City Council - Regular Meeting

Let's start with the meeting followup. I don't know if anybody has anything from our work session or from our business meeting last week. Anything and city manager, do you have anything? All right. Um, we're going to swap the uh Fort Casper and the Casper Housing Authority update. So, we're going to go ahead and start with the housing authority. wants to kick that off. I believe that Director Becker will make introductions.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, you had requested an update from the Casper Housing Authority on everything they're working on. So, we know we've got great things happening downtown with Wyoming Bank building. We've got great things happening in a lot of the facilities you'll see from a housing standpoint. And again, this all ties into our um council goal of livability and quality of life. So, Kim Summerright, who is executive director of the Casper Housing Authority. Housing authority is our housing partner for Casper, is here tonight to do an update and um share some really I got to see the slides ahead of time and it's just kind of it's a great presentation. So, Kim, hi Kim.

Hi, guys. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. I do have a handout for you at the end so that you can have all the notes of everything that I presented. Um, so thank you again. I appreciate your time. So, let me tell you just for those of you that don't know

for low-inccome families here in Casper. Most recently, through a partnership with the city of Casper, we purchased the Wyoming National Apartments on December 1st. The property is 46 LITC units, four commercial spaces, and the cost of this property was $1.7 million, which is extremely below market rate for that property. The reason that we purchased it is to ensure that it remains an affordable housing complex. The first thing we did when we got there was secure the building. Um apparent once you live there, you had that key code to get in and out. So we had a lot of traffic in and out of the building. Um so we wanted to make sure that it was safe because that is a big part of what we do is not just affordable housing, but safe affordable housing. And so we actually went to keyops and we were able to program their numbers into their cell phones. So when someone comes to see them, they could it will call directly to their cell phone on the way in. We also secured the back alley which had a lot of activity and we've had we've been able to reduce that with the new security there. The common area there is absolutely huge. It was the huge bank lobby originally. Um and so we brought in all new furniture and we started to segregate it out into specific areas for specific specific um things to do. This gets a lot of activity in the morning with coffee. We have a lot of people down there visiting, drinking coffee, and enjoying that sunshine coming in. We also have just personal seating areas if you want to visit with a friend. A new library. You can um it's a trading library, so you can actually take your book with you and then come back later or you can sit there and read in the sunshine. We have a new family space um just so that you can come down. Um the kids can do gaming. There's a children's area and then you can also watch TV and just hang out and visit. This is probably our most popular area because it it handles a group of people. And what we've noticed just in the last few months is that the majority of the tenants there are really starting to come out of their out of their units,

come down and start to build community there within the building. We redid the office. Um, if you've ever been there, it was red, so it was really, really dark right inside the building and very difficult to get into um because there was so much furniture and things in there. So, we opened it up. It's easily accessible by a wheelchair, which is really good news for us since we have five in the building. So, it was really critical that we they're able to get to us. And in order to kick off this space, um, Wyoming Nashville hosted Urban Sizzle Farm's very first winter market. So, we had lots of visitors to check out the new space. Another thing that we do is we manage property. And in July of this past year, we took over St. Anony's Manor um in downtown Casper. We did not have any senior specific properties. And so this was a huge addition to our portfolio. It has a dining hall and community kitchen there. There's a lot of activity. Everything is geared towards people over 65. They're all onebedroom units. We also have a dining hall, comm community community kitchen, and some living spaces. One of the most exciting things we've brought in is a mobile pantry. A lot of the folks that live there are not able to get out and go to a food bank if they need to, and so we have the food delivered there every Wednesday. What you're looking at is one of our case managers who handles the manner. And every Wednesday, she takes whatever we get from the food bank and makes it into a meal. So, it helps the seniors to understand, yes, you can make a meal out of this, and here's how to do it. When they are done, she wraps everything up and sends it home with them so they have another meal besides just the one that's there. So, we're sure they're eating something. Okay. Um, we had to make some decisions about a permanent home for Casper Housing Authority. This is our new space. We purchased this building at 777

Overland Plaza, and we call this Lucky Triple 7. So, When you first come in the door, you're welcomed by an atrium, which this is really critical, we felt, because a lot of the people that come into our office come in in crisis. We wanted them to walk through this atrium and feel that calming presence. There's water flowing, the plants are all there. It's just a really comfortable space. And we'll come out sometimes and they're just sitting there relaxing. So, we created a very welcoming um reception area. When we were over at Roosevelt, we had a very small space. It was very tight quarters over there. And we we opened this up nice and big for families. So, we have a lot of we have a kids area and a lot of things going on there. We also have uh the training space that we've been trying to get for quite a while. We have both audio and visual things going on in this. Um and we do a lot of training there and we do all of our meetings are done there. All of our intakes are done there. So, this space is fairly busy most of the time. It's nice to have microphones. One of the really fun things we did this year was the urban thistle farm. You guys have not driven by it. In about a month and a half, it will start looking more like this. It's going to be closed down for the winter, although we have been able to grow in all the geodomes this summer or this winter. So, there is food growing inside. Um there is a lot of um interior as well. So, I'm trying to go fast because I have a short amount of time. Okay. So, the food is free garden is what you're looking at over to the left, over to the side there on the right. Um, that is free to everyone that walks through the garden. You can just walk through there and pick whatever you want. Um, there's no restrictions. There's no explanations. You just come, you sit, you eat, you do whatever you want. We have hosted three Americanore inc teams on the farm. Um, they have actually built the infrastructure. We have four of those geod domes. They put in all the water. They've built a lot of

things that are happening over there. Um, pretty exciting to have them. They're a great I think they did come and visit with you guys. The first team that we had um just a very dynamic group of of folks. We just started our CSA bundles. They're ready to go and they are working on um all the stuff for the community kitchen that will be installed here in just a little while. So, two of our inc team members came and they're in a gap year. um one is going to Georgetown University as well. And so they came and spent the summer actually working on an internship program at the farm or not summer but the winter and so they've done amazing things and they've really enjoyed their time here in Casper. Okay. Okay. So you've you've seen some of the community support that we provide both for the community and for our tenants, the people that we serve. Two really big things in this list is our project homeless connect which happens in January in conjunction with the point in time count. We had a little over 150 adults, individuals, families, and children come through there um this year that received clothing, food, just the necessities they need if they are sleeping on the street. Um our summer program, which is really geared towards families, which is the HUD National Father's Day event, we had over 2,300 people there this year. Okay. So, what I've talked about a little bit and touched on is the hot topic of LITC. And so, I wanted to give you guys just a little bit more of an overview of what that looks like. These are the properties that we built with that funding. Again, $48 million is what you're looking. Okay. What is it? Um, basically, it was a federal initiative established in 1986 to encourage private investment in affordable housing. Okay. There are benefits such as tax credits to the investor, but it was the the idea that instead of HUD having public housing and solely owning that housing, which they could not support, they had to come up

with a different model. And so that was that came up with in 1986. Um the the funding is to subsidize the acquisition and construction of the affordable housing. They do receive tax credits. Those are federal. But one of the most important things that you're going to read on this particular slide is project must comply with income and rent tests for at least 15 years to avoid recapture of the tax credits. So it's very very serious that these programs stay in compliance. So that has been renewed almost every year since 1986 by every administration since 1986 has had to renew the LITC property. Just recently and starting in January of this year, the one big beautiful bill made this expanded this and made it permanent. So low-inccome housing tax credits is now a permanent program. So it spanded all of those years, all of those different administrations and it is now permanent. Well, the government does value this program there. So there are some benefits to each community that has a light program. It supports job creation, stimulates local economies, and it does increase tax revenues. The social benefits which is the side that we work on the most is it reduces the housing cost for our tenants. It improves the community stability, enhances the quality of life. Properties are in good condition because there are so many restrictions on them and you have an investor as as opposed to a loan officer. And so they want to know that we are taking good care of those properties. We are keeping them in compliance and the property is in good and safe condition for the people who live there. Okay. So, how does it differ from just going out and getting a loan, right? Because that's what people want to know. What's the difference here? So, basically, when you hear LITC, that's just the name of the this the funding source, and it also identifies how the property is run. They are subject to long-term affordability restrictions and must comply with both federal and state level program rules. Um, they must meet

strict affordability and occupancy standards. and property manage managers and developers must also navigate complex compliance requirements to avoid credit credit recapture. The last line of that where it says LITC is authorized under section 42 of the IRS code. If anybody's ever met with the IRS or dealt with them, they don't negotiate. You will follow the rules. We are very much This has to stay in compliance at all times. There's no negotiation. Okay? So, you've done a lot. You've heard a lot of things that we've done even just in this last year, but the need is still there. Um, Casper Housing Authority can house 1% of the population in Mcronoma County still. That population has grown even as we have grown, but there's about 10.2% of people who need affordable housing in this community that do not have access to it. Okay. Can I answer any questions for you?

Questions from council. A lot. So, I've got a series if I could. So, come out Pat. Um, so where where are you at with has Roosevelt sold? It has. Okay. And then North Casper Elementary who thought is no no longer in the building. They left about two and a half years ago. Okay. So that's, you know, being repurposed for

as the urban thistle farm. So it's the exact same project that we initially partnered with Food for Thought to do. Exactly the same. We're just doing it under our nonprofit. So what else are you going to do with all that square footage inside? That's a good question. Um, we are building a coffee shop and a grocery store. Those are the two things that are slated to go in there. We have two comm commercial kitchens going in as well that will help produce the food that is coming off of the north side of the park which will be all production and Garfield will

it is still under construction right now just finished the roof on it which is not so I I thought that's where the offices were going to be and then daycare and it really it was initially um when they did the doge cuts, we lost the a large portion of that funding. Okay. It was slated for that which is why we shifted and just went to a strict office building and then we're doing offsite for all the pieces that were supposed to be. So that office building had other tenants. Did the other tenants stay or

um we we do have one tenant left in the building um who are wonderful. We have a really good relationship with them, but all the rest have left. Um we have so much traffic. We probably run about 50 people a day through our office. So there's an enormous amount of things going on and a lot of noise things. So, uh, lastly on the LITC, um, I know a number of us, including the city attorney, went to Miss Beextol's, um, deal last year and, um, so that legislation um, didn't end up going through, but I'm sure in a nonbudget mid session, she'll bring it back. Um, we have a number of local legislators that are in favor of that and we're on the checkgate list.

We're aware. So, um how how can we better educate uh the public and those legislators that this is not against the law and we're following strict guidelines federally approved and the mirror I didn't I wasn't aware that one big beautiful bill actually made that permanent. Right. So must be President Trump's administration must be in favor of this

unlike the folks uh that are pushing against this who are in favor of President Trump

and so it's a little bit confusing. Um you know we we have dealt with Miss Beexl personally. She's I'm her favorite person. Yeah. However, the information that she has is completely inaccurate. You cannot take one one line from an email that says, "Let me check and see if I can get you some information," and turn me into the godfather of the housing scandal. So, I'm just not that powerful. The bottom line is this. We will continue to do presentations like this um to educate the community. We've opened up our doors to everyone with the exception of Miss Beexel. she is not welcome on my property um or any of my properties because she has has been harassing my tenants and so we're not going to allow that. Um we just keep trying to educate them. We are working with WCDA and with Wyoming Housing Network to do the same. So that's all we can do. Um you've got to be willing to learn. She's not. Some of her supporters are just not willing. It's it's a narrative and they're going to run with it. That's all it is. Um it's unfortunate for the people of Jackson because In my office, that Jackson property is probably the easiest property to manage in the state because everyone you have there are first responders. We have people at 50% or lower of a month. Those folks are your, you know, they're your police officers. Those are the people that actually are first responders to the city of Jackson. So to target them and their children, um, and I know there is a restraining order against her as well from there because of the harassment and the targeting of the children. So, and we will do the same with this value.

Any other questions? Yeah, Michael. Thanks. Thanks, Mayor. Um, Kim, are the uh have so have the vouchers have housing vouchers completely gone away? Do you deal with them at all? So, I I heard you mention something about um sub supplemental housing,

right? Yeah. So essentially what we've done is we've tagged on to every program that we can viably manage with the staff that we have right and so we've expanded our HUD bash which we already had. Um we actually have the VA bash coordinators in our office. So when you're a veteran you don't have to come to my office and then go all the way over to Wyoming works over in that area to find the VA. they are now in my office and so we can generally house them a lot quicker than the answer. What we've done with the vouchers or a portion of them, a small portion is that we have put vouchers in half of the properties that we have. So you can start out at Raven Crest at $50 a month if you have no job, no income, nothing. That voucher will let you go that low and it'll pay the difference. You can work your way up as you as you get a better job, as you get job training to where you don't need the voucher, but you don't have to leave that community because we have other properties. Half of it is light tech, right? So now you can afford to pay about half of what you would pay in in town. Then when you're done there, you can leave and purchase your first home. But we set up every property work towards self-sufficiency in that manner without you leaving your support system. Yeah. Go ahead. Just follow. Um, so, so are there could an individual use a voucher for to rent a property that that is noted by Casper Housing Authority?

Absolutely. Um, Casper Housing Authority is a pass through for a little over $4 million a year to private landlords. Okay. In the city of Casper. Okay. Thank you. That's because that's what I I kind of remembered. Yeah. But I just wasn't sure if that was still and somebody asked me the other day that I wasn't wasn't sure. And then if I could do a followup real quick to councelor Sweeny's question about So is the the Garfield property will that be re I'm sorry. I did it. He got me started. Willard, I know that. Um was is that uh when that renovation is finished, will that be housing or what what exactly will be in there?

Right now we're staying with the original plan, but we are having to modify it. So, we're not entirely sure what it's going to look like until we get all the construction done. Um, we started on that project five years ago and with those constant delays with the CDBG funds, every time every year that we were delayed, the cost went up, then Doge comes in and cuts and so we're really having to kind of maneuver around what that is going to look like when we get to the end of funding that we have. So, the the original plan, if I just to refresh my memor of that was there was it was a daycare daycare and what else what else would be in there?

Um, we were going to have all of the housing authority offices, all of the case management pieces, the free store, all of the all of that was all going to be in one site. And so, we do have, you know, we already have the training center running in our office in our training room. Um, we do have a school at Willard or at North Casper School. We do have a school going there. Um, and so the pieces aren't there in the same building yet. So, we'll just have to kind of see how that goes with funding and then we'll know what parts we can do. Um, right now we we're doing infrastructure. We've got the roof gen. They're working on electrical and they're bringing the um all of the boilers back online and so that's what they're doing right now. Okay. Thank you. Else you can.

Well, thank you again. I appreciate all of you. Thank you for all the words. We appreciate you. Thank you. All right. Next up, Fort Casper grant application. Thank you. Um council, we're going to talk to you this evening about a grant to expand some of our educational um uh offerings at the Fort Casper Museum and also have the chance to introduce you to the new supervisor for our museum. So, Selene,

mayor, counselors, good evening. Uh, I know that you have a tight meeting tonight, so I'm not going to I'll I'll spare you my commentary uh and just introduce Mr. Steve Gainor. He is the new uh supervisor for Fort Casper Museum. Uh I know that he has already prioritized education as a primary focus for him. And so I'll give him an opportunity to uh introduce himself and let you know a little bit about uh how he hopes this grant will help bolster those education efforts and then stand for some questions.

