City Council - Regular Meeting

Everybody, it's 6 o'clock. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Thursday, August 20th, 2026 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council. I'll go ahead and call us to order. Can we have a roll call, please, Alicia?

Yes, sir. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us. And we'll start tonight's roll call, as usual, with Council Member Adams.

Present.

Benjamin.

Present.

Mayor Brackett.

Present.

Council Member Kaplan. Present.

Present.

Marquis. Here. Shewhart.

Here.

Speer.

Present.

And Mayor Pro Tem Weiner.

Present.

Mayor, we have our quorum.

Thanks so much. All right, let's go ahead and get started. If I could get a motion to amend the agenda to do two things. One is to remove item 3D, which is consideration of two items related to a petition to annex a property at 1275 Cherryville and a property at 5995 McSorley Lane. That's a resolution 1383 and ordinance 8764. So we would remove that item 3D and then add item 3J, which is consideration of a motion to adopt resolution 1388 in support of the Boulder County early childhood care and education mill levy increase and voter approved revenue change and resolution 1389 indicating the city of Boulder's position on select 2026 state ballot measures and setting forth related details.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please raise your hand. That passes unanimously, 8-0. All right, let's go to open comment now. And Alicia, if you can do the public participation guidelines, please.

Yes, sir. Again, everyone, thank you for your participation at tonight's city council meeting. We ask that you abide by the rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code. Now, this 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. Only audio testimony is permitted during open comment. No attendee 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 evidence based on race, gender or religion and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the meeting will not be tolerated. Thank you again for joining us and thank you for listening.

Thanks very much, Alicia. All right, we've got six people signed up to speak. Each person will get two minutes. I will be strict about those time limits in the interest of fairness. And we're going to start with Lynn Siegel in person and then Melinda Marquis and Laura Gonzalez in person. Do we have Lynn online?

Looks like so.

When your mic is open.

Yeah, I was asked to unmute but that the meeting is not on. I'm staring at my name on a black screen. I don't get it. My phone number is 303-434-8128.

We can hear you.

Am I live?

Yes, we can hear you.

What's going on? I couldn't log into the meeting with the link that Alicia sent me until now, and it's 6.05.

Let's go ahead and mute Lynn and we'll come back to her. I think maybe things will come online for her soon. Okay, our next three speakers are Melinda Marquez, Laura Gonzalez, and Evan Ravitz.

I can see the meeting now, but I could not.

Hi, my name is Melinda Marquis. I'm president of Science for Colorado Wildlife. I'm asking that the Boulder City Council oppose Initiative 302, the proposed hunting amendment to the state constitution that will be on the November ballot. The Right to Hunt campaign plans to spend millions of dollars trying to convince Coloradans to protect hunting and fishing in the constitution, despite the fact that they are not in jeopardy. Colorado revised statute 3-1-101 protects hunting and fishing and states clearly that, quote, the state shall utilize hunting, trapping, and fishing as the primary methods of affecting necessary wildlife harvest, close quote. The Right to Hunt campaign is not about protecting Coloradans' ability to fish and hunt. It is about overturning past successful efforts by Coloradans to ensure that hunting in Colorado is done ethically, the right to hunt constitutional amendment explicitly protects, quote, traditional methods of hunting, but the measure does not define, quote, traditional methods. Such, quote, traditional methods include the use of steel-jawed leg-hold traps that Colorado voters banned in 1996. It also includes wildlife killing contests, baiting of bears, using hounds to hunt bears, and hunting bears in the spring, all of which Colorado has banned. If the right to hunt amendment passes, litigation about, quote, traditional methods is sure to follow in courtrooms. In Florida, which has a right to hunt amendment, the city of Marco Island tried this year to restrict nighttime fishing for sharks in order to protect sea turtles whose nighttime movements were confused by lights used in nighttime shark fishing. But Marco Island dropped its attempt to safeguard sea turtles because the state said that Florida's right to hunt amendment prohibited any such restrictions to shark fishing. If the right to hunt amendment passed...

Your time is up, but thank you for your testimony. We're going to go to Laura Gonzalez, Evan Ravitz, and Walt Morgan. Laura is virtual. Okay, let's go to Laura online then.

94% of households in Gaza need shelter aid. An estimated 1.98 million Palestinians in Gaza, or 94% of the population, needs shelter and basic household assistance, according to a new report by the shelter cluster led by the Norwegian Refugee Council. The report found that nearly two-thirds of households live in tents or makeshift shelters, structures that are not designed for long-term accommodation. More than half of households in tents had already used the same tent for over a year. Imagine that. None of y'all could survive in a tent over a year. None of y'all white supremacist people. While more than half of tents and makeshift shelters, it says, were in poor or very poor condition. Not only that, but the Israelis who you refuse to divest in, the Israeli genocidal maniacs, because that's what they are. They're genocidal maniacs. They're destroying the West Bank. They're intimidating people, and they're stealing their homes, and they're killing people in the West Bank as well, where we have a sister city and a responsibility, and you do nothing. Not only that, but in Lebanon, they're starving people. Israeli death forces were recently filled using a medieval catapult to launch flaming projectiles across the border into Lebanon just to burn their vegetation and farmland. So they're attacking everything and you guys do nothing, not even pass a damn ceasefire resolution. And here we have... a Latina city manager who's supposed to be proud, but she's over here trying to bring more surveillance technology like accent instead of doing a permanent moratorium in any kind of surveillance, instead of like trying to do something for the Puerto Ricans where half a million people have not seen water over 138 days. And that's a US territory. Instead of investing in a US territory and divesting in genocide, you don't do that. But Nicole Spears' husband, that's why she's not doing shit. because you're profiting from genocide, because you're stalked every time a child is murdered, your husband makes more money.

And I would ask other commenters to not make personal comments about individuals. All right, Evan Bravitz is next.

The massacre in Gaza has gone on for almost 35 months now. Dozens of different people have spent hours at this microphone asking you to divest from the companies making a killing off the killing, torture, starvation, disease, and rape of the Palestinians, and for six months, the Lebanese. Rather than do your part to cut Israel off, as the majority of Americans and a super majority of Boulder wants, City Council has spent many hours to separate open comment from the rest of the meetings, to turn off the video when we're speaking so people at home can't see us, to end our use of PowerPoint presentations, et cetera. You usually hire six cops to intimidate us and satisfy your self-importance, who never have to do anything. You started this performance to kiss up to Governor Polis, and now that he's disgraced himself in so many ways to other rich and manipulative people. You've called us anti-Semitic, though a disproportionate number of us are Jewish, and mean it when we say never again. Now that all major human rights organizations and UN agencies and Holocaust scholars agree this is a Holocaust, it would be straightforward to end this standoff by voting to divest. Nobody hated the Nazis because they were Christian, and nobody hates Israel because it is Jewish. Israel is now the most hated country on earth because it emulates the Nazis.

All right. Now we're going to go to Walt Morgan and then Rob Smoke, and then we'll come back to Lynn Siegel.

Thank you. My name is Walt Morgan. I live in the Flatirons neighborhood where the threat of wildfire is on the rise. Ordinance 8666, also known as Family Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods, invites developers to place high density college student housing in residential neighborhoods. That's the reality of that ordinance. In fact, on my own street, Grant Place, There's a proposal for a 5,100 square foot student rental with 12 bathrooms on a very small lot. This appears to be targeted for at least 20 renters. And because no parking is provided, that's also 20 cars on the street from a narrow one-way street. And it's not just our street. There are others like this. We just completed our hottest record year on record. We just saw our driest winter on record. And I believe the last wildfire evacuation that boulders experienced was this morning. Due to our neighborhoods concern I recently submitted a letter with over a 100 signatures to the city requesting a temporary pause on high density permits in wildfire fire ignition zones. Thank you to council members Adams and Kaplan for your immediate and thoughtful response to that letter request. And also thank you for Councilmember Marquis for visiting our neighborhood and hearing us and Mayor Brockett was there as well. I apologize for calling people out individually here, Mayor. I'm here to ask very clearly, please put a pause on all ordinance 866 projects in the Wildland Urban Interface Overlay Zone until we can better understand the impact of evacuation and roll out the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. Thank you.

Thank you. OK we'll go to Rob smoke and then Lynn Siegel.

Good evening my name is Rob smoke and I live in Boulder and we're in the middle of an electoral primary season right now or have been for the last several months. And AIPAC, American-Israeli Political Action Committee, whatever they're called, they've had losses, extraordinary losses that have never occurred in the history of American politics. And the cat's really out of the bag. I mean, they had losses in three primary districts in New York City, the most Jewish city in the U.S. They had a loss in the In Michigan, that was a huge, huge Senate race loss where the candidate who won, Al-Sayed, he was outspent 11 to 1. They just had a loss a couple of days ago in Florida where Linda Nixon was outspent 16 to 1 and beat Vindman in a district there. It doesn't mean that the AIPAC candidates always lose. But more and more, they've been losing, and they lost in Denver as well. And recently, Joe Neguse, the person who has stood and given standing ovations for Benjamin Netanyahu in Congress, he's divested himself of contributions from AIPAC. So this is really, the topic I'm bringing up is the elephant in the room. when we have people talking about divestment and divestment from genocide. And some of these companies, we can find video of caterpillar tractors mowing down Palestinian homes in a moment. And we're invested in that company. It's shameful. It needs to stop. And I ask that council do that. Stop funding genocide.

All right. Thanks. Let's go to Lynn Siegel online now.

Agreed. And so much to say, so little time. Being cut off is really, really very offensive. Aaron, Aaron Brockett, I am calling you out. Too much taxes, 300 for the library district in one year, 300 for the library district, 50 for transportation maintenance fee, 400 from the 400 million proposal that's coming up on the tax ballot issue, 250 on the debt limit increase, 250 for child care from the county. Please cut that off. And that was on one of the consent agenda items, I believe, to support the county effort on child care. It's not that I don't want child care. Of course I want child care. It's a matter of who pays for the child care and let the developers pay. $50 from Excel yesterday that just went up. $50 a year. And this totals $1,300 a year onto your taxes. So if you like that, you know, approval of these things on five public hearing measures at one meeting and then Boulder Valley comp plan as well. So When I say free Palestine, it's not unrealistic. When I say no war, it's that we have just gone from, what did they say today, $40 trillion in debt, and we'd been $20 trillion in debt before when Trump said that he'd cut the debt back. Instead, it's now twice as much. And this is, you know, we're going to lose out on the dollar internationally. This is a big deal. It's a big deal for Boulder. It's totally relevant to our current local issues of funding things for our community like the South Boulder.

Thank you. All right. That brings us to the end of our open comment speakers. I'll turn to city staff to see if there are any responses.

