City Council - Regular Meeting

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and I follow I possible my friends I ran as fast as I can tell Oh my god. Thank you. Welcome to Boulder City City Council. We'll call the meeting to order. Madam, city clerk, posting a roll call, please.

Thank you. The agenda was posted in accordance with Nevada open meeting law and all members are present.

Thank you. We will open our meeting by having an invocation by clergyman Kyle Canop after which we will say the pledge of allegiance. And Mr. Kop, if you can come forward, we will all stand for the invocation of the pledge, please. Our father in heaven, we are grateful father to be gathered this evening to engage in this civil function. Father, we are grateful for this country and this nation we live in, for the Constitution and for the freedoms that it expresses that thou freely gives us. We're great father for the Marines, soldiers, sailors, and air airmen who stand ready to defend those freedoms in this nation. We are great, Father, for our our local first responders and for the protection they provide to us here in this wonderful community. We ask you, Father, this evening that that will provide the guidance and direction to this governing body. Please bless these elected officials and those who assist them that they'll be open and receptive to that guidance, that direction as they weigh these matters that before them. We are grateful, Father, once again to be here this evening to to do our part to help this community grow and to flourish. And this we say humbly in the name of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Join us with the pledge. I pledge aliance to

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will now open or first of all we'll have announcements. Um, I need to thank people for the uh way the city of uh the state of the city was able to be attended for so many people. And I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Boulder City High School students who performed at this year's state of the city. Hayden Nordstrom for her inspiring invocation. Drew Schaper for supporting Hayden during her invocation speech and Dr. Braden Holly and Boulder City High School choir for their beautiful performance. Your presence was truly a blessing. We appreciate your time and dedication in serving others and volunteering your time for the state of the city. Thank you all. We will now open if if there are no other public announcements, we'll open this up for public comment. If you have anything that you would like to say on anything pertaining to the current uh regular agenda items, please come forward at this time or call in at 7025899629. Uh is there anyone on the line? Yes.

Public comment. Go ahead.

Yes. Good evening. For the verbatim record, Fred Voltz, the city golf courses narrative and revenue charts on page 23 of item 10's five-year financial plan, omit expenses. This council's recent approval of a $6 million irrigation project for the municipal course by itself shifts the golf courses into substantial financial loss that the general fund and other funds subsidize. The two golf courses make no contribution toward maintaining water delivery infrastructure when they pay SNWA wholesale water rates for their over 1.4 billion gallons of annual consumption on a per hole basis. and city courses use up to 27% more water than cqcada. This reality requires residents and businesses to subsidize those costs through higher water rates of over $2 million annually instead of paying commercial water rates as atqcada. The golf courses also require significant staff support time from other city departments. They do not pay unlike the airport, utilities functions, and cemetery, which also pay depreciation and amortization for major capital expenditures as self-sufficient enterprise funds. A significant surprise concerns over $640,000 of free golf, approximately 16,000 rounds annually, dispersed with no formal policy and procedure guiding who receives and who decides. Research indicates municipal golf courses around the country do not give away free golf. Some privately operated courses do. Neither Turf Tech, the over 1.6 million a year course operator, nor parks and recreation, keep track of the unique number of Boulderites who use the two courses in a given year. Therefore, no proof exists the courses benefit a

material number of Boulderites. These disturbing financial discoveries cumul cumulatively suggests that agenda item 12 needs editing. NRS 354.517 clearly outlines the requirements for an enterprise fund. The two city operated golf courses unquestionably meet the statutory parameters. Thus, added to the two potential ballot questions proposed by staff would be a third ballot question asking voters to approve enterprise fund status for the two city golf courses so that they do not continue to be a perennial drag on city finances. This issue was brought up and ignored by a previous council on October 22nd, 2024. With our steadily worsening water supply problem, now would be an appropriate time to bring greater accountability to golf course operations and save BDRites for making ongoing forced subsidy payments to keep the two city golf courses afloat. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone here in chambers like to come forward in public comment related to anything on the agenda tonight or is there anyone else on the phone call? 7025899629 if you'd like to call in or come forward if you're in chambers. Madame city clerk, we have received uh a written public comment that will go into the record.

That's correct. All written public comments received go into um or attached to the minutes and they're actually in the council chamber for review if anybody wants to take a look at them. Okay. Thank you. If anyone wants to look at those, they are back on the back desk. Anyone else on 7025899629 welcome to call in. or anyone else here in chambers like to address anything in public comment. We will close public comment and we will go to our uh approval of the regular agenda.

Move to approve. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. It's unanimous. And and we'll go to the approval of the consent agenda. Is there a motion? Move to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. And all those in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. It is unanimous. Thank you.

That makes us go to the regular agenda on bill number seven. Good evening, Mayor Hardy, members of city council. Michael Maya is your deputy city manager. With uh recent vacancies, the city manager has been reassessing positions and looking for ways to deliver city services in the most coste effective and efficient manner. With the recent vacancy of the utility director position, uh Mr. Thomas, after consulting with staff, determined that the position should be replaced with a deputy public works director position that would support both public works and utility functions. To move forward with this position requires amendments to titles 1, 2, and nine of the Boulder City Municipal Code. Um I want to bring to the council's attention a handout at the dis and for the folks in the back of the room this is referencing item seven. Uh there is a correction uh with respect to exhibit A that we want to bring to your attention. Um and we're looking for consideration of bill 2092 and I can answer any questions.

Any questions? Any discussion? I will accept a motion. I'll move to approve. I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I.

Any oppose say nay. Thank you. It's passed unanimously. Thank you. That brings us to our regular business number eight. So, the uh Boulder City Municipal Code states that the city council shall by resolution and with the recommendation of the city manager establish position ranges and classification titles for all city employees. Since last approved in May of 2025, the following actions require updates to the class and compensation list. Fire contra fire captain's contract was ratified and approved by the council on August 12th of 2025. The clerical contract was ratified and approved by the council on January 13th of 2026 and these updates to those positions are reflected in this revised classification titles. Uh in addition, this reflects removal of three positions from the class and comp list. They include the utility director's position, the administrative services director, and the community development director position and reflects two additions to the list. That is planning manager and the deputy director of public works and utilities. And just to clarify with those changes, um the city council directed um staff um over a year ago to move forward with the deputy city manager position in place of utility director position with agenda item seven. I already discussed the changes as it relates to the utilities director and that's why that's being removed and to replace the um to be replaced with

the deputy director for public works and utilities. And with the elimination of the community development director position, it would be replaced by a planning manager position. Again, kind of relating back to my presentation under item seven, uh these are opportunities to look for efficiencies um and for us to be more responsive to our citizens. And with that, I can answer any questions. Any questions?

Uh before I proceed with any questions, I do have a disclosure. Okay, if I could please. Uh, I would like to disclose pursuant to NRS281A that my son Nigel Walton is a fire captain for the Boulder City Fire Department and this matter concerns the updating of wages at set forth in the collective bargaining agreement for the fire captain's bargaining unit of which he is a member. Because this is a ministerial item that updates the wages as set forth in a previous item upon which I abstained. I have been advised by the city attorney that my participation on this item would not be a conflict of interest. Thank you, mayor. And I do have a couple questions.

Go ahead.

Thanks. Uh, as far as the new positions that you referred to, planning manager and deputy director of public works and utilities, has a I see we say job classification titles and position ranges are in place. Has the job descriptions, are those included in what you're referring to? Have they been written? And will there be recruitment, internal or external or open recruitment for those positions? So, job descriptions for both positions have been created. Um we're waiting to finalize the uh deputy public works position but it's in close form. There will be a recruitment process for both. We have not finalized the determination with respect to the planning manager position. Uh we're likely to uh proceed internally and then if we don't get qualified candidates go externally. The intent with the uh uh deputy public works director position is to do an external uh recruitment process. Other questions, concerns? Seeing none, I would accept a motion.

I move to approve 8094. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. It is unanimous. Thank you. We'll move to number nine.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Cynthia Sneez, your finance director. Um this item uh item number nine is a happy day in finance that we get to uh bring to conclusion our financial statement preparation and audit. Um so what's before you here is the recommendation coming from the audit review committee. They met yesterday and voted to u recommend uh to city council to accept the report. And um don't know if Ms. Jorgensson wants to make any comments. I think she does.

I do. So, Councilwoman Booth and I both serve on the audit review committee. We met yesterday and um presentations were provided to the review committee by city staff and um the external independent CPA auditing firm which is Hinton Berdick um to discuss the annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year 2025. Do you have that with you?

Yes. Can you hold that up so people can see what that looks like? It's that small pamphlet that um has everything in it for the functioning of the city. Um she said that the auditors so Hinton Berdick said that the auditors gave the city a clean audit opinion and there were no findings in this report which is fantastic for us. Um and and our team of people that work in finance. Um, the audit review committee voted to recommend the city council accept the financial statement audit and annual comprehensive financial report for the year ended June 30th, 2025. Thank you.

Thank you. I do have uh another comment to add before before you all vote. included in your packet at the after the the report itself there is a letter to governance which is a requirement that the auditors provide to the governing body um for your review. It's it's a really a formality and it's it's a lot of almost technical jargon, but it it's all good. Everything passed with flying colors. And I have on Zoom um Crimson Singleton, who is the representative from the audit firm in case you all have any questions for her. Any questions for her or our financial director?

No. I would accept a motion. I'll move to accept the the um the uh annual comprehensive financial report. Is there a second? A second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose say nay. Thank you. It's unanimous. Thank you. Brings us to item 10. Looks like you're still there.

Yes, I'm still still standing. Okay. Item n number 10 is our five-year financial forecast that we are required to put together. And uh there's a a more detailed report in the packet, but I do have a presentation to to go through here. All right. So, this is we do a five-year plan and we renew it and update it annually. So, we're looking at five years into the future. Um the purpose of this forecast is to make informed budgetary and operational decisions by anticipating what our future revenues and expenditures are and any financial risks that we can identify. So this forecast is not a budget and it does not include any proposed uh um balancing solutions or revised service levels to to make it balanced. The focus of this is strictly on the general fund as the the main operating fund of the city. It does not include any of the other special revenue capital projects or enterprise funds. So we started our process by looking back in history back to 1960 u when we first began and um mapped out the revenue trends. And so that this is what this chart portrays. And you'll notice that there's a jump in revenues in fiscal year 2014. And that was due to a a large payment. It was a one-time uh fee from renegotiating the lease terms for the Tech and Solar. Um and it was again it was one time. Um so we uh paired that up on the expense side. you'll see the same pop up in in the revenue trend for the last, you know, since 1960. Um, and with those one-time extra funds, we ended up paying

off the debt for the golf course. So, that we used the onetime windfall to to pay for a onetime expense to get that off of our books. So that's that really complements our basic budgeting tenant of matching up one-time revenues with one-time expenses and ongoing revenues with ongoing expenses. Okay. So to dig into some of the detail on the on the assumptions that we made on the revenue side, um we are consistent with our um conservative nature. I think w with the changeover of in time of the finance directors, we've had a little bit different philosophy where they were u more conservative than I am and I'm pretty conservative um from way back. So you'll you'll see that as we move forward that that we're looking more realistically um at the revenues particularly we take a real deep dive into looking at trends and trying to come up with a a better um target for for what we're expecting. So the lease revenues are projected at our contractually obligated rate increases and our intergovernmental revenue the um it's primarily C tax which is the consolidated tax which is basically sales tax that we benefit from um the pool up in the valley um that has been forecasted to drop. It has dropped um in the current year. So, we're going to hold that lower level steady for a couple of years and then resume our measured increase in future years. After a couple of years, um building permit revenue includes potential fees from future energy related construction projects and um other revenues are are um forecasted to to grow at their the average of the 10-year history. So we're look we looked at that trend and said

okay we think it's going to increase it at that same uh steady pace. Okay. On the expense side our assumptions we're after uh incorporating what we believe the the uh labor negotiations will how they will fall out. We after that we're anticipating or or programming in a 3% annual increase um in the future years. and then other operational costs which would be professional services, supplies, utilities, that sort of thing. We're going to uh expect a 2% uh annual increase and that's consistent with the last 20 years of CPI is how we arrived at at that number. And then for the transfer out of the general fund that we do annually for CIP, we're going to expect at least $1.5 million transferred out to uh program the CIP. And of course, we will bring the CIP, you know, for approval. And if that needs to change, we'll we'll do that. But for the forecast, we're we're plugging in the one and a half million. Can I u make a clarification mayor if I might?

So that last bullet point the CIP for fiscal year 2731 capital exp. So what you're saying is that's what we're going to transfer out of the general fund into the acquisition improvement for capital projects 1.5 per year out of the general fund into that. Right. That's correct. That's correct. And we also have per the voter approval um 1 million that can come from the land use fees that will also go into capital project fund or the ANI the acquisition improvement.

Yes, that's correct. So in total really we're minimally expecting for sure 1 million per year and maybe or up to 1.5 depending on capital projects that may be approved. Correct. Thank you. Any other questions at this point?

