Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to Basalt Town Council. Today is uh Tuesday, February 10th and uh we've got a full agenda, so we'll go ahead and get started. Um, but before we get into the actual meeting, I just wanted to remind everybody if you want to join online, you can go to basalt.net, click on the agendas and minutes tab, and then look at uh look for the February 10th, 2026 meeting packet, and uh that'll allow you to join online if you want to make comments rather than just listen. Um, so I will go ahead and call the meeting to order. And Pam, will you please call the role? Happily, let us begin with Rick Stevens here. Hannah Berman here. Angel Dup prebuchart here. Ryan Slack here. David Knight here. Deer Schindler here.

And Angela Anderson here. Great. All the aces are in their places. All right. Thanks, Pam. Uh, next up is item two, our consent agenda consisting of 2A, the minutes from January 27th, 2026. And item 2B, the Roaring Fork Charity Classic Beneficiary Selections. Um, I would entertain a motion to approve those uh consent agenda items as presented, unless anyone wants to pull anything off. Mayor, I move that the town council approve the consent agenda items as presented. Second. Uh, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. And I'm just going to abstain because I'm the board chair of Mountain Family Health.

Thank you for calling that out. Next up, we have our uh item three, which is the call to the public. Um just a reminders on the ground rules for anybody who wants to make comments. Uh limit your comments to 3 minutes. Address those comments directly to me. Uh make sure that you identify yourself by name and address. And there's also a signin sheet in the back of the room. Uh try to be courteous, civil, and constructive. Um and we'll make no no decision nor take any action except to direct the town manager. And I just wanted to also remind everybody that we do have two public hearings um and items uh section seven council actions. If you have any comments on that uh just go ahead and wait to those specific public hearings. And with that uh floor is open if anyone wants to make public comments.

Yes. See she knows. Not quite not quite long enough. Okay. Yeah, that one might be better. Good evening. Elise Hodddle, 113 Ridge Road in Basalt. Um, I just came to say hello to the current council and announce my candidacy for um the what are we in 2026 election. So, thank you very much. That's it.

Good to see you, Elise. Thanks. we have anybody else in the room or online? Looks like not. So, I will go ahead and move on to section four, which is uh mayor and council reports and comments. So, floor is open.

I'll chime in. Um, I know folks in Basalt are watching what's happening in our country right now and some are concerned, some are energized, some of us are being asked to not believe what we're seeing and everyone has their own politics and that's okay. Um, but I wanted to comment that what I have seen is chaos and cruelty and the killing of two Americans who are exercising their constitutional rights to peacefully protest and to speak freely and people including kids have been taken out of their communities. Um, others have died in custody. And I think the tactics used by federal law enforcement have shown some fear and mistrust in the institutions that I think ought to keep um our communities stable and our communities safe. And it appears that a constitutional line has been crossed. I think in basalt the measure of a just society is how we protect the fundamental rights and dignity of every person regardless of where any of us are born. Um and as a council member I feel like I get to see the best of democracy. I see transparency, accountability, civility. I also get to see the value that immigrants and the kids of immigrants bring as a part of our community. Um, I see that local government can get things done and I see that people can have good relationships with each other even if they're in disagreement. Um, and Basalt, we have excellent law enforcement and first responders, some of whom are here serving our community and in the room today. Um, and our law enforcement's mission is to do the right thing for the right reasons all of the time. I don't see this happening at a federal level, but I just wanted to reinforce that we

have responsibility as community members to be good neighbors, to pay attention, to treat people with dignity and respect, and to speak up when our lines are crossed. Um, and I also believe we have a responsibility to leverage our influence to ensure that in the long run, justice will be served and democracy protected. And I wanted to make sure that anyone out there listening can understand me. So I am still working on my Spanish, but Um, protest. personto custoch. local

mead. Democracal. Federal responsibility. democracy.

On a lighter note, I'd like to thank uh Theater Aspen uh for putting on an amazing show uh with the elementary and middle school kids this past weekend. Uh it was just it was so cool and it's just a one of the amazing uh nonprofits in the valley that uh helps support our kids. So that's a good good one. Anyone else?

I just um anyone down here? I've been on the grant advisory committee for Piki County for the last couple years with 25 other people and um all citizens and uh we just had our last uh meeting the other night to review the draft that's coming out in a couple of weeks and the comment period for anybody to weigh in on what they're proposing in this master plan is February 23rd. So Gloria and I have talked um there's a group of us that are working uh we've got different different planners are being contacted by different agencies. One of the things that came up

in the discussion Wednesday night was how much outreach had there been uh to adjacent municipalities and counties and fire districts. And there really apparently hasn't been much. Um, the planners that I've talked to in the last few weeks have been contacted by metro districts and by HOAs to kind of review the plan. Woody Creek Caucus has been engaged all along. There's some there's some interesting uh pieces and parts to it especially as it relates to housing where they talk about community housing which is a kind of a new way of looking at affordable deed restricted attainable employee etc. But the fact of the matter is that it's it's aimed at a middle income and above workforce and community housing being people that are considered to be more permanent in the community as opposed to transitory. So I think that's a pretty big difference between what we're looking at and what Pickkins looking at. The other side of it is on the land use side is that they're they're looking at building code and building codification code codification to address electricity and all the other things that we're talking about in climate change, but the acknowledgement of what's coming down the pipeline in the upper end of the valley is not being really discussed. And I think at some level it's a op it's a project that's siloed. The transportation committee that's been formed by Bennett and it sits on it um hasn't really weighed in either. I don't think unless it's been on the edges. So I've asked Gloria that um if we can get involved in that and take a look at it here pretty quickly. uh it's it's pretty fundamental from the point of view of um transit housing and a balanced economy and their vision of a balanced economy is a little bit different for what I

believe basaltt is. So it's it's worth taking a look at. Um public hearing process starts after the 23rd. I think it's March 3rd is the first meeting with PNZ. Then it's scheduled for the commissioners uh a few weeks after that first hearing with PNZ. So, that's where we're at. I'm happy to bring back more information from these other guys that are looking at it. They're all well known in the community as as experienced planners and um they're a great resource if anybody wants to reach out. These guys have already read the 162 pages or whatever it is of this document. So, it does have uh impacts to the lower valley and all the way to the I7 corridor what they're talking about both good and bad but definitely impacts. So, anyway, that's my two cents.

Thanks, Rich. Where have they released a draft of the There's a draft and um and where can it become? It's on the 2050 uh master plan agenda. I can get it to you guys. And it was in your Friday update. Um your email on Friday. Oh, the link. Yeah, the link. I did see that.

Take a look at it. Um and we have a we brought up just as an aside, we did a little list of what we're looking at here between Elbell and and the picking county line. And there's seven or eight development applications that are in some phase of of review or anticipated review or final review which is another uh we haven't seen that pace of development here in the mid valley

since willlets. So, in the tree farm, it's it's we're all wondering what's driving that, and I think we all know what's driving it, but getting to that point and being able to adjust uh to the next 20 years is going to be interesting.

Thanks, Rick. Anyone else? So, I just wanted to uh thank Hannah for her comments. Everyone's comments all the time are great obviously, but in particular, this has been a topic I think that's weighed heavily on a lot of us. Um, you I have to say, you know, some of the aggression that we've seen towards immigrants is um concerning. It tears at the fabrics of our communities, of our families, of just our economy, our ecosystems. Like, it's um it's definitely concerning. And uh you know I would like to uh um yeah just say that it also I think it also kind of moves what we consider acceptable and our and the norms that we um we see out there and it impacts us I think that in a negative way from that respect. I would uh like to get a dialogue going with some of our um state and federal elected officials um in the coming weeks here um sooner than later. But, you know, there's obviously a lot of scheduling to be done on on that topic, but also some of the other um topics that are kind of pertinent and going to be pretty severe um such as water in the Colorado River Basin, dismantling of um a lot of the climate infrastructure that's out there as far as like like Encar um and um all public lands have a rem there's a few things I think that you know we want to have these has a you know a lot of time will say, well, this is a state thing or this is a federal thing. It doesn't impact us. But those things have on the ground impacts for our communities. Um, I think understanding where our state and federal representatives, you know, stand on that, what, you know, what they're doing to mitigate it, where we can work together and have that dialogue going would be important. Um, so if if the rest of the council is amendable to it,

I'd like to get, you know, a letter to those folks to uh put together to uh get that dialogue going. um because I think I think it's important. I I think you there are some um unique circumstances to all this to kind of say the least that we need to get um take a little more action in a little broader way because of how it impacts our our region and our community. Um so you guys would you guys be open to that? Seeing some nodding. Yes.

All right. Um, so Gloria, I'll I'll probably work with you on putting something together and then we'll make sure we run that by folks. But yeah, um, appreciate you bringing it up, Anna. Um, my glasses back on so I can see. That's where I'm at. Um, managers report item five. I don't have much for tonight. Thanks. I'm preserving my voice.

Okay. All right. Moving right along. We have presentations. And item 6A is the call of the year award recognizing Sergeant Sergeant Travis Still by Royport Fire Rescue Chief Scott Thompson. So, everybody who needs to come on up and uh we can get more mics if necessary. Um I'm going to do all the talking.

Okay. Um uh we get to celebrate tonight. Um the firefighters and the police officers saved a life in June um in the town of Assault. Um, last month we did our awards ceremony. Um, and unfortunately, uh, Sergeant still was not available and neither was Battalion Chief Jason Hutter. I'm sorry. I almost say Jason Smith. Um, but I want to recognize both of them in front of the council. um how we do the call of the award. It's decisive actions, teamwork, and clinical excellence directly contributing to a life saved.

Um so, like I said, this happened in uh June 20th, 2025 when our 911 center received a call from the patient that he had received a traumatic injury at an industrial site here in the town of Assault. The caller was injured and he reported that he had cut an artery and uh blood was spurting from him. Sorry. Uh Roy paramedics and Sergeant Still were dispatched. Upon arrival, they encountered a patient with severe arterial arterial bleeding um and meet and they immediately began initiation of life-saving care. They recognized the critical nature of the patients injuries and an additional paramedic ambulance and a battalion chief were requested for additional medical care. Crews worked seamlessly together with Sergeant Still to control the hemorrhage, applying two tourniquets on scene. Given the patient's condition, emergency transport was initiated in route to the hospital. Um and during more intervention, excuse me, they had to apply another tourniquet. Um the paramedics also administered a medication used to stabilize blood clots, prevent further blood loss. Um and they successfully stabilized the patient and transfer them to an awaiting trauma team. The patient ultimately required emergency surgery and was later discharged from the hospital making a full recovery. So, I'd like to congratulate Sergeant Still, Paramedic Tyler Yoder, EMT Terrence Leech, Lieutenant Paramedic James Dirks, EMT Jacob Kedar, and Battalion Chief EMT Jason Hutter um for the call of the

year. Um, your actions absolutely saved a life and uh, thank you very much. Great job. Thank you. speech. Thank you. Thank you. Got anything for us, Travis? Well, thank you for that, Chief Thompson. Appreciate that.

