as we talk about how we make this work for our workers and our small businesses is what is the story that we're going to tell together that will convince the communities around us who don't seem to be expressing interest in raising minimum wage. that will be sort of that compelling narrative that, yes, we did it. It worked. So I really appreciate Tammy and Jonathan and Alejandra, who have all suggested working on solutions to help our small businesses while supporting our workers. And so I strongly support that type of task force and hope that we do come together and then also together tell the story of how we made it work. Thanks.

Thank you. I got Matt and then Rob.

Thanks, Aaron. First, thanks for everybody for coming out. I mean, it's important to hear from community and especially on hard subjects. And thanks for those that maybe had to give up or showed up late or had to move a schedule around to come talk to us tonight. You know, this is extremely difficult stuff. And I think there were a few recommendations tonight that were key. But what I've so far heard, I haven't heard from all my colleagues yet, but I've heard a desire to find solutions. I like that, but I've been hearing that same desire for my entire time on council. And other than getting rid of the use review for restaurants, we've done zero to make it easier to do business in our community. In fact, we've made it harder. We've been passing fees. We've been passing taxes. There are more taxes to be on the ballot that would very well make it even more expensive and harder to do business. This harms workers, and it also harms the businesses, and as we know, makes it harder for the city to reinvest in our community because sales tax revenue goes down. So we really have only three levers. We can debate tariffs. We can debate whether rent control. None of that is in our control. What is in our control are three levers. We have newfound authority over labor costs, so we can control that. We can adjust taxes and fees, but we've chosen not to. We've chosen only to keep raising taxes and raising fees. Or we can boost our economy by bringing in investment and an activation, so we get more butts in seats, more people in our businesses to spend money. But we've taken now two off the table. And I think we've heard loud and clear that we're not to touch labor costs. So we won't. We're not to touch taxes and fees because we haven't done it yet. So we won't. So we're putting all our eggs in one basket, which is just to generate more revenue. That's a gamble. So I asked council, I asked the community, are we willing to give up some taxes, some fees to make it easier to do business in this town so that we can foster a strong economy and those businesses can help our workers earn a better wage, have more hours. As Tina pointed out, wage is going to go up another 8%. It would be foolish for us to think that that's going to happen without any impacts. We hope Sundance helps us a little bit, but it is not a single shot that's going to save everybody. Do expect to see some restaurants close. Do expect to see some restaurants close their hours or reduce labor. That will be what has happened. That has happened each of the last two years that it has gone up 8%. So recognize what those things are. But I think it's important for us to recognize the levers we have and a challenge to this council. We have to stop talking about what we're going to do to support our businesses and start acting. And I think the most important concept I heard out of this tonight is a task force that brings labor, brings our businesses, brings our landlords, and brings experts together. And if we can do that task force and do it well and spend the time and focus on the solutions that we actually have control over, then I think there might be some outcomes from that that could deliver some positive results. But we should act sooner rather than later because harm is happening to everybody in our community. And so the longer we wait, the longer we delay, the longer we figure of analysis paralysis, Everybody hurts from that. So urgency is the name of the game. And I implore all of us to work on building this task force so everyone can have a seat at the table and we can get to real solutions that have real results.

Thanks, Matt. I got Rob and then Tara.

