[0:22] Christina. Welcome, everybody, to today's Boulder County Parks and open
[0:32] Space advisory committee meeting. We've reached our start time. These
[0:36] meetings are held in a virtual hybrid format via Zoom
[0:39] webinar in just a moment, I'm going to start the
[0:41] webinar. And it'll take about 30 seconds for people in
[0:49] the zoom to be brought into the meeting as attendees.
[0:54] Just a referendum reminder to all postac members, presenters and
[0:57] public speakers. Make sure you're within two inches of the
[1:01] microphone when speaking. This helps ensure we maintain an accurate
[1:05] public record. Members of the committee. Are you ready? Almost.
[1:14] All right, Carol's back. No worries. You're fine. All right.
[1:24] Recording in progress. Cool. All right. Welcome to the May
[1:29] 22, 2025, meeting of Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee,
[1:35] postac. We have quite a few things to do tonight.
[1:41] My name is Tony Lewis, and I'm currently chair. And
[1:44] the first thing we're going to do is elect new
[1:47] officers. And I'm going to start that. With a thank
[1:55] you to the people that were on this committee. Previously
[2:00] and have supported me as chair. I have really appreciated
[2:04] both serving with you and as chair. And to have
[2:07] your support. Has been really valuable and appreciative, and I
[2:13] want to thank you for that. I also want, before
[2:16] we elect new members, to welcome our new members. And
[2:21] we're really glad you're here and joining us. And that
[2:25] is. Vicky lawrence. Joan lutz and John White. So thank
[2:33] you three for volunteering, and we're glad you're selected, and
[2:36] we're looking forward to having you join postach. Now to
[2:41] elect officers. I am not running as chair again. I
[2:48] am giving this incredible position up. Because I think it's
[2:53] time for a change. And so. I am not going
[2:58] to run his chair. And I would like to actually
[3:02] nominate a new chair. Let me just say it's a
[3:06] little awkward having three new members who are just introduced.
[3:11] And we're electing new officers. The timing is not great,
[3:15] and we have talked about this, and we have not
[3:18] actually come up with a great solution. Maybe something for
[3:22] us to work. On. But. I would like to nominate
[3:26] Janet George, who is not physically here, but I think
[3:29] Nick is. She. Online. Yes, she is here. Welcome, Janet.
[3:36] I would like to nominate Janet. She's been a great
[3:38] member of Postac. She has. Incredible experience from her CPW
[3:43] day serving with the state. And if I'm not mistaken,
[3:47] Janet, you're willing to serve as chair? And then please
[3:54] let me know if you are and then I would
[3:55] like to also open it. Up for other nominations. Yes,
[4:00] I am. I don't know if you can hear me.
[4:02] We can. Thank you. That's. Great. Cool. Thank you. Have
[4:09] a confirmation. All right, but let me open it up.
[4:11] This is a totally open process. I want to make
[4:15] sure that whoever would like to nominate anyone, including themselves,
[4:19] has that opportunity. So it's open. Anybody? I'd like to
[4:24] second the nomination of Janet. Okay. Thank you, Carol Byerly,
[4:29] Posek. Thank you. Okay. Well, Janice willing to run? She's
[4:36] been nominated and seconded. All in favor of Janet? Becoming
[4:40] the new chair. Please say aye. And opposed. No. Opposed.
[4:45] Okay. We are, Janet. It's your lucky day. You are
[4:50] the new chair of Postac. But not really fair. Because
[4:54] I have to run this meeting. That's not really how
[4:56] it should work. But it is how it's working tonight.
[4:59] Makes it easy for her. It does. Any words? Just
[5:04] thank you for the support and I look forward to
[5:06] it. And thank you, Tony, for covering. For me tonight.
[5:11] Absolutely. We didn't really do a roll call. For some
[5:14] reason, it's not on this. Agenda, but I think we
[5:16] really should, just to make sure that we know who
[5:19] is here and. Who voted. So let me run through
[5:21] a roll call real quick, and then we'll move. On
[5:23] to vice chair. Trace Baker. Here. Carol Byerly. Here. Janet
[5:29] George. Here online. Christine Johnson? Not here. Vicky Lawrence? Here.
[5:38] Tony Lewis? I'm here. Joan Lutz? Here. Derek. Turner. Here
[5:44] and John White here. Great. Christine Johnson, you are here.
[5:50] Thank you. Welcome. Christine, just so you know, we just
[5:54] voted on the new chair. Is janet george. Yay. And
[5:59] I would like to open it up for nominations for
[6:02] vice chair. Carol. Byr late. I would like to nominate
[6:10] trace Baker as vice chair. He served well as our
[6:14] chair in the past, so he's ready and able to
[6:18] step in. Should Janet not be able to. Great. I'll
[6:24] second that. Other nominations? Okay. All those in favor of
[6:31] Trace Baker becoming vice chair, please say aye. Opposed? None.
[6:37] Trace. Welcome back. Bankitonian leadership of Postac. Thank you, everybody.
[6:42] That's great. It's wonderful to have you as vice chair.
[6:45] All right. Now that we've done the hard stuff. We
[6:49] will move on to the approval of the March 27
[6:53] meeting minutes. Are there any comments or questions from Posec
[6:58] on the meeting minutes? Trace baker postac. There's one minor
[7:07] typo in the section under the elk management. Reauthorization. There's
[7:14] the word typography, which should be topography. Nice. Okay, I
[7:21] think. There was also. Something that struck me. Lesser and
[7:28] lesser. Any other comments, Carol? I found another typo. Great.
[7:34] Which is lesser instead of less or. Less. Which is
[7:40] great. Yeah. Thank you. Other comments. Okay, I think we're
[7:48] done. I think that adjust mine as well. Great. So,
[7:54] do I have a motion to approve the March 27
[7:56] minutes. Trace Baker. Tracy, you're going to be fired as
[8:01] vice chair. This is a test. Okay. I moved that.
[8:07] We approved the march minutes. Great. Is there a second?
[8:11] I'll second. Great. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great. It
[8:16] passes. Okay. Let's get into. The meat of this meeting,
[8:21] which is one of which is the range view property
[8:24] acquisition. Can you hear me? We can. Okay. Good evening.
[8:33] Tina Burkhart. I'm a land officer supervisor at parks, and
[8:37] I'm excited. To talk to you about the range view
[8:39] acquisition tonight, but first I'd like to read. Our land
[8:42] acknowledgment for much longer than parks and open spaces. History.
[8:47] Of sorting open space. The land in the community has
[8:49] been important to american indian, urban, native, indigenous and other
[8:53] cultural communities that continue to live here. We're making meaningful
[8:57] changes to how we do our work that include them,
[8:59] incorporate their perspectives, and honor their land stewardship legacy. Parks
[9:04] and open space operates within modern legal constructs of landownership.
[9:08] To Stewart Boulder county open space and accomplish these efforts
[9:11] on behalf of our community. As I said, I'm here
[9:19] tonight to present our staff proposal to acquire fee title
[9:22] to approximately 20 acres of vacant land for $1.8 million.
[9:27] The Range View property is located between Gunboro and Nywat.
[9:31] The red circle shows you the general area of the
[9:34] property in the county. It is just north of Lookout
[9:38] Road on North 79th street on the west side of
[9:41] North 79th street. The property is currently owned by the
[9:45] Tennis center of the Rockies, LLC. The purchase price for
[9:50] this parcel includes one development, right, and a left hand
[9:54] water tap. And the acquisition will be paid for with
[9:58] open space sales tax dollars. What you're looking at now
[10:02] is a nice aerial view looking to the west. The
[10:06] property. That's more than the property. The eastern third of
[10:11] the property. Or the bottom half of what you see
[10:15] basically is the property. Here's another map showing the property.
[10:23] It's outlined in red. The large blue swaths that you
[10:26] see there are owned by the city of Boulder and
[10:28] managed by its open Space and Mountain Parks Department. I'll
[10:31] refer to them as OSMP. You can see that the
[10:35] range of property nicely connects the city's open space complexes.
[10:40] The various other parcels in green Dark green are owned
[10:43] by Boulder county parks in open space and then the
[10:45] lighter, green shaded parcels are encumbered with conservation easements, and
[10:50] tina, the property to the south. It's about the same
[10:53] size as the dark green one. No, just the one
[10:57] just below or adjacent. Exactly. Yes. Is that what it
[11:03] is? Is a church? With its own property? Yeah, it's
[11:07] a privately owned, and it has a church on the
[11:10] south. You can kind of see it on the south
[11:13] end. So it'll be basically encircled by open space, pretty
[11:16] much. While we're back on that, what about the larger
[11:24] parcels to the north? Which are also circled by open
[11:30] space and easements. They're all private. Yeah, the parcels. That
[11:33] aren't shaded are privately owned. Here's a closer area. Look
[11:38] at the property. It's a relatively flat property with a
[11:44] slightly sloping down to the west. You can see a
[11:48] few drainages that provide some topographic relief, but it's fairly
[11:52] flat. Here's another nice view looking northwest from the property.
[12:00] And one more photo because they're fun to look at.
[12:03] And this one's looking. Southwest toward boulder. Prior to the
[12:08] closing on this acquisition. A phase one environmental assessment report
[12:12] will be completed to confirm. That no environmental hazards exist
[12:15] on the property. All right, comp plan designations. There's a
[12:20] bunch. So the maps that you're going to see are
[12:25] intended to be illustrative, rather. Than specific, and the designations
[12:29] are indicators of importance, but not confirmation that these features
[12:32] exist. On the property. All right, so, like I said,
[12:35] there's a few comp plan designations. The map on the
[12:39] left shows that the property is entirely in the White
[12:42] Rocks gun Barrel Hill Environmental Conservation Area. This area has
[12:47] been restored from dry land farming to native prairie, and
[12:50] the Rainview property could undergo the same restoration. The second
[12:55] map over. Shows that lands directly to the east comprise
[13:01] critical wildlife habitat. And I'll speak more to that on
[13:04] the next slides, the third map. Shows that a good
[13:10] portion of the 20 acres of the property are significant
[13:13] agricultural lands of local importance. That's what that yellow shading
[13:16] is. And then lastly, it has a view for detection.
[13:19] Quarter. Score of two out of five due to its
[13:21] adjacency to 79th. Street. All right, so I'm going to
[13:26] talk a little bit more about. The wildlife habitat on
[13:30] the property. Or adjacent to the property. It's directly adjacent
[13:35] to the east Gunboro Hill Hill critical Wildlife habitat Area
[13:40] 88, which encompasses OSMP properties as well as the county's
[13:46] open space Jeffey property that's on the bottom, on the
[13:49] left corner there. This area is designated due to its
[13:53] restored mixed grass. Prairie zurich tall grass and shortgrass prairie
[13:58] habitat supporting several county species of special concern, including grasshopper
[14:03] sparrows, burrowing owls, black tailed prairie dogs, frigginous hawks and
[14:07] golden eagles. The OSMP property directly to the east is
[14:12] close to public due to the importance of the area
[14:15] for wintering raptors as well as summer burrowing owl nesting.
[14:19] And aries close by to the south of Lookout Road,
[14:21] are also closed seasonally for burrowing owls by OSmp. On
[14:27] this map. The area adjacent to the east is designated
[14:33] as a grassland preserve by OSMP. That's the green hatch
[14:36] shading. On the circle. It's pretty zoomed out map, but
[14:42] there is that designation as well. And the parcel directly
[14:46] adjacent to the west of the range of property is
[14:49] designated as a prairie dog conservation area by OSMP in
[14:52] their grassland ecosystems management plan, and that's shown in the
[14:56] brown in this map, and then the grassland preserve area
[14:59] is in the green to the east. The property is
[15:03] currently used for private passive recreation, and like all properties
[15:06] acquired for open space, it will be managed for open
[15:09] space use due to the numerous designations I just mentioned.
[15:16] Our. Wildlife Group has requested closure of the property to
[15:19] protect the various wildlife and grassland features. Simply put, the
[15:24] range view properties situated within one of the last remaining
[15:27] intact prairie grasslands and has several county comp plan designations
[15:31] as well as OSMP management plans. Therefore, staff request your
[15:35] approval to recommend this acquisition to the Board of County
[15:38] commissioners for their approval, and I'm happy to answer questions
[15:41] that you might have. Great. Thank. You, Tina. I appreciate
[15:45] that. Questions first from Posek. Vicky, by the way, this
[15:49] is a reminder. For all of us, including me, to
[15:52] state your name and then ask your questions or make
[15:56] your comments. Just for the recordings. Helpful for people to
[15:59] know who's speaking. So Vicky learns. Hi, Tina. Vicky Lawrence.
[16:03] I'm curious if. That would, the prairie dog area would
[16:09] be allowed to continue into that. Are the prairie dogs
[16:13] allowed on the next property to the east? I'm just
[16:16] curious. I'm just going to pull up a map so
[16:17] I know right now. Let's do. This. One. Right. So
[16:26] you had prairie dogs there? In the land of the
[16:27] west was a prairie dog. Preserve and the east is
[16:31] for other wildlife, for raptors and things like that. I'm
[16:34] just curious. If prairie dogs are on that property to
[16:37] the east, their prairie dogs are going to be allowed
[16:38] on that property to the east if that's been considered
[16:41] as this will give. Them, obviously, while they could go.
[16:45] Right now, right? There's 79th street, but I can't really
[16:50] answer that because that's. All city owned and managed property.
[16:55] All the blue. This just happens to be kind of
[16:59] sandwiched in between the city owned properties. So why isn't
[17:03] the city buying? Excellent question. I figured somebody would ask
[17:06] that. Was the question on all of our minds, yeah.
[17:11] I had been in discussions with the city about this
[17:12] parcel when it came on the market. And. Their acquisition
[17:17] budget isn't out, they don't have the money to fund
[17:20] it, right? Now. They have allocated their acquisition dollars elsewhere.
[17:26] And over time. Both entities, OSMP and parks and open
[17:30] space. We partnered on projects and sometimes we have the
[17:33] funds to buy a critical parcel. Sometimes they do. In
[17:37] this case, We're able to do that, and we think
[17:39] it's. An important kind of piece to the larger wildlife
[17:43] puzzle. Okay, other questions. Carol. Carol Byerly. The memo we
[17:52] got. Before said that the property will be open to
[17:56] public use unless parks and open space later determines and
[18:00] you said that there are staff that's recommending that it
[18:03] be closed? Yeah. Our wildlife group reached out to me
[18:08] after I'd written the memo. And provided me with all
[18:11] the information I gave you and all the reasons why
[18:14] they are recommending it remain closed. Okay. So then when
[18:19] will that be determined? They'll do their assessments. After acquisition,
[18:27] okay? Good. Thank you. Other questions. Derek, you mentioned the
[18:33] city's budget. I was looking through my notes about this
[18:37] year's budget. 12.3 million. For real? Estate acquisitions. I would
[18:40] love an update on where this fits into that. How
[18:43] much is left? And what this looks like in the
[18:46] overall picture for real estate budget this year, I can
[18:50] get that to you. I don't have it. Handy. I
[18:55] can have our division manager who handles all the budgeting.
