{"id":578,"date":"2010-03-07T17:05:16","date_gmt":"2010-03-07T23:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=578"},"modified":"2010-05-22T13:21:48","modified_gmt":"2010-05-22T19:21:48","slug":"boulder-city-council-2010-retreat-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=578","title":{"rendered":"Boulder City Council 2010 Retreat Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On the first day of the City Council retreat, members discussed their roles as Council members,\u00a0 Council dynamics, and such topics as: direction to staff, serial meetings, Hotline use, private meetings, personal attacks, Council advocacy, improving meetings, public participation, and Council travel to events.<\/p>\n

Serial meetings, Hotline use, and private meetings<\/em><\/strong> received much attention with Council members feeling hamstrung that they couldn\u2019t engage in larger conversations with each other without violating the Colorado Sunshine Law. Acting City Attorney David Gehr pointed out that open meeting rules apply to electronic and phone correspondence and that the Hotline needs to be used for one way communication – not cross talk.\u00a0 Putting something on the Hotline and everyone weighing is problematic. \u00a0The Hotline can\u2019t be used to line up votes.\u00a0 He also commented that serial meetings cross into the gray area when they\u2019re occurring between three or more Council members. \u00a0He cautioned that violations of the open meetings law would be an immediate disqualification of the action that was taken by Council. \u00a0Council asked the Acting City Attorney to examine options for Council to discuss issues privately to protect individuals or groups. Council member Ageton recommended the use of Executive Sessions.<\/p>\n

Personal attacks<\/em><\/strong> were a main focus of the retreat as Council member Wilson noted that there had been a slight increase in attacks and that Council needed to shut them down.\u00a0 He suggested the Mayor step in and stop attacks from the public against Council members as well as attacks between Council members. Council member Ageton noted that attacks cross the line when they are more personal and also suggested the Mayor stop the attacks.\u00a0 Council members gave the Mayor permission to stop personal attacks.\u00a0 (See the Channel 8 recording of the February 16, 2010 Council meeting in which a citizen was hauled off in handcuffs for criticizing Council members Ageton and Karakehian during Public Participation.)<\/p>\n

Public Participation<\/em> <\/strong>came under scrutiny as Council was discussing ways to streamline meetings. They expressed concern for the same individuals and some large groups who show up at every Council meeting and all say the same thing. They would generally like to see new speakers go first and suggested forming a committee to address the issue of encouraging new speakers or shuffling the order of speakers. \u00a0Changing the Council procedures to limit all Public Participation speakers to two minutes (unless time is pooled with other speakers) was offered as a suggestion.\u00a0 The special committee for Public Participation (Alisa Lewis, and Council members Karakehian and Morzel) will come back to Council with options for changing Public Participation.\u00a0 Hopefully, staff\u2019s suggestion of a \u201cSeparate public participation schedule (not at Tuesday night Council meeting) that can be taped and viewed by Council members and staff and aired on Channel 8\u201d will not be considered.<\/p>\n

On the second day of the retreat, Council members listed their goals for the year.\u00a0 A complete list of each member\u2019s goals is available in the Boulder City Council Retreat<\/a> document and discussion of the top goals are listed in the 2010 City Council Retreat Summary<\/a>.\u00a0 A few interesting comments are list below:<\/p>\n

Uni Hill Redevelopment<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The surprise of the day emerged when Council members Karakehian, Becker, and Ageton were discussing their goals for Uni Hill redevelopment and mentioned that they heard CU\u2019s Conference Center will be on the Hill at Grandview. No other Council members seemed to know about this.\u00a0 Council member Karakehian requested that Council members send a resolution to CU in support of the idea or concept of the conference center without the endorsement of it on any particular site.\u00a0 Council member Karakehian later stated that the City needs to know whether the Conference Center will be on the Hill or Folsom.<\/p>\n

