City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, hi Amber. Laramie. I am.

All good, OK. Alright, yeah, do you have something else? If you could. I told I told them no, I'll talk to you afterwards. Alright, let's go ahead and get started. Any meeting follow up from last week? Anything like that that we need to address anything? OK, let's go ahead and move on to our municipal court judges update. Judge, you guys want to come up?

Thank you. Everyone knows Judge Malone. Welcome to have her. Happy to have her. So I guess just as a general reminder, the Code of Judicial Conduct kind of restricts what we can do in these meetings. So we're here basically just to... discuss matters concerning the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice. So we pulled up some statistics for the number of cases and types of cases that we are seeing. And I wanted to go through a few of them, just some kind of highlights or I guess lowlights maybe as the case may be. So as far as DUI, so far year to date, We have had a total of 81 DUIs, or I'm sorry, no, a total of 107 DUIs, first and second or subsequent offenses. Compared to last year, year to date at this time, the number was only 81, so we're quite a bit higher than we were last year. Total last year we saw 191, so We're definitely on track to definitely meet that, if not exceed it this year, which is a little disheartening. I wanted to talk about public intoxes as well. So far this year, we are at 155 for the year to date. Last year, the same time year to date, we were at 126. So again, we're well above last year and maybe not the best sign. Public intoxications. So this year, and there's different categories, whether it's in intruding on private premises or on public property when they're passed out, things like that. So combined Total this year, we are at 61 year-to-date. Last year, year-to-date, we were at 82. So those are a little bit lower than we were seeing last year. Minor and possession of alcohol. And again, there are different categories. There's minor possessing alcohol, minor consuming alcohol, or minor with a measurable blood alcohol level. This year, so far to date, we are at 24. And last year, year to date at this time, we were 11. So we're well above where we were last year on those. And I know that we've talked a lot. Most of the time when we come in, we talk about the theft cases seem to be on the rise. And that trend is definitely continuing. So this year, And again, I'm just lumping them all together. We're talking petty larceny, shoplifting, theft of services, defrauding innkeeper, all those all lumped together. Currently, we're at 192 year to date. Last year at this time, we were at 125. So again, they just keep climbing every year. We've talked about in the past that the legislature has adopted a law that currently says that a fifth offense for any kind of theft charge throughout a person's entire lifetime can now be charged as a felony. The legislature is changing that. As of July 1st, that number goes down to a total of three. So I'm hopeful that when word gets out that people will start using better judgment. So three in a lifetime, regardless of the amount of property or goods involved at this point after July 1st can be a felony. And we've had the city attorney's office has had some pretty good success running those through the DA's office. That's kind of the hitch is if they won't take them, then they come to our court, even if it's a third, fourth, fifth, whatever offense. So It's kind of contingent on the DA's office agreeing to take them. But my understanding is they've been pretty willing to take some of these with the current law being a fifth offense for a felony. So hopefully that trend will continue. But those were kind of the main highlights that I wanted to touch on. I don't know if you have any questions about any of that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Joe Chan, for that information.

Surprised by the uptick in DUIs and it sounds like other alcohol related crime because my understanding my recollection is that the past couple years those were all trending down, so I would be curious. You know, maybe we can get the Chiefs perspective after you guys, but I would be curious. If you think there's anything you can attribute that to any other context, you might be able to.

I don't know that I. Have an answer to that.

Can I ask this is maybe in preparation for the chief coming up? I'd be curious these year to date numbers if those numbers in the past several months. We're kind of compounding or getting like you know the crux. My question is, I am curious whether the DA's decision to kind of like more heavily enforce the THC related products. If there's any correlation does not equal causation, but I am if any of those trends kind of match up or overlap each other.

It could, as in people turn into different substances.

Yeah, I mean, the research is mixed, but there's lots of case studies that show people tend to use cannabis in lieu of using alcohol. And now that cannabis products are more heavily restricted, I would be curious if we're seeing people gravitate more towards alcohol again.

Yeah.

That's a good point. I'm still seeing a few, though, where, and we're always going to have them, but they're charged with DUI and possession of controlled substance. So we do have, you know, the multiple substance users. But that could be an explanation for some of it.

Thank you. Brandy?

So for especially the alcohol related. I believe those are things that the diversion program or is that just for the mental health right now? Are they going hand in hand?

Yeah, no diversion. Our diversion program works for both substance abuse and mental health issues. So any person that's, you know, got a mental disability or things of that nature, they're eligible for it just along the same lines as the substance abuser.

Is that still is that increase? Is it at least is that increasing with all of our alcohol increases as well as it? Do you feel like it's working?