Really nice. Yeah. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Travis.

Right. Next up, we have item 6B, which are which is our speed camera presentation by uh Aaron and Brandon Knox. Thank you all. Good evening. Uh I've come to you tonight to present on speed enforcement cameras. Uh with me online is Brandon Knox. Brandon Knox is a representative uh with Dacritech. Uh and Dacch is um has been used by other agencies uh in the look kind of local agencies on the western slope. He's got some good information to share with you all. a good slide deck and also some information on our speed study that we performed uh just to kind of show some issues we're having. Um so I'm going to turn it over to Brandon uh and I'm here for any local questions that can be answered.

Thank you very much for having me here tonight. I appreciate the uh time to take a look at these automated systems. Uh do I need to share my screen with you currently? Uh you can either share your screen or we can share share the materials here. Either way, I can share mine. That's totally fine.

All right. You can see everything on my screen there. Yes, we got it. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Again, uh my name is Brandon Knox. I'm from Derek. Uh just like Lieutenant said, um we have a product called Speed Enforcer, like you said, is being used throughout the valley currently. Uh in a multitude of your uh neighboring towns, probably the closest one to the north is Lwood Springs. Uh we have actually a third party with a company called Tapco. Uh they just acquired our partnering company, Traffic Logix, who supplies the cameras. So, you get kind of best of both worlds. Stack is a software solution that's heavily used throughout the Midwest. I'm based in Chicagoland. And then Traffic Logix is a leader in uh these uh traffic calming solutions while there's radar feedback signs, speed dumps. Um but they also have these camera solutions that are used nationally as well as internationally. But, uh, besides that, I mean, the main thing, the reason why we're here tonight, uh, to kind of talk on this and why I had to come in was to kind of talk about this type of, uh, issue, which is driver behavior, people speeding. And as you can kind of see in this image, uh, this person was doing, uh, 53 and 25 and they were actually passing, uh, while school children were walking. And we kind of all know that this could go from, you know, a semi bad situation to really bad if one of those kids goes out and screws around and runs out because the person in the Honda obviously passing in a in a school zone is doing the right thing. And ultimately, this is why we're trying to use these types of systems. And this is not the only thing that's out there in terms of traffic calming, but at the end of the day, these speeds solutions, they really do work. uh that person was actually a high school kid and ultimately he was uh stopped at a traffic stop. He got a warning first uh

through the system and then he was actually uh stopped at a traffic stop about 2 weeks later and then come to find out that they brought this up to him and had a nice conversation and then the luckily the good thing is is that uh he is fortunately never been seen on the cameras again speaking in these zones. So the good thing is is that there is ways to communicate with people in a cordial manner and you know take this seriously with allowing the law enforcement agencies to do traffic safety. Um kind of like what I said first there's not one main solution to traffic safety. There's no like you kind of said there's no magic bullet or silver bullet. First it starts with signage. Um signage is huge. DOS require all this signage. The next solution is the radar feedback sign. You probably work with either All Traffic Solutions or Traffic Logix, Capco, any of those companies that supply these radar feedback signs um to let people know, you know, when there's speeding. Now, again, of course, you know, people kind of look at these and they say, "Okay, let's see how high a score we can get." But the cool thing is is that those systems typically have analytical data that they're capturing and they can give that back to law enforcement or the city itself to know that these areas that you're having speeding in, they can actually feed you the data back to you. So those are really nice solutions. The third level is kind of a speed enforcer type situation. You get into an automated solution where now you're giving out civil penalties um and trying to grab people's attention and change behavior. And that's really where we're trying to kind of add those three layer approaches. But next level is, you know, it goes to a traffic stop. Obviously, you know, the lieutenant, his people are very good at doing that. Been doing it probably for many, many years, but ultimately at the end of the day, it's going to be a very different conversation if they try or stop you on the road. um to initially launch these programs. Uh you know, this is kind of the start

of it. Uh me sitting here in front of you explaining you what this system does and what it can do. Uh having a a dialogue first uh to kind of explain what's going to happen. Then you go ahead and you establish an ordinance. You work through, you know, how to procure the system. Obviously, we've had discussions with uh the people already about some of the things, but ultimately we got to get through that first phase of the ordinance to be passed. Once that's all established, when everything's put together, the state requires an AIS permit. Avis stands for automated vehicle identification system. Those permits are submitted up to DO and I actually have some data that we ran some traffic studies. um that gets supplied to them along with crash data, traffic stop data, uh as well as scale drawings. It's very uh kind of uh I would say intense uh process, but I tell you right now, the state has been great with this program. They've been very supportive of everything in terms of all the agencies. They've had great feedback with us as a vendor and trying to partner with all the other agencies to work with DOT on this as a collaboration. Once you get through that portion, then we get into installation, obviously software configuration. Now, to add more sites, it's simply just an addendum to the original plan. So, there's a plan that goes out to the DOT. They approve it. Obviously, the state police will also have a say in it. They approve it as well. And then once it's done, then again, it's just going back through the same cycle again and putting an amendment on it to add more locations. typical enforcement solutions like this, uh, you you first establish and launch a program. Again, I kind of talked about that a second ago. Um, once that's all done and you get through the permitting and everything's all in place, we work with your public works, make sure that permits are full to do, you know, whether they're site construction or

attaching these to existing structures. That gets done. Then we train you. Everything gets loaded up into the system and ultimately you start capturing your violations. You process them through a back office solution that is used on a daily basis. It is something that ultimately runs. It's kind of the heartbeat of the entire system and then the last part of that piece is the violator pays appeals or ignores. So once they get that uh that citation sent to them in the mail, they have choices to have. you know, they can, you know, say, "Hey, I want due process or request or contest it or request a hearing in person." They have those rights and we want to make sure that we're abiding by those rules and giving that full due process to those people. Uh they can all ultimately just pay and they pay the $40 fine that the state allows for it to be charged and then they move on about their day. Once that's all done, it kind of goes through the whole process. Then the analyzation of the data, you want to make sure the program is working. uh these systems currently that are being operational. I would probably say Avon uh is the hero of all this. We launched this program about 3 four months ago and I can say that probably 90% of all speeding is stopped at Avon um with the condition with the radar feedback signs or signage as well as these automated solutions. So, they've had a really really great story to talk about. Um, and they're very open to us speaking from other communities such as yourself that are looking into systems like this. These are what some of the solutions look like. Uh, Mountain View, Colorado being one of the first ones uh in the uh that's greater Denver area. Uh, but they ultimately have just a solar solution. There's solar and there's AC hardwired. Um there's night vision IR color images that come through in a mount of 14 to or

10 to 14 ft of air and then they're operational -40 to 140 degrees. Uh these have been battle tested in places like Ecuador and India all the way up to uh New Finland, Canada. So they they have the ability to operate in in severe weather uh conditions as we are in the mountain towns and you do have some severe weather. was just there a few months ago or a few weeks ago, but unfortunately we didn't have any snow, which was good for traveling purposes, but um I know you guys can get quite a bit of snow out there. So, uh the second one is Washington, Connecticut. That's one of our newest uh installations. So, very professional looking breakaway poles, solar panels, the whole nine yards. So, those are those are probably the newest, latest, and greatest installations are out there. It's nothing that looks, you know, kind of janky and all over the place. You know, we want to make it streamlined and inconspicuous as possible. Uh when it comes to the actual system itself, we we are tied by DOT and the state to abide by the specific rules of signage of how this is all constructed. So when we submit our plans to them uh in conjunction with the city, there's specific signage, there's specific distances have how many have to be out on the road. Once that person drives through, they're going to see multitudes of signage. And then ultimately, if they have still not slowed down or they're not paying attention, the camera will capture them from a rear facing. Okay? So, all the images that are taken are all rearfacing. Uh data, this has become uh a very very big topic. Um we take the data uh very seriously. Again, uh Dac has been in business in the municipal space, uh doing local courtroom management up to county courtroom management for close to 26 years and data management is a big

big big thing. Again, the city owns the data. The data is not owned by the vendor. I don't have any permissions to share data. I do not sell data to other companies. Okay? In my contract, I am bound by those. We have those in our master service agreements. The other big piece is that we use inlets which is a 50 state repository to pull registered owner information. So when people are getting these in the mail that's how we get the registered owner information inlets holds us to a very very high standard as well along with sieges and sock to compliance. So again data is huge in this arena. We want to make sure that we're abiding by all the rules and the regulations that are set by your state as well as federal laws. Just quick question. What is the data retention policy as far as how long duration?

Currently, they they they're kind of vague on it with these ASC systems. Uh most of the systems that we've seen in Colorado so far right now, the trial based system, most of them are looking to hold on to it for at least a year. Uh that's for anything that's gone through its holding process. If there's anything that's open as open debt or anything like that, they're still holding on to it and going down other um matters such as collections. So, they're using the uh the power of the due process to run through and then they eventually get the collections based on your state statutes. Great. Thanks.