Thank you so much, Mayor, and thanks to everybody who shares their thoughts with us. I only had one to Mr. Morgan. I would say that to your concern about wildfire interventions, I encourage you to be with us and to watch for the August 27th meeting. Staff will be presenting to council. We will be first talking to Excel, and then we will then be talking to council about a variety of home hardening and wildfire mitigation efforts. So thank you.

Teresa?

Nothing from me, Mayor. Thank you.

Any questions for city staff? Yes, Taisha.

Thank you, Mayor. I was reminded in Melinda's comment around the hunting and fishing on the request when we were having the ballot conversation about the hunting and fishing. I believe there was a note that y'all were going to follow up with staff on whether the hunting and fishing had implications for the work that we do. Obviously, Boulder Creek is one of the places that I fish, so I was curious about that. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Council Member. I'll invite a friend to come on down.

Can you hear me? Okay.

Heather Stauffer, Intergovernmental Affairs Officer for the City. Thank you for the question, Councilmember Adams. I am still looking into that question, and will get you an answer as soon as I can, given the tight turnaround on it. I haven't gotten a sufficient answer. Thank you.

Okay. Any very brief responses from Councilmembers?

Sorry, I had another question about the process for the new readers. And I know there's a pause on that process, which I appreciate, but I was curious to know if there was any updates and or what would be the indicator for determining whether it is really a policy decision, which is council-oriented, or if it is an implementation, which is a city manager office. Thank you.

Thank you so much, council member. You're referring to the automatic license plate readers, the ALPR. And so we have put a pause. We actually will be announcing something more fulsome in a press release soon. As we continue to think about the readers, which I still believe can do good in our community, but I am thoughtful too about the concerns that we all have about civil liberties and privacy, so trying to make that balance. is important. We believe that there is a conversation to be had before that contract will be finalized. It's a conversation certainly with community, but it is also a conversation with you. And so we will not be signing a contract immediately. We are putting forward a more detailed engagement plan. And when we have that, we will share that with you and with community in general.

Thank you.

Yeah, Brian. Just to follow up. So on the pause, does the pause mean we just continue use of flock? That continues status quo, or it means we pause use of flock?

I apologize, Council Member Shewhart. You had asked me this question, and I don't believe I had gotten back to you. The pause is a pause on the RFP. We remain using the cameras on a month-to-month basis with our provider. We will be in... Trying to think about. In the press release that is to come, we have been thinking about additional guardrails, and we'll be sharing that out as well. Thank you.

Okay. That brings us to the end of our open comment period. So we will take a brief recess and reconvene for the business portion of our meeting at 6.30 p.m.

It's 6.30 p.m.

I'm gonna go ahead and call us back into session. And just to note that there have been some power surges because of the fire that happened nearby here earlier today. So there is some chance that there will be some technical disruptions. If so, we'll handle it at the time. Just be aware, there's a possibility. And with that, let's go to our consent agenda, please, Elisha.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Our consent agenda is item number three on tonight's agenda, and it consists of items 3A through 3C and 3E through 3J. And for the record, 3D was removed.

Thanks. Any questions or comments on the consent agenda? Tara?

Yes.

This is in regards to Ordinance 8758, which is that three what? Who knows? Interactive.

It's the bond issue. Great.

Can I talk about that now? Yes, go ahead. So I do rarely object about any or any consent agenda items ever, but I did want to take a minute to object to this ordinance because first of all, we have the words and other capital projects. What does and other capital projects mean exactly? Because the problem is, is we're spending $400 million plus, and that is a lot of money. And the community wants more detail about this tax. Because ultimately, it's really their money. It's their money, not our money. So I feel like we owe it to the community to be way more detailed about what we're doing with this money. All those people that bought their homes 30 years ago and now they're worth so much more, it's their money. And it's the business community's money who actually pay four times the amount in property taxes. Four times the amount. So it's these small businesses we're trying to protect. They have to pay four times the amount. So I want to remind everybody here that the polling for this ballot measure was not good. And that's because of two reasons. One, the amount of money, and two, because community trust. From community trust, from what I can tell, all the emails that we've been getting in our inboxes, the phone calls, et cetera, and social media, community trust is at an all-time low, in my opinion. Maybe not all-time. It could be exaggerated. But it's definitely at a low. And I feel like we need to read the room a little bit better. The community members want details as to how we got here. And we're getting complaints now about Alpine Balsam. Where are we getting the money from? Are we pulling the money from affordable housing funds to cover the cost? And so I feel like we need to answer some of these to get back community trust. We need more transparency in our budget. Our budget is not easy to read. The programs that are not necessary, that are not working, that are too expensive, we need to know all those before we ask for this amount of money. I'm going to just say a real quick plug for a need for an independent city auditor right now because I do think we need one. Ultimately, though, I bet you all think I'm going to vote no on this ballot measure. I'm not. I'm going to vote yes. The reason why I'm going to vote yes is because, you know, I want that lap pool really badly. So fine, I'm not going to come against this ballot measure, but I also feel like some South Boulder people feel like we're using them as pawns. I'm not saying we are, but it can feel like that, as in the only way you're going to get your pool is if you say yes to this ballot measure. So I'd like us to not blame the community for where we're at right now financially. We need to be more transparent. We need to explain of our budget and how we spend money better. And we also need to explain how our new builds are going so out of control in a way that people really understand and believe us. So we need to have those really honest conversations and we need to fix this so we get back community trust and work together to finish this out. But ultimately, I cannot vote against this ballot measure because, as one council member said, I don't really have a better idea right now. So we have to go forward with it. So that's my little speech for the day. I'm not going to make any more for the rest of the night. Hope you enjoyed it. And I hope that we can do some of this and gain back the community trust that we seem to have lost with parts of the community.

All right. I've got some of them, but thanks, sir. Nicole?

And I know we're not having quite a back and forth, but Tara, I just wanted to make sure that when you say we, you're kind of talking about council, because staff has provided so much information on facilities, budget, how all of this works, why we've ended up here. Mark and I and some staff did a whole podcast about it. I just want to make sure it doesn't sound like staff is not doing this work, because they are. And I think we can help. TRANSLATE IT TO COMMUNITY THROUGH OUR GROUPS, BUT I REALLY HOPE THAT WE CAN NOT PERPETUATE THAT NARRATIVE THAT THIS INFORMATION DOESN'T EXIST BECAUSE IT DOES.

YOU CAN GIVE A QUICK RESPONSE IF YOU WANT.

YES, THE WE WASN'T ANYBODY IN PARTICULAR, TO BE HONEST.

I WOULD LIKE TO FOLLOW UP, I know staff certainly has worked very hard on the details of the finances and on the ballot measure. And one of the things Tara was raising was how we would work through the implementation and what the details would be in that and how that would be transparent to the community. So I wonder if you might speak to, should this bond measure pass, how we would work with the community on realizing the results of that.

Sure. Thanks so much, Mayor. And I will say that we too are getting emails. We get questions from you. We recognize that this is a hard conversation. We have tried very hard to be as honest as we can with the data. We continue to try as we get more questions about it to continue to provide more and more information. But the reality is that it's a hard pill to swallow because we did not get here overnight. And we are looking, and I'm really pleased with the staff that's here that has worked so hard some of them in the room right now, to really be thoughtful and get into a level of financial analysis that we simply did not have before. Moving forward, I'll say that we have been, I've been working with our CFO, Krista Morrison, to think about ways in which we can continue to involve community as we move forward. We know that it's certainly it's the bond, but a lot of CIP projects in particular community has interest in, We are thinking about, we could not pull it off for this year's budget, but we are thinking about ways in which we can bring together sort of a community advisory panel, similar to what we have both seen in other cities, to help support and look through our CIP project as we move forward. We do actually have an auditor. We hired an auditor last year. For many, many years, the city had not had one. We have hired one on our website. You can actually suggest things for auditing. But we continue to think about ways in which to improve our long-term financial strategy and welcome constructive suggestions as we move forward.

Thanks for that. Okay. Yes, Tina.

I would. So can I comment on the bond and then ask for clarification on a different item?

Sure.

Okay. So, you know, I've also been going back and forth on the bond and I do feel that we need to start moving forward. And so I think we can ask voters for it and we'll see what happens. I think it's not likely to pass based on the polling. However, it would be great if it did because we would be able to update our rec centers and Create a public safety building and I fully support as I think I've said too many times now some type of oversight committee for facilities The one piece I was actually really concerned about is what is it? What does it look like when on your ballot you have? Five or six different taxes. So if you followed last week's meeting, you know that we supported a and N, we supported the graduated income tax, we supported the vacant home tax, we supported the early childhood tax, and then there's a sales tax for COCO for 0.33% that will be on top of another tax that is most likely to be on the ballot. The only taxes we control are the bond and then the vacant home tax. My question was, though, the tax that is probably the most important to me is the graduated income tax. And I spent some time today talking to people about is there any risk to the graduated income tax with these other taxes on the ballot? Because the graduating tax is interesting because groups around the country spent a lot of time gathering signatures, and it's very difficult to repeat. All the other taxes were referred. And it's not a big deal. So I mean, it's a big deal. It's always a big deal. But it didn't require that money and that statewide effort. But I was assured that that's actually not usually how it works, that the other taxes shouldn't interfere with the potential passage of the graduated income tax. So I do feel comfortable supporting the bond. I'm not too optimistic, but it'd be great if it happened. And then getting back to the comments about Alpine Balsam, we have this item A that Tara had referenced. And I'm just wondering, it would just be helpful if we walked through how that money that's coming from BHP going to Alpine Balsam, that it is in fact for housing and not to subsidize other pieces of the project.

Yeah, I can confirm that there is no affordable housing fund monies that is going towards the construction or planning of the Western City Campus. And I just want to say, too, for community, we hear a lot about Alpine Balsam, and Alpine Balsam is the housing portion of it. The Western City Campus is the city building that will also have a customer service center. And while it's a little bit hard to completely disaggregate the two on that 8.8-acre site, because there's infrastructure and flood mitigation and other amenities like parking that are part of and will be used by both. But they are two separate projects, and we try to account as much as we can separately, which has been the difficulty of trying to disengage the complexities of the funding in ways that we believe it will be useful for you and community. But we continue to work on that.

All right, not seeing any other hands raised, perhaps a motion?

I move the consent agenda.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Alicia, can we have a roll call, please?

Yes, sir, thank you. We'll start the roll call for the consent agenda items 3A through 3C and 3E through 3J. With you, Mayor Bakke.

Yes.

Councilmember Kaplan?

Yes.

Marquis? Yes. Shuhard?

Yes.

Speer? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Weiner? Yes. Councilmember Adams?

Yes.

And Benjamin?

Yes.

The consent agenda items are hereby approved unanimously.

Great. Thanks so much. Let's go to our call-up check-in, please.