I really respect everything that my colleagues said and I appreciate what staff has done and I appreciate everybody in this room and everybody that I've heard from via email. The last thing that I would want to do is go against community sentiment. And it is clear that the majority of what I have heard is to keep things status quo. I have a 21-year-old son. I've talked to him. I've talked to many, many of his friends that are older as well, and they're in the restaurant industry, and they get tips. And there is a level of anxiety just to pay rent and just to make ends meet. And a level of anxiety that I didn't even realize was in these guys and gals that age. So, I honestly think there's a mental health component here as well. There's just this underlying tension of how am I going to make ends meet. I will echo Jonathan said, how do we meet this moment in the task force? I was really, really happy to hear that. I want to support our restaurants. I don't want to have a whole bunch of chains in Boulder. I value the local restaurant tours and what they do and what they give back to the community. Not that it's just a unique restaurant, but they truly do give back to the community and they take care of their workers. We also have a vote. whether you're for it or not, potential for a DDA on August 6th that would be looking at economic stimulus. We have the Roots Festival that is now Tulagi that has the intent to expand. We have Sundance five months away. That combined with the task force that has been proposed, could go a long way. And we just have to make sure that we act on this and we keep pushing that forward. So I just want to say I respect all the workers out there. Without you, none of this would be happening. I mean, we wouldn't have this community we have and the restaurants. And I know that when we take money away from the workers, that money's not spent. I know the majority of sales tax, well, the percentage of sales tax paid by the lowest income earning folks is very, very high compared to the high earners. And I want everybody to be able to enjoy Boulder and be able to go out for a hamburger or a hot dog now and then. Thank you.

Mayor, sorry to interrupt, May I just, Rob, you just made a comment that I think may have landed a little bit differently than you intended it and I just wanted to offer that as an opportunity to correct that. You mentioned that there was a mental health component that may be at play here and I think it may have been heard by some as There's a mental health component in fighting against this change. And I think what you're referring to is just the stress that workers are under. And just wanted to clarify that for you. Absolutely.

I speak to that. The mental health component is the day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck stress of just living. I'm crystal clear on that.

Thanks, Rob. We've got Tara then Taisha.

Well, a lot of you have been following this. You know that I have been trying to find the middle ground to helping our local restaurants stay open and also, which means to me, people keeping their jobs. And a lot of the local restaurants, they put their whole lives into this as well. But something happened a few months ago. I think it was Local 23. came to talk to us. I don't know if you know them. Do you know them? They gave me a different perspective, and that was that it isn't just local restaurants that are involved in this. It's also some of the larger hotels that can take advantage of their workers and will use us changing the tip credit for their benefit when they don't really need it. And that really stuck out to me, to be honest. And that's when I started to think that maybe there's another way. Maybe it could be smaller. Whatever the case is, it just gave me a different perspective. The other thing that gave me a different perspective was there's somebody in this room tonight that she was discussing what it's like to be a tipped worker, but she also really cares about her local restaurant that she works for, and she doesn't want them to close. I am committed to both. I want to be actually on this task force. I care so much. A lot of us here have lost sleep over this. Believe me, if you think that we don't care, I can't wait to sleep again. I'm really honestly two weeks in a row between last week and this week. But I'm going to keep, I don't want to change the tip of credit. I think that Local 23 had a lot to do with that. especially that testimony that they gave privately to us, but also I'm committed to helping the local businesses stay alive and be healthy and for our workers to not lose their jobs there.

Thanks, Tasha, and then I'll go.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you to all those who came out tonight, from workers to advocates to business owners and My colleagues, I really appreciate the information shared thus far. Two and a half years ago, we made a commitment. Many of us made a compromise. Remember, two and a half years ago, there was another option to go even higher. And myself, I can only speak for myself, I wanted to make that jump, but I knew that some small business owners, and thank you for those who mentioned the disproportionate impact to racially and ethically owned businesses around this issue and workers around this issue. And so I landed where we landed with a commitment that we would look into or three years when there's sufficient data to really see what the impacts were. And it was disappointing to see the work around once we made a local decision, then it went to the state level to change it. So that's also something to keep your eye on, right? We're always wedded together. And, you know, I would say many of my colleagues have mentioned lots of options and a lot of stakeholders. But when I talk to one of my restaurant-owning friends and I ask them what is the largest expenses that they have, they talk about labor and food. Nobody has mentioned food. and I would actually challenge my colleague who said we don't have any other options except for the three that he mentioned. We have another. We own 16 acres of agricultural land. We own more water rights than we use. There is another way, and there is another stakeholder group that isn't at the table right now. So I agree with the idea of a task force, but I urge us to include the other stakeholder that has a huge impact on the bottom line. We also know that food systems globally are collapsing for a variety of reasons, whether it be extreme heat, climate chaos, supply chain disruptions, distribution networks. We can anticipate that continuing to grow and shake the very foundation of the way that we live, pushing us not only on affordability conversations, but livability conversations. And so as we put this together, this task force, which I hope we do, that those folks are included in that conversation. I also want to lift up energy costs and the cost of water, which will also escalate. One third of our water supply is currently at risk with the Colorado River. And we have two other watersheds that are surrounded by federal land that is not being stored appropriately due to increased cuts. And so it really does require us to think differently, to expand the tent on who will be a part of solving and more importantly, innovating as we face an escalating poly crisis. So again, thank you all for coming out. It is going to be more challenging in the year ahead. And really we only have us and that includes the need to do repair and atonement across our various communities and find ways that it's not one group pitted against another, but where we can find win-win-win solutions. Thank you.