Uh step and then we kind of go into the actual uh processing of uh of these citations. It's kind of done in three easy steps. uh we streamline the software as much as possible but again there's still a human element that has to be involved in this because if you don't have a human element then the system is ultimately not going to work. So in step one, we're confirming violations. That's actually Dert Techch employees. Most of them, actually all of them are all retired law enforcement. They are just looking at the uh the individual violations. They're making sure the plates are correct, the images are not blurry. They are only going to validate at that stage to basically be prosecuted in the court of law. So has to have all the correct evidence in order to say yes, that person was speeding. That is them. That is the registered owner. And that is their plate. That is all they're looking at. Secondarily, step two is taking an action. Again, another human element comes in this is where the officers now are looking at this and they're saying, "Okay, I want to take an action." Meaning sending a citation, warning, or doing a rejection. Okay. Then it goes back to Dertech again on our end in step three of sending notices that goes through our mailing houses are actually stationed in in Colorado. So it's kind of a nice uh segue into us working kind of some of your businesses. But the cool thing is is that the mailing houses take care of all the mailings is that the city is not uh responsible for sending those out. We'll kind of dive into the software just a little bit. This is one we use. This is uh step one of again the vi the the validation aspect of it and confirming the violation. They come up in these card views and ultimately our processors are using um we call it a dual OCR optical character recognition. All it is is it's basically a piece of the software that reads the license

plates not only from the camera side but also from the internal software side and it makes sure that those license plates are correct. The reason we want to make sure they're correct is because if they're not, then they're avoided tickets and they can't be sent out. So, we make sure we take that very seriously. It'll also even pull in the automation of the make model of color and the state, the camera location as well as time data stamp is required, the speed over limit and then ultimately there is some other features in the back uh part of the system that allows us to understand like how many how many times people got violations in the past. Um that is transparent and is given to you as a another feature to understand that maybe we need to take a different force of action. Uh this is what it looks like in step two. Now we're starting to look at again you have your make, model, color, license plate, the speed there, the fine amount. Then on the right hand side is the who, what, when, where is basically who it was. And again, these violations are set to the registered owner. That's per state. Okay? It's not going to the individual person. I don't know who's in the vehicle and neither does uh the law enforcement agency, but those only go to the actual registry. At this point in time, again, you're just taking an action. You're either creating a citation, a warning, you're rejecting in the first 30 days. As an agency, you're can only send warnings. Okay? So, and uh that's a big piece of it because again that's where we see the biggest drop off and the biggest behavior changes actually is during the warning period and the setup of the canvas cuz people are then now aware like okay we know that it's not okay to speak and we're fully aware we get a warning perfect that means like yeah okay they got me let's let's make sure we are paying attention through the time these are what the uh notices look

Uh the first one is City of Dublin. That's in Ohio. They do a morning only program. We're nice about that. They have a whole dedicated website called Slow Down Dublin. You can even scan that QR code on the little notice there. It actually works. Uh but this is what the mornings look like. They look very similar to a citation that is in the middle, which is Mountain View. And as you can see, they have a $40 citation. They have the still shots and images. And then they have the evidence package that goes all with it. So it's date stamp, location, how fast they're going, miles per hour, and then it also has a QR code on here, which is also important, which takes you to the citizens portal, which is a forward- facing uh URL on your website that allows people to pay and contest an appeal or request hearings. So, that entire thing is forward facing to the community. And then on the back side of the set of violations, it gives all the rules and statutes and regulations of how, when, and where the people actually go and take care of the system, their next course of action. Uh the citizen portal again can be accessed directly through the phones, through your laptops, uh desktops. There's contesting forms. It's all digital. So again, the biggest thing is most people are, you know, asking is, you know, they want to get on the digital formats, but again, we also want to be flexible. So there might be a phone number that they might be able to call in if they want to request a hearing if it's, you know, an elderly person disabled. We want to be flexible in the system to allow people to have their day in court if they want it or if they just want to call in to make a payment, send in payments, things of that nature.

Um, this is one of the Now we're going to kind of talk about some of the behavior changes that, you know, I I saw when we first uh launched some of the programs. This is actually uh Connecticut. Uh, this is one of our probably biggest uh wins. This community had a had a really really large problem. They had a lot of fatality crashes um and a lot of issues uh on one of their corridors which is actually the escort route 66 and the name Middletown legitimately they're in the middle of the state. So, they're in transitory town. People are flying through all the time. And during the warning period, this person uh that was speeding got seen a total of 21 times speeding. And they were warned multiple times. Uh and you can see some of these speeding events were 20, 28, 26, 27 miles over the speed limit. And it's actually called kitty cats. It's like Uber for kids. Um they're taking kids to and from school and to events and things like that. Um, I did hear that this person no longer has a job, which is good to hear because ultimately you don't want the speeding on these roads, especially the kids in the vehicle. To kind of talk about the whole type of reduction in speeding, again, this is that white paper that comes from the old town. They have a 94% reduction in reckless driving. So, they really focused on those 20 overs to begin with. They had a compliance level of about 2% in that corridor of people actually staying under the speed limit or at the speed limit. We reduce that uh speeding events by 94%. Which is huge. So now they're starting to actually move down the thresholds of their speeding and they're moving around the system into other areas such as schools and things of that nature. But that was a huge huge uh drop. And the funny thing is is that I'm not even showing the warning period. In the morning period, I think it dropped almost 60% just in the morning period

alone. So, it was pretty big. Uh this kind of gives you more of an idea of the compliance level. Again, when they started, they had about a 2% compliance and about 70 some uh 70 some% of the people were actually just speeding constantly. Once they went through warning period and cameras were installed, it it immediately dropped. People understood that they could not speed in those areas because the signage went up. They were very good about the public campaign which is a big part of so we'll help you guys with your public campaign your websites get it out into the ethos saying hey listen this this is coming we can help you and guide you through that uh through that process but again their compliance level is now I think it's upwards around 60% again this kind of tapers off this was done last year but right now the uh police chief the city manager as well as the mayor and all the council members they're very happy they've actually started to see a lot of their crashes start to taper off. They had about 20% reduction in grasses as well. So, it was a big win for them. And uh again, I'm going to go start going into some of the data. So, we ran a traffic study uh for Val. Now, this traffic study is not ran by. It's done through a third party uh engineering firm. uh and they ran some tube studies which I'm sure drove around the town uh during the time period when it was done. They saw some tubes on the ground and that was what it was doing. It was ultimately collecting data. We did it in two sections of your uh highway 82 on the north side as well as the south side of your town. And what we found, we did this by direction. So we had both going northbound southbound both of these studies. But this speed summary is pretty much the biggest piece of this. So when DOT is looking at these systems in general, when people go to submit their AIS permits, uh what they're first and foremost looking at is traffic volume. And then they're also

looking at 85th percentiles. 85th percentile. If you don't know what that is, it means that the speed that they're traveling at is an average of 85% of the vehicles that are passing in a given point of time. They're 85% of them are going at speed. So, the one I'd like to highlight the most is this Highway 82 southbound. You have a 45 mph speed limit there. The 85th percentile is 59 miles an hour in that area. So what that means is is that 14 miles an hour over the speed limit is close to the average 85% of the time. So that's that's pretty that's high there. There definitely DOT will look at that and be like, "Okay, yeah, you need a system. You need traffic calming. You need some uh measures to be put in place such as a system like this." Um some of the other locations um definitely people are over the limit on a lot of these. I would say anything that's going south on the two different uh sites seem to be waiting the most volume. Um now when we talk about the bins, so you can site at 10 and over. Okay, so we actually run studies. We say okay give us 11 to 15, 16 to 20, 21 over the speed limit. That's what these bins are in the red uh colors. Typically in the first month for 45 days is this 11 to 15 you're going to drop it by 90%. It'll almost be non-existent. That's what we've seen through most of these programs throughout the state. What most behaviors can be changed at is working on these other top two days. So you can kind of see that the volumes they're still pretty daunting. I mean these numbers are extrapolated over a 30-day period. We ran a 7-day study. So, we took the 7-day, you know, average and then the average is over 30 days. But you guys have a lot of traffic. Obviously, you're transitory road between Lwoodland Springs all the way

down to Aspen. Um, so very familiar with the area, but the the thing is is that ultimately at the end of the day is trying to tamper down these top tier streets and try to focus on those to change that behavior. That's really goal oriented for you guys. And then as we move through, these are the individual studies on each individual site. So it breaks it down more into, you know, a monthly and a daily venture. Uh we use these uh for the DOT team when we do submission. But the cool thing is is that we also can use this as a barometer of what it's going to be on a daily management for the uh the police department and how we can best suit this and roll it out to the community. Now again, the other thing that you'll have to take in consideration, this doesn't take into consideration of repeat offenders. So that's why I always say do not focus on this top tier one, this 11 to 15. Focus on these other ones because those are the people that are going to be flying by. Again, you can make rules up on how you site people. That same study I was telling you about, Middletown, they don't they don't give you a ticket twice in the same day. I think that's a fair rule. Uh I think if you're violating every single day, then then then it's it's a different scenario. But they have rules in there where you know people are flying back and forth between work, they did not siphon them twice in the same day. So those are other ways you can do this. It's not always has to be a hammer to get everybody's attention. Get people's attention by being kind about it, but ultimately being firm about that it's not okay and holding people accountable. Again, these are these these individual studies. You can look at them. I know the lieutenant probably has those for you guys if you want to review them. Uh then again, like I said, we ran this for 7 days. It was ran from 12:16 to 12:22.

So, drive around all the time. That's that's when these uh studies were conducted. Obviously, you guys had good weather and timing at that time. There was, you know, clear skies, things were, you know, there wasn't a ton of snow on the ground or anything like that at that time. So, that's why we got good results on those. Again, you can ask me any questions you want. Um, but that's uh what I have to kind of share with you guys tonight as of right now. And I'll kind of leave it up to uh Lieutenant Munch to finish off here.

I don't have a whole lot besides that. I It's good information. I think for me um it it's scary uh and unfortunate that it was I knew it would be high but I didn't know it was going to be that high. Um so um I'm hopeful I can uh get your support I guess and move this project forward. So can I answer any questions? I have a very basic understanding question, but why are speed tickets given based on nominal speed rather than percentage? Like I can imagine five over in a 25 is a bigger deal than five over when it's 55.

Well, I guess you know what statutoily it talks about that um we can't we're not giving those tickets out past or under 10 under 10, right? Yeah. So, um, we would just be concentrating on that 10 and over piece. Um, I guess are you asking why it's just applied in that direction or

Yeah, I guess just like philosophically why it's based on the actual mileage rather than the percentage. I think I mean there's a lot of in our job there's a lot of discretion you know there could be a lot of different factors um you know with with where these speed areas speed limits are located um like you said it it depends on if it's if it's on Homestead and it's a very low speed um but a ticket may be given because you have houses right off the sidewalk and it's very condensed 82 is a very wide open and it may be more lenient for an officer to give ticket that's that's higher. Um, I think it really just comes down to discretion of of officers and how they feel the the scenario is playing out in front of them. And um, it could be come down to somebody having a terrible day and they're not paying attention, you know, um, not just the speed limit and uh, black and white.