Yes, caller. Yes, sir. I can't talk tonight. Yes, sir. Our call-up check-ins are item four on the agenda tonight. 4A is the consideration of a landmark alteration certificate application to relocate an accessory building at 1733 Canyon Boulevard, an individual landmark, the Woodward Bayard House slash Little Gray House.

Any questions or comments or desire to call this one up? Seeing none, we will not be calling that up, so let's move, well, actually, Let me next ask, I'm just going to go ahead and make a motion that we suspend the council rules or procedures for a six to allow for three public hearings this evening.

Second.

All right, got a motion, a second. All in favor, raise your hand, please. That's unanimous, 8-0, because we do have three public hearings on the agenda this evening. So if we can go to our first one, please.

Yes, sir. Our public hearings are item number 5 on tonight's agenda. 5A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt Ordinance 8771, authorizing and approving acquisition of property interest for the North 30th Street project by negotiation and purchase or through the power of eminent domain and setting forth related details.

Thanks so much, Alicia. And the next two items are similar in nature but have SEPARATE LOCATIONS, AND FOR THAT I WILL PASS IT ON TO OUR DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY. BLYTH?

THANK YOU, NURIA. MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, I'M BLYTH BAILEY, DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY. I'M JOINED TONIGHT IN PERSON BY SENIOR MANAGER OF OUR CAPITOL PROJECTS DIVISION, GARRETT SLATER. ALSO SUPPORTED VIRTUALLY BY DEPUTY DIRECTOR VALERIE WATSON, PROJECT MANAGERS LINDSEY MERTZ AND BRIAN WILTSHIRE. I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THE First off, there's two of these. Thanks for suspending your rules. They're very near each other, but they are two separate projects, North 30th and South 30th Street Safety Improvements Project. And we're here to request authority to pursue acquisition of property interests for those projects by negotiation and purchase or through, if needed, the power of inbound domain. I just want to say one thing to emphasize at the outset that this is really about our ability to maintain project schedules and deliver a long-planned transportation safety project using already awarded federal funding. In the past, we've been able to negotiate most of our property interest acquisitions, many of our property agreements without the need for this extra authority, but we found that if one or the other properties along the way require the use of eminent domain, it's critically important that we have the authority ready, because if we don't, there could be a compromise to our schedule, which could impact requirements of our grant. So that's why we're here before you tonight. And with that, I'll pass it over to Garrett, who can go into more detail.

Good evening, Council. My name is Garrett Slater, as Blythe indicated, Senior Manager for Capital Projects for the Transportation and Mobility Department. Good to be with you this evening. And this is a presentation that might look familiar to you because just a few months ago, we visited with you about the same process and requests for the East Arapahoe Corridor. And so we are advancing additional corridor work around the community consistent with the Core Arterial Network and the North 30th Street Improvement Project as one of those segments of the CAN that we are focused on at present. And so our purpose this evening is to request a motion to adopt Ordinance 8771, authorizing and approving the acquisition of property interests for the North 30th Street Project, excuse me, singular. So I will provide some background on the project, its context and overall goals, and talk about the right-of-way needs and process specific to the North 30th Street project. So North 30th Street runs between Walnut and the Diagonal Highway. It is in support of the 2014 and 2019 Transportation Master Plan. It's in support of our Vision Zero action plan and our Safe Streets Boulder safety goals. It was also approved by city council in 2024 as a SEEP and preliminary design and a reminder of what a SEEP is, is a community environmental assessment process where we check that our project is consistent with all the prevailing Boulder Valley comp plan principles and policies, as well as other city master plans and strategic plans. And so that was approved by council. And this project is also happening in partnership with the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. So specifically, the North 30th Street corridor will be implementing bicycle lanes, intersection enhancements, pedestrian facilities, and bus upgrades that all improve the mobility and safety of the corridor, again, between Walnut and the diagonal highway. And here is a closer zoomed up view of the specific corridor in question. It is a regionally significant corridor. Even though it is not designated as a state route, it connects CO7 or Arapaho on the south to CO1-19 on the north. And a lot of travelers, no matter their mode of travel, use this as an important connection to get to and from their destination. So here are some illustrations that depict what the future of 30th Street will look like. This is at the intersection of Pearl and 30th and it's depicting the improved pedestrian and bicycle crossings and the corner radii which will reduce vehicle speeds at those points at which pedestrians and cyclists are most likely to interface with vehicles in the crossing areas. Here is a illustration of what the upgraded pedestrian signal crossing will look like at the location just north of Walnut, as well as depicting some of the other amenities along the side of 30th Street. So, this project will cost about $9.3 million. It's made possible with a federal grant of about $7.46 million and city funds of $1.87 million. and it has already been approved, and the 25 to 30 CIP. So, the specific right-of-way and easements that we need, and to clarify, right-of-way is where we actually acquire the entirety of the land, and on this project, we don't need to acquire right-of-way. What we are looking for is permanent easements, as well as temporary easements. I don't know why this is advancing. So, we are looking for slivers of land to squeeze in the amenities and the improvements as depicted in the prior illustrations. And so, it's primarily small strips of land along frontages that don't cause major impact or disruption to the frontages to these properties. So this is the southern portion from Pearl South, and then this is the northerly portion going up to the diagonal highway. Again, you can see it's primarily slivers. There are 50-some total properties here on the 30th Street corridor, and... I don't know why that's moving. And about half of those will be looking for either temporary or permanent easements. And the average square footage that we'll be looking for is less than 1,000 square feet. And so as I indicated, not super impactful. So because there is grant money involved in this project, we will be required to follow the Federal Uniform Act for property acquisition. And so that entails us meeting with property owners. We have not yet met with property owners individually one-on-one because we are not allowed to do so until we have legal descriptions prepared. We are not allowed to prepare legal descriptions until we finalize our design. We are in the process of finalizing the design. So at the point in time that we have those final legal descriptions ready to go, we will meet with the property owner then we will conduct an appraisal of the easement that is needed. And then by federal law, they are allowed to get a second property appraisal to ensure they are indeed getting fair market value for the easement. And that is paid for by the project. There is no cost of the property owners to participate in this. And then the intent is that we'll arrive at a final negotiated settlement. And very rarely it's settled by court. As Blythe indicated in his introductory remarks, the great majority of the time we're able to come to terms on a reasonable cost for the acquisition of the easement. So our next steps are to finalize the design and then over the next six months thereafter into March of 28, complete the easement and right-of-way purchases and then advertise for construction with construction slated to go through 2029 and project completion by the end of 2029. It's very important that this project stays on schedule because it does have spending deadlines. And if we don't meet those spending deadlines, we will lose the grant funds. And so the reason it's important for us to have this authority in the event that it's needed is that we don't lose valuable schedule so that we can make sure to hit our key project milestone dates. And so with that, we are requesting your motion to adopt Ordinance 8771.

Thanks so much, Garrett. Any questions for city staff? Seeing none, we will go ahead and I will go ahead and open the public hearing. We have one person signed up to speak, which is Laura Gonzalez. It says she's in person. Not seeing her present, I will go ahead and close the public hearing and come back to council for discussion or a motion. Tara.

First, I wanted to personally thank you, Garrett, and the entire transportation team, because this is fantastic. Everything we've been doing is fantastic, including especially from Colorado Avenue on 30th to Arapahoe. I love biking on that section. It's incredible. And if that is any indication of what is to come, I'm very excited. I'm happy to make the motion unless someone else has. I'd like to make a motion to adopt Ordinance 8771, authorizing and approving acquisition of property interests for the North 30th Street Improvements Project by negotiation and purchase or through the power of eminent domain and sending forth related details.

Second. We have a motion to second. Any other comments on this? I'll just add to Tara's thank you for the fantastic work on this project and of the department. I just had the chance to bike along the new section of Folsom that was recently repaved. Very well done. Love the targeted improvements there. So y'all are doing great. With that being said, let's go ahead and have a roll call vote on this motion in front of us.

Yes, sir. Thank you. We'll start the roll call for the adoption of Ordinance 8771 with Council Member Kaplan.

Yes. Marquis?

Yes. Shewhart?

Yes.

Speer? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Weiner?

Yes.

Councilmember Adams?

Yes.

Benjamin?

Yes.

And Mayor Brockett?

Yes.

Ordinance 8771 is hereby adopted unanimously.

Fantastic. Well, let's roll right into the next public hearing. This carrot doesn't have to go anywhere.

Our next public hearing is item 5B on tonight's agenda and it is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8772 and authorizing and approving acquisition of property interest for the South 30th Street Multimodal Improvements Project by negotiation and purchase or through the power of eminent domain and setting for related details.

All right, a lot of the information in this presentation is gonna look very similar to what you just saw in the prior presentation, so I won't repeat the motion language here. It's the same language, but applicable to the South 30th Street corridor, and it's motion 8772, And again, I will provide some background on the project, its context and goals and the type of right away needs and process we are looking for on this project. And so the South 30th Street project will pick up the improvements from the 30th and Colorado intersection and head south towards Aurora. And this is consistent with all of the prevailing transportation master plan, vision zero and safety goals, as well as the 30th and Colorado corridor study that was accepted by city council in 2018. And this is being implemented in partnership with CDOT and the Denver Regional Council of Governments. Again, this is part of the CAN network, and we're looking to implement the same safety and multimodal improvements to the South 30th Street corridor that Councilmember Weiner highlighted on the segment between Colorado and Arapahoe. We're looking to do similar types of treatments in the segment going south. and excited about what that will look like. Again, a reminder that this is a regionally significant corridor. This one connecting CO7 to Baseline Road. Baseline, of course, is not a state highway, but is a critical east-west route that connects travelers between the city points east, as well as to Foothills Parkway and US 36. So it is, again, an important corridor for people getting to where they need to go. both within and outside of the city. And this is a depiction of some of the treatments that we're looking to implement based on the 30th and Colorado Corridor Study showing the pedestrian crossing, the bicycle element treatments, better bus stops, and safer intersections for vehicles. This is an illustration of the 30th Street Corridor looking north from Baseline Road of what we can expect it to look like in the future. Again, a significant improvement over the way things are functioning today. So we're excited to bring these to us, to the city here in the near future. So this project is made possible by a federal grant in the amount of $3 million, requiring a local match of about $670,000. Total project value of 3.67 million. Similar to the North 30th Street project, again, we expect this to be slivers of land. This one has, in a couple of spots, slivers that are just a bit larger than the North 30th Street because of the bus stop configurations. But this is based off the design as presently constituted. We are working to narrow up the needs of the easements on this segment to not be impactful to the residential households along the frontage here. And so the majority of the needs will be temporary and small slivers that are not impactful to the adjacent landowners. The process for acquiring, just like it was on North 30th Street, where we'll go through and prepare legal descriptions, we'll meet with the property owners, we'll give them the opportunity to get a fair market value, and we'll work to have an agreed upon negotiated settlement. So next steps for this project is by July 27, we'll finalize the design. By the end of 27, look to complete the easement and right-of-way purchases, advertise for construction in 28, and then look to have the construction wrapped up by the end of 2028. So if you are really paying attention, you notice that North 30th will be a year behind this one. It'd be really great for the community to not have both of these under construction at the same time. And so there was some thinking involved in that. With that, we are requesting a motion to adopt Ordinance 8772.

