[0:00] All right. Good evening, everyone. This meeting is now being recorded. You may begin.

[0:08] Thank you. Thank you.

[0:11] I am calling to order the meeting of the historic preservation advisory board for Boulder County, Colorado on Thursday, February 5th, 2026 at 6 p.m. Yeah.

[0:23] And this is a virtual HPEB meeting.

[0:26] Could we do roll call, Jessica?

[0:29] Sure. Buffy Andrews.

[0:32] President.

[0:33] Larry Dorsey.

[0:37] Here. Sorry about that.

[0:39] No worries. Rachel Gart.

[0:42] Hi, I'm here.

[0:45] Elizabeth Gehring.

[0:49] She is listening. She might not participate tonight.

[0:54] David Haas.

[0:55] Here.

[0:58] Caitlin McKenna. Here.

[1:01] Glenn Sherwood. Here.

[1:05] And I believe that's everybody.

[1:07] Great. Thank you.

[1:09] Next up, we have citizen participation for items not otherwise on the agenda.

[1:16] Do we have any citizens for anything other than the things on the agenda tonight?

[1:21] Doesn't look like it.

[1:25] In that case, we can move on to approval of the minutes from December 4th, 2025.

[1:32] And I will be abstaining from this vote because I was not there.

[1:37] I move to approve.

[1:40] Do I have a second? Or, yeah.

[1:43] A second. David or Larry's.

[1:48] He beat you to it. Pick one. Yeah.

[1:54] All right. In that case, we will take a vote.

[1:58] Okay.

[2:00] Buffy Andrews approve.

[2:02] Larry Dorsey approve.

[2:04] Rachel guard.

[2:10] I can see her.

[2:15] Just nod your head. Yes.

[2:23] Sorry. I was out of the country. I wasn't at that meeting. Okay. Sorry.

[2:28] David Haas approve.

[2:32] And Glenn Sherwood.

[2:39] Did you hear that?

[2:42] Okay. Now we hear you. Thanks.

[2:44] Great. So the approval of the minutes passes.

[2:48] Next up is building permit reviews for structures. 50 years of age and older. And I don't think we have any. Okay.

[2:55] And so then we have certificates of appropriateness. The cardinal mill.

[3:01] All right. And so.

[3:05] This is Jessica McKinnon with community planning and permitting. And we have CA dash 26 dash 0, 0, 0, 2. The cardinal mill flood proofing project.

[3:18] With Boulder County as the applicant. And the rule of the HPEB is to determine whether the proposed project meets the criteria for certificate of appropriateness.

[3:28] Boulder County parks and open space is proposing a flood proofing project for the landmark cardinal mill.

[3:35] And I sent along a packet with maps and the landmark resolutions and the materials from the applicant explaining the project.

[3:45] And included in the staff are cura, the criteria for the certificate of appropriateness and preservation staff.

[3:54] Finds that the proposed flood proofing project meets the criteria for certificate of appropriateness and recommends approval.

[4:03] And I will turn it over to, I'm not sure, Elizabeth or Charlotte or somebody else.

[4:10] If you want, if you would like to talk about the project at all.

[4:17] Charlotte kit. I'll let you y'all take it from here.

[4:25] Yes, do you want to handle it or they know I, you know, we're here to answer questions.

[4:34] So the cardinal mill project we're removing the perimeter tow drain.

[4:40] That is not functioning very well right now and it hasn't been functioning for a while.

[4:45] The there's a bunch of springs that come down the hill.

[4:50] There's like a wrap we with ramble, we've, you know, mapped where that water is coming from and kind of the pathways through the waste rock pile to the west to the springs and then onto Boulder County property but those,

[5:04] especially during the spring that there's a lot of water and it flows through from some places we don't know exactly where it's coming from but it flows through the mill and across the parking lot and that's not what we want.

[5:18] We want the water to stay out of the mill and so the perimeter drain is not functioning as intended when it was installed back in 2005.

[5:29] It was I don't think it was working from the beginning actually because they punched a hole in the top of it to accommodate more water.

[5:38] It probably in the springtime they realized, oh, this is not functioning very well and but I don't know if how long it the water's been moving through the mill and across the parking lot so we can't really say for sure.

[5:52] We just know that is right now there's also a CDPAT water quality permit tied to it environmental remediation permit right and I'm losing track of the permit names.