Yeah. And I'll just add to that I think to your kind of bigger question on that. So the it's a statutory regime. There's a model traffic code and it my expectation is it's just easier to implement than a percentagebased system is that you create these categories of speeding and they apply regardless of you know it's a speeding 10 to 19 miles per hour of the speed limit whether the speed limit's 25 or 55 just because it's easier to implement that way. Yeah. And did we also get data on how many accidents happen at those two locations that can be shared now?

Uh I don't have those numbers. I can definitely get those to you. Um where they're located and the reason we concentrated on these two locations couple different reasons. One um concentrating right now on Highway 82. Uh like Brandon talked about this transitory everyone just flying through to either get to Aspen or get back down valley. um and not really caring about our community and keeping us safe. So, we wanted to concentrate on on those people. Um the other part is in those areas, and I've I've kind of seen it firsthand living in Glenwood, how much traffic has slowed down well before the camera and well after the camera and trying to affect multiple intersections in both of those areas. Um obviously as you can probably imagine just because of the higher speeds the intersections on 82 is where we see the most severe crashes and injuries that come from those. So uh again um just really trying to affect those intersections and entrance and exit to town on both on both sides and that's where we kind of concentrated on on the speed study.

Thanks. I can get you those numbers. It it would take a little bit to go through those, but we get a lot of crashes. But I could filter through and get some numbers like ballpark at some point would be interesting for sure. Yeah. Uh so I have a couple questions. The that alarming number of, you know, the number of speeders southbound 82 at Two Rivers Road. I know it well. It's the turn into my own, you know, where I go to my house.

Yes. um in that section, right? That's where it goes from 55 to 45, which is why, you know, I think you get a lot of people going 59 and a 45. I'm curious where the speed study was done. Was it done in the middle, you know, because it's what is it a half a mile? I don't know. Of 45 and then it goes back to 55 on both ends. Yep. Um, was the speed study done in the middle or it was it was the Aspen side of East Two Rivers intersection. So, East Two Rivers uh turning into the like Elcron neighborhood this this way. Um, it was on the Aspen side. So, they had had I think it's in the 45 zone that time.

Still, you know what I'm saying? Still in a 45 zone. Yes. Um the interesting part just making sure we didn't like get you right when it went from 55 to 45 because I feel like that might be a little skewed. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. No, this uh it turns from 55 to 45 actually before Basalt Avenue. So you've got a full intersection prior to that and then it's actually two intersections past where it turned to 45. So it's it's well into the 45. Quite a bit. Yeah.

Yeah. And then my other question is about the technology and the cameras that read the plates. Obviously where we are we have not this winter but um hopefully some inclement weather, right? So when it's really snowy um how accurate is it at reading the plates? And then also um again in a hopefully more normal winter um like I think about like my car. There's a lot of times where like it's very hard to see my plate because of all the dirt and mud and um so how accurate is it at reading license plates through all of that which I think is fairly common in winter driving conditions here.

Yeah. And I think that comes back to what Brandon was talking about is having those the the the first step and the second step where it's actual person looking at it and confirming that it is actually that plate. Um not just an automated computer saying that's it and send the ticket off. You actually have their retired law enforcement officers looking at it confirming and then they send it to our staff to look at it on our on our end and then we can confirm it as well. So, um, and I'm curious how many of those can't be confirmed. Do you see what I'm saying? Because then those people are violators that are never even getting a warning because 10, 15, how many%, you know, can't be confirmed?

That might be a question for Brandon. Oh, in terms of Yeah. So, so we call that uh in in our industry, it's called breakage. Uh, so there is a probably a national standard of around 15% breakage that happens. Um, and that's from sun glare. It could be, like you said, mud out of the thing, mic packs, things that you can't see through with the camera and and that's the ultimate thing. But you're at around like 15% breakage is typically what we kind of see from things that are contributing to the camera not being able to see the full. Any other questions

for the data storage piece? So, it sounds like people are going to get well, we'd have like names and addresses. Is the year standard practice? And I guess I'm asking I know Colorado's part of a lawsuit right now with the federal government as to whether they can share

data with the federal government or not. And I I guess I'm asking from a place of worry of like are we going to cause concern to folks that their data may go elsewhere? Even if we're saying we're going to keep it private, if someone else tells us that we have to turn over that data, what tools do we have legally or via the software to keep that data local? Uh, and I think it's covered in this statute and maybe Jeff can confirm, but I'm I'm almost positive it does like we were not allowed to share that data as well. I think that's statutoily. Uh, it states in there, just even reviewed it this this morning. Uh, I don't know if you remember that portion, but um, obviously we set our own policies and procedures that we we will not share that. There's no there's no need to share that data.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I think the statute speaks to it as to how, you know, other government agencies or the federal government might attempt to get that information.

Um, I'm not familiar with the the lawsuit that's in place, but I mean, I think typically what I've seen in other contexts is if the federal government is involved, they'll have terms and conditions on whatever it might be. So if it's like a grant fund or something like that in which you would then be required to produce certain information upon I don't know to satisfy that condition but they're not a player as part of this this um what's being proposed here. So I'm not quite sure how that would come about but um there is that requirement under the statute related to data protection.

Got a couple couple questions. Um, so the, uh, as far as the placement of the camera on the up valley side, I know when you make the left off of Two Rivers, there is no 45 sign between there and the 55. We would put the camera, you know, make sure it's in a place where someone saw a 45 sign before they got, you know, in other words, see they got uh measured because other words, they could come off of uh two rivers and there's no sign and all a sudden, you know, but you're in a 45, you you should know it if you live there, but not everybody's cognizant of that probably. This is actually a conversation that Brandon and I had uh last week and we talked about moving it um before the intersection so it would more effective with slowing traffic down in the basalt intersection as well as the East Two Rivers intersection. Okay, good.

So we wouldn't have to worry about that left turn and not seeing a sign and somebody punching the gas real real quickly. Um but but at like I said trying to as people approach it and and get um knowledgeable about it just slowing traffic down approaching it and then as well as past it. So trying to affect uh and slow down the traffic where where more serious crashes happen. So we actually had that conversation.

What about the um communications plan for the uh violation violators during the warning period? What what do we have? Are we going to send out? you know, just a letter to everybody, you know, because I mean I mean the stepping back, I'm supportive of this because I like the outcome, not because of, you know, really anything else. People are going way too fast through town. So, I mean, I even if we lost a little money doing it, I think getting those those comps out like you're too fast, cut it out, slow down is good. So, are we going to really send those out to everybody during the uh warning period?

There there is that option. Um, you know, I we haven't solidified anything. Um, but there is definitely that option to send out written warnings like like Brandon had showed on that slide deck. Um, so yes, we we can move that direction as well. Okay. What any others?

I was just going to add just from a process standpoint, if council's comfortable with it, we'd come back to council with an ordinance that would authorize the implementation of the speed camera system. It would identify the locations where the speed cameras would be placed and uh you know there could be more discussion on like setting the parameters around to give direction to to PD on well here here's you know we want to have a warning period for 90 days or 30 days or whatever it might be. So that that's a I think a conversation that would go along with that ordinance adoption if that's where we want to go. Okay. Good.

Anywhere else you you'd uh you put them in? And I know we've had some complaints about speed like on East Valley. Um, and I know we need to do do the study and like the the leg work on Elk Run. Yeah. I mean, we see especially about your your house just right there at my stop sign, Aaron. Yeah. I mean, there's homestead. I mean, Eric, we've gotten, you know, a lot of uh comments over the last year about that. And you know some data really shows if not a lot of speed or some some a few crazy high ones. So um meaning like you know 20 or something over there some some high numbers but I don't know if you guys have had any thoughts about that.

We have had thoughts about it. Uh we're working with uh public works and big thanks to Justin on our speed kind of our own speed study uh camera um using that in in different areas and collecting that data. Uh, I think the nice thing is also if if these cameras are implemented in these areas, it frees up our patrol to get to these other areas as well. One more one one more option for us to be in those areas more often uh instead of um in these high volume traffic areas that we know are problems for sure. So, um yes, we have we have thought about it. Um, I think we'd like to start somewhere first and then see how how successful we can be and and and see what the data shows us um as we as we collect more information. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. Freeing you freeing you all up to do other things besides sit out on 82 is is a huge benefit. I'm sure Yeah, your folks will appreciate it too.

For sure. I'm just um I think Jeff's comment about how to roll this out is when we worked on different programs in private subdivisions with cameras like this, license plate readers, most of it was security based, but education, engineering, and enforcement were the three E that we always looked at um in terms of how to roll it out. And then you've already mentioned an engineering thing of moving the sign back, you know, to allow for people to have that warning. The other thing is is as you have we have C dot, Eagle, Pitkin, Basalt, Carbondale, Glenwood, um Snow Mass Village. We have multiple jurisdictions. Are these guys all connected in the same way so that this track tracks movements through? I mean, there's a huge discussion going on right now about transportation in the corridor. I had to drive home at 5:00 from Carbondale today and to me it gets more intense every day. The other thing too that we had to deal with is the perception there was a speeding problem when the reality was that it hadn't hit the tipping point of being a speeding problem until you had the data. 85% um is a higher percentage to get get to before you take action. So, is there a potential to look at that and say, "Hey, if we have a 60% incident rate of over 55 in the 10 to 15 mile an hour zone, is it appropriate to take another look or do we have to wait until it hits a number that isn't consistent in the community um before you start looking at it?" So just the other issue I had with the once we've installed is that there's no alert in the system where someone is really going 70 miles an hour. You have to go

through 24 hours of 48 hours of whatever you know viewing to get to find that person. I just wonder if if Brandon can answer that in terms of okay here's a red flag right here. that this guy has already hit it within, you know, is there an alert that, you know, tells you like a like a real time alert? Real real time. We're at least able the ability to go back through and look at 12 hours of data and 5,000 car trips and see, you know, you know, when the person's exceeded that. You wouldn't want to look at 5,000 cars. You'd want to look at 200. So, that was the other problem we ran into.

Yeah. Yeah, I can get to that. Uh, so there is I was talking about the analytics report uh reporting features there is a piece called top five. Uh I know Springs uses this Avon uses this. It is ability to see the most egregious leaders uh repeaters and then ultimately what it does is there's we use predictive analytics to say okay we flag these people when are the times in 15minute increments for a squad to ultimately go out there and sit. So it is using the data uh in a way to give you guys more proactive approach to it. Um, but again, it's it is a camera sitting out there. We want to make sure the right places at the right time. I believe that that is something.