Thanks so much. Again, Garrett, any questions for city staff? Taisha?

It's relevant for the last one and this one. Unfortunately, the renderings look like it's like Kentucky bluegrass, but I'm assuming that those are native plants and low water and all of the things that we work so hard to I do have some concerns of an extreme heat and that corridor in particular is not as, and with the construction, there's going to be less. So just wondering how that was being mitigated. Thank you.

Yes. The, the city owned landscape will certainly be compliant with our zero scape and low water standards. The adjacent private property landscaping, we typically meet with the property owner and we implement landscaping that they are excited about having, because we don't want to force a landscape plan on them that they're not willing to take care of. And so we coordinate and work with them to make sure that we can implement landscaping that they both want and will commit to taking care of so that it's a good investment, it looks good for the corridor.

See, yeah, Matt. Hold on just a second, we have to open the public hearing. Um, there's one person signed up to speak. Laura Gonzalez. Is she present?

Mayor, I do not see Lynn on our, uh, my apologies, uh, Laura online tonight.

Okay. In that case, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to council. Matt.

Um, well, I'm gonna make a motion and then I'll say something about it. Um, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to adopt ordinance 8772, authorizing and approving acquisition of property interest for the South 30th Street improvements project by negotiation and purchase or through the power of eminent domain and setting forth related details.

Second.

Just continuance of great work. It's good to see CAN continue to do its thing in the city. And, you know, it's evolved beyond what its sort of initial projects were. And it's now become kind of the ethos of a department. So it's just great to continue to see this working. So great job.

Thank you. I appreciate all the positive feedback. Yeah, absolutely. I just was talking to someone yesterday who said, when is 30th Street going to, when will the whole quarter be as good as the recently revised areas? And we're able to give them a schedule now. So appreciate all the great work. Seeing no other hands raised, roll call, please, Alicia.

Yes, sir. We'll start the roll call for the adoption of Ordinance 8772 with Councilmember Marquis. Yes. Shuhart.

Yes.

Speer. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Weiner. Yes. Council Member Adams.

Yes.

Benjamin.

Yes.

Kaplan.

Yes.

And Mayor Brock. I thought you skipped me there for a minute.

Yes.

Ordinance 8772 is hereby adopted unanimously.

Great. Well, thanks again, Garrett, to you and the team. All right. Let's go to our final public hearing now, please.

Yes, sir. Our public hearing, our last public hearing is item 5C, and we have three items associated with that public hearing. First, we will ask for a consideration of a motion to recess as the Boulder City Council and convene as the City of Boulder Downtown Commercial District, formerly known as the Central Area General Improvement District, CAGED, Board of Directors, And next, the Board of Directors will consider a motion to approve a purchase agreement between Cajet and MA-LR Boulder LLC for the disposal of Cajet-owned real property located at 2121 Broadway and authorize the city manager acting as the general manager of Cajet to execute the purchase agreement and all associated documents. Our last item for that particular public hearing is the consideration of a motion to adjourn as the City of Boulder Downtown Commercial District, formerly known as the Central Area General Improvement District, CAGIC, Board of Directors, and then reconvene as the Boulder City Council.

THANKS SO MUCH. I WILL GO AHEAD AND GET US STARTED HERE BY MOVING THAT WE RECESS AS THE BOULDER CITY COUNCIL AND CONVENE AS THE CITY OF BOULDER DOWNTOWN COMMERCIAL DISTRICT FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE CENTRAL AREA GENERAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT CAGED BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

SECOND.

WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR RAISE YOUR HANDS. That's unanimous, 8-0. So I am now hereby recessing the Boulder City Council and then reconvening us as the City of Boulder Downtown Commercial District Board of Directors. Can we do a roll call of the district board, please?

Yes, sir. Thank you. We'll start the roll call of the district board with Board Member Adams. Yes. Benjamin.

Yes.

Brockett.

Yes.

Kaplan. Yes.

Yes.

Marquis? Yes. Shewhart?

Yes.

Speer? Yes. And Weiner? Yes. Chairman Brockett, we have our quorum.

Thanks so much. I will now, as the board of directors, turn it over to our city manager, Nuria, to take us to the next step.

Thank you so much, Chairman Brockett. I'm going to have to get used to that. I appreciate addressing this item. This item, as many folks know, was an item on opportunity. It was not an item that we had intended in our work plan originally, and yet here we are and appreciate the feedback we have gotten. But I will send it over to our assistant city manager, Mark Wolf, to run us through the item.

Thank you, Nuria. Good evening, Council. Mark Wolf, Assistant City Manager. Tonight, we're bringing you the proposed sale of the Cajun-owned surface parking lot at 2121 Broadway, or the corner of Broadway and Spruce. I'll walk through the history a bit of the opportunity, the deal terms, the parking analysis that we conducted, and then we'll open it up for your questions and the public hearing. This lot has served downtown as a Cajet-owned parking asset for decades. In late 2024, the city received an unsolicited offer from MALR Boulder LLC, which I'll refer to as Midnight Autour tonight, to develop it as a boutique hotel. The uniqueness of the opportunity for the city and for Cajun, which I'll cover in more detail, led us to publicly discussing this offer and opportunity at the May 2025 Downtown Management Commission meeting to get preliminary feedback and begin the process to analyze the parking impact and start formal negotiations. Council provided guidance on negotiations and executive session first in June and then again in November of 2025 on the community benefit provisions and sale terms. We've now reached a tentative final agreement at $5.8 million for that sale with the community benefit provisions that I'll walk through in a moment. And tonight it's in front of you for approval as the board of directors of Cajun. A few things made this worth pursuing. As Nuria mentioned, this is not normally how we would conduct a process for a development project like this, but this represented an opportunity for new investment in the downtown at a time when we've seen sales tax revenue and commercial property value softening, something we've been talking a lot about recently. This project will generate new tax revenue and also bring new visitors to the downtown core. Second, surface parking simply isn't the highest and best use of this parcel in the core of the downtown and the direct and indirect economic benefits of this type of use were worth pursuing the right deal for. And the parking study that we commissioned, which I'll get to in more detail in a moment, confirmed the impact of losing parking on the site, and the increased demand is manageable within our existing system. Third, an RFP wasn't in our work plan as mentioned, so the timing of this unsolicited offer worked in our favor rather than competing with other priorities. And importantly, the proposed buyer came to the table sharing our values and a willingness to negotiate a real enforceable community benefit that's not always guaranteed in every negotiation, and it shaped how we approached this. Midnight O'Tour also has a strong track record delivering the Rambo Hotel in Denver. into a little bit more details of the agreement itself. As I mentioned, the purchase price is proposed at 5.8 million, which our broker confirmed is above market value and very competitive for comparable downtown properties. In other words, to be clear, the city is not subsidizing the sale of this property. Additionally, we were able to secure several 30-year community benefit covenants recorded against the property. I want to explain why we attached a dollar figure or buyout to each of these covenant provisions, because that was intentional during the process. If we left these as open-ended obligations with no defined value, enforcing them down the road would mean the city proving actual damages in court. That's a slow, expensive, and uncertain process to deliver a result for community. A fixed escalating amount avoids that. The 3% escalation doesn't guarantee an owner keeps complying rather than buying out, but there are a couple things that offset our risk. First, once the hotel is built, the developer has already made a significant capital investment to meet these covenants. For several of them, continuing to comply will simply be cheaper than exiting. Second, the fixed rate creates predictability that a variable type of index wouldn't. The owner any future purchaser and any lender can readily calculate total exposure which is important to making the deal actually have the project actually happen and the city can readily calculate what's owed. I'll point out that this type of covenant and attaching a value to each covenant is a standard tool in real estate and it gives both sides some degree of certainty. Importantly, the owner must meet all six community benefits within three years of closing and cannot exercise any buyouts until five years after closing. And last, I certainly want to mention recognizing what we're anticipating in public comment, and you all have heard in comments, the importance of accommodating historic parking lot users, especially at First Congressional, were top of mind when negotiating these covenants. as the access protections for these users run for 30 years with no buyout opportunity. And I'll talk a little bit more about the parking in a moment. All right, let's walk through the six community benefit covenants that we were able to secure in this tentative agreement. Starting with affordable commercial space, the owner has to maintain at least 2,000 square feet of affordable leasable space at 25% or more below market rent dedicated to local independent retail and food beverage tenants. If that space sits vacant more than six months in any 18 month period, the owner has to show us documented, diligent marketing efforts, including outreach to our staff so that we're involved in any sort of attraction of tenants. For public space and events, this requires no charge, publicly accessible food and beverage areas, plus a public rooftop open at least 20 hours a week without a required purchase. Private event bookings are capped at 30% of monthly operating hours. So the space is limited in terms of how it can be converted into a private venue. And we've had conversations with the developer about making that advertised a little bit more prominently than maybe some of our other publicly accessible spaces have been in the past. Arts and culture, we've been excited about this aspect of the agreement. There are three components here. First, a one-time $100,000 donation to a foundation for onsite public art that will follow our standard public art process. Second, a minimum of three rotating exhibitions a year featuring local artists, publicly promoted and accessible. And third, at least 35% of initial interior art installations to be commissioned from artists based in the seven-county Denver-Boulder metro area. On diversity and environmental practices, two pieces here on the labor side, a goal of directing at least 20% of construction contract value to certified women and minority-owned business, front-range businesses, with annual reporting to us on progress. On the environmental side, the completed building has to hit energy performance at least 10% better than current code at the time of pulling permits, verified by a third party energy model, plus solar ready infrastructure size to offset at least 5% of the building's projected annual energy use. On historic parking lot users, as I mentioned, The protection of alley access for First Congressional is something that we've discussed. There's no buyout. Is it a permanent covenant for that 30 years? We knew that drop-off access to the church was important and prioritized that access in the agreement. We do believe that the covenant's alley access protection gives us leverage to secure that outcome. And there is at least a two-year runway before the lot access itself is impacted. So we believe there's adequate time to find a workable solution for the peak times that are impacted for the church. Last, the developers are committed to working with Visit Boulder and major cultural event organizers such as the Sundance Film Festival on availability of rooms and event space. And I believe this is the last slide on parking impact. Our parking consultant, Fox Tuttle, studied a full year of data across the Spruce lot and the three nearest garages at Spruce Garage, St. Julian Garage, and Randolph Center. The findings were that the 59 spaces within the Spruce parking lot we lose here can be fully absorbed by those garages, even at their near peak capacity. I'll point out that what the study showed is that we would have roughly 180 spaces still to spare across the system when accounting for the demand produced by a potential hotel and the spaces that we would be losing at the lot itself. So overall, if we were to kind of look at a maximum amount of hotel rooms that we could absorb on that site within our system, it's about 480 rooms. And again, this proposed hotel is at 110 hotel rooms. It is planned and I just want to note because folks in the area are certainly feeling the impact of the Spruce Garage being closed for improvements right now. Those are scheduled to be complete in October and we'll have that garage reopened. We do have scheduled improvements at St. Julian that will also be completed before the lot is impacted. And we'll keep working with the developer to spread hotel demand across Cajun's broader 2100 plus space inventory as we move through that process. And last, before we move to questions, just want to recognize Ryan Diggins from Midnight O'Toole, who is with us this evening and available for questions if needed.

