[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Update from Matt re CML, NLC, ICLEI, MMC, etc.

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt

Colleagues – At the beginning of the new year and before the council retreat, I thought I should provide a fairly comprehensive update on the various external committees/boards/meetings/conferences that are on my schedule.  As always, if you’d like more information on any of these just let me know.  In addition, if you think that we should be spending more/less time/effort on any of these that might be something to consider at the retreat.  And, yes, it would seem as if I raise my hand perhaps a bit too often
but having spent the time to build relationships/friendships and considerable respect for Boulder, it seems like we should be involved with as many of these external groups and issues as we can, both to ensure our thoughts are considered and also to learn from others.
 
 
Colorado Municipal League (CML)
A you know, I was elected to a two-year term on CML’s Executive Committee last June, after having served for several years on their Policy Committee.  We’ve had a retreat in lovely Bennett and a couple of meetings; frankly, the Policy meetings are more interesting since they focus on legislative issues.  The Exec committee has asked that we spend more time on legislation as well, and no doubt at the end of the legislative session, when things happen very quickly, Exec will weigh in on potentially important policy issues.  CML is also ramping up its “research” efforts, something I’ve wanted them to do for a long time so that they can provide better information and best practices on policies that are not just limited to legislative issues; we’ll see
 where this goes.
 
There is a legislative workshop in February that is open to all and I’ll attend; it’s usually fairly interesting, and provides a good update of state issues.  You might consider attending one if you’ve never done so, although there is a fee.  (February 12, $110)
 
The CML conference is June 17 – 19 in Breckinridge.  I’ve gone for several years, and others on council have come from time to time.  Sessions are OK, some can be quite useful; schmoozing is excellent.  As I did last year, I have the use of a large, 2-bedroom condo that’s a 10-minute walk from the conf location, for a very low cost (the cleaning fee).  Three friendly or four even-more-friendly folks can fit, so if you’re going to the conf and want to share let me know.
 
The exec retreat this year is in July in Durango
a bit lovelier than Bennett if not quite so convenient.
 
CML’s main mantra of local control never varies, although it’s a bit too early to know which legislative issues will be most controversial this year.  As usual there will likely be competing bills regarding urban renewal areas (URAs); more
about that below in the Metro Mayors section.
 
 
National League of Cities (NLC)
 
In November I was elected to a two-year term on NLC’s Board of Directors.  As I noted in an earlier Hotline, it remains to be seen how the newly expanded Board will work, although I was just informed that I’ll be on the Board’s Legislative Action committee, which was my strong preference.  There is a new Board executive committee that will do much of the real work, but luckily Sam Mamet (CML) was appointed to that group so I should be able to stay well-informed.
 
Unfortunately, I’m no longer on the steering committee of the Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Policy Committee, although I’ll attend their meetings when I can.  It’s still unclear how the role of the Policy committees will change.  Clearly the Board wants to direct more of the committees’ activities and have them spend more time on advocacy, but I hope that the committees will still be able to set much of their own agendas and that EENR can continue to deeply investigate areas of interest.  It might be good to have a Boulder rep on EENR, but it’s a bit late for this year and until we know how the committee issues play out we might as well wait anyway.  That said, if someone is interested, attending one of the NLC conferences this year might be a good idea; joining a committee takes time and money, and we’d need to decide if it’s worth it.  Macon will continue his role on the Transportation and Infrastructure Services Policy committee.
 
I’m involved in quite a few NLC activities:
 
1·     
The spring conference will, as always, be held in DC in early March.  Like the CML conf, there can be some interesting sessions, and the schmoozing is excellent, with a large delegation from Colorado (some cities send their entire
 councils).  I’ll attend Board meetings, and often have a role in a session.  CML sponsors outings to the Hill for lobbying, although I doubt I’ll take part in those.

2·        
I’ll be leaving a couple of days early for the DC conf. in order to attend a forum on urban sustainability being hosted by the French Embassy (and to some extent leading up to the COP 21 which will be held in Paris the end of this year).  When I was at a conference in France a couple of years ago, a colleague (mayor in Florida, current EENR chair) and I spoke with some folks from their embassy in the US at some length about holding such a conference, and we followed up with them during the past year – requesting that they time it in conjunction with NLC.  So I’ve been asked to speak at the plenary session and/or co-chair a workshop.  More info at
http://focus2015.franceintheus.org

3·        
I’ll continue to serve on the steering committee of the University Communities Council.  While not a policy group, this is a place for peer cities to share best practices.  Fort Collins has two reps and the discussions are often quite relevant.

4·        
NLC runs a Sustainable Cities Institute, and so far as I know I’ll continue to serve on its steering committee as NLC keeps trying to improve SCI’s reach and content.

