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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 03/22/2023Page | 1 3/22/23 - Minutes Natural Resources Advisory Board REGULAR MEETING Wednesday, March 22, 2023 – 6:00 PM Remote 1. CALL TO ORDER: 6:03 PM 2. ROLL CALL a. Board Members Present – • Lisa Andrews • Danielle Buttke • Bryan David • Drew Derderian • Kevin Krause (Vice Chair) • Dawson Metcalf (Chair) • Barry Noon • Kelly Stewart • Matt Zoccali b. Board Members Absent – • Barry Noon c. Staff Members Present – • Honoré Depew, Staff Liaison • Jillian Fresa, Economic Health Manager • Molly Saylor, Lead Sustainability Specialist • Ginny Sawyer, Sr. Policy and Project Manager d. Guest(s) – • Galemarie Kimmel • Mary Witlacil 3. AGENDA REVIEW 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION a. Galemarie Kimmel and Mary Witlacil joined to continue the discussion on the Poudre River and the Rights of Nature. They wanted to thank the Board for the memo they wrote in December. They also wanted to get the Board’s opinion on what the guardianship body might look like. • Dawson – A – Personally I think it has to be different from NRAB due to all the expectations, priorities, and other commitments we have to meet. I do see this as a body that is geared specifically towards the Poudre River Watershed. That would be my first foundational thoughts there. Page | 2 3/22/23 - Minutes • Danielle – A - I do think similar to NRAB that whatever guardianship body has decided upon it would be important to be influenced if not appointed by elected officials so it can be somewhat reflective of public opinion and yet still have a recognized process that is very transparent. I think there are critical differences between an advisory board and essentially a decision making body that actually has the ability to influence policy. I think it would be ideal if this particular body was more than simply an advisory board but had decision- making authority. • Dawson – Q – Honoré, can you maybe help inform this conversation a little bit based on what Danielle was just saying. Can you explain the differences to me on how the City looks at our advisory boards and commissions? I know there are some quasi-judicial decisions. Could you give us some foundation on that? Honoré – A – I will do my best and then may take a little follow up with someone with more in depth knowledge if you wanted to explore this further. Essentially, the traditional advisory boards and that is most of the 27 or so boards and commissions are specifically tasked with advising Council as a body without any decision making authority. Then there are a handful of boards that do have quasi-judicial authority over certain aspects like reviewing complaints or the Planning and Zoning Board for example. That would require a different type of charter or change inside our City Code. That is not super helpful but yes as you point out there is a distinction between advisory boards and quasi-judicial boards. I can get more info on that if that is helpful. Dawson – Comment – I appreciate that, Honoré. It was simply for me to better understand some of the commitments or roles that we play between those. • Matt – Comment – I have a quick comment related to Danielle’s on having the river guardianship group be more than advisor. I am not throwing that out, but it gives me sort of an initial set of heartburn only because of what I understand the Water Commission does in terms of being a quasi-judicial decision-making body. As long as there were some guardrails and guidelines for if the Water Commission is tasked with say making a decision related to a flood plain issue. How could that sort of crossover with a new potential guardianship of the river kind of voice. How would they work together? Again I am not throwing the idea out, just presenting another challenge of opportunity, however you want to frame it to how those groups would work together. Presenting a problem instead of a solution. I apologize for that but that is where I am at. • Bryan – Comment – Somewhat similarly on that note, if the end goal is for this body to be advocating for the natural rights of the river, it almost seems to me that being separate from a governing body allows it to have more freedoms to take stands and advocate from a different point of view from a body like NRAB would be sort of limited to in some ways. If the end goal is to push for things that are counter to some government initiatives being on the outside of that maybe helpful and provider a broader sense of perspective than what would be coming from politically appointed positions or something like that. • Galemarie – Comment – We have heard lots of those voices in our head at one time or another, so they are confirming. It is a little Page | 3 3/22/23 - Minutes puzzling at how best to imagine this going forward. We see you as colleagues in all of this so as we keep noodling our way, we will let you know. How do we best stay in touch with you all? Is it just showing up at these moments? I would have at least loved to have warned you we were going to ask that so you might have been able to think about it but didn’t know how to handle communication with the Boards. Dawson – A – You can email me as the Board Chair or Honoré as the Board Liaison. That information can be shared if you were planning to come. Public participation is open to anyone in those ten minutes. It is important to note though if we have multiple guests joining us, we have to be conscientious of that time and how it is divided between folks. Honoré – Comment – It is great to communicate directly with the Board Chair. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES a. The Board will approve the minutes at their next meeting as they are waiting for clarification on a portion of the minutes from Barry who was unable to attend or review them. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 7. NEW BUSINESS a. Economic Health Strategic Plan – Circular Economy – Jillian Fresa (Economic Health Manager) and Molly Saylor (Lead Sustainability Specialist) shared an update on the Economic Health Strategic Plan. The update is focused on supporting businesses to enable a healthy, equitable, and resilient economy and community, including an initiative to support a circular economy. This information was presented at the March 14, 2023, City Council Work Session. Staff was seeking additional feedback from the NRAB prior to going back to Council for a second Work Session on August 8, 2023. (Discussion) • Discussion | Q + A • Matt – Q – Thank you for the presentation. It was very informative. It seems like you are pretty evolved in the circular economy portion of the planning and how you are starting to look at implementation. This question comes from curiosity and not criticism. Early in this presentation you mentioned wildfires and urban fires that we saw down in Superior and things like that and the City would have a role in supporting businesses and being resilient to those kinds of events. I am curious what implementation steps you see the City being involved in. For instance, a small business having a continuity of business plan to deal with an urban fire, where might they set up shop if their business was burned down, and those kind of things. Is that the sort of thing you are thinking with that program? Jillian – A – We haven’t developed a program like that but exploring the need or addressing the need for one. Just because a few of us went down to talk to Empire and their Economic Development Office and the impacts not only to the actual burn but also the smoke and that completely destroyed the businesses down there. So still trying to explore what a preparedness program would look like in terms of fires Page | 4 3/22/23 - Minutes but even in that educational stance of small businesses understanding their insurance policy. If they are impacted by fires understanding their own insurance policy to be prepared but still exploring that. That is a great question. • Dawson – Q – I was curious if you were looking at other municipalities or cities when it comes to circular economy and how they have formed policy ideas regarding the implementation of some practices. I know we were talking a little bit about our sister city and everything but I am curious if there are some American cities you are looking at right now specifically regarding the policy piece. Molly – A – We are looking generally at all parts of the circular economy. Policy and how that is being done in other cities is part of that. You probably won’t see as many new policies through the Economic Health Strategic Plan because that is nearly a plan intended to support businesses. You will see more of the supportive programming side and probably through one of our other planning mechanisms is where some of the policy things would show up. For example, one exciting win for businesses and cities in the state of Colorado in the policy space was the new extended producer responsibility law that the state enacted which will require, if you are producing packaging, you are now responsible for the recycling of that financially. That was great and we actually heard from some of our local businesses that they really supported that because they need the recycled content to come back in to achieve their own goals. To come back to your question about other cities, yes we do look at those. We are looking domestically and internationally and what we are finding is sometimes it is the creation of new policies, but often it’s looking at what polices may need to be removed that are barriers. We are seeing some really interesting things come out of Denmark and Sweden that are about looking at policy barriers and that it is its own policy action. I think generally we see things fall into categories like producer responsibility that doesn’t just have to apply to packaging. Sometimes those are things that are more easily implemented at a higher level of government where cities are more at an advocating space. Things like the right to repair movement, meaning that if you buy certain products you are guaranteed that they can be repaired or that you can repair them. That has its own spectrum and then we also see some things in other cities that are around land use and zoning. There are a lot of circular economy things that have to do with co- location of things that may not typically go together. If you were to think about a server farm and perhaps a greenhouse, those things are not always zoned to be compatible but that is an important part of circular economy. Sometimes we see something in other cities where they need physical space to store materials for a certain amount of time and that storage space needs to be convenient to builders and that