Does that help? Yeah, hopefully. Okay. I think the engineering component is really important, too. you know that once you get past the process of talking to people about what you're doing, looking at our own systems and seeing what is major arterial and what's a state highway and all those other qualifiers in the planning process that apparently East Valley has turned into a real different differently described route than it was initially as a shortcut was a shortcut. people's speed on shortcuts. They definitely try. Yep.

Can I can I just presume before an ordinance is discussed that there'll be some sort of financial information uh shown? Yep. Brandon, you want I assume it's not free, right? You want to just Brandon, do you want to cover that on and then like why not why not 90 then, you know? So, it' be nice to see some numbers attached with what the ask is.

Yeah. Yeah, I I can give you a general general generalization for how it actually works. So, um yes, there is a cost to the system. First and foremost being the cameras itself. Um there is no upfront cost. So, there's no capital expenditure to the city to do the installation and the cameras. They're done on a lease. Okay? And that lease is what pays for all the ongoing maintenance and things like that. Then we have services that are tied to the individual cases. So like the mailings, the inance lookups, the processing, the court case management as well as internal payments. So all of those kinds of things were tied into one piece. And ultimately the biggest thing we changed over the last year, which is we just are actually rolling this out there now, is cost of travel. So yes, there is a cost to it, but we will never bill you over and above what the city takes in from a collection standpoint. So you will never owe money to DACA is what I would say. There is a cost, but you will never be on the hook to pull hundreds or thousands of dollars for citations that are set out that are never paid. Okay? So that's the biggest piece is this. Um, so we're trying to partner with you guys to make sure that the revenue where it does go, it goes to the right spot because that's where you have to spend the money back as that is more numbers and things like that, but that's the money does the revenue raise go into the general fund? I guess thinking through if we're trying to solve a problem which is public safety on Highway 82. I think people are speeding because they live way down valley. They have long commutes. They're trying to

make that a slightly less long commute to Aspen. So how could we channel any revenue towards alleviating that problem whether through housing rafta final mile connection things like that? It seems like probably a large percentage of the revenue is going to go to pay for the lease the software. Yeah. Yeah. And for the services.

Quite possibly. Yes. Um and then again like Brandon said, I think statutoily it defining traffic safety and where that funds go, how that is determined. Um I'm not sure where that that definition may lie, but um it does statutoily does um go down that route of traffic safety. I'm just thinking if this is a stick like maybe the stick can help fund some carrots to make people make safer as long as it's traffic safety related. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Well, presently presently parking tickets and and moving violations, there's a veil fund um that you you saw in your deck. So that there's a portion of the money goes there. There's also a portion of the fine money that goes to u training and then the other part is just general funds. So really it's split three ways when the money comes in like the parking tickets split three ways. I would summarize EPS in any sort of other direction the council had. That would be the uh that would be one way of doing it. It does lead to the cost question to the a question that I had which what are the statistics on violate is violators paying versus appealing versus ignoring. Do you have any of that information Brandon?

Yeah. So, so overall typically what we're avoiding notices about towns especially is it's paramount that we get make sure that the tickets go to the correct response location. So we have a multi-layer faceted approach to this because again you guys have this PO box uh I'm assuming you have the same kind of as a as a veil where there's PO boxes and then there's ex existing addresses. So, we actually checked to make sure that covering both bases, make sure it was correct place, uh, first and foremost. But once we corrected that, uh, it was at about 3% pay rate. Now, we're just in the upper 60s in terms of people just paying moderate. So, pay rate is uh, actually getting better and better every single day because we fix that.

And how many people appeal? You're looking at around like 10 15% if if that because there's not all. Yeah, once they figure out that it's like

it's kind of your you you have a picture of your plate and a picture of your vehicle and how fast they're going, it's pretty hard to just it's not like a red light where like people get the red light cameras up against the area where the people roll from the right and people just go all the time, but speed is much more heavily non-contested. So I think suffice to say when when you guys come back with an ordinance we should see like out of the financial model and be a proforma of what with all these uh variables what that would look like just so we have a sense of what this is going to look like. I know we're getting short on time too. Yeah, there would be the ordinance to authorize thea safety camera system by amending the code and creating the ability to put the speed cameras at the certain locations. And then there'd also be a contract to, you know, this lease agreement arrangement with with these guys to actually then once you have the authority in the code to then actually do it to implement it through that contract. So,

could we could we get any of this the statistics that we're kind of alluding to right now just so we kind of see that you know what the the um the breakage and all that kind of stuff just so we have that sense of what the what the overall picture is going to look like in conjunction with the contract. You like that all together or Yeah. When you come back like just part of the presentation. So, so staff is directed to bring the ordinance but with the financial like background and all of that. Is that I think that would be good. Okay. Yeah, cuz it can probably all be done in one sitting, right? Okay. Now we see this. It makes sense. Let's pass it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Great.

All right. Anybody else? Any other questions, comments? Thank you both. Appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. Take care. All right. Next up is item 6C, which is our youth empowerment programming corner store concept with Anna Feice and Ryan Honey. Hi everybody. Hi guys. Hey, thanks for your patience. Um, I think we know most of you. Anna Feice, education manager at Takaw. Ryan Honey, executive director.

Um, yeah. So, we are here to talk to you all again about a youth space in Willlets. You hopefully will remember we brought this to you all this fall. Um, and got some great feedback. have had some great follow-up conversations. Um, and really what we're going to show you today is just a little bit of additional detail to the overall plan and then what we're kind of thinking and hoping for in terms of next steps from you all. So, if we could pull up that deck, um, no worries. And we'll just jump down to slide five right away. The first few slides you saw previously, it's the background of what the space is packet. Yeah. page 53 in your packet.

And by the way, I'm not a speeder and she is a speeder. Yes. Um, yes, I've learned some things. Important takeaways for me. Um, yes. So, we can we can go down to 50. Which is it? Uh, 56. 56. Yeah.

So, 56 just to remind you all um of what the the model we're proposing here. So this is for that space on East Valley Road owned by the town of Basalt. Um this is a youth space that's the center of both our arts education programming and then a variety of other youth programming um provided by local youth serving nonprofits in the valley. Um the vision is really a centralized collaborative hub. So it's a place where kids can go after school out of school time. They can engage in programs. They can also have time for free space, homework, hang out, stare at the wall, we don't really care. Um, but a place that's safe, that has fun built-in activity, and then also has some programming where they might say, "Oh, hey, I want to try out theater." Hey, I want to learn about this Aspen Science Center, whatever it might be. Um, we've listed a few things here again that are ready to launch opportunities. this will, you know, shift as we think about the specific timing, but just reiterating that, you know, from the day the doors open, we will have programs um that can move over there starting that day. And then if we pop to the next slide, um what we have been doing is talking to just a few of other nonprofits that we collaborate with regularly that we know. Um and in those initial conversations, folks have gotten really really excited um about things that they are already doing that they could do and again do on like day one, week one bring over to this space for the Basalt community. So these are things that are either not happening in Basalt right now or are happening peace meal or on an irregular schedule, ways that they want to scale their programs and so on. So this is a sample week during school year. QR code takes you to a full spreadsheet if you want to see it bigger, although it's pretty big right here. And then the next week is a sample week during the summer. So, you can see

we've just kind of adjusted for um what's going on in a kid's dayto-day and a few initial examples of folks we know that would be eager to and willing to um to program. And then if we flip to the next slide quickly, um I'll just mention that this is our list of initial again preferred programming partners, people we already collaborate with, we have a working relationship with, we know would be um psyched on on engaging in this space and this would just continue to grow. But these are the people that, you know, when we're scheduling out a couple months in advance, the call would go to to say, "Hey, pick some dates, pick some times, drop in what you want to do in this space on that schedule." Um, and yeah, that it'll continue to grow as as we do more and other folks get excited about the space. So, I think

I'll take over on the numbers. So, we can skip ahead, James, if you want to keep going. I'll tell you when to stop. You want to get the first spreadsheet right there. So, uh, you've seen this before. This is our 5-year plan. We presented to you in the fall. Uh, we mapped out five years of running the space. Roughly, you'd lose around 120,000 a year, um, on running it, which for our projections of the number of kids we could serve as a total bargain and to cause, uh, prepared to to take that on in future years uh, once we get off the ground. Uh, so next slide, which you've also seen, this is our estimated infrastructure cost. Um we did a complete analysis of what it would cost to build out 274,127 probably a little higher because this was in the fall but that's uh the number we are we currently have. Next slide is our expected FFN costs. So the infrastructure was all related to you know getting it habitable bathrooms electrical drywall. This is the theatrical equipment the kids um you know stuff that we want to have in there. um and had a lot of fun going through with our teen our teen arts influencers talking about what should be in there and what the kids would want. So this is a list of things that we would want to purchase to put in there. And then the next slide uh so this is what we're uh talking about with you all is the request to you all is twofold. one is obviously the space, but two to solve the financial question which we came up against in the fall. Um we have the Rita fund which is um an ongoing fund that generates um money for arts and culture in our community that is allocated to Taka. The way the fund works if you're not familiar is we can use 10% a year um for operations. uh we send paperwork to Doug to validate that um you know we've got the money invested according to our uh statutes with the town and then he cuts us 10% a year to use for operations. Um we used we came the last time we came to council for Rita funds was um to build we we draw drew the balance down of the Rita to zero uh in 2019 used about a million

dollars to pay for the building. Um the fund is back up to 1.308 right now. So we're requesting close to 700,000 which is the cost we've talked about. So the the infrastructure buildout the FFN I put in the year one operating deficit because when we came to you in the fall and this went away we didn't plan for it this year. So we we're asking to pull that from the Rita. Our projected draw down in our budget this year is 130,000. So that would be included. And then um a contingency um and it's actually 15% contingency. we had an updated number, but um so that gets us to the 695 number that we'd be requesting. Um in the last two years, the Rita has generated close to oh actually more than 600,000. So we expect in a couple years the Rita would be um uh sort of back up to where it is now and continue to grow to set the table for us to use that for future developments. But this is exactly what the Rita was imagined to be used for is capital projects or program programming opportunities that come up and this is both. Um so the ask of you all would be to um give us a lease for the space and allow us to access the Rita funds above and beyond our normal Rita usage so that we can make this happen uh quickly and um you can go to the last slide I think if you want to keep going. So that's that's sort of the update from us and we're ready for any questions you have.

