Hi neighbors! In last night’s Town Board Work Session and Meeting, we conducted a work session with the Rock Creek HOA Board, heard a presentation on the rulemaking process for the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, heard an update on airport noise mitigation strategies from our consultant, discussed legal language around liability in a ditch crossing agreement, and approved reimbursement of $2.2M for the cost to build the Superior Medical Center Parking Garage, which is now being partially converted to public use. Ready to find out more on what happened? As usual, you may read this post in written form, or scroll to the bottom for a video recap.

Disclaimer: While I do my best to represent an honest and accurate portrayal of meetings and events, the following should be considered an editorial that represents one person’s interpretation of the meetings. At the request of my fellow Board members, I am keeping their points anonymous rather than trying to attribute my interpretation to them personally. For the most unbiased and complete information, I would encourage residents to watch the meeting video itself and draw their own conclusions – visit the town website at SuperiorColorado.gov for the official meeting video and meeting minutes. Finally, I’d also encourage you to check out EngagedCitizens.us, which is a fantastic free tool created by one of our own residents. Engaged Citizens includes a repository of agendas, documents, and meeting videos, and allows you to search within a video to jump to critical parts. I hope you find it as helpful as I do!

Work Session

Monday’s Board Meeting kicked off with a working session with the Rock Creek HOA Board. We discussed the RFP currently in progress for a new management company, since our contract with Haven is up at the end of the year. We also discussed the events schedule, the potential grievance with Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport around airplane noise, and the policies around short-term rentals (i.e., AirBnB).

Item 2D – Board Reports

During Board reports, I called out huge kudos to the CAPS Committee and the Parks and Rec department for their tireless work putting together the Superior Spectacular this Saturday. Despite the thunderstorms, I was really impressed by the mix of artists and the creativity. For those who were unable to attend, I’ll share that one of my favorite booth involved eating ramen sprinkled with edible diamond dust in a dark tent next to a pile of coal – a pretty neat interactive experience!

CAPS and Parks & Rec have also done a great job working with Happy City, the urban design consultancy we’ve hired to develop our Cultural Arts Master Plan. Last week, I met with the two consultants to discuss placemaking in Superior and do a walk around of the Land Rover property, and I was really happy with the dialogue. I also attended the Well-Being Workshop facilitated by Happy City, and in that workshop, teams of citizens brainstormed ideas for cultural arts and events initiatives around town. There were a number of ideas that emerged from the workshop that I am personally going to start seeing if we can organize even before the Master Plan is finished: from a potluck community dinner, to a grant program for individual neighborhoods to launch their own projects. I am really excited to see the outcomes of this work!

A number of ideas came out of that workshop for the Land Rover property, assuming that our purchase agreement goes through. While the Board discussed at our last meeting that we wouldn’t formally engage the public until after the deal potentially closes, I created a brief four-question survey to begin gathering your input. What would you like to happen with the property if when it closes? You can access the survey here – I look forward to hearing your ideas!

I also attended the Chamber of Commerce Member Appreciation Barbecue. I was thrilled that we were able to host our neighboring chambers here in Superior at Wildflower Park – it was a great opportunity to show off our town! I want to say thank you and congratulations to the Superior Chamber of Commerce for their great work organizing this.

Finally, I attended the Louisville Library Board Meeting on Thursday July 11. One thing we discussed was the 50 Books Initiative, which encourages students to log the books they read and strive for 50 books in a year. As part of this, the Louisville Library will be honoring one student in the program each month as the “reader of the month”. I’ve spoken with our Superior Town Staff, and we will also plan to designate a Superior “reader of the month” to honor here at our own Town Hall.

Item 2E – Public Comment

During public comment, Superior Chamber of Commerce Executive Director TJ Sullivan introduced Tom and Binny Tercek, the owners of Goldfish Swim School in the Superior Marketplace, who moved here from New York City and plan to open their facility this fall. I was really pleased to hear that the strength of Superior’s Chamber of Commerce was one of the reasons the Terceks decided to locate in Superior. Mr. Tercek noted that Goldfish is focused on swim safety and getting kids to love swimming, rather than on competitive skills. I’m very excited by their dedication to the Superior community!

A few residents of Superior and broader Boulder County spoke up about the noise impact of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, including Kimberly Gibbs, the organizer of Citizens for Quiet Skies. The Board also heard from one resident of Superior who believes that the strategies suggested in the airport consultants’ presentation (item 2F2) are not lawful and will be met with resistance from the pilot community.

