Delegate Meeting November 9, 2019-Pending approval January 11, 2020

Sam Gary Library (Stapleton)

• Loretta Koehler, INC VP, called meeting to order at 9:00am (Quorum present)

Welcome

Thank you to Denver Public Library for hosting the meeting and providing coffee

Thank you to Stapleton United Neighbors for sponsoring the food items

Annie Kemmerling, Director of Neighborhood Services, Denver Public Library (DPL), welcome attendees to Sam Gary Library and presented a Powerpoint overview of DPL and made brochures available to attendees. Highlights included services available such as Genealogy, Gale legal form availability, various classes and presentations and author visits.

Minutes

A motion was made to accept minutes of October 12 Delegate meeting. Motion made by James Berezniak SUNI, seconded by Steven Epple City Park FANS. Motion passed with 25 in favor, 0 opposed, 2 abstained. (27 delegates present=quorum)

Committee Updates

Education Committee-Amy Duclos, Chair

• Reviewed election results related to DPS board seats- all good representatives
• Looking for Education Committee members!  We have four on deck, from NE, NW, and SW. 

Parks & Recreation/PARCs – Maggie Price, Co-Chair

Next meeting is November 19 from 6p-8p at 2020 S Monroe. Kendra Black will address Park Trust gap funding??

Sustainability- Christine O’Connor on behalf of Ernie Diedrich, Chair

Rethinking the model for committee meetings. Looking into holding smaller area-specific meetings to not only teach about sustainability but also to gather best practices.

INC is one of three sponsors for Colorado School of Public Health forum to be held November 14^th at the Unitarian Church at 1400 N. Lafayette from 700pm-830pm. The forum will focus on the health threats of climate change. Contact: kathleen.wells@case.edu

Transportation – Loretta Koehler on behalf of Joel Noble, Chair

Thursday, November 14th, 6-8 p.m

1. Denver’s New Complete Street Design Guidelines & Standards – Riley LaMie, Senior City Planner in Public Works, and Kristofer Johnson, Principal City Planner in Community Planning and Development Denver has begun the process of developing new Complete Street Design Guidelines, as called for in Blueprint Denver. The guidelines will be the guiding principles for the city’s public right of way, detailing how we allocate space to move more people more effectively. After completing the Guidelines, this effort will continue with a formal update to Denver’s Transportation Standards and Details. We will learn about this process and opportunities for public engagement from core members of the team from Public Works and Community Planning and Development.
2. RTD Driver Shortage Response — Michael Ford, RTD’s Chief Operating OfficerThe news has been heavily reporting what riders have been experiencing: RTD has a severe driver/operator shortage, and because of this, routes throughout the system have been missing scheduled runs. What are the key reasons for the operator shortage, what is RTD doing about it, and what can be explored next? Is it time to adjust the scheduled runs to match what can be delivered, in order to increase rider confidence that they will get to their destinations on time? We’ll be joined by RTD’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Ford for a briefing on these topics that both RTD staff and the RTD Board are grappling with.
3. Short Break (with snacks!)
4. Reimagine RTD — Bill Sirois, Senior Manager, RTD & Reimagine RTD Study

RTD has just begun its Reimagine RTD effort — a two-year open, transparent study to understand and forecast the transportation needs of our region and create a System Optimization Plan focused on near term (next 2 to 5 years) bus and rail service and a long term (next 30 years) mobility plan for the future . Including a system optimization/redesign effort, Reimagine RTD will look at nearly every aspect of how the transit operations are provided to inform a potential redesign of RTD’s existing bus and rail network. Bill Sirois, an RTD Senior Manager and key staff member to this effort, will give us the overview of the scope of Reimagine RTD, and will let us know about the regional advisory committee and the public engagement opportunities.
Denver Moves: Downtown Update — Riley LaMie, Senior City Planner in Public Works & City Project Manager for Denver Moves: Downtown

The Denver Moves: Downtown project as just hit a milestone, with the introduction of a range of possible transformative projects to our region’s economic core. Just one week after the presentation to the project’s Community Task Force, we’re delighted to have Riley LaMie with Denver Public Works share with us some of the large and small changes being considered for near-term and long-term implementation building towards a new vision for the future of mobility in our city’s center.

As INC and many mobility advocacy groups called for, Blueprint Denver recommends that the city entirely revise its street design guidelines in order to move more people, and move them safely. The city is following through, having begun the creation of new Complete Street Design Guidelines in progress, to be followed by rules & regulations to turn these guidelines into specific standards.  This month we have two of the core members of this effort joining us, demonstrating the close connection between land use and transportation goals. There’s a map-based survey open to gather input on what’s working and what isn’t regarding Denver street design. Check it out and encourage your networks to participate!

RTD has been in the news regarding both near-term challenges and long-term vision, and we’re going to hear from key people in both areas. Michael Ford, RTD’s Chief Operating Officer, will tell us about the serious driver/operator shortage that has caused so much unreliability in service, and the staff and Board’s alternatives to respond. Please take their survey, open through Sunday, November 17th, and share your thoughts on how they can best respond to these challenges. Looking forward, we’re also happy to hear about the Reimagine RTD effort — a two-year study to completely reexamine RTD’s operations from Bill Sirois, Senior Manager at the agency closely involved in this work.

Finally, we’ll get an update on the Denver Moves: Downtown effort, which just introduced a large set of potential short- and near-term multimodal improvements that have the potential to truly transform our core. We’ll be among the first to hear about these draft proposals, which were just presented to the project’s task force this week.

Zoning & Planning – Christine O’Connor, Co-Chair

Next meeting Saturday November 23 at 930a-1130a, 1201 Williams St, 19^th Floor

Special Program – All About Conservation Overlay Districts (COD)

• CPD kicked off the program with a short Powerpoint presentation about COD’s and the other panel members made short introduction statements.

• Opening presentations were followed by a Q/A session open to all attendees. Questions were submitted in writing at the event and asked by the moderator to the panel. 40 questions were asked and answered.
• The session was videotaped and will be available online in two weeks.
• This event will be also followed by a short emailed survey.

Moderator: Blair Taylor, Greater Park Hill RNO board member

Panelists:

• Rafael Espinoza – Former City Councilman District 1, Planning Consultant, past INC Board member

• Tim Boers, HUNI/Highland United Neighbors, resident and architect who led the three-part COD for HUNI
• Sarah Showalter, Citywide Planning Manager, Denver Community Planning and Development (CPD).

Special Announcements

• INC is seeking board members for the next term (March elections) and always welcomes volunteers and attendance to our committee meetings.
• There is no delegate meeting in December. INC wished all a lovely holiday season.
• INC’s next delegate meeting will be January 12, 2020 at Southwest Improvement Council in west Denver. Topic will be announced in December.

Meeting adjourned at 1115am