Great. Thank you. That's concise and I think pretty informative. Anybody have any questions? I know there are probably some. Uh, so just to make sure I'm understanding correctly, as opposed to the the previous ask, you'll obviously So the ask is obviously the the lease of the space for for free. Um, that's the assumption and access to the refunds. And other than that, if I'm understanding correctly, as a town, what we are losing out on is the potential revenue on the space, right? whether we sold it or rented it. Do I have that? The opportunity cost. The opportunity cost opportunity. And if you sold it, you'd have you'd be monetizing an asset,

right? So there's two there's twofold and then you know sales tax, property tax, monetization of an asset that right now is dormant and you wouldn't have the carrying cost of the property, right? Insurance, utilities or condo fee, HO, HOA fee is not insignificant. And I, you know, I didn't see this until late. I don't understand your draw down. So I know I'm not I don't probably have standing to ask a question but I don't understand that draw down the 130. Yeah. Yes. So that was based in our fiscal year 2026 budget. We have 130,000 allocated because the Rita was at 1.3 million at the end of the year. So I just budgeted that 10%. Okay. So as a source of cash not as a expenditure right no just just to do this all at once. we wouldn't do our draw down in October

be in le of

this would be in lie of let's just do it all now as part of this motion and we wouldn't do it in October um but on on that point I just wanted to sort of highlight something because we did this exact same thing with the temporary uh we opened the temporary in 2017 I asked our board to raise about $160,000 to get that open um which was a big risk for us at the time but if you look back then to you know that opportunity to what we're doing Now uh we you know our spillover spending at TA is about a million dollars a year at local businesses around TKA. We support about 35 jobs in Basalt. And I think I would I would position this opportunity as a similar opportunity is that we we can create something special for for kids that will that will have far-lasting impacts that will be more valuable than the money. I we've been talking about youth centers for a long time in various shapes and forms and this is a I think a great proof of concept of what that could look like. I mean there you guys have programming but there's also white space in the summer and school year calendars that could allow other folks to get in there and that we could really see what has legs, what doesn't. And I mean there's read the read of money. This is in my mind what it's intended for is for something like this, you know, outside of the 10% operational October thing. Um, so I mean I'm I'm supported, but that's that's kind of how I see it. Any other questions or comments?

I was just gonna add before the rest of council speaks on it. I think from a process, where are we? I think this is a check-in of staff's been meeting with Taka. Do we keep going down this path and work on a lease to then bring back to council for its formal consideration? I don't think we need to get into the the weeds of the elements of the lease necessarily and not all of staff, you know, including Doug has had a chance to kind of um be involved in this, but I think this is kind of that high level checkin on that. I think it's an opportunity to pursue.

I'd agree. Plus, as a bonus, then if everyone can go in basalt for their after school activities, we get them off of 82 with all those fast cars. I agree. I think it's a great opportunity to prove the concept, you know, do we need after school, you know, youth programming. We know that we do. Um, we were talking the other day, every time Youth Zone comes in and they talk about the work that they're doing, we ask what can we do to keep kids, you know, from getting into trouble, from, you know, using substances, all, you know, all the things they're getting up to. And they say every time they need programming, they need somewhere to be. they need something to do. Um I think that this is a lot risk or a lot less risky than you know building something and seeing if they will come. Um and you know I'm glad that you brought up the spillover spend because you know I live in Willlets. Uh we frequent to call and I see and and you know this you know there's data to prove it. people come into the community because of Takaw and they spend money and I know these are you know kids so it might be a lighter spillover spend but I I believe that there still will be um activity in the local businesses when you activate that space

we also expect it to create some new jobs right out of the gate we'd hire a new person underneath Anna to help manage that space but the the model we've articulated too is in the evenings uh it's it's open for kids but they have to be have some sort of supervision So, in the office, we envision having the teacher be able to be there uh from 5 until 9 or if it's a weekend till later. Um, so the kids can really have the space and not feel like they're being, you know, overly supervised, but there's an there's a grown-up on site who's managing that. And we envision that as being a teacher who could have a little bit of extra income, maybe they're doing lesson planning, maybe they're just having some downtime. Um, but we expect other jobs to be created as well. What about u movies since uh we're

Yeah. Uh popcorn machine. Yeah, we we've talked about having you know Friday we do teen nights with some frequency at Taka. Of course, when we do a teen night, we can't have other programming. So that sort of limits how often we do them. But we're thinking every Friday and Saturday there's something going on. That might just be like Friday nights is middle school movies and Saturdays is high school movies, you know, because they're kind of different groups. Um, but I would leave that to this person who is really good at this stuff, figuring out what the kids want.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was just going to say. And we have an awesome group of student leaders, a group of them go to Basalt High School who work with us and advise on youth programming. I think part of the awesome thing about this space being flexible is like maybe there is a middle school movie playing in the back and in the front we've pulled the curtain up and high schoolers or elementary schoolers or whomever are doing something else. They're having a game night. Um, one of the influencers had an idea for to call trivia night. So cute. Kids playing trivia. Who doesn't love that? You know, and that stuff could be going at the same time. So, it can work for multiple groups of kids and people.

Yeah. Um, that was my question is, are you going to have a governance that's modeled on a youth leadership program? And I'd like to meet those guys. Yeah, absolutely. So, next time we talk, bring them in and I'd like to look them in the eye and challenge them to build a sustainable opportunity. Kayla was here last time we presented and she is not afraid to look you in the eye and tell you what what should be happening. So, we'll bring she none of them were actually available tonight unfortunately because we would much rather have the kids talking for themselves. Yeah.

And I think your partners too um should express either in a letter or showing up that they're asking for programs that use zone, but there's other providers in that list that have programs beyond programs up and down the valley. So maybe their experience could help uh lead the way as well. You know, this the Esper Valley Ski Club has 2,300 kids right now, and I'm sure they have a pretty good handle on what programs are out there, summer, winter, all the seasons. The Roaring Fork United, you know, get those guys in the mix and have them advise as to what direction they'd go if they had the opportunity to do this. What would they do? What would their participation be? How would they market it to their communities? you know, bring in that bigger picture because it seems like it's focused on using Rita for arts and culture, but the other needs of students that aren't for kids or that aren't into that thing, but might be into this thing, you know, is is interesting.

Yeah, absolutely. We've talked already with Aspen Science Center, so they are on board and engaged and we can definitely get, you know, a letter from them or depending on what the next step is from them, STEM nights with like the Aspen Science Center would be super fun. Yeah. like focused kids doing mindful drawing and yoga. Um and yeah, so not simply focused towards

the other thing we're seeing in the Aspen Valley Ski Club and the Sunday programs is buttermilk is participation from the Latino Hispanic, you know, community that's twice what the participation is on Saturdays when we have the local running for, you know, basalt Carbondale Aspen kids. So, and those that's really a fun group to deal with. So, that's great. All of our summer camps are bilingual and I love to share the story. We had a woman two years ago have her kids here and for a bilingual uh theater camp and she brought them back the second year commuting from Denver because she couldn't find a bilingual program for theater in Denver. Wow.

So, uh there's we really prioritize trying to make sure those kids get where they are. The Aspen camp is re reigniting as well and uh they're heavily involved challenge Aspen.

They have they have their fund both challenge challenge the dev camp just did their fundraiser at Taka and then we do a weekl long camp with challenge Aspen. So they're already most of these organizations you're talking about are in the mix the the the fitness oriented ones like I I know personally because I've got you know one kid who's an arts kid, one kid who's a sports kid and one kid who's both. Um but the the my assessment sort of of the valley and I think Anna can speak to this as well is there's a lot of opportunities for kids who want to do sports and um you know doesn't have a a choir teacher in the middle school right now um that got replaced with another uh PE teacher and so we're trying to meet that need there. So

and I don't differentiate between sports and music and arts. I I just look at the outcome we get by engaging kids. So, I don't really care how they got there, you know, as long as they do. The other partner we've talked to is during the school days, um, groups like Eagle County Healthy Aging because kids are in school, so the space will not be being utilized by kids. So, we're looking for, uh, adult activations during the day that doesn't interfere with what will happen at 3:30 on apologize. One more. Are you familiar with the Mountain Youth Nonprofit in Eagle County? that is a huge um youth empowered leadership academy that they've evolved over there that's really brilliant mostly in like the Veil Valley side veil valley okay thanks

great I'll look at it speaking of note Jeannie McQueeny would be a good one great to talk to yeah I think it's hard to you know obviously argue with the with the myriad benefits um that this would have for the youth um it seems like a relative atively low cost and low risk way for us to add capacity in those areas. Um and I also think one of the benefits I see behind it is in looking at the 2e devel two 2e right is that I'm getting that right

development. Um, I think it could really guide that conversation if we have if we find, you know, cuz we're still a ways out from that. But if we find that after a year of this operation that that fills enough of this need, then it pushes us in a different direction um for that development because we've talked about youth programming and youth spaces and senior spaces. And if this space can provide enough of that um Yeah. I think it really educates that conversation. Yeah. The learnings that we'll get from having this will inform a lot of things and that's what I want to

it's like the temporary when we built the temporary we thought we knew exactly what we should build for Taka and then boy did we learn a lot. So same the same idea. Well spent a couple years learning. So it's pretty cool. Well do you guys have enough direction from council at this point? I think so. Yeah. Okay. Yes, we do. Cool. Thank you guys. It looks awesome. Appreciate the presentation. Thanks.