Thanks, Tayshia. OK I'll go ahead and wrap this up here. Appreciate all of my colleagues comments and thanks so much to everybody who came out and spoke to us tonight. Really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I do not support an increase in the tip credit tonight this year. I stand behind the minimum wage changes that I and my colleagues voted for two odd years ago and look forward to seeing that exact same schedule that we passed at that time go into effect January 1st 2027 this city is extremely hard to get by and things are very expensive here and Folks making the minimum wage including tipped workers Struggle to be able to afford rent and the other expenses. I see this in my own family I have a child who's a server at a restaurant and makes the tip minimum wage and And so I see that struggle in our own family life. So I do want us to continue with the schedule that we've promised and look forward to watching that go into effect as I mentioned at the beginning of the next year. I do absolutely sympathize with the struggles that the restaurant industry is facing and I so I like my colleagues I'm fully supportive of assembling a task force of people from all different kinds of stakeholders to look at what other solutions and ways to assist that we can offer looking at things like continuing to push Excel as hard as we possibly can to end these incredibly damaging power outages that are so hard on the businesses and then the lost work for the workers as well. Looking at our permitting and fee structures, looking at how we can make things easier for businesses and restaurants to do business in this town. So I look forward to assembling that task force and I look forward to creative ideas. This town is full of creative, passionate people and I'm confident that together we can make progress on these challenges together. So with that, that we've all had a chance to say our piece, I haven't heard someone yet advocate for the motion in front of us, but I will pause if anyone wants to make that motion before we wrap up here. Seeing no hands raised, I think then no action will be taken, which means that the minimum wage increases will proceed on the existing schedule. Thanks everybody for coming out. And no noise in the chambers, but have a good night. All right. We have one more agenda item. If people could take their conversations downstairs, I'll just give folks a couple minutes to clear out. Matt, I see you've got a hand raised. Folks, if I could ask you to stay quiet and move downstairs for your conversations.

Yes, a process question. I think I heard a majority, I mean it will count, but I think I heard a majority of us express a strong desire to lift up a task force. And my question would be a process question of while the iron's hot, Would it be appropriate to ask, while we're still on the topic of perhaps to make to request a not a five or whatever is necessary to begin the process of lifting up that task force. So that while we're busy with other things. It's not, you know, another four months before we broach the subject. So I wanted to ask if that's a reasonable question to pose to staff into my council colleagues. THE OPPORTUNITY TO ACTUALLY BEGIN THE PROCESS OF LIFTING UP THIS TASK FORCE AND FINDING WHERE THE RESOURCES AND DEFINING WHO SHOULD BE AT THE TABLE AND START BUILDING THAT OUT. WHEN IT GETS STARTED, OBVIOUSLY WE CAN DEFINE THAT, BUT SO THAT MAYBE AT A SUBSEQUENT MEETING WE GET AN UPDATE ON WHAT THAT WOULD LOOK LIKE AND THE SCOPING OF THAT AND THE TIMING.