Thanks so much for all that information, Mark. Really appreciate it. Questions from council? Tina.

Yeah, I had a couple questions and thanks for the presentation. The first was I didn't receive feedback in my inbox from Visit Boulder. Are they supportive of the project? And, you know, sometimes we get presentations from the hotel community looking at what the demand is in the community and whether we met it. So I was just seeing if that analysis is out there.

Yeah, that's a fair question. I don't want to speak on behalf of Visit Boulder. I know that they have had conversations with the proposed developer. I think they have been clear, certainly in the lead-up to the Sundance Film Festival, about the need for downtown hotel rooms. They've been generally supportive in our conversations, but I don't want to represent what they think about the specific project.

Okay. And then... We also have the Trinity parking lot, which is also pretty close to the church. I know that that's more longer-term parking, but it seems like it's not fully utilized. Is that another option that we could help facilitate?

It is. The Trinity lot or structure is a smaller structure. It's about 50-ish, 54 spaces, about a block away. That is permit only currently, but to your point, it is not fully utilized and something we could absolutely look at to both accommodate demand and as we continue to work with the church.

Okay, and at the end of the title report, you know, it suggested working with the hotel, the new hotel, and to reserve part of the spruce for their valet services, but could we consider doing that for other users so that there's a process that it doesn't favor just the new hotel and thinks about some of the other users in the community?

Yeah, absolutely. And for caged properties, for caged businesses, all are able to purchase permits where they can have access to any one of the structures. The thought, I believe, by Foxtuttle is that we'd want some intention in just figuring out exactly the total demand that they might have. Maybe Spruce Garage isn't the most appropriate location for all of that impact. That's why we would look across our system to figure out what's most appropriate. And certainly other users, including the church, we can have conversations about how to accommodate specific spaces during peak times as they need.

And then when we sell the lot, if we do, does that then end the relationship with this property in Cajun? It exists in Cajun, but there's no longer any contributing revenue to the Cajun.

That's right. We would forego the about $220,000 annually of revenue that goes into Cajun. So where that parking is absorbed within the system, we would still see some degree of that revenue come back, likely higher demand across the Cajun system. And then all of the taxes and other revenue that would be generated at the hotel, including accommodations tax, those would be either general fund or dedicated to the various funds as voter approved, including property tax, sales tax, et cetera.

And just to clarify, including the Cajet Mills, so there would be some additional revenue that would go into Cajet from the property tax? Yes, good question.

And then just going back to the accessing parking, it's just a thought I had because we know we're hearing from Boulder High as we start ticketing because of the meters near Boulder High, the students are going to be paying $13 to $15 a day to go to school if they're not accommodated in their parking lot. So I just want to make sure that we include other users like that into these conversations if we're starting to sort of dedicate parking. Thanks.

Appreciate that.

And I'll just note that just today the superintendent of BVSD reached out to talk about it, so he and I will be meeting about it soon.

Any other questions?

Yes, I had questions about how water was considered. So just the back of the envelope for a hotel, a boutique hotel of 110 could range as much as one Olympic size swimming pool per day.

Yeah, I'm happy to speak a little bit to that. So I've been consulting a bit with our utilities staff on projected usage on the site. Certainly since this would be converting from a vacant lot to a hotel, there would be about, they're estimating a five acre feet per year demand, which would represent about 0.03% of our city's annual water use and could be uh absorbed without materially affecting our water supply so we've had some conversations about the impact to water on the site so to clarify that's inclusive of the three scenarios that were provided in on july 31st 2025 regarding our water supply that's inclusive of the severe option i i think the the statistic that i quoted was just based on our current demand or current water utilization.

So not so just again to clarify it is the current as of 2026 or current as of 2025 and also did not include the different scenarios that were outlined in the water supply reports that were provided last year.

I think it's it's simply current demand not future scenarios.

Thank you.

Right, not seeing any other hands raised, I will go ahead and open the public hearing. We've got 19 speakers, so each speaker will have two minutes to speak. I will be strict about those in the interest of fairness. We have a few people pooling, and as long as the two people they're pooling with are also present, then those people will get four minutes to speak. So our first speakers are Susan Williams, then Christina Braudaway-Bauman pooling, and then Robert Mathias. If you can bring your mic down, please.

That's right. I am short. Okay. Good evening, council members and staff. My name is Susan Williams. I'm the executive director of Mindful Works, located in the First Congregational Church of Boulder, 1128 Pine Street. We are a separate, we are a tenant, we are a nonprofit social enterprise that provides job training to folks with disabilities. And we are directly across from the parking lot, which we rely on, as do our customers, our visitors, our employees, and those who need accessible proximate parking. That, I'm sorry, the Spruce and Broadway lot structure is not accessible nor proximate if you need truly handicap parking. We're not against growth in Boulder. We depend on it as a social enterprise. We love retail. We are members of the Downtown Boulder Business Association, as well as the Chamber of Commerce. We're thrilled about Sundance. We hope to benefit from merchandise. But as a small business and as part of the business community that will be dependent on, that is currently dependent on this lot, this is important to us. This parking lot loss is immediate and permanent. It's a public asset. We're not going to get that space back. We count on street parking as it is. The congestion that is going to be added to the residents of the community is substantial. Already we scramble with our visitors, our customers, our employees scramble for parking on the street. This will only make it worse. So sure, you're going to get a lot of money from the sale. Yay. Wonderful. Commerce, retail. Oh, okay. Thank you very much.

Thanks for your testimony. OK, now we're going to go to Christina Broadway-Bauman, who is pooling with Phil. Oh, and folks, no noise, please. If you hear something you want to support, you can do jazz hands silently to show your support. But Christina is pooling with Phil Broadway-Bauman and Robert Goodbody, if we can just see that they're both here. Very good. Thanks so much. You have four minutes.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Christina Broadway-Bauman, and it's my privilege to serve as the senior minister of First Congregational Church. I want to begin by asking us to widen the vision beyond the economics of this proposal and to think together about the kind of community we want to foster and protect. This is not simply a decision about a hotel. It's a decision about who we are and who we want to become. First, Congregational was here as the city was just beginning to take shape. Founded in 1864, we are the oldest congregational church in Colorado. And we were the first church built when Boulder was a fledgling community. Our forebears played a role in shaping the city. And for more than 160 years, we have been part of its life. 25 years ago, our congregation launched a $10 million renovation, not simply to preserve a historic building, but to make it a place that could serve the wider community as well as our own church. Today, we are one of the busiest centers of community life in downtown Boulder. Our congregation is regional, drawing people from more than 10 surrounding cities and towns. Alongside our own active civic life, church life, we share our building generously with 40 nonprofit organizations and community partners, seven 12-step recovery groups, mindful works job training, grief support, author talks, art exhibits, dozens of concerts, and programs that serve more than 2,000 meals a year to our unhoused neighbors. We are part of the fabric that knits the community of Boulder together. We tend to some of the city's most vulnerable people. In a quiet way, we tend to the soul of the city itself. The Spruce Street lot serves to make that work possible. There is not enough parking in downtown Boulder now. That's our experience several times a week. That reality matters here. Removing 59 spaces would make an already strained situation significantly worse. Losing this lot would have a profound impact on the people who depend on our building. The other historic congregations on Pine Street and the Museum of Boulder also rely on the lot because like us, they lack the space for enough parking of their own. The Spruce Street lot is a shared civic resource, a public asset supporting an essential and potentially fragile community infrastructure. There are also substantive questions about the proposal itself. The parking study did not account for the impact of displaced parking. Section 5 of the proposed sale agreement raises real concerns about the city's future flexibility. There are still important questions about feasibility and alternatives that deserve answers before city council decides. For these reasons, we cannot support this proposal. We urge you to take time to find a path that better protects the community infrastructure already serving Boulder. A decision to proceed with this developer's proposal would have dramatic and permanent consequences. A parking lot is a small unglamorous thing. But sometimes the unglamorous things are the ground that holds a community together. Thank you for listening. Thank you. And for the work you do on behalf of the whole city.

Thank you. All right. Now we're going to go to Robert Mathias, then Karen Kumbo, and Laura Gonzalez.

My name is Robert Mathias. I'm a 26-year-old. Boulder resident living in East Boulder. I'm opposed to the elimination of the Spruce Broadway surface parking lot. We've collected signatures on two petitions from people opposed to the proposed sale. The online petition has 779 signatures and there are 533 signatures on paper for a total of over 1,300. 52% of those are from outside of Boulder. I've provided those to your clerk. I visited 54 restaurants and shops on or near the west half of Pearl Street Mall. Of those 54, 53 of the managers were horrified at the thought of losing that parking lot. When they asked where they and their employees would park, I suggested the Spruce Garage. I hate that garage was the response I got from most people. These people were not addressed in your parking study except as statistics. The 53 managers complained about lack of convenient parking downtown and were worried about the effect a 110-room hotel without parking would have on their staff and customers. This pending purchase is a sweetheart deal for the hotel. Even the limited concessions the developer has made are short-lived and appear to be just the minimum to allow them to exceed the height limitation. I voted for that height limitation. It served the city well. The deal also requires the city to pay for and maintain any parking spaces that come out of required in the planning process. And you know, the city can't afford that. Please slow this thing down and think through all of the unintended consequences and renegotiate the deal if it must happen at all. Thanks for listening.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Karen Kumbo, Laura Gonzalez and Pamela Chalice.

Hello. I'm Karen Combo and a member of First Congregational Church. I'm also a veteran.

Ma'am, if you can speak into the mic, please.