[18:59] I can have Janice provide that. For you. That would
[19:03] be great. I may have mentioned this at the retreater.
[19:07] I would love to see that as part of the
[19:09] presentations for real estate purchases. In terms of. Here's how
[19:14] much. This property will cost. Here's how much we spent
[19:18] this year. Here's how much is left. I know that.
[19:21] You all have sometimes know the properties that are coming
[19:23] on the market and you kind of have in your
[19:25] mind, we're going to spend what we budgeted. But I
[19:28] just think that. Would be useful. Bit of information for
[19:31] each of the purchases. Agreed. Thanks. Other questions. Tina, I
[19:37] have one for you. Tony Lewis Posack. What is the
[19:44] timeline for purchasing this property? Does it need to be
[19:47] done immediately? Can it be? Done in the next month.
[19:51] Well. If you recommend it to BOCC for approval, they
[19:56] got to do their thing. I think we're targeting into
[20:00] July. We have. The first right of purchase. What do
[20:05] you mean? Could somebody else come along and buy it
[20:12] in the meantime? No. We're under a letter. Of intent
[20:14] with the sellers, and we're working on a purchase agreement
[20:17] as we speak, which we should. Have? Probably by the
[20:21] Bocc hearing. Okay, another question for me. In the memo
[20:26] said the property scored a 2.6 on a scale of
[20:30] zero to five. Being the highest score possible. Yeah, that's
[20:35] the combined of critical wildlife habitat. No, that's. The view
[20:38] protection corridor score. Okay, it's not well written. Here. It
[20:45] looks like it's the combination of all of those. Oh,
[20:48] sorry. That's. Right. It's the view protection corridor score. Okay,
[20:51] do we know the score for the other? Layers. I
[20:58] don't think they score. For wildlife. We don't do numerical
[21:04] designations like that for wildlife. Other comp plan layers. It's
[21:10] just the view protection corridor score is a numerical one.
[21:14] Janet, you're online still? If you are, do you have
[21:17] questions? I want to make sure. We don't forget you.
[21:22] I guess the only question I would have. Is following
[21:28] along on. Now we know why the city of Boulder
[21:30] isn't buying it. But how will it be managed? I
[21:34] mean, the way it looks right there. It looks like
[21:37] it's. So surrounded by city of Boulder. Boulder open space
[21:40] that it makes sense that they kind of take the
[21:42] lead on it. Is there a way? How do you
[21:45] plan to handle that? That's an excellent question for our
[21:51] wildlife group, but. I would expect that they would be
[21:56] coordinating with OSMP staff on management since so much of
[22:00] the surrounding properties. So Smp. Except for, I guess, the
[22:03] Jaffe property, which is down there. To the southwest. Other
[22:08] questions, Janet. No, that's good. Thank you. Great. Okay, Christine
[22:15] and then John. Christine Johnson Posak. Is the development right
[22:21] likely to be exercised or is it just going to
[22:25] hang out? No. When we acquire property, we don't develop
[22:29] it. It's just more of saying what we're acquiring when
[22:33] we acquire that real estate. Bundle of rights. It's what
[22:38] we'd be turning down. Or what we would be releasing
[22:41] if we didn't purchase it. Well, we didn't. Purchase it.
[22:44] Somebody else could purchase it and build the house. Yeah,
[22:48] so that's not going. To happen if we purchase it.
[22:52] John. White Bozek view protection score of two out of
[22:59] five. It's sitting right up there. On a ridge that
[23:02] anybody in the eastern half of the county can see.
[23:05] It is, and I'm not an expert on view protection
[23:08] corridor scoring, but my guess is that 79th street is
[23:11] not a heavily traveled road. It's not like peak to
[23:14] peak, where you have lots and lots of cars. I
[23:17] don't. Think it's an assessment of how good the view
[23:20] is. I think it's. More of the amount of traffic
[23:24] that goes by. But I can find that out from
[23:28] reading editorials in the paper when they were first going
[23:31] to build that. That's what every single article said is
[23:36] you're going to ruin it's a pretty stunning view from
[23:38] 79th street, neatly saw in the pictures. Yeah. Thank you.
[23:43] Thanks, john. Other questions from poseac. All right, let's open
[23:49] it up for public comment for people who are in
[23:52] the audience. Is there anybody who would like to speak
[23:55] to the Range View acquisition? All right, Nick. Anybody online?
[24:02] Yes. Do you want to come up? Yeah, I signed
[24:09] up. Oh, great. Yeah, sorry, I just didn't. See you.
[24:13] Yes, come up. Please. Give us your name. And where
[24:17] you are living, generally in Boulder County. Am I close
[24:21] enough? Yes. And you get, like, three minutes, so please
[24:24] state your name and where. You live? Yeah. So. I'm
[24:26] Joyce freely. I live in gun barrel estates, which is
[24:29] unincorporated. Boulder county, and I just wanted to thank the
[24:32] committee for allowing me to share my comments. I'm an
[24:36] officer of the preserve rural gun barrel 501 c three
[24:41] entity. And I'm speaking today on behalf of the officers
[24:43] and board of directors of that organization. In support of
[24:47] the county's purchase of the range view property. Preserve rural
[24:52] gun Barrel is a grassroots organization that came together in
[24:55] 2023 when residents of gun barrel and unincorporated Boulder county
[25:00] learned of a special use review for 57 one north
[25:04] 79th street our grassroots organization collected signatures from 3356 individual.
[25:11] Individuals, primarily residents of Boulder county, in support of preserving
[25:16] the range, view property as rural and open space. The
[25:19] range view property, as has been said, is an integral
[25:22] part of its surroundings, and we believe the open space
[25:25] will safeguard the threatened burrowing owl that has a protected
[25:29] habitat just yards away, prairie dog. Dogs located on the
[25:33] property provide an active hunting ground for bald and golden
[25:35] eagles, as well as threatened. Rough legged and fruginous hawks,
[25:40] the grasshopper sparrow has an extremely fragile environment. In closed
[25:44] vicinity. And one of the biggest threats did the native
[25:47] bird species on the Boulder county plains is fragmentation of
[25:50] their habitat. Purch. Purchasing this property will provide for continued
[25:55] unification of these wildlife homes in our County. We support
[25:59] this purchase as is consistent with the vision statement of
[26:03] the Boulder Valley Comp plan's. Desired land use pattern. The
[26:07] purchase further honors Boulder County's history and legacy of planning
[26:11] for a livable community surrounded by open space and rural
[26:15] lands. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your
[26:18] comments. Thank you for coming out tonight. Anyone else in
[26:21] the audience? Doing a very better scan this time. All
[26:25] right, Nick, do we have anybody online? We don't have
[26:31] any online comments. Okay. Any other questions from Posec or
[26:36] comments? Is there a motion to approve? Or to make
[26:45] a recommendation to the board of County Commissioners for purchase
[26:48] of this property. Tree speaker. I move that post hack
[26:53] recommend that the county commissioner. 's acquire this property. As
[27:01] described in the handout and as discussed by staff this
[27:04] evening. Is there a second Christian? I think John got
[27:09] in there, so. John, thank you. Before I call for
[27:13] a vote, I'm going to let you know why I'm
[27:15] voting no. And that is primarily because of Derek's request
[27:20] for budget information, and I feel like it's. Very critical
[27:24] for us to understand. The spending of $1.8 million for
[27:29] this property. What is our budget currently? How much more
[27:34] is left? And I'm not convinced. Of the specialness and
[27:40] uniqueness of this property, although I know it is for
[27:43] the people. Who live in that area, but in the
[27:45] overall Boulder county. Landscape. I'm not convinced. And I would
[27:51] love to understand those numbers. So I'm going to vote
[27:53] no tonight, and just want to let you know why.
[27:56] So all those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? No.
[28:02] Okay, so it passes. And thank you very much, Tina,
[28:05] for your presentation. I appreciate it. Okay, next is the
[28:10] CSU extension volunteer program update. Eric hammond. And Company, et
[28:19] al. Start getting the jitters.
[28:33] If you're talking. Looks like they're going to make you
[28:36] go on your own. Hello. Thank you all for coming
[28:40] tonight. Yeah, thank you for having us. Situated, you're only
[28:46] going to get a few words from me, and then
[28:47] we're. Going to let our volunteers talk about their programs
[28:50] here. My name is Eric Hammond. I'm the director of
[28:53] the county extension office in Boulder county. Some of you
[28:55] recognize me, probably from when I rambled about soils poorly
[28:58] and made you get your hands dirty. But we're here
[29:01] tonight to talk about our volunteer programs in the county.
[29:05] And, Brenda, you can go forward a slide. We run
[29:08] a number of volunteer programs which are usually based on
[29:11] training. Around a university based curriculum designed by faculty on
[29:15] campus, and then the volunteer programs are delivered locally. The
[29:18] two most well known of those are. Colorado master Gardener.
[29:23] And four h, which is a youth development program that
[29:27] you probably have heard of even as a city boy
[29:29] like me had heard of it when I was a
[29:31] kid. We also run other programs that, some of which
[29:34] are unique to Boulder county. We have. A native. Sorry,
[29:37] not native. It's a master wildlife program. We're one of
[29:40] two. Counties that run that in the state. Jefferson county
[29:44] is the other one. We have native plant master programs,
[29:47] although those are a little bit in hiatus. I'll talk
[29:50] about that. We train people to recognize and id native
[29:53] plants. And then they hopefully go on and teach other
[29:56] classes. So it's a train, the trainer. Program. Those are
[29:59] the big ones. We also have a community garden that
[30:00] we're responsible for managing. That we manage volunteers for. They
[30:03] do a lot of work there. It's maybe not quite.
[30:05] As flashy, but a lot of weeds get pulled out
[30:07] of the ground. Go forward. These are the numbers from
[30:12] the last calendar year for the number of volunteers we
[30:15] have for the various programs and the hours donated. So
[30:19] about 250 volunteers, and it says they're 12,400 some hours,
[30:24] and Brenda will be angry with me if I don't
[30:26] tell you that for four h those 9000. Hours donated.
[30:32] There was only 27 of the 150 volunteers that reported
[30:35] their hours. So that's real numbers significantly higher. So. We
[30:44] have a lot of great people on the county do
[30:45] a lot of great work giving back. To their communities.
[30:47] Go forward again real quick. And then very briefly, I
[30:50] thought it might be interesting. For you all to hear
[30:52] some of the trends that I see. Talking to all
[30:54] our various volunteer coordinators. We have a real uptick in
[30:58] people interested in volunteering in the last year and a
[31:01] half, two years, there was a real downward. Interest during
[31:05] Covid, and we're finally seeing a bit of a rebound.
[31:08] A lot of people are looking to get involved in
[31:10] the programs, not only to do good work. But also
[31:14] just to meet people. Informed connection, which I think is
[31:16] something we undersell a little. Bit about our programs. And.
[31:21] I see a lot of people come through who talk
[31:23] to me anyways, who are looking for shorter term opportunities.
[31:26] Maybe not quite. As large programs, more episodic volunteering to
[31:30] help with a particular event and be connected but also
[31:32] to have freedom, to not have, like a 40 hours
[31:35] commitment or something like that. With that, I'm going to
[31:38] turn over to some of our volunteers to talk about
[31:40] their experience with their programs. That's probably way more impactful
[31:42] than listening to me ramble. And I don't know which
[31:45] for H. Vaughn, which one of you all is going
[31:46] to. Go first. Oh, no. Coming up. So make sure
[31:54] you introduce yourself. Hi. My name is Melanie Boren, and
[32:03] I am a 17 year volunteer with Boulder county four.
[32:07] H I raised airy goats, and I started out as
[32:11] a goat project leader. I helped develop some workshops, and
[32:15] next thing I knew, I was the leader of my
[32:17] own four h club goatsignalore. Goats and galore. Has grown
[32:22] to over 40 members each year and is now one
[32:23] of the largest clubs in Boulder. County. Being a foreh
[32:28] leader is a very rewarding experience. But I won't lie
[32:31] it takes a lot of work to wrangle 40 youth
[32:34] and their families to make sure they not only meet
[32:37] all of the requirements to complete a year of four
[32:40] h but are engaged and involved and also reap the
[32:44] benefits of the program. The Forage program is a year
[32:47] round program. It runs October to October, and the main
[32:51] objective is, the youth choose a project, they work on
[32:55] it, they learn about it all year, and then. It
[32:57] culminates by exhibiting a project at the Boulder county fair.
[33:02] In August. And this is true whether the youth chooses
[33:05] crochet as their project or cake. Decorating. Or horses or
[33:10] goats or dog trading. We have over 60 projects available
[33:14] for the kids to choose. From. And while some will
[33:16] do a deep dive into one project, we have kids
[33:19] that want to do all the projects. As for each
[33:23] leader, it's our responsibility to help these youth move through
[33:26] the project. Gaining skills and overcoming obstacles and setbacks to
[33:30] be able to create that final exhibit to take to
[33:33] the Boulder county fair and complete their for each year.
[33:37] This could be making sure that the family knows when
[33:41] the cake decorating workshops are or the dog trading, but
[33:44] it also might be helping a family find resources for
[33:47] a project that doesn't. Have a formal workshop or training
[33:50] schedule. For example, the Robotics and engineering project has seven
[33:56] levels however, there are. No formal meetings or workshops. This
[33:59] one's more self led or parent led. So that could
[34:04] include helping them find resources within the four H program,
[34:07] such as their manuals. It could mean going to the
[34:11] library and helping them find books on their subject or
[34:15] connecting them. With local middle or high school robotics teams
[34:19] or assisting them in locating any of the numerous robotics
[34:22] kits available for sale and incorporating that into their project.
[34:27] In addition to the project requirements, there are several other
[34:30] criteria that the forage leader can be integral in helping
[34:34] youth in that youth develop in their program. They need
[34:37] to do a demonstration which on the surface is just
[34:40] a short speech informing the club of how to do
[34:44] something. This public speaking requirement plays a crucial role in
[34:48] youth development, helping build a wide range of essential life
[34:52] skills. Public speaking not only boosts confidence and improves communication
[34:56] skills, it enhances leadership abilities. The youth is the expert
[35:01] in that moment when they are up there in front
[35:03] of their club. Demonstrating something. It encourages personal growth by
[35:07] pushing youth outside their comfort zones. I have heard hundreds
[35:12] of demonstrations over the years, and it never gets old.
[35:16] I have learned how to bake bread, french braid hair,
[35:19] use a soldering iron and wash a chicken and that.