NERI OR THERESA, DO YOU WANT TO ADDRESS THAT?

HAPPY TO START. WE CERTAINLY HEARD A LOT OF INTEREST IN general task force and frankly I'm always a proponent of collaborations in which so many different perspectives come together I guess I would say a council we would want to know and whether it's tonight or whether it's another night a little bit more about expectations would this be a working group or a council leads it a little bit similar to sort of the minimum wage conversation initially is this something you expect staff to leave and we certainly would need to look at availability of staff resources as we move forward. We'd like to know the breadth and the scope could be very, very broad, or it can be more narrow. And so there's just more information that we would need to know from you.

So what I might suggest, and Matt, I really appreciate you asking about this, I don't think we have a fully fleshed out proposal in front of us. What I might invite council members to do is maybe someone could make a CAC request where we could schedule some time in another meeting when we've had a chance to think about it a little bit more and flesh this out a little bit more, and then talk about probably not a five for moving this forward at a meeting coming up soon.

That'd be terrific.

Nicole, did you have something?

Yeah. To me, this doesn't really feel like something especially racing toward the end of this council's term to try to push forward right now. At the same time, there is nothing stopping a couple of us from gathering some folks together Um, I know how to schedule a meeting room space in the, in the city building. So, um, I think we can, we can start having conversations and, you know, Matt, I'm happy to, to, um, kind of pull together some labor. You can pull together some others and we can get this started. I don't, I don't think we have to wait for anything. Um, but I would really prefer to, uh, to kind of do it independently that way versus trying to add something else to staff's plate when we're already trying to finish up so many things as we head to the end of this council's term. And we've just spent six months on this process.

So what I might say is I think some offline conversations would be helpful as we think about the next step. Clearly there's strong council support for doing a form of this based on our comments here tonight. So after some offline conversations maybe someone can bring forward a CAC request or with a specific proposal we could discuss with a possible timeline.

We stand at the ready for that.

OK. Great. Matt I think that addressed your process question. Very good. OK. That then brings us fully to the end of item 3A. So if we can go to item 4A please.

Yes sir. Thank you. Item for tonight agenda is our matters from the city manager for a is the direction on the wildfire resilience on open space ballot measures.

Great who's going to talk about this actually to pass a right to our deputy city manager Christmas check.

Thanks, Neria. Good evening, council. I'm also joined by Dan Burke, our director of open space and mountain parks, who is on line virtually. We're here tonight to get direction from council on how you'd like to proceed regarding the discussion that we've been having around wildfire resilience on open space. And we're really seeking direction on kind of the vehicle, essentially. Would you like to proceed with a charter amendment ballot measure? or would you like to proceed with a code change? What was that, Teresa? Or neither. Or neither, correct. No action is also an option. I do want to call attention to the recommendation that our Open Space Board of Trustees made. They discussed this topic on July 8th, and they made a recommendation to proceed with a charter amendment, and the details of that were in the staff memo that we provided. The staff recommendation is to proceed with a code change. And the staff rationale for that is also in the memo. So we're here tonight to answer any questions you may have and look forward to your direction. And that's it for us.

Thanks so much, Chris. And do you want council direction to come in the form of one of these non-binding nods of five about which way to proceed?

I think that would be the most helpful, yeah.

Great. So if... You missed your sense of humor, did you? Not yet. So would someone like to put forward something on the table they'd like to advocate for? And we don't all need to say words here, but maybe we can move towards the non-binding, non-of-five before too long. Who would like to advocate for a course of action? Nicole?

I think my preference might be neither, but I have less of an issue with moving forward with the ordinance change than I do with putting something on the ballot. So that's where I'm at.

So Nicole is advocating for a code change and ordinance rather than a ballot measure. Does anyone want to advocate for something different than that? Yeah, Rob.

I have more of a question. Go ahead. In the memo that we received, it was a confidential memo. Would it be appropriate to have an executive session that speaks to that?