Okay. So this chart uh displays the expenses by type and so we we group them into three primary or major categories. one is salaries, benefits and other operating expenses. So how to interpret this graph is the bolded uh bars on the left are the actuals from the last few years. The one that's bolded but in a in the red box is our current year that we're in. So what we're at today, we're halfway through what we project that to be by the end of the year. And then the more pale colors are are projection purely projection. There's no actuals involved in that. Um I do want to mention that currently our salaries and benefits are approaching 70% of our general fund expenses. That's overall when you look at all the full employee base. When you look at just the public safety, it's nearly 90% of their expenses are um rooted in personnel costs, the salary and benefits. um our operation expense are escalating at 2% per year in for the projection as we talked about a minute ago and then retirement contributions as part of our benefit package um that continues to increase you know increasing our expenses. All right. So, this chart is similar in in how it's designed with the bolded and the and the um pale bars, but this the same expenses that we just looked at, but we broke them out a little bit differently. This is broken out by function, which is a um the term that we use for the different functions of of government. So, we've got general government, uh public works. So, let me back up. A general government includes city council, city manager, city clerk, the city attorney, and finance. Those

those departments um make up the general government. And then we have public works. And judicial, which is the MUN court, parks and wreck, uh public safety includes police, dispatch, animal control, and the fire department. And then community support is otherwise known as the community development department. So it's just another look at at the same expenses looking at it from a different lens. Okay, this slide talks about the it matches up excuse me the revenues and expenditures by year um both again history and the and the pale into the future. Um I want to point out that we see fiscal year 2026 which is the year we're in now to be a pivotal year. we see expenses are projecting to be greater than the incoming revenues and that to to continue into the future. Um but we have some explanations about the fiscal years 21 to 25. They were unusual in that there were many one-time unexpected revenues that came in which is I guess a nice surprise that you bring in extra revenues but it kind of skews the the trend and and the reality there because they're one-time type of expense uh revenues um mostly related to the COVID pandemic and so for instance specific to fiscal year 21 we received 1.5 million in federal CARES money um and combined ed with an immediate halt to our expenses. We didn't know what to expect, what was happening. So, we just kind of shut down everything other than than salaries. Um, so that that artificially lowered our expenses. At the same time, we had this big influx of revenue from the federal government. So, it it made it a little bit lopsided from the point of view of looking at the revenues compared to expenses. Um, also

in that year, uh, our lease payments exceeded our expectations by 4.6 million and we received a one-time option payment of 3.5 million, which again boosted revenues. So, it definitely took it a little bit out of balance. I have a question. Oh, go ahead. I defer. Oh, thank you. Um my question I if we look at this and we look at our revenues that are coming in the these are projected without any of the grants or or monies that we might get from like an RTC for our streets or different things like that.

So if the projection the future years the projected years exclude those types of um grant like revenues that that we you know um get reimbursed for. That being said, the uh historical numbers do include because we previously included those revenues in the general fund. So, we have a a little bit of a mismatch, but we're trying to what I call purify the general fund and get it down to our true operating expenses and what we have control over. Um, so we're moving some of those pieces and parts out to other appropriate funds. Does that help or is that too much?

When you say does that help, does that mean it helps us so we don't need a new belt uh to tighten it up or

it it helps for the analysis piece because of these kind of mismatched components. When we have um an outside source revenue that matches with an expense, we move both of those out of the general fund and and pair them up over in a different fund. So, it it keeps the it it doesn't it doesn't harm the general fund because we're also moving expenses out of the general fund to match up with the revenues. I don't might be getting a little too in the weeds, but um it's a it's really going to be a helpful tool as we look down the road to know more accurately what our true um operating expenses and revenues are in in the general fund. We don't have these extra things going on. So if I were to look at this denovo, I would say that we're going to need more money because we have more expenses. Our expenses are growing. Yes. And we are trying to make the uh or not make to record the revenues in a more accurate manner to um pair up with those expenses that are ongoing. Go ahead.

When you say our expenses are growing, would you attribute that? What would you attribute that to? I mean, you know, where are we seeing that? Is it inflationary? Is it salaries? Where would you say that's coming from?

All of the above. It's uh a combination of things. We uh have salaries and benefits are growing. We know the retirement contributions and PERS are increasing. Uh we've got wages increasing, we've got operational costs that are increasing. Um again, this is just a a forecast. It's not we have to plug in, you know, some methodology. And so we've used CPI as a as a close proxy to the inflationary measure of what we think those um operating other operating costs will be. I know right after CO we saw some real in inflation in expenses as far as purchasing things even you know so would you say that's tableabling off to a more consistent like what it was before

I I have observed things are settling down um in that respect we're not seeing the wild and crazy um increases they're still above the the preandemic levels but I think they're in a in a better place I think they're going to go back down right Well, we can hope as things normalize, you know, post pandemic things are supply chain issues are have been resolved. Now, the big question mark is the tariffs. We just don't know what how that's going to play out. That's a huge question mark for us. So, that could have, you know, a negative effect on our expenses. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Definitely. I have a

question for you. Um, so what are the contingencies if the uh expenses go up and the revenues are not there? Do we have like a rainy day fund? I don't know what other name it would be, but is there like a secure fund to say, okay, we could handle that for maybe two years, but if we continue to go that way, we'll have to start tightening the belt as the mayor said in some areas. Yes, we have a separate fund that is called it's titled the revenue stabilization fund and that is a fund that could be tapped into under certain circumstances and that's when revenues decline more rapidly than we expect um and are not sufficient to cover our expenses. Um that's one place to tap into. Um, absolutely. This the we'll get to the general fund balance here in a minute and that uh is a place that could be tapped into for some one-time expenses and that gets back to our tenant of one we we consider fund balance one-time money because it's not going to be recurring and it's not a place to be going to every single year again and again and again. Um, but it it is acceptable to use that for certain one-time type expenses.

Um, so that would help close that gap. um a little bit, but we also have some, you know, decisions to make about expenses. Uh would the government shutdown if there's another one? Does that impact us? I know we're city and that's more on the federal side, but how does that impact?

Not much. It could impact us to the extent that we have some federal grants. That's largely with the airport. FAA grants are are there and we do have some other smaller federal grants for in public safety and whatnot. Um, how that could impact us is they could be slow to reimburse us for the qualifying expenses, but I I don't see it, you know, being a major major impact other than delaying certain payments. Thank you.

So, you show us having not enough income for the future. So, that means that we have to figure out a way. It seems like it it looks like in 26 we're going to see a shortage. We we are expecting um a a slight slight one um deficit. Yes. And then in 27 it gets even greater. That's correct.

So we really as your city council have to come up with a way to bring more money in or take money out because it doesn't look you're for not forecasting it to come down the expenses at all. and that you are correct. This does uh does not address that. Again, it's just the kind of a planning tool. But to your point, there's two two pieces. It's it's really pretty simple. We have revenues and expenses. And either either we need to raise revenue or decrease expenses, you know, and and so we'll talk about maybe some ways to increase revenue um a little bit later. Um yeah, so it is it is a challenge. It's challenging budget time right now for us and I hope that that our revenue projections fall short and maybe we're actually going to receive more. You know that we are actively negotiating.

How possible? How is that possible? How would that be possible? Well, that's Can we Can I Can you hold that thought until we get a little further along and we'll talk about some ways to to address that? That would be great. We're not done yet. mayor, if I might, but we're all waiting with baited breath how we're Go ahead.

So, in in our uh report, and I'm looking at the revenue versus expense, um I'd like to see greater than just the few years we have there. Um 10 years would be much better to show actual trends. These are the beginnings of patterns, but not quite, you know, long-term trends. Because if we go down to the following chart, the fund balance projections, the general fund, and we look at the excess general fund balance, we look at that and we have the um state well double the state minimum requirement of 16.67% which is that red line. And then if you go above that red line, and I'm just looking at the 2025 blue line that goes above that um above 35 million, that means that we have um over since 2020. And which is why I'd like 10 years to follow that trend. But that fund balance has grown interestingly to the point where now we have over $20 million because we have been ultraconervative which is not a bad plan and I don't disagree with that but we're I don't think now we're getting to the point where we have such a large excess fund balance that I'd like to see the trend to know if really we need to adjust our projections. Because if we have that much money sitting in that account alone, are the taxpayers getting the value that they deserve for their government sitting on this money? And to make that point, let me uh say in our we have a

riskmanagement fund that and I took this off of the the um January 13th city manager report data. So, um, we're looking at in that in that fund over $2 million, right? Mhm.

And then we have the revenue stabilization fund which has over $3.5 million. And we look at the extraordinary maintenance, repair, or improvement fund, which has $5 million. And then we go to the vehicle equipment and replacement fund which has over $5 million. And we go to the swimming pool fund which we're working on that construction. So I'll leave that aside for now. But we have the compensated absence fund which has $3.5 million. And the voter approved CIP which is voter approved only. It's not as accessible as the others, but that has well between 11 and 14 million depending on what's So we have tens of millions of dollars not only in the general fund excess balance account, but also in these multitude of special accounts that have been created. We have tens of millions of dollars there which are designed to give us the cushion

for shortfalls, right? And that's why I want to see a trend longer than just from 2020 because I really question if um you know our ultraconservative approach is giving the citizens the service that they deserve for the money that we're collecting from the citizens as their representative government. That's a concern to me. Um, and I want to and I I brought this up and and now is not the time necessarily, but we need to talk about how all these balances, the tens of millions in addition to the tens of millions that are up there on that chart, are we really, you know, I appreciate that, you know, the this the um hypothetical financial sky is falling, but is it really? I'm concerned about our our the accuracy or the the extreme conservative nature of our revenue versus expenses. And I'd like to see that tightened up a little bit more. And I'd like my fellow council members to acknowledge that we have in those funds tens of millions. And it's and it's by ordinance the amount of money and the cap that goes into those special revenue funds that we can modify if we choose to to spend or to send additional money into the general fund because as I look at this and again another time uh some of the caps on that are far beyond reasonable far beyond what we really need there for functional use of those funds. And so I think that's important to state in our five-year plan that our council members acknowledge and understand we've got millions in multiple places. That's all I have to unless you if you have any statement or comment or even rebuttal to

that, please enlighten us. But if that's an accurate statement, I think that's worth noting as well. We we certainly do have those other funds and and that is not the focus of this forecast but we will be bringing back um something specific to those other funds in the future. I would like to comment though that when we look back uh where are we? This slide um does only go back to five years. Um, but in in years 2021 and 22 and 23 and 24, we had extraordinary unusual revenues coming in. And when that happens, that has the effect of building that fund balance. It hasn't always been as high as it is now. Um, so that's sort of the effect of of these windfalls that we've received um through COVID and and and the like. So that's part of why it's so so high. And I would also comment that because we do not take out debt, we kind of build up reserves for major capital expenditures that other cities would probably bond for.

Thank you. Yeah. And which is why I'd like to see longer than just the five years because those are somewhat anomalous, right? Yes. These are these few years were totally unusual.

Yeah. And and and to your point, I agree the the creation of these additional funds is fantastic. It's smart financial and prudent financial stewardship, which is what we're seeking. And and we'll use the verf as an example. Just the I think it was January 13th meeting, fire department came here and said, "We need to buy a new fire engine." And what used to be $600,000 is now $1.2 million. Right. And so we have the vehicle equipment replacement fund which we affectionately call the verf which has over $5 million. So we absorb that without a hit to the general fund. And so that as an example really sets us in a stable position. And I think that's very very prudent and smart for us to manage. My point is we have lots and lots there and and there might be opportunity for us at a future opportunity when we talk about the budget later to discuss this further. I just wanted to point out that that that exists and in this report none of that is mentioned and so we have to balance that understanding. Thank you.

Thank you. Do so these accounts that we have are they in interestbearing uh mechanisms?

Absolutely. How we handle that is we pull the cash in all funds. So the 20ome funds that we have all have a cash balance each one of them and we pull that all together and that becomes what we invest. So we're earning interest on all of those funds and then when the that interest income comes back we parse it out based on the the cash balance of those funds. So they all get a little proratic share of of the interest income. But yes, we we do have an active investment program. I it's pretty elaborate. I can go into that detail if you want, but but just to answer yes. Um we do have invested funds.

And and is that investment is that interestbearing account for instance equal to more than or less than what we get in property tax in the in the city?

At this time with our the interest rate environment today, it is greater than what we get um in property tax. Absolutely. Yes. And we have it in it's it's it's several accounts. And so it's it is not a single interest rate, you know, it's in different buckets for um divided by what we need for liquidity, what what we need immediately. You know, we have our bank account that is interest bearing and we we participate in the local government investment pool that is uh provided by the state. Um that is more like a money market. We're one participant in the pool and that's another place we can draw from and then we have the amount that we place with an investment advisory firm to do some longer term investing that has higher returns.

Sue so to Councilman Walton's point we have a state imposed level that we have to meet and that we can't go under a certain percentage. How close to that are we when we consider all those interestbearing accounts and the other things currently we are above well above the the required minimums today. Can you show that uh graph?

Yes. So this graph shows um where we're at and if if we apply the assumptions that we have here to our fund balance it's going to decline. So the red line here is the required 16.67% 67% of budgeted expenses. That's the minimum. Um, but we will be approaching that, you know, in a few years if we don't, you know, look take a take a hard look at our budgetary issues.