I do yeah yeah I do so and and again just as a reminder for everybody what we're doing with our diversion program. There are different ways that it works. It can be a true pretrial diversion where the city attorney's office would intervene. take the case out before it even gets filed with us, and then run it through their program, get the people into some counseling. As long as they complete it, then a charge would never be filed with us. Where we're seeing it happen probably the most is the charges are filed with us, and they come before us, and they're either found guilty or they plead guilty or no contest, and we impose the fines, which is basically most of those offenses. That's all we do. And then what we do to incentivize them to get into some treatment is we give them credit every month on their fines, as long as they're completing treatment. And it's typically $50 a month every month while they're going through the treatment. If they elect to do inpatient treatment in this core, we're able to give them, when they complete it successfully, up to $30 a day for every day they participate in the treatment. And my sense is it does two things. Number one, it takes away their excuse for not being able to address their fines because we let them do AA or NA meetings and all you have to do is four a month to get the credit. Doesn't cost them a dime to go to that. The other thing that it does, and I believe that it is helping some people. We've had people that go through the treatment and it's Sometime before we see them re-offend. And then they re-offend and they maybe go through again. But my understanding is that's pretty typical. Sometimes it does take people several times going through the treatment before it finally sticks. But my sense is that it is actually helping some people.

Thanks. Mayor Council. So I actually have a meeting on Thursday with Central County Counseling Center to do a kind of a debrief on the diversion program. And so I think it's also from our perspective going very well. And so if I can get some statistics and kind of be able to quantify some of the impact, I'd be happy to put that together and get it to counsel.

The questions for the judges on their update. All right. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Judge Malone.

Did you want something? She got all spiffied up and came.

Would you like to add anything, Judge Malone? Didn't make her talk, right?

No. No. I thought you were ready to ask me.

Hey, I got a question. But you were just being nice. He was just being nice. Thank you guys.

You don't need this. I'm gonna roll. Thank you.

All right, treatment tree inventory and hand that over to city manager.

So while we allow our staff to come to the podium, I will just give you a quick overview. We had a sort of unexpected opening as we had to rearrange some topics for the work session this evening and came to the realization that. urban forestry report was ready to share with you. So we're excited to do that. By way of reminder, the last time the city of Casper did an urban forestry analysis and report was in 2002, so over 20 years ago. So it's really exciting to see that we're updating that data. This, just to narrow down the scope of all trees in Casper, this is looking at publicly managed urban forests. So not necessarily the tree in your backyard, of which there are about 15,000. our staff will introduce our consultant who worked with us to inventory the trees and create this report for you what i would just want to make sure that you don't miss in this presentation is the fact that trees have value and we know they have sort of intangible value in terms of quality of life but i'll also share with you one of my favorite parts of tree inventory studies which is they will bring to bear some economic values that you can keep in mind so that urban forestry forest that the city manages and is managed by the public. This report will tell you has a total asset value of my glasses off right when I need him about $13 million. So I think that's important that we understand that the work that the city does to keep up our publicly managed trees actually has a return in the community in terms of helping to create economic development and other things that have tangible value, not just intangible. With that, Mr. Randy.

Right here. Council at first like to introduce Katie Alex. She is or we can test urban forest your supervisor. She is an IA certified arborist and then Bill Scott over here who did the inventory. They he is at ISA master certified arborist. I want to first just thank them for all their hard work. I mean this was 14 months of going on in the field and posting pre meetings. There's probably 15 months so. With that, I will let Bill go ahead and start on the report. It is shorter than the operations budget for the city by 40 pages, but we'll go ahead and let it get started.

Mayor members accounts. Thank you for. Having me here my like Randy said my name is Bill Scott.

I'm an ISA board certified master arborist and urban forest professional TCIA plant health care technician.

A couple other things and and thrown in there and I really appreciate the opportunity being able to come in and present some of this information to you guys. I will hopefully be able to give you a working knowledge of the inventory that was conducted and updated and a little bit of information on how that data is used and. how you can use that data. Not so much that you start to get that glazed overlook, but just enough that you can potentially use what we throw at you. So I will get started with that and before we get started, I do kind of want to touch on the inventory stuff itself. In many respects, every community inherits an urban forest from those who came before it. The trees that we see out there now on our streets and in our were trees that were planted by some. They're there because someone had the foresight to provide trees for us. So you guys have inherited someone else's forest and you get to give force that we have now to a future generation. We have a very tangible connection to the future through the work we do with trees. Trees live exponentially long lives, so folks that haven't been born yet are going to benefit from the trees that we're providing for now, and that's kind of a. My unique legacy that we have a unique opportunity that we really have to touch the future in a beneficial, very positive way. So that's something that I like to kind of reinforce when I start talking about trees. But again, comprehensive update that we did to the city's tree inventory was. About 20 years in the making since the last time inventory was updated, so it was it was. It was well due to be updated, but. With that being said, what does Casper's urban forest look like today? Well, the assessment that we did looked at approximately 15,000 trees. 15,017 was the contracted number. You guys actually got 15,018, so we threw in one for free. These are publicly managed trees distributed through parks, boulevards, right-of-ways, municipal facilities, public spaces like cemetery, all of course areas like that. So publicly owned trees, not private. Within that, we identified 65 species roughly within that inventory, reflecting a reasonably diverse urban forest. However, within that portion of the population, there are several species that are concentrated at higher than recommended numbers, specifically green ash, cottonwood, honey locust. Those are kind of your top three. within those species. 13.7% of those green ash, 10.9% codfoot, 10.5% honey locust. So we're going to talk a little bit why that's important. So historically, those trees have performed very well in Casper. They have contributed significantly to the canopy that we see today. But when we deal with numbers that high or percentages that high within our population, it does set those up for potential risk to single insects, single diseases. loss to a single pest. And we've seen this historically with diseases such as Dutch elm disease, which were catastrophic to municipal tree inventories in decades past. And more recently, we've seen influx of emerald ash borer into many communities throughout the United States. If you guys are familiar with any of that, it's been in the news, in the headlines over the past 20, 30 years. Kind of the same situation where you have large portions of trees Within communities just wiped out. Completely where you see entire streets that are now devoid of canopy because of a single pest due to diversity issues.