Can I close this lap? Good evening, mayor, members of the council. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you tonight uh and tell you about the work that we plan on doing at Fort Casper. For those that I haven't met, and I have met some of you, I am Steve Gainor and I am the new museum supervisor at Fort Casper Museum. Uh before coming to Casper, I spent 35 years working in the film and television industry as a cinematographer. Uh what drew me into cinematography was telling stories. What drew me to Casper was the amazing story that already exists here. Story of the beginning of this town and Fort Casper in particular. In many ways, Fort Casper is the community's front door to the history of Casper. It's the place where visitors and res residents alike can experience the story of people who have traveled through this valley, built the community, and shaped the re the region that we live in today. The grant that I am presenting tonight comes from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agency that supports museums across the United States. Our proposal is called the Fort Casper Immersive Learning Initiative and its purpose is simple, to strengthen the museum's role as an educational resource for students in Nrona County. program is designed to bring students into the museum and allow them to learn history surrounded by the artifacts and objects and spaces where the history actually took place. Rather than only reading about the past in a textbook, students will experience it firsthand with museum with the museum itself. We want students to walk into the museum and feel as though they've stepped directly into the history they're learning about. The grant would support curriculum development, teacher partnerships, and structured classroom programming so that schools throughout the community can make use of the museum as an educational environment. Most importantly, this is

outside federal funding. Bringing resources into Casper while allowing the museum to expand educational program while being mindful of the city's budget. My goal at Fort Casper is simple. to bring more students, more visitors, and more outside funding into the museum so that it becomes both a classroom for our community and a destination for people traveling through Wyoming. Educational program programs like this not only benefit local schools, but also strengthen the museum's connection to the community. When students visit the museum with their classes, they often return later with their families, helping build stronger community engagement and increased visitation. Fort Casper preserves the story of how this community began, and my goal is to help ensure it becomes a place where future generations of Casper residents come to understand and experience this story. I'm honored to be here in Casper, and I look forward to working with the city to help our museum continue to grow and serve the community. Thank you, mayor and members of the council.

Any questions for Steve? Yeah, go ahead. So, how many I it might have said in here, but how many school groups do we get currently? Is it currently we we currently have somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,200 students through the museum. Uh I'm looking to bolster that amount between 1,800 and 2,000. Is it a particular grade? Uh yes sir. Third through 12. Uh skipping grade eight. Grade eight's on Civil War era history. Okay.

Thank you so very much, Mr. Mayor and Council. Thank you so much. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. We're requesting permission to submit the grant. Thank you. No city funding. just to be clear. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. All right. Uh application presentation for conduit debt.

Mayor, we I believe um director Becker will present. Um council, you'll recall that in December you had a work session where you approved the administrative policy by resolution for industrial revenue bonds. uh staff sub subsequently went forward um and invited interested developers to apply and so director Becker will talk to you tonight about our first application.

Thank you madam city manager. Uh mayor and council, this is an exciting project that we're bringing forward. Um again as Janita indicated we talked through the policy last December. um staff went out and put together an application process for industrial revenue bonds. Again, we are looking at projects over two million. That was one of the criteria. And as you'll see from the memo that was submitted last week, we are looking at phase two of Blackmore Marketplace. And as we step through a little bit of this this evening, um I'm going to hit some of the high points about um this project and um our work with the developer who has brought this forward and then you will also hear from the developer herself um and some of the work that that is going to entail. And then we'll be able to answer some questions and um hopefully get direction this evening to move forward to the next step with this process. So again, I want to draw attention to the memo that was submitted. Um the city put together a revenue committee back in 2024 and at that point the idea was to look at streams of money that might be possible for us to pursue um whether it was obviously grants like we just heard from Mr. gainer, but looking at ways that we can bring revenue into our city operations so that we can do more. Well, industrial revenue bonds was one of the projects that we looked into as a staff committee and bonds themselves are not going to be what brings in the money. It's the projects and this particular project seeks to bring in a multitude of revenue opportunities for Casper. Not only through what we highlighted, which would be the full-time and part-time jobs that are created, the salaries, the construction of buildouts and the

capital investment there, but also the sales tax space for central Wyoming and making us truly a hub for commercial development, not to the detriment of existing commercial development here in Casper, but to actually enhance um what we are able to see with some national retailers. So again, the bonds are going to allow this developer to be a more affordable in what they're able to do from a growth perspective in what they seek to bring into Casper. Um with the uh process um this particular developer has worked with us every step of the way. Completed a full application. They did the fiscal impact analysis which is a requirement of the application and the policy. they uh introduced us to some bond counsel and we've had our city attorney has had numerous meetings with bond counsel so that we can be really on the cusp of understanding what we're moving into. Hopefully um you will have some questions about that this evening. And then they also produced a staff summary in the packet that I submitted or we submitted um we did include the fiscal impact analysis for your review as well as the staff summary for the weekend overview. We did summarize um the bullet points um that were key again to what this particular project will bring forward and then a couple of the other points I wanted to uh draw your attention to under the financial considerations. Again, the bonds are called conduit debt because while the city is the issuer, the city does not have any liability for the payment of the bonds. That's going to fall onto the developer. um they the developer will function as the guarantee and again the debt does not count against our municipal debt rating and again our um finance director Jill had stepped through that back in December. Also the economic development tool that

industrial revenue bonds uh provide for our community is to provide potential funding at interest rates lower than commercial lending. And so again, this is what draws a developer that you'll hear from this evening to look at bonds and to bring this idea forward that they can have a lower lending rate, but again, we as the community will benefit. Um the city does not bear any cost to the issuance. In spending a lot of time with the application, I wanted to um highlight a few other points to all of you. Um Blackmore has been in existence here in Casper since 2007. They are a long-term um entity here in Casper and we are truly benefiting by what they are bringing forward to our community. So they have made a commitment to the Casper market. Their ownership approach is all about community involvement. And I was watching Karen this evening even during um some of the presentation with housing. Um when Blackmore first came on board, we were um everything was hunky dory and then COVID hit. And one of the things that this developer did, and many of you may have been out there, is they set up feature movies on the side of the uh buildings out there and made it an opportunity for all of us to be able to get out at night, even if we were or were not masked up, and be able to have some family fun friendly. they have invested in wanting to do things for this community. I know that she's always interested each year in our Rotary Duck Derby and what that does for our community. But again, I appreciate the investment that the Blackmore ownership has made in the Casper and the commitment long term. And finally with the continuity of management with this company again we went through a lot of

the financials behind the applicant and this particular management company is not only professional they have operational strength around the country. They know what they're doing when it comes to building commerce. They are consistent in their operations and hands-on and they are very financially sound. So, I look at this opportunity that Casper has as a community in Wyoming and um I think we're pretty blessed um that we do have this opportunity um before us and um I do believe that the industrial revenue bonds will assist not only the applicant but us long term um through what we see from a sales tax and employment opportunity which is again there's four criteria that invest industrial revenue bonds need to meet. Those four criteria are outlined in the memo. And again, we um highlighted as staff how the four criteria were met with this project. So, I'd like to introduce Karen Blumenstein um with Flower and Stone who is the representative for the applicant. And Karen's going to come up kind of talk us through um the project. And we've got some maps that we're going to get pulled up, but there may be a few slow spots. So I can just forewarning you I may not be as techie savvy. So but Karen is here

my tech assistant. Yes. I did not interview her but No, she was recommended highly hoping. Yeah. Well, okay. Um there are there are let's start with that one. That's a beautiful

um good evening um Mr. Mayor, madam city manager, members of the city council. It's my pleasure to be with you this evening. I have not had an opportunity to stand before you. Um, you may know in 2016 and and members of the community, thank you for being here. Staff also, um, in 2016, we purchased Blackmer Marketplace after the unfortunate passing of Mr. McMurray. Um the McMurray family was focused on finding a new party to step in that had the financial capacity um that had integrity and that would make a long-term commitment to the community. As you know um their hearts in Casper and we were honored that they selected us to come in. So that was 2016. We've been here a while. Um since that time we've tried to build on the foundation that they established partly by getting the center to be a little more stabilized. We had some tenants that just left the market alto together like a dress barn um shoe carnival and we brought in some other tenants to fill out spaces. So we had the existing coal center hanging out there ready. Um and then we had an outrageous amount of raw land. So, what I wanted to start with is just to tell you what it was we bought and then I'll tell you a little more about who we are. Um, so everything you see on here is are the parcels that we actually purchased from the McMurray family. They still own some of the zoned Blackmore Marketplace area. Some's residentially zoned. All sorts of zoning on there. Um, going from here. Let's see how this works. Bank it. Let's see. I might not even need it. So, the existing developments on the right hand side, Newport Road, which bisects down

the middle. That's where the Cole Center is. Michaelels is over there now. Ulta is over there now. Hopefully, you guys have shopped there. Hopefully, you'll continue to shop there. Um, we also bought Studio City, which is across second. So, Crumble came in after we bought it. Um, Redwing shoes. Thank you so much, assistant. Um, so if you don't see what I'm talking about, I'm happy to jump over the cord and point for you. I'll turn staff has been awesome, by the way, absent this one tech value, which we'll let her be okay with. So, this is all the land we actually bought. Discount Tire is open up there at the top. Studio City, like I mentioned, is up there. We filled in some of the vacancies in that. Um, and that was 2016 and we really had not come out of the ground with new construction. Um, and I'll tell you who we are. So, Flower and Stone, which is my company, is primarily a retail developer. A little bit of mixeduse projects, but primarily retail. And from 2006 to 2012, all I really did was public private partnership developments. We can talk about those a little bit more. um Casper unfortunately doesn't have that tool in its toolbox, but in generally in a place like Colorado, um there's a way that the communities can really assist in getting raw land developed, getting the developers in there, having a say in kind of what comes up out of the ground and making sure the right parties are selected to come in. So, I did that during what some people refer to as a recession. Um I did 10 deals during the recession. Um, and for those communities, their general budget was really happy that we were there. It was raw land that generated nothing. Um, and we turned around and generated sales tax and property taxes. And the community had new places to go, um, new places to hang out and they're all still there. Um, so that's primarily what I do is develop power centers. The other owner, my partner, is the Kroni

Group. And between the Kroni Group and myself, we own and manage more than 10 million square feet of retail. There's a whole conglomerate of other things that are owned on the cranky side. Leave that aside. I'm not involved in that. Um, but from the retail perspective, that's a huge portfolio. So, what does that do for a community like you guys? That means that we have relationships with pretty much any national tenant that's out there. Um, we have centers that have Cabelas in them. We have centers that have big grocery stores in them. Um, lots of properties out there. What we're known as is a company that delivers. So somebody that's going to come into a market like Casper, which believe it or not is a much larger trade area than you may think. Um they're going to say, "Well, this is a Flower and Stone and a Crunky Group development. It's going to happen. The tenants they claim are going to be here are going to come here. They're going to own it. We don't sell anything. Um they're going to stay in that community and it's going to be managed like a first class center. So that's what we bring into a market. So when we chose to come into Casper, Casper met all of those sort of markers that we looked for. We are not Maine and Maine developers. We're not in Malibu. We're not in downtown New York. Um we're in Callispel, Montana. We're in Steamboat, Colorado and Grand Junction. We're in Cheyenne. We're in Gillette. Um these are the markets we like to be in and that's partly because of the product we deliver. You know, we're looking for mid-market types of opportunities. We're not Pottery Barn. We're not Great and Barrel. Um, we are some pretty cool tenants. We can get to that in a second. Um, two things I'll tell you. One is I tend to talk fast. So, if I'm talking too fast, just tell me, "Wait, can you repeat that?" Um, and if you really are lost during the conversation, I'm happy to uh to go back over something then or we can talk about it at the end. Um, my

queue up the next thing by just tapping it somehow. my tech assistant.

Go to cool. Just need to make it small enough so you can see the whole thing. I can see the whole thing. There you go. Okay. So, what is phase two? Some of this stuff you've never seen. Some of these tenants haven't announced yet. They're sort of announcing now. What I will tell you is any logo you see not see on there has a signed lease built the building and they're generally in buildout getting ready to open. So phase two is almost 200,000 square feet of coming into Blackmore marketplace. It's a combination of what we call junior anchor tenants outlots a future groceryer um and supporting small shops. in this case and hopefully kind of see what's going on here. Um this is Maurica's and Five Below who you've seen already opening. Um it's an interesting discussion. Mauric's came out in the very first week and their sales are almost double what they were getting in their prior location. That's the only tenant that was a relocation for us, but it was a good opportunity for them. This is actually the co-eny they're normally with. So their prior location was a little bit unusual for them. Five Below, which is a cool cool company. Someone just told me that it's considered to be the Costco for teenagers. I don't know if any of you have someone in the like nine to 16 age, but apparently they love Clive Below. Um, they had one of their best weeks ever opening. So, this a little bit of tells you about why are these guys here? Well, these guys are here because this is a massive trade area. It's underserved. Um, and they know they're going to do well. So, Burlington HomeGoods, which is the only tenant over there that does not have

their sign up yet. Sierra and a to be named Winkco store. And the reason I'm telling you it's Winkco is because we did sell that parcel. Their name is on the deed. They haven't announced. So, I'm not firmly announcing a grocery store, but I am telling you that that's the new owner of that 9 acre parcel that sits up at the front. Gives you a little idea of the who's who. Um, we're marketing to small shops, um, local shops, some national shops. We would love to hear from more of the local tenants, Toronto County tenants, retailers, new and, you know, existing. Um, it's a great opportunity for them to be around some co-eny. Um, it's a little higher priced unfortunately, but it also drives a tremendous amount of tenants and customers that they probably never see any other way. Construction started in January of 2025. John in the back here, who is the Sutton run, Slutton office here in Wyoming and here in Casper, is my general contractor. We're 85% built. Oh, I should tell you I didn't name name one more. I'll tell you them in a minute. Um, and two tenants have opened. All of those tenants in what I'm calling the junior anchor building. So, the building that starts with Reese's and ends with Sierra will be open by the middle middle of April. So, you will have lots of new fun places to go. The last box that sits in the parking lot here in green is Barnes & Noble. Another new store coming into the marketplace. So, bookstores still are around. Um, I have a Barnes & Noble in my community in the Evergreen, Colorado area. They never closed. They're awesome. I love bookstores. I love libraries. Um, they're psyched to be here. They'll open in July. They run their opening dates as a whole on the tenant side. We can't really push them. I can tell you that the grosser parcel does have an obligation to build by a certain date. If they don't build, we

can take that property back. So, they're pretty incentivized to keep going. um they wouldn't have bought the parcel if they didn't intend to come into the marketplace. They're also going to be in Cheyenne. We should open first. Um but so they're coming in here. Those are the markets that they see as the as the right place to be. Um you saw a packet with some summaries. The application that we submitted was I think almost 180 pages. Hopefully you did not have to go through that. Um it was a whole lot of fun to put together on our side. But part of what the application requires is that we have independent third parties provide reports. So the data that you see came out of those third parties reports. So THK, which is a firm based in Colorado, they do economic development studies all the time. They do market studies. They generated the report on the sales stack side. Um, we also have an independent bond firm that comes in that evaluates all of our tenants and all of our projections and determines whether they are or not reasonable. Bound Council was that was mentioned and we also have a third-party management firm that will handle collection of revenue and view expenses and kind of be a third party out there. The IRS is really the biggest eyes on these types of bonds. Um, but we have our own crew of independent parties that come in, check our work, check who we are, make sure it's all reasonable. Um, thus far we have invested almost $47 million into the phase 2 project. It sounds outrageous. It is outrageous. Construction costs are outrageous. That's not John's fault.