Council member, I'm afraid that time is of the essence here. And so what we need tonight in particular is to know if you all want to proceed with a ballot measure because we need to draft that and bring it if that's the case. And so unfortunately, and frankly, I don't have a lot more to say than what I said in my confidential memo. And the deliberation is certainly a public deliberation.

And Teresa, from a timing perspective, the limitation is that if we were to pursue a ballot measure, we'd have to get it going almost immediately, correct, to meet the deadlines?

For this year, Mayor.

Yep.

I got colloquy on that?

Go ahead, Matt. Go ahead, Matt.

Oh, thank you. Oh, I get dual permission. That means something. I get that we have statutory deadlines if we did a ballot measure, but if we were to pursue an ordinance, it might be then appropriate for us to maybe have an executive session. I think there are a number of outstanding questions that need to be sort of flushed out and discussed among ourselves along with our city attorney regarding this and other permutations of options going forward. So I would be open to that, but I get that if we pursue a ballot measure, we have a statutory deadline. That makes it hard. But if we chose an ordinance, maybe it's appropriate to then do an executive session because we have time. There's nothing forcing us on time with an ordinance.

Yes, Councilmember. If Council wanted to forego a ballot measure this year and then consider an ordinance, certainly an executive session for the purpose of receiving confidential legal advice regarding such an ordinance could be appropriate.

Could I just add to, and correct me if I'm wrong, Teresa, that if an ordinance were moving forward and there was a desire for executive session, we would need to find time on the agenda, in which case the timing in which we would bring that forward might, slightly buried perhaps would not be in the next week or two.

Point of clarification or order. Not really sure which one. Do we have to notice a public an executive session. It's my end. OK. Thank you.

The answer was yes. Just to clarify the nod there. OK thanks.

Point of clarification. If we had. So given the timing of when we received the advice or rather moving forward when there are things that may have legal considerations, would it be possible to include on the agenda an executive session that would be noticed and then we could determine whether or not we need to use that. I'm noticing some procedural challenges, although I appreciated the confidential information. Again, I'm noticing a pattern where we're getting that information and it's really tight. And so I'm just wondering if there are some procedural ways that we can mitigate this because it's It's 7.55. We have plenty of time to do an executive session. And so I would just advise our CAC when there are agenda items that may have a legal component that we may just want to add an executive session as a mechanism so that we don't have to wait another week to have this conversation. Because Again, it's 7.55. I've been still, I have been waiting seven months for a update on public safety, which was approved by our council in January. And we were supposed to have two a year. And so this, you know, by pushing this conversation, executive session into another session, meeting that is potentially going to push this even further. And so, again, I'm just noticing some procedural issues that I would just love for us to get on the front end so that we're not always caught on our heels. Thank you so much, Rob, for bringing this up. Thank you.

Okay. Noted. So we have a suggestion to do this by ordinance rather than by ballot measure. Does anyone disagree with that? All right. Do you want to put that in the form of a direction now that we've talked it through?

Well, I did like the idea of thinking about scheduling an executive session so that we could finish answering our questions. I mean, I think it sounds like we have enough people who are not interested in seeing this go forward to a ballot measure. So that can be off the table. I don't know if you wanted to check in on that, Mayor.

I think we've settled that.

OK. Yeah. And then I also heard that people may be interested in having an executive session just to answer some additional questions. And so I guess that would be a question if we should ask CAC to work on scheduling that, given that there's no rush on this now.

I mean, I can straw poll whether people think an executive session would be helpful. Yeah.

Any objections to that, Teresa? Okay.

So and this really is a straw poll because it's to get us to then a direction for not a five. So how many people would be interested in having an executive session on this topic before bringing an ordinance back? Yes, Tina.

I just want to check in with the people who are sort of bringing this forward if they're okay with the delay with the ordinance that would happen with the executive session.

I would be fine with that. I would rather get more information and make sure that we're proceeding with caution and- Clarity. Effectiveness. Perfect, okay.