All right. Next up, we have our council actions. The first one is item 7A is a public hearing and first reading of ordinance number three series of 2026. An ordinance number uh an ordinance of the town council of the town of Basalt, Colorado amending section 8-2 and appendex Cult basalt municipal code to provide for electric vehicle charging rates and policies for town EV charging stations. We have Katherine and Justin. Yeah, thanks for having us Mayor Council. Yeah, we also have Mike Steiner with Holy Cross so he can

Yeah. can answer any technical questions you guys have. Um, this is something staff's been working on for a while. Um, it's uh, uh, related to the EV charging rates and policies. Um, as you know, as part of the council's strategic work plan, there's a goal of establishing a fee system for the use of the town's six EV charging stations. Um, the town has seen a steady increase in the number of EVs in the population's fleet in the area over the last few years. Um, and as the town has taken on more charging stations, the cost associated with them has become more significant. Um, and because of this, town staff has developed and proposed a policy to implement some fees for charging to help cover some of those costs. Um, Basalt currently operates and maintains six stations. Four level two stations or the slower chargers and two of the faster DC FC or level three stations. Those two are right out here outside of town hall. Um, your memo includes a figure showing the utilization of those six stations over the past four months. Um, staff used those metrics to create a pricing strategy that is designed to offset both uh utility costs, processing and software costs as well as uh the maintenance costs associated with these things. Um any remaining annual balance could be used for unforeseen repairs, future investment in EV infrastructure, or just general reinvestment um in the town. A summary of the estimated revenue and cost for the program can be seen in your packet as table one, and I'm happy to expand on that if you have questions. Um and this summary does not include uh the revenue that we might see from what we're calling overstay fees. Um, I'll explain those in a moment. Uh, the proposed base fee for the cost for EV

charging would be as proposed, it's 15 cents per kilo kilowatt hour for a level two and 40 cents per kilowatt hour for a level three. And then um as I mentioned, additionally, the char um charges would be allowed a grace period of 15 minutes after the charging is complete. And then after that, a 25 cent a minute um overstay fee would be charged. Um that's to encourage turnover and get more people, you know, a or get the chargers available to folks to use. the uh overstay fee would not be applied between 1000 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Um, moving forward, town staff will continue to monitor these fees. We do expect some reduction in general use of the charger stations, you know, as as people don't have free charging anymore. Um, in our cost assumptions, we assumed a 40% reduction um, once this gets implemented, but we'll um, you know, keep a close eye on how the programs running and should there be reason for adjustment moving forward, we'll come back in front of you to do so. But that's the overall summary. Um, we're I'm really appreciative of Holy Cross Energy for being a partner on this and and Justin's staff of course for help keeping on these EV chargers. They do they do require um what sometimes sees to be an inordinate amount of staff time to just keep up with these things and figure them out and they're worthwhile endeavor. We just want to make sure um you know we're covering our cost there. So happy to answer any questions you have. One question I had when I was reading this was um the overstay fee not being going in for the night for the level three because typically like the level three you come in you hit that thing you're there for an hour maybe and get and then get on your way. It's not really like the level twos or, you know, AC type stuff where you're charging that

I would get where you're not going to go out there in the middle of the night to move your car, but the the level threes, it's like you're passing through. I mean, that's that kind of typically is what you would do with that. What What's the rationale for the no overstay fees for those? Um, well, I don't know that we wanted to differentiate one from the other. I think being here longer hours, there are folks that live in relative proximity to those and you know, you don't need to come out in your pajamas and unplug them. I mean, I do think there's some local use of those. Um, but if that's something you'd like to adjust, I don't I don't I think that we'd be open to that.

I don't know if I would pick it apart now, but I mean, it's like I just wonder just the behavior with the with those fast DC chargers. It's like, you know, you're you're passing through. True. I mean, I don't It's not even really good for the battery to do that kind of charging on the regular supposedly. Um,

maybe it's just a different fee schedule and I'm coming at it from a slightly different approach, less so about preservation of the battery. But if there are people that live nearby that just use these as their chargers, I'm not entirely sure it is is fair honestly that the taxpayers are paying for their private vehicle charging all the time. Um like I I don't I don't love the idea of that. I'd love the idea of incentivizing people to get electric cars and I think that was the probably the idea behind getting these and providing them for free in the first place. Um, but that doesn't um I don't love that. So maybe it's just a different fee schedule, right? So if from 1000 p.m. to 8 a.m., you know, it's maybe not 25 cents a minute, but there's some nominal charge for,

you know, paying for the electrons going into that vehicle. They're not It's just for sitting. It's not for charging. Not for charging. It's just you're sitting there plugged in your batteries full. You're just taking up the parking spot. So, so the use case is, you know, for that you plug it in, it takes about an hour to charge. Meanwhile, you've gone to bed and somebody else may want to use the charger because they're trying to drive from Aspen to Grand Junction and they need a fast charge, but you're sleeping on the on the fast charger. I also think that that shouldn't happen. Yeah, that's that's the level two I kind of get because that's a different use case. should be available to the public at Yeah.

But the level three we should get on your way so people other people can use it on their trip in my mind. Okay. There's no overnight parking during snow removal. Yeah. That's that's from three to six. Yep. Okay. So your preference would be just to be clear that you would like the overstay charge to be 24 hours a day for the fast chargers. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, I I think so. Unless people want to do it for all. That's at least for the level threes. Yeah. To because of the length of time the level two could take, you know, that's a little bit trickier.

Yeah. And I could see like when I had an EV but was a renter and the multif family housing didn't do charging, I'd like use the Sko ones, but they'd be busy all day. So, I'd plug it in and sit there at 900 p.m. at night. um that at like for a level two charger it makes sense to not have the overdraft fee, but for a level three like yeah, I could get in and out in half an hour at 10 p.m. and hope it's still available. I know it's kind of a knit, but this just jumped out at me and I was reading. I mean, this project is basically knit. All it is is knit.

I appreciate all you guys. This is a public hearing, too. And I didn't didn't do that initially. So, let's go ahead and do a public hearing really quick and there's any other questions or comments, we can hit those. So, I'll open the public hearing here at 7:44. I don't know if anybody online there is here to make comments. No, those are our design and I don't think there's anybody in the room that I see getting up. So, I will close the public hearing and and continue with questions or comments if there are any other ones. the rates seem to be in line with totally with what I've seen in the last few months. Um,

last thing I'll mention just full for full disclosure is um I noted in the memo there is like a 9% software fee and credit card processing fee. Uh we'll just pass that through right on to the consumer um along with any taxes obviously. So if you were to charge, you'll get your per kilowatt hour charge on your bill in addition to that 9% in processing fee and then any taxes. So um just for full disclosure on that. I mean, for example, in picking county, they do 60 cents an hour or 60 cents a kilowatt hour for their charging, but they let me know that there's likely a slightly higher because they just bake in that 9% where where this uh you know the whomever is using that will just be a direct fee rather than us trying to guess on on those associated fees. That makes sense.

Cool. And so you just you're going to use those card readers that are already on there and just kind of activate them with the merchant services. Yes, that's right. And on a t from a timing standpoint, I checked in with our um um our maintenance person and the fellow that's helping us with all this. And in the public process, this would be effective March 19th. And that's a reasonable timeline for him to get the system up and running pro prior to that effective date. Cool. Any other questions or comments? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion. Mayor, I move that the town council approve ordinance number three series of 2026 on first reading and continue and set the public hearing in second reading for February 24th, 2026.

Second. Is that with the amendment on the level three chargers to have the overfe the the fee over overnight fee? I read one of these hop in. This is me being helpful. Yes, that's what the amendment about with the amendment. Cool. Second for that. Second. All right. Um, it's been moved and seconded. We don't have This is I can do a voice vote for this, right? Yeah. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate all the toil that I know this has been.

No, it's a good last few months.

Uh, okay. Last item is item 7B which is a public hearing and first reading of ordinance number four series of 2026 ordinance of the town council of the town of assault Colorado approving code amendments to the town code amending section 16-4 definitions se section 1622 district regulations section 1631 supplemental requirements for R4 mixed density residential zone district section 1665 plan unit developments approval of procedures article 19, housing mitigation and additional article 23, chapter 16, accessory dwelling units. James and Michelle,

long title. Um, this is a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance that would approve of code amendments to permit ADUs throughout town in the residential zone districts uh and to amend the town's affordable housing mitigation requirements. Uh as just a bit of background, uh economic and planning systems EPS completed the town's housing needs assessment in 2024. And amongst the policy recommendations were that the town uh consider creating an ADU incentive program as well as allowing ADUs throughout town. Uh the needs assessment also recommended considering code amendments to the affordable housing uh mitigation requirements. And so the town contracted with design workshop and EPS uh to establish the framework for the ADU incentive program as well as to produce the code amendments on these topics. And so uh design workshop has proposed amendment language uh that's included in your ordinance. And we have Eric uh Chrome Gold and Christian Weber from Design Workshop on Zoom call uh to present the proposed amendments this evening. Uh and so Eric uh I'll hand it off to you.

Perfect. Thanks so much. Let me give you Sure. Okay. Can everybody hear? Yes. Thank you.

Perfect. Cool. Well, good evening everybody. Eric design workshop joined by my colleague. Um nice to see you all again. Excited to present really the fruition of of our work in the last year and the last kind of pieces it. So, um wanted to just quickly start by summarizing our work to date has led us to where we are today. Um we started this project off a year ago really with kind of two pieces that are being done. The first was a literature review just to understand how other low regional communities were dealing with the challenges of housing in their towns and what type of programs and implementation tools were they using um to try to solve some of those problems. really to to provide some inspiration. Let us let us know and maybe we're looking elsewhere. While we did this work, we did review the existing land really to identify regulatory barriers that we felt were uh preventing some of the recommendations from that affordable housing that James mentioned. Um while we were working through this uh we were working with EPS, they were under they went into mitigation analysis really to see where itself stood relative to communities in the north valley and in southern county um to see where the talent was the mitigation requirements um uh all this work two primary products first uh that we presented to you all I believe was last uh summer or later last

fall, Annie used that program framework which was framework to enable production uses in the community and potentially some other mechanisms to supplement costs um which we shared with you all uh early late last year. Um this work is really uh to bring that last bold here the USL program uh to fruition. So uh we'll run through today coming out of that plan feel better in the community. So I'll walk through high levels uh with you all. Now uh the first uh change that we first really major change that we did was set up chapter 16 article one. Um, as the code was approved to say, there's no actual definition of EU in the NE chapter. Uh, so we uh we uh we moved the definition of the AU to chapter updated to be more like what we know is realistic for for this particular program. We also removed the housing definition from definition. There was some confusion when we relocated the community house definition uh two different confusion that had been colllocated uh in chapter 2 section 16.22 22. Uh we need to use it as we use this in all resist. This was one of the larger changes that we did. Uh currently we're only a small number of resistance for expenses district. We changed the

standards to be in line with the other standards that were located within 3D. This particular section had different standards. So we just made another is it quick question the minimum lot size 5,000 to 6,000 ft. What was was that part of that? Uh you said the rationale to make it consistent with other sections. What was the or what was the rationale for that? It it is yeah to make it consistent with the other uh residential zone districts that are proposed at 6,000 square foot. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. I was just curious but that answers that question. Thanks.