It's our fault from what I've heard.

I don't know whose fault it is. Um it is pretty outrageous but uh that's why a tool like this really helps. On the upside, you know, we're someone who just continues to invest. You can't just sit on land at some point in time and the carry cost of the land. The opportunities are going to go away. You have to keep investing into these properties. So that's the way we look at things. Once COVID slowed down enough, the tenants were ready to come back out and we were ready. So, that's why you saw we first started talking tenants in 2023 and we're bringing them out of the ground and they'll open in 2026. It's a pretty slow process for us. It's a 10-year deal that we've even been in the parcel. Um, and this is the first time we've been able to add a big chunk of additional retail. So, I'm pretty psyched up. We're pretty psyched about it. And what does it do for you guys beyond a huge community benefit? Lots more places to hang out, safe places to hang out. um we are going to generate about $ 58 million in taxable sales when these stores open. So what we call the stabilization year three let's say um that's based on numbers that come out of both our portfolio experience. We have quite a few places where we have programs like this that tenants have to report sales. So we're talking about numbers that we are in our own know and then the third party firms verify those numbers and that actually is their projection of what the sales volume will look like. That'll grow to about 85 million over the first 10 years. That's a whole heck of a lot of taxable sales. That's not cannibalizing existing sales. That's new revenue coming into the market. And we'll talk a little bit about why that's even there and why there's such a great opportunity to capture that. Um, the other things we do is generate a ton of jobs. You know, Liz mentioned briefly huge jobs already in the construction side. John gave us some of those numbers, but I think we've had almost 500 opportunities for construction folks to come in through the project and get paid. Stay have

opportunities to work on an actual live fun project. Um, we'll have more than 400 permanent jobs that come out of this phase alone. That's equivalent to about 280 full-time jobs. And that's everything from someone who's on the floor as a retail person to assistant managers to managers to back office folks. One of the nice things about these kinds of tenants is they tend to raise from within. So you may start on the retail floor, you may become an assistant manager, you may become a manager, you may go over and handle a trade area. So, it's a great opportunity for hopefully some of the youth who are into the business side of the world and want to stay in Casper. Um, and just some people who need some part-time jobs that are stable, that have some benefits attached, that they know are not going to be gone in 30 days. So, it's flexible work, full-time, part-time, but a great opportunity on the whole. Um, so why is it that these guys are in this market? These tenants are in this market. See if I can handle doing this. Okay. So, you might be surprised that this is a regional shopping center.

I'll just let you This is replacement tech. What's your name by your head? Derek.

Derek. Pleasure to meet you. Thank you very much. Um, so Blackboard Marketplace is becoming a regional shopping destination and that's really what we build. We build power centers draw from huge trade areas. So the tenants that are here, they consider the trade area to be about 125 miles. This is not a grocery trade area. This is the existing junior anchor type of trade area. So the folks that are already there on the other side are going to see all these new customers coming into the market. And all of these tenants use this kind of an analysis to figure out, well, where's the shopping going to come from? So while you may say, well, Casper is what are we 70,000 or so folks right now? The trade area is about 130,000 people. Um, so those are shoppers that right now are going to Cheyenne, are going to Rapid City, are going to Bill Willings, are going to Fort Collins, they're going everywhere except here. So, we're leaking, which is the really the shopping center term, sales opportunity and sales revenue to these other locations because we don't have those opportunities now. So, we're going to both capture that leakage, which is key, and we're not going to cannibalize the other opportunities because we're going to start grabbing those folks in between that headed that way and they're going to head this way. And this is the tenant analysis. This is not something that we generate. They come in and they look at a community. They do extensive analysis of what their sales volume is going to look like. Their rent rates are driven totally by that. So, while it would be nice that we can say to them, hey, you have very few groundup new market opportunities and we want you to pay this. They're going to say, "We're only going to drive this kind of sales that equates to this occupancy cost and that's what we can pay." So, between construction costs and what really is uh if you want us in the market, this is what we can pay. It's our job to figure out how to deliver a shopping center that still is reasonable from an investment perspective and makes sense

to own. um in a market like this. On the upside, we're long-term owners, so we're not building to sell. We don't need to get this up and in three years, we're not going to sell it. 10 years and 20 years, we're still here. Um we look at our return environment over a much longer period of time than your typical development and ownership group might. So, we can come into these markets because we're a little more patient with our capital. That doesn't mean we just go willy-nilly, though. Um everybody's got opportunities. These tenants have opportunities to go pretty much anywhere in the country. So, they're choosing to come here. We're choosing to come here. And everyone's looking for a reasonable period of time to recover what they've put into the market itself. They're excited. We're excited. So, the fact that it's a regional market is going to be awesome and uh trapping all that leakage is going to be tremendous. There's also quite a few community benefits that we're happy about, excited about. back over to this one. Okay. Control L. See, right. There you go. Okay. So, in in the course of this development, we're going to be building a new public park. I say it's public because it's all of our money, but at the end of the day, we're hoping that the city will take it as their park. We will still cover the costs of that park. That's part of what the opportunity of the industrial revenue bond to do. So you'll get a new park will have built the park. The Rotary Club is going to get involved with how we design that park and what's in there. And because I have on my own family side um some neurodeiverse people, my goal is to make this park so that someone who's in the neurodeiverse community can come here, be comfortable, and enjoy it. So, it's going to be pretty unique for the city of Casper from that perspective. We're also going to be having more bike racks, a lot more pedestrian

connectivity, and lots of opportunities to get here. The city's going to be putting a new bus stop in place somewhere in front of that grosser parcel. Um, so some of the senior community can get over here. This is a great grosser. It's nothing like any of the grocerers you have. It's employeeowned, which is also pretty unique from a grocery perspective. um they're psyched up to be here. So between the new park, the new transit stop, the connectivity, the things we just do in a community like the movie nights, we'll continue to do some of those fun new things because we have new tenants out here that will help drive that interest. Um that's going to be great. And the other thing is the spillover effect. So right now you've got lots of restaurants, lots of other shopping opportunities that are kind of hoping to get new customers and new people in here. This is going to drive a ton of new folks that have never shopped over here. They're not going to just shop with us. They're going to shop other places. They're going to go down to David Street Station in that area. They're going to stay in the hotels. They're going to eat the restaurants. There's a huge spillover effect. We actually calculate that almost 30% of our sales volume will come from outside Toronto County. So, that's who you're seeing that wasn't shopping here that's going to come in and shop here. So, that's a great benefit for this community. We're excited to be able to do that. The other thing is we have all of that other land to develop. So as this comes up, more tenants are going to say, "Okay, it makes sense. They were 140,000 square feet. They're almost 300,000 square feet now. This is a regional shopping center. This is a place we want to be." So there's other tenants that have talked to us over time that we're kind of in that waiting zone. Um we have almost 50,000 square feet that we can develop right down here in the bottom in that yellow box. It's on the coal side. Um, we have out parcels that are up on Second Street. I'm focused on trying to find some more sitdown restaurant opportunities,

mid-level restaurant opportunities. You saw Aspen Dentl open. Panera will be opening next to them. Panera is a little slow on the opening side. They're probably a fall opening. Um, there's somebody who we had kind of paused, came back, were patient, we waited for them. That's the type of tenant we want. Um, so hopefully you guys that are Pera folks will be psyched up to come and go over there. Um, the park location. So if you if I had my pointer point um this area right here we'll have screening triangle.

Yeah. So that's almost it's an acre and a half or so. And we're also going to have some elements along the hillside that you can just sit and hang out. Um so you'll be able to hang out in all of this stuff once you're here. Thank the same. Um, so in closing, as you continue your review, um, we respectfully ask that you determine that the required findings under the statute, Eric can tell you all about the requirements on that side, um, have been satisfied and that the project uh, demonstrates clear community and economic benefit. We look forward to your continuing review. And, uh, I'm happy to answer any questions, but thank you very much for your time. It really is a pleasure to finally be in front of you and be able to say hello. Happy to answer any questions.

So, a few questions. So, just a few on the do no do no harm. Yes. Why not try to buy them all and then as other places have done then the out outshoots um you know come from there. But I I just see it as emptying emptying further emptying an almost empty mall.

Um so when you say by the mall, I'm going to assume you're really by the mall. Is that what you said? Okay. I'll answer it two ways. We're not mall developers. Um and malls, as you probably have seen across the country, are being demalled. So, the upside is the current owner of the mall now has pretty deep pockets. They know what they're doing. The downside is they have a huge New York transaction for housing that they are just gotten into the midst of, which may have them take their eye off the ball a little bit. Um, but these are not tenants that go into malls. So, you find very few HomeGoods, very few Sierras, very few Burlington in a mall. Um, some of the tenants that are in the mall right now, Ashley Furniture talked to us. um you know that we weren't at a price point that they could really afford. They're more often out in a power center, but they'll do fine. They got an outside entrance in the mall. So, the front of that mall is great. These tenants want you to be able to walk right into their stores. They don't want you to have to walk through a mall to get to them. So, it's a very different tenant mix than the mall will have. I've actually talked to Liz a little bit about the mall. I will tell you that this new economic development tool you have, I am sure um that they would get educated on and probably take advantage of. It's a tool they're going to need. They're making enough money apparently on the mall. They have gotten some new tenants in there. They're cutting really nice low deals. So, they're bringing in some new tenants that haven't been in the market. That's great. Um but a very different tenant mix comes into just kind of a power center than into a mall. And then another another question I've got I guess in my mind the organization itself Kroni group um definitely asked where for all and his

wife definitely asked where for all um and so I'm just wondering why is an IRB so attractive in in this days you know interest rate and

so the bees do a do two things really that I don't think Liz touched on um one is is they let you recover the equity in your deal faster than you would otherwise have. So when we look at a project like this, if our equity is going to be sitting in there for 20 years, it's not probably a project we will do. Um, you know, because of it, the crank is the wherewithal. I don't have that wherewithal, but I do have the experience. Um, you know, we can go build anywhere. So we kind of have to compete with ourselves on what does that opportunity look like? What does this opportunity look like? Like any business person, we're only going to go and do something that makes sense from an investment perspective. doesn't meet our model for lack of a better word for this to meet our model. Um the IRBs are one of the ways that we can get there. It also will help us continue to invest. So we have probably 80,000 more square feet of inline type of retail we can bring in parals we can bring in. If all of our equity is sitting in there, then we aren't going to go throw more equity into the room. It's just too much. between the purchase price and this investment. We're at almost $80 million. We've invested in this community. So, as you do that, and you kind of know what it's like to borrow, it doesn't matter who you are anymore in the world. Um, that means there's a lot of equity in the room. And when you go to the permanent market, it's not like it used to be. When I first started building shopping centers, I could go into the permanent market and I would get a 100% of the value of my shopping center and I'd get my equity out. We get about 65% of the value now. That means 35% which is generally my equity sits in that shopping center. So something like this allows us to recover that equity faster and then put that equity back in to build more. So that's really why so it's not necessarily you know how deep your pockets are that lets us kind of keep going and bear the risk for lack of a

better word. um get those tenants in the door and hope that we can find some other tools that will help us. You know, interest rates are interest rates. You got to build to the interest rate. You buy a home, if you can afford it, great. Um they kind of are what they are. We're never going to see those rates that we saw before from a commercial or residential side, but you still have to find a way to continue to be vibrant. And this is one of those tools. And I think you will find hopefully that um someone comes in and sees well hey that's a deal that Blackmore Marketplace was able to get done help them. They just invested another $40 million plus. I can come into that community. They have a tool. I know that the council understands that it's tough to build in this environment whether it's manufacturing whether it's retail whether it's commercial whatever it is. I think that having a successful project is gonna spill over from that perspective also. And when these guys go out on the economic development side and try to tell somebody, hey, come into Casper, it can be affordable. We have a tool in our toolbox now that we've never had before. This is a great way to show that proved it up. So that's a long version of an answer.

So one last question. So, will the playground be similar to the premium outlet malls mall uh at 138th to 144? Yeah, which by the way I that Cabela center that's right over there is one of my shopping centers.

It will be similar. I I wouldn't consider that to be really focused on a neurodeiverse community. Um we hope to have some areas that are quiet spaces for lack of a better word. They're designated like that. If you've gone to um in Wheatidge, Colorado, there's a new park that's at 38th in Wadsworth. You could probably Google it and find it. It's a really good example. Um they have a whole section that's really focused on a quieter play. They have outdoor instruments that you could just tap on that are kind of a wind chimey kind of sound. They have barriers up that are moderate graphic so that the street you block off the noise. So, there's places for somebody who just wants to sit, whether it's a baby or whether it's someone who really can't function that well in a really, really noisy environment. They have climbing um opportunities there. Then they have a second section that's really much more noisy um that your more robust, active child or teenager, whatever could go over. They have a lot of just hangout areas that you can sit with your family, you know, you got food, you can have a meal over there. So, it's going to be a little more like that. Um, I like some of the elements of that Simon property. They have some hanging swing chairs that you can sit in, which actually are good on the neurodyiverse community side. Um, and some of that kind of stuff, but I think it'll be a little more targeted to what those communities really need. Like that question, you went all the way there to shop, so now you know you don't have to go as far.

Yeah. He wasn't there to shop. He was he was there. You go to Barnes & Noble, you get a new book, you go sit over there, you chill out, you read the book, and you're all good. You can send the kids over to the noisy section, they can go hang out over there, you can sit with the baby. So hopefully it will really be a great attribute. Sorry. Anybody else? Yeah, Kyle,

thank you. It was Karen. Was it appreciate it? Uh really interesting presentation. I I know a lot of people in the community have been really curious about all the activity going on over there. So, this is a great kind of summary of everything going on. Appreciate you articulating that uh so very well. Um mentioned uh not that I think we should be looking at Colorado uh to copy too many of the things that they've done, but you you made it sound like there's lots of tools down there, public, private. Yeah. Uh tools down there that don't exist up here. I'd be curious if you're able to rattle off a couple of those. Sure. uh or just in general, you know, I'm always looking more opportunities for the city to be a better partner in development and stuff. And so I'd be curious, yeah, what those tools are that you're familiar with.

