[{"_1":2,"_87":-5,"_88":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},"mediaId",6635880,"mediaKeyId","2616383-7dbdfca44c584271755d03433a8c796d","parentId",2616383,"title","Boulder council study session advances process-review items; staff to scope mayor-pro tem, declarations and email rules","audioSeconds",4836,"startMs",7510000,"endMs",12346000,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=2616383-7dbdfca44c584271755d03433a8c796d&start=7510&end=12346","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/2616383-7dbdfca44c584271755d03433a8c796d/thumbnail_7510000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6635880/Boulder/Boulder-County/Colorado/Boulder-council-study-session-advances-process-review-items-staff-to-scope-mayor-pro-tem-declarations-and-email-rules","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6635880-e706f0347623b5f85368cac91d8a818f/orig.mp4?Expires=1771131908&Signature=ljnMbF91CfyhlvFnqedpYl96FvhC6-A11OHzYM5idmvO2cmPNKfvB-6~j-vvPpw9AaeR~qomfs5NHLb3S1CCb3DdOrG8oUIdw6bMtIvrxaisba~JOpkNzJYrQgkPEuw2r8Gn5p2ofnT8drwPnANPJoedRlLEOyoCy2NjOOMWL9PG8mmcD23A8YvHmtXNxR4zwA2WQyLuUd1Nv1Pie-SiS8FlwQX9lv6maKgv~~Vm4hoqMt-kIfs1X8APa-UycSHu8vohE8nKt1sgriMlLl2CYI5-S-MC~IRpbOqBcBn9gzue8XI14EdR6jjTQQI1kZz6YTSMdq7Uwg1P~bgbjTbIQg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","Boulder City, CO","date","2025-03-14T03:32:12.703Z","article","Boulder's City Council study session reviewed a package of procedural changes recommended by a council process working group and directed staff to investigate several items further, including formalizing mayor pro tem selection rules, examining code changes for landmark reviews and drafting a comprehensive declarations policy.

The working group, formed after the council's 2024 retreat, prioritized 15 ideas and brought six forward to the full council for direction. Pam Davis, assistant city manager, presented the items as matters that would require council direction before staff could develop formal proposals.

The six areas presented were:
- mayor pro tem selection (whether the informal tradition favoring the longest-serving member who has not previously served should be codified);
- landmark and historic-preservation review (whether to reduce council review through code amendment or appeals);
- mandatory full-council participation in annual evaluations of council employees;
- rules limiting use of community email addresses and other contact information to official council business;
- formalizing how ceremonial speaking opportunities and Council Agenda Committee (CAC) substitute assignments are shared; and
- a full review and redesign of the city's declarations process.

Council member Nicole Spear, who facilitated the working group's discussion at the study session, said the group wanted transparent, predictable procedures. On mayor pro tem selection, council members discussed whether to codify a tenure-based tradition or adopt a different, skills-based or elected approach. Several members raised the importance of facilitation and time-management skills for the role and said any formal rule should preserve an opt-out for members who do not wish to serve.

On historic preservation, staff noted council spends \"an average of 3 hours and 10 minutes of meeting time per year\" on preservation items (less than 2% of total council meeting time), but that more complex landmark or district designations can take longer. Staff recommended exploring code changes that could shift some council call-up processes to an appeals model, potentially saving staff and property owners time.

The working group also discussed employee-evaluation participation. Staff said mandatory participation would require a change to council procedure and that accountability for nonparticipation would be a council-managed matter. Council did not adopt a mandatory-participation rule at the meeting; instead members asked the council's employee-evaluation committee to return with options (the committee co-chair offered to track participation and report back).

On constituent email addresses, council signaled support for a rule that would prohibit using a community member's email address for non-official or campaign purposes while allowing follow-up contact when a council member has established a direct ongoing exchange with a resident. Staff said the city already redacts email addresses in public records disclosures and that a formal rule would clarify expectations and permissible follow-up.

Regarding ceremonial and CAC fill-in opportunities, council discussed the administrative burden of a highly formalized rotation and the timing challenges when requests arrive on short notice. Members asked staff to test lighter-weight tools (a shared calendar or a single form for members to record topic interests and availability) and to update the mayor's office and clerk's teams about operational expectations for short-notice events.

Finally, council supported a full review and redesign of the declarations process to make it more transparent and reduce meeting time. Staff estimated the city currently spends about six hours per year reading declarations in meetings and suggested a staged approach: proceed with a full policy redesign while honoring previously scheduled read-aloud declarations that have committed recipients or clear community expectations; move other, lower-priority or recurring declarations to \"issue only\" until the new process is in place; and bring a draft policy back to the council for adoption.

Where council landed: members gave staff direction to scope formal options on the mayor pro tem selection rule, to look at code options for landmark/call-up changes, to have the employee-evaluation committee return with recommendations on increasing participation, to draft a clear rule governing constituent email use, to pilot lower-burden administrative tools for sharing ceremonial/CAC duties, and to conduct a full declarations policy review. Council did not adopt immediate changes at the study session and asked staff to return with draft language or implementation options.

Ending: Staff said it would return to the council with draft options and timelines; several council members asked for any drafts to include clear timelines for implementation and to identify staff workload and resource implications so the council could prioritize which changes to enact first.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","March 13, 2025 City of Boulder City Council Study Session","oneSentenceSummary","Boulder's City Council study session reviewed a package of procedural changes recommended by a council process working group and directed staff to investigate several items further, including formalizing mayor pro tem selection rules, examining code changes for landmark reviews and drafting a comprehensive declarations policy.","taxTitle","Boulder, Boulder County, Colorado","taxId",3386,"location","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":78,"_43":79,"_45":80,"_47":81,"_49":82,"_51":83,"_53":84,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":85,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":86,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6635885,"Boulder and Xcel review five-year energy partnership; council presses on wildfire risk, undergrounding and decarbonization progress",6970,291000,7261000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=2616383-7dbdfca44c584271755d03433a8c796d&start=291&end=7261","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/2616383-7dbdfca44c584271755d03433a8c796d/thumbnail_291000.jpg","/articles/6635885/Boulder/Boulder-County/Colorado/Boulder-and-Xcel-review-five-year-energy-partnership-council-presses-on-wildfire-risk-undergrounding-and-decarbonization-progress","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6635885-c8333f8286a5c6b0f30b5fb33c1fbba9/orig.mp4?Expires=1771131908&Signature=mD4c69Vj0GjK4YF2p05gSclgyP-kYnIlT16APZDkApt2WdFZH3LmEbRCzh9fj9tQ9A~vl0Jbqn58bBj63e7kAOVv6v0YSvn97w9WoH30ndev64YFkF0LCXyQx3iqXpn8lICtvWRu19txya1HiBQx4pfj57gQujaOvUe0DQVOEQk3xe8Zq5UTvp5nPFRe7p9i-SeFNrJg8kFKYKz-r8Gaefi~MnFlGn5D62abH3rPLh42mdsTVa4BIhH7H7l7rCML-T26dA1-~oVqMEn1GlbTe6TnUhjQFwD~m9wtnjqIU~Ey9dTkNPnfPNQ9lPm9nnNDWndDsw67S9coOwbCjW-0Fg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","At a study session, Boulder city staff and leaders of Xcel Energy reviewed five years of the city's franchise and energy partnership and discussed wildfire mitigation, targeted undergrounding projects and progress toward local renewable and emissions targets.

City officials said the partnership, which took effect Jan. 1, 2021, includes a 20-year franchise with opt-out checkpoints at the five-, 10- and 15-year anniversaries. Council and staff framed the meeting as an update to inform whether the city needs additional analysis to decide whether to continue the franchise.

\"Tonight's study session is an important opportunity to reflect on the city of Boulder's partnership with Xcel Energy as we marked 5 years since the franchise agreement was signed,\" City Manager Nuria Rivera Vandermeid said at the start of the presentation. Jonathan Cohen, director of the city's Climate Initiatives Department, told the council staff's goal was \"to provide an update on the partnership activities, where we are today, looking at some opportunities for improvement, and again...look to the future state of the partnership to make sure we continue to serve the needs of Boulder residents, businesses, as well as Xcel.\"

City staff and Xcel officials reviewed the governance and program work that has flowed from the agreement. Carolyn Elam, senior manager overseeing the partnership for the city, outlined projects funded through the agreement's undergrounding program and other partnership initiatives. She said the city and Xcel have advanced multiple undergrounding projects timed to public works work, noting North Broadway, 19th Street and East Arapahoe projects, and a new Chautauqua project the city described as focused on community resilience and wildfire-risk reduction. Elam said those projects, together with others, \"will represent at least the 16 plus million dollars that were part of the first 5 years.\"

Xcel executives described how wildfire mitigation, system hardening and communications were being advanced across their service territory, and how those tactics fit into broader decarbonization plans. Robert Kenny, president of Xcel Energy's Colorado operating company, said Xcel has grouped its wildfire work into situational awareness (weather cameras and detection), system hardening (targeted undergrounding, covered conductor and conductor upsizing), and operational mitigations (enhanced power-line safety settings and the public-safety power shutoff or PSPS). \"We've only employed PSPS once,\" Kenny said, and he acknowledged that communications after the single April PSPS event \"had significant opportunity for improvement,\" which Xcel said it has tried to address in its wildfire mitigation plan.

Xcel emphasized a number of other partnership accomplishments and plans discussed in staff materials: the city's targets for 100% renewable electricity and 100 megawatts of local installed generation by 2030, an inventory of partnership focus areas (efficiency, electrification of buildings and transportation, local generation and storage, and resilience), and partnership projects including a Department of Energy-funded virtual power plant pilot in Boulder. Xcel also outlined its distribution-system planning and an electric resource \"Just Transition\" solicitation that it said could add thousands of megawatts of new wind, solar and storage to replace retiring coal plants.

Council members pressed Xcel on several topics. Multiple council members cited the April PSPS event and asked how Xcel will shorten restoration times and provide better advance notice. Kenny said Xcel's intent is to give layered notice (72, 48 and 24 hours as forecasts firm up) and to preposition crews and use drones so that restoration will be faster and safer, but he added that exact restoration timelines depend on the scope of any event and the number of line miles to be patrolled. Several council members also asked for additional clarity on costs and pace of undergrounding: Xcel said undergrounding costs vary widely by topography and whether lines are distribution or transmission.

Council members and staff also asked Xcel for more information on a short list of items staff and council said they needed to evaluate the franchise at five years, including:
- a clearer, Boulder-specific list and schedule of wildfire mitigation and undergrounding projects that affect the city;
- more precise estimates of customer cost impacts over time tied to specific project and resource portfolios, including how tax credits and avoided fuel costs affect rates; and
- whether Xcel will provide additional monitoring and reporting for the Valmont ash cleanup and any other environmental remediation projects that affect Boulder residents.

Xcel said it would follow up. Regarding federal funding, Kenny said the DOE virtual power plant grant was in hand and under way, and he described federal tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act as an important driver of project economics. Xcel described its clean heat plans and other filings to expand electrification programs and said it had included substantial funding in a recent filing to support customer electrification and beneficial electrification programs.

City staff and council members said they will use the next weeks to identify any additional analyses they need to inform a future decision on the franchise opt-out available at the five-year checkpoint. Council members asked staff to return with a clearer timeline for the opt-out process and with the list of Boulder-specific projects and further economic and operational detail from Xcel.

What happens next: staff said they will consolidate council's requests for more information and follow up with Xcel on specific items (air and groundwater monitoring for the Valmont project, an itemized Boulder project list and more specific cost and timeline estimates for undergrounding and resilience projects). Xcel said it would provide follow-up materials after the presentation and looked to continue the partnership work on the items identified tonight.

Ending: Council did not take a formal vote on the franchise at the session; the meeting was an informational study session and staff said additional information and follow-up briefings will be provided to the council to inform any future decision about the franchise.","At a City Council study session, city staff and Xcel Energy reviewed progress under the 2021 franchise and energy partnership, highlighted undergrounding and resilience projects, and discussed outstanding questions the council wants answered before a five-year decision on whether to maintain the franchise.","actionData","errors"]

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Boulder council study session advances process-review items; staff to scope mayor-pro tem, declarations and email rules

Boulder and Xcel review five-year energy partnership; council presses on wildfire risk, undergrounding and decarbonization progress