However, within that.

One of the most encouraging findings that we got from the assessment was condition. Retrieving species 53.9% are in good condition. 37.9% are in fair. So overall, those two by themselves make up about 92% of the inventory population. Those two condition rankings, good or fair, that's positive finding. That assessment does not indicate a forest in crisis, which is good. Species percentage aside, instead it indicates a generally manageable urban forest with identifiable strengths, identifiable challenges. So within that though, we did identify 338 trees. that were hazardous and approximately 1,255 trees that were identified within high and extreme risk categories. It's important to recognize that risk itself is not a word to be afraid of. It does not automatically mean immediate failure. Rather, it helps us identify where consequences of failure could be greatest due to those structural defects or decay or target exposure or a myriad of other factors. One of the most valuable outcomes that we got from this project is knowing where those conditions are, where they're documented and geographically located. So you know where the trees are at. You know where those high-risk trees are. It's not just something lurking in the shadows anymore. We can actually show you where they're at with GIS. You get a map coordinate for every tree. And from a public safety standpoint, from a liability standpoint, that's important. It allows you to prioritize mitigation efforts based on that risk. rather than relying solely on complaints or storm events or visible failures. It allows you to be proactive versus reactive. So within that, the assessment also provides insight into age and the structure of your urban forest. So when we look at that, when we look at those findings and we're interested in the age of the forest, that lets us look at if we are developing and growing And potentially heading into a direction where we can see exponential growth in the benefits that are urban forest is providing versus one that simply needs management. So if we have in the younger forest that we're seeing. If you have trees that are. Younger, maybe middle age, so to speak, versus older, more mature trees that allows us room to grill with an So when we look at that, the other, and I'm glad you touched on this, was the benefit aspect of that and what urban forests actually provide. When you have a younger to middle-aged urban forest and it's growing, that means that your environmental benefits are going to increase over time. For example, what we're looking at now with our urban forest inventory, the tree inventory that was provided, we look at stormwater interception, we look at carbon sequestration, we look at air pollutant removal. We look at annual energy savings and structural value. All of these things have a dollar amount that are attributable to each one of those. If we look at stormwater interception, just the publicly owned trees that we inventory intercept 10.4 million gallons of stormwater here. This is rain, snow, whatever. This is water that's being held in our environment longer and made available for other green areas, turfs, parks, your backyard, my front yard. So it keeps moisture in our environment longer, and that's important in my right semi desert. 128 metric tons of annual carbon sequestration just within those 15,000 trees. Why is that important when you're talking about funding urban forestry? Those type of numbers you can use for grants. Green energy grants, especially if we're in an energy producing state that becomes very interesting to the companies that produce. And they do have grant programs for that, so it's something that you can give them a number. trees are trees are worth this much money. They'd like to see that they'd like to partner with municipalities that have something to offer for the green industry. 7.8 tons of annual air pollutant removal. Same type of thing. When we look at energy savings and this is directly if we look at energy savings, this is heating, cooling costs, electric, which are electric bill runs, right? Those 15,000 trees save the city of Casper $98,400 a year. doesn't seem like a lot but it's not a little i wish somebody paid that towards my electric bill structurally the urban forest that we inventoried is worth about 13 million dollars as it stands now the decision that council can make and i'm sure randy will talk to you about katie will talk to you about is how you approach that how you approach maintaining that and if it becomes something that we try to build on build over time or we just kind of maintain as it is One of the unique characteristics of trees, like I said, is the benefits. So when we look at that, and it also goes into your programs, and I know Katie's going to talk about planting and that kind of thing. So planning for the future, if you have those kind of numbers in mind where you are looking at what your urban forest is doing. How do we supplement that? How do we add to that? How do we get that exponential growth? Part of that is through planting and introduction of younger trees and maintenance of the trees that you have. So you want to keep that going. You don't want to become stagnant and just rely on what's already out there. You want to try to supplement that over time. You do have that opportunity. So through the analysis, there's some kind of broad themes that emerge from that. First was continued emphasis on risk reduction. That remains important. I would personally recommend that the city try to take as proactive approach toward this as possible and try to get away from kind of the emergency response, knee-jerk reaction, storminess, that kind of thing. And I don't mean to sound negative on that, but when you don't know what you're dealing with a lot of times, that's what it turns into, is we have to wait for a storm to kind of show us how bad some of the trees are. With this inventory update, we have a little bit better data. You can start strategically targeting the trees that we think are going to be the highest risk and avoid some of those negative impacts to events say like storm Atlas that hit.

I know some of you guys remember that second species diversification.