Item 2F1 – Presentation – Oil & Gas Legislation

Special Legal Counsel Matt Sura presented an update on the rulemaking process for the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). As background, Senate Bill 181 changed the mission of the COGCC from fostering oil & gas development to protecting public health, safety, welfare, and the environment. The Town of Superior is revising our Municipal Code to better protect the health & safety of our residents; however, Special Counsel Sura shared with us dates and methods for us to comment on proposed changes to Boulder and Jefferson Counties’ oil and gas regulations, which would impact Superior.

Item 2F2 – Presentation – Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport

Next, our Airport Consultant Jim Allerdice of ABCx2 shared an initial strategy for noise mitigation based on the research done thus far. Coming up this Wednesday night at 6pm, ABCx2 is holding an Open House to share even more details and engage in dialogue with residents over the issues and solutions of noise mitigation – more details here.

Mr. Allerdice shared a number of priorities and “strategies”… but I was dismayed to see that the “strategies” were really desired outcomes. For example, it’s no surprise to me that “discourage nighttime operations” is on the list… but how do we discourage nighttime operations, given that we don’t actually have jurisdiction to force this on RMMA? Tonight’s presentation was only a preliminary briefing, not a final report, but I’m concerned that if we only get as far as “desired outcomes”, we won’t have anything actionable and will simply have a well-documented wish list of complaints.

Item 3 – Consent Agenda

Next, our Board moved to our consent agenda – and unanimously passed the approval of meeting minutes and a proclamation for the 150th anniversary of the Boulder County Fair.

Item 3D, an amendment to the purchase and sale agreement for the former Land Rover property that clarifies the legal description of the property, was pulled from the consent agenda. After confirmation from our Town Attorney that this amendment was simply further definition of the property and not an actual change to the agreement, this was approved unanimously.

Item 4 – Ditch Crossing Agreement

This item was continued from our last meeting. To recap: the South Boulder and Coal Creek Irrigating Ditch Company owns a 50-foot wide tract of land along the north side of Rock Creek. Boulder Creek Neighborhoods’ Lanterns Lane project would like to do utility work to install potable water and reuse water mains across the ditch; in addition, a potential road / trail connection between Rock Creek and Downtown Superior would require crossing this ditch. However, there were legal concerns around liability language in the ditch crossing agreement, which the ditch company’s attorney would not agree to modify. At our last meeting, we tabled this item and asked representatives of the ditch company to attend this meeting for discussion.

At this Monday’s meeting, SBCCIDC did not show up, despite initially agreeing to do so. There was debate between the Board as to whether we should approve this with the existing language. If we did so, Boulder Creek Neighborhoods would be liable during the construction period (the riskiest time), but the Town of Superior would be liable for any incidents after the ditch has been turned over to the Town. We ultimately decided to table this one more week to see if we can get any resolution, and will hold a special meeting before the July 29 retreat to take action.

Item 5 – Downtown Superior Eligible Costs for Superior Medical Center Parking Garage

Finally, we discussed potential reimbursement of costs to build the Superior Medical Center Parking Garage. Originally, the parking garage in downtown Superior was built as a private garage for Superior Medical Center. When the 2016 Town Board approved this development plan, they included a clause that if the garage were converted to public use in the future, eligible costs could be reimbursed from the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) pool.

Based on estimates from independent engineer Walker Parking Consultants, the suggested split of the parking garage is 52% private (206 spots dedicated for Superior Medical Center, Monday through Friday 7am-5:30pm) and 48% public (38 spots available during those SMC business hours, plus all the spots the rest of the time). The hours of 1am to 5am were excluded, since this garage typically won’t see overnight parking. Therefore, the developer proposed reimbursement of $2.2M, or 48% of the appraised value of $4.26M. (The actual cost to construct was just slightly higher, at $4.58M rather than $4.26M.)

Our Board asked a number of questions around the previous agreement, how the split was calculated, and how much value this garage would provide to the town (given its slightly less than ideal location), and ultimately voted unanimously to approve the reimbursement.

Wrap Up

Thank you so much for taking the time to read / listen to this recap – I hope it is helpful! Our Board is always open to hearing your comments, questions, and concerns – you may always email your feedback to townboard@superiorcolorado.gov, or to me specifically at lauras@superiorcolorado.gov. As a reminder, any messages sent to a government email are part of the public record and will have your name attached; if you feel the need to write in anonymously, you may always comment at the bottom of my blog post recaps.