Yeah. You know, I mean, partly what you do already, some of these optional taxes, specific purpose taxes, you know, you put specific projects out there. You let the community say, "Hey, do you want to support these great?" And then you tax out there. Um Colorado, we don't put a tax on. we we go into a community and it's a combination of different things. So if we look at the Cabela Center for example, there's Cabela, there's a Hobby Lobby, there's a Burlington traditional power center and quite a few shops over there. Thornton, Colorado had already labeled that area as economic development land. Um they stepped in and purchased it, which might be something to do. That's a different discussion. Um and they held it waiting for the right opportunity. We stepped in and said we could bring Cabelas and we could bring these other tenants. We think we're the right partner to come out there and do that. They said we agree. They actually contributed the land that Cabela sits on. We built all of the infrastructure for Cabelas similar to the fact we built all of the infrastructure for WCO. So, we're incentivizing these tenants without support in this case, whereas there um we would have built it all, but they share a portion of the sales tax that's generated. We're stuck here in Wyoming because your sales taxes are not distributed the same way. A dollar does that's generated here doesn't come to us. That's that hamstrings you a ton. Um you don't really have a city sales tax. you have the optional taxes, but you don't have a tax tax. What the other communities have is they have their own taxes or fees that they have out there. So, they can do fee waiverss. So, if there's an impact fee, you know, in the case here, we have invested almost $600,000 in fees, tap fees, impact fees, sewer fees, storm fees, all that kind of

stuff. Most of those communities will wave those. And the reason is we're stepping in. Who's bearing the risk? This is raw land that generates nothing. We're putting $47 million into that raw land. We're bringing in the tenants and then we're hoping that they all function, that they're all successful, that the community shops, and it's a great shopping center, and that ultimately will recover the less risk, the more opportunities that come in. So, in Colorado, they have the ability to as a council, Eric can probably explain this better. I'll kind of explain it. They actually pass an ordinance that waves a portion of the taxes over a specific area and then we get to impose that as a fee. It's called a credit piff, credit public improvement fee. Tenants pay us that fee and over time we recover our investment through that portion. And really it's a gap. So we have a gap here. How are we filling the gap? Partially through industrial equity bonds. How do we fill it there? public private partnerships. So they may in some cases come in and build some of the public infrastructure. Here we build it all. Um they may contribute land, not an opportunity here. The breweries are great. They were not giving us all of that land. I would not expect that. Um so that's that's really the fundamental tool. And I think if you look around over the past 25 years, I don't think there's a single project that came out of the ground in Colorado that did not have a public private partnership element. And similar to IRBs, we take that revenue and we can bond it out or we can pledge it to a lender and then we can borrow against it. So it's another way to recover. So for you, you know, the trouble or the challenge for an IRB is there's got to be a revenue stream that can service the debt. So if you are a nonprofit,

um, you have to have at least a profit that could ultimately come down and service the debt. And I know there are projects out there that are hopefully going to be able to find a way that their proarma works that they can provide the service, have some excess revenue, service the debt, gaps like that. So you're somewhat limited. Um, you know, fee wavers is definitely a way to go. Different things you can do in Colorado. You can impose your own bills. So the districts that are here, you can only have um like a sewer district or a water district that can be in there and they can put their own mills on. In Colorado, we have these municipal metro districts that we can put around our property and that metro district can impose its own bills. The city may also share some bills. And the negotiations end up being kind of like this. The police know they need this. We're going to impact the police by this amount. We're not going to touch the police mills. The school systems got this. Yes, we're going to generate a ton more money for the school system, but we may generate more kids. You know, the spillover effect of housing, we don't touch that. Um, it's really traditional property tax. It just is a general fund number that they may share and that's the way it goes. So, you have some of that, but even property taxes don't go the way they go. And Wyoming is Wyoming, so property taxes are not really high on the hog in terms of getting imposed. So, it's challenging. It's a very challenging environment. You got to meet your budget. You have to have folks that can come in with their own wherewithal, with patience, with risk tolerance. And for you guys, um, this is a tool you actually will be able to use for somebody out there who's saying, "I'd love to bring in a new manufacturing facility." Doesn't pencil. Well, pencil if I can put some IRBs on there because I'm not paying carry costs over the same period of time and recovering some of that money earlier. So, it is a good

tool. Um, it's going to be pretty project specific. I can tell you that that staff, we worked with staff for two years trying to find some way to get something done and then finally we just said we're just we're going. Um, so ultimately, you kind of have to do that. You know, we're going to bear the risk. We're going to go we're going to continue to talk to council. We're going to hope that council says, "We see what you've invested. We see you have additional work you want to do. We want you to keep investing. Maybe we buy the mall at some point in time. I think that my role in the mall will be more as a consultant advisor with the folks on planning and zoning and economic development. Um, but so that's that's a quick summary for you. But it's not so much that you're not doing something you could do. I think you're unfortunately, you know, from the statutory perspective pretty limited in what you can do.

Appreciate that information. you get you in front of us a little bit more often and first person I'm aware of to use the words perform not city staff

it's been a pleasure to work with city staff honestly I mean they have tried to be as creative as they could possibly be great to see the new city manager um you know my background of looking at her and we have met is that she gets things done she's focused on new deliverables that's something that makes folks like me come into the market and say Okay, I can see prior performance, you know, things are happening there. Um, these are all good things. Council asking qu good questions, being supportive, shopping here, not at the mall out there in Simon, which I love that mall. You know, these are these are, you know, it's good little by little you find opportunities. And I know at at the state level that they're pondering trying to figure out a way to have the sales tax system work a little bit differently, but you're somewhat hamstrong environment. You're

good.

So, you picked a really good general contractor and a great uh guy to uh head head that up. So, and this might be more of a question for John, but um is were were there any of our building codes? Um we we've recently heard there's a problem with something to build a new hotel. Um I still haven't narrowed it down. I think it's got to do with backflows and something else, but I didn't know if there was anything in particular. I can answer on the Blackmore side just with respect to things we ran into at Blackmore. Um the way the drainage system works in Casper is your uphill people drains your downhill people and it's your downhill people's problem. Doesn't work great. So we have an issue there where we took a ton of water from the uphill folks came down into our Louvial. We had to put a special foundation system in under all of our buildings to shed water. Um, John can talk more about the code. I promise John he wouldn't have to talk. If he's willing to answer the question,

he could answer the question. Sure. I can. Do you all know John? He said he knows. That's what he was pitching. There's a resounding lack of enthusiasm.

Um, Mr. Mayor, members of council, thank you for the time and Karen, thank you as well. Uh Pat, I can tell you there's there's not any issues from a code standpoint. You know that from the city's perspective, the cities do anything different here than anywhere else in the country. Quite honestly, you have a very strong city staff from the building department side that understands codes well. So no is the simple answer to your question. You could answer that. I can and I will tell you so much. We appreciate you. We should bring you in more. We should bring you more in. Yes.

I'll tell you for us um inspectors have been great. Planning and zoning. Craig Collins has been awesome. Um you know, Liz has been awesome. Jill has been awesome. Um and and that's important to someone like me and it's important to tenants. You know, when they come in, the first thing they say to me is how long is it going to take me to get my permit? They spend nine months in Boulder trying to get a permit or in Denver or wherever trying to get a permit. And I'm like, you're going to submit and the city's going to give you a response within two to three weeks and they're going to say, I have I don't even believe that. And all I can say is that's what's going to happen. And so that's the positive thing is it's not so much, hey, the code is the code. You're very similar to the codes anywhere in the country. Um, but how quickly do you get through that peritting process? Because that's expensive. You know, the engineers cost a ton of money every time they got to respond. And going to the public works guys, they answer your questions. You know, lots of places won't even pick up the phone. Alex back here picks up the phone. Um, it's just a change. You know, there's a couple things that are a little quirky just in terms of integrated shopping centers. Some of your zoning is everybody has to have access to a public road. It's a little bit unusual. Um, you know, little quirks like that. They're not going to kill a development, but it does make it more complicated in how you lay things out and things like that, but the code itself is is not problematic.

I got great questions coming over here. I don't know your name. It deserves a council. It's better that way. I see you at the Simon outlets, though. I'm going to Anything else I can answer for y'all? Yeah, this is more for Eric. So on on this process, is this something that we can expect a fight from Beexel? H mayor, council, um, not exactly sure how to answer that. I mean, I missed I missed that question. Yeah. I mean, probably that way. Thank you.

I mean, anything's possible. I I think that we've thoroughly vetted the process. um put a lot of time and effort into uh promulgating the policy um done the necessary legal work. I think we've had a good process in terms of the application submission have a good understanding of the state statutes um uh and the processes that we need to engage in moving forward. So so if anybody were to ever challenge this I feel that we would be on very solid ground um to to defend our decision. Um and so I I don't have any trepidation should should that happen. I I'll tell you that um our attorneys did the same thing. Spent quite a bit of time looking to see good and bad. There aren't a lot of places where IRBs have been used. It's a volume that the state hardly ever gets even remotely close to expanding. Um so the economic development side of that statue is a little unclear, but all of our council has agreed or bond council has agreed. We started by talking to Eric. So I think he's absolutely right. you have not seen anything anywhere at city's books doesn't end up as a city obligation. Um you're acting as a conduit that lets me issue double tax exempt bonds. My bond interest rates lower. So it's lots of upside on the private side but really no downside on your side. We end up paying your expenses. Um, so absent somebody's deciding to be a troublemaker, which that's just our reality, there's nothing unique to you all. I'm enjoying all the all of these questions.

You're done. You can't ask any more questions. Good job. Anything else? All right. Thank you. Thank you all for your time. I really it's a pleasure to finally get to stand in front of you all and um I do have cards if you want my number. Liz has my contact info. You know, if you have other things you're wondering about, you definitely can pick up the phone. I can send you articles and you know, if you just Google um public improvement fees in Colorado, you'll see just a myriad of examples of things that

Thank you. So the recommendation is for us to have staff move forward, right, Liz, to begin the process of the application of getting the application through doing that? Okay. Yeah. Everybody good with it? Awesome. Thanks, Karen. Thank you for your investment in our community. Appreciate you. Thank you, Liz, for your work. Staff, you too, John. Oh, John. Thank you. a little. Thank you, Michael.

All right, let's go ahead and move on to Stone Ridge Park. Um, council, you have a vestigial piece of property that director Collins is going to um or excuse me, why did I say Collins? That director Beckel is going to walk you through quickly. Um uh my understanding is that staff were asked to bring this issue back um about this time of this year and uh revisit it and determine if you'd like to place this pro property for bid.

Mr. Mayor, council, it's been such a long time, so it's good to see you again. Um pretty much specified in the memo, we um posted this or put it out for bid as you all know last fall. Uh the praise value was $270, $270,000 from the 2025 appraisal. And our question before you this evening is um Craig and I are interested in seeing if you would like to put this back out for bid and if you have any interest in having us get it reappraised. So we are looking for direction on this. Um but I think you all are familiar with the property because we went through it a multitude of times. Liz, could you uh remind them the date of the appraisal? Most current

2025.

So there's no way we can possibly put this back out that somebody in that development could only purchase the property. as I understand the the surplus property statutes. Mr. Mayor, I'm going to default to that fabulous city attorney.

Uh, mayor, councel, appreciate the question. So, um, Wying statute 15112 does govern uh, the matter of disposing of the property. I you're required by state bid and to sell it to the highest responsible bidder. Um, I don't believe that we can put sideboards on um the terms of the sale that only adjoining land owners or members of of that uh subdivision or what have you uh could purchase it. Um, we did have a discussion in in my office. Um, the only way I could see trying to restrict um the usage of the property would be to put deed restrictions on there. The city did this with the Plains property. Um, so you could do something similar. Um, with the caveat that that if you did restrict the usage, um, then I think a new appraisal would be required because the the current appraisal uh would not be valid. Um, and you'd be likely looking at a a lower um value in the property. So, so the short answer is I don't think we could restrict it um such that uh councelor Sweeney is is asking about um there could be restrictions there. So, so just clarification. So, you said that if we do have a deed do put deed restrictions on it would lower the value. Is that what you were saying?

I I believe so. Um, yeah, it could certainly um because when you're restricting, you know, when you have a bundle of of sticks, which are your property rights, if you're selling the entire bundle and that purchaser can do whatever they want with it under the law, then you're going to maximize the value. But now, if you're saying that it can only be used for certain purposes, you're taking away some of those those property rights. And so generally it's going to have a lower value. That makes sense. Thank you. Other questions for Liz.

So I guess how does council feel about putting this back out to bid? It sounds like there's some could do restrictions, but there's some risk within that. And I don't see staff shaking their head excitingly about that. Um and so sorry to put you on the spot there. Um, just getting that out there. That's good. Just just shake it. Um, not sure. Um, I guess what I'm also hearing is would we want to have it um reappraised again to see where we're at on that? Um, and then put it out to bid or how would you guys want to do that? I guess kind of that way. Y.

Thanks, Mayor. I guess I would ask the city attorney um how rock solid those appraisals need to be in order to take action on a property because six years on council I've learned the lesson that a property is only worth as much as someone's willing to pay for it. I've never seen one reach appraised value. So I'm kind of hesitant to invest more in getting an appra like nobody's going to pay the appraised value in my experience. So the question is, you know, u what's the cost break, you know, at what level is the council comfortable getting rid of properties?

Yeah, mayor, counselor. Um, so great question. Uh, statute doesn't dictate that it'd be done with any particular within any particular time period of the transaction. Um, doesn't even state that you can't sell it for less than a price value. I think it's really a transparency issue in the statute to say, "Hey, we're selling this. Here's a professional opinion as to the value, but um I I firmly believe that when you put it out to competitive bid, it's it's worth what willing buyer at an arms length will will pay for it. So to your point, you may get multiple bids that don't hit that appraised value. Um that doesn't mean council can't choose to sell it to that highest responsible bidder below the appraised value. Um

yeah, I think another distinction is that that city didn't buy this. We don't have like money that we've invested in this property that we need to recuperate. Um and so and I so I think that we should consider that in our decision too. I think even if we had I still think Kyle's point is valid that it never get appraised value but especially in this case costs taxpayer money to get. impact. It costs a little bit of taxpayer money just to have it sitting there. And it was ultimately opportunity cost to not do something with it. So, in my opinion, it's a win for the taxpayers to turn this from zero dollars into whatever the highest bid is that we can get. So, um I think open it back up and see where it goes.

Is everybody okay with opening it back up? Thank you. Thanks, Liz. All right, now to the big one tonight. Capital budget. Settle in.

Um, council. Um, yes, settle in. But we have, I will assure you, done everything we can to streamline the conversation for you tonight. Um I'd like to start off just with a quick um highle overview of the capital budget that is being proposed for you tonight uh for fiscal year 2027 which of course starts July 1st. Uh the total proposed budget is 3 $33.4 million. Uh this includes projects for street improvements, water and sewer infrastructure, public safety services, and municipal facilities. Um, I want to emphasize as we start out tonight that capital planning by necessity must take a long-term view across many years. Capital spending of course naturally varies from year to year due to uneven project life cycles, revenue changes, other factors. Um, and variation from the current fiscal year capital spending uh to the proposed level of spending for the next fiscal year, you'll note, is $5.85 million. and that is across all funds. Uh throughout tonight's discussion, we'll draw your attention to projects that are maturing and that are contributing to the natural deviation year-to-year in capital budget amounts. Uh the capital budget, as you well know, is critical for sustaining the high-v value public assets that the city oversees and manages. There are 158 separate projects outlined in the capital budget. I assure you, we will not discuss them all tonight. Don't hurt it. I know you were very excited, weren't you? Um, these capital assets, as you know, they sustain and support the services that Casper residents and businesses expect and rely on every single day. So, of the $33.4 million proposed budget, half of it is concentrated in seven major projects and the lion share of those projects involve critical infrastructure for water,

streets, sewer, wastewater, and the like. uh focusing on these projects seems like the best way to start off and so uh I'm going to invite management analyst Pete Meyers from financial services department to talk to you about the highlights of these seven initiatives. Uh while Pete comes to the podium, I wanted to also acknowledge uh maybe by asking our city staff to stand the work that city staff have done and their willingness to be here tonight. Stand up you guys.

YEAH. UM, THESE FOLKS ARE key uh participants in the capital budgeting process. They're going to help answer any questions that I cannot for you tonight. And I want to thank them for not only preparing their capital budget requests, but for sitting with me through many hours of meetings, uh, much of which involved educating their new city manager as well as, uh, reviewing those projects. So, thank you so much and I appreciate you all being here tonight as well. Um, with that, like I said, uh, Pete will talk to you about the, uh, seven projects that comprise half of your total capital budget.

