City Council Meeting (with Several Controversial Issues)

5PM City Council Study Session

Budget Priorities
Council will discuss budget priorities. The meeting packet does not include supporting information, but it says that staff will convey the suggestions and feedback provided by citizens at an April 30th open house on the budget.

Note: I attended that meeting and offered feedback that their plan to build a new $65 million city hall without a vote of the taxpayers is "sneaky."

Fast Tracking Affordable Housing
Ever since 2017, when Council changed the Comprehensive Plan to say that 45% of Golden's housing should be "affordable," the planning staff has been saying that the only way to achieve that would be to relax regulatory requirements. Ever since that night, residents have been asking, uneasily, which regulations would be "relaxed." The answers have been unfolding over the past year. First we lost our 1% growth limit. More recently, Council voted to reduce parking requirements for affordable housing and the requirement to include a commercial component in affordable housing projects.

Tonight's meeting memo describes the full flowering of the Planning staff's dreams. The 15-page memo is packed with suggestions to speed approval of affordable housing projects. Among the suggestions are eliminating neighborhood meetings, eliminating Planning Commission approval ("would save an estimated 40 days"), and eliminating Council approval ("would save an estimated 45 days"). The approval process it describes would be a bureaucrat's dream--none of that annoying, inefficient public input process--just let city staff approve the projects.

2024 Events Review
The meeting memo includes an impressive list of public events on the City's calendar and includes a number of suggestions "to improve events in Golden through a more equitable, accountable, and transparent process."

6:30PM City Council Business Meeting

Proclamations
The meeting will begin with the reading of five proclamations:

Public Comments
This will be followed by public comment regarding any topic that does not have a public hearing. Only one public hearing is scheduled tonight--a ban on hunting within city limits--so any other topics should be addressed at this time.

If you prefer to provide comment in writing, send email to PublicComment@cityofgolden.net. Any comments received by 3PM will be added to the online meeting packet.

Council/Staff Comments and New Business
The Fire Chief will present an update to the Wildfire Protection Plan.

The Parks Director will propose a Naming Policy for city property and facilities.

The Deputy City Manager will present a progress report on Council's strategic plan. This includes some items that residents may find controversial, including

plans to fast track affordable housing projects
the plan to house unhoused people in the East Street neighborhood
various policy changes along the Clear Creek corridor
plans to hold another offsite (no cameras) council meeting this summer
a plan to "reimagine" the Visit Golden program
and especially the plan to build a new $65 million city hall without seeking voter approval.

Consent Matters (assumed to be uncontroversial items not requiring discussion)