[35:22] Was just at last month's meeting. Another requirement is to
[35:27] participate in the community service activity as a for each
[35:30] leader, I try and provide several opportunities each year for
[35:34] our club to participate in community service. I believe community
[35:38] service helps develop empathy and compassion as the youth can
[35:41] hopefully see the world from another's perspective. It helps with
[35:46] those social and communication skills and encourages civic engagement. Our
[35:51] club has gone to nursing homes and senior centers to
[35:54] share their animals. And I think that is one of
[35:56] the activities that's been the most impactful. They bring their
[36:00] animals and walk around, letting the seniors pet. The animals
[36:03] and they talk to them and tell them. How they
[36:06] raise and care for their animals. This is beneficial not
[36:09] only for youth development and for building those empathy and
[36:13] communication skills. It also helps reduce loneliness and isolation among
[36:17] seniors. And I believe it truly bridges the generational gap.
[36:23] Being a poor h volunteer. While a lot of work
[36:25] is a deeply rewarding experience, one of my favorite things
[36:28] over the years is seeing youth in my club who
[36:31] start out as a shy introverted junior move through the
[36:35] program, gaining confidence, skills and knowledge and become mature, capable
[36:40] seniors who themselves have become mentors and role model. Models
[36:43] for the next generation of new members. Seeing youth grow
[36:47] and succeed brings me personal satisfaction and reinforces the notion
[36:51] that I am having. A positive impact in my community.
[36:55] I learn from the creativity, energy and perspectives of the
[36:58] youth. I am working with, and it keeps me engaged
[37:01] and inspired and connected to the next generation. It's a
[37:05] partnership that I believe builds stronger individuals and a stronger
[37:10] community. Thank you. Is it? Melanie, thank you so much
[37:15] for your presentation. And for 17 years of doing four,
[37:18] eight. That's awesome. Thank you. It was really great to
[37:20] hear, and it's great to see the passion that you
[37:22] bring to it. Thank you. I really enjoy doing. And
[37:27] I'm passionate. Yeah, it shows. Thank you. So we have
[37:32] one more perspective on four h and then a little
[37:34] bit on master gardener. Great. Thank you. You hear me?
[37:39] All right? Yes. Okay. Thank you for listening tonight. My
[37:42] name is Kelly Thomas. I've been in Boulder county resident
[37:45] for 20 plus years, and I've been in Boulder county
[37:48] for H volunteer for over ten. I also am a
[37:51] club leader for easy riders for H. Club, which will
[37:54] be a 50 year old club next year. I'm the
[37:59] president of the boulder county four h horse leaders council,
[38:03] which. Basically provides activities for all the horse project kids
[38:07] in our county. I have four kids of my own
[38:11] that have been growing up in four h two just
[38:13] graduated. From CSU on Sunday, and we're in the horse
[38:17] project. And various menagerie of livestock projects as well. My
[38:22] daughter will be a senior and she does horse riding
[38:24] and the market swine project. This year, along with my
[38:27] son, who's an 8th grader, who will be doing that
[38:30] project. As well. I'm really happy to get to share
[38:33] about being a four h volunteer. It's something I'm very
[38:35] dedicated and passionate about. It's such a privilege to get
[38:39] to work in an organization that promotes such outstanding youth.
[38:43] Development. I believe the importance of our programs through the
[38:46] years is reflected in what I like to say. As
[38:49] our repeat customers or our longtime volunteers. Many of the
[38:53] volunteers I work with either grew up in the program
[38:56] and became leaders, or their kids did, and they're still
[38:59] sticking around for a long time, actually. The picture, I
[39:03] guess, is all behind. You all. Is a picture of
[39:06] Mike and Donna Thoreau up there. They've both been volunteers
[39:10] for over 40 years. Mike. Was a DJ in college,
[39:16] so he loves to announce that our horse shows and
[39:18] that sort of. Thing. Donna runs our really successful Hippology
[39:23] team. And they both generously contribute to our scholarship funds.
[39:28] Kim Madsen is our horse fair, superintendent. She grew up
[39:31] showing in poor h and was a past fair queen.
[39:34] She lives in Lermer. County now, but her heart is
[39:36] still in Boulder County. It's interesting, we actually have a
[39:40] lot of young people that are aging out of our
[39:42] program and turning around and coming back as volunteers. And
[39:46] my daughter Lily is one of those. She's in her
[39:49] second year as a leader now. I think the desire
[39:53] to come back and give back to this program really
[39:56] reflects how much it's impacted our families and also how
[40:00] important these programs are for our community. Another discovery I've
[40:04] made as a volunteer in Boulder county is that our
[40:07] volunteers have a wide variety of talents and are intelligent
[40:11] and our leaders in their respective industries. We have computer
[40:15] programmers entrepreneurs, horse trainers, and a large list of wonderful
[40:19] people that are willing to give their time to our
[40:21] talent and program. Programs. An example of that is actually
[40:25] the beautiful backdrop in the picture that you can see
[40:29] up there. Our horse program was in dire need of
[40:32] a new photo backdrop for our county fair, and so
[40:36] a group from easy riders, parents and volunteers actually procured
[40:41] some old Barnwood and put this all together. And it's
[40:44] actually up at our fairgrounds now, permanently. So we are
[40:49] sharing it with anybody who wants to use it. But
[40:53] it's really fantastic, and a lot of craftsmanship went into
[40:57] it. Let's see here. So why do we have so
[41:01] many awesome volunteers willing to give their time to Boulder
[41:04] county for each program, and I think it's because of
[41:07] our incredible youth. Members watching these youth members, just as
[41:11] Melanie had said, grow and thrive in this program. They
[41:15] leave prepared for life. Time and time again. I believe
[41:18] in the motivation. The motivation for our volunteers is just
[41:22] watching these. Kids grow generation after generation. I've actually loved
[41:26] watching my own kids go from being the young kids
[41:29] that are being mentored by older kids to the older
[41:32] kids that are leading the younger kids. It's just an
[41:36] incredible opportunity. Helping youth members is the most rewarding part
[41:41] about volunteering, and these kids are the main reason I
[41:43] do it. Our members gain invaluable life skills and lessons
[41:47] in for each they learn to succeed and to fail
[41:50] and learn the value of having a community that is
[41:52] there. For them, for the good and the bad. Along
[41:56] with the invaluable lessons livestock teachers teaches, our members gain
[42:00] many professional skills that most people don't see until they're
[42:03] actually in a professional arena. I thought about that tonight.
[42:08] For instance, this meeting. Any of our four h kids
[42:10] could walk in here and know exactly what's going on?
[42:13] All of our club meetings are run just like this.
[42:16] They're run. By a board of. Elected members, and they
[42:20] know everything from secretary's notes to treasurers reports. They know
[42:25] how to make motions and they know how to read
[42:27] an agenda and know where we are in things. I
[42:31] think. The members actually would be a little disappointed, though,
[42:36] because we typically have a wreck activity in our meeting
[42:38] agenda, and so that kind of breaks things up a
[42:41] little bit. But. They'd get used to it. All of
[42:46] our volunteer work, just as Melanie said, culminates in our
[42:50] county fair. That's. At the end of July, early August.
[42:53] This is where those kids get to exhibit those projects.
[42:56] And all those volunteer hours can be seen. And just
[43:00] lastly, I'd like to personally invite all of you to
[43:02] come to our county. Fair this summer. You can come
[43:05] talk to all the awesome members. They're a lot more
[43:08] interesting than the rest of us, but all of the
[43:10] things that Melanie talked about, these kids want. To talk.
[43:13] They want to talk about their projects. They want to
[43:15] let you pet their pigs. You will see all of
[43:18] their great. Professional skills and speaking skills that work there.
[43:22] So you'll be talking future movers and shakers and the
[43:26] leaders of a for each community. So thank you for
[43:29] listening tonight and having us here. Kelly, thank you for
[43:32] coming. Do you know when the fair is? Well. It
[43:37] technically starts August. First, I think. But the horse shows
[43:41] up before that. Okay, so horse show starts July 27,
[43:45] and. It's not quite like the public time, necessarily, but.
[43:50] Anybody can come and see them. A couple of our
[43:53] main horse events that are really fun. We do a
[43:55] ranch horse night, which is super fun. And then we
[43:57] do a freestyle raining where the kids dress their horses
[44:00] and themselves up in costume and they do a raining
[44:03] pattern to music. Nice. Fantastic. Come find us and come
[44:07] see what we're working on and talk to some of
[44:09] our incredible kids. That sounds great. Thank you. Yeah. Do
[44:12] you have a question? Yes. Carol Byerly. I. Have a
[44:14] question. What is that bird? Baby. Silky chicken. Right? Silky
[44:23] chicken. Yes. Okay. It's a show bird. Very fluffy. Was
[44:30] that your question too, Jill? Those of us who have
[44:32] raised chickens recognized. Chickens like that. Thank you, Kelly. Appreciate
[44:38] it, Eric. All right. Well, thank you. I realized there
[44:42] was something I neglected to say at the start, which.
[44:44] Is maybe why CSU is here presenting in front of
[44:46] you. I know some of you are. New. We are
[44:48] the outreach arm of the university, and we are county
[44:50] based. And in each county in Colorado were nested in
[44:53] a county department, and we are lucky enough to be
[44:55] nested in the parks and open space department here, so
[44:58] Teresa has to put up with me and. We get
[45:02] to, but we're very lucky to have. A very supportive,
[45:04] very large amount of support from the county for these
[45:06] great programs, and as much good things, as they said
[45:08] about four h. One thing I learned as I moved
[45:11] into this director Alma. Now, is that. Research. You can
[45:15] make the argument, a research based argument, that four h
[45:18] is the most successful youth development program in the country.
[45:21] Kids have the best outcomes. It's a big deal. It's
[45:24] not just the hogs, the hands, the heifers. All the
[45:27] life skills when I interview people for jobs, and they
[45:30] do really well. Young people. It's shocking how oftentimes they
[45:33] were in for h, so very impactful. Programs that are
[45:36] being run here, including master gardener program and Pat will,
[45:40] Pat's going to talk to you about the master gardener
[45:42] program. Do you have a question, Derek? Yeah. On that
[45:44] note, I'm curious about. You mentioned kids that have been
[45:49] in four h and they're leaving and they're staying as
[45:51] volunteers. What about kids coming in? What are the trends
[45:53] and. What are you seeing for kids entering the program?
[45:58] I guess. What trend are you asking? Are they? City
[46:03] kids? County century kids? Is interest in kids joining for
[46:09] age just as robust says it's always been, is it?
[46:12] Growing? Is it more popular? I'm just curious. We, as
[46:15] most programs, had a huge downfall. Of about 33% of
[46:19] our program. During Covid, we lost a third of our
[46:22] volunteers. We lost a third of our members. And so
[46:27] I'm happy to say that we've crawled back up and
[46:29] brought those numbers back closer to that. As far as
[46:33] within the livestock programs. We identified last year 500 and
[46:39] some animals, and this year it's over 700. So those
[46:43] numbers are increasing. Slowly. I think that just as Eric
[46:49] said, the volunteers or pace is coming back. Families are
[46:52] looking to be more engaged within the community. But. They're
[46:58] still, like, testing that water when they say, okay, what?
[47:01] Does this really take to be involved? And forage isn't
[47:04] a drop in. It's not a ten week or six
[47:08] week soccer program or something like that. It's a commitment,
[47:12] and it's a year long program, and that's how we
[47:14] get the results that we do because of that engagement
[47:18] of families within our program. We always say it's a
[47:21] family program. We expect parents to be involved. Caretakers to
[47:25] be involved with the kids, and so because of that,
[47:29] I think that when we get them and we get
[47:31] them involved, they're fully engaged, but. I think a lot
[47:34] of the trends, I wouldn't say a ton of them,
[47:36] but some. Of the trends are that families just aren't
[47:38] jumping in in as many activities because Covid I think
[47:42] gave them that permission to not be as active and
[47:45] involved. But we are growing and so I'm seeing that
[47:48] come back up. Thank you. Yeah. And I'll add to
[47:51] that very quickly because I want to make sure Pat
[47:53] has enough time. One thing that's really important to me,
[47:56] and I know Brenda as well, is that. Every family
[48:01] and youth in Boulder county feels like four h is
[48:05] accessible, and for them, they can see themselves and their
[48:07] kids in it, whether they live in a city or
[48:09] the country or no. Matter what their cultural or background
[48:13] is. And so we talk about this a lot and
[48:15] how to reach new audiences and bring people in. Of
[48:18] course, Brenda only has so many hours. In the day,
[48:21] but. No, it's good. And you can see, I mean,
[48:22] I'll. Just say one more thing. We're trying to develop
[48:25] that pathway where we have an outreach. Program where we
[48:27] get a little bit of a hook as, hey, this
[48:30] is a great thing. What is for age, so they
[48:32] come for a day and then here's the pathway for
[48:35] you. To get involved. Whether you're city folk or country
[48:38] folk or have access to a place to keep animals.
[48:41] Or you're getting engaged in our archery program or cake
[48:44] decorating or something like that. So, like he said, we
[48:47] do a lot of things to get them engaged. One
[48:50] of them up. There is our viva Lacabra program, which
[48:52] was all about the goat. And it's been a really
[48:56] great program to increase some underserved audiences as well. Sorry.
[49:02] Pat Butler I live in unincorporated Boulder county. The master
[49:06] Gardener program actually originated at the University of Washington in
[49:10] 1973. And it was created in Colorado by CSU in
[49:19] 1975. So this is the 50th anniversary of the Master
[49:23] gardener program in Colorado, and I understand that. It's also.
[49:29] Parks and open spaces 50th anniversary, so we share an
[49:32] important milestone. Boulder was one of the first counties to
[49:37] create a program at its cooperative extension office here. In
[49:41] Longlong. I first trained as a master gardener with Barbara
[49:45] Hyde, who was at that time. The Boulder county extension.
[49:49] Horticultural agent. In 1986. So this is my 40th year
[49:54] volunteering in our program, and for about. 30 of those
[49:58] years I've been on the plant problem diagnostic team. We're
[50:03] trained specifically to diagnose what's ailing plants that gardeners. Bring
[50:07] to the extension office. Or sometimes show us photographs via
[50:12] email. And then. Help the home gardeners understand how to
[50:18] manage those problems. A similarly trained. Special group. Is the
[50:26] Boulder County. Tree team, which makes site visits to identify
[50:31] issues with homeowners trees. As all of older County's 80
[50:36] master gardeners. And I think that the statistics that Eric
[50:40] showed that was 65 in the previous year, but we've
[50:45] added about 15. More master gardeners in the current season,
[50:50] so we're up to 80. And I think there was
[50:53] a drop off, of course, in terms of numbers around
[50:56] Covid, but I think we're back to a closer to
[51:00] our normal seasonal average. And all of us provide a
[51:05] whole array of services each season. In early summer. We
[51:11] staff the garden centers and farmers markets. So we sit
[51:15] there at McGuckins. On a weekend. If you come to
[51:19] Magakins or Jack's out in Lafayette, there'll. Be a table
[51:23] with a couple of us who are there to answer
[51:26] questions. About any kind of gardening questions. Furthermore. Throughout the
[51:34] entire year. Gardner. Master gardeners are. Providing access through the
[51:40] phone system at the office, and they can work remotely
[51:43] as well, so people can call at any time of
[51:46] the year to ask gardening questions. And we'll have a
[51:50] response from the master gardeners who are part of. That
[51:55] commitment. They also give talks to schools, libraries and local
[52:00] garden clubs and other interested organizations, and they maintain the
[52:05] Chuck Bliss grass trial garden and the plant select garden.