And so to your point, we're uh looking at what can be done. Uh, for instance, if if property taxes were increased uh on a regular basis, it can only go up what, 3%. per year anyway. Yes. And so property tax is probably not going to solve the endgame of that even if we wanted to do that.

Um so it it would behoove us to figure out long-term what we're going to do and how we're going to do it and how that affects our assets. And our assets quite frankly are land. And so we have been blessed with a place that has sun and we've been blessed with people who want to create energy and store it. And so if we didn't have those things happening now, we would have a little different slope. Um and so we do have interest in things that could quote unquote meet our uh minimum uh requirement as well as uh allow us to grow and in our stability I'll call it question mark.

Yes. Thank you. So, in other words, the snapshot is a snapshot and it's it's not as uh I'm I'm not going to go out and necessarily have to buy a littleer belt. Not today. Thank you. Any questions? Down the road when we talk about this for real. Um I'd like to know the funds that Councilman Walton mentioned, are they earmarked? Can we cross over and take money from one pot to another pot or are they earmarked for certain things? So even though it looks like it's we have a lot, it's earmarked for something specific.

Yes, the they're they're labeled special revenue for that very reason. They are dedicated for you know the whatever the the earmarks that's that's really a federal term federal but um to your point it is designated for a certain purpose. Um, and it would take the council to use that that fund for something else. So, it so it's it's not untouchable. Those funds can be used through the council approval. I that's probably a city attorney question. Um, that's for another time maybe, but

general fund over to one of those to supplement if we need, but it's not common industry practice to go the other way. Okay. So an earmark in the city is different than an earark in the federal government. Correct? Thank you.

Okay. Okay. So here's a little educational session on property taxes. Um I want to start with to to the um mayor's point about you know we our our property taxes. Currently we collect about 2 and a half maybe approaching $3 million a year. Um so it's a small piece of our overall revenues but it is a place where we could um the council could um look to increase that. So here's a little um lesson on on property taxes. It's a little bit complicated but not not too bad. So I started with some definitions um to better understand what I'm going to get into here in a minute. The taxable value is what this uh county assessor says your is the value of your res residence. In this case, we're really honing in for this example on a residential property. Um then there's the assessed value and that that by statute is 35% of whatever your appraised value is. So, um, a little formula over here to explain an example. If your if your property is is valued at $100,000 and then 35% of that means 35,000 becomes what is taxed. And then uh we've got the tax rate which uh for for Boulder City is 26 cents per $100. Here we've got the combined tax rate on my example. That's for all of the taxing entities that have a presence in Boulder City. So, as a Boulder City homeowner, I'm paying not only the Boulder City property tax, but a piece of my dollars go to the state and county and um library district and school district. Um

so, the tax rate is uh set that has not increased in more than 10 years. I I didn't look exactly how far back, but it's it's been a very very long time. Um and then an over uh overlapping property tax rate that is the same as that combined that includes all of those other taxing entities. So that uh in this example $261 per $100 of your assessed value becomes the the dollars that are assessed for your tax. So in this example that's $91340. So, this is a whole lot of of verbiage, but um it it really kind of reiterates what I just talked about. Let's see. So, there is also an important piece that the mayor alluded to, the 3% cap. Um your prop property tax dollar amount, not the rate, but the dollar amount can only increase up to 3%. That's that's the maximum. even if by that calculation and that formula you may end up with a higher rate uh assessment it can never go more than 3%. Um so there's this this gap we call it the gap. Um if if that tax rate changes um it really doesn't change the fact that you're only going to see a 3% increase as a as an individual property owner. So, we've got some examples to show you on that. In this example, um we're again the same $100,000 in in in value residence. Um the to and we went through the calculation $913.40 is what my tax bill would be in dollars.

So, this chart shows at different levels of the tax rate. Um, we got the in today's world it's that 26 cents. We ran the numbers at 36 cents and at 52 cents just for illustrative purposes. You'll see at the very bottom the tax collected is the same. The um homeowners or or property owners are only going to pay that same amount no matter what our tax rate is. The difference is if you'll see in the middle there, the amount that Boulder City gets back from the county. So the county collects the assessments from all of these entities and then um or from all the homeowners, excuse me, comes from the homeowners. They parse it out based on these formulas and then push it back out. We receive that. If if that property rate changes, but the dollars are the same, that means we're getting a little bit piece bigger piece of the pie. The pie stays the same. And and we've actually got a kind of a cool graphic here. Um this is assuming that today's rate 26 cents. So watch what happens when I go to the next slide, which is a higher rate to the Boulder City piece of the pie. We get a lot more.

So um same taxes, but we get a bigger piece of the distribution that comes back um back to the cities or county or state or whomever. That's part of the C tax. No, this is not this is not affiliated the C tax at all. This is only a property tax. Yes.

So, if I'm looking at this, it says that what's coming out of my pocket, my neighbor's pocket, everyone in the community that sits there is going to be the same whether or not we call it us wanting 26 cents to 50 cents. But could you explain um on that? Could you explain to me maybe what other municipalities in the Clark County area what what are theirs that they're taking out of their pie that is here? What so what does Henderson take? Well, there so this is only over Whoops. Other cities. I'm sorry I mis I misinterpreted what you said. Um I don't know what Henderson's property tax rate is,

but these are all the um over what we call overlapping the combined rate of all those entities that have a presence here in Boulder City that that would benefit from property tax because right there it looks only positive for us, right? It means that a larger portion of the monies that we pay in our um community stay in our community. What would be any of the negative impacts for homeowners? Are there negative impacts to this that could be unintended consequences from us raising something like that

to the homeowner? I I don't foresee any. There's the implications are that these other entities are going to get a little if our piece of the pie gets bigger, theirs get a little bit smaller. So, there's that um to be aware of, but how that impacts the the taxpayer, the homeowner, all that means is we have more a little more resources coming into our coffers to provide services for them. What does it take to be able to raise a rate?

It I believe it's just a resolution or a ordinance. Yeah, we'd have to research the the mechanism um and the the legal requirements surrounding it. Um but I believe it's something that the governing body can facilitate. Um I'm not sure if there are other if there are other bodies it would have to go through as well. We'd have to research that. More education come back to us on that. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean we have heard that Boulder City pays a lower tax than some other municipalities.

That is correct. It is the lowest in the state of all the cities of m municipalities um including towns. Even if we were to double our rate, we would still be the lowest. I mean that's how low how low ours are. So for the record, we're not looking to do that tonight. No, no, we're just talking about the what we're putting in our crystal ball and seeing what we've got. So, it looks like Brock found the um this chart talks about compares the various cities with Boulder City. So, to your question, Council Member Jurgensson, Henderson is 77 cents and we are 26 cents.

Wow. So the residents throughout the entire county, regardless of what municipality they're in, they have an a Clark County tax assessor value that they pay all of us. Correct.

Right. And then what we're talking about here it because the terms can be confusing. We're talking tax rate, property tax rate, but it sounds like what we're really talking about is the formula that our municipality receives back because even if um and I'm going to use Henderson as a neutral example because none of us at least on council live there, right? So if Henderson and as as I understand it, the state department of taxation sets a cap by which the municipality can receive or collect no more than that rate back from their their total collected. Right.

Yes. The rate is capped. Yes. Right. So our rate is 57 cents, right? It's 54 and 54. Let's just call it 54 for ease. Right.

And I don't know what Henderson's rate is. Let's just for sake of argument say Henderson's rate is is 90 cents. They're right now at 77. If Henderson said we want to increase the formula by which we receive taxes back from all of our property taxpayers up to 90, then their rate, their assessed value is still the same and they still pay the same. They're just receiving back to the municipality 13 cents more than they were per per back into their coffers. Right. Yes.

So then if we were to, you know, extrapolate that back to Boulder City, um I want to I want to make sure that if we do bring this up again that we know what we're talking about. And I and I don't want to wander into it because it's not agendaized, but I want to make sure we understand it to know if we want to bring it back, right? First, you know, it's to make sure that we're not wandering into, you know, waters that we don't want to be in. What you're proposing there is if we decide as a municipality, as elected officials to look at our formula, nobody's tax, property tax is going to increase what they pay to the Clark County uh Department of Taxation. The state gets their piece, the library district, the school district, and all as outlined on that slide. We just say we want a bigger piece of our pie that we're paying into that. and we can go up to 54 point whatever cents and and bring more money back into our general fund but have no negative effect no increase in the amount of tax we pay to the clar county tax assessor

we as individual property by property taxpayers and conversely you're you're absolutely right and conversely if we were to lower our rate it it's with the dollar amount paid would still be the we would just get a smaller piece of the of the pie, right? It it really doesn't affect that that the dollar amount of tax paid.

Thank you. And as as the state legislature may make new laws in the future, whatever we do to say we want to claim X value of of the piece of the pie back, that's not going to adversely affect us down the road, would it? If we say we want to get, you know, 54 cents instead of 26, why wouldn't we? Is there a potential adverse impact down the road that would be unanticipated? That would be the ceiling and you wouldn't have the opportunity to raise it above that. So, you would be tapped out, you know, topped out on that. Is that it? Uh, it kind of sounds too good to be true.

Yeah, I've got to intervene. They have this thing called consolidated tax or C tax. The C, but that's not property tax. Yeah. But when we're talking about how much money we get, we are subject to how much money the state gives us in se tax for se tax. That's but not our property tax and c tax. They're two different Yeah. But they don't they don't cross-pollinate in any way. No. Okay. Until they hit our bank account. Yeah. We we don't have control over how much money we get from seed tax. None. what we do here. Yeah, I'm not talking.

So, I just want to clarify. I'm I'm not really proposing anything. I'm just trying to educate you all on how the property tax issue works and for your consideration and this is great education. We have not had this conversation to this depth in the past. And so, when we talk about where are the shortfalls, what's what's our our forecasting, right? It's not a budget, it's a forecast. Um, this is great discussion and it's it's really enlightening. Thank you for that question. Go ahead. So if why haven't we done this is there an answer to that why we haven't done this?

I am not sure. You know, I've only been here a couple of years. That's probably we can always um if if there council would like more information on property tax and um the history, more information on the steps if the council wanted to change the property tax rate, we can bring an item back that that goes into more detail on this. Do you need a motion for that to happen? No. So, it's all it's directed then that's going to happen. staff will bring back further information for us to have an agendaized item to have the conversation.

Yes, we've heard we've heard enough questions that we we can bring back an item that goes into more detail. Okay. On this. And then to circle around to council member Booth's question, we we um we have the land and we are um open to diversifying what types of industries might be out there um to leverage, you know, our our land opportunities. So that that could be an opportunity to raise additional revenue as well. Okay.

Anyone else? And then the last the last slide is this is not about the general fund. So this is one deviation from the general fund, but because we get questions about it, we do have one outstanding bond issue that we are paying off and it's paid for out of the water fund. It's not part of the general fund, but we are on track to get that um paid down by 2030. So in the next se you know few years here that'll that'll be gone and and we will be debtree. Now, does that include taking that raw water and making it portable? No, this is this is a different project. Anything else? Questions?

I have I do have a question. Um just a little bit of clarification and you can answer it another time maybe, but um back on the golf course um I I I had heard I think it was a caller said that there was 16,000 year free complimentary rounds of golf and I did the math on $40 a round. That's $64,000. Is that money coming from the residents or is that money just coming out of where in the golf fund?

If they're complimentary rounds then then it would just be less revenue um into the golf courses and which comes to the general fund. So that would just be a um but that's probably a question for the parks and recck director as far as any you know how that's programmed or structured or whatever. But from a pure accounting standpoint, um those the green fees come into the general fund. So it would just be fewer dollars that coming in. So it's not coming out of the pocket of residents.

No, no, those are called um user fees. You know, when when a person pays for the service, so in this case, they're paying a green fee to play the round of golf. Um that is that does not affect the taxpayers separately. That's just coming out of the golfer's pocket. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? So, thank you. I think it's just a an acceptance of the report. We've accepted the report. Anyone else has any other questions? There is a resolution. Mayor, I'll move to approve resolution 8095. Okay, sir. Second.

I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. It's unanimous. Appreciate it. Thank you.

I really have to go back. I know I do, too. Watch this while you're right. Go ahead, sir.

Thank you, mayor. I'm Brock Carmatra. I'm your revenue contracts and real estate manager. Uh this is item 11 to consider resolution 8096 which is to authorize the appraisal of approximately 4 acres of land located at 1201 Quail Drive uh for the purposes of leasing land for the development of a cactus farm for a nonprofit entity. For those who don't know where Quail Drive is, uh that's the road that runs from Buchanan to the city's wastewater treatment plant right along the south side of the veterans uh cemetery. Uh the city had been approached during the land management process uh earlier this fall or in the fall of 2025 uh for a potential cactus farm project demonstration project. Uh the proponent was a nonprofit entity. So as a nonprofit they weren't subject to follow the land management process. Uh so this is outside that um because you hadn't seen that. Uh we felt it was important that this be discussed in an open form instead of the normal method where appraisals typically are on the consent calendar. Uh the materials for the applicant have been uh included in the back. They are proposing between 1 to 2,000 gallons of water a day uh to get the cactus established. And then um staff also had concerns of being located next to the airport if this was going to be an issue for the FAA and airport staff had contacted the FAA and they were not concerned about any wildlife that might reside around a cactus farm. Uh the applicant is here should you have questions um of him. Uh previously I was asked uh what a typical home uses in Boulder City for water. uh my home which is two people with desert landscaping we use between two to three thousand gallons a month. Uh the newer homes that

are uh the storybook homes they're on Adams and uh Brussel cone uh are between 6 to 12,000 gallons a month. Um and then everyone's in between. Um back when I had a lot of kids I was closer to 12,000 gallons a month. Now it's just me and my wife and I promise we shower. It's still just 2 to 3,000 gallons a month. Um, so to give you an idea what a typical resident uses in Boulder City. If approved, uh, staff will then seek two appraisals uh, to establish a minimum lease rate uh, which would be the average of the two appraisals. Uh, city can always charge more, just not less than that appraised value.

