Members Present: Chris Berry, City of Lafayette, Clark Griep, City and County of Broomfield, Ben Pearlman, Boulder County, Chuck Sisk, City of Louisville, Valeria Skitt, City of Longmont and Staff Dickey Lee Hullinghorst and Sheree Stroud

Valeria Skitt, City of Longmont, said that Karen Benker had been appointed to the Council. The Council recently had a retreat to develop a work plan. They also talked about other issues, including aging services and water supply. The Super Wal-Mart will break ground next week. They have entered into an IGA with Mead and are also trying to establish relationships with other towns in Eastern Weld.

Clark Griep, City and County of Broomfield, reported that they reconvened their Master Plan Committee. They re-do the plan every ten years. It is a citizen group although the plan is ultimately approved by Council. There have been many changes since 1995. Their goal at that time was to become a county. They will be looking at transporation, water issues (as they anticipate more growth, they may possibly build a reservoir). They will also attend an Annual Focus Session on Saturday.

Chris Berry, City of Lafayette, offered congratulations to Ben Pearlman on his election as Commissioner. He stated he is committed to the Consortium as he thinks they tackle a lot of important regional issues and hopes it will be a productive group this year. There have been lots of ribbon cuttings and that has generated more sales tax revenue that helps fund the needs of the citizens. Vitamin Cottage will open February 21 and the Ace Hardware and King Soopers opened last year. The opening of Exempla Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente will have a big impact on the city. 1,000 acres north of the city are now a rural preservation area as per the Super IGA.

Ben Pearlman, Boulder County, said he was delighted to be at the Consortium of Cities meeting. He believes that the group’s success in tackling regional issues has been significant. Everyone in the region struggles to deliver the same services and everyone can do a better job with collaboration. He would like to look at issues that stretch beyond our borders. He told members that his first few weeks in office have been a whirlwind of activity. The County has re-jointed Colorado Counties Inc. The County also plans to look at the Land Use Code, affordable housing solutions and ways to fund human services.

Chuck Sisk, City of Louisville, arrived at the meeting after the next agenda item began and thus did not give a report.

DeAnne Butterfield, Executive Director of the Boulder County Civic Forum, gave members some background on the Regional Affordable Housing Initiative that was kicked off last April by the Consortium of Cities. Their first two task were to compile a profile of each community and the unincorporated county areas in a shared format so that it is easy to compare statistics. Out of that information the Regional Housing Assessment was created. The next step is the Affordable Housing Summit. After that meeting, DeAnne will come back to the Consortium to present solutions and ideas that came from the Summit and ask the Consortium to appoint a task force to come up with a broad strategy to implement these ideas and look for consensus and partnerships and tangible results.

Melanie Ross gave a presentation of the Regional Housing Assessment. This will be presented at the Summit. It was a very informative presentation and the format gave the Consortium the opportunity to compare communities with sometimes surprising results. She explained that the document will help support strategic planning and can also be used for obtaining entitlement funding and grant applications.

Clark Misner, Boulder County Transportation Department, told members that the committee was convened to look at future traffic impacts and potential transit services which would lessen those impacts and also look at equity issues between revenue and expenditures that the Boulder County region makes to RTD. This second task has been difficult to determine because there are so many variables. The group expects a final report from the consultants in the next few weeks. LSA has been working on transit modeling and are waiting on DRCOG’s 2030 traffic numbers to complete their report. They are looking at potential corridors and considering routes. Some corridors under consideration are SH 7 from Brighton to Boulder, SH 42 and SH 119. The 95^th/96^th Street Corridor already has some federal funding. The Technical Committee will meet with consultants and start doing "what-if" scenarios and will later make recommendations to the Regional Transit Committee who will report to the Consortium.

There wasn’t time for discussion of future agenda items so the group decided to hold a special planning session in March for this topic. The meeting will be March 2.

The next regular Consortium of Cities meeting will be April 6 at 7:00 p.m. in the Boulder County Courthouse.