Another one of the big recommendations because we are kind of a little top heavy on one or two species is as you move forward. Start to look at diversification, different trees, obviously within recommendations, patients from your staff. Katie is very knowledgeable about what they should be putting in and what works and and what they would like to see. Kind of getting away from like the top five trees that everybody puts in. Yes, they work, but that's not necessarily a good thing long term. Maintaining investment both tree establishment mature canopy preservation will help ensure that future generations can continue receiving and expanding upon the benefits currently provided by the urban forest so. we do have that link to the future. We can physically touch future generations through those trees. And I don't know a better way of kind of illustrating how important that can be and how, you know, we all look at kind of leaving our mark on the world. And as a council, you guys definitely have the opportunity to do that in a meaningful way. And this gives you an actual physical link to do that, to touch the lives of people that we'll never meet in a positive way. And fourth, the findings themselves demonstrate the value of proactive management. And you guys have already taken some great steps towards that just with the inventory update and just knowing what you've got out there as an asset. So thank you for taking that series and taking the time and providing for that. With that, I guess that's kind of the general assessment. what we saw in the inventory. There is a full report available except I don't want to give you so much that you start to lose interest in trees, although it does help you sleep at night. If you can't, if you can't go sleep reading about him, knock it right out. But there is the full report that was that. Based on inventory inventory data. Got a few minutes for questions I can think does Katie want to come up and say the answer any question? That's that's all I've got. part of it, but if you do have questions for me, I'm happy to answer them as well. Any questions?

Thanks for the report and I didn't know there was this much information on a little bit. Urban forest. So one of the things that it number one I notice no Russian olives were documented at all.

In the in the report there there, if you look under the different areas, the golf course specifically one of their top two species is Russian olive. They were included in the inventory. Most of the other areas and we talked about proactive management. The city has been very good at Russian mitigation, especially along Platte River corridor. I mean, I know some of you guys are probably familiar with cleanups and things like that Russian olive removal. So they're a species that's definitely not recommended. I know they're on the do not plant list and. I'm not saying they're they're terminated with extreme prejudice, but they removed pretty quickly when when they're identified. So there wasn't a lot in most of the other properties to to really count, so which is which is not necessarily a bad thing. They've got their place, but it's not not in downtown Casper. Not longer.

It's like 418 on Appendix A page 57. Which page? Page 5750 so.

So if I could. Yes, you know. So. My nephew. Managed to city in kind of central Pennsylvania. Which they have? I don't know how many acre forest. That's the city property. And they. are able, through some company, they've been able to sell the carbon sequestration credits. Is, have we, the city of Casper, or is the one number I saw in here was 5,445 metric tons. Is that even enough to qualify for somebody to buy

It can be. It depends on. What the potential customer is looking for, but you have energy producers you have like standard oil, corporate oil. You have you have different energy producers and through their operations they know that they are going to contribute a certain amount of carbon to the environment. They can get federal incentives for removing that. However they do, that is up to them. A lot of those. corporations and companies will partner with municipalities, larger agencies to purchase carbon credits. By purchase, what they'll do is they'll either purchase or sponsor programs that are planting trees that can quantify a certain amount of plantings, a certain amount of biomass going into an environment because it's documented how much carbon that will remove over time. That's research based. We know how much carbon cotton will pull out of the environment. We know how much carbon giant redwood will pull out of the environment on average over its lifespan so they can purchase those credits from you. They can give you money in the form of a grant to plant trees and then they can claim those credits. So it's kind of a they're still going to pollute. They're still going to put stuff in the environment, but they're giving you money to plant trees to offset that so they can do that by helping with existing programs or something They usually do that through.

Yeah, I'll just tag on that if I could. Thank you, Mayor and Councilor Sweeney. A lot of cities as well across the country have adopted carbon neutrality objectives or plans for their municipal operations. And so in addition to the corporate buyout or you know, using using that number to buy credits, a lot of cities will establish their urban forest as a way to offset their own emissions from municipal operations. heavy equipment use all of those kinds of things and try to attain a carbon neutral goal by some point in time, so that's also fairly common across parts of the country, particularly back East less so common in the Midwest West out here, but but gaining traction just more it becomes really a policy goal that the City Council would adopt for their municipality.

I could ask you that a little bit if you look at programs likely and working with some green infrastructure developments, that's kind of goes hand in hand where you have certain requirements for construction, whether it be green roofs or additional landscaping or trees as part of the construction or renovation for that exact reason.

You know, were there different numbers in here? I know stormwater mitigation there was a different number, but was that the highest number overall of the 5445 metric ton.

Those are what we use a program called by tree to actually quantify those those numbers within that report. So what it does is it takes average performance of the same species of trees that were recorded in inventory across. similar municipalities, geographic regions, that kind of thing, gives us an average number of what we see in return for those, or what we see in stormwater interception or that kind of thing. So it's an average based on those species, how they perform in cities like environments. Hopefully, it's as close as we can get to the exact number without actually having to go through and measure. Every time it rains, what that tree collects and then every time it rains with that tree collects and then trying to quantify that so. Is it perfect? No, but it's it's like a 1 to 2% range of error on, so it's it's. It's not too far off. But yeah, for the 15,000 trees, those numbers are as accurate as I can possibly get.