[52:10] At the extension office and the community garden, which Eric
[52:13] mentioned, and the food pantry garden, which are part of
[52:16] the fairgrounds complex. We all receive in depth training initially
[52:21] and are required to provide a minimum number of volunteer
[52:25] hours. And continuing education. Each year. And. Over. The decades.
[52:34] I have some perspective on this. CSU's training curriculum has
[52:37] become much more comprehensive and uniform across the state. When
[52:41] we started, Barbara Hyde used what at the time were
[52:44] called service and action sheets, or then they became called
[52:48] fact sheets. Which were. A small one to two page
[52:53] CSU publications. On any number. Of issues of interest to
[52:59] gardeners, and that was our training manual. But more recently,
[53:06] The CSU coordinator of the whole program has created. An
[53:11] extensive. Manual that provides information. As part of the training
[53:16] process, but also. Allows us to send some of those
[53:20] materials to individual gardeners who are interested in particular topics.
[53:25] So there has been an interesting evolution. In the availability
[53:30] of really valuable resource materials that we can share with
[53:33] the public. Master gardeners provide valuable and well received services
[53:38] to the community. But this has been. A personally fulfilling
[53:43] experience for me. As you might assume, the diagnostic process
[53:47] itself involves research, so there's always something new to learn.
[53:50] And people, when I say I've been, this is my
[53:52] 40th year. People say, well, you must know everything. But
[53:56] it's far from it. I mean, we're always confronted with.
[54:00] Interesting new problems. Unfortunately, some of those are new insects
[54:03] that have shown up that we have to help people
[54:06] understand how to cope with. And sometimes they're just unusual
[54:10] circumstances. So there's always something new to learn. And educating
[54:15] gardeners about these issues is very rewarding. And people are
[54:20] always very grateful. That's the joy of working in this
[54:25] program, is to see somebody understand a problem and figure
[54:29] out that they can actually manage it. I've been privileged
[54:34] to participate in the program for all these years. It's
[54:37] the most fun and engaging activity I do every summer.
[54:40] And while the program, as Eric said, is managed through
[54:43] CSU. Boulder county has supported it very actively over the
[54:46] years for which I know all of us are very
[54:49] grateful. Thank you, Pat. Appreciate your comments, eric. Yeah, and
[54:55] that's our presentation. So if you have any questions, I
[54:58] know you had some during it. Yeah, Vicky Lawrence with
[55:00] Posac. Could you spend a moment talking about a wildlife
[55:04] master? Sure, yeah. So it's not. Maybe not quite as
[55:08] exciting as it might sound. It's very similar to the
[55:12] master gardener in program in terms of structure. You take
[55:15] a training, where, in this case, actually, we get partners
[55:18] to do the training, like Colorado Department of wildlife. Et
[55:24] cetera, depending on what the issues are that year, like
[55:27] white nose bat. Syndrome. Syndrome was a big topic to
[55:31] share. I'm a plant person, so forgive me. In that
[55:35] case, it's a one day, day long training in person
[55:37] at our office. And then they answer questions from the
[55:41] public. So sometimes that might have to do with prairie
[55:44] dogs. It might have to do with something like a
[55:46] raccoon that they've seen in the neighborhood. It might have
[55:49] to be like a snake that needs identification. A lot
[55:52] of scat. Identification. Comes in. So they help the office
[55:56] handle those questions and answer them. And we may do
[56:00] more in the future, but right now they mostly answer
[56:03] questions one on one. With the public. Thank you. Yeah.
[56:06] Chase. Yeah. Very good presentations, all of you. Thank you.
[56:13] Eric, you mentioned that the extension service is, I think,
[56:16] used the word nested. In Volter county parks and open
[56:20] space. So what? Parks and open space resources. Do you
[56:26] use other than the fairgrounds? Sure. Good question. Yes, unnested
[56:32] may not be the technical term, but we have an
[56:34] MoU, CSU. As an MoU at the county to provide
[56:37] services. And our county liaison is the director of the
[56:41] Parks and open Space department, and that Mou it's agreed
[56:44] that the county will provide us office space. It so
[56:47] computers we have county computers, county email addresses, all that
[56:50] sort of stuff. And then some staffing as well. And
[56:53] boulder kind of. We're lucky it's actually a fair amount
[56:54] of staffing compared to nearby counties. So that's admin staff,
[57:00] and then in Bowler, what is a little unique is
[57:02] there's a lot of programmatic staff. Like our small acreage
[57:06] coordinator, is completely funded by the county, so these are
[57:09] boring monetary resources. We utilize. They're really important. And we're
[57:15] really grateful for them. We have. Used. We've taught classes
[57:21] at the fairgrounds outside in the trial gardens. This summer.
[57:25] Actually, we're working to have. A series of ecology classes
[57:29] that will be taught. One of them will be taught
[57:32] anyways in the county open space, so. We've taken advantage
[57:35] of that occasionally as well. I'm sure I'm forgetting something,
[57:40] but that's quite a lot, so thank you. Good. I'm
[57:43] glad. Carol. Carol Byerly. Thank you for your presentations. I'm
[57:48] really gratified. By. My dad was an agricultural extension agent
[57:53] at Michigan State University, and so I knew what the
[57:56] moral act was. A long time ago, and I'm a
[58:00] historian. I'm probably one of the few. Historians who includes
[58:03] the Smith lever act in her class. It's a big
[58:06] one, but that is a big one that established a
[58:09] cooperative extension to bring the knowledge and the wealth of
[58:13] our agriculture and our land to the people and to
[58:17] see it thriving here in Boulder. Is really lovely. And
[58:22] so I think Abraham Lincoln would be proud of us.
[58:26] Thank you very much. Thank you. It's very nice, Christine.
[58:29] And a lot of Smith leaver knowledge there. I've got
[58:31] all the rest. Of era. Yes, exactly. Christine. Christine Johnson
[58:37] Posak. I'd like to hear more about the hiatus. With
[58:42] the Native Plant Master program. I'm a native plant master,
[58:47] and I'm training to be a trainer, and I'm aware
[58:52] of the demand for the classes and of a number
[58:55] of people traveling to other counties. For all of their
[59:00] courses. Yeah. I guess the reason for the hiatus was
[59:06] we had a lot of turnover right around Covid. So
[59:08] the horticulture specialist who runs those programs turned over three
[59:12] times in less than three years, and so it's hard
[59:15] to do all the logistics. So that's the excuse. About
[59:17] why it hasn't happened, but. We have a very good
[59:22] horticulture specialist where actually, we rephrased it. Sustainable landscape. Specialists,
[59:26] so she'll have a little more freedom. To pursue a
[59:29] variety of topics, including native plants, Along with our small
[59:33] acreage coordinator, Lindsay Gonzalez. They're attending classes. Actually, tomorrow one
[59:38] of them is, and they'll be looking to run the
[59:40] program to kind of start building up the base of
[59:43] the volunteers to teach the classes. And all that goes
[59:45] with that Moulder county next year. So that's the plan.
[59:51] No one's going to leave. It's going to be good.
[59:54] Yeah. It's been really frustrating. Yeah, I can believe it.
[59:57] For sure. They're coming back. Thanks for the question. Other
[1:00:02] questions. I don't see anybody in the audience other than
[1:00:05] staff with questions. They may have questions. Nick, is there
[1:00:09] anybody online? Nobody online for comments. Okay. Eric et al.
[1:00:16] Thank you very much for coming tonight. Thanks for your
[1:00:18] passion and your great work. It's really appreciated. Thank you.
[1:00:22] Thank you all so much. And now we have Heidi
[1:00:31] Wagner. So great to have you come back. To Postac.
[1:00:37] Thanks for coming. Usually you're taking a nap back there,
[1:00:41] waiting. You might have some brain power left. You have
[1:00:48] money?
[1:01:06] It is. You just haven't been there yet. Sea level
[1:01:13] rise. Okay. Am I close enough to the mic today?
[1:01:22] You are. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. My name
[1:01:26] is Heidi Wagner, and I am the deputy. Director of
[1:01:28] strategic foundations. And it's nice to see you all again
[1:01:32] in some new faces. As well. I haven't met you
[1:01:34] all yet, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunity
[1:01:37] over. These next two years as you serve. So why
[1:01:42] am I here tonight? So I am here tonight to
[1:01:47] talk about our processes and methods for obtaining public feedback.
[1:01:55] And I'm going to. Hopefully pull back the curtain a
[1:01:58] little bit to share kind of the insider's view of
[1:02:01] how we think of and do outreach at parks and
[1:02:06] open space. And per usual for these presentations. Please ask
[1:02:11] me questions. This is a discussion I want to hear.
[1:02:14] From you. So anytime. Just jump in and then we'll
[1:02:18] be half time, of course, for questions at the end,
[1:02:21] yes. And I'm sorry for right away, but I had
[1:02:25] a question with. Strategic foundations. And I'm just curious where
[1:02:32] that fits into parks and open space. Have you talked
[1:02:36] about the realignment? No. Okay. Do you want to or
[1:02:41] do you want to? Yeah. I was like, maybe I
[1:02:43] should have Therese. Handle this one. That's very strategic.
[1:02:53] Therese Gloakie, parks member, space director and Vivian just said,
[1:02:58] as you put that up, she's like, have you told
[1:02:59] Posex? So we have done a realignment in our department
[1:03:05] over the past couple of months, and. We are complaining
[1:03:09] it or starting it. Whichever way you want to look
[1:03:13] at it. So we used to have eight different divisions,
[1:03:15] and then extension was number nine. And in order to
[1:03:19] make that large group. Of divisions manageable. We've created four
[1:03:25] deputy directors, so we aren't creating any. New divisions right
[1:03:29] now, but we have four deputy directors, including strategic foundations,
[1:03:34] land stewardship, community amenities. And administration. Admin services. So. It's
[1:03:42] basically. Four people underneath me, the director, that each have
[1:03:47] two or three, one, two or three divisions underneath. Them.
[1:03:51] Derek Turner and strategic foundations is which divisions is real
[1:03:56] estate? Pie. So public information and outreach and then resource
[1:04:02] planning. Thank you. Nice background dancing. Excellent. Yes. She has
[1:04:08] the best work group name. We'll send you out an.org
[1:04:13] chart. We have an organization chart, but it doesn't have
[1:04:17] all the staff listed underneath it yet. We're still working
[1:04:20] on it as we're reorganizing, but we'll. Get that to
[1:04:22] you. Great. Thank you. Is that a date already? What's
[1:04:26] that, John, you have to get a lot closer to
[1:04:29] that, Mike for holding John White when you gave us
[1:04:32] last week. Is that a date? No, that. You three
[1:04:34] got the sneak preview of the new one. Right. You
[1:04:38] know more than the existing posac. How about that? It's
[1:04:41] all about the flow of information. There you go. And
[1:04:44] with 160 plus full time employees, And I think 70
[1:04:50] or 80 seasonals now. It was time. So we can
[1:04:55] talk more about that as well. Future meetings. Well, deputy
[1:04:59] director. Still awkward to say. Okay, so tonight, I'll give
[1:05:05] you a little bit of background. I'll introduce the public
[1:05:09] Outreach guide, and then I want to step back a
[1:05:11] little bit. And talk about where we've been, what we've
[1:05:15] learned, and where we're headed. Okay. So a little bit
[1:05:22] of background for you. First, I just want to very
[1:05:25] clearly state that parks at all time has multiple outreach
[1:05:30] projects running simultaneously. If you have gotten on our website,
[1:05:35] received a press release, looked at our images magazine, all
[1:05:39] of those are a form of community outreach. So we
[1:05:43] are constantly communicating to the public everything from our large
[1:05:47] management plans to trail closures. To forest health initiatives. And
[1:05:53] sometimes we're reaching out just to inform. Sometimes we want
[1:05:57] to consult, sometimes we are. Inviting them to attend a
[1:06:01] public event. Or a meeting or an open house. And
[1:06:08] we are asking them to engage, participate, inform, create a
[1:06:14] feedback loop. It all looks different. Depending on what project
[1:06:18] we're doing. And how do we manage all of that?
[1:06:23] Because. Being a large organization with all of these things
[1:06:27] going on at once, the way that we manage. It
[1:06:30] is through many different staff having responsibility for outreach based
[1:06:37] on their project. So it is throughout the organization. And
[1:06:43] we created the public outreach guide so we could define
[1:06:48] for you all how we do that. And how we
[1:06:51] think of that. So what I'm presenting today is actually
[1:06:54] our current state of outreach, and we have had this
[1:06:58] information documented in several different place by. Work group by
[1:07:03] subject, and we put it all together in this guide,
[1:07:06] which we found very, very helpful already. Excuse me. Yeah.
[1:07:10] Carol Barley. Posek. I'm having acronym issues. I've
[1:07:20] had acronym issues for years, but these are new. So
[1:07:24] what is pie? What's? PI. Public information and outreach. That
[1:07:28] is our work group. You're looking at the memo. I
[1:07:34] am? Yes. Because I'm trying to understand acronyms. Okay, thank
[1:07:40] you, thank you. And that is. The Guide is an
[1:07:45] internal document. So I should include all the abbreviations so
[1:07:51] you know what they are. I'm not. Sharing it with
[1:07:54] anybody. You can, though, Carol. It is now a public
[1:07:59] document, okay? So the outreach guide really articulates our vision
[1:08:08] around community outreach and engagement in order to support. Inclusive,
[1:08:12] consistent and effective engagement throughout the department. And it adds
[1:08:17] clarity to staff about what the expectations are when they're
[1:08:22] doing outreach. And we also want to make sure that
[1:08:27] all staff. Understand and align with both department and countywide
[1:08:32] strategic priorities, especially around our crisp plan. Culturally responsive inclusion
[1:08:39] strategic plan. And not crispr. Not crispr. And, of course,
[1:08:45] our equity and inclusion goals at the BOCC level. So
[1:08:49] it really tries to tie those things together so staff
[1:08:52] is reminded to use the tools and strategies that are
[1:08:56] effective to meet those goals. So this is really, when
[1:09:02] I say current state, this is what captures that current
[1:09:06] state. So in your memo in the guide there is
[1:09:09] a chart and I purposely didn't put it all up
[1:09:12] on the PowerPoint because it's just too many words. So
[1:09:14] I would encourage you. To reference that, and it is
[1:09:17] available. Online, of course, in the agenda packet. But what
[1:09:23] it defines. Are four tiers of outreach, and this is
[1:09:27] really how we think of our outreach in the department.
[1:09:31] So tier one. You can think of tier one outreach
[1:09:34] as really the really big projects, the really big plans.