Sorry. I'm as short as Susan is. I'm also the veteran of 40 years of municipal administration, including land use. So I understand the difficulty of making decisions like this. Our first concern is process. It seems like a decision has been made about parking for a new hotel without the benefit of a site plan or community engagement. And I know that's coming up, but the decision is happening now. The parking study by Fox Tuttle, which I know is a respected transportation firm, is just not complete nor accurate without the site planning information. We urge you to defer tonight's decision to explore ways to address the parking issue. There is a trend in cities to eliminate minimum parking requirements. And you can certainly argue that a surface parking lot is not particularly attractive, nor the highest and best use of a piece of property. But it is necessary infrastructure that serves the other uses. Not everyone can ride a bike or a bus. Without adequate parking, frustrated visitors will stop coming downtown, and that is not an economic development win. An 84-room hotel recently opened in downtown Longmont on the site of a city-owned surface parking lot. The city and the DDA invested over $4 million, donated land, connections, grants, rebates of the lodging tax, and the lower level of the underground parking is reserved for public spaces, free public parking. It's about 60 spaces. We'd like to see that kind of creative approach explored here. We have a beautiful and historic building. We're very fortunate to be a growing church. Our campus serves a wide range of activities throughout the entire week. please consider all of the impacts before selling this parking lot. Thank you.

Thank you. Now let's go to Lara Gonzalez, then Pamela Chalice, and Libby Black. Is Lara present? Not seeing her, let's go to Pamela Chalice then.

I'm Libby.

Oh, is Pamela present? Okay, go to Pamela online, please.

Pam, your mic's unmuted. There we go.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. Hello, my name is the Reverend Dr. Pamela Chalice, and I have the privilege of serving as the senior pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church here in Boulder. We are celebrating 130 years of being an anchor institution formed and grown in downtown Boulder. Spending our time, talent, energy, and tax earning revenue here, Trinity began with everyone living in Boulder. This is not the case anymore as we are a commuter church now. Trinity is the second closest congregation to the parking lot at 2121 Broadway. We rely on this lot for people to park in concerts, 12-step meetings, rehearsals, weddings, funerals, and community meetings like the one held at Trinity yesterday. This lot is one of the last flat lots that is available for people to use in our neighborhood. And I have conversed with people with disabilities who use walkers, wheelchairs, and crutches who are reluctant to park underground even in our Trinity building or park in a parking structure. And I hope you will agree that anything that makes it difficult for all the groups that I mentioned above to eat, park, and shop in Boulder for 52 weeks in a year should be seriously considered and not ignored for the two weeks that Sundance will be here. Boulder still feels like a small town and forcing people to park further away than one block or in a structure changes that small town welcoming character of our amazing city. Boulder isn't Denver and we don't expect to park like Denver does. If the hotel is a done deal, then please force this hotel to be built above the flat lot like what was done at the Embassy Suites or at Iris Park Structures, which would keep the flat parking lot available for our anchor congregations, the museum and all those who spend tax-generating revenue in downtown Boulder. Dear City Council, we've already made housing in Boulder very difficult. Please don't make parking the same. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Libby Black and then Jean Nelson and Kittredge Marcy.

Hello. My name is Libby Black. I've lived in southeast Boulder for over 35 years. Just as a little note about community we have here, As I was collecting signatures for the Spruce Seat lot, I asked a 20-something woman walking by if she lived in Boulder. And she lifted her glasses and said, yes, and you taught me math in middle school. That's what I like about community. I'm concerned about accessible parking. I disagree with the statement in the parking study that there's enough combined excess capacity to absorb the full 59 spaces displaced demand. As referred to earlier, a parking space on Walnut is not a parking space on Spruce Street, garage, or surface. It's completely unrealistic to think that users from the study overcapacity Spruce Street lot can be accommodated in these structures. When the Spruce Street garage is full, under construction, or the elevator is not working, just picture in your head what it would be like for your elderly neighbor using a walker to walk five to eight blocks somewhat uphill from Walnut to the Museum of Boulder or First Congregational Church or Trinity for a concert, a 12-step group, or a memorial service. It's not going to happen. Yesterday, a friend told me that she came to an event at the church, and having recently fallen, she needed easy access to the church. However, she had to park in the parking garage on Spruce because the surface lot was full, and the elevator was broken. Why is this hotel exempt from parking yet it will eliminate 59 spaces for the community, which includes two parking spots for those with disabilities. Do we know what percentage of visitors to Boulder hotels drive a car? What about accessible parking for the hotel guests?

Your time is up, but thank you for your testimony. Now let's go to Jean Nelson, Kittredge Marcy, and Sarah Schulte.

My name is Jean Nelson. I have lived in East Boulder for 17 years. I'm a first Kong member and a retired CPA. I understand money matters, and I have a social conscience as well. Last Saturday, I stood in the parking lot from noon until 2, collecting signatures for the petition on this matter. When the... When told that the city wants to replace the lot with a hotel with no parking, the general attitude was summarized by one eloquent man who said, oh my God, you can't make this up. What are they thinking? Folks if we can have quiet in the room, please I got over 90% of the people that I asked to sign did This is not a popular move for your constituents The turnover was huge people ranged from the young with strollers to the aged with canes retailers rely on rapid customer turnover and eliminating convenient nearby surface parking acts as a direct tax and on convenience and punishes the existent businesses as well as those not in the prime of life and who are physically challenged. Downtown Boulder's been in a decline for the past six years with resulting lack of tax income to the city. Consist congestion from construction at this site will immediately impair exist in businesses. It won't take long for people to further abandon the area and do their shopping and dining elsewhere. How does this help revitalize Boulder in a profitable way? Using a public land sale to subsidize new retail spaces flies in the face of supporting the legacy businesses who have funded Cajun for decades. This sale is not popular with local businesses, thriving churches, or your voting public. The city needs to slow down and more carefully think through.

Your time is up, but thank you for your testimony. Okay, we're going to go to Kittredge Marcy now, then Sarah Schulte and Peter Mortimer.

Kittredge Marcy. Thank you for the opportunity to address the board this evening. I don't actually live in Boulder. I work three jobs and make $23 an hour, but I can't afford to live in Boulder. Now, this is a different conversation for you to have, but one of those three jobs is at First Congregational Church of Boulder. I am part of the five-person audiovisual team that is responsible for streaming their services online. They began online streaming in during the pandemic because there was no other way for people to attend services. Even after it ended, they found that there was still a need. Shut-ins, people who were sick or happened to be out of town could still attend services. And we stream other events as well, besides Sunday services. Several times a year, we stream a celebration of life, special speakers, or congregational meetings. People who might otherwise not be able to attend can still share in all these services as well. We'll often have national audiences. I get great satisfaction in knowing I am helping people attend various church services that they might otherwise not be able to attend. I don't know if I won't be able to continue working there if we lose the lot but it will make it much harder. I can't walk or bicycle from Broomfield and riding the bus both ways would actually take longer than my shifts last. I appreciate the opportunity to speak and I implore you to reconsider approving this sale. Thank you.

Thank you. Now let's go to Sarah Schulte, Peter Mortimer, and Melody Fuller.

Hello. My name is Sarah Schulte, and I've been a resident of both the city of Boulder for 40 years and a member of First Congregational Church for 22. It seems to me that the parking study says that the parking is adequate for the downtown area, but I think my question is for who. So a lot of the capacity seems to be in the St. Julian lot, which is a half mile from our from our church. And it seems to me like this is really not a reasonable amount of distance for many of the populations that we serve. So I'd like to look particularly at one population, which is the elderly. Church attendance is a documented protective factor against loneliness and depression. And that benefit depends on being able to attend in person. Transportation and access barriers, including long walks, are independently shown to reduce attendance at religious services and increase depression and loneliness in the population. Other research points to that on average, elderly people are willing to walk about one block to reach a service. So losing our close-in parking for our services could directly lead to decreased mental well-being and increased loneliness for our current elderly members and for our future elderly members, probably including myself. I expect there may be similar issues for our folks that we serve, like the ones who attend our 12-step programs, where regular attendance, in-person attendance, really leads to effective sobriety. And if there are logistical barriers to being able to attend, like transportation barriers, then that leads to less successful outcomes. So to me, this all raises more questions than it answers, and that we need to take more time to think about the populations that are served by this lot. And I hope that you will do that. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Now let's go to Peter Mortimer, Melody Fuller, and Ryan Diggins.

Hello. I'm Peter Mortimer. I've lived in Boulder since 1978 when I was four, and I have two kids here and a small business here. I actually wanted to speak out in support of this proposal. I met Ryan, the developer, recently at his hotel in Ramble, which he started with my friend Robbie Lalchandani, who I grew up with in South Boulder, who started Death & Co. and soda club now there. And I love the Ramble Hotel. I love the community vibe. There's so many people from Denver who hang out there. It's the exact kind of thing that we need in Boulder as we try to figure out how to work with Sundance. And it's such a great location. And I think, you know, I've just hearing what they've done with the parking studies. I just think big picture that There is, it seems like this has been assessed reasonably. And I think I'm not part of an organized group. I didn't come here with a speech. I just, you know, learned about this recently. I think I probably represent a huge majority of people in Boulder who would be extremely excited to have something like this. I live over on the hill where by the hill where the Moxie and the Limelight have gone in these huge hotel developments and they're very corporate. They don't feel like Boulder. They don't feel local. They don't have that great vibe that I think we used to have with small businesses downtown. We have with a few small now and this would be the kind of thing that would really bring vibrant vibrancy flavor and I think be really embraced by the community in Boulder. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Melody Fuller, Ryan Diggins and Neil Cease.

My name is Melody Fuller and I am a 52 year resident of South Boulder. There are more than 15 downtown art galleries and at least three church galleries that are open to the public. that are adjacent or quite close to the parking lot. Parking is crucial to inviting people to visit these galleries and then stay for dinner and shop on the mall. I think it's ironic that the proposed hotel would provide art space, but at the very same time, it takes away parking from the art lovers who would visit. Parking is not just crucial, but it's critical for the elderly and disabled unable to walk far, particularly when the garage on the south side of Spruce is full. We shouldn't destroy this accessible lot and add to the parking difficulties downtown if we want to support the arts, which we say we do. But if we want to support the arts, restaurants and shops on the mall, people need to be able to park close and conveniently. The open feeling and views available from this parking lot lend themselves to the public's that's the public local people and visitors alike. It lends themselves to our enjoyment and appreciation of Boulder and our arts community. This would be an irreplaceable loss. Thank you.

Thank you. Now let's go to Ryan Diggins, Niall Cease, and Troy Blessing.

