Members Present: Chris Berry, City of Lafayette; Don Brown, City of Louisville; Tom Eldridge, City of Boulder; Clark Griep, City and County of Broomfield; Karen Imbierowicz, Town of Superior; Greg McCallum, Town of Erie; Ben Pearlman, Boulder County; Valeria Skitt, City of Longmont; Statf Dickey Lee Hullinghorst and Sheree Stroud

Karen Imbierowicz, Town of Superior, reported that the Board is looking for open space acquisition opportunities and continuing with their Comp Plan review.

Chris Berry, City of Lafayette, said they are working on a 12-acre park in South Point. A lot of the funding for this project came from the Northwest Parkway. Sales tax numbers were up 14% in 2004 and up 8% so far in 2005. Lafayette has historically been last or close to last in sales tax revenue, but moved up to 23 out of 26 and hope to move up further.

Greg McCallum, Town of Erie, told members they recently held a Town Fair that had over 20,000 visitors. They will host four Saturday night concert series in August. The Board is working on a Rec Center study. They are also working with Southwest Weld Library District to form a branch library. They are revising the Comprehensive Master Plan with a strong focus on retail growth and jobs. They are also undertaking a Downtown Revitalization Study.

Don Brown, City of Louisville, reported that the city hall renovation is underway. The new library is also under construction and it will provide underground parking. The South Community Park construction is going well and should be open in 2006. Louisville is moving forward on McCaslin Interchange improvements in partnership with Superior. This will include a pedestrian bridge for Park ‘n Ride users. Louisville has had the least housing growth in the county and now they are looking at what type of housing might be feasible with a tie-in to retail and open space. Their sales tax revenue has declined for the past eight months.

Tom Eldridge, City of Boulder, said the Bolder Boulder and Boulder Creek Festival just occurred and were very successful. They had a Study Session on the fire training facility that is to be built with a county tax allocated for three facilities in Boulder, Nederlan,d and Longmont. The tax didn’t generate as much funding as projected so Boulder will be funding some shortfall. Boulder has already purchased the land for their facility and Longmont and Nederland are currently looking for land.

Valeria Skitt, City of Longmont, told members that a committee is developing a strategic plan on how the city should look at build-out. The effort is guided by a 35-member steering committee. Initially, it started with extensive public interest and then 35 focus groups met. The first phase ended with a Summit in April and over 250 people attended. Phase 2 of the process is to decide what to do next with all this input. Longmont has a Comprehensive Wildlife Management Plan and hopes this plan will set an example for development. Longmont will manage wildlife in the manner that they expect others to do.

Clark Griep, City and County of Broomfield, reported they are in negotiations to buy land near the Northwest Parkway to build a 6,000 acre foot reservoir for future growth and open space. A Citizen Group is looking at the farmhouse on 120^th St. This was donated to the city and moved to open space. A Citizen Group and Non-Profits plan to renovate the farmhouse and use it for meeting space. There was a rumor that Broomfield is getting a large arena per the newspaper. The area mentioned is part of the FasTraks development area. The weekly Flatirons concerts will start this week on Thursday.

Ben Pearlman, Boulder County, said that Phase I of the TABOR Refund Campaign has ended. Citizens donated a tax surplus of $195,000. In the next few weeks, 108,000 checks will be mailed with tax refunds and they hope that more people will take that opportunity to donate their refunds at that point. The county is studying revisions for the Land Use Code and welcomes any suggestions.

Chris Berry moved to approve the April 6, 2005 minutes. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

DeAnne Butterfield, Executive Director of Boulder County Civic Forum, told members they are requesting that each city and town look at the proposal for the task force if they have not already done so. The proposal will create a task force to look at housing strategies and a policy level person from each jurisdiction will sit on the task force. DeAnne will identify and recuirt other members and each jurisdiction has been asked to make a financial contribution. DeAnne will compile the list and ask Commissioner Pearlman to officially designate the task force membership.

There was discussion on the task force. DeAnne explained that the charge to the group is to branch out, possibly with focus groups or surveys. She hopes for a robust outreach effort and participation parallel to the task force dialogue to generate ideas. As part of that, the task force can communicate with local governments in whatever fashion the government wants. Valeria Skitt is not opposed to Commissioner Pearlman finalizing the list but would like to see list via e-mail before it is finalized. Clark Griep thought this work might duplicate work done by the Homes Consortium and mentioned that a survey is already done annually. What would be different about this? DeAnne explained that the Homes Consortium does not identify a housing strategy but rather works on procedures and mechanisms to create a housing structure. Their next step would be a consolidated plan. By creating a task force, time would be saved by not having to do this work sequentially. DeAnne said that any surveys previously done would be pulled and that information given to the task force to use. The task force would then develop their own research agenda depending on what analyses they need that are regional.

Karen Imbierowicz reported that Superior is ready to go forward and agrees to pay their contribution as outlined in the first column. They will forward the name of their task force member. Don Brown said Louisville is generally supportive and it is set for their agenda next week. Ben Pearlman hopes everyone will come together on this project.

Clark Misner, Boulder County Transportation, presented a project update on the RTC. This proejct started in 2004 and commissioned two studies – the Transit Finance Study and the Boulder and Broomfield Transit Study. The group then made their first cut for transit feasibility. Don Brown asked about the RTD equity issue. Clark Misner said that studies show a fairly equitable allocation but sometimes the local share is greater because our ridership is higher. Now the question is whether Boulder County is ready to take transit to the next level. In the recent survey performed by Boulder County, there was strong support for a Mobility Sales Tax. There was considerable discussion about including Southwest Weld County in the discussions and whether they will or even can become part of RTD. Clark Misner added that the next steps include refining ridership and costs, refining route alignments, developing a Preliminary Phasing Plan and developing a proposal for a Comprehensive TDM Service Plan.

Funding was discussed. There are several funding options such as tax or an Authority.

Don Brown believes elected officials need to reach out to Weld elected officials and try to get some buy-in while the studies are going forward. Greg McCallum said the SW Corridor Group includes Erie, the Tri-Towns, and Mead. Perhaps the RTC could get on their agenda. RTD was discussed and Southwest Weld could either join the district or sign an IGA. Don Sandoval, Department of Local Affairs, gave the group some background on Weld’s previous attempts to join RTD. Currently they are considering an election in 2006 to join as a Sub-District. The members agreed that elected officials should work to build support with Weld and RTD. The RTC should look at options like JUMP outside funding and also explore RTD as a potential funder. Mark Hamilton added that a trails component should be included as this will increase support.

Don Brown reminded the group that sales tax sharing was discussed at the goal setting meeting. There was a similar discussion at DRCOG recently. He is interested in moving this discussion forward. Clark Misner told the group about a TOD workshop coming up that might be helpful for staff and elected officials. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst reported that there have been preliminary discussions with Don Sandoval of DOLA regarding a grant to study revenue sharing in Boulder County through an Energy Impact Assistance Grant.

Karen Imbierowicz told the group she attended the Youth at Risk meeting convened by Boulder County. There are disturbing results from school district surveys. Chuck Sisk suggested that individuals contact him regarding a presentation to Councils and Boards to determine if there is any interest about action in your community.

Don Brown said the YMCA has been invited to participate in a program that will reach out to teens and create plans for a teen community where they can feel safe and part of the community, school, etc. Maybe Boulder County could become known as the "place-to-be-young".

Ben Pearlman mentioned that Energy was designated as one of the Consortium’s goals. He went to a meeting recently on what global warming means at a local level such as demise of the ski industry and water shortages. He would like to do a presentation like this at the August meeting. Chris Berry agreed that steps should be taken regionally. Maybe communities could agree and sign MOU’s to preserve energy and talk about conservation steps.

Dickey Lee Hullinghorst reported that the Library Task force is just beginning to organize. Chris asked if anyone could co-chair. Don Brown will co-chair.

The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting will b held August 3 at the Boulder County Courthouse.