Any questions? Mr Scott, yeah, thank you very much.

Thank you for the presentation. I thought the report, you know, maybe a little dense, but I thought it was super interesting. I like learning about trees. You mentioned winter storm Atlas. I didn't realize it had a name. I just remember the big storm event 2013 but. Anecdotally, without having access to this sort of information back at that time, anecdotally, it feels like our urban canopy took a huge hit and just. you know, I still see trees that I imagine were damaged in that event. And so I'm curious, are there species that are more resilient to that sort of weather event? You know, I know we need to be worried about the Emerald Ash Borer disease and so diversifying for that reason. But it also seems like we've gotten more of those heavy, you know, snow events probably as a result of, you know, us getting more It just seemed one of the few snows that we got this winter, obviously nowhere near the amount of snow that we got in 2013, but I was having to go shake my bushes out and stuff because I was worried it was going to collapse all the branches and stuff.

If we look historically at Casper, Wyoming in particular, but the Rocky Mountain region in general, we typically see a catastrophic storm event like a snow event, spring or fall when trees are in full canopy, about once every 10 years, that can vary on 10, 13. But we see that about once a decade. We saw that in 96. We saw that in 2013. So we see there's these, you know, it's predictable that it's going to happen somewhere within that time frame. So planning for that is a good idea. We know it's going to happen. It's not if it's a win. One thing that past storms do a very good job at highlighting is where our urban forestry programs are very strong and where they're very weak. And a lot of times it's exactly what you're saying. It's a reliance on species that perform well, but they don't perform well in storms like Siberian Elm, which we have a lot of Siberian Elm trees. So it's not necessarily a good thing. If we have these storms, we're going to see that same type of catastrophic damage over and over and over again. And during the inventory, There's trees that, when we're looking at those, that still show damage that has not been mitigated yet from storms in the late 90s. So some of that is still out there. And if you know what you're looking at, trees are 100% honest. They will never lie to you. They tell you everything about them. They record it in their structure. And they tell you exactly what happened, when it happened, and how we responded to them. So they're still telling that story. So it's a great question. How do we respond to that? And the answer is it's through diversification of species, but smart selection. So we see trees that perform poorly under snow loading and ice loading like home. That means that new trees going forward, if we're selecting new trees for planting, we're selecting trees with stronger structure, better branch attachments, trees that will handle snow loading a little bit better, which can be like, oh, new trees that are stronger structure. So long explanation for a simple question. Appreciate it. The questions.

In general, what's a metric ton?

Carbon. What's it worth? It depends on what you can get somebody to pay for. And how bad an energy producer. Sure, set that. So when you look at what it's worth, it changes day to day based on what energy production costs. So there's not like, it's not like, you know, a dollar a ton or $5 a ton. It varies with the market. But if you're trying to promote for partnerships, offering carbon credits at a premium will go a long way. towards getting some receptive customers out there for the city of Casper. But it really is, it's, you know, what's the price of oil today? What's the cost to produce a gallon of gas? That's where the answer lies. So I hate to sound vague, but it does change.

And this will probably be for staff later on, but I'm wondering if that was a factor in getting enterpriced Car. Brand. Was the carbon sequestration even a factor in that that grant?

It was for enterprise. Yes, that was part of the incentive for them to to be involved with the Arboretum, yes.

Alright, thank you. Thank you for sharing Sir. Thank you for the detailed report. It's great.

We can answer any questions on where we started with strategic plan since the report is done and I'm going to answer any budgetary questions and talk about funding sources that we have currently going on with. The report.

Katie go first, so I'll start by. Excuse me, Mayor Council. Any questions that you have for me right at this point?

Questions for Katie. Thanks, Katie. I guess my question is, you know, in our memo it looked like. Using this information, we were hoping to increase the canopy cover, enhance ecosystem benefits, reduce long term costs and liability. Is that all based on the assumption that we continue budgeting? It looks like 57,000 a year for urban forestry, or would we need to increase our budget in order to achieve those goals?