sometimes also requires different land use and zoning options. Just in terms of names of cities, we have looked at Charlotte, Cleveland, and Portland. We have worked closely with a consultant in the Netherlands who has done a lot of work with Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and some Danish and Swedish cities. Our Portuguese city also happens to be a big manufacturing industry so they have some really interesting chops where they are helping co-locate Page | 5 3/22/23 - Minutes incubation spaces for circular economy focused businesses within the actual physical space of more established manufacturers. They have textile startups co-located within one of their big manufacturing offices. There is a lot of cool stuff we are seeing and that was probably a long and enthusiastic answer to your question. Dawson – Comment – I was just going to say I love the enthusiasm behind it. That is great. It just helps me frame the context and think of things I could look at to better inform myself. I appreciate it. Thank you. • Danielle – Q – First and foremost, I am absolutely blown away and so excited about this initiative. It feels amorphous and enormous and that terrifies me. How do you start eating this elephant? I just want to commend you on being so visionary and really coming up with a phenomenal approach to what seems to me such a difficult problem. It looks like you are making some really exciting inroads. A couple of things come to mind. As this plan identifies a growth based economy cannot by nature be a sustainable one. We have externalized impacts to natural resources and human health for so long that we do have to think about not just a circular economy but a scaled down or a different scaled economy in such a way that we are no longer externalizing environmental impacts. One of the ways, Sweden in particular, has approached this is by changing some practices around private ownership. Instead of everyone having their own washing machine, maybe in an apartment, there is a shared washing machine or shared appliances. That feels very foreign to most American cultural values. The City has done some amazing work in the tool lending library that is available at Eco-Thrift and a couple of other places like the drop and swap at the Larimer County Landfill. I am wondering if you have evaluated these programs and if there are opportunities to scale it up or look for potential business opportunities of more rental type facilities or opportunities there. My second question/comment is that part of preparedness or resilience is making things more local. If we learned one thing from COVID it’s that we are so close to having massive shortages of not just toilet paper but food and other really critical supplies. I am wondering if you are prioritizing essential services or businesses as part of this circular economy plan and the Economic Health Strategic Plan to make us more resilient if we do have these large chain disruptions whether it is an event from a wildfire or an event like COVID. Molly – A – In the world of reuse and sharing economy I think we as a City have been in a space where we know that is the ultimate route of our sustainable practices. We always need that really strong recycling foundation and we have some big gaps in that. I think we have had to focus on that while trying to be opportunistic about supporting other things. I think we are at a point where we can shift into a more strategic way of growing our reuse and sharing economy and I think part of that will be really understanding who is already in that space and trying to convene them to do this together. We are able to start putting some of the funds from the disposable bag ordinance or paper bag fee towards that. We think that there will probably be some other funding we can use, both internally but also start to push out into the community to those people who are already active to help them start to grow and to think about what strategies are needed there. I think the City can Page | 6 3/22/23 - Minutes have some role in behavior change but in building a culture, that would certainly go beyond what we can do in-house. I think that is work you will most likely see reflected through Our Climate Future and the other big moves but that is closely tied, and we see some intersections too. For example, we see business models that are bringing reusable cups or takeout containers to cities and that is the intersection of a business model that is circular but with that community scale sharing in mind. I think we are at the beginning of an exciting time for that kind of stuff. Jillian – A – That is a great question about prioritizing essential businesses and in the point of keeping things local. That is one of the strategies that I was referring to was how we can develop local procurement practices and really connect small, medium, and large businesses together to address supply chain resiliency as well as increase employment opportunities. We did run a cluster study through Hickey Global in our economic analysis update and some of the industries that were identified that were really excelling it and this is really thanks to our strong partners locally including CSU and Ionosphere which is an incubator here, was clean tech energy, bioscience, and ag sciences. Those were some industries that we are trying to elevate thought this strategic plan. Thank