[1:09:38] East Boulder Creek the integrated Weed management plan for those
[1:09:42] of you new to POsac I encourage you to. Go
[1:09:45] back and watch those videos. It'll give you a good
[1:09:49] flavor of the complexity of those planning processes and then
[1:09:53] a couple of things that I want to point out
[1:09:55] is we have examples of tools and methods and those
[1:10:00] are meant to be just that, the actual tools and
[1:10:03] methods that are chosen for each type. Of outreach. Depends
[1:10:07] on? The staff person that is the lead, and the
[1:10:11] conversations that they have internally when they're creating their plans
[1:10:15] based on this framework and guidance. And you can see
[1:10:18] in the far right column the staff involved for tier
[1:10:21] one projects is pretty much from. Every work group that
[1:10:26] we have in the department. We need everyone to pull
[1:10:29] off those large projects. And work together to create the
[1:10:33] appropriate outreach and engagement for that project. So those are
[1:10:37] tier one. Tier two projects. We think of more as
[1:10:42] subject matter expert projects, so a good example of that.
[1:10:46] Would have been the elk management plan update that you
[1:10:49] recently heard and you didn't have. A planner sitting here.
[1:10:53] You had a wildlife specialist. And. That's their project, because
[1:10:58] they are the expert and they write the whole document.
[1:11:01] But it also means that they are responsible for the
[1:11:03] outreach that goes with that project. Tier three projects are
[1:11:09] what I would consider more operational. Outreach and notifications. So
[1:11:14] if there's going to be a closure. Infrastructure maintenance, maybe
[1:11:20] minor change to a language. Then that outreach is going
[1:11:24] to be handled by that subject matter expert staff and
[1:11:27] then you're. Mostly going to see it through forms of
[1:11:30] press releases, website updates. One other thing to point out.
[1:11:36] The audience focus can vary depending on these projects. And
[1:11:40] again, this is a guidance piece. So. I might be
[1:11:45] doing. A closure, but I'm not going to take that
[1:11:48] to POSac and the board. For approval. I'm just going
[1:11:51] to put that out, that information out there. But maybe
[1:11:55] I'm making language changes to a policy, and even though
[1:11:58] they're pretty minor changes. They still will need to be
[1:12:01] approved by the board, so all of that is figured
[1:12:04] out when staff is sitting down working. Through outreach and
[1:12:09] designing their plan. Any questions there before I move on?
[1:12:15] Because that's a lot. It's a lot for us to
[1:12:18] work through and many meetings and conversations around this. Okay.
[1:12:27] So the other pieces of the guide include messaging tips
[1:12:31] so you can think of those as best practices around
[1:12:35] messaging, so reminding staff, especially on tier two and tier
[1:12:40] three projects. Oh, sorry, one more. Thing. Tier four. I
[1:12:43] want to go backwards. Real estate projects. So I'm not
[1:12:46] going to. Talk about that. Tonight because that's kind of
[1:12:49] its category in and of itself. But I just want
[1:12:51] to make sure that I acknowledge that. Okay, so core
[1:12:55] messaging. So what that includes is just good reminders to
[1:13:00] staff. Be sure when you're putting out the word on
[1:13:04] your project that you're including. What's the purpose? What's changing?
[1:13:09] Why are we doing it? And other information like that
[1:13:14] just to serve as reminders that they need to put
[1:13:16] that information out there because just because they're a wildlife
[1:13:20] expert does not mean that they're an outreach expert, so
[1:13:22] it helps give them guidance. And then. We also include
[1:13:28] best practices around accessibility and equity. And so those are
[1:13:33] going to be things like plain language, prompting the use
[1:13:38] of. Graphics and visuals, making sure they close the loop
[1:13:43] with community or what happened with the project that they
[1:13:46] did. And then lastly, it does logistics. So just how
[1:13:51] do you do all of this stuff and you see
[1:13:53] that in the attachment to the guide. It's like, who
[1:13:56] do you need to call? To do a mailing. How
[1:14:00] do you go to a printer? There's a lot of
[1:14:03] effort behind. These outreach tasks. That staff may or may
[1:14:08] not be familiar with, and so that helps give them
[1:14:10] a little guidance. So one thing before I move on
[1:14:15] is that this guy does not do everything for parks.
[1:14:19] There's. More documentation around each one of these tiers, but
[1:14:24] it serves as a really good framework. So you can
[1:14:29] understand how we think about it. And how when we
[1:14:33] come to you with different projects and plans, why you
[1:14:36] see different people up here. Talking about it. So that's
[1:14:43] the guide. But I want to go backwards a little
[1:14:47] bit because as I mentioned this was a snapshot in
[1:14:50] time, and so I want to talk about where we
[1:14:53] have been. In the most recent past as related to
[1:14:56] our outreach. And this guide and just what we've learned
[1:15:00] and where we're going. So I want to take you
[1:15:04] back to the old days of 2022. It does feel
[1:15:10] like a long time ago. But it wasn't. But you
[1:15:12] can see everyone. In this picture is in masks, and
[1:15:16] in 2022, We were re envisioning our management plan process.
[1:15:24] For those of you that were here with me through
[1:15:27] East Boulder Creek, I would often say, hey, we have
[1:15:29] a new vision. Engage, guide, connect. And that vision came
[1:15:35] from this work. And during that process, we said, What?
[1:15:41] We are picking back up management planning. We are picking
[1:15:45] back up community engagement because. Everybody was coming back online
[1:15:50] again. Wanting to hear about what we were doing, not
[1:15:54] just for the big management plans, but in general. And
[1:15:58] especially after the increase and the love that we saw
[1:16:01] for our open spaces, people were ready. To be engaged.
[1:16:05] And. We really reaffirmed our commitment. To engagement. And see
[1:16:14] it as central to our mission of stewardship and partnership
[1:16:17] with our community. And we also talked a lot about
[1:16:21] how we wanted to hear the voices of everyone in
[1:16:24] our community, and we wanted the feedback from our community
[1:16:28] to reflect the diversity of our community. And we wanted
[1:16:34] to really build that trust. And transparency into our work
[1:16:38] so everyone understood why we were doing what we're doing.
[1:16:43] And just really get that meaningful feedback. To help us
[1:16:48] make better decisions. So that was 2022, and. That's what
[1:16:54] you see. A lot of that language in the public
[1:16:58] outreach guide, and we were definitely doing many of those
[1:17:02] things before 2022. I want to acknowledge that, but that's.
[1:17:06] How it really arrived in its present state. And a
[1:17:09] lot of that is due to the guidance of our
[1:17:11] Chris plan. Let me say it again, Carol, okay? I
[1:17:17] will because it's a wonderful plan and also. Our board
[1:17:21] of county commissioners also putting equity and inclusion and trust
[1:17:27] with community at the center of their work. And what
[1:17:31] that translated into practically were some of these outreach tools
[1:17:35] that are just lists in the guide, but how we're
[1:17:38] doing them and what they look like now is substantially
[1:17:41] different from the past. Eric, do you have a question?
[1:17:47] Okay. This is a conversation, so please jump in. But
[1:17:53] it looks a little bit. It does look different. In
[1:17:54] the past. Plain language. This was a great one for
[1:17:58] me to learn because. When you evolve in this space.
[1:18:05] You have a lot of acronyms and you use a
[1:18:08] lot of terminology and technical language. And we really, really
[1:18:13] needed to shift a plain language if we wanted to
[1:18:16] be accessible to our community. We're using a lot more
[1:18:20] graphic design. We are translating our materials, and we are
[1:18:26] offering translators at our events, our social media. Presence has
[1:18:32] really, really grown and been boosted by the addition of
[1:18:36] new staff with wonderful skills in this space. We are
[1:18:40] creating compelling videos. And we are hosting events on site,
[1:18:46] so. We're not just propping up posters in a meeting
[1:18:50] room, which is important and definitely has its place, but
[1:18:53] we're also going. To the property. And planning with the
[1:18:59] community on the property that we're talking about. And then
[1:19:03] lastly, we are also going to where community is already
[1:19:06] at, so we're not asking them to always come to
[1:19:08] us. We're going to see them, and you can think.
[1:19:12] Of like, now we have tables at Cinco de Mayo
[1:19:14] and pride in the park and just. Ways to go
[1:19:17] out and engage where people are. And listen to them
[1:19:21] and build relationships. So those are things that we've done.
[1:19:26] And along the way, we've learned a lot of lessons.
[1:19:30] And I have a list up there. It's definitely not
[1:19:34] inclusive. But I think in this space, To acknowledge lessons.
[1:19:42] Learn acknowledges that you're trying new things and you're trying
[1:19:46] to innovate. And if I could not sit up here
[1:19:51] and say, oh, no, we haven't learned a thing because
[1:19:53] we're perfect. No one is perfect. No organization is perfect.
[1:19:57] But we do have a commitment to continuous improvement. And
[1:20:01] these are the lessons that we've been learning and the
[1:20:04] first one I really want to emphasize is. It's just.
[1:20:08] Never underestimate the public interest in your topic. And I
[1:20:11] think this one. Has. This one's tripped us up because,
[1:20:16] especially in what we wouldn't consider the big big projects.
[1:20:20] I mean, I think for the big projects, We see
[1:20:23] some of that coming. Not all of it, but some
[1:20:26] of it, but sometimes we don't. See it when it's
[1:20:28] kind of like, oh, we're just doing this. Language change
[1:20:31] or only three people ever do this thing and nobody's
[1:20:34] going to care. So we just proceed as planned on
[1:20:38] that chart, and it can take us by surprise, and
[1:20:42] so. That's definitely been a lesson learned is to never
[1:20:44] underestimate that interest in your topic. And then we want
[1:20:49] to be able to get the word out early, and
[1:20:52] this is for all of our projects. Is we want
[1:20:57] to be able to leverage our outreach tools and continue
[1:21:00] to grow our outreach tools. So we get the attention
[1:21:04] of our community early, and I'll talk a little bit
[1:21:07] about that in what's coming as well. And that science
[1:21:11] and subject matter expertise. They don't always resonate, and maybe
[1:21:15] that goes back a little bit to the plain. Language,
[1:21:17] conversation. Is that you can. Have a great. Binch of
[1:21:24] experts. But sometimes. The community doesn't really resonate with those
[1:21:28] messages, and we need to think of other ways to
[1:21:32] share what we're trying to communicate. And that also some
[1:21:37] of our staff that are responsible for their subject matter.
[1:21:40] Subject matter expert plans. They could use more support and
[1:21:43] understanding in this space. So we're going to look at
[1:21:46] that as well, and internal processes to improve support for
[1:21:49] them. And then we do want to create additional strategies
[1:21:54] for this group. Pose that to continue. To connect with
[1:21:59] our board of county commissioners on hard and crunchy topics
[1:22:03] because you all talk about things. Very, very deeply, and
[1:22:07] you give it a lot of consideration, and you ask
[1:22:10] a lot of good. Questions and we have some great
[1:22:13] methods and strategies. For communicating what those conversations were to
[1:22:17] the board. But we can add more, and we're looking
[1:22:19] at that. And I'll come back to see you in
[1:22:21] October to talk about those. And then lastly. And this
[1:22:26] is another double underline, is it's a challenging to obtain
[1:22:30] broad feedback from a community if you don't have a
[1:22:34] relationship with that community so often, we're in our desks
[1:22:38] doing our work, and then we're like, great, it's outreach.
[1:22:41] Time, and we get out there and say, what do
[1:22:42] you think? And then no one shows up. Because they
[1:22:44] don't know who we are. What we're doing. Why should
[1:22:48] they care? And so we're really thinking about those. Relationships
[1:22:52] with our community. And so when we show up, it's
[1:22:55] just part of an ongoing dialogue. And it's not just
[1:22:59] something that we're like, oh, tell us now, and then
[1:23:01] go back to do your thing. So those are all
[1:23:04] lessons we have been learning along. The way with all
[1:23:07] of the outreach that we've been doing over the past
[1:23:09] several years. So where are we headed? So, first, I
[1:23:13] want to speak to some county wide initiatives that I'm
[1:23:16] very excited about and I think will be very supportive
[1:23:19] in this space. We are not the only department working
[1:23:23] to do outreach in the county. And I think that
[1:23:28] has been acknowledged by the office of our county administrator
[1:23:32] and lots of her staff are working on these pieces,
[1:23:35] too. So one of those things is communication and messaging.
[1:23:39] Guidance countywide and you can see this is a little.
[1:23:43] I grabbed a screenshot from our internal intern. Internet that
[1:23:47] we have, and this is all about. Language access and
[1:23:51] plain language. We didn't have this when I was working
[1:23:55] on East Boulder Creek and a lot of our questions
[1:23:59] that we asked. And especially through PI and her team,
[1:24:03] we would ask them, and they had to work together
[1:24:05] to create. The bilingual material, guidance and plain language, and
[1:24:10] a lot of that helped spur our central communications team.
[1:24:15] To create this guidance, so it was a great improvement.
[1:24:20] For everyone countywide. And then. They are also they meaning?
[1:24:26] I want to say. County is also working on a
[1:24:29] community engagement framework. There is a team of staff that
[1:24:34] is contributing to that effort. But again, it is a
[1:24:36] countywide effort, and we are hopeful in the next few
[1:24:39] months that they will be releasing a framework that parks
[1:24:42] an open space can leverage all the wonderful things that
[1:24:46] we've been doing and use that framework for additional guidance.
[1:24:50] And to plug into the countywide messaging and efforts. Yes,
[1:24:54] this is John White. The very first question that the
[1:25:01] commissioners asked when we got interviewed was. About diversity. And
[1:25:08] I assume that what you're saying here has been presented
[1:25:12] or will be presented to them to the commissioner. Yeah,
[1:25:16] I'm not sure I could definitely bring it up to
[1:25:19] that. Was their very first question. Yeah. Oh, how interesting.
[1:25:23] That's great. I could bring it up to them, though.
[1:25:27] We get a chance to see them once a month.
[1:25:29] On different parks topics, and I could definitely present this.
[1:25:34] Thanks, John. The second thing, where we're headed in October.
[1:25:41] There was a team of staff that came to you.
[1:25:43] They are community engagement team and they are still fairly
[1:25:46] newly formed. I think they've only been active for about
[1:25:49] a year. But this is a group of staff, and
[1:25:53] I put their vision up here is that they are
[1:25:56] really about co creation with the community and building those
[1:26:01] relationships with the community and all of us. Have as
[1:26:04] staff have the opportunity. To show up at those events
[1:26:08] and contribute to those efforts and build those relationships as
[1:26:13] well. And for example, just recently at Cinco de Mayo,
[1:26:17] we had a staff there with the community. Engagement team
[1:26:20] was there, but we also had planning staff there. To
[1:26:24] just engage with the community, listen to the team or
[1:26:28] listen to the people and. They have some wonderful. Stories
[1:26:34] to tell from that experience, and I'm not going to
[1:26:37] give it away because they will be here sometime in
[1:26:40] the future talking to you about that work as well.
[1:26:44] Heidi, Tony Lewis with Posec is the community engagement team.
[1:26:47] Is that their full time job? No. Or not. Some
[1:26:50] of them, yes, but not all of them. Okay. Yeah,
[1:26:55] great. Thanks. And then lastly. We are working on creating
[1:27:03] more compelling messaging for our community and timing that messaging.