[6:06] But we since it's not functioning as intended we were proposing to remove the perimeter drain and instead put in some backfill with a material that can infiltrate some of that water and hopefully take it under the mill rather than through the contaminated materials within the mill

[6:26] and then also put a flood proofing wall slurry wall right up against kind of the edge the west edge of the mill and the south edge of the mill with a little bump out for some bats to enter the mill.

[6:39] And that is what we hope will protect the mill moving forward if we do not if for some reason this project is designed does not meet the conditions we're looking for to protect the mill.

[6:53] So we can do a little bit more work in October but hopefully the way it's designed would put a lot of thought into it.

[7:00] We don't and there's some hydraulic hydrology and hydraulic modeling in the area that we've done so we're really hoping that this project will do the job to protect the mill.

[7:11] Do you want to add anything?

[7:15] Yeah another reason we want to have that see water that's adjacent on the west side of the mill to go either beneath the building or be redirected around the building is because this is a historical mining facility the materials inside the facility.

[7:36] There have been previous environmental site assessments and we know that there is contaminating material inside.

[7:43] So we're really trying to again steer water around it keep things that's inside the building inside.

[7:49] We're not looking to transport any of that impact and material into the adjacent waterway.

[7:56] That creek is just located to the south and there's some something I identified wetlands as well so it's it's it's advantageous not only to the preservation of the mill building itself but also the environment around there.

[8:22] Does the board want me to share the materials at all?

[8:29] There wasn't a whole lot in it just mainly explaining I think just what got explained really.

[8:38] I don't know if no one else has an objection I read over it before the meeting but if anybody wasn't able to get to it we could do a short presentation of it.

[8:51] I was able to read through it.

[8:53] I reviewed it as well prior to the meeting.

[9:01] I wanted a complete packet.

[9:04] I did get confused about the property line of the historic site and it's simple as just to ask is everything that you're proposing to do on the within the property line for the historic site or some of the material distribution and the road outside the historic site.

[9:29] The work would be adjacent to the building and so it is all within the historical footprint but the impact of the water flowing through the mill is beyond the historic footprint.

[9:42] I mean it seems to me like this is really important work for preservation purposes as well as you know ecological and environmental purposes so I am inclined to vote to give the certificate.

[10:03] I would second that.

[10:06] Remember to take.

[10:08] Yeah, sorry that was just my opinion I haven't done the.

[10:10] Oh, sorry.

[10:11] But yeah, I can do that officially if we want.

[10:14] So I motion that we approve a certificate of appropriateness for CA dash 26.

[10:19] Oh, I'm sorry.

[10:21] Oh, am I not allowed to.

[10:22] Well, no, just ask for public comment please.

[10:24] Oh, sorry.

[10:27] Is there any public comment.

[10:34] My B.

[10:40] It's sounding like no.

[10:45] So we can open the public comment section and then close the public comment section.

[10:52] If it's not in the like list, then I forget to do it.

[10:57] And I would like to move to approve the certificate of appropriateness for CA dash 26 dash 0, 0, 0 to the Cardinal mill Cardinal mill flood proofing project.

[11:10] Buffy's now a kind of second. Excellent.

[11:15] Um, can we take a vote please?

[11:19] Buffy Andrews approve Larry Dorsey approve Rachel guard approve David Haas approve Caitlin McKenna approve Glenn Sherwood approve.

[11:34] All right. And Liz, if you.

[11:38] Yes, I approve. Okay, great. Thanks.

[11:43] Excellent. So that has been approved. Um, and we can move on to, is there any other business?

[11:49] We do. Um, first, I will. Well, first, I'd like to introduce.

[11:56] Hannah hit Haley. She is my new supervisor.

[12:02] She was Denise's direct report in the past. So, Hannah is the.

[12:09] Hannah, what is your official role?

[12:12] Official title is long range planning division manager. All right. Thank you. Historic preservations fallen under that umbrella for quite some time now.

[12:22] And Hannah's been with the county for a long time.

[12:27] This time around in this position.

[12:30] It'll be 6 years this year. Um, but I also did a stint as a development review.

[12:37] Focus planner for about 8 years from.

[12:41] 2008 to about 2016. So.

[12:47] Great. Thank you.

[12:49] And then, um, I think David.

[12:53] Um, wanted to talk a little bit.

[12:57] Sure. I just wanted to share about a Latin X.

[13:01] The Latin X effort. Um, it's off to a great start.