Any questions for staff? So, with the appraisal as it goes out, um would that be the applicant's duty to pay the appraisal rate or how would that work? How does that process work for us? Uh we for smaller projects as this, uh we have the applicant pay for the two appraisals. Uh the city arranges for the appraisals. We let them know what it is and we get the money up front, have the two appraisals, and then they're informed what the minimum rate will be as we negotiate a lease. Um, and that's how it would handle. Uh, this is what we've done with residential lot adjustments uh for smaller parcels when we have them appraised.

Uh, we found that they often get sticker shock at what the appraised value comes in at and we get stuck holding the What about the cost for the actual appraisal? They run between 2500 to $4,000 and they'll be they'll be um responsible for that amount. That's correct. So, are you saying typically we we haven't charged applicants for the appraisal? Uh, we recover the appraised cost uh when we issue leases, right? We we're not ask we're not asking the applicant to pay the appraisal upfront.

We haven't for the those that we knew were a sure thing. We have been stung in the past with some residential lot lines uh where when they saw the appraised value they walked away and we ended up eating the but we have not asked the applicant to pay for this appraisal. Correct. No, not yet.

Okay. And and we don't have a policy in place that requires an applicant to pay for an appraisal. So we haven't we we typically pay for the appraisal upfront and then we have gotten reimbursed. um we reimburse that when the lease is in effect from the lease revenue. There's not a provision in the lease that's specific to the appraisal costs. Um they are just reimbursed from the land devel to the land development fund which is where we pay for the appraisals um when we when we lease the land. So if the lease didn't move forward then we would just incur the cost.

Yeah. without a policy in place. I mean, the city staff could implement a policy where if we were entering into direct negotiations for a lease that um the appraisal would be required to be paid for by the applicant upfront. Um but we have not been engaging in that practice. Um, for RFPs, we do typically absorb the cost because we don't know who the applicant will be at the end when we enter into a lease. Um, but for more direct negotiations, the city could adopt a policy to do that. That is beyond the scope of this agenda item, but um, and it's it's not it's not necessarily something that takes council action. The city staff could adopt um, a policy with regard to that. Um, but we could we could also bring back a resolution to city council to adopt that policy, but that's not contemplated here. We have um we pay for the appraisal and then again reimburse the fund if the lease is ultimately entered into.

So, right at this point in time, we have a policy that will pay for it. We need to change that policy for anything that comes up after this. Yeah, we would have to change that policy. That would have to be a policy change. It's not something we currently do. We do have a policy in play to pay it the city for the city to pay it. Yeah. It's not it's not a formal policy. It's formally done. Yeah. That's just Yeah. Just our practice. There's no policy. It's what we've normally done. Correct. It's just practice. Yeah. Okay. So, there we have to do a policy. Okay. Mhm. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. My my last question is um so you told me that you only use 2,000 to 3,000 gallons a month of water. Good on you. Um how much would this project be consuming a month? Uh we've been told between 1 to 2,000 gallons a day uh to start. Uh so there'll be 30 to 60,000 gallons a month. Okay. This is for a 4acre parcel. For a 4 acre pot parcel. Um okay. So for all four 36 gallons per month

30 to 60 30 to 60,000 for the entire per month because one two daily. The applicant is here if you have direct questions for him. I do have direct questions for the applicant. Um but until that uh for you where does where is the water coming from potable water and how is it getting to them? Uh we have a water line that extends to the uh property to the east the uh RC quarter scale racetrack and it would just extend from that point already in place. Okay. I have a couple of questions. Couple hundred feet but yes.

Okay. No one else has anything for him. I have some for the applicants. Okay, thank you. I'm not ready for you yet. Oh, of course. Sorry. Thank you. I was too eager to sit down. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so we have uh 4 acres of land. How many houses do you put on four acres of land? Depends on the zoning. Let's pretend it's 10. If it's a 10,000 square foot minimum lot size, you could get up to 10 lots. 10 lots. 10,000 square foot. That's quarter acre. You could get four per acre. Oh, 16. But then you throw in the streets and what have you.

True. And then the uh size of the access to portable water to the uh quarter scale track is a inch. Um, and that would be I think Gary would know that question better. I believe I thought it was a 2in line. And I don't see Gary.

So, would we have to increase the size of the pipe or what? If it needed fire protection, it would need to be a minimum 10-inch line. Um, not sure we're going to require hydrant for cactus. a 10-inch line and we would be in charge of that 10-inch line once it was constructed.

All righty. Certainly uh in if you know with the appraisals and the council direct staff to enter into negotiations on the lease, the intent would be that any of the costs related to this development would be borne by the tenant, not the burden of the city. And then how does that affect our overall water allocation? Well, again, this would be potable water and as Brock has mentioned, that would be uh 30 to 60,000 gallons per month out of our water allocation. So, how have we had a feeling for how big our water allocation is and what we're doing?

Um, we're well under our our water allocation. and we only use about roughly 50% at 40% now. Um, so we we have there's sufficient water allocation. And any other questions of our staff before we have the applicant come forward? Okay. Thank you, bro.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council. Uh, my name is Jess Molasi. Uh my family has been in Las Vegas and the region for a long time. We are uh real estate developers, but this is a passion project of mine that we've been working on for about 7 years. Um and I'm excited to kind of bring this to your guys' city. So whatever questions you guys have, I'm here to answer them. I do have a few questions. So my first one is why Boulder City?

Well, we're talking a lot about water. you guys do have a water treatment plant right next to the site that we've selected. In the future, our goal would be to maybe tap into that um recycled water, which would be really great. Um that's not something contemplated right this second. We need to kind of get some water to the site first, but that would be an awesome partnership. Um I also love Boulder City's geography. It's very close to my home. Um, and if we are going to do this demonstration of how to grow a crop in the desert southwest and to try try to teach other people how to do that. Um, the same way Boulder City has been kind of a pioneer with solar. I think that this crop that can be used for many things such as bio energy, um, food, uh, fodder. Um, I think that there's a lot of opportunities to show the Southwest that this is a great um tool and Boulder City is a great place to do that.

So, the crop is uh prickly pear cactus. Prickly pear. Okay. It's a specific species that uh the University of Reno um we partnered with for a test out in Loganale. Uh they were testing, you know, which varieties grow the best. We selected their best genetics and partnered with um Jay who's here. He's now a Boulder City resident. Um, he helped me clone and propagate those plants. So, we now have a stock of about 200. Um, the goal with this pilot is to really be a nursery and a test bed to show other farmers, hey, this is a great crop that fits our geography versus a lot of crops that maybe don't fit growing in the desert. Um, yeah.

So, the prickly pear doesn't really grow here. You're bringing it in, transplanting it with the hopes that it will. You'll see native prickly pair in Las Vegas in the region. Um the prickly pair that we've selected grows very tall. Um it's a specific variety, but it does grow very well in this region. Loganale and here are pretty similar. Um and so this is a specific version of that plant. But that plant does grow in this geography. Okay. So you don't have to do any soil testing or anything. You're sure that it would

The team has checked out the site. This site was good soil. You know, we looked at it just the other day. There's um some greenery on the ground and so it requires minimal grading I think minimal soil amendments, minimal fertilizer. Um yeah. And do you need any security on this property? We will have like a farm fence. Um but no like security but mostly to keep animals or things lock fence. Yes.

Okay. And um how how do you think this will benefit the residents of Boulder City? Um, you know, I think it'll be a really interesting opportunity to partner with the schools. Um, whether that is the local schools or the universities in Nevada. Um, I think it creates Boulder City again as kind of a leader in an industry or kind of a pioneer in a space. Um, it'll be beautiful. Uh, there'll be birds and there'll be bees. Um, it's great for pollinators. Um, we hope to have a lot of community engagement. We'd love to give away cactuses for people to plant in their garden. We'd love to work with you guys to plant them along the streets. Um, and so, um, it's also our intent to have a lot of educational programs. So, during the day, the garden might be open on some days for residents to come and have a nice space to learn about this kind of uh, this kind of plant.

Thank you. No, thank you. Questions? So, what is educational about the cactus that you're going to be able to totally change people and what kind of foods does it uh

Yeah. So, it makes the prickly pear which I think we've all seen and that's actually pretty popular um food right now. Um it also has npalitos which for the Latin American culture is super popular and even in the US is a very popular food. Most a lot of grocery stores carry it. It's just imported from Mexico. Um it's really good. It's kind of like a squash. Um it's roasted or or sauteed. Um and you know, again, there's many uses for it. That's kind of why we want to have a pilot farm. Our goal is to teach other farmers how to best use a crop like this. Whether it is to feed cows and horses instead of alphalfpha, whether it is to grow it for human consumption, whether it is to grow it, you know, to sequester carbon, whether it is to grow it to make biogas, there's many options and that's why we want to do, you know, a pilot and a test. And partnering with universities will help us validate different methodologies. The real thing is this crop is not new. It's not novel. It's grown all over the world. um whether South America, uh Europe, and there just hasn't been the right research done how to grow it in the southwest here.

Um so yeah. Well, my question too is is it takes a lot of water sounds like to grow your cactus here and once you get it grown, it doesn't take as much. But why wouldn't you go somewhere where there was more water available to start the cactus up? So I think if you did the math though of I think our a very pretty conservative home of 2 to 3,000 u per month times 10 per acre that's 30,000. So I don't think the water use is high compared to a home. But then also compared to alphalfpha or other plants it's

you know a a fifth or a tenth of the water use. And so that is why we want to show how it works in the desert southwest because we as a society are growing plants that aren't meant to be grown in the desert in the desert. And so this would demonstrate how to grow a plant that is meant to be grown in the desert commercially. And so do you think you'll be able to encourage us to start eating captives?

Hopefully that'll be the idea with the community outreach. You know, maybe we have some cooking classes and stuff. There's a lot of fun things to do. Um, but that's not the goal is totally to like get everybody in Boulder City to eat cactus, but is to explore maybe more the ways that other farmers could use this within their communities um within their operations. Uh, for example, if they have water rights on a piece of land and they're growing alalfa, but only make so much per acre from that, they might be able to reduce their water usage and grow this crop and make more dollars per acre and also save water and save money. So there's real opportunities for farmers to look into this. And did you say farmers could also feed these to their cattle? Yes.

So there again, why wouldn't you be where there's more water and cattle growing instead of I'm just I'm kind of confused why you want Boulder City because I don't see where we where we would be utilizing any of this. Right. I think um like I'm saying, I don't know that it's a super water intensive thing. this land that you guys have was zoned specifically for agriculture.

Uh that's kind of why we started looking at it. Uh there was I I think a plan for people to apply for it. I'm not sure anybody did. And so we've kind of stepped in as a nonprofit. We are not a business. We are a nonprofit. Our goal is to teach businesses how to make money from this. We will not be making um much money from this. We'll be getting grants and donations. Um, and so, um, yeah, um, I think Boulder City is a great location because of the geography. I studied geography at UCLA. Um, because it is dry, like that is kind of what we're looking to test. And the geography here is similar to a lot of the Southwest, whether that's New Mexico, Arizona, the rest of Nevada. Um, going somewhere more wet wouldn't really allow us to test um, and prove that this can work really well here,

I guess. Yes. And you also are working off of donations basically. So what happens if we don't succeed at this? How are we going to um get rid of the cactus? What are we going to do? Are we just going to leave it there? What how will that be handled?

Currently, my family foundation is funding the nonprofit. Um my family's been around for a long time. So uh I won't leave you guys with a bunch of cactus. I don't know that we have a true mechanism today to promise that, but that wouldn't be the intent. Um, also worst case, it is a beautiful, you know, bunch of cactus that are sequestering carbon, a great place for birds and bees. And so, uh, let's say in 10, 15, 20 years. We wanted to wrap up that pilot. That doesn't mean that we couldn't repurpose that land for housing, whatever you guys need at the time. Um, yeah. Okay. We're also kind of experts in housing and stuff. So, if in 20 years, I don't know.

Well, how did you get into cactus raising?