All right. Hello, everybody. Good to meet you all for the first time. My name is Ryan Diggins. I'm the developer, owner, operator of this proposed hotel project. We own the Ramble Hotel in Denver, as you've heard, a boutique hotel down there where I live, and also Municipal Grand Hotel in Savannah, Georgia, amongst a few other bars and restaurants and things like that. What gets me out of bed in the morning in my career these days is creating spaces for meaningful connection to take place. That's what I'm into. The hotel thing doesn't really interest me. And if you were to come to our projects, like Peter was at last week, I think when I met him, you'd see a company that's really committed to cultural programming and community. Art exhibitions, live music, live performances, film screenings, and then a really dynamic, vibrant food and beverage component that's open morning, noon, and night, frequented by primarily locals. That's the majority of our business. And then we just so happen to have hotel rooms above. So when this opportunity started percolating a while ago, me being a kid that grew up here, I went to school down the street on Mapleton. I just kind of got excited about how I could contribute to the vibrancy of Boulder a bit. You know, there's a lot of great counterpoints here. We've all got a dog in the fight, but I'm just telling you what I'm into. And I think there's something really additive for the city of Boulder that I could contribute to. I think there's been a bit of a misconception that this vote is to like sell the lot tomorrow. We're just going under contract. So the reason I haven't reached out to anybody yet is because we're not under contract. Once we're under contract, I plan on, I mean, my goodness, all of you guys, I need to talk to every last one of you. I'd love to have open office hours at the hotel for you all to come down and visit, have a coffee, buy a beer, or at the church. That's important to me. So that's next. This is the first.

Thank you. All right, now let's go to Niall Cease, then Troy Blessing, then Christian Holden.

Hello, Council. My name is Niall Cease. I'm a resident of Boulder, and I want to speak in favor of the city selling this lot. and allowing it to be redeveloped into a hotel to increase the walkability of our downtown, increase vitality, and increase the number of places to stay to create downward pressure on housing prices. As someone who only gets downtown through walking or biking, this parking lot is another thing I have to walk past to get to my destination, increasing the distance and commute time. Walking past an asphalt lot also makes the walk less pleasant as compared to anything else more interesting. One example is when I walk from my gym, one Boulder Fitness, two Illegal Pete's to get a burrito after, half the walk is walking across the Wells Fargo parking lot. One of the things that is very impactful in determining if someone's going to walk or drive to get somewhere is how pleasant of a walk it will be. 180 excess spaces during peak time is plenty surplus, and there is likely far more surplus during non-peak hours. It's also impossible to have any kind of system where there's parking available directly in front of your destination. I was recently at Flatirons Mall in Broomfield, and in a sea of parking, I still didn't get a spot extremely close to where I was going. Having a hotel instead of a parking lot will also increase activity of foot traffic downtown, benefiting our local businesses. The types of people staying in a hotel are here on vacation or business, and are going to be eating out and exploring our downtown. And this will be a rising tides raises all boats solution to helping out our downtown economy. And lastly, as a renter, I think we need more hotels, especially with Sundance coming to town. I'm always keeping an eye on the rental market, and I've already noticed landlords posting ads for housing and asking if potential renters can leave for the month of January. More housing for visitors, even if it's primarily housing for the wealthiest, can help from the rest of us getting displaced.

Thank you. All right, now let's go to Troy at Blessing Online, then Christian Holden and Sheikh Karam.

Thank you. Yeah, this is Troy Blessing. I'm a longtime resident of the Boulder area and work downtown as well. I'm also in favor of the project. I think that I obviously hear that there are certain groups that would be greatly impacted by the loss of this parking, but I think Boulder as a whole is adequately parked, and I think that the benefits outweigh the consequences here. I've been to the Rambo Hotel in Denver. I've seen how it can... kind of be a piece of placemaking in the neighborhood and really revitalize the energy in the area. And I would also think that bringing people from outside the city and having another place to stay or enjoy their family and friends is a benefit to the community as a whole rather than much more so than a parking lot. That's all I have.

Thank you. Now let's go to Christian Holden, and then the last speaker will be Shay Karam.

Hi there. My name is Christian Holden, and I am fortunate enough to be a resident and homeowner in North Boulder. I've also been fortunate in my life to visit a lot of great cities. And in all my years of visiting other cities, I have never once come back home and said, man, the parking was incredible. What I remember and what I talk about and what makes me want to go back to these places is whether I could walk someplace beautiful, whether the architecture stopped me in my tracks, or whether there was a cafe worth lingering in or a restaurant worth planning a night around. That's exactly what this project gives us as people lucky enough to live in Boulder. And I don't say that without evidence. Many of us have seen this team's work before at the Ramble Hotel in the Rhino District. And if you've ever had a chance to visit the hotel, you know the level of care that went into this project. Every detail down to the chandelier in the courtyard was intentional. The hotel didn't just fill a lot. It became a destination. People plan trips around and that the community gathers within. That's the caliber of work that we're now somehow debating here in Boulder. This is something that both tourists and residents can find joy in experiencing. And this project really isn't just about charm, it's about revenue. Tourism contributed a record $29.2 billion to Colorado's economy last year and supported nearly 188,000 jobs statewide. Boulder is an important part of that story. Every dollar a visitor spends here in restaurants, shops, hotel rooms is a dollar that helps fund the services the city relies on, including those for our elderly population. We have a chance to trade a cement parking lot for something that pays us back in beauty, in vibrancy, in community building, and in dollars. I'm asking you to be forward-thinking visionaries and improve this project. Let's build the kind of city that prioritizes beauty. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, our last speaker is Shay Karam.

Hi, thank you. I'm Shay Karam, a longtime Boulder resident. I'm speaking today concerning the need for a fair and thorough public process in consideration of this conversion of the parking lot into a hotel. Most of us would agree that the city of Boulder is unique in its beauty and vibrancy, and this is due in large part to the way we build. The blue line that preserves open space, height restrictions of our buildings, low-medium density, extensive community input that allows all stakeholders to have a voice. The process undertaken for the Spruce Street parking lot and hotel appears to be waiving the height restriction, negating the requirement for parking and largely devoid of community input. There are many stakeholders impacted by the loss of this parking lot, businesses, residents, the church congregants. and those who use its services. And these stakeholders have only recently found out about the proposal, not from the city, but from concerned citizens who are literally going door to door to inform stakeholders about what's happening. As the former Director of Planning for the Housing Authority of the City of Boulder back in the 90s, I can attest that there was no affordable housing that was ever approved or built without extensive community input without strict adherence to land use regulations and practices and certainly nothing was built without us providing parking. In the case before you the hotel developers appeared to have none of these requirements. My plea to you is to put a hold on this sale and build out open up the process for community input letting voices be heard about its impact look for alternatives, and most importantly, stay aligned with our land use processes and practices that have kept Boulder the vibrant city that it is. In closing, I encourage everyone to go over to the Boulder Museum where they have an incredible exhibit on how Boulder grew to be the beautiful city it is. This wasn't by happen chance.

Thank you. All right. That brings us to the end of the public hearing. Thanks so much to everybody who came out and spoke to us tonight. We really appreciate hearing from you. So I'm now going to come back to council to see if anybody has a follow-up question for city staff or wants to get the discussion started on the proposal in front of us. Yep.

Matt. One follow-up question is for Mark. There's been a question about kind of the sequencing of process. And I think in particular one of them is regarding, you know, a site plan or a site review. And I want to sort of maybe have you sort of answer the typical way things work, or a better way to say, has anybody who doesn't actually own a property ever embarked on a discretionary site review process?

No, they are subject to our normal development review process. So this is just to get the contract in place to sell. And then the execution of that contract is contingent on them completing the development review process. And we anticipate that will take at least a couple of years.

And so just to sort of follow up, all of the development projects that people are looking towards as sort of the process in which we follow are all predicated on the individual submitting that process actually owning the property at the front end. Is that correct?

Correct. And if this sale goes forward, the proposed development, the developers will go through a public process for both concept and site plan review.

The same as any other property in our city?

That's correct. We are explicitly not exempting them from that process in the contract.

Great. Thank you.

Somebody want to go first? Nicole.

Sure. I just have some comments and a sort of nod to where I'll be going tonight. And colleagues, I hope it's okay if I take a little bit of extra time because I can't sit up here with my church community anxious and concerned and be all that concise. I wanted to thank you all so much for coming. It's so good to see you here. Welcome. Lemony Snicket said, someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don't tell them they aren't. Sit with them and have a drink. I know many of you who spoke feel wronged tonight, and I'm not here to tell you that you shouldn't be feeling this way. I'm here to sit with you and have a drink. I've been a member at First Congregational Church since 2017. For nearly a decade, I've parked in this lot for Sunday services, committee meetings, gatherings and events. For me and for many of us, this parking lot represents access, belonging and connection to a faith community that has sustained us through a lot of ups and downs. Volunteers come to cook meals for those experiencing homelessness. Small businesses rent church spaces. And there are concerts and art shows that are open to all. When so much is changing in our bigger world, losing a part of your regular routine for connecting to community and each other feels like one more obstacle to overcome. I say all that because it's important to me that all of us up here understand why people are here. Sometimes a parking lot is just a parking lot, and sometimes it feels like a whole lot more. Since my church is here, I think I can quote some Bible tonight. There's a story in the Gospel of John about an encounter Jesus had with a respected Jewish leader named Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night feeling anxious and out of step with the world around him and trying to reconcile what he was seeing with his faith and his place in the world, which seemed to be shifting under his feet. These are the fears that I hear so many in our entire city experiencing right now. People are confused by how fast things seem to be changing and they are tired, profoundly tired from carrying so much change and uncertainty. It is also true that downtown businesses will benefit from another hotel, which means our parks, our open space, human services, and other critical functions that are suffering right now will also benefit. That is without question. We're already seeing these benefits from the Moxie and Limelight on the hill. We'll also see a benefit in reducing our facilities load. I feel it would be irresponsible to future generations not to keep working on consolidating and concentrating our footprint given we have so much aging infrastructure to maintain. So I'll vote to move this forward, but to my church members, I want to come back to Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus as a reminder that we rarely feel prepared for transformation when it appears. It's very human to want to hold tight to our usual ways of doing things and especially amid so much change. And it's our faith that helps us see what else might be possible. Seeing all of you here tonight, I see so many extraordinary possibilities for the city, for the church, and even for the hotel. There will be multiple stages of design and planning, and all of these will be opportunities to weigh in on this proposal. Now that the confidential and private negotiations will be over, there can be the problem-solving conversations you've been longing for with city staff and the developer, not just about transportation, but about any other concerns. And as these conversations unfold with your help, they'll generate ideas that will help the city think more broadly about how people are accessing our downtown, given how much it has changed in the last decades and why it feels so inaccessible because the concerns that you all have raised here tonight are not unique at all. But I really do believe that we can solve this by working together. And rather than leaving the church isolated, with your help, this work can build our literal and figurative connections to the city and open doors to new partnerships, new members, and new ways of being present downtown. I know that some people don't want another hotel, I hear that, and I see hotels as part of a resilient city. They shelter people displaced by disasters. They welcome people seeking medical care that they increasingly can't get elsewhere. They do provide spaces for community and connection just like our church does and they house people who are traveling for work or connecting with local family and friends and also make them feel welcome in our city. They also bring visitors who may walk through the church's doors, find community here, and become part of our church's story, not unlike I did so many years ago. So I hope you will keep coming because we have years of work ahead. And even though we aren't always ready for the transformations we encounter, they do invite us into a space where we can find ways to create more connection, more belonging, and more solidarity for the whole community. I also selfishly hope that you'll keep coming, so I have an excuse to speak in the language of the faith we share. Because for me, there is no better way to talk about topics like fear, change, hope, and community. I regret that I'm disappointing my own church community tonight, and I hope that you don't feel alone in trying to solve these problems. You are an important part of the city, and the city is in this with you, and I have faith that what we'll create by working together will benefit us all. Thank you again for being here.