you for highlighting that. I think that is a great point. • Kevin – Q – I guess one area that comes to mind for me that I am really curious about and especially to Danielle’s point about this being and feeling big and overwhelming, any areas where the City has more control to encompass the end to end opportunities to me sound very interesting. That might sound strange because I know the initiative is to connect private and other business to one another and so forth. I guess on the front, I am curious about your thoughts on how it might be able to fit in but areas related to the City’s purview around things like even facilities. Thinking about what people in our community have to leave our community for to me feels like it ties in to this conversation to say the more we can keep people in our community. Obviously there are several other goals and initiatives around reducing travel and so forth but I think it also keeps money in our community and in that economy of these same businesses that would be working in the program in a different context. I would be curious if there have been thoughts to look inward whether that is areas like Parks and Rec and what we don’t have there that we know might present an opportunity or other areas certainly in or around the City. It could even be so far to say, and this isn’t true, but let’s say there is no gelato place and from some data set everyone is going to Johnstown to get gelato. Like hey there is a business opportunity here. Just bring to light either things that are fully in the City’s control or just awareness of our community is traveling to get “X” things. Jillian – A – Right now our Planning Development and Transportation (PDT) department is exploring the 15-minute city model and really trying to identify these little pockets of community. I think they are going to do a full analysis of what that looks like and reserve land for those opportunities in that space. I think you do make a great point, especially around where people work. We know we track commuting patterns and there is a big portion. I don’t remember the percentage, but I want to say 1% of Fort Collins travels to Colorado Springs for Page | 7 3/22/23 - Minutes work and that has a major impact on the environment of course. That is really where our business retention expansion and supporting our large employees is important. Ultimately if we have good jobs, people can work here and live here. I think that is a great point. Kevin – Comment – I guess I would say on the 15-minute city is I think you can miss something that is just not in our community as a whole. What is kind of reiterating this for me is there has been a lot of conversation, as you might have seen at Council a couple weeks back about the lack of a large scale bike park in our community. We have a lot of people who travel all the way to Boulder regularly for a recreational facility that we could create here. That is not a 15-minute city thing because it wouldn’t necessarily come into the picture but it is people having to take these increasing trips for something like that. I feel like there is a lot of stuff that could fall into that similar space. b. Sustainable Revenue – Ginny Sawyer (Sr. Policy and Project Manager) shared early discussions and information gathering related to options regarding mechanisms to fund revenue gaps. She was seeking feedback and board member input on framing of options (Discussion). • Discussion | Q + A • Kevin – Q – Thank you Ginny, this is great. I really appreciate that thought and lead up to the meat of it all at the end. I guess where my brain goes is especially coming from the circular economy focus and sustainability practices is reuse and I don’t have the data but just curious when I think of parks, one thing I think of is are there things we need to stop doing. Clearly there is a finding gaps there is identified top tier focus area has been out there. I am curious if things have not been utilized enough but then require maintenance for example or has something really declined in popularity since it was installed in the 80s but now it needs maintenance. Are there things where we are just like, look we don’t need this or some of the stuff anymore; it doesn’t make sense to keep putting that recurring budget into it. Hand in hand with that something we have talked about as a Board with like parks, one of the items in there was turf maintenance and other associated turf costs and what is the turf removal plan because we have been thinking about this for single family and other development opportunities. How do we just stop some of that stuff? I think one thing for me is just pairing up the need for funding with areas we can take a hard look at vs just upping the request for funding from voters. Sometimes you know it’s not perfect and you just have to stop or say no. Just curious about that department. Ginny – A – So park maintenance is entirely funded out of the general fund, so it’s not even just what do we stop doing in the parks, it is what do we stop doing out of the entire general fund. I am biased but I feel like our park folks are really good in this area and they track and notice how we are doing less turf in existing parks and in new parks. We will never get away from turf because there is a strong desire for that obviously. I think they are doing good water maintenance plans. The stop doing would