Um, cactus raising. I'm not the actual cactus farmer. Um, but the concept came to me, you know, I went to UCLA. Um, I grew up in Las Vegas. I came back about 10 years ago and we had been donating to plant a lot of trees. Um, I just saw that there were cactus around here and I know they use a lot less water. So originally it was this idea, oh I wonder if this sequesters as much carbon as a tree. In fact, it does it just as well as trees. Um faster, less water. So that was the first kind of interesting flag that got us excited about this. But there's so much more to it than just the carbon sequestration. You know, the bio energy, you can turn it into plastics. There's there's just a lot that you can do um that I think is worth exploring. Um

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that's okay. Um, typical size of the cactus that you will be growing since it's you said genetically kind of um altered or not altered, but did you guys have any of those photos that we gave you guys? Okay. Uh, so they they can grow quite tall. So, I don't know if they can take something that they don't have. So, um, they grow tall and vertical. I think you might have seen prickly pairs kind of low and right. How quickly do they grow that tall though?

So within 5 years the that's the pictures that you'll see from Loganale at some point. Um they were much above my hand. Um so they're really turned into like a tree within 3 to 5 years of being in the ground. Right now they started like little babies. We cloned them. Um I think they're one to three pads right now in buckets. And as soon as we get them into the ground they start to really expand their plant mass. And do you plan on harvesting portions of it? Like you said, there's a plant on it. And what do you plan on doing with the harvested portions of it?

So, um there's many uses like we've been talking about. Uh a good portion will go to testing those uses, seeing the different economics, seeing the different methodology. Um a good portion we'd love to get back into the community, whether that's to people in their yards, like I said, along roads. It's a great perimeter landscaping, whether you guys have parks. Um I think that is a great use. Um, again, letting the biomass grow. It can kind of keep growing if you let more biomass grow. And so, if you did want to make bio energy, you'd probably want to let it grow for a few years and then harvest. Um, so I think that is the point of the pilot is to try a bunch of different methodologies so we can then demonstrate that to other farmers of what they might want to do. So it while it's in the growing phase, you will be using or will you consistently be using that amount of water?

I'm not the farmer expert. He is right here. Can I ask him that question? Sure. Jay, let me clarify that. Um, come up to the mic and identify yourself. Uh, let me clarify that. It's a little bit complicated. Your name and

Oh, sorry. Uh my name is Jay Rom. I live here in Boulder City and I'm the agricultural expert and consultant working with Carbon Cactus Foundation on this project. Um so the research that took place up in Loganale over five years with this same variety that we have cloned. Uh they also were looking at water usage and what they determined was that you can get good production with only 700 millimeters of moisture a year. Norland studies they're um you know they're quantifying this in uh millimeters of uh equivalent like in rainfall. That's only 2 and a half inches a year. So it's not very much water. For the first number of years, we'll be using significantly less uh water on the plants than we've talked about because they're going to be very small. And of course, in many months of the year, they'll be getting hardly any water at all and sometimes uh uh no water in a month or two. So, water usage will not be significant. Um I would like to speak a little bit further on the the question um which uh which you asked regarding why Boulder City and uh the two big reasons I see is that uh we have a very unique area here. I mean first of all I live here because I love Boulder City. I would love to see this in this community because it's a really uh amazing project that needs to happen. This plant has enormous agricultural and processing potential and energy production potential and it could really put Boulder City on the map. So, I'd love to see it here personally because it is a educational uh and demonstration facility. We're

also located very close to Las Vegas. Has a major airport. So people can fly in from all over the country from different universities, different companies and easily you know come out here and take a look. Um another thing which to me is very very important and this is really crucial. This is really besides being a food and fodder and having industrial and medical uses. Uh the plant is an incredible biomass producer which means it has great potential as an energy crop more than corn more than anything they're using right now to produce bofuels. So uh the research has been done on this already and it's very efficient for producing uh fuels like methanol which can be used in the shipping industry which are required right now. Sustainable fuels are required in different parts of the world and there is just no source more potential in this plant than any other species that's been uh uh that's been looked at thus far and it grows in the desert with little water. Um so

in the desert

so and I was saying to u uh to the mayor the other day, you know, Boulder City already has two energy legs. You've got the dam, you've got the solar projects, and I see this as a third leg for producing uh potentially large amounts of energy or doing the study to make that happen by using these uh bofuels and that would be the the third energy leg that this town would would be known for. So to me, that's a very very exciting and important aspect. Thank you. I forgot to mention I I can't really do it where my farmer is not. So that's why Boulder City is another good reason.

So if if you can be patient with me and when you look for an appraisal, do you have an idea what this is worth for you and for your project? Do you think this is an appraisal that you can afford $60,000 an acre or what is it that you think is

as an as a nonprofit? You know, we have to be conscious about our budget. Um, but that's not to say that we couldn't contemplate what that expense would look like. I don't think that this agricultural land could be used for homes. um it's specifically for agriculture and so I'm not sure that the appraisal will come in to be extremely high, but we'll have to kind of see that's what this process is for. Um obviously we couldn't afford an extremely expensive monthly payment. Um that being said, as a nonprofit, we could absorb some. Um yeah,

you brought it up. How how is the nonprofit funded? Currently, our family foundation is funding it. Um, in order to get access to grants and reimbursement programs, we kind of need to get the pilot farm going. Once that's in place, it's going to be primarily funded through uh private donation and through grants. Um, there's a lot of interest in the agricultural space about specialty crops and crops that fit their geography. though this is fitting into a niche that um even though politics is complicated, farming sometimes doesn't have to be. So we we heard recently about um our financial situation with more expenses and less revenue kind of thing. And so I'm looking at this. I drove down there and saw this nice sloped flat relatively relatively sloped area. And I thought this could be used for a lot of different things, not just the farming aspect like a RV park or something that would be out of the way and still be functional and be something that

I do think there's a a racetrack near it. Um, but I think that's a special use that was provided. Um, again, I believe you guys have zoned this land for agriculture. Um, and so just kind of going by, you know, what the city has designated as areas they would want to see agriculture, we'd be um, flexible to other areas. But this seemed like because of its location to water, because it's already zoned to do this kind of work, because of the potential for, you know, commercial farmers who do want to make money from this to come in and maybe there's land next to it that could be commercial farming. um that might be kind of tying the the full circle to the budget issue is this could have big impacts if you were able to bring some of that industry here if that's what you guys wanted. But I'm not sure our little 4 acres is going to gap your guys' budget unfortunately. Um,

I I'm smiling now because when I was on city council before, we had a a uh proposal that we have a savannah. Wow. With big lush grasses and all those kinds of things because we had water and we had land. Um, this obviously is not a savannah. Not quite. But it it just reminded me of that kind of thing. I think the geography uh would be that nice slope flat place would obviously be good for a lot of different things. And so why did we get out of Loganale or did we get out of Logan?

That was a UNR study um that was with John Kushman from there. It was always meant to be temporary. It was a small study. This is really to see how you could scale that so it could be commercial. So if a farmer did want to make money doing this, they could follow these best practices. Right now the study from UNR kind of told us, hey, this is this is the right variety to grow, but didn't prescribe necessarily how to do that in a economical way. Um, and provide kind of a road map of what that would look like. That's sort of our goal. Is is is there something written down about this study in Loganale that the UNR did before they abandoned it?

Uh, totally. They have a a published paper we could share with you guys. Um, a lot of this is on our website as well if you guys would like to take a look. We can also send you guys a package with as much or as little info info as you want. Um, yeah. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Any questions? I I do have a question. What type of contract would this look like? Like right now, if it works, if it pass, you get the appraisal, you um are on the land. Um, would you want to be there for four years, six years, eight years, 10 years? What what does that contract look like?

I think we're contemplating a 5 to 10 year, you know, pilot. I'm not sure how long you guys would want your lease to run. I don't know that we've gotten that far in discussions. Um Lance could be there a lot longer. If you guys really want me to leave, we could figure something out. Um again, I agree with you. It's a great piece of land. Your city hasn't quite grown out there yet. Um it does feel like a natural place for you guys to expand. I just don't know what your guys' timeline is for that. And if you are planning to have an agricultural center there, it does make sense with the water um recycling plant right there, that would make sense for agriculture. So again, I I'm new a little bit to your guys' jurisdiction specifically. I don't know your plans, you know, but um it does seem from outside research that this would be a good location.

I just have a question with the land out there, having the veteran cemetery out there. um how far out does their property go on that you know how far out um does the property line for the veteran cemetery go and then is that something that they've asked ever to expand or because I know aren't we the fastest growing so we're on the other side of the street if you look on this little map right here right I just didn't know if that was something in future or anything yeah if you see on the uh map. The veteran cemetery is the norththeast, right?

And I'm not aware of any recent asks by them to show um interest in expanding on the south side of the road, but they could certainly expand to the southwest north of the uh property in question, which is highlighted red. Okay. And currently they don't have that. And they do. So up there, like can you show me a a little bit like how far out? All the way to the red on the other side.

Yeah. So it's all the way out up there along to the red, right? You're tall. Come on. Give that man a chair. Let's see. Um so it goes all the way out. So this would be something that'd be across the street basically if they expanded. Okay. And I think the veteran cemetery just broke ground on the south west side. So they got lots of property over there. But that's something that could be considered in, you know, in the appraisal, right? Looking at the veteran cemetery, making sure that anybody is not going to encroach in that area. The appraisal is just going to determine the value of the land. It's not going to look at land uses or future expansions or developments.

Okay. Is there any type of project that you couldn't have around the cactus surrounding you that was noise sensitive or um not that I can imagine. Okay. I mean a big industrial plant, but I don't know that you guys are going to put that here. I just smiled that we're talking about growing cactus in the desert except we're going to have to water it.

Yeah. Um, if you do hear Jay though, you have to water it during certain parts of the season. Um, and it is a very water conscious crop. And so that's kind of the whole point. Like we're growing grasses in the desert, we're growing corn in the desert, we're growing all these things, almonds in the desert, we're growing all these things in the desert except cactus, which actually kind of makes some sense. Um, so yeah. All right. Anything else before we bring it back to council? All right. Thank you. Thank you guys. presentation. We have a measure before us. Feelings from council. What did you think?

Feelings from council. Feelings from council. Okay, Steve.

Um, yeah. I So, as far as the water use, I did some quick calculations. Um, I picked 45,000 acres or gallons a year based on your, you know, your statement of of 3 to 6,000 a month. I just took the middle, right, and then just multiplied it by 12. That's 16% of an acre foot. And so, uh, at 18,000 acre feet minus the, um, the, uh, drought reductions, we still are at about 40%

of our water allocation usage. So, we're well within that for availability. Um, which equates to about 16 homes if we talk about 4 acres and just the acreage, not a development with streets and stuff, right? And so if you average, you know, 3,000 per time 16, you know, you're starting to approach water usage that's measurable. And so uh I think uh in in our community to um I think the point was well acknowledged. We are the uh we have the opportunity to be insightful and pioneering in these additional ways that bring notoriety, recognition to our community and to find ways to grow a crop that is actually water efficient. And in order to do that, there's demonstration gardens throughout the valley for the purpose of showing how water smart uh or water smart plants can actually thrive in the desert and be a model for other communities. Um and and this has, you know, many potential marketable uses, which makes sense to be able to um you know, bring that that um that agricultural industry microscope to our fair little town. Um and you know, while it's not going to gap any budget shortfalls, it's money into the coffers. You know, that's one way it benefits the community. In addition to like we have Zeroscape Park right at the south end of uh of Buchanan down towards the corner of Veterans and Georgia there and this would be another uh demonstration area for our local residents. Um I'd be interested to know

also just to to go through there. Does it bring cooling like other trees do when we're talking about um urban heat islands are cactus an option in our valley? And here's where it can be tested in a in a in a controlled environment. And maybe rather than buying and planting trees, maybe we're finding the opportunity to plant these uh hybrid or whatever we're calling them, prickly pear cactus. And so I think the the use is interesting. It's I don't view it detrimental to our community. They're buying the water they're going to be using, so it's not like we're giving it to them. Uh, and we we certainly um aren't in the business of finding new ways to um unwisely use water. We're taking nonfunctional things out, but I view this as functional in that we're learning about what might propagate within our desert environment. We've been great at growing non-native things in the Mojave Desert, which to me is insane. So I like the idea and um I think there is great potential. So just a few thoughts there.

I would have liked to have seen a little bit better presentation uh to know a little bit more about how do you make it into rubber I think you or oil or something like that you were saying and that there's only 20,000 per year to do this project at this point in time. the water alone is going to probably take you $20,000 up there. And it so I would have liked to have seen a little bit better plan of how everything was going to be paid for, how what is it going to cost? Um because this is I love dreams because I'm a dreamer. So I I get that part of it, but I just don't know that I have enough facts to say, "Yeah, this is a great project." Because I You can't talk right now. I'm sorry,

Councilwoman. I just want to um let you know um the applicant did offer to present more information. Um because this is We're talking now up here. So, let her Oh, no. I just meant to say that because this was an appraisal item, we we don't typically allow a a presentation.

So, I just wanted that to be clear for the record that we just we don't normally have an applicant present. The problem is how do I know if this is sub can substain itself if you're not giving me the information to go along with it. So, shame on us for doing something like that because how do I know that this is good? This is a good thing for our city because we're just going on. We hope it's a good thing for the city. But I I just would have liked to have known a little bit more about the whole production and where the money was coming from and how much the cost of water, how much is it going to cost to to plant everything on this four acres uh in the period of time. that that's where I'm at is that I don't have enough information to move forward for myself.

