[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Updates from Matt

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt

Colleagues – Hi everyone and welcome back.  Time for me to catch up on a number of meetings/events/conferences.
 
CML Board
Even I, apparently, cannot lose when there is no competition
so I was in fact elected to a 2-year term on the Executive Board of the Colorado Municipal League during the business meeting at their annual conference last month.  As you know,
 we haven’t had great success in getting on the Board, presumably because quite a few of the smaller and/or more conservative cities and towns don’t seem to support our candidates.  This time there were 3 candidates for 3 seats for the large cities, which was
 lucky of course, but also, I think, people were generally pleased with the slate so nobody else jumped into the race.  In addition, beginning next year, CML will make an overdue change and create a “very large” city category so that we are not in the same
 grouping as Denver, Co Springs, and Aurora.  For those who don’t know, the CML Board consists of 6 members for each grouping, small, medium, and large, with 2 more seats to be added next year for the extra-large category.
 
I think it’s important for Boulder to get on the Board every once in a while, and it certainly gives us a bit more input into both CML management and, importantly, legislative decisions made by the Board, particularly toward the end of
 the session when the Policy Committee cannot meet in a timely way.
 
The Board quickly had its yearly retreat a couple of weeks ago in lovely Bennett.  It seems to be a good group, willing to engage in some changes and improvements to current CML processes and priorities.  While we spent a little time discussing
 legislative priorities, and even voted for our favorites; we’ll need to wait for additional work from CML staff to see how things turned out.  Needless to say I’d like CML to be more pro-active on a number of issues instead of being (understandably, given
 CML’s mission) mostly reactive to legislative matters.
 
CML Policy Committee
IMPORTANT: I’ve been Boulder’s rep to the CML Policy Committee for several years, really enjoy it, and would be quite happy to continue in that role.  For the past couple of years we’ve had two reps, with Suzanne being my partner, and Carl,
 of course, doing most of the heavy lifting.  However, now that I’m on the Board it makes sense for me to step aside for someone else if another councilmember is interested; council would of course need to ratify such a new appointment.
 
The Policy Committee meets 3 or 4 times each year to review legislative matters and provide direction to CML staff on specific bills.  It also discusses potential changes to CML Policy.  The CML Board reviews the actions of the Policy Committee
 but presumably almost always adopts them.
 
Besides being interested in state legislative matters, the logistics of the Policy Committee can make it rather difficult to serve on.  All of its meetings are held at CML a few blocks from the Capitol, and all are on Fridays from 10 –
 2.  This year, I know the meetings are scheduled for Oct. 17 and Dec. 5.  In addition, it is a very good idea to attend the all-day legislative workshop that is held in February.  And it is also a very good idea to attend at least one or two days of the CML
 annual conference, which is held in June, next year in Breckenridge.
 
CML Conference
I attended most of the conference, as did Macon and Suzanne.  As usual, the schmoozing was probably the most important part, along with, of course, the election of Board members (for which I didn’t exactly need to campaign, although Carl
 and Suzanne were fine “campaign managers”).
I attended a good session on the many, many potential statewide ballot issues, something that of course is still not entirely settled.  The governor, as is usual, spoke at one of the lunches, and he did a good job of addressing, rather
 directly, some of the more controversial issues, including fracking.  Jane, Macon, and I met with Xcel – this is typical; Xcel meets with many cities during the conference – and had a useful and cordial discussion about some operational issues but also about
 the muni.  There was a relevant session on cable franchising and issues related to broadband.  And there was a very good session on the Colorado Water Plan; I’ve been involved in this as a member of a Metro Mayors committee and both CML and Metro Mayors will
 most likely get more involved in this complex issue.
 
Clinton Global Initiative
Boulder was honored to get an invitation to the Clinton Global Initiative, which was in Denver for the first time last month.  I should add that our esteemed colleague Sam Weaver also got invited, as an owner of an entrepreneurial energy
 company (although he also had his council hat on
).  We attended a dinner during which energy issues were discussed by a panel of energy providers, Gov. Ritter and others.  A bit disappointing in their general agreement about how long it will take to become
 significantly less carbon intensive.  Pres. Clinton provided opening remarks and then surprisingly stayed for the discussion – and when given the chance to ask a question pointedly challenged the panel to find ways to speed things up.
 
I was assigned to take part in a working group on infrastructure that held three long meetings over a couple of days.  While the first meeting seemed to allow for some discussion about general infrastructure issues and funding, by the second
 meeting the entire focus was on public-private partnerships, with lots of financial and development folks in the room.  So, that quickly became less interesting and I switched to a working group on sustainable buildings for the final meeting.  That was better,
 but Boulder is way ahead of most cities already, although there were some good issues raised regarding how to get the C/I sector to become more sustainable.  Sam was on a working group on the “modern grid” which he said was quite interesting.  And I got invited
 to a fairly small reception for Pres. Clinton so I got to chat with him for a while about energy issues and also, as I quickly recalled, a mutual friend (whom I know from NLC) who is running for Congress in Arkansas (I got a concise and fascinating lesson
 in Arkansas politics!).
 
Smart City World Expo
A couple of years ago we got invited to the Smart City World Expo in Barcelona.  As is my usual approach, I responded with a request for travel funding and also the ability for us to send someone other than the mayor.  After a few months
 and many emails, they agreed and KC represented Boulder.  This year I again received an invitation, and this time my similar request to them was approved quite quickly.  In fact, they offered to send several people to the Expo.  I asked Macon if he would go
 since I believe he has not yet had the opportunity to represent us at an international event, and I passed on to Jane the invitation of some staff; Jane has since decided to send two members of staff so we will be well represented.
 
Mayors Innovation Project
Pretty much since I’ve been mayor I’ve regularly received invitations to attend a meeting of the Mayors Innovation Project.  This is an organization based in Madison, Wisconsin that consists of perhaps one hundred or so mayors from cities
 that we would generally consider to be our peers and/or similar in their progressive policies.  The two-day meetings focus on a variety of issues, many of which over the years have seemed relevant to us.  Since I travel a fair amount for NLC, I’ve never been
 to an MIP event (and don’t know if any previous mayors have).
This year I was repeatedly asked to attend, and the agenda includes affordable housing and retrofitting suburban forms to be more urban and sustainable.  Since I’ve never used any of my personal travel allocation (and since this will use
 only about half of it) I finally decided to attend an MIP meeting, which will be held next month in Chapel Hill.  If it seems that we should consider attending meetings in the future – there are two per year – then we would probably need to join MIP, which
 has some relatively small cost.  And while they prefer that most of the attendees be mayors, we could send another councilmember if we liked so that this did not necessarily become another mayor-ony function – perhaps something to be discussed at next year’s
 retreat.
 
--Matt