ultimately look at closing parks either because of unsafe playgrounds and infrastructure, courts that are deteriorated enough that they are not being used, or irrigation systems that are not Page | 8 3/22/23 - Minutes worth replacing. It is always a good question, and we are going to be asked that as we go forward so I think we are in a process now of really going out to all general fund and all services to say what are the efficiencies we have done, what are the trends we have seen, and where have we stopped doing things. Kevin – Comment – Right because it is utilization. It is great to have that one tennis court that I can walk to but only five people use it per week, and we are spending so much money as a community on that one court. I mean I don’t want to take anything away from anyone, nobody does, but we do this with so many other things where we optimize. I know you said they are on top of it as a department. I am not trying to say they aren’t but that’s not an easy thing. I just think it should be a really present part of that conversation to be like sorry, we can’t serve those five people who use that court because it is going to cost us a million dollars over ten years to maintain or whatever it might be. Ginny – Comment – I appreciate the comment. • Danielle – Q – This is a little bit out in left field, but I think we do so much as a City, that it is easy to ask for more because it is such an incredibly accommodating and progressive place to try new things. Thinking about increasing taxes on utilities, thinking about these conflicting affordable housing and circular economy goals and metrics, one of the things I keep thinking about are some of the zoning restrictions that we have. It was mentioned in the previous presentation of the idea of having a server farm and a greenhouse can’t be next to each other because of zoning laws. Similarly, we have pretty restrictive housing and residential laws when it comes to very friendly climate practices such as tiny homes, gray water, composting toilets, etc. When we increase tax on utilities and basic services we are further undercutting the people at the bottom tier of income brackets that are struggling to make ends meet without providing them with any other option. I am wondering if there are conversations happening in ways in which we can support those individuals to have individual homeownership by allowing and changing some laws to allow tiny homes. I believe very strongly that the City has a standing to sue the state for water rights to allow for gray water rights to allow gray water because of the very clear conflicting allowances for septic systems which are essentially gray water rights but individuals that don’t have these multimillion dollar ranchettes, they can’t have gray water rights because they are hooked up to a city system and that means they can’t grow their own food or can’t have more expensive fees for hooking up their tiny homes. I am wondering what conversations might be happening at this nexus. I realize it is a little far outside your primary court area but with a mention of some of these taxes and the prior conversation happening of the influence of zoning, I think this is a conversation we should all be having when we are talking about affordable housing, sustainability, and the triple bottom line. I am interested in your comments and if you say this is not my area, I totally understand as well. Ginny – A – I will say our Council and staff are committed to all our residents with a focus on equity. As we have had this conversation with Council, they don’t want to raise our base tax rate and any tax that could be rebated back to income qualified is part of Page | 9 3/22/23 - Minutes that conversation. We want to do that. We are having what I will call a more blunt, not a sharp tool kind of conversation around this new revenue just because we know we have these gaps in the areas that you are talking about and really brining all of these things together to create an environment where more can happen. Those conversations are happening. We did pass a gray water measure this year where people can build in a gray water system. I don’t think I am making that up. Danielle – Comment – The caveat there and I am super biased is that it is gray water in name only. It allows you to reuse your sink water to flush your toilet. It does not allow any subsurface irrigation which is what is really needed from a climate and sustainability perspective in this climate and environment. Ginny – Comment – We are having the conversation and trying to get there as we can. Then certainly our Land Development Code was looking at all the things you are talking about and today the state was supposed to drop a housing code. I haven’t looked to see if that was finalized, that was actually calling for a lot of the things that was in our Land Development Code. We are at a really interesting nexus both statewide and locally in the zoning housing realm right now. I don’t know what will happen or come out of it but to answer your question, are the conversations happening, absolutely. The process is always slower than we want it to be. Honoré, I don’t know if you have anything you want to add to that. Honoré – Comment – It is a pretty exhaustive comment and I appreciate it, Danielle. I think it shows sort of the complexity of this work when we are being asked to follow the