Thank you for those powerful words, Nicole. Tara? Tara?

That was beautiful. We don't often get to hear that kind of language here, so it was great. I had the opportunity last week to go to the soon to be fixed, used to be awful, just like you said, spruce garage. I mean, it was truly falling apart. My husband is disabled, and we use the Spruce Garage to eat downtown. And it was very problematic. But it is going to be so nice. I saw it. It is so nice. The elevator is going to work. It's going to be fresh. It's going to be great. Anybody else get to see it yet? I advise all of you to go see it. It's really beautiful. So please give this a chance with the Spruce Garage. I hear you. And I actually like to park downtown myself, and I go a lot. And so I get what you're saying. A few blocks for my husband makes a big difference. He can't walk a few blocks. He cannot only just walk one block. But just give us a chance to work this out. I'm going to vote yes, but I want to be there for you, and I mean it. I'll give you my phone number after if you want to just come up to me. I do that for everybody. I will be here for you.

Thanks, Tara. Matt?

first thank you all for coming here tonight. It is an absolute privilege and honor for us. I would say to see so many new faces, uh, embark in the public process. Uh, it's just great. And so we hope that regardless of how this particular outcome plays, that you continue to engage in the process in the city. Uh, it's important for us to see and hear from as many people as possible, whether or not the, anything we're doing directly impacts you. We want to hear your opinions and perspectives. So just want to honor and say, thank you for being here. Um, Tonight, we are not approving the size, the feel, the color, how many doors this project will have. In fact, all we would be doing tonight is beginning the very process to which community, council, and the development team would then come together to actually figure out what this thing could be and meet the most amount of opportunities and tackle some of the challenges that our community faces. And so I think that embarking on that beginning process is what this is really about. And so I understand that here we are talking about a potential sale and we wonder where's the process. The process begins when someone owns a property and then can go about the process of saying, here's my vision community. What do you think? And we go through concept and site review. You give us feedback or boards and commissions give us feedback and the project tape shape to eventually become a thing that creates maximum good for our community. And so I look forward to that process going forward from here. I'll just say the last thing is about surface parking lots. We are really focused on making sure, whether it is this one or others, that surface parking lots find better uses in our community. They provide the least amount of revenue. They are the worst form of land use we have in our city. They contribute to climate change more than any other land use in our thing other than maybe oil and gas. And so it's an opportunity for us to pay it forward and figure out how do we use our land in the best way possible for future generations. And so I'm hopeful that we can continue to do that. And I look forward to the next steps working with you all in how we find a way forward and make this the best possible thing we can going forward.

Thanks, Matt. Tina?

Yeah. First, I just wanted to thank all of you for coming this evening and thank you specifically for all the contributions you make to our community. Uh, I was at the church a couple of weeks ago to listen to David Skaggs and just understand the value of all the people that you bring into our community. Um, I, uh, my biggest concern, um, about this process has been just the general question of how do we declare a property surplus in the city and what is our process for disposal? And there are a lot of different ways to talk about this, and I hope that we define some clear pathways to do this. I've been really encouraged by the way that we're treating the properties at the east bookend and the very open and transparent process. That being said, it's difficult to imagine that we wouldn't end up where we are with this offer that came out of nowhere, which is highly unusual. But I do think it would be an asset to our community. And if you think about the types of buildings that will add vibrancy, the Rambo Hotel, which I've been to, does seem to fit into that framework. I think that we can work together to come up with ways to make it accessible to the church. and thinking really extending our thoughts about micro mobility. And I'm not suggesting pedicabs, but we've just allowed those into our community. I'm a little uncertain about that. But we can find different ways to move people around our city that don't rely on surface parking lots. So I will also be moving this forward tonight, but really look forward to your engagement and thinking about all the ways people access the downtown to add to get people anywhere they want to go.

Thanks, Tina. Tayshia?

Thank you. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for the work that has been done. I will start with what keeps me up at night is whether Boulder will have enough water for our children's children's children. The decisions that we make for 20 years is very different than several generations. And there is not a climate scientist or water expert that I have heard who estimates our water supply will ever be better than it is today. And to know that the projections used were not inclusive of what was provided in the 2025 water planning scenarios, which the most severe scenario indicated major decreases of the Colorado Big Thompson and Windy Gap, which is one-third of our water supply. And as anybody looking at the Colorado River knows, it's estimated anywhere from 6% to 40% decrease. What we have is a lot of paper water. We do not have wet water. And so I continue to be concerned at the prospect. And again, although I appreciate my colleagues' comments about the contract, The proposal is very specific to one hundred and ten rooms and that estimate is almost. And again if it was just the bar I'd be all for it. It's really the hotel that's the problem for me. And somebody mentioned the limelight. So that's just the water aspect the energy aspect. I didn't see anything around all electric and this is something that I was very proud of the limelight and the work that they did. I believe that the city of Boulder needs to raise the bar as it relates to our energy and water demands. And although I appreciate the proposals 10% above our energy code, which is still one of the best in the country, I don't believe that's going to be sufficient for the mega climate crisis and chaos that places like NOAA and NIST and all of the places that we rely on so much have been telling us. From an equity, I also had an issue with the solar offset and saying 5% was not sufficient. We're having our meeting with Xcel Energy soon. Many of us have already experienced some of the outages that happened even today. And we can anticipate even more outages coming. So not moving above and beyond is a concern that we need to deal with. From the equity front, I'm not sure if 20% is sufficient for the certified women and minority-owned offset from that perspective. And I didn't see any mention of the union and union workers, as many are still struggling with the sale of the Hotel Boulderado. and the decreased working conditions once the sale was made. And so although I appreciate and I have been down to the Ramble, it is a beautiful hotel. However, for the ecological and environmental concerns and pressures that I've indicated using the best available data that we have, I will be voting no on this. Thank you.

Thanks, Tayshia. Anybody else want to go?

Yeah, Rob. I want to thank my colleagues for all their comments. They've been powerful and profound. And I do agree that in some of these complex issues, we will find new solutions. And I'm specifically speaking to the parking and the loss of the 59 spaces. I do have faith in staff and the negotiations that we will work that out. And that's street parking lot will be accommodating enough. I also just want to point out something that nobody else has spoken to yet is just the pure financial aspect of it. And I want to thank staff for replying to my hotline. The hotel generating $1 to $1.6 million annually in sales tax, plus $110,000 in property tax. That capitalized over 6% over the 30 years is $18.5 to $28.5 million to the city. That's not insignificant, considering that the parking structure right now just pretty much all of our parking structures pretty much just break even for maintenance. So when I look at this and I evaluate the parcels highest and best use, it's not the one-time proceeds of the 5.8 million. It's the order of magnitude of what we're going to be getting over these next years. And then the final thing I'll just say is these covenants, the affordable commercial space, publicly accessible space, arts and cultures, diversity, energy performance, I mean, these are, I feel like these are some really powerful additions to it that will again be the highest and best use. And I can't stress enough that this isn't a done deal once we vote on this. It has to go through entitlement. It has to go through planning. And there will be plenty of public input.

Thanks, Rob. Ryan, do you want to go or should I? I'll go ahead. Well, thanks so much to everybody for coming out. Really appreciate hearing from you. And what I want to say is that the strength of the community that you have in your congregation has really shown through very strongly. I've certainly spent time at the church over the years for one function or another, and I've seen firsthand the role that it plays in the Boulder community. So I'm really touched by how you've come together on this and really appreciate your engagement. I am supportive of this proposal. I think that that hotel and that location is going to make for a much more vibrant downtown overall. I think it's going to be a valuable contributor, both financial, as Rob mentioned, but also just to the life of the city. I think having those folks staying there, having the food and beverage items there is going to be a significant asset that I think will benefit the city for years and decades to come. WHAT I WILL SAY IS THAT I PROMISE THAT THE CITY WILL WORK WITH YOU ALL AND OTHER NEARBY FOLKS ON THE PARKING SITUATION. WE'VE GOT THE PERMANENT ALLEY EASEMENT AND ACCESS THAT WILL NOT GO AWAY. AND THEN, MARK, I'M JUST GOING TO LOOK OVER IN YOUR DIRECTION. I KNOW THAT WE HAVE SOME CONTROL OVER WHAT PERMITS ARE GIVEN WHERE IN THE DIFFERENT LOTS. SO I KNOW THAT THERE'S CREATIVITY TO BE USED IN TERMS OF THE BALANCING THE DIFFERENT PARKING DEMANDS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. I'm confident as we move through the next stages of the process, which are not finalized, that creativity will be used and people's needs will be taken into account as we go through the next steps. So thanks everybody for coming out.

Do you want to say anything or should we just, okay.

Yeah, Nicole was very eloquent. All right, perhaps someone would like to make a motion.

I move to approve a purchase agreement between CAGED and MALR Boulder LLC for the disposal of CAGED owned real property located at 2121 Broadway and authorize the city manager acting as the general manager of CAGED to execute the purchase agreement and all associated documents.

Second. All right, we've got a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call please, Alicia, for the board?

Yes, sir, thank you. We'll start the roll call with Board Member Schuhart.

Yes.

Speer. Yes. Weiner. Yes. Adams.

No.

Benjamin.

Yes.

Brockett.

Yes.

Kaplan.

Yes.

And Marquis. Yes. The motion to approve the purchase agreement is hereby approved by the board with a vote of seven to one.

Very good. All right. Well, thanks again, folks, for coming out. And there will be more steps to come. And city staff, thanks for all of your work on this project. Really appreciate it. I'm going to go ahead and adjourn the downtown commercial district board meeting and reconvene as the Boulder City Council. And then I'm going to go ahead and bring our meeting to a close since we have no further agenda items. All right. All right, I'll gavel us closed here at 8.21 p.m.