Reconsider the Transit Village<\/strong> <\/em>received votes from six Council members while three members voted to complete the current design.\u00a0 Numerous members expressed concern surrounding the Pollard site suggesting: it needs more input; what goes there has an impact on things around it such as design, streets, and infrastructure; big project and don\u2019t want to get it wrong; need to step back and take a look since there probably won\u2019t be a train in our lifetime; what do you do when you have zoned it already and property owners have built units; get out ideas and problems; need more of a timeline; what are the public\u2019s expectations; and it is about fairness.\u00a0 Council member Karakehian said\u00a0 that most of the people he hangs out with (realtors and developers) complain about the Pollard part for the lack of a big idea but they like what they see in the rest of the village.<\/p>\n

Council Structure<\/strong>. <\/em> Council member Becker believes something is broken with our Council structure and elections and wants the Charter Committee to check into what other cities do.<\/p>\n

Executive Sessions<\/em><\/strong>. Council member Ageton would like to enhance Council deliberations with Executive Sessions.<\/p>\n

Listed below are the Council Goals for 2010 with 14 being the highest score. For the voting process, each Council member had 5 pink dots worth two points each and 10 yellow dots worth one point each.\u00a0 Some members said that if it was a goal already underway, they might be voting for other new ones and that it didn\u2019t mean that they didn\u2019t think the ones underway weren\u2019t worthy goals. The top six goals are those with total points from 9-14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

TOTAL POINTS<\/h2>\n<\/td>\n

\n

CATEGORY<\/h2>\n<\/td>\n

\n

# OF VOTES –<\/h2>\n

(EACH VOTE EQUALS<\/h2>\n

2 POINTS)<\/h2>\n<\/td>\n

\n

# OF VOTES \u2013<\/h2>\n

(EACH VOTE<\/h2>\n

EQUALS 1 POINT)<\/h2>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

14<\/td>\nAffordable Housing<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12<\/td>\nClimate Action Plan – Existing<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11<\/td>\nUni Hill Redevelopment<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nReconsider Transit Village<\/p>\n

Mapleton Early Childhood Ed Center<\/p>\n

Waste Reduction Cost<\/td>\n

3<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

1<\/td>\n

3<\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

8<\/td>\nSustainable Streets and Centers<\/p>\n

Sustainable Ag\/Community Gardens<\/p>\n

Address Homelessness<\/td>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

1<\/td>\n

4<\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

6<\/td>\nUniversity Conference Center<\/p>\n

Multi-modal Transportation Safety<\/p>\n

Parks \u2013 Assess Opportunities<\/td>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

1<\/td>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

5<\/td>\nDowntown FAR Guidelines<\/p>\n

Transit Village \u2013 Complete the Design<\/p>\n

Charter Committee (Exec. Sessions)<\/p>\n

TMP Master Plan – realistic<\/p>\n

City Meeting\/Business Conference Center<\/td>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

0<\/td>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

4<\/td>\nJob Retention\/Creation<\/p>\n

Libraries<\/p>\n

Funds to BCVB<\/td>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/td>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

3<\/td>\nHuman Service Master Plan<\/p>\n

Alcohol Abuse<\/p>\n

Arts<\/p>\n

Diagonal Plaza Vision<\/p>\n

Support Local Business Clusters<\/td>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

0<\/td>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

2<\/td>\nClimate Action Plan – New<\/p>\n

Diverse, Welcoming Community<\/p>\n

Council Structure \u2013 elected – expectations<\/p>\n

City Negotiations<\/td>\n

1<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

0<\/td>\n

0<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

1<\/td>\nCivic Use Pad Plan<\/p>\n

Complete Existing Plans<\/p>\n

No New Fees or Taxes<\/td>\n

0<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

0<\/td>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

0<\/td>\nGay Rights<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

City Manager Brautigam identified the following areas where work was happening via the City work plan without specific Council direction: Alcohol Abuse; Civic Use Pad; Arts Commission (continuing with work plan); Library Commission (study session in mid-spring); Downtown FAR Guidelines; BCVP in March; Diverse, Welcoming Community; Job Retention and Creation (ongoing but no extra effort); Diagonal Plaza (not on list); and Transportation Maintenance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the first day of the City Council retreat, members discussed their roles as Council members,\u00a0 Council dynamics, and such topics as: direction to staff, serial meetings, Hotline use, private […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dot-gov","tag-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1636,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/1636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}