Thank you, Mr. City Man. City Manager. Um, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, and yes, manager did mention this is a long long process just to get this far. You started this process in November. the official start date all stand up. They started to do heavy lift research and the capital plans for the long term. It is a fiveyear plan. So there's a lot of there's a lot of planning going to figure out projects not just for the current fiscal year in this case FY27 but all of that period out. So you certainly see in some of the documents that you have that those projects for and I so u but for tonight we're really going to focus on 27 unless and until council asks otherwise. Um yes the number for tonight is 33,439,946. That's a significant figure but it is was larger than last year but it is smaller than two years prior. It is smaller than three years prior. Um certainly capital by its nature tends to fluctuate. the major projects this year to go over. First of all, yes, street construction projects. We are spending quite a bit on street construction this year, like million dollars. That's that's a hefty chunk. Two projects are going to be dominating that. One being the 14th Street, the 14th Street improvements project and the other being the Casper edition. Both of those are are fundamentally in central Casper and those are going to be funded largely by LEDs assuming that they get approval from voters

areas but also lots and lots of money from on 17 that's source most of the funding for those two projects. Yeah. Aside from that, there are there are five other projects in the streets area as well. But but mostly it's going to the one is going to be the first is going to be $8 million and the other is going to be so very significant. Both of those are also they're it's not typical for us to to design in one year and then build in another. In these case, both of those projects, they are so significant that we actually are designing them as we see, but we design them already doing the work to lay the groundwork. So, we've got well figured out. Moving on from streets, we've got police vehicles. Um, as you guys know, buy police vehicles every year. This is going to be our regular repurchase of 11 police vehicles this year. This one is significant because so much of the money is coming from the federal government. We did receive federal grant for this $828,000 is going to be coming from the Department of Justice. So, we're very pleased about that. We received that money as partly in with the support of Congressman Harry P. That was very nice for us. Um, obviously the police department also has other projects under drone that coming year, but some cameras and some projects. Um the ice arena, that's a significant project as well, just under a million dollars. This is for the compressor that some of you have been on council for a little bit longer. You may recall we used to have a

compressor up at the Casper Center. Um this was a project that briefly had ice up there. that device got moved down to the Casper is ringing and uh but it's now failing. It's it's now time to replace it and so this purchase will place that device. Um it should be a lot more efficient when they buy it. It should be a lot more and also sized appropriately for a second device. you assuming that that project that fundraising works out should have plenty of money to plenty of capacity, excuse me, to support both both the existing sheet of ice as well as the new one. Either way is appropriate size. Uh after that, we've got the Crossroads Lighting Project. You want to draw attention to that one as well. This one is being funded with $650,000 17 money. It's also got about $50,000 of capital reserve money in it. Uh these are old polls up Aspen. We're trying to them trying to get them to uh to good working order. Um these um we had set aside roughly $160,000 a year from one set 17 with the idea of buying it buying them gradually over a four-year period of time. In this case, we decided to lump it all together to one big project, which is why that area, the ethics, is uh standing out as a as a significant increase from previous years. Uh you may have seen that it's a kind of stands out on the list because it shows as a 1485% increase budget. That's because last athletics usually doesn't have a whole lot of funding. Have it's not like utility fund which generates its own money. So, so we can only really use one cent for that sort of work. Um, last year's project all we had was money airator. That's that's all we could afford. So, which we bought by the way

it's 45,000 bucks. It came down to budget. Um, but um, aside from that, then we got into the utility projects. We've got water distribution projects. As you may recall from our rate setting period, the water fund has a relatively significant fund balance right now sitting up for a number of years. Expecting need about $19 million. The spending of $5.5 million will will start to burn off some of that excess fund reserve so that get some of these dollars put to work. Um obviously we also have a rate increase that was done for water distribution that was 8% this year to to help fund these as well. But water is spending most of this $5 million, but it's also spending about about one and a half million dollars for for teens projects. So that so I guess just don't want to don't want to overlook that. This is a significant amount of money for water projects. Um beyond that uh sewer projects um like I'm sorry.

Go ahead. So are you now on source of funding? Um we can talk about source of funding. Absolutely. No, I'm I'm I'm wondering where you're at. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm I'm I'm working through the the highlights on within the uh within the budget document and and again, I I don't I don't necessarily need to to read it to you verbatim. I do apologize, but uh but I did want to touch on some of those large it's about half the budget, just these seven here. So, so I figured they probably worth a little bit of time. Um but but with that being said, uh if if we need to go to different location, we certainly can. Um why don't why don't we go ahead and stay on this right now and then we can jump to if there's when there's questions we can jump on that. Okay. Go ahead.

Thanks.

Um so all right so again just briefly on the sewer projects. Um again this is a significant amount of sewer work that's been happening. A good chunk of it is in central Casper. That's part of a project that's going to be a two-year project. A lot of stuff right by the county high school. Um but again this is a major increase for for the amount of money we're spending on sewer. Largely that's being funded by the rate increase that was passed back in January that was a 34% rate increase that's unlike the sewer unlike the water fund which had a significant fund balance. Sewer really doesn't. So the fund balance was needs needs the rate increase so that we can get some of these projects get them going. Um and then last but not least, we have the wastewater treatment plant project as a secondary clarifier main. Um everything at the wast treatment plant is extremely expensive as as you all know and certainly you had your council meeting up there just a few months ago. Um they'll be they'll be replacing that line. It's $2 million. Um and they'll also be doing some work on CL for another half a million dollars. that that set sort of rounds out the major projects this year. It's not in previous years when we came as grot capital there were there was a a singular significant project which was sometimes required specific attention. Two years ago we had the a 10 million gallon tank for water distribution. before that we put forward the initial funding for the Casper business center which was again significant singular projects which were by themselves 30 or 40% of the of the capital budget. We don't have something like that this year but we do have these others might think of it as more sort of general research in different areas again with the idea of trying to catch up on some of these capitalist

categories. But but with all that said and to to count councelor Sweeny's note uh we do have 158 projects and um we do have 100 city staff present who are who are all ready willing to talk as needs beh if if you want to delve into some of these details about specific projects. I think our city manager would like to say something.

Um if if you're done p I was just going to kind of wrap up. So, council, I wanted to talk to you um before we go to questions, just a little bit about um how I approach capital budget decision- making, if you will. Um and I think use some examples of projects that you may have questions about um to demonstrate that. So, typically when I'm reviewing the budget with these folks, I'm looking for three key um criteria that weigh into my decision along with many other, but these are three that uh carry a lot of weight. And the first is riskmanagement concerns. um is the project in question dealing with some kind of security issue, safety issue or liability exposure? Um I will give you an example. Pete has mentioned there are many um vehicles being replaced or major equipment being replaced in this budget. Uh in most circumstances that equipment has failed or is failing. Um, and one example would be a mower in your athletics um, section that I believe has been pretty much largely in inoperable for about a year. Uh, that of course erodess the level of service. It degrades the level of service we're able to provide to our residents. Um, it also it makes us less efficient from an operational standpoint. Um, so risk management is the first of the major three criteria. The second is I look at efficiency and this mower is a good example. Not only is the mower a safety or risk management issue, but it is degrading our operational efficiency. And so replacing that really checks a couple of those boxes. Um in addition to operational efficiency, I look at financial efficiency. For instance, are we deferring maintenance in such a way that cost for fixing things is exceeding the cost to replace the things? pretty much basic um financial principles that I'm sure many of you employ in your own uh homes and your home lives. Um another thing we look at is energy efficiency. And so many of the projects that are

recommended for funding do increase our energy efficiency. Um I am a fan of energy efficiency for financial purposes. For instance, at the bale field, there are solar projects recommended where the return on investment of that energy efficiency upgrade has been evaluated. And within 12 to 16 years, depending on which of the two projects we're talking about, we recoup our initial investment and begin into a savings position. And so projects like that where energy efficiency overlaps with financial efficiency are also um high on my list of things that are uh priority items. A couple other examples around efficiency. Um, there are cemetery equipment recommended in here to be replaced that will allow staff to be more effective in grave tamping and and uh uh really take a more modern approach to that. So, there's a safety and a t uh safety factor and also time savings. And then lastly, um lights that are being replaced at the um Cottonwood complex that will be more energy efficient. You heard you heard Pete talk about that. um but also um help us to be more effective in our mission. The third criteria is revenue generation and this largely falls in line when we're looking at our wellness and health services in our recreational facilities and parks. So looking at that investment and will it help us to achieve our cost recovery goals, right? So the second sheet of ice is the case in point uh which you are most familiar with most recently um and the replacement of the chiller facility that currently supports the single sheet and will support both sheets if that second sheet of ice comes to fruition. uh you remember looking at the cost recovery uh metrics that director Lopez provided to us last month that indicate that second sheet of ice actually will enhance total cost recovery for the ice arena beyond what currently is enjoyed by the single sheet of ice. So revenue revenue

generation is a second um major category and one other project to demonstrate that would be a project at the Ford Wyoming Center to expand the club 13 balcony seating and I think you guys probably know as much if not more than I do about that but I understand there is revenue generated from that. So in discussing that project with director Lopez and her staff um that was a key element of consideration and why that is recommended to you for this next year. So, using those three criteria and many others, um we're able to bring this plan to you tonight to prioritize capital investments for the next year of our multi-year capital plan. Um hopefully to use the city's limited resources to return the maximum benefit to our community. And lastly, I wanted to touch on as far as the overview here, your council goals that you adopted at your last meeting. Uh there were three and one of them major infrastructure is really uh completely carried in this capital budget that you're reviewing this evening. Um fully 50% of the infrastructure that is being invested in will be in your utility systems for water, sewer, wastewater refuge collection and disposal. And then I wanted to focus a little bit on street investments. And you heard Pete talk about some of that. Um but it was a target for the council to try to increase our investment in street reconstruction or construction to $7 million. Uh we do attain that uh when you take into account that many of these projects as he said begin this year and will complete in your uh fiscal year 28. So two years out. Um, with that in mind, remember the capital budget is presented now and with your preliminary approval tonight. Then it will be incorporated into the full budget that you'll review in late May and ultimately adopt in early June. Um,

with that, that's sort of the the overview. I know you received a sizable document digitally. If you have specific questions, we're happy to take those. And then I would remind you that you asked us to deep dive a little bit into a few projects. And so after we move off of general capital budget, we're prepared to talk about two projects that remain uh what Pete and I talked about today partially budgeted, right? You've budgeted early phases, but we are still working on the budget for final phases. Those two are CBC and fire station 2. So we're going to talk about those. And then you do have memos in your uh packet for spec projects as was suggested uh last week or the week before. uh we do not necessarily have to cover those memos tonight, but they are there and if you have questions, we're happy to answer them and if you'd like to cover them. Um we do have staff present to go over those memos with you.

So any questions for Pete regarding Thank you for the update. Appreciate all that. Uh any questions specifically to Pete for the capital budget? Yeah. So first concern I think um answered one of them but um with I saw in oil city um where the state is moved up it looks like uh popular street from Collins to see why um and I don't see any mention of sewer any mains being replaced? Um if that's to come to pass or you have any information on timing on that particular project councelor. Thank you. Uh we certainly do have I believe depending on how we count three active projects on popular street right now because we just finished up the the popular first street project. We have others that we are cooperating with with Y dot to get those up and running further down. Um I'm certainly not going to be the expert on exactly where we're at with all of those projects. I'm certainly there's a gentleman from public services who would be very happy to discuss it with you in more detail, but um but but fundamentally, yes, those those partnerships are are in are in place and we do have those budgeted in the current fiscal year. Right. uh we have to sign these cooperative agreements with white dot in some case years in advance of when the actual work will happen. guessing we have sewer and water mains uh down

popler mayor councelor uh yes so um street project from cy to Collins um that project dot is rebidding that project they bid it back last year um I think in November um they got one bid that was not favorable a very high bid so they're rebidding that to get more competition and they've um I guess they've rearranged the project in phasing um to accommodate some of the traffic control and um the construction sequencing. So um but there is city water and and sanitary sewer within that project that as Pete had mentioned had we got a we had a cooperative agreement and we had started budgeting for that construction several years ago. So, so it's already budgeted and we've set funds assigned um other than is contained here.

Yeah, your honor. Uh that is correct. These these the funds you see in front of you are what I'll call new money that we're going to reapply. Money $13 million. Certainly, as as you may recall, we begin every fiscal year with a large budget amendment. pull over projects in process done and these those would be among them for for various legal reasons. certainly had to have the money available to partners and why not at the time we could sign those agreements and so in some cases just the design and time takes a long time but but yes so when you roll those projects forward that's what those monies are for when the time comes we have the money there's not included in the projects you see here tonight these are these are new project so and I'm assuming we address storm water. Uh that was always is a huge flood right there with a big downpour.

Yes. So uh mayor counselor uh the that project is big emphasis on that is storm water. um Y dot is is putting in the capital to replace those storm water mains that run through there and they as a larger portion of of the big picture. They started closer to the river and completed that last year. Now they're working upstream to finish that portion and that's that's on them. Correct. Correct. Oh, great. Yeah.

Okay. All right. And then the second one was was on the imperator. So this will be sized. I I went to a hockey presentation. We had three championship teams and um at there was the uh second sheet of ice folks did a presentation to the whole group. there were about 100 people there in um they're at about 75% of the funding. Um and uh um they've just opened it up to the public as far as funding and um they believe they're very very close. So, I anticipate that um uh very soon. And so, this new evaporator will be able to service both. That's a sizable compressor.

Mr. Mayor, M council, absolutely. That is that's absolutely okay.

Through you, Mayor. Councelor Sweeney. Um we are recommending funding that um half from the opportunity fund and half from 1ent7. Council should be aware of that. And as you'll recall from our discussion um that was originally proposed to or excuse me I just said once 17 I met capital reserve capital reserve and opportunity fund. Um as you'll recall that was scheduled to occur a few years out. We've had to move that up in time to accommodate the um really great fundraising Director Lopez tells me our private group is doing and the eventuality that the children may need to be replaced this year.

Um hold on one second. I think clarification or something.

Thank you, mayor, counselors. I I just want I don't want to misre misrepresent what we're doing here. Okay. So, it's been in our 5-year plan to replace this condenser um for several years now, knowing that, you know, when it reaches its life in 2728 is what we anticipated, we would need to replace it to service the existing sheet of ice. The proposal that was made to council several months ago was we could not have to make that investment if a new arena was built and the new condenser served both sheets. To say that this $984,000 would cover the entire cost of a new condenser to serve both is probably not correct, but we're saying let's take those funds that we would have to spend two years from now, bring it into the current project, and help fund that new condenser. I just want to be really clear about what it is that we're doing. We're borrowing from future investment to make the project happen now. Vice Mayor Thank you. Uh I have a different question, but since you just brought that up. So the evaporative condenser that uh we are proposing is above and beyond one that we would need to service the single sheet of ice. But the way the fundraising is going, we're operating under the assumption that they complete their fundraising goal and through their fundraising, they will in part cover the cost of an upgraded condenser. Is that am I spitting that back to you in an accurate way?

Correct. We're we're still finalizing design, but so much of the life of this condenser has been used up already that it would not make sense to just add capacity because it wouldn't last long enough to make it worthwhile. So purchasing a whole new condenser that could serve two sheets for the next 15 to 20 years is a better investment than just upgrading the existing one that is now nearly 15 years old. Okay. Go ahead. See, is an evaporative condenser the same thing as a chiller? Are these the same things or these different? Not a mechanical expert. I think that's why I'm getting wrapped around the ice.