5·        
New this year, NLC has allied with several non-profit organizations to investigate how to create and promote sustainable and resilient water solutions – focusing on water supply, I believe.  Yep, I’m on this too, as part of the
 “water leaders” team.  There are two meetings planned, and conveniently the first will be in Denver.  The second hasn’t been set yet, but assuming I can make it the alliance is paying all travel expenses.

6·        
Additional NLC meetings this year include the usual summer forum, this year to be held in June in Salt Lake (since my friend and mayor of Salt Lake, Ralph Becker, is the current NLC president), and the fall conference in early November in Nashville.
 
 
Metro Mayors Caucus (MMC)
 
I’ve just been elected as co-vice-chair of MMC, having served the past three years on the executive committee.  For MMC, exec really does much of the work, particularly regarding setting agendas.  The yearly retreat was just held – at Chautauqua! – and we set our priorities and topics of interest for the year, which include regional transportation, homelessness, water, and URAs.  I serve on subcommittees looking at each of these, since they are all important to Boulder:

1·        
After the “failure” of MPACT64 – an attempt to create a coalition that would create support for a statewide ballot issue to raise revenue for transportation; I worked on that effort for almost two years – we may be back to looking
 at regional transportation revenues.  This could involve the creation of a taxing district of some sort.  MMC has indicated that a committee should be re-created to examine this possibility; a previous incarnation included mayors from around the region as well as county commissioners.  No idea if this will fly, but we of course need a strong voice at the table given the huge inequity in transportation funding in the region, which is not just limited to FasTracks.

2·        
I’ve served on the homelessness committee for the past year, and you’ll remember when Gary Sanford of the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative spoke to council at our recent study session; Gary is a regular attendee at committee meetings. There seems to be agreement that this is a regional issue, and that a key part of any solution is to create a coordinated point of entry.  Again, we’ll see where this goes, but at least it’s a start on getting better regional understanding of a problem that Boulder – and of course Denver – are affected by in very disproportionate ways.

3·        
I’ve also served for the past year on the water committee.  This is largely driven by the new State Water Plan that is in the works.  Not clear what role MMC will play, if any, but so far the sessions have been informative, and I’ve helped ensure that the environmental perspective continues to be part of the conversation.

4·        
MMC, like CML, is strongly supportive of URAs.  As you know, there was a bill in last year’s legislature that would have significantly constrained URAs, but it was vetoed by the governor, who then asked the parties to work things
 out.  Not surprisingly, both CML and CCI (the county counterpart) are not working things out, but trying to get bills favorable to them passed.  MMC felt that we should try to work with the MACC (Metro Area County Commissioners) and see if we could do any better.  This is a very tough problem and I could provide considerably more detail if folks are interested.  I thought we should be involved even though we have no URAs on the horizon (our legislative agenda indicates clear support for them, however), but have been key players in other URA agreements (thanks to Carl), and our delegation is heavily involved in the issue.

5·        
A small group of MMC reps met recently with Sen. Matt Jones regarding his “transparency” bill for the HPTE (High Performance Transportation Enterprise; this is the part of CDOT that did the US36 public/private partnership deal). 
 Sen. Jones’ bill this year would seem to largely track our issues – although it’s important to note that we (and the US36 MCC) do not agree with him that the US36 deal was a bad one.  He was asking for MMC support, but since his bill is not supported by CDOT, I suspect that MMC will stay out of it, but it’s too early to tell, and if we can help find a compromise that works that would be a good outcome.
 
 
US36 Mayors and Commissioners Coalition (MCC)
 
As US36 heads towards completion and NW Rail is clearly decades away (if it ever gets revived), the MCC is focusing on the results of NAMS (Northwest Area Mobility Study).  In short this called for: full completion of US36 BRT including
 buses, real-time notification, prepaid fares, better schedules, etc.; dealing with the bottleneck that will be caused by the unidirectional nature of the bus/HOT lane along I-25; and, importantly, creating new BRT-lite routes along key arterials such as the Diagonal, US287, and Hwy 7.
 
The MCC has been working with RTD on the US36 BRT issues, and there is clearly more work to be done to ensure that BRT is implemented as it should be.  Once more is known we’ll update council.
 
Since much of the new work of the MCC will be on the proposed BRT-lite routes, we’ve agreed that other communities should be invited to join the MCC, with the understanding that they must fully support the NAMS outcomes.  These include Lafayette, Erie, and both Jefferson and Adams counties.  An initial meeting will be held next month and we’ll see what type of role, if any, these entities might wish to have.
 
As usual, the MCC will make its yearly pilgrimage to DC, although this year it is being delayed until March due to the changes in Congress.  We’ll make the regular rounds of the pols to keep them up to date, and attend the more important
 (I think) meetings with the various agencies that have authority over our key issues.  Unfortunately, the current version of the transportation bill does not allow for federal funding of BRT-lite type approaches, so we continue to lobby for changes.
 