Thank you. Thank you. Question.

I actually have a question regarding the appraisal since that's kind of where we're at right now. Um my question is so we go out for appra appraisal with them being a nonprofit. Do we we can only offer the land at appraised cost? Right. So is that the same as when we go out for is it based is the appraisal of the land based on the use of the land or is it just based on the land itself? It's based on the use and um there is a 501c3 exception for nonprofits that um normally an appraisal is not required but that's only for 501c3s that are providing a service that the city would um otherwise be required to expend money to provide

and this isn't one of them. No, this doesn't fall into that category. So that's but it does to answer your other question it does depend on the use.

Okay. And because it hasn't gone out for appraisal. We don't even have a projected idea of how much that would be. But as a municipality, we are bound, right, by what comes back. Yes. So, the land would have to be leased at the appraised value. Um, and of course, the the the appraisal is just the first step to determine what the land value is. And then we um we can go back to with the applicant and and look at bringing a lease forward. And at that time, that's when the council would decide, you know, if there's if this is an appropriate lease to enter into is is to

and at that time, they could come back with more information that would allow us to decide whether or not to move forward. And you would also know whether you wanted to move forward based on whatever the appraised value for us would be

and whether that fits into your model of of you know, the nonprofit slashgrowing. uh because land is expensive um and leases can go high sometimes and I I just don't know like to your point where your budget falls in for that and so but I know that we're just talking about appraisal right now but that would open a gate just to at least see but we would carry the cost of that which could be 2500 or higher. Um, typically that's we have absorbed that cost until we enter into an agreement. The council could impose um conditions on that. They could see if the applicant is willing to pay for the cost. There's um but that's just typically how we have handled it. There's no prohibition on the applicant uh paying reimbursing the city for the cost of the appraisal. That's something that

is that something we can ask right now. would the applicant be willing to um to to take that cost then there would be no burden on us right to just see if this is something that could work there that is a question the council if the mayor wanted to invite the applicant back up could they council could ask that question okay thank you so I think we're we're hearing from ourselves at this point go ahead

so that just for clarity say we go ahead with the resolution for the appraisal. Then they come back with a full presentation. We're not locked into anything. They're not locked into anything because maybe from the appraisal it may be too much, you know, to pay for that that land. But we're not locked into anything. We do get a full presentation of what they could do, what their budget looks like to go forth. Is that the way it goes? Yes. So, we're strictly appraisal and appraisal only. Nothing else. Pay for the appraisal.

Right. and I understand that. But um going forward before we say yes to the project, we'll get a full presentation of how they could go forward, how they're going to go forward and where funds are going to come from, that type thing. Exactly. That's why city staff um didn't organize the presentation today because uh this was just the first step to see if the applicant wanted to move forward once the appraised value came in and then we would have brought um a more comprehensive uh presentation to council on what the terms would be you know things like that um at a on a at a future item.

And is there anybody else interested in that 4 acres right now? I don't believe we've received any other applications.

Thank you. So, as I try to put all this together, we the council can decide whatever we want. Um, we we're interested for what is the appraisal. And I I think it would probably be wise for us to not limit the appraisal to a cactus farm as much as for anything. And if we recognize that the cactus farm has its benefits and all the things that we've heard, that is one thing. But if the appraisal says, you know, it's ne next to this place and it's around this place and you know, you actually have an option to do something that would bring money into the coffers of the city. U not just to feel good. And I I look at the picture of the prickly pair, by the way, and I I am missing trees that you can sit under, but I think that's problem with cactus. You don't sit under cacti.

No. Go ahead, Madam City Clerk. Thank you. I just wanted to mention the way this particular item was agendaized for this appraisal. It was written specifically to 1201 Quail Drive for the purpose of leasing the parcel for development of a cactus farm to a nonprofit. Oh. So we can do anything we want except change that. Exactly. You So we would have to lease it. No, no, this is just for the appraisal. This this doesn't require us to do anything except get an appraisal if we approve this

for a lease but for this specific purpose. Yeah. So that that and to bring that point up are does this allow us to say sell the land? It doesn't say that. So we can't do that. This is just for a lease appraisal for this particular project. Okay. Got it. Correct. And so we can't take into any consideration of anything else um that could be done with it.

Correct. A second option, if council really does have an appetite to appraise the land for other uses, then you could just not make a decision on this particular appraisal tonight and we could bring the matter forward to open it up to a broader appraisal. Okay. And I would feel comfortable with that. But

what what's the uh mood of the council? Well, if anything else were to go there, they'd have a beautiful view of our water treatment facility and our settling ponds. I don't know that there's a lot of uh a lot of nonaggricultural type or like the racetrack or other things that really would want to be right there. uh and and so I'm I think the types of use the racetrack and this option are are uh worth pursuing a an appraisal for

mayor and council just to offer additional I if the the reason why the agenda item is so narrow is because other uses for example if it was to a for-profit entity that would first have to go through the land management process And then the use has to be designated in the land management process before we seek appraisal. So that's why this agenda item wasn't written more broadly. Um so while we could bring it back, it would be brought back as a land management process item. Are there advantages to making this a land management item because we're using land?

Well, um at that point you can consider what the best use of the land is. um um anything but agriculture would need an a zoning change. Um so but I and we don't have any other interest in this land at that at this time. So but unless there's city interests in which that in which case the land management process would be an opportunity for the council to discuss what they'd like to see this land use uh used for. So, if there are other things the council would like to see it used for, then the land management process could be beneficial in that regard. Thank you. You were saying something.

Well, I was just saying, you know, if this is something we wanted to at least check into and see if again if this is something that they are able to do or not able to do and they would be willing to pay for the appraisal. We're not out anything, right? and we haven't committed quite yet. I I don't know. That's just the thought process that I have. If we want to just investigate a little closer as as we vote on this, we could require them to pay for the appraisal. Yes.

Yes, you could require them to pay for the appraisal if they'd like to move forward. Um and you could also invite the applicant up if you have any questions for them. And if you were to guess what an appraisal range would be for something like this in the middle of the desert uh for the two probably 5,000 it may be more. Um the larger ones are between five and 7,000 but that's for like thousand acres. Um we had one recently done over on Avenue I uh that was about 3500 uh but they were taking a 100 acre parcel and seeing how much two acres was worth. So they evaluate the parcel as a whole to come up with this mall. Um but it's really difficult to say what they've come up with this.

Okay. Other than a rough ballpark. Thank you. Any other feelings, questions? I like that idea.

Want to make a motion? No. Okay. Anybody want to make a motion or any Is there anybody She's making the motion. Go ahead. I move to pass resolution 8096 with the caveat that the appraisal will be paid for by the applicant of the project. I'll approve that. That's a second. I mean, I'll I mean, I'll second that. Sorry. It's getting sitt here too long. Thank you. And is there any discussion on the motion? I second it.

Yeah, second it. Any other comments? The motion is uh to allow the appraisal to go forth and require the applicant to pay for the appraisal. Correct. Correct. Any other discussion? If not, all those in favor say I. I. I.

Any oppose say nay. Unanimous to approve the appraisal be paid for by the applicant. Thank you. That brings us to item 12. Um, can we take a break? That brings us to a break. We will be back in 14 and 12 minutes. That was good discussion. Are you cold? No, I'm I'm comfortable. Very comfortable.

We are not Two two minute Okay.

Thank you. Welcome back to Boulder City City Council. Uh we now are looking at uh we've on item number 12.

Yes, thank you. Um just for the record, for the sake of the public, there is a handout for this agenda item. I added additional information. It's available here in the council chamber and will be uploaded on the website within 24 hours. This is the opportunity for city council to discuss placing any questions on the general election ballot which is scheduled for November 3rd, 2026. Um, what I added and wanted to mention is previously on August 13th, 2024, the city council directed the city staff to bring a ballot question forward for council to um discuss seeking voter input on whether the city council should adopt an ordinance to allow offhighway vehicle operation on city roads as allowed by state law. I also included in the packet this particular question was posed to the voters in 2019 and uh it was not approved. I have that in the packet so you can see that just for a point of reference. Per charter section 119 a charter amendment may be proposed by the city council and submitted to the voters at the city at the general election. Any amendment to the charter shall be adopted by a simple majority of the voters casting ballots on that question at two consecutive general elections before any such amendment would become effective. Per city code chapter 2, it would be necessary to appoint charter commission members to review it if this were the direction of council. City code section 19-13A has a limitation on city debt obligation provided as follows. The city and its agencies and enterprises shall not incur any new debt obligation of $1 million or more as defined under NRS 350.0045

to 350.0075 inclusive without the approval of the electors of Boulder City in a general or special election. Additionally, pursuant to section 143 of our city charter, expenditures from the capital improvement fund require voter approval. The capital improvement fund is funded through land leases, 20% of proceeds and sales, nearly 100% of proceeds. The CIF has an approximate amount of voter approved uncommitted funds in the amount of approximately $10 million. as um the CIF grows approximately $3 million per year due to a charter requirement that 20% of lease revenue be added to that fund annually and $1 million is committed to general government capital improvement projects. Finally, section 144 of the city charter limits uses in the Elorado Valley to those approved in the charter or subsequently by the voters which includes without limitation solar energy, wind, battery, energy storage and the city has been approached by developers interested in developing data centers, but this is currently not an approved use in the Elorado Valley. So these matters and any other matters that you wish to bring forward would be the time for discussion. This particular matter um after discussing if the council desires to move forward with a ballot question, the motion tonight would be to direct the city attorney to draft that question and then that would be brought back to council at the next meeting and you would either approve or not approve the language to move forward.

And if you have any simple question. Correct. Are we obligated in any way to have a ballot question? Well, that would be up to the only one that council would um I mean, do we? No, you don't have to. This is just your opportunity if you want to have a ballot question. Okay. And from a standpoint of the state uh requirements that we have, do we have uh something in state law that requires us to do something with off-road vehicles for instance or OVs? No, that was just a motion that was u made by the at a former council meeting.

So we actually don't have any obligation to do anything with a ballot question according to state law. state law already does allow the council to allow OV use um on roadways. uh the when the item was brought back forward in um 2024 in August, uh the council was considering whether to it was a discussion item on whether the city should bring forth such an ordinance and the direction that resulted was to instead bring a ballot question to seek uh the input from the voters to see if they would like the city council to adopt such an ordinance. and they did that.

That was the direction from council in 2024. So that's why we're reminding the council now because now would be the time if you wanted to move forward with that question to direct me to to draft it. Okay. So we haven't made the decision to do that. Correct. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. So if we say yes, we want to have a ballot question. Do we have to put a ballot question on if we because I know it's February and you have to find somebody that's a yay and a nay side. What if we don't find enough people? Do we have to do the ballot question?

Yes. Once you've directed the city attorney and it's finalized and you've approved it, it would move forward. Um, state law allows if we cannot find anybody to write the ballot question arguments, then um, it becomes the obligation of the city clerk and the city attorney. And then I'll follow that up. Do we have any preclusion of the city council deciding what to do on any proposed ballot questions that we couldn't just do by ourselves? Yeah. I'm sorry. Could you um could you repeat the question again? I

deliberately tried to offiscate successfully uh the city council can make decisions in and of itself. Correct. Irrespective of making everybody vote on it,

correct? Under certain for certain items. That's why in the staff report, it's highlighted what does require a ballot question. Um, but the OV example, uh, if if the city council wanted to authorize OVs on by ordinance, it can already do that. A ballot question is not necessary. That was just a direction that we received. I also wanted to add one more point of clarification. Tonight, the direction would not put any questions on the ballot. Tonight, you're just directing the city attorney to draft the questions. then I bring the questions back to you and you would pass a resolution that places that question on the ballot. Once that resolution is passed, it is very difficult to retract it because we have do certain deadlines and things to meet to print the the question on the ballots.

And I I do have the timeline included in the packet and happy to go over it. But um just so you know too, we still have two more meetings before we would have to do the finalization of a resolution approving the actual ballot question language. Okay. So we could approve it and then I mean we could approve it tonight and then deny it the next time in two weeks. Well, tonight you're not really approving it. You're just directing the city attorney to to draft the question and then you would have to approve whether or not you like the way that that question is going to be asked of the voters. Can I ask one more quick? I'm Yes, you may.

Um, which ones had to go to a vote? I I'm a little confused. I thought some of those had to go to vote and some of them don't have to go to a vote. So, a a charter amendment um would be required to be submitted to the voters. Uh if there's any bonding that the city wishes to do to fund a project, if it's over a million dollars, that project would have to be approved by the voters. Um if there's also money in the capital improvement fund, the balance is 10 million and is growing approximately 3 million per year. Those are uncommitted funds that could be used for a capital project um that could go on the ballot for voter approval. And then finally, section 144 of the city charter limits uses in the Elorado Valley. Um as the city clerk mentioned, the city has been approached by developers interested in in data centers um in Elorado Valley. However, because it's not an approved use, the city could not even explore a potential project. Um, if it was added to the list of proposed uses, then the city could it would not it would not approve of a data center being in the Elorado Valley Elorado Valley, it would simply approve it as a use. The city could explore in the future if if that is a valid question the council wants to put forth.