I do believe that that is the primary component that creates ice. No, Matt is saying no. So, I'm gonna phone a friend and ask the buildings and structures manager to come up and give us a little education. It's not a cool very particular about words and language. So,

council. So the cooling tower that we're talking about replacing would cool the water that is used to go into the ice plant. Um because when so we have compressors, it takes the refrigerant, compresses it like it says, cools it off, pumped out, gather gathers heat, comes back in um it's separated from the oil that's inside of it. So, the main component of the ice making system are the compressors. The the cooling tower that we're talking about potentially moving up a few years. Um, is a portion of that entire system. Um, there's multiple pumps that pump the refrigerant from the compressor system and the heat exchanger plates and the cooling tower and it pumps it out into the ice. That's what actually cools off the concrete that the all the piping runs through, comes back in. And so it's this whole big loop where it pushes the refrigerant out, brings it back in, it's heated up, it cools it off. So all of these things work in concert with each other to be able to create the ice and keep the ice the way it needs to be.

Okay. Um, thank you, Matt. Was it? Yes. Um, so the chiller is a separate component of this larger cooling system than the evaporative condenser. That's different. That would be correct. Okay. Thank you. Um, can I ask a question about the chiller because I know that was borrowed taken from the Ford Wyoming Center. I I don't remember how long ago that was. It's been at least several years. And so I'm just curious where the chiller I know David Street Station just bought one for their small rink for 400,000. So another significant expense where is that in our 5 to 10 year capital agenda

I'm talking about I'm sorry he's specifically asking about the chiller the chiller for hall uh the chiller for the ice arena that we took from Ford Wyoming center when there was ice up there.

Okay so the Mr. Mayor, members of council, the chiller in the way that I think you're you're talking about it that would be similar to what was just purchased at David Street would be the entire system of the compressors and the pumps and the all of that kind of works in concert with each other to be the chiller system. Um, but the chiller consists of a whole bunch of subcomponents of those pumps and compressors and what they have at David Street has its own internal uh cooling tower, I believe. um or its own evaporative system to cool off the refrigerant um and the water, but it's kind of the the chiller is the entire system itself is I guess the easiest way to describe it.

Okay, thank you. You your remember my original question. Your original question.

It was uh so this is all great information. I'm learning a lot. Thank you. Uh, typically my experience with the capital budget is that we usually get a memo for each kind of expense as a part of the capital budget. So my question is, is this the first of a couple conversations we're having about the capital budget or is this kind of our our only pass in which case I was kind of hoping for some more granular detail about I like having all those individual memos because when people are asking me what do you need a mower for at the cemetery? the memo always tells me the current mower is this old. It's safety concerns and so I like having all that information and I think it um for the sake of transparency is helpful. So

certainly Mr. Yes, you will see in your packet uh there should be a hyperl table. It should be on page I believe three of the memo itself if you look at the attachments on the memo itself. So I did not realize that was a link. You're welcome to borrow. No problem. Sorry. Uh two pages, please. There we go. Yes. Uh right here.

Capital that. So this budget book is where Pete just told you also on the opening page where you can go to agenda and packet. If you look to the rightmost section of that page, it says other or more. It's also available by click here.

My apologies if it was buried. Um but but but yes, we certainly do have all those details as you guys certainly can to tonight, but of course if there was a need I would love just uh thank you. I'm glad to know it's here. haven't had the opportunity to review it. So, as long as there's a future opportunity, if I have questions about any of these after I've had the chance, I would love I hope we have a future agenda item where we can talk about it.

Um, mayor, if I could, as I said, um, this my understanding is you process you have a single review of capital budget tonight and then it's rolled in and part of your discussion in May with the O andM budget. Uh, are you asking for an additional budget work session on capital beyond this one but before May or is May okay?

May is okay for me as long as we have some flexibility in May. Like if if it needs to be if the capital budget needs to be set in stone because we're focused on other things in May and it would be helpful to have this one, you know, I would love to review this before I like make any final decisions as all. So, if we have an opportunity in May to uh make some small adjustments to the capital budget, I'd be okay. But, um, but I'm kind of bummed I didn't get a chance to read all this before tonight's meeting. So, go ahead, Pat. I saw it. I didn't dare open it. So,

we know about you, but thanks for the opportunity. Um, I do If if Kyle's done for you got 280 pages, man, it's gonna take it's gonna take him a minute. Go ahead.

So, I'm kind of concerned a little bit on uh the um financial considerations and source of fundings. Um and most of them make sense, but um I kind of am a little concerned uh on the sewer fund uh taking because I I thought we didn't have a lot of money in there, but we're taking 2,86250 50 of that. Um, and in in a lot of ways, I mean, that makes sense when we're doing uh 15th Street, 14th Street, some of that. Uh but so if somebody could just kind of um why I guess council um one part of the process that we always go through whenever we look at the utility funds is your capital ask consistent with the proformer that you presented? That's that's typically the very first question we ask of those mentors. Um and in this case it is is within their their proposed spending pan prop. So we do believe that they have the financial capacity to cover it. Now certainly in sewer fund in particular um yes that is that is being balanced on on the 34% rate increase which was which was passed recently. So that's that that is how we've made those numbers work so that sewer can start to catch up on some we'll see that so we're spending almost twice as much as it was last year from

sewer. Um that's a it's a significant re increase but it's also that that's how we catch up from a 300 year replacement to a 100 year replacement. The questions for Pete Craig the capital.

Yeah. Um I think were we going to talk about the Casper Lad edition? Is that one of them or No, it's CDC and fire station. So um my question in regards to lads is are do we use a certain formula? Is there a certain threshold at which point like how do we make the determination an area requires a lad? Is it the infrastructure has to get to so poor of a quality? Is that the threshold is you know the average road condition has to reach a certain threshold? Is it um because I know the lad is necessary to replace my understanding is essentially the sidewalks and the connections to the homes. Um so at what point do we determine it's just a normal street project or necessitates a lab?

Certainly. And certainly I've got a a city engineer who's going to be able to parse it more precisely. I know that my my general answer to that is there are there are portions of the of the area that is either within the rightway or just outside of the rightway which are the homeowner's responsibility things like service lines curb and sidewalk which are which are the homeowners responsibility to maintain. So the L is a way to to raise money from all the homeowners at once so that they can um so that they can work all together, work with our contractor to save money and and replace all those things at the same time. And certainly it's beneficial to do it all at once. But anyways, I'm going to defer the floor to the city engineer because he knows more about this than my counselor. Um so basically three things. the conditions um that are there. Um you know, the streets um have a pretty low PCI um lower than um than our status quo um for Casper and um in need of replacement. Um the other is age um that that subdivision is fairly old. Um we've had um you know a lot of potholes in that area. Um and it's um it's it's in need of some care. And the other is um basically um does I guess age condition and um standards um that area sidewalk um ADA some of those areas just do not meet our standards. And so we look at all of those and if they don't rank they don't rank very high um we tend to put those in an L especially if they're grouped together. Um area is another one that we look at. Um if they're sparse and apart from each other typically we don't consider those as LA but if they are condensed in a specific area we look

at those and that's how we consider the LED. Pete's right. Um it it's a benefit to the the residents there because um a lot of times if they're not maintaining sidewalk um which typically they're responsible for the curb and their sidewalk um it's a benefit to them and the city department together in order to basically bridge that gap and help pay for a lot of the things that they would have to pay on their own if they hired a contractor to do the work. Amber follow up to that. Um, so in the event that the lad failed, do we carry on with our portion of the project or does it sort of get moved down to a later time and we move on to some other part of town or what happens?

We continue on with the project. We either and either reduce scope or find money somewhere else. Um, you know, um, we we take a look at the project and see if we can keep certain, uh, curbwalk, sidewalk, um, things that the L would pay for. Um, and again, we either take that out of the project and focus on the street portion and the utility portion. Um, which is also an improvement. So, um, to that point, how how do they vote on that or is it an automatic assessment? I read something that, but I I didn't understand.

Mayor, counselor. Uh, so, um, it has to get, um, a a no vote is is an acceptance of it. Um but um it has to have 50% or more of the residents within that established le to vote no not to um move forward. It's an opt out petition. How do how do they get a do they get something in the mail?

Mayor, counselor. Uh so yes, we have public meetings um and we establish um a date for that um ordinance to be created for that LA and then during that time with public comment and um and opportunity for residents to to speak on it and and make their vote um either for or against. Okay. Thank you. So

one one other comment um that I so we just approved on the golf course um you know to have a user fee and um to have additional monies for car replacement and those type of things. And so in my mind when I read the funding sources and saw municipal golf fund 188,000 I was like so where are we robbing from Peter to pay Paul? Um any any place that had a buck that's where we're pulling it from.

Thanks Mayor Councelor Sweeney. Um the golf fund is unlike most of the other enterprise funds it is profitable in terms of it is it brings in more revenue than than its operational costs and so the golf fund is able to cover some of its capital. It's not able to cover all of it but but it is able to to build up a fund balance and we do use that in most years for for some of the capital needs of the golf fund in this year. It is not fun is not covering all of its capital needs but is certainly contributing. Other questions for Pete before we move on reports. Okay. Thank you Pete. Appreciate that detailed presentation.

All right. Madam city manager. Okay. So council um as I said we'll move to uh project reports on the two projects that are partially budgeted for. Uh we'll start with the Casper Business Center and I believe the city engineer is going to lead uh that conversation and we will be referring to the memo in your packet which is about three pages long and very detailed.

Counselors. Uh thank you. Um, so with the Casper uh business center remodel um for for the new uh Casper police station, um city engineering staff as well as uh PD have been working um pretty um pretty fast and hard with uh with police facilities design group and citizen construction whom is uh the hired CM. Um and um the currently um we're in phase two of the project. So overall there's three phases um and components to the project. The first phase was completed in 2025 and that was demolition of the interior and as best um and and that portion of the project is is completed. Um there was uh a portion that had been originally included in the bid for that um but got removed um and that was the window portion. um that portion is going to be segmented into phase two. We are currently in phase two right now. Phase two um basically includes all the core infrastructure of the building. Um new HBA, electrical, plumbing, fire suppression, um some structural modifications. Um if you recall um there was a portion on um between the uh levels two and three that there was an opening um in the the ceiling there. Um that has since been filled in. Um and so that um that third level will now be completely uh be able to be utilized. Um and um in in phase two, we're also looking to probably put some exterior signage um um in the on the exterior of the building to basically um show that you know identify the building

as the Casper Police Station headquarters. Um but we we're working on that phase right now. Um that phase is um it's just over 14.7 million. um that that contract has been awarded, that's been budgeted. Um we're moving forward with that. Phase two plans to be completed by February 2027. That that is our goal. Um phase three, um we are uh we're currently in design for that and we plan to have design completed um in a couple months um of this year. Um and so that project includes the the finishing of of the entire space to make it functional. Um we plan to um add standby power uh with that phase with complete um complete finishing. Um, also the sallyport of uh the building, which is basically where um anybody who's detained um in a police vehicle um with PD um can be safely transitioned into the building. Um that is also planned. Um, and so I had mentioned, you know, we plan to begin that, um, in June of 2026. Um, and then that to be completed in October of 2027. A couple of items with that. Um, you know, the municipal court for the building, um, there was some back and forth. it wasn't um with some value engineering. We were not planning to have that in originally, but we're planning to bring that back into uh the

project in phase three. Um and so, um it's it's going to u not be as elaborate, but it's going to be a functional space um to be to be utilized um for for both the municipal court and PD. Um it's in a centralized location as well. Um the original design included it um but it had um it had been taken out at a certain point. Um I'd mentioned the sally port and in phase three uh the the sally port is um is planned to go in the um in that phase but um we do have to move utilities um and vacate that the alley um where this alley port is planned to be in. Um and that's that's taking some time. Um, city engineering staff have gone ahead and um started the vacation process, but um like other processes, you need to have um a certain amount of um the business owners and residents within a certain radius to um basically comply and and and agree uh to have that vacated. We're we're nearing um nearing completing that. Um the utilities we also have to have uh consent by them. So they do not reserve their existing utilities there. We have the power, we have gas, um and we have some communication uh companies that um have made some reservations. And so, um, we've got to, uh, first finalize our alignment with, um, the the power company and the other utilities, which I think we're headed headed in a good direction, um, about for and, um, and then we need to formalize, um, utility easements with them so that they have some assurance that they can reroute their um, their utilities and then we will proceed with vacation of the alley um, so that we can build the salt.

um parking garage um that's existing there. Um with that the build the this phase three does not include any work with that parking garage. Um there's it is in need of structural repairs. Um however u with the funding here we're focusing on um the the main building um so that it can be functional for the police department. Um there uh the EOC uh emergency operations center um there was some discussion on that to to see if there was earmark funding for that. Um but um that was it was pretty difficult at the time um in phase two because we're doing already doing some work for that in phase two and so trying to delineate the cost on that um was a little bit difficult. So we veered towards the equipment for the EOC um for for that particular um so so with that um are there any particular questions um with the Caspian business center?

Go ahead. So remind me um when Jill uh came to us put together a funding mechanism we approved that. Was that for phase two or phase three? I think it was phase two but I don't want to speak for Alex. I believe it was phase two. Let's

bring in the expert. There we go. Mayor, councelor, that was actually for phase three. We have phase one and phase two fully funded. Okay. Thanks for the reminder. And don't go very far, Jim. Jenny just asked me what meeting we were referring to as far as Okay, never mind. It doesn't matter. It's a task force meeting.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I Sorry. Our task force. Okay. So, um, on on the the move of the courthouse, that wasn't I mean, under Tom Brower, um, the that wasn't part of the conversation. uh before um we were going to continue with the Hall of Justice until we got to a point where we could afford to do that. So I take it Tom's no longer even consulting or

Tom is still um involved in the project. Um but but with the municipal court portion of the project that was one where I think I it was a basically a removal to save some money to value engineer and not put it in and then because of some needs and some I think some recent changes chief speak to that. Um they we brought it back in so that that facility would be built and ready um for that use. We want the chief to come up. Yeah.

Why not chief? Um, we found that, um, and I don't want to speak out of turn, but largely it's going to be from an efficiency standpoint to have the have the court system in there and then with added increases to any costs associated with rent and infrastructure upgrades because we still responsible for 50%. even if the court's in there is my understanding. Um asked to go back and see if we can't do some value engineering and get the courts back in there with a much smarter smaller scale of you know it doesn't have all the bells and whistles and the trimmings that normal court have. So we're able to pull that off by filling in that hole in there with um it still be a functional courtroom and a a useful space for the PD and public as well.

So um so at some point. I want to ask Jill if there's a possibility of broadening uh that phase three um uh financing mechanism or if if that's already that ship is sailed at this point.

Mayor, counselor. Um so we have not started on our debt financing yet. Um that is the direction that we got from council that we wanted to explore that but we were intending to come back to council with the details of that debt financing before we ever moved forward because it at the time it was advised I can't remember if it was going to be 15 15.5 or around 15 million um we talked about poss up to 16 or 17. Carter didn't feel comfortable servicing that. So,

mayor counselor, um the original amount that we had talked about was 15 million and we would do it over a 20-year debt service.

