[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: 2013 Retreat

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Becker, KC

Other council members have sent their items regarding the 2013 Council Retreat. I sent my emails to staff and council previously, but had not posted to Hotline. So I am consolidating my emails and re-sending them out. 

First, a procedural issue:
As I read the various lists from council members, I am amazed and impressed at the breadth and depth of the work city staff and city council takes on. We are lucky to have both the human and financial capital to research and often pilot and/or adopt many of these ideas.  But our resources are not unlimited. I want to make sure that staff and our facilitator frame new or expanded work plan items in terms of tradeoffs when necessary. For instance, "If we take on X then these other items won't happen until Y or won't happen at all."  Each Department already has running lists, often developed from Master Plans, of things they hope to accomplish. And some -though not all- of the ideas being mentioned are outside of those lists. We need to be aware of what is being delayed so we have full information about how to prioritize.  One specific example that comes to mind is that we will be considering asking staff to develop new area plans.  What is the full list of requested area plans look like?

So here are the contents (somewhat edited since I have the chance to do that here!) of my 2 previous emails regarding the retreat:

NEW WORK PLAN ITEMS
I'd like to talk further about an idea I raised at our Dec 4 meeting, which is a Housing Plan. I know this may be in the works, but just want to get clear on what is planned and when.

I'd also like to discuss whether we should re-prioritize dollars in order to increase the capacity of the city attorney's office. Several items have come up that take significant attorney time. Municipalization is clearly taking significant resources, and we know they are already working very hard there on a variety issues. Affordable housing and Amendment 64 requires additional staff time.  Both of these issues are time-sensitive and I want to make sure we don't work our staff to death! 

Lastly, I'd like us to schedule some time in 2014 or 2015 to look more fully at our Human Services sector, so I 'd like to bring this up during the retreat. I don't think this is an area that has gotten a lot of attention from us. We've had specific study sessions on Housing First and Homelessness, but I'd like to take a look at Human Services in a more comprehensive way. We have our human services fund, Human Relations and YOAB funding, but also programs that run out of the Human Services office that have their own funding. So I'd like to understand that better. Also, a lot has changed since the last Human Services Plan was done in 2005 (although I'm not suggesting now that the plan needs to be revisited). For instance, we've suffered our biggest recession in 80 years, CDBG funds and other federal and state sources have decreased significantly, our homelessness has increased, we have a 10 Year Plan to end homelessness, we have un-dedicated the .15 sales tax that funds Human Services, and we have greater in

STATUS UPDATES
I'd like to know what is going on with Long's Gardens. Last we heard, which I think was about a year ago, staff was going to do an appraisal, but I've heard that this appraisal is only considering the full purchase price, not the price of a conservation easement. Why is that? Also, what are the plans for this item?