traditional model which is to approach voters with a packet of services and say here is what you will get if you vote for this tax. Now as we try to adapt and stay more nimble, we are looking to Denver who passed a very flexible voter approved sales tax for the climate protection fund that allows, within certain allowable uses with a strong focus on equity to distribute those tax resources in a way that help accelerate and scale up climate initiatives. That is not the model we have used here before and that sort of takes time to adjust people to that approach. We don’t know yet if there is much comfort. We haven’t seen a lot of support for a sales tax from Councilmembers who weighed in so far but I do think that kind of model could provide more of the flexibility you are referring to. Danielle – Comment – I think it is a cart before the horse issue. You need zoning in place in order to have those flexibilities. Ginny, thank you so much for your grace in answering a question that was really very far outside your area but in my mind, it is kind of the donut hole and so I appreciate your input there. • Ginny – Comment – I guess I would ask going forward just to not even ask for a position but to help us raise awareness in the community when and if anything comes forward. I think this is a bit complex as much as we try to simplify it. I do think something will make it to the ballot and it is going to be a much shorter timeframe than we certainly as staff are used to in being able to build a story and take time to get out and talk to a large portion of the community. We are going to be pretty crunched in that area. Please reach out if anyone does have questions. Honoré – Comment – I would add in, we will do what we always do at the end of the meeting which is look Page | 10 3/22/23 - Minutes at the six-month planning calendar and map out your agenda. I am actually wondering if it wouldn’t be useful having another conversation around this even next month or in May because as Ginny said despite all the content and detail she shared, we have been shuffling down a funnel to more specificity slowly but surely. I do think after that April 6th Council Finance Committee there will be a lot more specificity including the natural gas options both the possibility towards a climate tax on natural gas or simple increase to the franchise fee. I won’t get into the details there but something that could generate $800k - $1 million/year. It could be helpful for you all to be able to advise Councilmembers on what your perspective is on what the best way forward might be because they will have a hard time parsing through these options and making a final decision about what to put forward. Let’s think about it as we talk about it. Ginny, are you thinking about doing another round with boards? Ginny – A – I mean for sure because by then we should also have a more refined and smaller list of what is being considered which will make it easier to say yes, yes and, or maybe not. Honoré – Comment – And having this foundation will help you all jump back into that conversation in a meaningful way. This is one where I think Council needs some help figuring out what the interest, priorities, and appetite of the community is for some of these options. Bryan – Comment – I would be happy to have another opportunity to weigh in once Council has looked at it and refined it. I think that is a great idea. Thank you. c. 1041 Regulations Update – Barry Noon (NRAB Representative to 1041 Regulations Committee) was supposed to update the Natural Resources Advisory Board on the state of the Draft 1041 regulations, upcoming timeline for City Council, and share perspectives from the 1041 Regulations Committee. Barry was proposing a formal motion from the Natural Resources Advisory Board to recommend that City Council adopt 1041 Regulations with considerations shared by the 1041 Regulations Committee. (Action) • Barry was unable to attend the meeting so the Board agreed to table the conversation for a later meeting. It was also mentioned that they are looking at pushing that back from a City standpoint so they thought there was time for that conversation down the road. 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS a. Kevin – Comment – I was unable to attend the last Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting. It was a joint meeting with the Transportation Board of which the BAC is a subordinate of. I don’t have any specific updates on that. I will say and I have shared this to some degree, but I am seeing if I can pull back. I am toeing the line to see what I can make happen and nobody jumped out about getting on BAC either. Danielle – Q – When does BAC meet? Kevin – A – The fourth Monday at 6pm. I will definitely need a sub for some of them, if I can put that out there first. Danielle – Comment – I will sign up for a sub. I wish I could do it full time but we are still settling in and getting the CSA up and ready. I will happily sign up to be your sub. Kevin – Comment – We will touch based. I will need a sub in April. b. Matt – Comment – Something I did recently, and it was out of curiosity, but I rode the bus from my house to my office because I wanted to see how long it would take. I live out by Overland and Mulberry basically, so I had to pick up Page | 11 3/22/23 - Minutes the bus at LaPorte and Hollywood. Sorry I am going to give