 
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
 
I just got elected to the North America Regional Executive Committee (RexCom) of ICLEI.  Boulder has been an ICLEI member and I know that Jonathan Koehn has been semi-active from time to time, although I’ve never been involved with them (but I’ve gotten to know several of the members of the global executive committee and staff, and know most of the members of the US governing group).
 
Since ICLEI’s main goal is sustainability and particularly climate change adaptation and mitigation, and since they play at the international level, it seemed like another place that Boulder should have a voice.  Frankly, I was quite surprised that I got the nod.
 
It’s still not really clear what the role of the RexCom will be – and, as I discovered, this is rather a new governing structure for ICLEI.  We’ve had our first conference call, and selected (from the five of us; I know two of the others) co-chairs, of whom I’m one.  We also selected a rep to the global committee.  I assume that almost all of our business will be conducted via conference calls.
 
But not all.  It turns out that every three years ICLEI holds its World Congress, and no doubt the recent elections were timed to coincide with that event, which will be held this April in Seoul.  That was definitely not on my agenda and
 the timing is unfortunate.  However, having been elected – and given that the various RexComs will meet separately and together at the Congress – it would be rather inappropriate not to attend.  Thankfully this is the only such meeting during my three-year term on the RexCom, and thankfully it turns out to be less expensive to make this trip than I had feared; the conference itself is completely free, being subsidized by the South Korean government.   I’ve also offered to take part in various sessions since that’s always a good way to get Boulder’s activities more widely known; I don’t yet know what role if any I’ll be asked to play.   Regardless, if there are concerns about this, please let me know.
 
 
ECO:nomics
 
I was invited to speak at a forum sponsored by the Wall Street Journal in March (yes, everything seems to be in March or early April) in Santa Barbara.  They want me to take part in a session that will be, so far as I can tell, a discussion/interview regarding municipalization.  As always, I ran this by staff, who thought it was a good idea to attend.  And, as always, I asked about sending someone other than the mayor, but that seemed very unlikely to be acceptable to them.
 
This is an invitation-only event with, it would seem, lots of “important” people.  The theme is “creating environmental capital,” which suggests it could be rather interesting.  Being the WSJ, it will be held at some fancy resort, with a room rate to match.  I suggested that I’d stay elsewhere, but the sponsor agreed to pay for most of the hotel cost in order to have me more conveniently stay at the meeting site.  Since the WSJ is rather obviously a for-profit institution, if anyone has a concern about this please let me know ASAP.
 
 
Colorado Water Summit
 
I was asked to speak on a panel at the 2nd Colorado Water Summit, being held in Denver in early March.  The session will be on current and long-term municipal water needs.  I really have no idea why I was chosen for this as one of the few (perhaps only) local officials to take part, but perhaps it stems from some of the water work at MMC.  Regardless, it seems like a good opportunity (after getting prepped by our staff!), and it has no cost at all.
 
 
WestConnect
 
Last year Jefferson County and a group of cities formed the WestConnect coalition to work on one of our very favorite projects, the Jefferson Parkway.  Golden is a member, and my good friend Mayor Sloan worked very hard to get other interested communities invited to the table, including us, and she asked me to attend.  Boulder County and Superior are also now involved.  I of course checked with our staff – since it is really more important that they track this than do I – and everyone agreed it’s better to be at the table than not.  I’ve only attended one meeting, with another coming up soon; I think meetings will be held rather sparingly.  While it’s no secret that the original group would like to find a way to construct Jeffco Pkwy, they are in fact leaving other options open, and CDOT (as I discovered) is spending quite a bit of money looking at the transportation issues in the corridor.  The original members are contributing to the work of the coalition; needless to say we are not, but we still have
 been granted a seat and a vote of some sort.
 
 
Highway 7 coalition
 
Yet another transportation group, this one focusing on issues relating to Hwy 7 from Adams County and Broomfield on the east (still hard to grasp Broomfield’s expansive new boundaries) all the way into Boulder.  I got invited to this via
 the MCC, although again our staff involvement is more important.  I haven’t been to a meeting yet but will be at one soon; not clear if I’ll need to attend on any regular basis.  The coalition is presumably looking at various improvements in the corridor, including widening the road in places, but our main issue is of course BRT-lite of some sort.
 
 
Boulder County mayors meetings
 
Soon after I became mayor, I thought it would be helpful to get to know the key mayors in the county, some of whom I hadn’t yet met.  So I organized a gathering, and I’m still doing that from time to time.  The current group includes Louisville, Superior, Lafayette, Longmont, and Erie.  The conversations often revolve around transportation (MCC) issues, but others come up and this is a good opportunity to keep in touch and also ask for support (such as on DRCOG issues) as needed.
 

Again, if you’d like more details on any of these items just let me know.  Presumably we’ll be asked to attend other conferences/forums over the course of this year, and I hope that everyone on council will get the chance to represent the city at some point, joining KC, Lisa, George, and Macon who have done so during the past few years.
 
--Matt