[1:27:10] In. A way that gets the attention of our community
[1:27:13] early. And I was just introduced to this concept. I'm
[1:27:18] really excited about seven points of contact. So this is
[1:27:23] a marketing principle. I've mentioned that. We have added some
[1:27:27] staff recently that have a lot of expertise in this
[1:27:30] space, and they're bringing this to parks and open space,
[1:27:33] but this is a marketing principle. And I'm so appreciative
[1:27:38] of it because. It helps. Give us additional tools. So
[1:27:45] that. Public message that will here sometimes, which is like,
[1:27:48] I didn't know about this. I didn't hear about this.
[1:27:51] You sent me a brochure, but I didn't see. It.
[1:27:53] I threw it out in my junk mail. And us
[1:27:57] as staff with just traditional tools. We're like, oh, we
[1:28:00] don't know. What else to do. Intermarketing. So there's something.
[1:28:04] Seven points of contact. Which is you try to let
[1:28:08] people know in seven different ways. The same message severed
[1:28:11] in different ways. And some of this involves. Remember how
[1:28:17] I've told you, like. Well, I mailed everyone. A brochure
[1:28:21] within 1500ft of the property and I did it four
[1:28:25] times. I don't know why they didn't see it. So
[1:28:28] you can use those same addresses and. Put it into
[1:28:32] social media marketing and. When that address goes on Facebook
[1:28:37] or Instagram, they get your message. I was like. And
[1:28:40] then thinking, I'm like, oh, and you probably think of
[1:28:43] your own. Feeds, and you've seen that. And so we're
[1:28:47] looking to do something like that. So people see. Hey,
[1:28:51] we're doing something right next to your house. Please. Come
[1:28:56] tell us what you think. And then lastly, we are
[1:28:59] looking always to increase eternal communication and alignment. So staff
[1:29:05] doing all kinds of projects all the time. That we
[1:29:11] increase our ability to communicate what those projects are, the
[1:29:15] timing of those projects, and really support each other to
[1:29:18] use these tools and leverage best practices so they can
[1:29:24] also have successful outreach. So that is what I've prepared
[1:29:28] for you today, and I just want to acknowledge. We
[1:29:33] have not always been perfect, but we have also made.
[1:29:39] Amazing progress in this space, and we are committed to.
[1:29:43] Continuous improvement. We're committed to continue to innovate and build
[1:29:48] relationships. And encourage the trust of our community through. Transparency
[1:29:55] and just. We're not going anywhere and. We will continue
[1:29:59] to commit to hearing their voices and doing our best
[1:30:04] to co create these management decisions together. So that's what
[1:30:08] I have today, and I'm excited to hear any questions
[1:30:12] or discussion. Or insights. Thank you. Thank you very much.
[1:30:18] It's a great presentation. I appreciate it's in response, in
[1:30:21] part to a lot. Of questions that Postac has had
[1:30:24] over various projects and concerns. So I appreciate that. Let's,
[1:30:29] start with Joan. Yeah. Thank you. That was very good.
[1:30:32] And I like your ideas about finding new groups to
[1:30:36] reach. Out to in new ways to reach them. And
[1:30:41] my name is. My name is Joan Lutz. I'm. But
[1:30:44] I just wanted to say I hope the science and
[1:30:47] the expertise doesn't get buried. Too much because. Many of
[1:30:54] us feel that that really helps to explain. Why the
[1:30:59] county might want to do things in a certain way.
[1:31:03] And I know many of us find the science and
[1:31:05] the expertise quite persuasive. Thank you, Joan. I agree. It's
[1:31:11] an and, right? We want both. Thank you. And I'm
[1:31:16] going to remind you to get really close to that
[1:31:18] mic, everyone. Thank you. Trace. Trace. Baker. Posack. Thank you,
[1:31:24] Heidi. I know the guide is a very necessary process
[1:31:30] for dealing with. The times we've had public perception of
[1:31:35] inadequate communication, and I think this will go a long
[1:31:38] way. Towards. Resolving that. I have a number of questions
[1:31:46] on the guide because that is what we received to
[1:31:50] review. And your phrase. Never underestimate the public input. Public
[1:31:59] interest in your topic. And I really think the guide
[1:32:05] should consider the fact that public interest. May escalate. Which
[1:32:12] tier? Gets assigned. I can think of anything to do
[1:32:20] with prairie dogs, anything to do with weed management, anything
[1:32:25] to do with eagles? You'll do. A minor staff will
[1:32:31] propose a trail reroute and we'll get 60 emails. So
[1:32:37] that is one thing I would hope that. You could
[1:32:43] add. Let's see here. The. Audience focus.
[1:32:54] Seems to emphasize proximal impact. And remote impact, I think
[1:33:00] needs more attention. When you talk about. View sheds water
[1:33:07] flow or water tables wind drift animal movements. Plant distribution.
[1:33:16] Those all. Need to be looked at. Let's see. There
[1:33:23] was a phrase. In the plan, all public. And it
[1:33:29] reads like list of site visitors. And you should either
[1:33:34] state that explicitly. If that's the intent. Or again, look
[1:33:38] at adjacent property owners or remote view shed people sure.
[1:33:45] When you create a project web page that should include
[1:33:50] a timeline. As Joan mentioned.
[1:34:00] Science and subject matter expertise. Does not always resonate on
[1:34:04] one of your slides. And. What I've seen many, many
[1:34:09] times. Is that the public will bring in people that
[1:34:13] they claim. Are scientists and subject matter experts. And. Managing.
[1:34:23] That conflict, I think, needs to be addressed. And I
[1:34:27] have a bunch of typographical things. With your permission, I'll
[1:34:33] just email those and not take discussion time for them.
[1:34:38] That sounds good, trace. Thank you. Okay. And again, thank
[1:34:40] you so much. Great comments, trace. Appreciate your close reading
[1:34:44] of that. Other questions, Christine. Christine johnson posack I think.
[1:34:53] I have maybe three comments. Two comments. On the never
[1:35:00] underestimate. I think that. Pos. Tries so hard. To think
[1:35:08] of every contingency and to think of every possible question.
[1:35:14] I see so much diligence in that, and that is
[1:35:18] amazing. But you are not going to be able to
[1:35:23] think of every contingency. In every possible question. And I
[1:35:29] think as far as. You can't never underestimate the level
[1:35:34] of interest in your topic. I think it's. Some of.
[1:35:42] The. I think what's happening is. Areas that you did
[1:35:48] not anticipate were going to be of interest, and I
[1:35:51] think that what might be missing from this is. Response
[1:35:58] to that, if that makes any sense. Like, in the
[1:36:02] moment or in the process, because. Again. You guys are
[1:36:06] super. Careful. Very professional. And. How do you respond and
[1:36:16] when do you respond? When things go awry, like what
[1:36:22] rises to. That. Level. And then. How do you respond?
[1:36:31] And is there a protocol for responding? And I think
[1:36:33] that might be something. To think about. Like, how do
[1:36:37] you keep something from getting bigger? Right. Do you want
[1:36:41] me so I have a slide on that that I
[1:36:43] didn't go? Into tonight. There's a lot there. It would
[1:36:48] save you time. Yeah. I just created. This, but I
[1:36:57] didn't include it tonight because. It's like part two of
[1:37:02] the conversation. And I wanted to focus just on process
[1:37:06] and methods, but. This is what, when I say, like,
[1:37:10] internal alignment and support, this is what I mean. And
[1:37:13] what we're talking about. Because sometimes I just want to
[1:37:16] acknowledge that you can do all of these best practices,
[1:37:19] and there's still going to be disagreement at the end,
[1:37:22] and it's okay. It means that people are passionate and
[1:37:26] they care about what you're doing, and we want that.
[1:37:30] But when you disagree at beginning, middle, end, what do
[1:37:33] you do? And so. We're talking about this, and we
[1:37:36] will be talking about it more. But you're absolutely right,
[1:37:39] Christine. I really appreciate this and that it's something that's
[1:37:45] in the mix to support. Staff. Other post questions Carol.
[1:37:53] Carol Byerly Posac. Yes. And you had that slide. You
[1:37:55] were ready. I just want to kind of back up
[1:37:59] a little bit and say, That I've been impressed. By
[1:38:06] how embedded and how much effort there is. So I
[1:38:10] have been less critical, and I think that you're dealing
[1:38:15] with an environment. In this country of competition for attention
[1:38:19] and most people are being get a fire hose of
[1:38:22] information. And one of my least favorite is an organization
[1:38:26] called Constant Contact. With your customer. Well, not all of
[1:38:32] us want constant contact. So you're dealing with that, and
[1:38:37] we're also dealing with. An angry or more divisive society.
[1:38:43] There's some static going on as you're negotiating this. And
[1:38:48] so I think. We need to be cognizant of that
[1:38:52] as well. And that people are getting too much stuff.
[1:38:56] And so the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater
[1:38:59] sometimes. Tracy, this is wonderfully responsive presentation to pose Act's
[1:39:04] concerns. Thank you. Trace Baker Posac just want to respond
[1:39:10] a bit to what Christine was saying about. Being. It's
[1:39:15] impossible to anticipate. Every contingency, and that is very true.
[1:39:22] And that is the purpose of review. Both. For presenting
[1:39:29] to the public. And also for presenting to postac. We
[1:39:35] can certainly bring up things. And public will bring up
[1:39:41] things. And so I think that's very necessary. The process.
[1:39:45] Derek. Derek Turner. Thanks. Great presentation. I am wondering
[1:39:55] about. Well, I guess. I've been with serving on Posac
[1:39:59] for two years, and there's two big tier one projects.
[1:40:04] I assume you would consider them tier one, the East
[1:40:05] Boulder Creek, and the Weed management plan, where I think,
[1:40:09] especially with East Boulder Creek. Some of the things you
[1:40:15] describe with going out to the property and meeting with
[1:40:18] folks and having them place the pins on where they
[1:40:21] think the parking lot should be. Like you nailed, I
[1:40:24] think. That chart you just showed. And we had a
[1:40:29] room full of people upset. Even though in my mind.
[1:40:34] You really did. So I guess maybe I'm wondering, in
[1:40:38] looking back at that situation, What I remember hearing is
[1:40:41] then it went to the county commissioners, who had feedback
[1:40:45] that we hadn't thought of and direction and all the
[1:40:49] folks in here that had to spend hours both talking
[1:40:52] to us. Multiple meetings and then talking to the county
[1:40:54] commissioners, if I was one of them. I don't know
[1:40:58] if I would save my time for the county commissioners,
[1:41:00] because ultimately they're making the decision. And I guess I'm
[1:41:03] just wondering about. Creative ways. To either have a bigger
[1:41:10] forum that might. Allow the county commissioners to be here
[1:41:14] with us to hear. A tier one project like that,
[1:41:17] which to me, some of those are like, generational. Projects
[1:41:21] that they shouldn't follow. This kind of formula on how
[1:41:25] you're going to make a decision, and they're so important,
[1:41:28] right? They are like, this is going to. Change. An
[1:41:33] entire community in a county. Depending on. Two votes, right?
[1:41:39] And I'm thinking about the st. Rain corridor from lions
[1:41:43] to Longmont. These projects that are 25, 30 years in
[1:41:47] the making. I would just love to encourage. Ways of
[1:41:52] thinking about, especially the public hearing process. That might. Make
[1:41:58] it more efficient for both people who want to weigh
[1:42:01] in and then have maybe. I am seizing on your
[1:42:05] idea of increasing communication with the county commissioners. With us
[1:42:11] because. I have not had any communication since starting, and
[1:42:15] we've had these huge projects. That they've done what they
[1:42:19] want to do, right. And all the hours we spent
[1:42:22] felt like? I'm not sure. How much it played into
[1:42:27] the ultimate plans for those projects. No, I really appreciate
[1:42:32] that, Derek. So I think a couple of things. I
[1:42:36] don't know our ability to change that formal process, because
[1:42:39] a lot of it is ruled or is rooted in
[1:42:41] regulation, but I'm going to find out. I do know
[1:42:45] we can do things like joint work sessions with the
[1:42:47] county commissioners, and I think that's definitely something that we
[1:42:50] should explore. There's also joint field trips. Here comes Teresa.
[1:42:58] Therese Kalawaki, director of Parks open space I do want
[1:43:01] to interject at this point. Because I do love that
[1:43:03] suggestion, and it has happened in the past. Two big
[1:43:09] projects. And it was a good thing. It was definitely
[1:43:12] a good thing. And it was preempted. The county commissioner
[1:43:15] said. One is the GMO issue. And they said, we
[1:43:20] know that there are going to be hundreds of people
[1:43:23] who want to speak, and so. It was a joint.
[1:43:26] Posac and the county commissioners were all sitting together. You
[1:43:29] all heard? The same comment. I think that that's a
[1:43:31] very good thing we can bring up again. And. I
[1:43:35] think. St. Frain is a good example. It's going to
[1:43:39] be as controversial as East Boulder Creek, and it could
[1:43:43] be a great opportunity. So, yes, I love that suggestion.
[1:43:45] And. I can't ever guarantee anything. But it might be
[1:43:51] considered. Thank you, Teresa. And just briefly, I will come
[1:43:56] back in October. With some additional tools and strategies that
[1:44:00] we have thought of. To strengthen and reinforce that communication
[1:44:05] and deliberation that you all go through so it can
[1:44:08] show up in many different ways. In front of the
[1:44:11] board at a public hearing. So I'll come back and
[1:44:15] talk more about that, and then I'll work with Teresa
[1:44:17] and others and do research on how we might be
[1:44:20] able to. Bring or get that piece going again. Thanks.
[1:44:25] And I'm just curious. Do you have any tier one
[1:44:29] projects you can tell us you're thinking about? We're cooking
[1:44:32] it up, Derek, right now, but we're not quite ready
[1:44:35] to talk. About it, but get excited. Get some sleep.
[1:44:41] Get your sleep now. Christine. Christine Johnson Poseack I might
[1:44:48] be going out on a limb with these comments. I
[1:44:52] am wondering. Where the balance. Of. Respectful treatment of
[1:45:02] staff figures into them because. That is definitely a concern
[1:45:07] that I have. Because I know you guys work really
[1:45:10] hard. And that. You are serving the public, but you're
[1:45:18] also human beings. So there's that. And then the other.
[1:45:25] Thought that I'm having more concerns. Us and possibly the
[1:45:30] board of county commissioners. And. Is there? Any what?