So, that that brings me back. We can decide if a data center could be used in Elorado Valley. The council not at this time. At this time, a data center is not an approved use in the Elorado Valley. So, the city council could not approve a data center in the Elorado Valley. It would have to go to the vote of the people to approve that use in Elorado Valley. Correct. Okay. Rightly so. Go ahead. Um, few clarifications. Does each ballot question cost about 20,000?

That's typically at the amount up to 20,000. You know, there's a lot of factors depending on how long the question is. You know, how many pages are involved, but that's to have one. It doesn't get cheaper to have two or three. I mean, it's it's each one cost that amount up to Yeah. Uh, I mean there's some things some costs that are combined, but typically it's it's around 20 to 25,000 per question. Per question. And why why isn't there any savings in there like on mailing and stuff like that or Well, that's some of the variations. I mean, it would be exact cost of mailing, but you know, the the more questions you have, then the the heavier the ballot would be. So, there's all sorts of factors.

Okay. It just seems like 20,000 for each one seems awful high. Yeah, this it because that involves um the the legal notices and the postage and the printing of the ballots and then the time to prepare them. Okay. I still was um have a qu a couple thoughts andor questions. Are we at thought point yet or are we just still a question? Yeah.

Okay. Um, when I look at the uses in the Elorado Valley, I feel most comfortable going to the voters to determine what they want our valley to be purposed for. Um, and I know that we are being approached for data centers and we talked earlier about the budget and uh, revenue sources. I know that that would be a source of revenue for us. Um, that would um, I don't know. I know that they're a good source of revenue, right? Comparatively speaking even to solar and battery or higher lower.

Yeah. Looking at uh land sales and over the hill and um the values of a data center are very high and the lease revenue would be projected to be much higher than a solar or battery energy storage facility. Than what we're currently using the land that we have out in that valley for and there are land pieces and parcels available. correct still. So, um I in my mind think that that is a ballot question that is completely worth exploring considering that we're looking for new revenue sources and that have little impact on the actual infrastructure of our downtown area.

So, you're making a motion? I made no motion. I made a you know just a talking point that if anyone wants to jump off on that talking point they're welcome to do it. I just said why I felt like this justified a $20,000 Absolutely. because I think the return on that is much higher. Did someone second that motion? I I don't think we can make motion yet conversation. Okay. I are we Yeah, we just have a conversation trying to trick me. Mayor, may I? Yes. Yes, you may.

So, in reference to the OV, the question that I have is the people already voted no. So, unless there's something that has changed significantly statewise, I don't think that that should be a ballot question at all because they've already spoken. Is there a time from 2019 that you could put it back on? Is there a time frame or does there have to be a substantial change to revisit it? It's simply up to the city council whether you want to direct me to draft that ballot question. Um, again, that was the direction in 2024 would simply to direct to bring it back at this meeting to to consider as a ballot question. It's not required to go forward as a ballot question this election and it essentially be an advisory question and if the council wanted to ask it at another time, you could. But again, you are already empowered under state law to pass an ordinance authorizing OV use on the roadways. It does not require voter approval. It would just be sort of seeing that the voters would in fa be in favor of it is really the purpose of the question. I I just want to say on the off-road vehicles, so many of the people felt like the the votes were close and that they really wanted to have a way to come down to the coffee cup and have breakfast or and I'm using that because they were here today. Um, but to come down to our restaurants, have breakfast or to use the gas station or to run off to the the grocery store. And it was finding a way to get them in and out here. And so they were quite passionate about that. That's why we said we'd bring it back in February. And so I think the off-road should be on there because they passionately felt that it was going to um that they could get the votes to get it to pass this time. So that's just my opinion on that one. I think I think of all everything that we

have I think is important and I'd like to see them all be on the ballot because everyone is really essential to our city to become a better community I think and especially with the funds if things over a million dollars to be able to put those where they they belong too and and move that fund around I think that's just as important as the uh um data center data centers yes thank you. So, that's my opinion. I'd like to see them all go on.

Um, just to clarify, the uh the examples in the staffer part are highlighting what what needs voter approval. They're not necessarily suggestions from staff on potential ballot questions. For example, for the for the debt obligation, um that would be if there was a project that we needed to bond for or if the council felt there was a project that was very expensive that need wanted they wanted to put forward that would require a bond, that's when you would direct that that ballot question. Um and then same thing with the capital improvement fund. That's just if there's a project in mind that you have that would that you think that money could be used for, that's when you would suggest at this juncture the ballot question to use the capital improvement fund money.

I I'm talking about what Sher brought up here, the over a million dollars, being able to move that million dollars, the uncommitted funds, uh the Elorado data center, the off-roads. Um uh and what would you say about the charter, Sherry? Uh, I'm I'm sorry. I only so sorry. We didn't mention off the road. You mentioned four of them that I really liked.

Oh, okay. So, tonight I just mentioned um the Elorado Valley usage. I just had mentioned in our briefing. I think that's what she's referring to. So, Council Member Booth and I briefed together and possibly what you're mentioning is we were looking at each of these since you made those as suggestions to us. And what I did say um about the debt obligation of a million dollars is the year that that was put into that a million might have seemed like a lot of money for going into debt where currently I mean I like to use the analogy of bananas at Albertson's but that I know that that really doesn't work here. It's just that a million dollars does not go where it used to be able to go. So like when we wanted to build a pool um most uh municipalities would go out and and take on that debt obligation to be able to build that we are how far how many years in the process of pool building because of that and being able to accumulate and I think also to your point earlier about the budget we keep monies on hand that's what we have to do to be able to afford some of these capital projects that are larger one-time things. Um, so that's all I was saying is with that is that I I don't know that a million dollars in today's economy really is what a million dollars was back in what year was it initially? I believe it was 2010 11

11 I mean 15 years later co you know inflation all those other things it just doesn't and for a municipality when you go out to do projects that need to be done you don't find a transformer for a million dollars or or things like that. So to that point that's something that I thought would be justifiable. Um, as far as o OV goes, I looked at it there was like a 13% difference. So I I didn't see it as super close. I was there when we talked about this coming back. The reason that we talked about it coming back is if any change was ever made while I was in council, it would never for me be by the vote of the council when the public had spoken by ballot. And so I would not feel ever comfortable making that decision without the consent of the people again and or voice of the people. And I feel that same way. I think it should be voted on.

Okay. And I think a 13% def or difference. I don't know that says to me I'm not so sure that that was super close. Take your banana subjective. Yes. Exactly. So that's the off-road vehicles. That's kind of really close. Yeah. if you remember. It's been a while. So, I I'm looking at this background information. Um, I go down to the very bottom and the Elorado Valley. We would have to go to the voter

uh in order to change the charter. And then I go back up here and the charter uh would have to go to the voters on two consecutive general elections or not. So the the uses in the Elorado Valley while limited by the charter, there's a subsection 2 in section 144 that allows additional uses to be approved at one vote. So you wouldn't have to amend the charter to add additional uses to the Elorado Valley. It can just be approved by one vote. Okay. So the final section 144 of the charter you could do in one vote.

Approving of data centers. Yeah. Or or any other use. It doesn't necessarily have to just be data centers, but any other. And then the one above that, the CIF fund grows approximately 3 million per year due to the charter requirement. Does that take two votes or one vote? That's just one vote. So, if there is a project the council has in mind that they feel the capital improvement fund could be utilized to fund um that's that is a question you could put forward is should the capital improvement fund monies be used to fund this project. So, does that have to specify which project that is?

Not necessarily an exact project, but it would have to uh specify types of projects. Um, and they'd have to be capital in nature. Um, it could be a general category. It doesn't have to be specific, but it it does have to be a capital improvement. Okay. And but then if we fund it or if we vote in a general and specific enough way, it can be done in one vote. Yes. So those two things could be done in one vote. the two things at the bottom, right?

Yes. The the expect expenditures from the capital improvement fund, the current balance and the growing what's added could be in one question. And then on the per charter section 119 the fourth paragraph down. Um what on the other things would take two votes other than because it says by simple majority on two consecutive which ones of those take two elections to do only a charter amendment and the charter amendment could be done in one step for use of Elorado Valley.

Well, you're not amending the charter with the use of Elorado Valley. um you wouldn't have to amend the charter because the subsection two in in the charter allows additional uses to be approved by the voters. Is is the over a million the over a million is in the code. So that is actually not in the charter and you could amend that million dollars. You could increase it um with one vote. Okay. What would you what would you want to increase that to? What would you want to increase that to? 1 million. That's your question. We need I think it's a discussion.

Well, that's I'm discussing that. That's a question. Is your mic on? Yes, it is. Can you hear me now? I can hear you now. Sorry. What would you want to like 2 million or you want them to go back and say, "Okay, what was a million worth 14 years ago? What's the equivalent of that now? 2 million 2.5 because that would be part of the question. What is going to be that cap to go to the residents,

right? And I guess when you look at this, right, I I look at things like um a lot of our city buildings are aging. So you have a police station that's aging and and we peace mill year after year. a little piece here to try to get done, a little piece here and there to stay within the amount to be able to fix something. And um and with that aging building structures that we have within our community, I'm thinking about those kind of things. Or we've even come to the conclusion, you know, what if we did need a second station? Well, again, uh for fire, again, that's something that costs more than a million dollars. So I I don't know the amount. I'm just saying what happens to us when we look at some of the areas of problems of maybe one-time expenditures is that now am I a debt person? I am not a debt person. I don't like the idea of going to debt. But I think if we had an option, right? And if our funds are giving more um return that we have our investments in than what our debt would be, we could we would it just makes sense in my mind.

But would you like 10 or 20? I don't have an amount in my head because I don't know what that would be. Do you have an opinion? My question is is that okay, a million right now, but we're saying you we go to the voters for a million. Okay. If something cost 5 million, we still have to go to the voters. So to raise it up, right? I don't know if it's up to a certain amount. I don't know if you would do that. That's my question. Context to the conversation. So correct me if I'm wrong.

Go ahead. What council member Jorgensson is referring to is section 1-9-13 in the city ordinances that indicates and I'll read it um shall not the city shall not incur any new debt obligations of $1 million or more without the approval of the electors of Boulder City. So that means to take debt of 1 million or more, it has to go to a vote. What I hear council member Jorgensson saying is maybe there's things that we could purchase and I'll use a transformer as an example for although utilities is an enterprise account. So that's maybe not a the best example. Let's let's pick something else. um you know building a a little outuilding someplace right uh adjacent to the police station and it's going to cost 1.3 and rather than take it out of capital improvement project funding or some other location we might want to just pay for it um or say you know what we want to we want to go into debt for it it's going to cost 1.3. Why would we uh say let's go into debt for, you know,.3 million when this, you know, only lets us have that 1 million? So, it it's really and I asked our finance director, are there projects that have come up recently that would cause us to want to increase this rather than go into a a debt issue? And I didn't get any. and she didn't elaborate on anything that seemed that had come up that we needed to. My question in relation to this that would

involve a potential discussion about the charter is we see that the voter approved capital improvement fund that comes from the finances from land leases is designated to go into that voter approved per the charter capital improvement fund and it grows at the rate of four and a.5 million a year but we transfer out 1 million every year so it grows about three to three 12 million a year and that is locked up. We can't say, you know what, and and I'm really disappointed that we haven't had public safety come here and give us their community risk assessment because it'd be nice to know now if we need to use some money out of the voter approved capital improvement project to build a station or whatever. And and it feels like I don't even know if we'll get it in time uh because of the timing of this. We only have two more meetings. So, that's a problem to me. But what I think might be a better discussion rather than touching that million dollars is to talk about the ability of council to use up to a percentage of that fund that currently is designated as v all voter approved. Could we not as council say let's let's change the charter that says we can use up to 30% or 50% of what's in that to give us a little more flexibility and some nimleness in in addressing issues that aren't on the 2-year ballot cycle. To me that feels more significant and allows us to be more responsive to community needs on a more timely fashion. I you know I t I really looked at that closely Sherry I agree with you that yeah 1 million in 2011 is not the same as it is today but honestly um I

think that's a smaller issue than maybe allowing us to use via a charter change some of the money in the voter approved cap because it's growing at three and a half million a year every single year and pretty soon you know it's going to be 20 million sitting there basically unaccessible to council in being responsive. I'm not saying we don't trust the voters or anything of that nature, but it's a timely matter, right? We're going to have to wait two, if we don't get it on the ballot now, two more years to use that money. And to me, that's a bigger issue.

Well, and that's one I like, too. go. And and to your point, council member, I just want to say that's a great point that you made because um I'm not necessarily in the need for debt, but if we have money on hands and we could use it, it's just that there's so many factors on what money we can use because they're in so many different funds and this is one of those. And um thank you to the voters that finally saw that the way that we were going to get a pool, right, was to approve some of those funds to be able to be removed out so that we could utilize them. But the problem that we're having is um without being able to take out the debt and with money sitting in there. I mean, I'd much rather use money that's in there and not go into debt if that was something that we could do. I'd much rather do that. Um but right now we are not able to.

