The Community Sustainability Advisory Board (CSAB) held its regular monthly meeting on September 23, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:31 p.m. at Golden City Hall, 911 10th Street, Golden, Colorado. Four of six board members were present — Carrie Atiyeh, Claybourne Clarke, Todd Collins, and Adrienne Watts — with Jill Engel-Cox and Martha Gerdes absent. Staff present included Sustainability Manager Theresa Worsham and Sustainability Coordinator Samantha Neumeyer. The Board approved its agenda and August minutes, heard public comment on the proposed Clayworks natural gas amendment, reviewed public EV charging station policy and the 2027 sustainability budget, received a Universal Recycling Ordinance update, and finalized direction on its Clayworks response letter.
Staff presented 12 months of public charging data (September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026):
Staff recommended keeping fees unchanged and creating an overnight charging period (7 p.m.–7 a.m.) during which the 3-hour time limit and overstay fee would not apply, improving access for residents in multifamily buildings without home charging. Board discussion covered vandalism and cable-theft prevention (including ChargePoint theft-deterrent cables and lighting improvements), charger uptime, year-over-year usage tracking, grant funding, and placing chargers near multifamily housing. Board members agreed no fee change is needed and supported the overnight charging recommendation; they also agreed to flag future consideration of a multifamily charging policy for existing buildings and to use a future EV charging master plan update to review usage, uptime, and potential new locations. Staff will forward the recommendation to City Council, possibly for its October 27 meeting, and coordinate communications if the overnight charging change is approved.
Staff reported that the City's 2027 budget is expected to hold steady, and new programs without dedicated revenue are unlikely to be approved, partly due to projected declines in property tax revenues. Proposed 2027 sustainability funding includes: $85,000 for rebates; a new $285,000 capital request for bear-resistant waste collection ($100,000 for 40 public BearSaver stations along the creek and parks, $35,000 for 15 stations at Splash, and $150,000 for residential bear-resistant carts); $3,000 for battery education events; and no funding for a previously proposed $10,000 construction & demolition (C&D) waste program. Staff noted a pilot of 10 bear-resistant carts is being deployed through early December at homes with known bear activity.
The Board discussed funding priorities within the constrained budget. Members noted the 2026 rebate program distributed roughly $160,000–170,000 — about two-thirds for battery storage and solar — before closing in July. Board members also noted C&D waste represents an estimated 23–40% of landfill waste, and the regional landfill has roughly 10–20 years of remaining capacity. The Board agreed to recommend increasing rebate funding from $85,000 to $160,000 and adding $10,000 for C&D waste planning, without reducing funding for other proposed sustainability programs. Staff and designated board members will prepare a letter of support to City Council during its public budget review process (October–December hearings).
Staff reported that the state grant agreement (CEO grant) was executed that day, and an RFP for an outreach and education partner will be released the week of September 28. Staff described two regulatory models: the hauler-licensing approach (Brighton's "URO light," which requires licensed haulers to provide recycling service to all customers) and building-owner responsibility models used by communities including Lakewood, Lafayette, Louisville, and Boulder County. Staff recommended exploring the hauler-licensing approach as a practical first step and tying the ordinance's effective date to the availability of state Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) recycling reimbursements through Circular Action Alliance (CAA), rather than setting fixed dates. City Council approved an MOU on August 25, 2026 backdating residential program reimbursements to September 1.
The Board supported staff continuing in the hauler-licensing direction and agreed with syncing the ordinance with EPR reimbursement availability. Members discussed the importance of hauler reporting to support recycling reimbursements and City program tracking, and the potential for provisions requiring minimum recycling service sizes (as in Lafayette) to strengthen the program.
The Board reviewed the draft memo to Mayor Weinberg and City Council responding to the proposed amendment to the Clayworks Official Development Plan (ODP) to expand natural gas use for accessory amenities (pool, spa, fireplaces, grills, outdoor heaters, pizza oven). The Board's prior discussion on August 26 raised concerns that the proposal departs from the project's original net-zero sustainability commitments. At this meeting, members:
Staff will revise the memo with the strengthened language; selected board members (including Todd Collins) will review it; the final memo will be sent to City Council with Planning Commission copied.