[1:45:40] Kind of guidance or guidelines are given to people giving
[1:45:44] public feedback, and I wonder. What constitutes effective public
[1:45:53] feedback, and I would imagine that would vary for all
[1:45:56] of us, but that's another efficiency. Matter? Is there anything
[1:46:02] that we could do? To improve the quality of feedback
[1:46:05] that we get from the public. Like I said, out
[1:46:09] on a limb. Yes, Carol. This is Carol Barley. I've
[1:46:14] really never heard. Democracy, inefficiency in the same sentence. I
[1:46:22] know you can get frustrated, but that's not the way
[1:46:25] the system works. And if it was efficient. It'd be
[1:46:28] scary because it would be top down. So when you
[1:46:31] have things that are bottom up, they just get. So
[1:46:38] that's kind of what we are supposed to do. We
[1:46:41] are supposed to filter some of that. Out there. So
[1:46:45] the word efficiency is and. I'm pretty protestant about all
[1:46:49] that, but. I'm not used to hearing those two words
[1:46:53] together, I think. There is an interesting. Place to play.
[1:46:58] Tony Lewis. After this, I don't have to follow any
[1:47:02] rules since I won't be chair. And I think there
[1:47:08] is some efficiency, as Derek suggests, around trying to have
[1:47:12] some sessions around tier one projects with the county commissioners,
[1:47:16] because I think that would be both. More efficient and
[1:47:21] more helpful. But I also agree with you, Carol. I
[1:47:26] think back to the weed management. Or the writing arena
[1:47:29] and the open writing. And I heard the same comments
[1:47:33] from pretty much the same people. Like a lot. And
[1:47:38] that's okay. This is their opportunity, and that's why we're
[1:47:42] here, is to hear that feedback. And, yeah, there were
[1:47:47] some late nights, and there were a lot of repetition,
[1:47:50] and that's. Okay. It's not efficient, but it is clearly
[1:47:52] okay. Perhaps the word I'm looking for is effective. Yeah,
[1:48:01] I think it is. I think you're asking what is
[1:48:03] the most effective feedback to be given to postac. And
[1:48:06] can we help guide that at all? I think there
[1:48:09] might be. Some things we could do, I guess worthy
[1:48:12] of discussion. Vicky. Vicky lawrence posak, I guess. My just
[1:48:21] quick thought on that is that we are all going
[1:48:24] to have different things that impact us positive or negative?
[1:48:29] And some of us might be more impacted by an
[1:48:30] emotional or a wildlife issue or a plant. Issue or
[1:48:34] a noise issue or whatever. So in some ways we
[1:48:38] need to hear it all. I guess. Okay, good discussion.
[1:48:45] Enough for tonight. Enough for tonight. Chair says enough. Okay?
[1:48:51] I think Janet is probably gone. Is that right, Nick?
[1:48:56] No, she's still on. Oh, my goodness. Janet, anything you
[1:48:59] would like to add? I think you've all covered a
[1:49:03] great discussion, and thank you for checking in. She's. Doing
[1:49:07] a great job of running this meeting. Yeah. Excellent. Thank
[1:49:10] you, Janet. I heard that. I didn't get my name.
[1:49:20] Yeah. We'll fire you if you aren't careful. Okay. So
[1:49:25] any we're done with post that. Comments. Are there any
[1:49:26] public comments? I don't see unless the peanut gallery in
[1:49:30] the very back row against the wall has any comments,
[1:49:33] you're welcome to provide. Nick, do we have anybody online?
[1:49:37] No online comments. Okay. Thank you, Heidi. Thank you very
[1:49:41] much for the presentation. Thank you. And for your thoughtful
[1:49:44] responses. Okay. Yeah. They are still there and with you.
[1:49:53] Do we have any public comment for items not on
[1:49:56] the agenda? And, Nick, is there anybody online? We have
[1:50:01] people online, but only staff members. Okay? Only staff members,
[1:50:05] not public. Okay? They want to. Make. We're good there.
[1:50:11] Postac members comment period for items not on the agenda.
[1:50:16] Do we have any items not on the agenda? Okay,
[1:50:19] Terese, you're up. Director's. Report. No. Well, thank you. Teresa
[1:50:24] Galawkey, parks office space director. I have a few updates,
[1:50:30] and then we have. Two videos to show you. One
[1:50:33] is commemorating the 50. We want to show it to
[1:50:37] you as we celebrate. The is a fun little. Instagram
[1:50:43] post. Surprise. So as far as updates go, Vivian will
[1:50:50] send you the overview.org charts that the new members have
[1:50:54] already seen. So watch that. It's already in your email.
[1:50:57] There you go. Talk. About efficiency. We are doing. A
[1:51:05] pos. University, which we had at Potasso. And I think
[1:51:08] a couple of you came. We were doing another one
[1:51:11] and we will send you an invitation for it. But
[1:51:14] mark your calendars if this interests you? June 3 at
[1:51:17] 10:00 at the fairgrounds. CSU, who gave a presentation. They're
[1:51:22] going to have a two and a half hour pos
[1:51:25] university. So you are. Invited to that. We talk tonight
[1:51:30] about community engagement, who the community engagement team is. And
[1:51:34] you know we got approval. For a second community engagement
[1:51:38] person. Monsterat Alvarez is our first community engagement. Bilingual community
[1:51:44] engagement person. We are hiring a second one, and she's
[1:51:49] starting. Sometime next week. And her name is Jira Snika
[1:51:55] Rose. And so now we will have two full time
[1:51:58] where, you asked, was this the community engagement team's full
[1:52:01] time job? It will be. Two of their job. Two
[1:52:05] of the two people. Two people out of a committee
[1:52:06] of ten. It is their full time. Job. Are they
[1:52:09] both bilingual? They are both. I'm quite sure Jerusnaek is
[1:52:14] bilingual. Yes, Montsrada is definitely bilingual. Everyone on the community
[1:52:19] engagement team? Not everyone. Nine out of the ten are
[1:52:22] bilingual. Awesome. Yeah. In the extension. Slideshow that they gave.
[1:52:34] Emma Dimitri, who was also here presenting on the community
[1:52:37] engagement team several months ago. She was successfully awarded a
[1:52:43] $14,000 grant. To support. A kid's climbing program. So something
[1:52:50] new, something else. That CSU extension. Is taking on, so
[1:52:55] I think that's. A wonderful new grant and program. Every
[1:53:01] year. Every year. Every five years. And sometimes every four
[1:53:04] years, we do a five year study. We're doing it
[1:53:07] in four years because of Covid. We didn't do it.
[1:53:09] In 2020. We did it in 2021. 2025. We're doing
[1:53:13] our five year study. If you're out on the trails,
[1:53:15] somebody might stop you after you exit the trail and
[1:53:19] ask. You for? Your opinions. So this is an exit
[1:53:23] study where we gather information on how they rank the
[1:53:26] park, what other amenities do they need? Did they have
[1:53:29] conflict? Demographics, so this is our year. Watch for that
[1:53:34] while you're out there. Tonight? Probably. Just. Well, I don't
[1:53:39] know what time, but. There is an owl and a
[1:53:43] hawk release at Hill Valley Ranch tonight. I didn't even.
[1:53:47] Get invited, so don't feel bad. We work regularly with
[1:53:51] the birds of Prey Foundation. They are housed at Rock
[1:53:55] Creek Farm. Carolyn Hover Preserve at Rock Creek Farm is
[1:53:57] where their flight cages and emergency room are. And so
[1:54:02] periodically, they will release birds that have. Rehabilitated out onto
[1:54:07] county open space. And that's happening tonight. That's kind of
[1:54:10] exciting. Speaking of community engagement, we are gearing up for
[1:54:15] a winner project up outside of Netherland. I think you
[1:54:18] may have heard of this already. The tucker and elk
[1:54:20] draw forest. Management project, which means we'll be cutting trees,
[1:54:24] which means the public is going to. Get upset. So
[1:54:28] in an attempt to educate and work with the public
[1:54:31] who are going to see trees coming, down. We are
[1:54:34] working. This is actually a cross boundary project. There are
[1:54:38] more than one organizations, including private landowners, US Forest Service
[1:54:41] and county and the boulder watershed collective, and they are
[1:54:45] running our community engagement for this. They've already had one.
[1:54:49] Public open meeting on it. I believe it might have
[1:54:52] been on site. So in addition to what Heidi outlined
[1:54:57] here, we are also working on this community engagement with
[1:55:00] multiple partners. Someone asked early on when it might have
[1:55:06] been you, Janet. When we hear about the stearns Lake
[1:55:11] bald eagles and weather the nest, how the nest is
[1:55:14] doing, would you please? Let Posak know. And I think,
[1:55:18] Vicky, we can let you tell Posek what we. Know
[1:55:21] about the eagle's nest down there? Vicky Lawrence from Posak.
[1:55:25] You really want me to tell you what's going on,
[1:55:27] okay? I was there today. Just for information. Those who
[1:55:31] don't know I've been monitoring that nest, that territory. Since
[1:55:34] those eagles arrived there in 2011, 2012. There's been one
[1:55:41] turnover for the female, but other than that, we believe
[1:55:43] it's the same male the whole time. The new female
[1:55:47] last year was her first successful fledging one. The first
[1:55:52] year when she showed up because of the avian flu
[1:55:56] that killed the original female. That is the assumption. My
[1:55:59] assumption. We have no proof. But she disappeared at the
[1:56:02] same time. The geese were covering the ice. The dead
[1:56:05] geese and the raptors were all eating the dead geese.
[1:56:09] So this new female, this is her second year of
[1:56:12] success. Her first year, she was too young. Is the
[1:56:14] belief. Second year. They had one this year. They have
[1:56:19] two. They seem to be doing well. The tree therein.
[1:56:22] Is dead. I do not understand why these eagles always
[1:56:25] pick dead trees. Same tree. Pardon? The same tree that
[1:56:32] got hit by lightning? No. So that was a big
[1:56:35] to do because the tree that their nests had been
[1:56:38] in for several years, got hit by lightning. The nest
[1:56:42] burned. The tree eventually fell about a couple of weeks
[1:56:45] later. So these eagles were sort of all over their
[1:56:47] territory. And I was all over their territory, too, trying
[1:56:51] to figure out where they were going to nest. This
[1:56:52] year. And they are nested at the end of 104th
[1:56:55] street. Now, so the cradle. Board trail is now open,
[1:56:58] but 104th street is closed. They're in a dead tree
[1:57:03] that had had a redtail hawks nest in it, so
[1:57:05] the redtail hawks are often. Reminding them that they're not
[1:57:10] happy with their presence there. But things are looking good
[1:57:14] for this year. We should have two fledglings within a
[1:57:16] month or so. As the world turns on Stern's Lake.
[1:57:21] Thank you, Vicky. We appreciate your volunteering out. There too,
[1:57:24] and the public can see. The nest from Stearns Lake
[1:57:29] parking lot. I do a lot of public outreach and
[1:57:34] involvement when I'm out there. Yeah, that's. Great. You have
[1:57:38] asked what we're doing with Ingred management plan? We have
[1:57:42] awarded the steam. Weeding contract to edafic solutions who came
[1:57:47] and spoke at our public hearings. And they're going to
[1:57:51] be working on this experiment at Rabbit Mountain. So if
[1:57:56] you're out there and see weed hopefully dying, perhaps it
[1:57:59] is because they were steamed. At extension. Eric talked about
[1:58:08] the native landscape, the sustainable landscape position, and they've been
[1:58:13] working on native landscaping through extension, and the local PBS
[1:58:17] station is going to do a documentary on that. So
[1:58:20] when that's out, we will let you know. Vivian is
[1:58:27] working on a newspaper insert and. That's in celebration of
[1:58:32] our 50th. So watch for that. It will be in
[1:58:35] newspapers both print copy and online. Probably in the next
[1:58:40] two months. Poria, who's in the back here many of
[1:58:44] you have met, is working on our podcast. We have
[1:58:47] six or seven episodes already recorded, and we are about
[1:58:51] to launch that. As soon as. All the final touches
[1:58:56] get on those. So watch for that in the next.
[1:58:59] Again, probably in the next month for sure. We'll have
[1:59:01] the podcast out there. As far as big trail projects
[1:59:06] go. We're going to be resurfacing another stretch of the
[1:59:11] lobo. In the Nywat area. Monarch parks, or what we
[1:59:16] call it. And finally. We talked a lot about Prairie
[1:59:20] run. Today we have 100% design. We are in the
[1:59:24] process. Of getting the contractors, and the goal is to
[1:59:26] open the parking lot on 100 a night and a
[1:59:30] mile of trail by the end of this year. So
[1:59:32] those are my updates. And now we are going to.
[1:59:36] First watch the founders video.
[1:59:51] Every piece of open space has a history to it,
[1:59:54] and almost every piece of open space could have gone
[1:59:57] one way or another. There was this argument that it
[1:59:59] was an extravagance. It's what people love about this place,
[2:00:03] but sometimes they don't understand what it took to make
[2:00:05] it happen and what it will take. To continue to
[2:00:11] preserve it, we had to preserve this magnificently wonderful place
[2:00:16] in the world, preserving the uniqueness of Boulder county really
[2:00:21] means preserving land that's both in the mountains and on
[2:00:23] the plains, our farmland as well as our forests. There
[2:00:27] is not. A single place. Between the mexican border and
[2:00:33] the canadian border. Where the continental divide comes so close
[2:00:39] to the great plains as it does right here in
[2:00:42] Boulder. County. I think Boulder county is unique because of
[2:00:46] parks and open space. Without the public support I don't
[2:00:50] think parks and open space as we know it today
[2:00:52] would exist. And that's something. That myself and the staff
[2:00:57] that I worked with kept in mind all the time.
[2:01:00] Open space to many people in the county was a
[2:01:02] pretty foreign concept. There were only two governments. In Colorado
[2:01:06] that had open space programs. And a lot of people
[2:01:08] in Boulder county just didn't think it was necessary to
[2:01:11] have open space. And when you look at it now,
[2:01:14] I think, There's something in excess of 50 open space
[2:01:18] programs just in the state of Colorado. When we moved
[2:01:28] here, 1969. There's a tremendous amount of open space. Magnificent
[2:01:37] views of the mountains from almost anywhere. What I found
[2:01:40] out is that. That isn't automatically preserved. One of the
[2:01:44] local issues that. Was talked about a lot in Boulder
[2:01:49] county because. Of the surge in development over the preservation
[2:01:55] of open space. I came here in 1970 and I
[2:01:59] was very involved in the hearings about whether what we
[2:02:03] should have in a Boulder county comprehensive plan in fact.