[13:06] Um, in terms of our interaction, there were 2 events the end of November, early December.

[13:15] And since then, I'm not.

[13:18] Not anything that I've been tracking or specific to.

[13:23] I see Elizabeth nodding her head. Um, but it's off to a great start. Um, there were 2 shareings.

[13:31] Uh, the second one in early December was the student sharing.

[13:36] And you folks may recall that the student effort was, uh, was a part of it.

[13:41] Um, I unfortunately didn't get to stay for the full run of the students, but the first 2 that I heard were very impressive.

[13:49] It's a night and day between when I went to college and what students in college are doing now.

[13:57] Very crisp professional. Um, one of the 2 students had a subject area where it was sort of hard to get traction.

[14:07] Um, in terms of broadening her work, the second student, um, was paired with a site that had several, um, suicides from the 1920s.

[14:18] And so she turned that into the theme of just, uh, of a mental health inquiry.

[14:24] And just how difficult it can be to be away from home, to be without a social network to support you.

[14:31] And it was a, it was a fascinating presentation and I, you know, acutos to her and her effort.

[15:00] This whole question about truck caro, which may actually predate the Bracero program, there's

[15:08] an exhibit at the Colorado Railroad Museum, so down in Golden. Apparently it's going to

[15:18] be available until August, so it's a good reason to visit the museum if you haven't been in

[15:23] a while. They have pretty good hours. They're closed Monday and the rest of the week they're

[15:29] open daytime hours. That's on my list to do is to make it to that exhibit. Check it out.

[15:40] The email that was at the very tail end of the packet was, I've spent enough time digging

[15:48] into that railroad history that I thought it was simplest just summarize it as I understood

[15:53] it. The relationship would be whether there was a truck caro roll in building either the

[16:02] Switzerland Trail, the extensions of the Switzerland Trail, or the Barker Dam. Both projects from

[16:13] the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. So yeah, late 1800s, early 1900s. And so I'll

[16:25] leave it there. I'm not sure if Elizabeth would like to speak next or give us an update

[16:33] or sound good to everyone.

[16:37] Yeah, that sounds great.

[16:39] Yeah, I'd be happy to. First, thank you so much for all those kudos, especially to Julia.

[16:44] That was the student that worked on the mental health piece that I also found really interesting.

[16:50] So actually, tonight, our contractor has just been routed the contract to continue

[16:57] doing this work. So we've sort of been on pause since December. And I'm really excited

[17:01] that we're going to finally be able to start working with them again, probably starting

[17:04] next week. They've also sort of been itching to start the work again. We were hopeful it

[17:09] would start earlier in January, but alas, it'll be starting next week. And so we'll

[17:15] also be including students again this round and just continuing to pursue some of those

[17:19] threads a little further, which is really exciting. In terms of the Traquero exhibit,

[17:24] we actually went all the students. And I did too. And then I think a few others

[17:30] went as well. It was a really great time. And we got sort of a private tour with Jasmine

[17:37] Robertson, who was the curator of that exhibit, highly recommend attending. And I actually

[17:41] just heard from her that they got a grant to sort of continue their work with the Traquero

[17:47] exhibit. It's the Anschutz Foundation grant. And they'll be hosting a reception the evening

[17:54] of March 19th. And so that would be a great time to go see it. I think they're going

[18:00] to have some speakers as well. And it's a great little sort of exhibit that really helped

[18:05] inspire some of the students. And David, you're right, the Traqueros actually started before

[18:10] the Bracero program. Traqueros were from 1880 to 1950, and then was the Bracero program.

[18:17] So it did predate that. So I appreciate you and all of that feedback. And I was starting

[18:23] to write down what you ended with there about Barker Dam and the Switzerland Trail.

[18:27] And we'll definitely start to look into that. I think we found out that there were certainly

[18:32] some Traquero folks working in the Naiwa area, that there was a train sort of going

[18:37] through there. So, yeah, we're going to continue to look into that as well.

[18:45] Great. Thank you. Oh, go ahead.

[18:49] Thanks to David for that plug for the museum. And I've seen the exhibit and a little tiny

[18:55] bit of contribution to it. So it's a worth your time for sure. And I hadn't yet heard about

[19:01] the grant. That's great news. And I wanted to ask the Boulder County staff, there used to be

[19:09] about the warm weather months. The Cardinal Mill would be open for visitors. Is that

[19:16] going to happen in 26?

