City Council Agenda and Packet 2018 10 02

Home Browse Search

City Council Meeting Minutes September 11, 2018 Page 3 of 13 Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked if $50M would be the total for this project. Sheriff Pelle noted there would be two years for planning and design and then they would use the money collected in those two years to save for the project and not have to bond or borrow against it. Mayor Muckle asked about bond reform. Sheriff Pelle stated the County is fully behind bond reform and doing many of things to reduce the pre-trial population. He noted the Boulder County Jail is holding many people with charges from other jurisdictions. Councilmember Maloney asked if this is a new sales tax. Pelle said the tax would be an extension of the flood relief tax that is expiring and replacing it with the exact same amount for the jail. He stated the County simply can't pay for this from the general fund. This is an opportunity to get funding without affecting current tax rates. Councilmember Leh noted this is not a new problem and it needs to be addressed. He asked about bail reform and if there has been headway in reducing the jail population. Sheriff Pelle said on some days there used be as much as 80% of the jail population awaiting trial, now it is 50%. He stated they are very cautious about incarceration in Boulder County balancing public safety and keeping in jail only those who need to be in jail. Councilmember Loo moved for City Council to direct staff to write a resolution in support of ballot issue 1A; Councilmember Leh seconded. Vote: All in favor. Councilmember Maloney stated he believes health and safety is our greatest responsibility and this should be the responsibility of the general fund. The commissioners should find a way to pay for this without additional ballot issues. DISCUSSION/DIRECTION/ACTION — TRANSPORTATION ISSUES AND BALLOT MEASURES Deputy City Manager Davis stated this covers several issues related to transportation updates and ballot issues. She stated RTD has recommended service changes to occur in January. RTD looks at their routes across the board and reviews ridership and utilization. RTD is facing financial challenges and having a hard time hiring bus drivers and looking at cuts across the board including in our region. One positive is to extend the 228 route to Kestrel which houses a lot of people who might be transit dependent. RTD is recommending a significant number of cuts. Our area has proposals of about 4000 hours of service reductions while other parts of the district are seeing increases, 14