[2:02:07] I found this. My little tattered copy of it. That
[2:02:09] comprehensive plan. Called for the preservation of agriculture. It was
[2:02:16] obvious then that we were losing a lot of agricultural
[2:02:20] land. To development. The basic idea contained in the comprehensive
[2:02:26] plan that urban development should occur in and around cities
[2:02:29] and not in the rural parts of the county. Is
[2:02:33] critical, really, to the way Boulder county is developed. The
[2:02:37] citizens wanted it prior to the department. Even starting. There
[2:02:41] were many surveys that were done countywide, and it was
[2:02:44] literally in the thousands. Of surveys they got back, they
[2:02:47] had a very good idea of what people wanted. And
[2:02:51] they also had them list which properties or areas of
[2:02:54] the county they thought should be preserved. The county and
[2:02:58] other parts of Colorado were losing agriculture, landed at an
[2:03:01] alarming rate, and we really knew something needed to be
[2:03:04] done. Because farming and agriculture is. Talking about longtime, historic
[2:03:10] families that have been here, fourth, 5th generation. Urban sprawl
[2:03:15] had always been kind of outlying. It was always something
[2:03:18] that you saw somewhere. Else in the metro area now,
[2:03:21] rather than being outlying, it was infilling, and it was
[2:03:24] becoming part of Boulder County's personality. Well, for sure, the
[2:03:27] eastern part of the county would have grown together. You
[2:03:31] couldn't tell the difference between. Lewisville, Lafayette, Erie or superior,
[2:03:36] they would have all grown together, people coming to the
[2:03:40] realization that. If we don't do it now, it's going
[2:03:43] to be gone. And finally. The tax proposal was on
[2:03:48] the ballot in 78, and I worked on that. There
[2:03:51] was a lot of support for it. But still a
[2:03:54] lot of people who didn't understand and who didn't trust
[2:03:58] what the government would do to preserve open space if
[2:04:01] they paid a tax for it. The decade between the
[2:04:10] first election and 78 and the second election had seen
[2:04:13] a lot of growth. In Boulder county. Subdivisions were poppying
[2:04:17] up all over the place. Agland was being lost there.
[2:04:21] Was a growing concern about the loss of important lands.
[2:04:27] Oh, man, what a disappointment. And when we lost that
[2:04:29] election, I was just sick because development was happening so
[2:04:34] much then. And I thought, if we don't get the
[2:04:36] money to get ahead, of this. This thing will be
[2:04:38] a sea of rooftops. Even though the issue lost in
[2:04:42] 1988. That didn't mean that all the growth stopped and
[2:04:45] that there weren't. That what? Wasn't the challenge. To our
[2:04:48] future quality of life. The effort continued to try to
[2:04:51] find a way to find an appropriate funding source. And
[2:04:56] it was Rock Creek. On 36. Growing and growing and
[2:05:00] growing. Finally. Made people realize if we don't save it
[2:05:04] now, It's going to be gone. It provided kind of
[2:05:08] a wake up call to the county. That either. Something
[2:05:10] needed to be done. Or there was going to be
[2:05:13] significant additional development in lots of other places throughout the
[2:05:17] county. So I think it played a pivotal role in
[2:05:20] changing public sentiment about whether. This proposal for a county
[2:05:25] tax was necessary or not. We always looked with some
[2:05:30] regret on that property. They offered it to the county,
[2:05:35] but we didn't have any money. So we had to
[2:05:38] pass. Had to pass on it when it was all
[2:05:41] still rolling grasslands. The 93 election work, one of the
[2:05:47] things that we knew we had to do was to
[2:05:50] just to get people on board support wise, and we
[2:05:54] had more three pronged approach with wildlife. It was agricultural
[2:05:58] lands, and it was separating our cities so we could
[2:06:01] stay. Individual cities. By the time this went to election,
[2:06:07] the supporters included eight mayors from Boulder county towns over
[2:06:12] 20 city council members from those towns, the Boulder Area
[2:06:16] board of realtors, which is a big deal. And then
[2:06:18] people from a lot of community organizations. The consideration was,
[2:06:23] well, what should we do now in order to move
[2:06:25] forward? With a different kind of proposal, and the thought
[2:06:29] was it would be good to get. Everyone in the
[2:06:31] same room who cared about open space, whether they were
[2:06:35] for it or against it. To provide input about what
[2:06:39] an open space program might look like. So the open
[2:06:41] Space task force was created. In 1992, businesspeople and farmers.
[2:06:49] And citizens who were interested in preservation. Environmentalists. So the
[2:06:54] task force, it's at a wonderful stage for the store
[2:06:56] to open. People in the eastern part of the county.
[2:06:59] We're also starting to see enormous growth. Long Mount Lafayette,
[2:07:02] Lewisville, superior, Erie, all of those places. Growth was starting
[2:07:06] to happen. It was easier. In that election to get
[2:07:09] people to understand why open space might be important, because
[2:07:12] they were seeing land. Disappearing to development throughout their communities.
[2:07:17] The doing of that was really. Essential to Carolyn Holberg's
[2:07:23] perspective. She was very, very sensitive to the affordability of
[2:07:27] this tax. We had to make sure that the people
[2:07:30] in the eastern county knew that. This open space tax
[2:07:34] was more about them than it was about proximity to
[2:07:37] the Boulder City environment. She was a spitfire, and she
[2:07:42] had the unique ability to talk to anybody. People respected
[2:07:46] her, and she was able to fill those relationships in
[2:07:49] a way that promoted our program. And so I had
[2:07:53] an idea. For an ad. That had three images. And
[2:08:03] the words that went with it, going, going, gone. This
[2:08:06] is something that really hit home with people. This is
[2:08:08] the one where. It was a wake up call for
[2:08:11] people. Who maybe didn't realize how much this was happening,
[2:08:15] so we were starting a campaign and. We knew native
[2:08:18] yard sign but we didn't want just a square, rectangular
[2:08:20] yard sign and we thought of the bear that the
[2:08:23] science and cultural facilities district use is to pass their
[2:08:26] vote. So we thought we should do an animal. And
[2:08:29] I was for an owl because of al's. Wise. It's
[2:08:33] actually shaped about right. Hootie was the creation of a
[2:08:36] wonderful friend. And a terrific artist. Joanne Dufty, she was
[2:08:41] a remarkable, fine artist, and she was a real advocate
[2:08:43] for open space, not only for the preservation of land,
[2:08:46] but also for the idea of having. Trails that connected
[2:08:49] communities and that were available for the public to use.
[2:08:54] Simple open space. Yes. And it sold. People do it.
[2:08:59] And finally you got a name named Hootie. When you
[2:09:02] have. This little character like Hootie. Every time you see
[2:09:08] it, it reinforces. The image. And it was a positive
[2:09:13] image. Open space. Yes, with hoodie's message. On election night.
[2:09:21] I was pretty confident. I felt a whole lot better
[2:09:24] the third time than I did the other. Two times,
[2:09:27] and it was a very exciting night because. It was
[2:09:31] an issue that we'd been working on. For a decade
[2:09:35] and a half. For 15 years. It's just a slogging
[2:09:39] effort. And you just have to stick with it. And
[2:09:44] we did. And it was the most glorious moment. When
[2:09:46] that finally passed in 93, it's. Amazing what Boulder county
[2:09:50] has been able to accomplish in our early years. In
[2:09:53] the first 18 years of our existence, we didn't have
[2:09:56] a funding source, a dedicated funding source, and we had
[2:09:59] limited means and. We had to be very creative about
[2:10:03] the deals we did. We had big plans, and we
[2:10:07] had a lot of things we wanted to do, but
[2:10:09] it took hard work before we were able to. Accomplish
[2:10:13] those. When I started in 1979, I think we had
[2:10:17] roughly a department size of about a dozen people. I
[2:10:21] think the overwhelming part. Was we were not staffed for
[2:10:24] it. It was exciting because now you could really move
[2:10:28] ahead. In all of those things that have been put
[2:10:31] on the plan since 1960, you could now have a
[2:10:34] potential of making that happen. When I first got here,
[2:10:39] we were really the poor stepchild. Of every department in
[2:10:42] the county. We would beg everything we could. Just to
[2:10:47] operate. We would buy our vehicles from Colorado Surplus, and
[2:10:51] they were all army vehicles from the World War II
[2:10:53] era, that's what we had. In 1993, our first sales
[2:10:59] tax passed, and all of a sudden we had the
[2:11:02] means to go. Out. We were able to sell a
[2:11:04] bond and get a lot of money, and we had
[2:11:06] our eye on some pretty important pieces of property. The
[2:11:10] Highle Valley Ranch, the Hall ranch, and our acquisition program
[2:11:14] exploded in that next ten years. It happened fast because.
[2:11:19] We had been anticipating and be able to buy. Those
[2:11:23] properties that we'd been longing to buy. Was really the
[2:11:28] highlight of my time in office. The hill Wrench played
[2:11:32] so significantly into the 93 election. It was so critical.
[2:11:38] When that option to buy that place came up. It
[2:11:42] was 8 sq. Mi for $8 million, and it was
[2:11:46] a gift horse. Just looking. Boulder county in the eye.
[2:11:51] And then a lot of the farm properties along. 287
[2:11:56] and having bonding capability was vital because we bought large
[2:12:01] tracks of agricultural lands and it took us a while
[2:12:04] to catch up with the planning on all those to
[2:12:06] get the facilities in place. And the property is open
[2:12:10] for the public's enjoyment. There's still an opportunity to purchase
[2:12:15] land and to preserve land, and we should definitely do
[2:12:19] that. So you got to buy those remaining parcels. It's
[2:12:22] like a jigsaw puzzle and. Those last ones are almost
[2:12:24] always the hardest to get, so you need to keep
[2:12:27] focused on that. Because once it's gone, it's gone. The
[2:12:29] open space program now is preserved about 105,000 acres of
[2:12:33] land, and it's land that's as diverse as the farmland
[2:12:37] around Longmont to the caribou ranch up by the continental
[2:12:40] divide. Near Netherland. I think the challenge now is how
[2:12:45] to manage that land, what to do. With that land.
[2:12:49] How to be sure that we're applying the best principles
[2:12:52] of management to the land. And also being sure that
[2:12:55] we're involving the public in the stewardship of the land.
[2:13:00] Sometimes people don't understand. The gifts they have and they
[2:13:04] take them for granted. So education is really important to
[2:13:07] help people. Understand. How did we acquire some of those
[2:13:10] properties? What was their historical significance? And then what do
[2:13:15] we all need to do for stewards to preserve that
[2:13:17] we're very aware that building stewardship ethic is so important.
[2:13:22] For the legacy of Boulder county open space and for
[2:13:25] future generations to enjoy and steward these properties. This open
[2:13:30] space is going to continue and be preserved and be
[2:13:34] used in the future. We need the next generation coming
[2:13:38] behind. Not only the users, but also the professionals that
[2:13:43] are going to take care of it.
[2:13:56] We have provided the foundation for a quality of life
[2:13:59] that will carry on forever.
[2:14:41] And we. Yes, we can definitely have a round of
[2:14:43] applause. The person responsible who really managed this. Project was
[2:14:47] Tina. And what year was this, Tina? Well, you start
[2:14:54] in it, at least. It was right around 2017. And
[2:15:03] as they ended that, talking about who. Is going to
[2:15:11] be the Stewarts who will be the stewards of our
[2:15:15] open space in the future. We thought we would give
[2:15:17] you this short little clip again, put together by Poria.
[2:15:38] Walking around today. There's a lot more wide eyes, giggles
[2:15:41] and tiny footsteps than usual. That's because we open our
[2:15:45] doors at Boulder county parks in open space to the
[2:15:48] next generation. We invited children of employees to come in
[2:15:52] for the take your child a workday event. Our goal
[2:15:56] for the day is to inspire future generations, provide opportunities
[2:16:00] for staff to connect with their families and showcase careers.
[2:16:05] We kept the power of play in mind and showcase
[2:16:08] careers by hosting hands on and interactive learning. Not only
[2:16:16] did children get a chance to see careers their own
[2:16:18] parents have, but the day had demonstrations and interactions with
[2:16:23] careers in the public land conservation realm. We hosted everything
[2:16:28] from designing their own nature play center. To climbing in
[2:16:32] the big construction trucks and walking side by side with
[2:16:37] wildlife biologists at public open space park. Children have a
[2:16:41] chance to make and take home signs and birdhouses to
[2:16:44] remember their day with their parents.
[2:17:20] We hope that today's experiences sparked limitless curiosity.
[2:17:30] In the minds and the hearts of the children who
[2:17:32] joined in today.
[2:18:01] Yeah, we can definitely clap for putting that together. Erica
[2:18:06] Scoffka. Who's the one? Who coordinated that. She was also
[2:18:09] the thing. Anyway, put a little smile on your face
[2:18:11] as you head out the door here. Nice work for
[2:18:14] you. Teresa, I have a question for you before you
[2:18:17] go. Curious about. We had talked at the retreat. About
[2:18:25] budgets and postac input to budgets coming this summer and
[2:18:30] into August. I think when you start submitting. Can you
[2:18:34] remind me of the timeline for that and what you're
[2:18:38] planning? To do with us? Yes, we will bring it
[2:18:41] to you before we present it to the county. Commissioners.
[2:18:45] We just got guidance from the county commissioners yesterday. On
[2:18:50] what we should be planning for, for our budgets. So
[2:18:54] then myself and our new for deputies will be working
[2:18:57] over the next two months to put together the list
[2:19:00] of. What we are going to ask for, and I
[2:19:04] will give you. A brief summary. It doesn't look good
[2:19:10] for the county budget. So. They are directing all departments
[2:19:16] to be very conservative with what we are asking for.
[2:19:21] Great. So we will bring it back to you, probably.
[2:19:27] Either July or August 1 of the two we presented
[2:19:29] to the county commissioners in September. So we've got time.
[2:19:32] Thank you, Teresa. Can I ask a question around that?
[2:19:36] Is the money. That is for the purchase of new
[2:19:39] property. Is that dedicated to that? So it can't go
[2:19:42] to anything else, or is that all? Kind of fluid,
[2:19:44] the money that you have as far as maintenance or
[2:19:47] development of recreation or purchase. Or whatever. Excellent question. We
[2:19:53] get our budget from two pots of money. One is
[2:19:55] the general fund, which comes from property. Taxes. And that
[2:20:00] money competes with everything else the county does. Our open
[2:20:04] space sales tax is dedicated just to open space, and
[2:20:08] it can be used for acquisitions. Maintenance. Mine cleanup staff.
[2:20:16] So. There's not just that. This is how much. Only
[2:20:21] this revenue can be used for acquisitions, so it is
[2:20:24] more fluid. It's acquisitions and maintenance. Vicky Lawrence with Posac.
[2:20:29] Again, just so the 1.9 million or whatever it was.
[2:20:33] For this property up near gun barrel. That money could
[2:20:36] be used for other things equally. It's not money that
[2:20:41] has to be used for acquisition. When we outline a
[2:20:44] budget like this year. And actually. I will talk to
[2:20:48] Janice and we will give you that update. I thought
[2:20:50] the same thing as we were talking about it. We
[2:20:52] used to do that sometimes. You're like. We used to.
[2:20:55] Always tell you how much it cost per acre and
[2:20:57] where it fits in our priorities. Anyway, so we have
[2:21:01] a budget, and actually, this year, our acquisition budget is
[2:21:05] $19 million. That is what the county commissioners say you
[2:21:09] can spend on acquisition is 19 million. Now, if we
[2:21:13] get to a point where. We need an extra million.
[2:21:18] We can go back and ask for a budget amendment,
[2:21:21] and there is money sitting in the pot of open
[2:21:23] space sales tax. That has not been spent yet that
[2:21:27] we could tap into for that. Thank you. Thank you,
[2:21:32] Teresa. Okay, all done. Meeting adjourned.