So yeah, I mean we would either, you know, increasing the budget, but also. Going back to the last three to four years, I would say. I've been very proactive in seeking grants to help with the urban forest in Casper. And as you all know, the branch across Casper was a very large grant that we unfortunately lost. But we're moving on past that now. But the enterprise grant helped us develop our arboretum. And as you know, we recently received a grant through State Forestry. going to help with a lot of our hazardous Boulevard trees. And that's you know, I think that the important thing moving forward is that you know is Bill mentioned like there are grants available and so you know we're consistently looking at grants and reaching out to grants. How are I would say are you know? Let me just tell you what we've done since the inventory came back so. Since last April, April of 25. We have planted 104 trees and that is significant for the city in one year. We haven't done that since I've been here 13 years and 13 years. We haven't planted that many trees in one year, so I'm very proud of that. Now most of those trees were the Arboretum and placed in the new edition of the cemetery. Our Arbor Day event this year was at the cemetery. We have pruned approximately 130 trees. It's important to know that approximately 50% of those trees were inhibiting the visibility of stop signs, school zone signs. So when I say pruning, that doesn't mean at full canopies been prone. It could be three or four branches. We have removed 33 high risk trees. The majority of those have been dead trees on boulevards. We've removed 50 low risk trees. Those trees have been removed for construction project. Excuse me, construction projects or smaller dead trees that didn't necessarily pose a risk, but they were dead and needed to be removed. And our staff has approximately 1100 hours spent during these operations. Right now we have primarily two arborists that are dedicated to our entire forest. We, although the city has, we have a total of seven arborists with the city. The majority of those are not do not work in the Ork urban forestry division. We have one at the golf course we have. Three that work in irrigation and parks mowing and playground maintenance. But right now we are very fortunate that we have a lot of knowledge and experience with the harvest we do have. But as far as you know, truly being able to keep up and eliminate the risks in the hazard trees, it's very challenging. So with this grant that we received, All of their removals will be contracted out to local companies. All ISA certified arborists will be removing the trees. But that's really the only way that we can accomplish this work is to contract the work out because we just don't have the manpower to be able to do it. My crew also is responsible for weed and pests. So this time of year, we're really trying to keep up with weeds. But I mean, I am very hopeful For the future, I think that we will, you will see that we have some requests, you know, with increasing budget in the future. However, I'm also very committed to seeking grant opportunities as well. That was a very long answer.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

Any other questions for Katie?

Yeah, Jenna.

I have a question for you. Do you see that this program that we used to have, I forget the exact name of it, but it was for the homeowners to replace those trees on the boulevard that are dying out, especially in the downtown area where it's known as the big tree area. Do you remember the program? What was it?

It was a street tree program. Was that? Yeah. Okay. It was a cost share program. Yeah. So basically it was a cost share program with property owners on their boulevards or the front yards, actually. And my understanding is they ran out of funding, and that's why that program. I was wondering where that funding was.

I was one of the ones that took advantage of that program a long ago, and just they had been 10 years old or 12 maybe even, and just recently had to take them down because they ended up getting a disease. Yeah. That's where I'm just, and I planted one in the front yard too because it would still fulfill that canopy for the street and the sidewalks that you guys at the time were looking to do. And so that one's still there because it was a maple, but pretty slow growers compared to this. So I'm just curious because I do see so many of the bigger trees now, but the canopy is going away downtown and they are just a smaller trees. So I was just wondering where did that funding come from and if there is a possibility to we might get that program back at some time or they might. You know what?

I'm going to say right now we do not have staff to continue a planet and there probably needs to be more guidelines on. because I know there was a lot of replanting with it. We'd plant trees, people wouldn't take care of them, call us back and say, our tree's dead. City come back and did it again. So it was a little bit abused. So it could be stiffened up. We have talked about the tree program coming back, but it's a lack of funding is what's gonna- Yeah, or can I have a follow up? Yep, absolutely.

So, and that's the thing. I mean, I think the city at the time, if I remember right, the city helped, came and planted it. We did the cost share, like you say, half and half. And then they watered it like once a year or twice.

For the first year.

Yes. So my question is, it does come back. I mean, maybe we can look at some modification in the way to do it because even if it's on the homeowners if we can get the discount from the city if you buy in bulk or however that works but um just giving it you know passing that savings on and the resident pays for the whole amount of the tree where the city isn't paying for it and then they're responsible but just to help them make it maybe more affordable because trees as you know get really expensive so if they're saving you know 50 or 100 bucks a tree or whatever the discount might be for a bulk it would be beneficial I think to a lot of people that live in the big tree who want to keep it that way because that's also you said they're valuable trees are valuable so is they're valuable for your property too so and one of the benefits of this grant we just received is one of the requirements I've um

is where trees are removed, a tree must be planted. And so as you see, because I mean, the public will start to see, you know, tree companies are removing some very dangerous trees on the boulevards. We will be meeting with the property owners before we do that. And they will need to agree that for the first five years, like really being attentive watering, we will supply The Gator bags. I don't know if you guys have noticed the Gator bags around some of the trees around town. They are not necessarily pretty, but they are very efficient and I think that we're able to use a lot less water with those bags and the trees that they're on. They're doing great so. So yeah, I mean it is important. I think for people to know that even though they're going to be seeing trees come down, every tree will be replaced.

Just want to say I love what you've done to Washington City Park down there too, because a lot of trees had been removed and lightning that struck a couple and all that, but it does looking good down there.

Any questions for Katie? You bet.

Good to see you again.

Thank you, you too. I would just mention she has one person that Part time that does all the water in the trees all year round, so it makes it very difficult. That's why the gator bags are coming out so much because we just can't keep up 130 trees. And with this with this winter, it was year round. That's what I mean. We kicked on Sage Park. I don't know how many times we started the irrigation, blew it out just to make sure we can keep those trees down there quite numerous. I will get into a little bit of budgeting where it says 57,000. What's not mentioned is 15,000 of that is for Christmas lights for Holiday Square. So that's all privately raised. And so our true urban forest budget out of the six line items that we do have is 42,000. 2,000 is that for ISA recertification every year. Funding for urban forestry. She did mention the McNamara Fund. The McNamara Fund was started in 1998 by William McNamara. It started with originally $75,000, which can't be touched. It's currently at $135,000. And what we get off the McNamara Fund is the interest every year put into the general fund, which is about $3,800. So everything else is from the general fund or what we can get through grants. And going back to your... street tree program. Maybe there's better partners we could partner up to with with private businesses too that that could help out with that. If we look forward to going to that in the future. I'm just something fun. Me and Katie did. We did a little comparison with the city of Cheyenne looking at their urban forestry budget and FY26. It was was it is close to 900,000. $897,000 so. And about $580,000 was just labor, which is not included in this with those two people. But just a fun note. Do you have any questions for me on any of the funding or anything else I can share? Mr. Norville?