[19:22] So because there are bats in the area, and there's concerns about White Nose Bat Syndrome,

[19:30] we've actually not been taking people, definitely not inside the Mill. I know that one of our

[19:36] seasonals, Donald, who works at the Mining Museum, has taken folks sort of to the outside of it

[19:42] and been giving briefer sort of tours of the area. But I don't think it'll be as open to the public

[19:50] as it used to be while we're mitigating the tow drain. And then also, you know, taking care of the bats.

[20:00] But if you did want one, I can put you in contact with the right person.

[20:03] All right. That's who you know, huh?

[20:12] Since NYWAT came up, NYWAT, starting point is actually a little bit older than the

[20:19] Turquero program. 1873, there was enough capital flowing that that particular railroad got built

[20:29] through Boulder, through NYWAT, and ended in Lawnmont.

[20:36] And Kathy Kaler has some information on, one of the section leaders was a Hispanic guy that

[20:47] can't remember his name now, Apadaka. And so she's gotten in contact with

[20:54] Jasmine about that connection for the railroad museum exhibit, too.

[20:59] Yes. Yeah. And I think it was in the book that she actually referenced. We went and we found it at

[21:03] the Carnegie. And so we have also pulled that information as well.

[21:10] Great. I do have a couple more updates, or other business. One, I wanted to mention and see if

[21:21] I could get some help or maybe even just a volunteer to nominate Denise for the Square

[21:28] Nail Award this year for Preservation Month. And so I think probably, I'm not sure, maybe Larry

[21:38] or Glenn, maybe you know, but if the application comes out later this month,

[21:45] or is it even March, I'm not sure. But well, when we get that, maybe I can get a volunteer to help

[21:55] with that. I also wanted to mention that the land use code cleanups that you all approved,

[22:06] and these were the small cleanups, those went to the Board of County Commissioners

[22:11] and were approved. So you won't find them yet in the code in like the versions. It's just not

[22:21] out there yet, but it was approved. So that's exciting. And then hopefully, I'm hoping later

[22:30] in the year, maybe we can get back to the code and start looking at our next layer of updates.

[22:38] Let's see. I also wanted to mention, and David, you kind of brought up the conference earlier,

[22:49] wanted to mention that we were not awarded a scholarship. We applied for a scholarship

[22:55] to attend the CPI conference this year, but we didn't get it. And then because of budget cuts,

[23:02] we didn't have the funds to send board members. So I guess I'm just putting this out there because

[23:11] we do need to meet the CLG requirements of having board members attend trainings,

[23:20] that I will keep sending you trainings as I see them. And although I think already this year,

[23:25] I think Buffy, maybe you've attended one already this year. I have, yeah. It was interesting. It was

[23:32] very interesting. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for sending it. I'm sorry. I was just thanking

[23:39] you for sending it. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Did the disaster preparedness zoom that

[23:47] History Colorado did I think last week, would that have counted? It might. Yeah, it might.

[23:53] We'll have to find out. Okay. You and I were both on that, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[24:02] Elizabeth, you're going? Nice. Okay. Yeah. And quite a few folks from Buildings and Historic

[24:07] Preservation will also be there. So we can also bring back notes and knowledge and share that

[24:12] around. Great. That'd be great. Usually we are able to send people. But after we didn't

[24:19] get the scholarship, I actually, I didn't even ask because we just had so many cuts and we had

[24:26] people being laid off. So I didn't, I just didn't feel like it was appropriate. Jessica, is the

[24:34] training requirement for each and every board member or cumulative for the board as a whole?

[24:40] Yeah, it's for the board as a whole. So we need at least one member attending a CLG,

[24:48] like a certified training. And so I probably, either what Buffy or what Caitlin already attended

[24:59] this year counts, but I'll still just keep sending them along and we'll get it figured out.

[25:06] So we're in pretty good shape for 2026. I think we are. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. Thank you.

[25:15] And I think that's all I wanted to bring up. Thank you.

[25:24] Great. Well, if that concludes other business, then we can move to adjourn.

[25:31] Actually, do we have to move? I can just adjourn it.

[25:37] There you go. I just want to take off my shoe and yeah, but never do.

[25:43] Great. It was great to see you all. Good to see you. Definitely. Goodnight, everyone. Thank you.

[25:48] Good night, everyone. Thank you.

Historic Preservation Advisory Board

Agenda

Transcript