you the play by play quick. I had to be there by 6:19am so I could make it to my office by 8:00am. I had to transfer at the Downtown Transfer Center and wait a little outside in the cold with some other folks who were cold because the station was closed. It sounds like I am whining but I am just telling you the facts. I got on the bus and it finally made it to my office after getting dropped off near Riverside and Prospect. Our office is kind of to the northwest of Bath Nursey. All in all it was an hour and 14 minutes to go about eight miles and I thought man if I had to do this everyday back and forth and I had kids and I had to get to the grocery store. It sounds like I am being critical but I guess what I am getting at is I wanted to understand our local/public transportation system better. There was pretty good ridership there; there were about ten people on each bus I was on. I don’t know if Honoré or the rest of you have had presentations from Transfort folks about ways to improve but is an hour and 14 minutes across town pretty standard or average? I don’t have any baseline so I don’t know if that is a report or just letting you all know. Anyone have thoughts? Honoré – Comment – I am happy to share. I have had similar experiences. It is tough for people who ride the bus all the time. Certain routes are much more frequent, like the Max Line is amazing and all of that. We have, as you know, in the PDT service area specific departments including one that focuses on transit and one called FC Moves which includes bicycles, pedestrians, and active modes. We have had an item that has bounced around that is no longer on the Council calendar around advancing transit initiatives. I can follow up on that and see about getting a specific conversation around transit or could invite FC Moves to talk more broadly about all active modes of transportation as well. I guess you did have a bunch of time with Cortney Greary when the Active Modes Plan was being developed. Matt – Comment – That is true. I don’t want to circumvent the agenda that we have going over the next few months but it was sort of a moment I realized this and perhaps I should have realized it sooner. I am fortunate to have a car and get to my job when I need to so it was not an easy trip. I don’t think it is an easy trip for people every day. I guess I needed to know that for myself and I didn’t. That is my bad. Honoré – Comment – I will take whatever direction you give but it is a little bit of a lighter Council calendar so as we segway here into talking about the next several months of planning, those sort of general updates from staff, so you all get more familiar with the landscape in these different areas could be a good use of your time. Kevin – Comment – I will just point out what I immediately think of is the mobility that e-bikes give and obviously that doesn’t apply to all but somewhat a decent percentage. I feel like it is such a strong possible thread in the community to really make those happen and it has been shown through some of the grant programs. I just saw a notification that they are trying to regain traction at the federal level for 30% tax incentives for e-bikes to be able to solve that. It is hard to solve that big transit part and to the previous presentation we put a dedicated tax and people don’t like that but I feel like the more we can promote those other forms that we are trying to promote anyway could solve that for some, not all. That came to mind. If you combine that federal with the state with the local you can get people e-bikes and that gives them more freedom, mobility and circumstances that could be great. Matt – Comment – Thanks Kevin, I appreciate that. I had a couple bucks out because I was going to pay the guy and he was like no it is free. I was thinking okay, it’s free and then Ginny said we fund it all out of the general fund and nobody is paying. I get that some Page | 12 3/22/23 - Minutes folks can’t pay, and I am good with that but I could pay and would give you $10 for this trip. That is what Lyft would have cost me. Kevin – Comment – Right, there is a bit of a mismatch it feels like. 9. STAFF REPORTS 10. OTHER BUSINESS a. Six Month Calendar Review • Honoré went through the Council calendar and mentioned minimum wage and Land Use Code. He stated the Land Use Code is getting complicated and will be a meaty conversation. He thought the Board bringing their perspectives to Council could be meaningful. There should be multiple ways for them to bring in input as individuals or as NRAB. Honoré also mentioned topics like sustainable revenue, Council priority update, regional water update, occupancy regulations, and Transit. He mentioned Council will be taking a break during the summer. • For April the Board has Land Use Code, 1041 Regulations, sustainable revenue, Downtown Parking Plan, update on NISP, advancing transit initiatives, and regional water as potential agenda items. The Board discussed if it would be better to have sustainable revenue as a topic in April or May and the details on the regional water topic. Honoré will find out more information on regional water. The Board decided to focus on Land Use Code and sustainable revenue for their in-person April meeting. Dawson will also extend an invitation to their Council Liaison. 11. ADJOURNMENT a. 8:02pm Minutes approved by a vote of the Board on 04/19/2023