Mayor, are we gonna like motion one item at a time and kind of get consensus and then Yeah, that's Can we start going down that road? Let's do make the motion. First thing I want to address is section 144 of the charter to request a ballot question be written by the city attorney presented to us at a upcoming meeting to allow data centers to be used or to be identified in section 144 for use in the Elorado Valley. I'll second that. All discussion. All those in favor say I. I

I any oppose? Unanimous. Thank you. And I'm I don't know what the rest of Keep going. I don't know what the rest of the council feels. I'd love to hear what if we want to discuss uh the potential for freeing up some of the money that currently sits exclusively in the voter approved capital improvement fund or not. I'd love to hear what others say to see if a motion would result in that. anybody besides me and you and anybody else? Well, I have it on my list. And you do, too. Yeah. I would accept a motion.

Well, I'm going to kind of spitball it then. Um that we have a ballot question and I'm just going to throw out a percentage and if if we want to modify it in the discussion, by all means. I I'm just going to say that we uh asked the city attorney to draft a ballot question that would allow city council to utilize up to 50% of the funds that are that reside in the voterapproved uh capital improvement fund for capital projects. And that's the caveat. Four capital projects that wouldn't necessarily meet the the election cycle. Is that a clear enough motion?

I'll accept that motion. Is there a second? I second that. Discussion. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? It's unanimous. Thank you. I don't have any others. Okay. I've spent. So, those are things that are going to be on the ballot. Um, and do both of those do it in one ballot or is that

So, just a what I'm hearing is I've been directed to draft two questions. Um, one is adding data centers as a proposed use as a an approved use in the Elorado Valley. whether the city should add data centers as a proposed use in the Elorado Valley. And the second question is whether the city council should be authorized to use up to 50% of the balance in the capital improvement fund for capital projects w without having to go to a vote. Yes. Without interim. Yeah. Yes. Without having to go to a vote. And yeah. So are those both one? Yeah. Yeah. Those So, those are the only two questions I've been directed to. Well, I wonder question.

What are those going to the ballot once instead of twice? Yes. Those both only need to be approved once. Okay. Mhm. And you have something. I didn't. You have something. I wanted to u put on the ballot the off-road vehicles. Okay. And so that is uh in our list of things. So the off-road vehicles to put the what what do you envision putting on the ballot to uh allow them to go into our into our smaller Boulder city area? Okay.

And to be able to use the restaurants and the grocery stores and the gas stations. And that would include some uh roads that aren't available to them or correct. They're not available at this time. And I think it's because of of our size we can allow them to be on our Boulder City roads. I I'm And this particular one was on the ballot before and was turned down by the voters. Okay. And then they came back and then we said we would bring it back up in February. Any disc was that a motion then?

Oh, that's my motion. Okay. Is there a second? Motion dies without a second. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And then anyone else have a suggestion. I think on the uh off-road vehicle because she said that that could be something that the council could talk about just without going on the ballot that um I don't know if that has to come back to agenda or not but if that were to I would say it need to be street legal licensed registered like any other vehicle because you can't designate just certain roads to get from point A to point B without like a car without having the insurance or the registration or license plates. So, um I I don't know if that has to be discussed now or later, but if we are going to talk about it, that would be a way to go about that.

Yeah, that would have to be brought back at a at a later meeting. Yep. And what other things are we looking at then for um on the list? Anything else on debt obligation? Do we want to do anything on debt obligation? And I think we're any other motions to put on the ballot then. Does staff have anything that they are suggesting?

No, but just as a reminder, um you'll be given the opportunity. So at the next council meeting, the draft ballot questions will be brought forward and then at that time um we'll write the agenda. so that you can discuss any future or other matters that you'd like brought forward. Okay. On a ballot. And if there's no other things on that and the 24th, um, do we need to do anything else on number 12? Okay. If we madame city clerk,

mayor, I think we're having a discussion to clarify. It's going to take some time to prepare the ballot questions. So likely this will be on February 24th city council meeting for the draft ballot questions, but if the city council has an appetite to discuss this at the next meeting, you would just need to let me know the writing of the actual privilege. Okay. So that finishes our uh number 12 on our agenda. Um, I will go now to uh public comment. And I I've been reminded periodically

on public comment before I open it up for public comment. Um, we have two periods of public comment. One at the beginning of the meeting and one at the end of the meeting. And then I have two things that are indicative of the first where um the mayor uh reserves the right to curtail abusive offensive inflammatory repetitive comments that disrupt, disturb or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of the meeting etc etc. And then at the end of the agenda, I get to say each person has up to three minutes to speak at the discretion of the mayor. Comments during public comment uh can be on anything. So all remarks may be addressed to the city council as a whole, not at not to any individual member of the council or to the audience. Uh, no person or other members of city councilor or the person who has the floor shall be permitted to enter into any discussion either directly or through a member of the council without permission of the mayor. No action may be taken on any matter raised under this item of the agenda until the matter itself has been specifically included on an agenda in a manner etc etc. So bottom line is this is open to do we have anybody on the line by the way? So, we'll open public comment and we'll hear um from the person who's here and then we will hear from uh the person on the line. And if you're on the line, you can call in at 7025899629. So, we'll hear from the person here in chambers.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. Appreciate your public service. Um my name is Mark Paplowski. I've been a resident of Boulder City more or less for 58 years. Uh I love Boulder City and just about everything about it. And um the work that you do like is seen tonight is um um it's unheralded. People simply don't understand the difficulties you have and I thank you for that. But I wanted to bring to your attention a matter that I think is important for the city to consider, not only about policy, but about costs and liabilities in terms of city actors and other people in power and authority. I'm going to tell you a story not expecting you to react, but I'm doing it because I've spoken to scores of people about these issues for the last year. And to a person they agree that these things are egregious and inhumane but collectively nothing is done. And I want to make a public record of it and see whether the collective wisdom in this room can see whether or not they feel there's a need to address the problem. Um let me just say that most of my life I've been a defensive person. I let people hit me and I get up again. But I don't attack back. I just don't like to do that. It's not right. But sometimes it happens so much that you have to resist and push back. And sometimes it gets nasty. And I'm not here to get nasty, don't get me wrong. But I I will take a lot of blows. And I'll explain that not because it's about me, but it's about the city and its policies.

You have another minute and a half to do it.

Okay. Thank you. On February 20th of last year, the manager of the man manufactured home park where I live directed the city public utility office to turn off the utilities to two homes in the park. No notice was given to the owners of the homes or to the people whose names were on those contracts. The city was notified, the manager's office, the attorney's office. Nothing was done. Their answer was it's policy or it's a landlord tenant issue. I notified the city attorney and the city manager that the city could be liable as agents of that manager, having taken actions solely based on what the manager told them. And they could be liable for those actions. Now, 340 days have gone by. The power is still off. The entire summer without air conditioning, the entire winter without heat. But I'll take my blows. But my point is, the city has incurred costs. They've lost over $3,000 in the two utility bills they haven't gotten for the last 12 months. They're looking at joint and several liability for the inhumane and egregious actions of turning off people's pile in violation of the law that says you cannot turn off power to evict someone. You cannot turn off power to somebody 70 years of age. And you cannot cause somebody to lose the opportunity to live in their residence. That being said, I want the city to know that if it doesn't want to address this issue, then it'll be looking at possible liability in other venues when I take the offensive. And we're talking 1983. I don't want to argue with anyone. I want to sit down and discuss the facts clearly, and I have everything documented. This isn't a conspiracy. But when somebody who's a manager of properties can walk into this city hall and tell the city what to do with their utilities and that manager doesn't manage just one or two or a dozen properties but affects hundreds of lives

in the community and can do this at their whim. That policy needs to be addressed and those actions need to be addressed because it could cost the city especially when that property manager is a member of the city council. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other anyone on the line? Comment. Go ahead.

Yes. Again, good evening for the verbatim record. Fred Volts. Lost revenue such as the $16,000 or $16,000 free golf rounds does impact residents and businesses that have to make it up through other mechanisms uh to the tune of $640,000 annually. The general fund does not receive. Ignoring golf course enterprise fund status is irresponsible. After discussion about item 10, no one brought up an obvious solution to the city's excess cash. When Alaska began producing oil at Prudode Bay in the 1970s, it began giving its residents an annual rebate. Over 15 50 years later, the annual payments continuing continue at varying levels. With the expanding bounty of solar leases present and in process, why isn't the city giving the its residents and business operators owners some level of rebates on an annual basis? It could be done through utility bills. No matter which major political party is in control of government, government tends to spend whatever it receives and never wants to give any portion of funds the people it officially belongs to and whom government officials are to serve back. The low interest rates earned on concentrated federally insured deposit accounts the city retains means little to the many businesses and households struggling with rising expenses, exploding rents, and static income. Such a plan definitely deserves your official consideration if you want to take action that tangibly benefits all bold rights. Tax increases of any kind are not appropriate regardless of what other jurisdictions do or do not do when too many of our local households are financially stressed. With city personnel costs comprising a huge

portion of the city's total expenses, we also need more position consolidations, restraint in new hires, and even potential reductions to stop and/or slow down the incessant growth of salaries and benefits. Remember too, water rights and allocations of any type mean nothing without water supply. The latest water forecast by BOR scientists indicate an extremely grim future for Colorado River flow. The region is not adequately preparing for that eventuality. Courts cannot fabricate more water supply. Golf courses will become untenable. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else on the phone? Anyone here in chambers? Good evening, mayor, council, staff. Brandon Smith for the record. Um just couple quick comments on um what's going on here tonight. Uh just want to comment on um cautioning the council um about inviting data centers to our region. Um, while it might be easy to just say yes and let them come, make the money, um, I can say through research that I've done personally in regards to just investing and whatever else, um, while while some easy money might be had quickly, um, the overall impact to the region is is really quite substantial. Um, as Mr. Boltz just mentioned obviously we we are extremely strapped for water resource here data center taken an an inordinate amount of of water and power to um cool keep operating etc etc etc um and and and that's just basically recipe for disaster uh I think Boulder enjoys some very um moderate utility costs as a result of of our partnership and our um our um contributing factor in regards to the dam itself and uh I think a lot of us are are quite grateful for our very low utility bills as a result and that could all go away with a with just one

data center in our region. Just wanted to mention that. Um, also very concerned uh again with the direction of our conservatorship with regards to the historic character of the town. I really do think that we really need to make that um a priority in in the case of of retaining its character. We keep been up here for two years. Everybody um agrees that that Boulder City is an extraordinary place to be. Um a town that we're all very proud of in regards to its heritage and its character. And that just seems to be going away day over day, month over month, year over year. And I think we really need to kind of focus on putting an end to that. Um, and uh, just a quick comment again, my own personal experiences in the last month with regards to some of the crazy crazy um, EV vehicle stuff, whether it's scooters or the ebikes or whatever. Um, the kids are really not taking this very seriously. and somebody's I mean we've already had um a death relatively recently in regards to um you know people riding them responsibly irresponsibly but legally legally but not appropriately. Um and I really think again it all comes back to enforcement. Uh nobody's really there's no enforcement going on. Um the people riding these vehicles aren't really

taking their responsibility seriously. Um and and somebody's going to somebody else is going to die. Many people are going to die. almost took out a whole group of kids the other night because they were just riding 30 m an hour down the street darting across the highway and then yelled at me cuz I told them to slow down and and not cross the street illegally. It's just crazy. So, I think that really needs to be readressed. Thank you so much for your work. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone on the phone line? 702589-9629 and anyone here in chambers would like to say anything? Seeing no one on the phone line and no one here in chambers, the meeting uh is almost adjourned, we'll hear from city council report at this point.

Go ahead. I don't have anything to report today that I haven't reported on recently. Thank you. Thank you.

Just quick report. Um we did have state of the city. It was wonderful. Thank you, mayor. And thank you to all those who came um to listen to this great city that we live in and and about it and what's going on and all the hands it takes to make it function and work. Um, I was able to, as tonight we found out, go to my audit review committee meeting and come back with good news. And Friday, I'll be going to Clark County School District State of the District. Everyone's having a state of something right now. So, I'll be able to attend that and come back with information. Thank you.

For those that didn't get to go, we got to go to the state of the city. And I want to tell you, our mayor was a huge success. He had 15 different hats. He loved the being upstage and having the microphone in hand. He had a ball and we all truly enjoyed that. And I got to sit at the table with our Governor Lombardo and Jim Gibson. And so I just felt very honored to be able to get to spend time with them and all the people that were there. I really had a great time. And I hope everybody goes next year. All of Boulder City. That would be wonderful. But that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Mayor, so I have no uh committee meetings to report, but I did attend the historic preservation popup meet and greet and it was well attended and um I talked to some of the residents uh after and they expressed their desire to continue maybe quarterly to do that um to answer the questions that were asked there and to track the progress of the historic district. So, thanks to everyone who came out. It was a real I think it was a success. Thank you, uh, Michael and and the city manager for putting that on and Courtney actually came out from Arizona. So, I I think seeing more of that would be a good thing. It was really well attended. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, I I have to say how much I appreciate uh our city council and the members and what we're doing and how we're doing it together. And it really is a very inclusive discussions and I appreciate all of them and all of you. And with that, the meeting's adjourned. Thank you. I thought we were going to go home early tonight. If you hurry