Okay. Um and then if I could, so on the alley vacation, so I've gotten some plaque. I haven't had a ton uh but um but I have had some folks reach out and why do you need that? And so just I utilize the alley. I I do some banking at uh First Interstate, use the drive-thru, then I take a left and use that alley behind uh the Masonic Lodge in the Towns and Justice Center. Sally ports off the alley doesn't block the alley, but that's their entrance into their Sallyport. Um, and uh, um, I believe that's how they transport the prisoners uh, to Towns and Justice Center, but maybe I'm wrong.

So, here counselors. Um, so we have overhead power that runs through there. That that alley is um, basically for franchise utilities to run through. We also have very large 8 inch uh gas man that runs under there as well. So during design we looked at a lot of different ways in order to get um these vehicles and anybody detained into the building. And the best spot was on that that alley because they could come in. They could be right by the elevators. there's separate a separate elevator that could allow um you know transport um to a different location that's away from you know public interface um and so the in order to build in that particular space which is pretty ideal um the the police vehicles can access off of first street utilize that sally for there with the utilities moved, there would be no issue of a potential break or anything that would cause that area to not be functional. Um, you know, you've seen through town like some of some utilities that have to be worked on with traffic control and things like that that would encumber that portion of the alley. So, um, in order to alleviate that and to make that a usable space for the city of Casper, that's why we're vacating that portion, we're going to we're going going to plan to allow realignment of the utilities that are there existing and then also allow for an access easement so that the local businesses there and um, some utilities like trash, removal, and things like that can still access Center

street while the police facility can utilize that sound. Ethan, did you want to say something about that? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council, I just want to make a quick clarification. I believe uh councelor Sweeney was referencing the towns and justice center sal. We were talking about the Casper Business Center, which operated by the Casper Police Department, which also needs a salt to get people in and out of the business center building. So that alley that is next to First Interstate Bank and by the Towns and Justice Center, that's not the alley that we're trying to vacate. No, I I to Mayor, I totally get that. I'm using that as an example

of an active hour with a sounding board. Why can't we do the same thing? my mistake mayor and council. Um

um because this business center is an existing building, there is not opportunity to create a sally port outside of the alley. Believe that is why we are trying to make a vacation in that alley to build a sally port. It's the existing building. And one last question on Sallyport. You utilize the existing garage door that's between on on off of David Street um that's currently in place. Is that not enter into the building at the right place?

Mayor counselors, it does, but it also has a loading dock and there's some stairs before you get to the elevator. you'd have to walk them down the hallway around up some stairs or to another elevator that's not secure by having that cell port on the outside of the building. As engineers have said, there's no way on the existing structure to incorporate that somewhere like at the towns and justice building where they've got a a Sallyport you can drive in or even at the current hall of justice where you can drive in downstairs. Um, so this is the most efficient way to get someone that's in police custody, not not custody, but police custody in for active investigations in a secure manner. Um, to make sure that, you know, we've got control of them from A to B to get them into those interview rooms. They can't squirm them out of something or take them downstairs where they fall or allege a trip or something like that. And the shorter distance we have to negotiate them and get them through the building, the better it is for us from a liabilities aspect. This is the most efficient way with with a legacy.

Thanks, Mayor. Thank you everyone for all the information. I've got some questions about the parking lot. Can you please remind me what is the current status and accessibility of the parking lot across from America on corner of center and first? Uh how's that parking lot currently being used and who can use it? And then once this project's all complete, what was the intended use of that parking lot? If

I can answer that partially, mayor counselor. Um, so the original design um is intended to um build a um police um garage there for for vehicle use. Um and so that has been removed from the design. Um, so the existing parking lot I I know that um by the city um but there are some agreements there that others use it. Um but I I don't know exactly who's who's got use of that um necessarily. So um but there there I think there are some potential uh that are for use to the surrounding businesses

right now right now. Could you mention what that it's for construction staging right now? Oh yes yeah I'm sorry. Um thank you. Yeah but uh but currently yes it is used for construction staging right now. Um you know, some of that overhead power is um in the way. Um but um trying to work to see if we can get some of it removed so that we can utilize the upper floors of the building efficiently. Um and actually taking it up ourselves using a crane would be really nice, but see how that works out.

Yeah. So in the original estimate of of the third phase on power in particular, was that factored as part of the 15 million? Do you remember?

So So I may counsel. So um so the phase two does um stand by power. It just includes um the basic amount which is communication um and life safety. Um phase three I think that's what you're referring to in that 15 million that does include backup power facility. Um but in general like the power to the building um a lot of that is getting taken care of um in phase two um with the major component with the backup power integrated into phase three. So we've uh so we have we budgeted already for the vacation of the alley the move and upgrade on the power underground and all of that or are we counting on Rocky Mountain Power um to pick up the tab? So, mayor counselor so those franchise agreements um the the franchisee is responsible for um moving their facilities. Um so I believe in this case um we understand that they are going to fund that move um as it is in the vacation of the alley. So there there isn't a lot of funding that the city has for vacating the alley as far as moving the existing infrastructure. The city does have a sewer main in there um that they're going to have to um uh do some some moving with but also utilize for the construction of the

project. Um overall um the vacation is on the cost of the franchisee. Then there's still fiber optic. Correct. There there's a couple of fiber optic communications. Um that building because it served as a centralized data center communication center. There's still some fiber optic that is um pretty large um and kind of farreaching that is um still um in going to the building and so that needs some of that needs to be modified with the vacation in the alley.

Any other questions to the staff, chief, general, anybody from this report?

Okay, thanks everyone. Appreciate the update. council, we'll talk about fire station one next, which is our second uh partially budgeted pro project and it bridges the gap as well into our spec projects that we will talk about. So, uh this will be the first of those uh four projects that we discuss. Chief Black will walk us through the memo and as he uh moves up here, I'll remind you that you did have 4.4 million approved from the specific purpose tax package. Uh that as a refresher was for design, preconstruction, and other eligible project activities. Very little of that has been spent to date, $770,187. Um the majority of your packet uh for this meeting, I think, is actually um design and information around the fire station. Uh, so I knew that the fire uh guys are super proud and excited to um be out of historic station one and hopefully uh before long into a new station one. So there's more details than you would ever want in the packet. Um but the chief will cover the memo and give you a general sense of where we are with the project.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Counselors, thank you for your time tonight. Um give me an update on the fire station one replacement with the specific purpose tax. I'm going to call it the spec tax anytime I talk about it. Um, as you know, we were uh worth 4.4 million through the spec tax. Spent $770,187 dollars for a professional service contract with Art Design Group. They've done an incredible job uh taking us through this project. All the engineering and design so far, we're very pleased with their progress. Um that gives us a remaining balance of $3,629,813 to be applied to um construction costs. Um at this point, programming, schematic design, and design development have now been completed, resulting in 47% of the overall engineering design phase being finished. That gives us uh a possible construction start date in November of 2026. And in addition to the spec tax that we've been awarded through this, the city is pursuing a state loan and investment board and a loyalty construction grant to supplement further construction costs. By having this project begin funding already, we've been able to streamline the process of getting the project rolling. It's preserved a significant balance to offset future construction expenses. It's maintained a schedule certain and has positioned the city to competitively procure work during the CM guaranteed maximum price process in 2026. The current preliminary estimates for the total construction costs of the station is $22,228,520.

This this project supports the council priorities. Goal number one, safe and healthy community. And with that, I would like to answer any of your questions. Any questions for chief council? A week from now, we will talk about the mineral royalty grant. That'll be on your agenda a week from today. So, if you have questions around that, they may be better served and better answered uh a week from now. Thank you, Chief. Okay. Appreciate the update.

Okay. Um so we will move to the second of our spec projects which of course is moving us out of partially budgeted and into fully budgeted uh projects and that project is our public safety communications center equipment upgrades and Chief Cheney can address that. Yeah, I I didn't realize that. I thought we were going through this whole on the fire station. It was just a quick update on Okay. where they were going and this grant they're that we're applying that they're going to apply for and we're going to talk more in depth about that. Okay. From Slib. Okay.

You didn't miss much. K. It was just the most intricate conversation we just have ever had. Well, I wondered the addition of the training center to the new fire station. I thought we were using station the existing station number one would be become the training center. So, sorry, Chief. Come on back up. So, I was curious how that was going to work. Okay. Mr. Mayor Coun, could I could you repeat the question?

So, design, it appears there's a training center um with a with a pulled through bay um conference training. So on that schematic you can see you have all the apparatus bays on station you have all the living quarters for the on duty personnel on the other side of the station is admin training community risk reduction all the command staff so mayor that I'm curious then what happens to the existent is existing station one.

So, existing station one, I don't believe the city has come to um a good consensus on what the best use of that property is right now. There's been a lot of discussions of different things, but at this time, I don't believe there's any solid plan for it. There's a lot of different use that it can be utilized for. So, I I I thought it was going to be a training training center. The current what?

The current I'll I'll let the chief address that, but I wondered if the chief could uh speak to current station one as well. If there's any residual fire use of the facility after new fire station one comes online,

there's absolutely residual residual fire use of the facility. We can host trainingmies through it. we can have overflow reserve apparatus a lot of our equipment there's been talk with partnering with PD on on some different ideas on utilization of it currently we're in the city center building and we're totally isolated from the department so by building it all together the command staff the station we have a central hub where we're a more effective and efficient organization and having station one utilizing that for different training programs, trainingmies. There's a lot of different overflow storage that can go into that station.

Um, with that with that being said, council, um, I just wanted to give the chief a chance to address if there was, like I said, any residual fire use of the building, but I think the original statement is correct. U for current soontobe old fire station one, um, there is no consensus. uh city-wide opinion as to whether it makes sense to keep that building for any use, fire or otherwise, or if it would make sense not to keep that property and building. So, those are future conversations to be had. Do you have more questions?

Well, I'm I'm assuming, you know, some of some of these are the state had to come to um design codes for the old Yellowstone district and I'm assuming the architect took that in. I don't know if it's going to be metal on the outside or Mr. Mayor, counselor, yes, it is in the plans to make sure it meets all dealers codes. Thank you. Sorry. Uh So go over five stories. Yeah. Or get a brilliant.

They don't make fire trucks that tall again. You can.

Okay. Um so we're ready to move to public safety communication center equipment. Thank you. Mayor counselor for me. Um excuse me. One of the spec tax was for the Nrona County Public Safety's communications center relocation from where it currently is on landmark to the eighth floor of the uh city center building or Casper Business Center. Sorry, we have a lot of acronyms around.

Um we had asked for five more $5 million with two million of that going to council console replacement, radio equipment, antennas and microwaves, emergency operation live wall. That would be the EOC. Excuse me. There may be some specialized telecommunicator furniture, the 911 system, and updating the public safety recording system, which is your phones and radios. Um, so currently we have spent or we are under contract for $750,000 to lock in that price on the uh of the 2 million for the radio consoles. What that does is it it locks us in at a at a price point, but the warranty and um manufacturers warranty and some of the the um software stuff um won't go into effect until it's installed and operational in that building. Additionally, we've have $500,000 locked in under contract for the 911 system. again with the same idea in mind that none of the warranties will fall in line or start working or ticking against us until it's installed and operational in that building. We've also started working for the with the structural engineer for the tower and the infrastructure for the tower on the roof up there for the tower cabling and racks for all of those components. There hasn't, but that's $500,000. That really hasn't spent much money on that, but we're in the process of working through what that would look like, getting that engineer in there to tell us what that has to look like, what components we need. Um, with the consoles, the $2 million ask. Currently, our backup station is at station three, which is at 12th and Beverly. We would take some of the old station or consoles from the current center and move them in there. So, it's actual dispatch center and not just remote consoles in there. So that would help cover the cost of moving some of those consoles down there. Um, and then with that, the live wall, we're told we can kind of save some costs on

that because mostly, if correct me if I'm wrong on that, Alex, but it's TVs now and not a big computer component. So there may be some additional salary or not salary savings, but savings as I can answer any questions. Any questions for Chief? Yeah, thank you, Chief.

Yes, sir. I don't know anything about police radios or dispatch consoles or anything, but I do know about like PCs, firewall switches, stuff like that. And I know uh those devices have a limited lifespan. And so my question is these radios, I'm I'm glad to hear we're locking in pricing because I'm sure pricing is certainly just going to go up over time, but these radios and consoles that we're looking at, do we have any idea what the lifespan is? I would hate, you know, it's great to have the full manufacturer warranty and stuff, but I would hate if we lock it in for two, three years, we get the new radios and then they reach end of life a year or two later and lose support and stuff. So, do we have any idea what their life cycle looks like?

Mayor, counselor, is I understand when we lock that price in, it'll be built to new when we when we tell them, hey, we're ready to start building those things. It's my understanding of that. Okay. So, it's not necessarily locking in specific models or anything. It's just a uh like part of a larger project. Mayor Council.

Okay. So, there was talk during this session, the new communication upgrades. Maybe I saw it someplace else. and all all of this stuff. But all of ours would be up up to the current or above the current standards for communications across the state.

Mayor, counselor, I believe we're up to date right now, but there will be time where similar to our last work session where we talked about maybe upgrading the tower up by the event center, there may be a time where we have to come back and say we have to upgrade these things, but currently we're operational. We're where we're within where we need to be. Everything's working as it should. But there's going to be a time where we're going to come back and ask funding for those additional upgrades as mandated by the state. So in this in this ask mayor, if I remember right, this was 5 million. So, um, is 5 million going to be enough, do you believe, to fit? Um, what we need to do and do we need backup power generation as part of this?

Mayor, counselor, I believe it's going to be enough. And we also are working on a backup power plant already. You have the generator that exists there that I believe is going to stay there. And then part of the phase three and and moving on to additional power. Anything else? Okay. Thanks, Chief. Thank you.

Um council, actually, Chief, um well, you or your representative would like to uh probably walk us through Metro next, which is our $7.3 million and second to last uh project update uh for the evening. I feel like I see everybody in the audience and up here getting tired and I'm reminding myself that it's really 8:30, not 7:30, isn't it? Like we haven't adjusted yet.

Mayor, counselor, Captain Davney and Jody Decker have really been working with engineering on the metro facility. Um, I'm going to turn that over to to Alex and Captain Davney and let them speak on that project. Mayor counselors, um I can speak to the progress that we're having um on this uh this project for the Metro Animal Shelter. Um as you may recall, this was Proposition One that authorized $7.3 million for new Metro Animal Facility. Um currently right now um in the project um we are 30% um complete in the design um with schmatic design complete right now and we're process hiring a new CM um for that um that's gone out to um uh for competitive bid for CM and selection and um currently we're process of hiring um which you will see soon. Um the um the project um as far as um getting a GMP guaranteed maximum price in place um our goal is to have one in place by July of this year. Um so that we can move forward um August to get that awarded um and then to hopefully have that completed in the summer of 2025. That's our goal. Um although um there if there's anything that comes along, we have until spring of 2028. That's our our drop dead deadline to try and get the project completed. Um other than that, um we've we've hired Ammonson um Associates. We've been working with them um architect and they're doing a

good job um helping us look at the project um refining things um making sure that we have a facility that's um really meets the needs um because the facility is um in need of um some care and um that

mayor counselor I appreciate you letting me talk about this. I'd rather have Jod here. She's uh much more appealing. Um I gave her some needed time off. She's been working seven days a week to try and get this off the ground. So um we we are in the process. I think we're we're really making headway as far as um what the design should look like, how that money is best spent and uh that we're really being good stewards of of city funds. Um the CM I think we're a couple weeks out maybe hopefully from getting that signature. Hopefully construction starts summer of this year. Um, but it was really a design thing that that kind of everybody wanted to make sure that we were doing the best for resources we had. And so I think it took a little bit of extra time. Um, animal arts has been a great help as far as what's needed in the in the shelter for the amount of animals that that run through there as well as taking care of the staff for, you know, air intake and, you know, a nice facility. So that'll answer any questions you have. Go ahead, Amber.