Yep. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the comparison to Cheyenne. Obviously quite the disparity there. So maybe something we need to be mindful of in the future. You mentioned the McNamara Fund. Can you remind me, that was 1978 that was established? 98. 98, okay. I mean, speaking of kind of planting trees, which is shade you'll never sit, that's cool that somebody, I assume McNamara was a local resident? Yes. So set up that fund 30 years ago, and we're getting $4,000 a year, which is 10% sounds like of our meaningful forestry budget. So just really appreciative of that. looking for clarification if a resident these days felt so inclined. Are they able to set up? I mean, could somebody do something similar today if they wanted to?

We did try to do something with our urban forestry last year with the QR code where they could go into urban forestry and donate. I'm working with finance on some details right here because tracking small amounts is very difficult for them to do. But we are looking at different ways of funding it right now on how we can make that fund grow So look forward to something coming up in the future there. It was up to a point in 2013 using laser fish to try to find stuff. It was about 277,013. We got about 16,000 roughly off of it back in there. The replenish. I think there's a resolution in 22 which it was 135,000 and that's where it remains today.

The questions for Randy. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. Thank you for all your hard work.

Bill, thank you.

All right. Moving along. Wow. Agenda review.

Council for next week.

That's my cue. Yes. I should have said Madam City Manager.

Okay. I just want to draw your attention. We have two pre-meeting discussions. One of them is tentative and that would be an update for you around the pedestrian bridge near to Poplar Street. That is the tentative item we think will be ready in time, but there's some timing questions. That's the reason we listed it as tentative. I will also talk to you about a grant. I wanted to point out that if the pedestrian bridge item is ready for pre-meeting, there's a companion item On the consent agenda that would authorize a grant agreement for that project. So those two will be tied together. I would also note you have three ordinances on non consent. All three of which are on second or third reading, so that's kind of the highlights. In addition to a public hearing on the fiscal 27 budget adoption. And an exact session. I don't want to forget to mention that. Fairly light agenda, though, and I think the exec session could be probably equally as long as the regular meeting.

Yeah.

My best guess. Any questions about the upcoming agenda? Anything on the grid on the back? Future agenda items?

So, Mayor, I don't know if this is the right time to put it on the screen. about updating our resort liquor license to better come into where the state is at.

And I didn't know if there was any appetite.

The city attorney's done some work on that, but I didn't know

I mean, I'm supportive because I know you and I have talked about it. It would be great to have that conversation in a work session to kind of figure out, or if we want to have, you know, I know you've had conversations with, with Eric as well, because I think you're, you make a good point on that. So I don't know if you want to say anything on it or.

Yes.

So council can have a little bit more of a, I don't know what you put you, how much you want to go into that. So council.

So, so mayor council. So it's, I think a relatively easy, Ordinance change if Council so desires. Some years ago, the state legislature expanded the ability of resort license holders to obtain catering permits. We did not make the same change to our city ordinance. So because locally we can be more restrictive than state statute, currently resort license holders are not able to. obtain catering permits, although state statute would allow, I think in talking with the Mayor and Councillor Sweeney, the intent would simply be to bring current CASPER municipal code into alignment with state statute and to allow those resort license holders to apply for catering permits. If that's something that Council is interested in doing, I think it would be easy to draft and we could certainly bring that forward.

Council filled about that.

Yeah, brandy. Meeting today and had questions regarding our lists, liquor licensing and permits. So maybe this would be a good opportunity for us to learn what we have, what they mean and what our specific laws requirements to each would be be a hefty packet, but I was going to ask for it anyway, so this would be really good timing.

That's what we can tie into that discussion of changing that ordinance.

Thanks. I would just offer, Brandy, I'm not sure if you're aware, but it's a city webpage I cite to people frequently. We have a nice city webpage that outlines all the different liquor licenses, how many of each we have, the differences. So it's a great webpage, and I cite it a lot. So in case you haven't seen it.

I haven't seen it, so thank you.

Do you still want it on a discussion?

Yes, but I will be more prepared to tell you why.

Check it out before the discussion. Sounds good. Yeah, Pat. So this one's a little heftier lifted, but again, round liquor. So I have another constituent.

So let me let me do this. So is everybody OK with putting both those items, catering and liquor license and Brandy's putting that on a work session so city staff can put something together for us? OK, perfect, sorry.