The Board discussed consolidating the November and December meetings into one. Staff will send a preference poll for either the week of November 16 or the week of December 7; if the November date is selected, no December meeting would be held.
Staff reported work on the covered buildings list, refined to buildings over 10,000 square feet, and plans to file a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request with the state for data on buildings over 50,000 square feet. Owner outreach is expected to begin the week after the meeting. Board members emphasized the need for a clear plan to convert reported data into incentives, policy, and action rather than collecting data for its own sake. Commercial energy benchmarking will be an agenda item at the October 28 meeting.
In fact, it's it's almost right on when we modify that. So I'm not generally in the habit of modifying the methodology to meet the outcome. Um, but in looking at um if we could account for some more of that in a general way without spending hundreds of hours looking through bills and trying to parse that out. Um I think it's pretty darn close um to accounting for that. So that's the methodology we'll we'll use going forward and continue to look at the fees. So what that came too is I think you see in the in the memo, it's about 400 a little but more than 400 difference of what we recovered versus what we spent. So we're we're we're pretty accurate, I think, in this. Of course, if we have extra vandalism, then we will be deficient. Um, but we don't really plan for to account for a whole lot of things. Mr. Chair, Teresa, on the vandalism side, is there some thought of maybe doing more and having those sites surveilled or something to prevent that? Just I think we've considered it. Yeah, I definitely have considered it. There's a couple of options. Um video is expensive and and would require a lot more um installation and running maybe even a cellular service to be able to transmit the the data. The hard part about that is it even if we could catch somebody, it's not an immediate response um from PD and an after the fact kind of discovery sometimes yields that we can't uh necessarily identify somebody or you know if they're not in a getaway car that we see a clear license plate. Something like that. I just wonder if it would tour just having a camera there might not be as much of a deterrent as well as that. I guess how about if there's a sticker that says hi, you're on camera. Yeah, yeah. I think we looked at that. I don't know if it's illegal for the same. To say that you're not high. Um we've also considered ChargePoint has uh I would say it's a it's uh approaching more anti-theft or theft deterrent um cables that are harder to cut, um, and those are something that in news stations we probably will order those. Um it's a little bit more expensive, but we can try it out and see. The issue I've and it's been down south, but in Canyon City and in Walsonbury places where there's charge point, especially you know, like the the the bank of charges, is people will um scratch the screens and message so you just can't you know run it you know it's as an EV driver, it is a real you know it is a problem because you're banking on sort of you know getting to that spot and being able to use a charger and and I wish uh yeah, I wish ChargePoint would come up with something because you know where you can scan something and do it on your phone as opposed to trying to enter it into the screen because it seems like the screens are easily vandalized. Okay. Yeah. And I don't know everybody's different user experience. Um when I'm using them, I don't press anything on there, it's all through the app. Yeah. Okay. So I think that could be possible, but I don't know like that works for every car. Yeah, I don't know. But there's the ones where you can do the barcode, and we Tesla has some of those like the destination chargers, and that's a lot easier because then you like say you can do it on your phone. Okay. But the screens, sometimes with the with the charge point chargers, and I don't want to take us on them. This is a rabbit hole. But I but it you know, just personally, it's kind of a pep pee because it really is it becomes a real issue when you're trying to travel distances like you know, off of I-25 places and coming through here. Obviously, a lot of people travel through here and expect to be able to use a charger. So I think you know, I think we're in a waste in place that people can be on. Yes. It it does seem like an issue, and you know, I I would like to see some effort, be it through like a city surveillance or you know, something because it it does seem to really become an issue of recent. Yeah, we're staying in touch with some other cities too to find out like are you guys having problems too? It's kind of generally out there, but not a ton. Maybe we'll look at some lighting a little bit more too. We looked at Europe and what did they do? And apparently it's a different process. You if you have an EV, you bring your cord with you and then you plug it in. So there's no cords just hanging out there at stations to cut off.