Uh, and I know over the life cycle of the Metro Task Force, we've sort of heard back and forth on the second dog kennel wing, maybe. Um, if that's the best way to describe that. Um, what's the status of that? I think we we had originally cut it to save some cost and there was some speculation that maybe we could fit it into the budget. Um, has has that developed at all?

Yes, Mayor Counselor, we've settled on 32 uh kennels that are both indoor or outdoor. uh the flex space is going to be those exterior shelters. We've we've uh got a plan in place to be able to move them where they need to go. Um some of the discussion that we were talking about from a cost standpoint was doing an actual drivein uh salport if you will for um animal drop off so they can't escape out of there. Um that's one of the things that's really could be a cost cutting major. Maybe we could just do fencing for now. Um but we're hoping we can actually get that into the plan. Um the cool design that that they've kind of pushed out right now with the indoor outdoor space is probably a lot um it'll be cool to see because the the amount of time that the animals can get out from where they're at right now that doesn't have to require somebody walking them um is going to be kind of nice that as well as for cleaning they're outside um the guillotine doors are shut u plus it provides a little bit more um room. One of the things that Admonson talked about was, you know, again, from a an architecture piece that that I don't know about, you got to be able to spin. You know, if you're wheelchair bound, there has to be an access for spinning. And so, they're they're worried about, you know, do we have enough space, enough walkway space, enough place to get the animals out. So, I think we have adequ adequate room. We have enough overflow space. And the one thing again, I always champion Jod when I come in here because her adoption uh project is so good and her volunteer uh piece is so good that we don't have um quite the the length of stay that we used to have. Um we still have the influx of animals. We still have the same amount of animals coming in, but she's been really good at being able to find adoption places, find places that want to work with us, um and make sure those animals get good home. So, it is still in place. It's going to be, you know, a little bit different than I think what you saw on the last one. Um, but still adequate for

Thank you, Pat. So, remind me, I think I've asked this before, but I was hopeful we were going to be able to hang on to the existing metro for hoarding cases. Um, is that still part of the plan?

We we would still be able Sorry, mayor counselor. We would still be able to use that in the inter room. Um, it's still a building that we'd be able to use. Right now, we're focusing all the money on the the new shelter. Um, the that space would be adequate for overflow for um, you know, pest signness such as Parvo and and some some things like that. Now, if we do have a large hoarding case, absolutely that that would be an option. Um the the goal even from the architect to uh Samson was we we just need to get out and move on. Um but it it will be a space we can use in the interim. Um past that we're hoping this facility covers everything that we need. Yeah.

I would just add that um I would concur with the architect in Samson. If we have a building that's sort of past its useful life, keeping it for for rare circumstances like a hoarding case um may actually cost us more money than it's worth. So, uh I'll be anxious to see that data as we move forward and see if it makes sense to keep it long term. Sounds like it probably won't.

Yes. Yes, ma'am. And um if I could just, you know, push one more thing at that I think 83 is when they designed it. 85 is when it was built. um some of the things that we've had to repair. Um I'm sure you guys see the bills. We spend a lot in that building every year just on regular repairs, regular maintenance, and sometimes even um you know, things that are really out of our control just from an old building. Um I would hate to not put that money into the new building and have to continue to repair an old building. So easy answer is yes. Could it be flex? you would rather, and again that goes back to why the design took a little bit of time, was to make sure that we could have this building and not need something else to go back and forth with.

Anything else about Metro? Thanks, K. Thanks, Alex.

Okay, last but not least, Director Lopez will talk to us about Spec Proposition 8, which is our band shell at Washington Park. Hello again. I will make this very fast. Uh from jump, the intention was for us to leverage suspect tax 1.5 million um in grant match and we were able to do that successfully. And so we intentionally delayed the project until we could submit our application to the land and water conservation fund which happened last November, November 24, excuse me. Uh then nove October of 25 we were awarded that $ 1 million $ 1.5 million grant and immediately went out to RFP for a design architect uh a contract of which you awarded last week and so we are hoping to have a kickoff meeting with Arat very very soon um and start design we are uh going to have city staff and the municipal band involved in the design of the renovation of the band shell um and Then of course my parks team will be really involved in the design of the space immediately around the band shell that we hope will enhance the park experience for everyone that goes to events there. Um and then we have also um talked about engaging the historic preservation commission and some of the design discussions just to make sure that that we're really keeping true to the u historic uh image of that shell and its place in our community. And so we are excited about how we're progressing and stand for any questions.

Any questions?

So in the overall design, I think there was talk about illuminating the pool uh at Washington Park and moving to a splash pad. I today I got an email from a constituent concerned about that um and utilizing it for third space for teenagers during the summer months, but I didn't know if that was still part of the plan um eliminating the pool. Mayor, counselor, as you know, we we underwent a significant parks and rec master planning effort. Uh the results of which were presented to you, I think in late 2024. Um that master plan did suggest that we should consider divesting a Washington Park pool. Um however, that is not part of this project. It's not considered um in this project. Um and any decision related to Washington Park Pool will be deferred. Um the earliest we would decide what and and potentially have a plan in place is probably 2028. Um just because of the amount of time it takes. I mean we've we've been fortunate to be really supported by Land Water Conservation Fund, but the application process is long. Applications are always submitted in November of every year. and we don't even know if we're, you know, we don't get formal award of those dollars until a year later. Um, and so likely not that we would apply for land and water conservation funds for Washington Park this year. Um, just because those grants are onetoone match and I don't have an identified matching source right now. Um, and so it would be irresponsible for me to apply for a grant that I can't match appropriately. Um, and so we we've got to do some budgeting um hopefully through event 18

process to identify um some funds that could be leveraged as match for future phases of that park development and other projects throughout the community. But um you know given the timeline and uh a master plan recommendation for Washington Park that is sort of pull all the phases together really consider um maybe a theme for the park so that as we um complete the final phases it it really becomes a cohesive space um that that all users in different areas are interacting still together in in a space that feels common um from a community standpoint. So, we're a ways out before we're making sign significant decisions about Washington Park. Quite bad.

So, probably not related either. What's being built right now? So, currently we have pickle ball courts that still need to be surfaced. They're constructed. They just need to be surfaced so that they're playable. Uh tennis courts are being constructed right now. Okay. Ballfield lighting has already been completed as part of phase one. And then phase three is the band shell which of course I just noted we're just barely starting design on. Thank you. It's not a question. It's more of a wrap up for all of the spec tax projects. So I won't say unless we're ready to move on from Banshill. I think everybody is good to go actually.

Great. Um so thanks for these updates. I it's very helpful to to get them. I mentioned in the last meeting um the website is up and very robust has a ton of information about all these projects. Uh I would just encourage um the organization I think that the community is really interested in these projects. So that you know they've been following them from the inception of us trying to you know talk about the projects um message about the pro projects educate about the projects and so to the extent now that some of these are starting to they're going to start to be a little bit more visible um the progress on them in the community. I I would just encourage us to really make sure that we're capturing that and getting it out to the public. So, befores and afters, um, leveraging media tours so that we can get some folks in there to kind of see what what the progress is looking like, ribbon cutings. I I think all of those things the to the greatest extent that we can, I want to bring the community along with this since they opted to support these. And, you know, I I feel like they've sort of been in the internal phase where there's just, you know, it's a little harder for folks in the community to kind of know that anything's happening. But I feel like we're about to sort of evolve past that phase and into some some that's a little bit more um interesting for the community to to follow along with. So I just like to make sure that we're putting effort into that.

Totally agree. Y absolutely. Yeah, agree. All right, let's go ahead and move on. Thank you for everybody that was here. We appreciate your the staff and appreciate you guys. your commitment to the city and the hard work that you guys have been doing on all this. I know the capital budget is not easy peak, right? Piece of paper. Thanks everyone. All right, let's go ahead and go on to agenda review. Um J, I don't know if you have anything you'd like to go over. I do not unless you guys have questions.

Does anybody have any questions about upcoming regular meetings? Any work sessions coming up? would like to request real estate matters be discussed at our next possible executive.

Okay, I'll get with the city attorney. Anything else? All righty. Let's do council around the table. Mike, you want to start? I don't have anything. Awesome. Randy,

my judge meeting got pushed until next week and everything else I have is this video. U not much other than to say welcome to Steve and and congratulations to to Rick Young on his retirement. So same courtly as I mean council Haskins does awesome. So, I appreciate uh the followup with the soda deal. Um and um I I don't know if um that Dave's email was shared with some of the constituents. Um um is there a reason we can't share that information?

Councelor contact from constituent certainly can be shared with us at any time. Okay. Is that better? Some I think some members of staff received it. Councelor Sweeney, I don't know that all involved staff members did, but I think staff have a good sense of the issues there and had good productive conversations with the businesses and the neighbors around there. So, I guess I'm unclear at that answer if he's wanted to share it with the public. That's what he's asking. Oh, maybe that's a question for your attorney. I thought you were talking about sharing it with staff members. I apologize, mayor.

I'm unaware of council's referring to. So do this. Would you mind just real quick? So there was an issue down with the new um stirup stirup stirrups stirrups soda um that just opened up off of Second Street over by that chiropractic. Um it's been there for years and years. Swan and Swan Swan Studios right in front. Yeah. And so there was a over the weekend it seemed like they just opened up a couple days ago. Um there was a influx of cars down that street. I can't remember the street. Kenwood.

Yeah, Kenwood. Thank you. All the way down. It was pretty backed up. And so we had received some emails from um actually the owner of the chiropractic um business that had said that he it was kind of congesting the whole area, but his patients couldn't get in or they couldn't get out. I said it send us several several um photos as well. I think most everybody got those and um and so Janine had gotten on top of it and started working with city staff and everything. Um and I think you want to share the information that we got from city staff. Is that what you're talking about, Pat? Well, in particular Dave, the owner, I for some reason can't get back. But

you want to share Dave's information. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, they he sent an email. Well, Copper Cup Coffee Company sent an email. I don't know who's on the chain. Yeah, I think we all got it from Copper Cup. They're the owners of Sturup. Yeah. Yeah. Stirups. So, mayor, without having studied it, I would just say it sounds like it's all public communication. So, I don't think there's anything that would necessarily be confidential. My only caveat is is if there's some contemplated enforcement action or some potential violations of ordinance, I would hesitate delving into the details too much if we're not there yet. So, okay. Did you hear that, Pat?

I would ask David reply and ask if it's okay if we if you forward his traffic management plan to the folks who have reached out and concerned. Yeah, I check with him. You see, he didn't copy city manager. Ev evidently not. I just sent it to Okay. Yeah, you're welcome to send it to me and I can share it with staff. Maybe somebody knows how. I'm on it. I'm doing it.

Yeah, you did that. Yeah. And it does sound like to that to that point too, it sounds like um city staff is on top of it. They're already working on it. So, which we appreciate. So, getting responses back. Appreciate. Great job. Time down there. My understanding on I think it was Saturday that three police cars in an ambulance were over. But I don't know from one email that I got I think from didn't indicate there were any police reports

address clarify what your question is please so what whichever street that is who Kenwood sir that uh supposedly I think it was Saturday afternoon but it might have been Sunday that Somebody potentially got hit um trying to back out onto the street and there were three patrol cars supposedly over there. Um mayor counselor. So it was Sunday afternoon. Um there was report of an accident. By the time we got done investigating it, it the disturbance. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Chief. Thank you. Anything else, Pat, for updates? Um, no. I I think that was the main main thing that I tried to deal with over the weekend. Yeah. So, but

um I have parks and recck advisory on th Tuesday I'll likely be remote next Tuesday's meeting. Um, speaking of which, I've got to be in Rollins next Tuesday. So, can one of you How do I do a proxy? No. Ethan, maybe. I don't know who usually doesn't, but I'm happy to be your proxy if you want to. Actually, make Matt your proxy since he'll be here in person. Did you write anybody down? We did. Did you

I think I would What would you say, Mayor Council? Uh I we did have proxy forms that went out a couple meetings ago. I'll have Brandy check who your proxy is and if Matt is not one of them, then whatever we need to do to make that happen. Appreciate it. Vice Mayor.

Yes. Uh Cody uh sent us a metro report last week. Uh want to thank Cottonwood Elementary School. Sounds like they did a fundraiser to help benefit the animal shelter. So really appreciate uh those kiddos over there and the staff helping with that. Uh we had officers over there accepted a donation. U obviously very appreciative, very cool. Uh she did mention also they have a notable number of exotic animals. They're caring for a chicken, a rabbit, a cockatu, and three lizards. So, if any of that sounds interesting or appealing to you, please hit up Jody. And I'm sure it's, you know, cockatu sounds fun. Yeah. Right. Um, lizards.

Yeah. make sure you know about the animals before you pick them up. But obviously those kind of strange ones are um you know I'm sure they have to take s there and it's harder to care for some of the more niche animals. But um I read an article in Oil City News recently about a local resident Shannon Hayden starting a nonprofit called Beyond Limits Wyoming. My understanding is this to help underserved youth with participation cost for arts and sports. Sounded an awful lot like the work of the Nona County Rec Foundation. And so I wasn't sure if there was some collaboration or synergy we might be able to realize with Shannon and his her efforts. Perfect.

Um and then uh lastly, just wanted to make sure you all were aware Wyomq did grant a state water quality permit for the seminal pump storage project. uh they do have an adaptive management plan that lays out monitoring requirements and operational responses, but uh it sounds like all that's holding them back at this point is some federal approvals that they need. And so I I don't know if that means the trains essentially left as far as local citizens having any sort of influence on the outcome, but uh I suppose um just something to keep watching on and uh users and stakeholders in the areas. I guess just uh as that project continues moving forward um exercising diligence, making sure folks that care a lot about that area are monitoring any changes to the environment and wildlife so that appropriate remediation efforts could occur if uh it happened. That's all I got.

I can piggyback on that. Um council, I did note that this project was recommended for interim study by the legislature. I don't know where that will go or what that means, but it was of interest.

Um I think I had mentioned I went to the um rising together rally on Saturday evening. So I spoke to them at a proclamation. Um it is a uh group that is working towards um helping women that are in abusive relationships um that have been abused um domestic violence. um their mission is great. So I encourage you to um they're on Facebook, they have a website um I don't have the information with me, but they're called Allied Angels and um they're kind of getting started doing that and support network for for women that are um in abusive situations. So very good. Self-help center was there. um Seatin House. Oh no, not Satan House wasn't there, but there was a couple other organizations, but um self-help centers partnering with them as well. So was very very good.

Mayor, who else doing CY Middle School tomorrow? I am. Randy is are you Pat? Yeah. But what time are 7:30? I think I'm we have we tomorrow I I guess I could say we have a we the people um um which is a group in the have certain issues around the city of Casper that they're going to be working on and talking. We'll be judging that and having that conversation. The city of Casper did a great job. Jolene and Jackie put together a lot of citywide issues that they can utilize to to work on. So hopefully tomorrow. So Tuesday we'll have plans that'll fix everything.

Yep. It'll all be taken care of next week because of because of the young ones. They probably do a better job than us. That's all I'm telling you. That's how it's gonna work. They care more than us. They'll be here long.