Go ahead, Pat. So the next one is about drive up windows. I don't know how many years ago that disappeared. But. So I I got a constituent that wonders why that went away and then and I I've tried to explain it, but. Then with the proliferation of the CBD, a lot of those operations have drive up windows and. Don't even have to apply for anything. They just have them. Which a lot of. Those businesses. Went into. Down in North Casper ones on F Street.

See why the back door lounge.

So they already had the drive up windows.

Yeah.

So he's wondering if. If. If the city would look at that again, and would it be possible to? Even put it. Because not everybody is going to want one. Or have that ability, because. Their new location may have not been built that way. Could we look at? Because that my understanding is that was. The case was that the city took a more aggressive stance than state because state statute. My understanding is still allows that. In other parts of the state. But. Could it even be, I don't know, a conditional use agreement? That's probably the wrong words. We're on an individual basis.

It's nostalgic. It's nostalgic, and a lot of people, I mean, tourism-wise, like, it's fun for them to go through the drive-through. I know, because you don't have to get out of the car, and handicap accessible.

Eric, what do you think would be the best direction, Madden City Manager?

Well, we can certainly I I think I I think I have some follow up questions to make sure I understand. I was just looking at the code myself because I'm not familiar with what it requires, but it does appear it's contained in the zoning code and also. In another section, so we could certainly unpack what's in the code right now for you all are is when you say return to what used to be is that has there been a restriction or a narrowing of? What businesses can have drive ups compared to sometime in the past is that what you mean there?

Counselor so liquor. OK, there's a lot of liquor stores just like. Well, frosties may still have a drive up window, but I don't think it's used.

So you want us to narrow to liquor serving establishments and their drive up windows or? And you mentioned CBD. That's where I got confused.

So the CBD I used as an example because they had to do nothing. There was no special requirement. A lot of those operators have been referred to selling cannabis out the window. So what's the comparison to liquor? So, but, um, And I don't have a good argument for him. So this example was just specifically drive-up windows for retail liquor.

So tagging on to the previous liquor stuff, we could definitely look at what's required for liquor license holders and for non-liquor license holders. Go ahead, Eric.

Yeah, Mayor, State Manager, Council. So I'm looking at the state statute. So 12 5301 and 302 do allow for the drive ups. My understanding is that the city did take more aggressive approach. I know that my predecessor had done a fair amount of research on this, and so if this is something that Council wants to revisit, I would start by probably pulling up the opinion and research that had been previously done and try to understand. The legal position and the policy reasons why Council made that You know, if if Council wants to put that on a work session, we certainly present that. Could we tie that all in? We can. Yeah, yeah. However you guys want to do it.

If you have your horse and you want to have a six pack of beer later, how are you going to tie up your horse? We don't have hitching posts anymore. You just walk it through the.

Hitching posts around, yes.

We are the appropriate in my eyes, but swinging wooden doors.

I mean it doors this one. I mean I don't want to be too aggressive, but I know he's. City attorney's office has got plenty on their plates. Don't mean that. Add too much. Stress to the office so.

Well, and that would be sort of leading into my question. What time frame do you have in mind for this? It sounds like this isn't something you thought you need to see within the next month or even two, because there are many things on the list. Like as I prioritize those and Eric looks at his workload, can we look at it at the end of summer?

So.

Oh, certainly.

So resort, I think that in my mind, that's a priority.

OK, so that's a higher priority. That makes sense, OK? But the other two aspects of this discussion, just a basic primer on liquor licensing and then also unpacking drive ups as a part of that conversation. Less priority, maybe. Toward mid to late summer, early fall. That works for everybody, OK?

Thank you. Unless we need the liquor license clarification for. of the potential moratorium discussion.

I don't know. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. And I'm totally I'll consume as much information as staff is able to give us for digestion. So I'm happy to have these conversations. And I appreciate Councilor Sweeney, you bringing it to our attention. because it sounds like it's constituents that are bringing it to your attention. I do think, though, I have to make a comment on the observation of us. I think it was our last council meeting, expanding open container ordinance language, hearing from our judges this evening about increase of alcohol-related crime. You know, the contrast and the irony of it is not lost on me. So you just have to make a comment. Good point.

I was surprised about that, too. Maybe maybe the chief's doing. Too much good work.

I don't know chief saying you're doing a really good job. Your team, right? Awesome, thanks Pat. Alright, anybody else for anything on the agendas? Anything for work session topics?

We had everything.

Alright, let's go around the table.

And I'm going to start with you, Amber, since you're right at the top of everybody.

Wow, I love that. Thank you. I don't have much. I just want to flag for folks. I mentioned the Pride Pool Party. I just wanted to give a heads up. We may be looking at a location change for that due to weather. So keep an eye. It's apparently going to be chilly that day for the first time in a while. So it may be rainy. So we're watching it closely. We're working on some Plan B alternatives. So keep an eye on social media and websites if that's something you're looking to go to. That's all.

Thank you. Do you have anything to share today?

I just really, WAM was very good and appreciated. Amber's hospitality, what was that, Thursday night? And Laramie's hospitality in particular overall. I had never been to WyoTech. And we had discussed it. When I was in the legislature, it was closed. I was advocating for a different model that the University would take it over. My alma mater, Penn State, basically has a pen tech in Bradford, PA. I don't think it's to that. