 So I haven't seen the governor's video. So I have my prepared comments, but I was also going to make sure Make sure I didn't repeat anything that anybody who's pre-recorded said Which is something I am able to do but they will not be because they have already recorded their comments So I guess some of this might be a little bit duplicative, but I'm Should I just get started? Yeah, go ahead Okay, great. Hi everybody, I'm Max Nardo. I'm a policy analyst at the state legislature I work with the Senate Democrats and I help coordinate the Senate's work on spending some of the federal money that we're talking about today Specifically we received a big pool of money from the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA as we all refer to it This was the one big COVID spending package approved by the Biden administration right after they got into office And because these can all kind of run together in my mind This is the bill that sent out $1,400 stimulus checks and it increased the child tax credit it extended unemployment and One of the things it did which we're going to talk about today is it sent states and local governments pretty big chunks of money Who spend on pandemic relief based on their own unique circumstances? so in our case the state of Colorado received about three point eight billion in fiscal recovery funds and That's a lot of money for any state But especially because Colorado has Tabor as you might know if you're politically inclined enough to be attending something like this Colorado is the one state in the country where the legislature cannot raise taxes So it's really an even bigger deal for us. So there's a lot at stake with this one-time infusion of money. So it's important we get it right so It was last legislative session when this money came in about a quarter of it was set aside for budget stabilization about a quarter was approved last session for some emergency spending transportation housing health and The other half was Not quite ready to be spent right away. If you could go to the next slide, please The powers that be wanted some time to think about how to use this money strategically So we created a couple of task forces. So legislators and experts could work all throughout the summer and fall to Come up with the best ways possible to spend this money There were a couple of important areas that were agreed upon So that's what's in these big boxes here. So the blue box is affordable housing It was decided to spend another 400 million on that and it was left to the task force to figure out exactly how to divide that up for the best results 450 million for behavioral health And that's the big orange box and then the big yellow box is economic recovery So those are the three pools. I'm going to be talking about in this presentation And if you could go to the next slide The economic recovery box is actually not quite as big as that because some of this money is quasi earmarked for ongoing discussions for homelessness initiatives The unemployment trust fund and kind of an unknown pool of ongoing COVID expenses Okay, so I'm about to run through these three big pools and I'm both about to share a lot of information, but also not that much information because A lot of this money is being allocated for grant programs and they will eventually fund individual projects for those individual projects are not decided yet So the place we are at is the task forces have produced final reports with legislative recommendations bills are being drawn up now and It seems reasonably likely, you know pending the decisions of our legislators that the bills are going to look a lot like the recommendations But again the actual projects that are going to be funded aren't decided yet So I hope you can forgive the lack of specificity if there was more to give I would But I'll tell you where we're at now and then your legislators can continue keeping you updated as time goes on So if you go to the next slide First we're going to talk about housing the housing panel Had these five recommendations with low and high-end funding and I'm going to briefly talk through these But I do want to start with a bit of a sober assessment of this The housing problem in the state I mean the housing affordability crisis is fast and even four hundred million dollars is not really enough to transform the situation You know ask anybody you know multiply that by the five million people that live in the state or five point seven million people and This money it's just not really enough to really transform the problem that being stated It is a lot and it's the most we've had in an extremely long time So I'm going to talk through some of these funding priorities The thing the revolving loan fund you know, this is so the state can have a big pool of money and For a variety of types of projects whether that be a new development or the preservation or rehabilitation of an existing project it can loan money to these projects at below market rates and Then get that money back and loan repayments over time so it can be an ongoing or perpetual fund and Source of financing a lot of affordable housing projects are cobbling together federal tax credits loans grants and this will be a big source of money for that Secondly, we have actual grants. So like I said Combination of fund sources for a lot of low-income housing projects the first one was love the second one was grants I Am going to highlight one Thing that is going to come out of this grant program. Can you go back to the housing slide, please? I am going to highlight one thing that I think is going to come out of these grants. It's pretty cool is the Strong communities fund grant program this grant program funds Studies or Kind of matching money for communities that are willing to make changes To allow more affordable housing to be built So this could be something like if a city wants to up zone a neighborhood to allow more density or allow apartment buildings or Transition like a plot of empty land into housing and rezone it for that So far this pool of pool of money was actually created last year And this will be adding to it and it funded a couple things in the area the Longmont housing assessment updates $86,000 for that Louisville housing plan $60,000 for that superior affordable housing strategic plan $120,000 to that so those are the types of things that have come out of this right away Thirdly the third pool here is resident owned communities In the last few years We've passed some cool laws saying that if the owner of a mobile home park puts it up for sale There are some processes required that will give the residents a fair chance to buy it and own it themselves And this has already worked on several instances and one reason I think this is a cool policy is that These communities are some of the only naturally occurring affordable housing around that isn't subsidized by government funds And it's a relatively affordable way to get people from your perpetual renting into ownership for wealth building that will be for the family for a generation Modular housing This is direct funding to It's kind of two parts to it. One of it. It's like a tract and encourage the industry of creating modular housing, which is like prefabricated It's a group of housing types of prefabricated housing could be 3D printed or manufactured or shipping container, but for new innovative ideas. And when labor costs for building new houses are really high this holds promise to Produce housing types that could be affordably purchased. So as a consumer of housing, you could save costs while it also supports a budding industry in the state Last thing is this half of the Colorado housing finance authority if I have that acronym right the missing middle access program most subsidized housing programs are for Lower income people. This is a program that creates and subsidizes housing for people that are in the 80 to 120% of the median income So this could be like a teacher in Boulder not not a high paying profession But you know, maybe around the area median it supports housing for these people. I Don't have this on the slide But there's also another 200 million dollar earmark for some really important homelessness initiatives And I think anybody who is I don't know been pretty much anywhere in Colorado realized that homelessness is exploding So there are three things coming out of this the biggest chunk is a grant program for local communities to access state funding to build out a continuum of solutions across the spectrum and Really the emphasis is like quickly connecting people who are experiencing homelessness to services and treatment and temporary shelter or housing Again, this is one where I just can't tell you what the projects are going to be because Local communities are going to design these ideas based on their needs and their ideas and then get state national funds for it I think something we've seen in Denver that is you know, a likely candidate would be like the I'm forgetting what they call them community the community village collaborative has a couple of these they're like outdoor Safe camping sites safe safe rest villages is what they call them in Portland It's like a lower-cost way to get people like immediately off the streets and out of a camp and into something where there are some social services available Okay, if you'll go to the next slide I'm gonna breathe through these pretty quickly, but there were eight funding recommendations coming out of the behavioral health task force Community behavioral health continuum of care gap grants. That was a bit of a mouthful And they're gonna complete a regional assessment to identify cap identify gaps in the service continuum and provide funding for local governments Secondly expand the behavioral health workforce. There's like a deficit of Many many types of workers within the behavioral health continuum. So this is a very large chunk of money For state agencies to you know start with developing a plan to invest in workforce expansion This is gonna require recruitment training retention money can be used for a lot of different things But just to make sure we have a staff capacity to deal with this Adult inpatient and residential care There just aren't that many places you can go to stay if you are having a severe behavioral or mental health issue So this is a lot of funding to make sure we have enough facilities Within the range of needs Criminal justice grants diversion early intervention this proposal is about 70 million to fund communities to develop or expand Pre-arrest early intervention programs, but to make sure we have staff and programs to keep people out of the criminal justice system at an early age Next up this is about Investing in youth and family residential and outpatient care across the state a lot of what we do have is not suited for youth and families So this will expand that Care navigation and coordination. This is about Some of this is training existing navigators to help ensure that those who need behavioral health services Access them and ensure accountability serve those with the highest needs This is also going to provide money for immediate life-saving interventions like purchasing naloxone Primary behavioral health care integration. This is about integrating behavioral health into more primary care So there'll be staffing and training associated with that and then I'm looking at the clock here and knowing it to speed up So lastly this tribal residential behavioral health facility. It's providing one-time funding for the renovation of an existing southern youth facility For inpatient services and transitional housing You could go to the last Slide here The last big pool of money if you remember the big yellow one was the economic recovery The economic recovery task force didn't produce legislative recommendations like housing and behavioral health did it essentially identified a group of problems And there's lots of ways that the legislature could address those so this work is further behind the other two and then we did come out with legislative recommendations and we are working on these now A couple things are likely to come out of this which is the homeless initiatives I already described and then some money is kind of earmarked for covid And the other prioritization is just in progress. So that's a big a big TBD to stay tuned on that will be a big focus of the rest of the session because that You know that remainder box there is going to be maybe three or four hundred million dollars I think some of the types of things that might come out of this fund there's recognition that there is a deficit of child care workers and facilities in the state relative to needs right now so Things like teachers and the health care workforce. Those are some ideas that that keep coming up and I would not be surprised if they ended up receiving funding out of this but I think your representatives are going to have to keep you posted So like I said that was both a lot of information and also not that much specific information I wish I could tell you more about what is going to be coming up in your district out of this money. This is where we're at now. A lot of these are going to be grant programs that organizations in your district can be applying for to build things out and that's where we are now. Max that was terrific. Can you can you help us with where would folks go if they want to know specifically you mentioned the housing program in Longmont and the housing program in Louisville I know there's a big housing program in Lafayette where where would folks go if they want to learn more would they go to the task force website links or are there other places they can look. Max I think you're. Very good. You. It's a good habit to meet yourself when you're not talking but then a bad habit to forget about it. If you go to the task force websites on the general assembly website. Yeah you can you can browse the final report for any of these. They're all about 30 pages and quite digestible if you want to learn more about the work of the task forces. Did that answer the question or did you want to know more about specific projects. Yeah that's great that's where I've been going but I know you also since you had mentioned specific programs I was curious if there was any other place that they could look at the task force is it is a great place to start for sure. I don't think I would have another resource generally but I would say if you have a question reach out to your representative they can reach out to me and we'll get you the information. Thanks so much Max that was great. And a lot of great information. Appreciate it. I see that Attorney General Phil wiser you're on. Would you like to go ahead. I am. It is great to be virtually with our boulder friends and neighbors thinking long and hard about what is an extraordinary really once in a generation opportunity. I want to talk about a few issues that are really close to my work and my thinking. First about water. Second about mental and behavioral health. Third I want to talk a little bit about fraud because that's an issue that we need to be working on. And finally maybe just a few other other sort of related points first water in Colorado we've got this great saying, which is Colorado is a land where life is inscribed in water, how we manage our water is a big deal, and you've been hearing a lot about it. This Nebraska issue, this plan to move water from the Sandleys Valley to Douglas County, the Colorado River, the short version. We're in for some challenges. There is less natural snowpack today than ever before. We all know is you cannot deficit finance water either have it or you don't have it. We've got a series of water infrastructure management projects around our state, some of which is quite antiquated really. We have this really important opportunity of how we better use water, building in more ways to conserve water smart storage opportunities for water reuse opportunities for water. The question is, are we going to use this time to be maximally effective. In the best version of Colorado we take some of this ARPA money, and we build smart water infrastructure that supports better water quality, better management of our water, better resilience, better adaptability. We called for $100 million to that end and part of the reason why it's so important to use that ARPA money now is it turns out we need state money that we could free up to support matching grants for the water funding from the infrastructure act. This is a very big opportunity affects all of us in Colorado. By the way, quick commercial note, we sued a bunch of companies say related to putting out PFAS into what is in effect our water. We have a health risk. We're going to hold them accountable. That's just one more example of the water infrastructure concerns that we're looking at. Number two, behavioral health. And I want to talk about opioids because it's really an area that I've been working long and hard on. We have to recognize that we don't have enough drug treatment in Colorado. We have about 16% of what we need. We don't have enough mental health support. What this is doing is putting a load on our criminal justice system that it's not meant to bear. It's not right. It's not smart. The money that we're getting from suing these pharmaceutical companies, McKinsey, other wrongful actors is substantial. $400 million we're wearing that Colorado we just cured that last week. It's not enough to meet the challenges, which means communities around the state can and should use ARPA funding to better address this once in a generation opportunity. And that's something that I'm committed to supporting working with. I know the Boulder community is going to be very scrappy and smart as to how it uses its funds. The other point I want to mention is if we do this smartly and robustly, it's going to pay huge dividends. I'll give you an example. When someone leaves prison. Are we setting up reentry programs supporting their behavioral needs. So don't go back to an addiction that they had before they ended up serving their sentence. We need to make sure we do that. This is an important opportunity. And finally, I want to talk about this false claims act and fraud, because it is really important. And thank you, Jennifer, I'm not using the slides. We can probably remove that question slide if people want. How do we make sure that if people do defraud the state of Colorado with these ARPA funds or other funds, we can hold them to account, get the money back. This false claims act we're pushing would give whistleblowers a chance to relate what they hear actually called the law and make sure that these stories of fraud get to our office so we can take action hold people accountable get money back. That's a critical step we need, because when you make all these investments, there's room for error and people playing games. So I'm committed to taking advantage of this opportunity. I'm glad to have such fabulous representatives thinking hard about it. We need to do it smartly together. That's who we are in Colorado collaborators and innovators. I have time for a quick question or two, if there are any, starting with our great representatives. And I think, um, thank you so much for that presentation I think we'll do questions at the end if you're okay to stay on until the end. I've got to jump. I've got to jump so I'm happy to go to others then. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate the time to be here. Thank you. Thanks a lot. All right. Well, I think we might let's try the videos again. We'll see if that'll work. Let me get that on. And in the meantime, while you're doing that I know some of us are answering some questions in the chat and we can try to take more after the videos. Sure. That works great I know I saw a lot of great questions in the chat. Let's see if this one works. Good evening, everyone. I wish I could join you live, but I don't want to miss this opportunity to talk about the incredible opportunity we have to transform Colorado's future through historic federal funding. I want to begin by thanking Senator Juáquez Lewis, Representative McCormick and Representative Burnett for hosting this important conversation tonight. I'm so proud that Colorado is recovering faster and stronger than many of our neighboring states. After seven consecutive months of decline, our unemployment rate has dropped significantly, well under 5%. And December marked the fourth straight month with Colorado adding at least 9,000 payroll jobs. But despite the momentum, we know there's still a lot more work to do to save Colorado's money to make our state more affordable for everyone. That's why this once in a generation, American Rescue Plan Act funding is such an exciting opportunity. With these one-time funds, we have the chance to invest in real solutions that get to the root of some of our most pressing challenges as a state. Challenges like affordable housing, rising housing costs or pricing people out of neighborhoods they've lived in for decades and often make it difficult for businesses to recruit new talent near where the jobs are. Families struggle to find homes near where their kids is hence school. It's not a new issue for our state, but it's one that's gotten worse over the last couple of years. And our priority in partnership with the legislators and local leaders is to encourage more supply of housing on the entire continuum of housing development. While ensuring the investment of these resources is done in a way that supports our environmentally forward-looking solutions and well-planned growth to reduce traffic. We're also focused on strengthening our workforce. Our workforce needs to be agile, which means focusing on skills-based education where learners, both youth and adults, can upskill and reskill over their lifetime to maximize their earnings and potential. That's why we're looking forward to expanding work-based learning opportunities including apprenticeships, investing in navigational services and support for job seekers and giving people the digital skills to initiate their employment search and to obtain the best work possible. And finally, we want to invest to ensure that Coloradans can access mental and behavioral health resources that they need when they need them. This pandemic has been hard on Coloradans, which is why we want to cut through the red tape and create a streamlined system that puts people first. It's going to take all of us working together to turn this vision into reality, and I know that we can do it. And we wouldn't be able to do it without tonight's host, Senator Juáquez-Lewis, Representative McCormick, and Representative Burnett. And I want to thank all of you for your hard work on the behalf of the state of Colorado. And to the attendees, thanks for joining us tonight. All right. And then we're also lucky enough to have a video from Congressman Jonah Goose. Hopefully that will work. Hi, everybody. Jonah Goose here. I am proud to represent Colorado's second congressional district, the most beautiful congressional district in the United States in the U.S. House of Representatives. And I want to say thank you for everyone joining today to discuss your concerns, your ideas, and your perspectives. I am so sorry that I can't be with you in person today. But I am sure that my good friends, Senator Lewis, and Representatives Tracy Burnett and McCormick will provide great insight with respect to their work at our state capital and everything that they are doing to serve our communities every day. But I also wanted to take this opportunity to share just a few brief words with all of you before this important discussion. It's no secret that the last two years have been difficult for everyone. Every day, teachers are accomplishing the impossible, and our healthcare heroes are putting themselves on the front lines of the pandemic by taking care of Americans in need. When I voted to pass the historic American Rescue Plan one year ago, the health and safety of those leaders were at the top of mind. And as we continue to fight back against this pandemic, it's critical that we continue to provide needed resources to our community and provide access to high quality, affordable healthcare. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we're working to do just that. The plan is providing direct housing and nutrition assistance to the Americans hit hardest by the virus. The plan is supporting hard hit small businesses by providing the necessary infrastructure for them to get back on their feet. And the plan is providing the resources needed to allow schools to be open, ensuring the safety and success of students across our country. There is progress still to be made a lot of it and healing that we need to do. But together, we can continue to address both the public health and economic needs produced by this pandemic and deliver vital resources to our local communities. I'm so proud to represent a district, a state, a community with such dedication to crushing this virus through action, and I'm so grateful for the role that each of you played to move the needle forward one step at a time. Please know that my offices are always open to your calls to hear your ideas your suggestions your concerns you name it, and to work in partnership with you to solve this problem. I'm here to represent you and your values, and I want to hear your solutions. So thank you again for hosting this town hall today, and for sharing your thoughts and your concerns. Please stay safe. And stay hopeful. All right, great message as always from congressmen to goose. Everybody, Jonah goose. I don't want to watch it again though. All right, let's start on our legislative update from our members. Let's start with representative Tracy Burnett. Hi everybody I wish I could see all of you in person but thank you for being here tonight and Tracy Burnett representing Eastern Boulder County, Longmont Lafayette Lewisville. And I'm going to just kind of a quick update. House bill 1249 micro grid roadmap micro grid is spelled wrong, by the way. This is this has just been read over. It is a bipartisan bill that is really looking at grid resiliency. That means like if you have a wildfire and a transmission line goes down, you know, how do you build in resiliency of your electric grid. As well as just the regular occurrences that keep our that that sometimes disrupt our electricity like I call it like squirrels and tree limbs. So what this is doing, this is a very strategic roadmap that looks at how can we improve the grid resiliency and reliability of our electric grid, using micro grids micro grids, think of, you know, solar panels and storage. So, this is, I have to say, no one so far knock on wood is against this bill it is a great bill because it hits so many things needs that we have here in Colorado. And my other bill that just got read over is a house bill 1252 public school contracts, and what this does in a nutshell, it saves schools time and money, and it protects student data privacy. And by that I mean, you know, there's a lot of school districts say they spend a lot of time, you know, negotiating contracts vendor contracts for goods and services. But the problem is a lot of times, especially with large vendors, the their headquartered in a different state, and the law if there is a violation in that contract. Those, the laws of that other state apply not Colorado laws. So think about things are Colorado laws on student data privacy, and just think about how much time is spent in renegotiating these contracts to make sure that they fit and and and work with Colorado laws. So this is, this is a bill that was brought to me by the same for in Bella school district. And, and, you know, it again it's a bipartisan bill and will save a lot of schools time money and protect student data privacy. This is down to my big bill. And that is air quality and I know I, you know, I've talked about this before it is an ozone improved ozone air quality improvement bill. And as you know we have some of the worst air quality in the world. Wildfires have make it worse. But what I'm doing is, this is fundamental. This is fixing the process for high and try and bending the curve on getting back into attainment on ozone. You know, there's a lot of modeling. What the health department does is that they model air quality, and if a new source comes on, you know, asked for an air quality permit, then they model it and they say, Okay, well, you know, we'll write you a permit. What I discovered this last year is that many of our smaller sources of air pollution are not even modeled. And then think about it, not only many of them are not modeled but think about the cumulative effect that the cuba impact of all these different minor sources that are not even modeled. This is the core of what I am trying to do is model that so and make sure that when another another source comes along, if it is going to increase air emissions, we do something about it. We don't issue that permit or we do something else so that we don't keep making our ozone problem worse. There's other parts of this bill to increased air monitoring monitoring. This means aerial monitoring, stationary monitoring, all those things so we can find out where the problems are with our ozone problem. It includes enforcement, it includes reporting to the public having the public have a bigger voice in how we bend the curve and get back into compliance on air quality. So, I know a lot of people are excited about this bill they're like when are you going to bring it over rep or net. It is a big transformational bill, these kind of bills take time it's coming along it's coming along so hang in there. Okay, another really big bill I have is a model energy codes. And this is really going to help transition Coloradans to a clean sustainable future by we need by doing things like having elect new buildings having been electric vehicle ready electric heat pump ready so that we can wean ourselves the off of gas, if we want for it but they're for those who want to still have gas into their building. They need to compensate for the carbon that is created. When you're burning that gas. I think one of the things I've learned in putting together this energy code bill is is indoor air quality. I found out recently that simply burning and burning, heating a cup of water on a gas stove, the air pollutants that are released in doing so would not be allowed by the EPA if it were outside. I think people are going to learn more and more about how dangerous the indoor air quality is by burning fossil fuels in our homes. So my final thing I just want to say something about the Marshall fire. This is something I've been working particularly hard on Louisville is, you know, is is my hometown here. And on. We, you know, I just have to say, this is the third time I've been involved in relief efforts, due to a climate change disaster was Hurricane Sandy in New York City was the floods in in Boulder County and now this and I'll tell you when I was in and and did relief effort for the Marshall fire went dang. This feels so familiar. So what we've been working on is things to help. I see. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I just want to make sure we have time for five minutes Karen and myself and also. One last thing I am, I'm working to get immediate relief for the Marshall fire victims residents who are affected, as well as how do we what can we do what can we learn to help with the future disasters that are going to happen. Thank you. Sorry, sorry, sorry went over. No worries, no worries. Do we. So should we commissioner loachman is here should we let her go or we finish with questions for max I just want to be respectful of people's time. Commissioner is not on yet so Senator Hawkes Lewis you can take it away with your legislative update. Okay, great. Excellent. Hi everybody, Sonya Hawkes Lewis here I have a long month and Lafayette and Lewisville and I see so many of you on I'm going to do a shout out to Mayor peck from Longmont has is here tonight and we have city council woman Deb Fahey. Speaking of the fire. She is one of the most impacted person, people in Lewisville, Deb, you know, our hearts are with you with you losing your home there. Thank you for your service to Lewisville. And Jennifer Prenti is on. She is looking to be a house rep in the future so Jennifer just want to do a shout out. So if you see some of my bills here I've spoken with many of you on the town hall and other town hall settings but I'll just do a quick update. We could really use your help on Senate bill 131. That is our people and pollinator protection bill. This Thursday at 130 you can testify it will be before Senate ag it will basically stop some of the chemicals regulate some of the chemicals that kill bees and hurt children to we have great science indicating that school schools are affected. And also give local control so that communities cities that want to regulate pesticides can do that. Also the don't tax dignity it's also known as the tampon tax over 20 states have passed that across the country. It's a tax break to many women and working families. It's an unfair tax on medical necessity so we want to, we want to make sure we offer folks that the ability to do that. So I think I saw a comment I know that Carol and Kathy are on the town hall I know how much you support our vote without fear act. We can no longer accept intimidation at the polling centers we've had instances reported to us that someone with a open weapon is within sight of a drop box, we can't have that and I do I think my colleagues in the house for passing that and getting over to us thank you so much for that commitment. The wage theft act. If we had had time we could have actually had the Attorney General speak on that he's been helping us. That's to modify so that folks that are owed monies and wages we can make that process simpler. And yes someone asked about fracking regulating water use in fracking well we it's not exactly in this legislation but we are trying to make sure that we can do more regulation around what is happening with documenting. What is happening with air quality as Tracy mentioned and chemicals that we can track them more it's a it is a mandate for the oil and gas commission. I won't you'll, we'll let you know when the bill is launched but we've been doing a lot of stakeholder. I will stop there but last comment is, we are still doing everything we can for fire victims from the Marshall fire as Tracy mentioned. We were able to get property taxes stopped for this year why should you pay tax on a property, you no longer have, and that bill has passed and will be signed tomorrow I'm so proud to say we are signing that bill to tomorrow so we are going to continue to work on this it is not anything that we are not going to be watching all the time through the session and beyond so I'll stop there because I want my call I want to hear about Karen is up to Ed McCormick you can go ahead with your update. Thank you I'm setting my timer. Thank you all very much so these are some things that have already gone through committee so that first bill is a bill that was brought to us by people that are in the Medicaid community, particularly with having to access occupational and physical therapists and speech therapists on the ability to use therapy using equine movement which is using a horse in assisted therapies that can prove very beneficial to the patient in improving outcomes in their treatment and it was not being reimbursed properly through our department here at the state level. This has been worked on for many many years and we finally got it through very happy to say and I want to alert everyone that there is a brand new state of the art community that CSU is housing down here in Denver that is a beautiful beautiful building I recommend everybody go see it they have an entire arena with a glass wall where you can watch these therapies happening and very happy to get that through the next one is a bill that will help many of our nonprofit agencies and nonprofit organizations are have really been struggling these last couple of years. They use quite a bit of their fundraising comes through charitable bingo and raffles, and that has really fallen off and hurt them tremendously there's probably over 300 nonprofits that depend on charitable people that are looking for their expenses. And so, we did get that one through that will increase their ability to offer a few more games which is great. The CDPH data bill is one that was brought by the state of Denver County, specifically addressing LGBTQ community and seeing areas of health inequities and access, especially through co bid, and this bill will direct the Colorado Department of Public Health and direct data at on a voluntary level at the patient side on sexual orientation gender identification disability race and ethnicity so that as we get better data and it'll be disaggregated and not identifiable. And so that's one of the best ways to drive better outcomes on on the health care side. The Veterinary Practice Act is every every profession that is regulated through our Colorado occupational regulatory authority comes up for kind of review every 10 or 11 years. The Veterinary Practice Act is up and what's, what's kind of exciting about it, not because I'm a veterinarian that's exciting but that we also are folding into the practice act. A new profession, which is the regulation of the veterinary technicians and this has been in discussion with both professions over the last two years. It's a collaborative effort that came together very nicely that will be heard and committee next week. I'm still working on a diaper changing station bill that was brought by a constituent of ours. And hoping to get late bill status on that to make sure that diaper changing stations are available to all genders and any bathroom in publicly owned buildings. It was brought by a young father with his baby that was frustrated trying to find a place to change his baby's diaper. I'm also working. There's a bill coming from the Senate side that Senator Hanson is working on that was a big environmental bill and there's a bill that has to do with agricultural resilience, as well as ways that the agricultural community can be a real partner in addressing climate change. And I'm waiting to see if I can get on any of the five buckets that were discussed by Max Nardo in the housing task force I'm very interested in moving forward and on some of those issues that we can bring bring home to Longmont and with that I have 20 seconds left I'm going to stop. Thank you all for your updates. I think we, we don't have Commissioner loacheming on yet. So we can see if she'll get on in the next few minutes, but we can move into a q amp a right now. We do have. She's here. I see her. Oh, oh, perfect. Hi, County Commissioner. Go ahead if you wanted to go ahead with your presentation we have plenty of time for it. Sure. When I started this good afternoon my name is Martha loach we're able to kind of Commissioner district to. And I just got the link so I apologize I was hoping to hear the rest of the presentation and be able to build off what you're talking about but I was asked to join you all and thank you for the invitation to talk a little bit about in less than five minutes to really big topics. One, our friend Boulder County and then to Marshall fire. So really briefly just to give folks an update was leading the community engagement for phase one of the ARPA state and local funding for Boulder County which is 63.3 million dollar allocation just for the county everybody. Let's talk about the different buckets that are going around and in other areas, and for other particular focuses. And so we just started today actually had a significant working group with about 60 members of our community community partners Boulder County staff department heads, and each one of the commissioners will be taking on what the community has told us through that phase one community engagement process of the, the areas that we need to focus on for which is housing, no surprise, economic challenges probably not a surprise or either and then mental health and social, social isolation as the third topic so very excited about that work just kick that off for phase two today. The other piece is around Marshall fire and clearly we all have a lot of work to do. The initial response was significant. We, there's, there's not time to give gratitude to all the folks and all the players all the partnerships the collaboration that we're able to do evacuations, etc, etc, starting on December 30 and the staff in every department all over has been on the ground since the incident command center since the disaster assistant center that was set up by that Monday after which really is one of the quickest responses from state and federal supports as well. There are 27 agencies in that center that DAC has since closed, and huge shout out to Community Foundation Boulder County who has been a significant partner for all of us with 30 million plus of raised funds at the community that the first $5 million was given to address our residents in some of those initial pieces. The donation center is open. The long term recovery group has been forming over the last three weeks so there that is a different opportunity for folks who are still asking how can I help. How can I be involved, we have different subcommittees that are working on there. The other piece that I'm sure people are asking about is the debris removal. Those are significant conversations that we are having right now, not just the town, not just the city but also Boulder County as far as the unincorporated Boulder County residents who lost their homes and so those different line items are pieces that we are working through together. And as you all know the good news last week was that all three of those jurisdictions made the commitment to use FEMA funding, state funding and county funding to create that solution, including foundations for residents who were directly impacted and lost their homes and so that's kind of one of the pieces the other one just from an update standpoint. The commissioners have are taking leads on that. Those pieces now from the Marshall fire, the I'll be working with the long term recovery group, as I said we're still looking for volunteers there's folks addressing everything from and that needs, rebuilding to the local and spiritual needs, and a few other groups that are working there. Commissioner Claire Levy has taken on a significant role for unincorporated Boulder County residents, meeting with them weekly to hear those specific needs and guiding us in that response, and Commissioner Matt Jones is working with the rebuilding team. And the other piece that there's a lot of conversation about is the the green building and Oscar our office of sustainability sustainability climate action and resiliency is doing a lot of work with a lot of the partners I'm sure that are participating this evening and a lot of our state legislators to give residents an opportunity to also not just rebuild but rebuild back in an efficient and sustainable way. And the code. I'm sure somebody's already spoke about it so that is is the quick quick summary and some of the particular updates that folks are asking about the long term recovery group meets every Tuesday from 10 to noon. The unincorporated residents are meeting on Friday afternoon but noon and the rebuilding work continues with partners like sweep with our department of Oscar and some of those proposals are coming through so that we can use sustainability to fund those very important issues that will create long term opportunities and open some goals, including potentially some text amendments of opportunities of using ad use for residents right now who are asking for who need a place to live in the interim. So a lot of work happening. Thank you for the invitation I don't know if there's going to be time for questions and or in the chat. Perfect. Thank you so much for that presentation commissioner. We do have a little bit of time for a Q&A like I said if your question isn't answered I'm sure there are a lot of questions that won't be, but we'll get to a couple of them. We'll be reaching out directly. All the questions will go to all these panelists. Before you do that one I would love to see Commissioner Loachman what else do you need from us I know money money money is always good and we did the tax deferment we're putting the money back in to help keep counties whole help keep Boulder County whole. What else do you need from us is there anything else specific because you've got us here we are. Thank you. Thanks for the question I mean yes you're right and I think that the conversation about funding and resources is is going to be a long one. As I mentioned before a community foundation has stepped up to really be an anchor of philanthropy, and the need is, is much greater. We're talking about an uninsured amount of over $100 million in a need there's FEMA's been on the ground SBA's been on the ground and I think it's a part of the communication that could be very helpful is really looking at how much money has been brought in, and reminding folks that we are supporting, and what other creative ways that can we come together and utilize and leverage and make sure that we're communicating what really is. So that's going to be important and then looking at some of these other opportunities that might create solutions. At the same time because we've got issues that were already existed, we already had obviously a lack of housing and we had other pressures in our communities and so how do we bring in some other opportunities I know folks on this call have been really helpful in regards to some of the conversations with Excel, with the rebates that really are going to be supporting folks to be able to eliminate something off of the long Excel spreadsheets of costs that are going to be incurred so I appreciate that that question. Great. I think we had a question from Elizabeth about, is that the one you were going to do. Senator Hawkins Lewis. Yeah, I think we had a question from Elizabeth actually now I'm trying to find it. So, I think it was about water, but does anybody see it Karen Tracy. I answered, I answered one. Yeah. Okay, we do have another one on funding from the response template. It can go to anyone who wants to answer. I know you all are interested in this. But is there money being spent on mitigating the effects of climate change. I don't know if this is more general or having to do with ARPA but feel free to answer how you wish. Okay, I'll take a, I'll take a crack at that. I'd have to say that, first of all, last year it was really transformational in terms of the number of things that we did from a climate standpoint, and that money. And what I'm seeing right now is I'm getting calls from Canada, from other places around the world about some of the bills with my bike clean Colorado bill that is focusing on using clean greener construction materials. So a lot of the things we did last year are really percolating, let me say across across the country and across the world. I look at the, you know, the things that we still need to tackle the air quality, you know that bill ozone is a greenhouse gas, by attacking the addressing the things that are impacting ozone, that is addressing climate change. Building codes bill. This is getting us to off of the hardest thing it is to get off of and that is the fossil fuels that we use in our buildings. So this is money is being spent, you know, on, I've got, you know, money will be spent on that. Like I said the air quality, we're putting money toward a lot of the monitoring equipment. And rep McCormick did talk about agriculture I think that's another area to, to address, as well as there's another thing I've been working at it won't come out this year but this is the next thing you know everybody talks about net zero that we have to go we have to do better than that. We have to pull the carbon that's already in the atmosphere out. Carbon carbon dioxide removal CDR this is something I've been studying up on. I know the city of Boulder is actually doing some work in this area. So how do we foster pulling the carbon that's already in our air out and sequestering yet. Great Tracy thank you. I mean we there's so many things contributing to climate change we have a very big commitment to have more EVs and more EV infrastructure. That's in the infrastructure bill that was passed by by federal by Congress. We have an oil and gas bill that I'm working with some other folks that's going to hold the oil and gas companies accountable for PFAS and benzene in the water. You know we, we have, I think the Boulder County delegation is leading on green energy and climate change issues. We have a lot of our folks at the Capitol look to us and we are so lucky to have President Fenberg now Steve Fenberg, and who's part of our Boulder County delegation now the president of the Senate. So, yeah, any, anything else Karen you want to get in there on climate change or we're going to expand on what we're, what is being worked on with Senator Hanson's bill and initiative out of CSU and those working in the Colorado collaborative for healthy soils and the ag next program and many many others on a portion of that bill that will really direct the participation of the ag sector in this whole issue and how best to encourage and participation in that in that piece with ag producers farmers and ranchers across our state. So I'm pretty excited to see how that particular piece of that bill moves forward, because it really could play a big role. I hope so sorry go ahead, Commissioner. Yeah, no excuse me I just want to jump in really quick on the question around ARPA funds and climate change climate change we, we know we have a climate crisis, and we also need to recognize and remember that our funds truly is for those most affected by COVID-19. And so, and what makes that really challenging for us right now is we also have folks who are very affected and in need, because of the Marshall fire, but we have to be really careful about federal guidelines and ensure that we are using those funds, each bucket of funds for for the correct pieces so I just want to make sure that we message that out as well. And I also wanted to respond to the question about y'all have got y'all's attention right now. Disaster case management will be a need in Boulder County. We still haven't finished an unmet needs survey, there's still assessments out there. So we don't know what the typically 10% of those affected who have registered for aid will need help. So just a, just a last ask in there since it was put on the table. Thank you. I'd also like to say that there's a lot of wildfire mitigation bills that are going through right now. So, yeah, this people are really waking up but thank you. Yeah, we want to be respectful of folks times. Max, thank you so much. Really Max is an expert at the capital he's amazing, his knowledge we're so lucky to have him. And Commissioner loachman really thank you so much. We're so lucky to have you in Boulder County. Any last words of wisdom I'm just pleased as punch that we have so many people interested in what we're doing during session I'm glad we could get away I had fellow colleagues in the Senate saying, we can't believe you're having a town hall during session well you know what, we are all if I can speak for Tracy and Karen, we're committed to being available to you and this is one way to do it. I want to say that I'm also very proud, even though it seems very far away that the Senate and the House both passed a resolution and support of Ukraine, and how, how deeply we are our hearts hurt for this. And I think it's an integral part of a very important democracy and it's important that we do use our voices to stand up for those that are fighting for the same across across the world so I just wanted to recognize that we will be watching that closely and knowing that we, we deeply care about what's going on there. I just want to say thank you everybody for coming. I certainly echo rep, I say, Rebecca Cormac had some really heartfelt words this morning on the on the floor about Ukraine so. You know, thank you for coming. Keep the emails coming and I'm looking forward to the next town hall. Yes. Good night everyone.