Okay, so who would be interested in having an executive session on this topic before moving to an ordinance?

And just to be clear, it's an executive session to receive legal advice related to this ordinance, not just to discuss the issue in general.

That is absolutely correct. Thank you for the clarification, Tina. Anyone who would be interested in that executive session as Tina described it, please raise your hand. All right. That looks unanimous. Given that, do you want to now ask for the formal non-binding notify? Or I can do it.

Oh, okay.

You were just asking the CAC. I can do it.

I think I heard Council Member Speer's request as one to have the executive session before making a decision about whether to move forward with an ordinance or not.

That is correct. That's my understanding as well. In which case, do you need something more formal than what we've already done, or is that good enough?

That's good enough.

Great. OK. That finalizes that. And I really do want to thank the Open Space Board of Trustees for their careful consideration of this item and their Advice on this is greatly valued and appreciated.

Mayor, may I? Sorry. I also just wanted for council's information to tell you I answered the question within 30 minutes of receiving it. And so I got you the legal advice as soon as it was requested.

Thanks for that clarification, Teresa.

Mayor, I just also wanted to say that when it comes to if an ordinance moves forward, We would also be going back to the Open Space Board of Trustees for their recommendation as well.

Which we would look very much forward to getting. Matt, you've got something?

Yeah, I'm wondering if there's an appropriate time to make some comments about this because I think there's some process stuff that I think we need to maybe talk about a little bit.

Go for it.

So, um, this, this, how we got here is, um, I'm glad we're getting to this point, but I'm a little concerned about the manner in which we got here. Um, And sort of the state that this process is in right now. I think just a little backdrop of how we got here. I think this conversation about what Section 176 would become and evolve to as demands on our city, especially with regards to fire and flood, have been percolating for a long time. There was also some conversation of a citizen initiative that obviously could have been drastically different or in ways that we may not have wanted to see. And so the charter committee, I think, used all of that information to sort of say, hey, let's look at doing something on the ballot measure and also looking at future proofing. But that aside, this had been discussed now for many, many months. And I think one concerning thing that that Taisha brought up is that we were getting a very important matter of of confidential memo at the 11th hour. from a question from Tina that's a very straightforward legal question that should be addressed at any time we're taking on a ballot measure where there would be a legal consequence, perhaps, to it or these things for us to consider. So I think the fact that OSBT never received that guidance and made their advice to us, to me, concerns me with how we use advice from our boards and commissions, especially the ones that have somewhat quasi-judicial responsibilities. And so for OSBT to make a decision with incomplete information, it's hard for us to then compare apples to apples and trust that guidance. And I just want to make sure we recognize that OSBT has done a great job and very aligned with council. But their vote to do something was in the vacuum of not getting this advice and getting this information that we have now. And so that, I think, is a process thing that we need to do a better job of making sure that we are providing an even handed amount of information so that we have consistency between what we understand as a foundation of information, as do those important boards and commissions that we rely so heavily on to give us great guidance. So I think we kind of we fumbled here towards the end. And I just want to make sure that this doesn't become a pattern and that we look for corrective process going forward when we're dealing with really big, important issues, especially when it deals with open space that is so beloved in our community. We have to get those questions and that conversation right. So I hope we can adjust that going forward.

Yeah, Matt, I appreciate the point, but I also want to thank Councilman Marquis for asking the question that led to the legal advice and I know that Teresa isn't necessarily isn't able to ask answer questions that have not been posed.

But I appreciate the feedback and certainly we will we will endeavor to do better in the future.

Thanks for that. And the Open Space Board of Trustees has at the end gotten this advice as well I believe.

Yes I I did provide it but Council Member Benjamin is correct that it was not in advance of their meeting as it was later.

Yeah. So thanks for pointing that out, Matt. And thanks for the willingness to look at what can be done better, Teresa. Appreciate that. All right. If there are no other final comments, I will go ahead and bring us to a close here at 8.03 p.m. Good night, everybody, and thank you.