Uh chapter 164. Um this uh was changed to section 16-65 approved process. uh currently under the code uh if uh EDU were to be um pursued with an existing PE as rather cartridges approval processes that requires review and approval from the plaint uh designate the approval of an edu as either insubstantial or a substantial modification meaning that they become um subject to an administrative review of the approval process. So long as they that I edu has some consistency with the PED and they adopt the P standards that are in place. Uh we also uh with the things right this section we have an offering whereby um at the discretion of the town plan they elevate that approval to planning zone efficient there were challenges to interpretation and consistency with the uh PP with the PP excuse me um in chapter 16 uh article uh uh excuse me for 19 section 16-412 housing mitigation definitions um this is where we remove the NU definition attorney section definitions section section 16-416 this section the next section I'll discuss in the next slide really the outcomes EPSS works deal with these sections deal with the residential inclusionary requirements uh currently within the code um for the community housing requirement requires 25% of total square vement

and 28% of total residential units for uh housing mitigation. Um and then for residential uh and then that has an exemption size for residential excuse me residential development exemption size um for detach structures for the tax structures of 14 times. Um the red ones that we propose for the community housing requirement would uh raise uh that uh number to 35 30 to 35% in 20 20 and 30% respectively. This is sort of a community house requirement. Uh this was recommendation really to bring the salt in line with um the uh mitigation requirements of other communities uh both in the valley and on the western salt. Um for the uh exemption sites for both detached and untached units. Um this is uh we had initially recommended lower exemption sizes for detached uh detached to 1500 ft and attached square feet. Uh when we presented this talk, um they had raised some concerns with potentially penalizing residents who were uh trying to uh stay with the community at any cost to them. Um so we've included some an option for some language here that would basically bifrocate the requirement. So resident occupied using homes would have an exemption size for detached exemption size 3,000 square feet. They keep the same as as today. uh in cases. So non-resident occupied uh non-resident occupied that that exemption was lower for detach

and Eric maybe if I can clarify this is only for exemptions in projects with three or less units. Um so it's not kind of in any development application. Got it. Thanks. Thank you. Um, sorry. Oh, sorry. I was just repeat that. Um, the next uh next came to section 16-417 commercial requirements. This is the other area where EPS's recommendation EPS's recommendation is going through. Uh the first uh under current conditions the new commercial development mitigation requirement is 50% of all all generated. Um the new restricted commercial development mitigation requirement is 10% of all the generated and then for two projects only the legit housing requirements only the higher of the two would apply. Our guidelines are to increase uh that new commercial development%. And for new district commercial development uh to increase that to 15% new generated and four was one higher changing both having both inclusionary both the inclusionary asset requirement and the commercial requirement applied to projects. Uh and again for UPS's really ability to bring this all in line with what any other communities are doing identification. So those were the primary existing code. Um one of the other uh things that we

did as part of this work was to create a undo code section. Um there really comprehens if and when the town did establish a grant for revoling program which we spoke with you all this last year about really to set that framework in place. So if that did our did our fruition act the code be able to support that. Uh so within this section um we uh we we define the purpose of uh this section. Um you know that are um uh central to some of our council in the community. Um and it can clarify the uh the attachment of the section that promotes assistivity across the community to ensure that they're developable um and can facilitate uses choices in the community. Um for the definition section we refer to section for primary definition though we also this particular section provide definition and detach. Um for applicability, this is where we uh we notice and for and development uh system where we um walk through the process that allows us to be improved as

action or process. Um I think the development stands essentially establish clear standards for lot size parking standards for ads um so that they're not uh you know attractive to the community in any way. Um and um in the occupancy use relation section um this is where we really um start to set a framework for uh uh occupants uh if if affected individual uh is pursuing uh the any type of loan or financial aid from from town. So this is where we participation financial assistance program eligibility uh just to um type of uh assistance. Uh finally the last section section 123 this is where uh we protect the legally establishing um and preserving restrictions that exist unless appreciate patience and happy to answer any questions about these. Thanks, Eric. Uh, let's do the public hearing really quick. Uh, probably it's quick. Um, so I'll go ahead and open the public hearing at 8:03. And, uh, if anybody wants to make comments, you're welcome to do so. Um, but I don't see anybody online or in the room who wants to. So, I will close the public hearing and open it up for questions or comments

uh, from public counselors.

I'll go. Um, one comment is this this uh discussion about ADUs and basaltt is going on at the same time as the discuss discussion county with CDUs and that was kind of a discussion point at the last meeting with the growth advisory committee was and CDUs is up in Pitkin is definitely being defined as a caretaker sort of occupancy. it doesn't even have to be occupied. Um, ADU for me means a different use. So, they they proposed what they called an implementation matrix so that they could overlay Basalt's ADU, Eagle County CDU, ADU, whatever it is, and picking county CDU and see how congruent they actually were in across jurisdictions. And I think that it's interesting. EPS has done the same study that DWI's guys just mentioned and DWI is the lead on the master plan for picking county. So it's not in their scope of work, but it did come up in the discussion that and County is not to the point of changing their code yet, but here we are in the first reading to adopt a code amendment. So, we're slightly ahead, but it's really interesting to see uh the contrast between the philosophy behind the CDU and the ADU and what that does to and then the the different areas of development that are allowed to have CDUs in picking county and and one of them is one of them that's a little restrictive is the resort area zone versus the adjacent residential zone versus the rural and remote where or remote or rural would

would be an additional 1,500 square feet to a maximum house size. So, it's pretty um it's pretty interesting to see how that crosses over into each jurisdiction and and it's just something that came that was that was one of the bigger conversations during that meeting was around this whole process of allowing people to have, you know, bonus square footage at some level.

Thanks, Rick. Anyone else? I don't have any other comments on comments at this point in this, but just you kind of got you guys hit what we asked for. Um, that came from, but um both sides. Yeah, I don't have any other questions or comments myself. Anybody else is um so if I read it all correctly that there is a requirement to provide one off- streetet parking spot for the ADU. Correct.

Correct. Do we have any ability to provide a variance for that? Like can people come to us and say like this is where I live. There's plenty of on street parking but off streetet would really pose a problem. we can make allowances for that. Yeah. So, this we basically followed the existing residential standards here by requiring one um parking space per unit.

It's certainly a topic council can discuss if you want to discuss having half the space, no parking requirement. Um that's certainly in there. um pursuing a request to change it um could be something we can make sure we have an option in there. Um I think it's just so dependent upon, you know, the layout of a lot well and where you are, right? You look at the Hill District and there's not a whole lot of

on street parking. So I'm like, well, it does kind of make sense that you need to provide a spot for that person. But then you look at, you know, Elk Run or Willlets, you know, where there is more on street parking and you're like, well, do they really have to, you know, I think it's I think it's just dependent. So I think having that optionality to come before council or staff or whatever and ask for a variance. I support that. I was actually surprised you didn't call that out. Transportation Do we need more parking?

So that that ability is not currently baked into the ordinance. So if if you wanted to provide that ability, uh you'd need to amend the ordinance in your So they couldn't just come come to council and say, you know, it was a variance. It would there's no process for that in the current ordinance. I guess there isn't. And um honestly the way that most of this is written is so that someone who eventually gets their covenants because remember there's this other layer. Oh yeah.

They get their covenants adjusted to allow them to have an AU an ADU. Um the goal frankly is for them not to have to come and get council approval. So, we can um uh work on what that could look like to do that administratively, unless you'd like that to be a council decision.

No, I don't necessarily think that, at least personally, that council needs to decide it. I just would hate for that to be the requirement that keeps somebody from pursuing an ADU because they simply don't have the ability to offer that off- streetet parking spot if there is plenty of on street parking available in their area. Yeah.

Yeah, we could look at that. Um, I mean, the code does have a variance process for generally, but you need to show that you have an undue hardship that wasn't self-created, and that probably is not going to apply. You're talking more about, well, is this really needed? And so, maybe there's a path for that. I might suggest that it include um maybe it would include some kind of public hearing process because the P you're going to hear it from are your neighbors. whether or not there's that there's adequate on street parking or not. And so, you know, having some kind of public notice and, you know, maybe another level of review might be the way to to handle that.

That's probably wise and we can see how much generated in the long run. I mean, I can't imagine be that much, but I think it's it's a good point to we should have that flexibility. So if there's the ability to have adequate parking but not quite in the way it's in there that there's a a kind of a release valve so we can get ADUs built. You could have it that it's preferred to have a parking space per unit versus required preferred.

We can noodle on this and bring this back for the next reading too. Yeah, I was going to say so maybe for today unless there's other issues that you could approve it on first reading some direction to explore options for for parking to bring back on.

Yeah, I just think I mean the whole point of this right is to lower the bar to make it easier for people to build ADUs. And so if that truly is the goal to make them more attainable from the town's perspective, that was one hurdle that I saw that that would still prohibit um people from being able to to build them or have them. But then I also see, you know, Jeff's point about the the neighbors, right? It's like if then all of a sudden, let's say the HOA is just go gang busters and everybody's allowing them, then then there's just cars everywhere and you know, I I get that too. Yeah. That kind needs to be that um that balance where people can have their voice. Yeah.

In the process. A question too is um covenants usually change once a year at an annual meeting. Do we have any idea of how to market this to existing boards and say listen we're trying to incentivize this program? Can you please assist if someone comes in or is it that that the applicant's responsibility to kind of push that through their homeowners association? And what what kind of uh support can we lend to someone that wants to do that? And yeah, the opportunity.

Sure. So, the way we have this set up now is that if we make it um allowed by zoning, that's one hurdle removed. Um the team has written uh draft language that any HOA can use to modify their covenants. So, that's another hurdle removed. Um we are happy to um advertise it to the HOAs but I think that's as far as we um want to put the risk for can we change it to a as opposed to a covenant a rule because rules can be changed by an HOA board and

the issue is there's a lot of covenants that don't currently permit or conversely they pro prohibit ADUs. Okay. So those are private covenants and yeah, you know, we can't locally just overrule those. So it' be um they'd have to go through that owner approval process to amend their declarations. 50% or whatever it is or 67.

Any other questions or comments? Parking one was good. Anything else like that? Um if you think of it, we can always come back. second read I guess but otherwise I entertain a motion. Mayor, I move that the town council approve ordinance number four series of 26 2026 on first reading uh with exploration of the uh forementioned amendment and continue to set the public hearing and second reading on February 24, 2026. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

I. Cool. Thanks. This is a good milestone. Yay. Yeah. Appreciate it. Nailed it. Should have stumbled. I will adjourn the meeting. Thanks a lot. See you next time. I like that we're bringing back the gel.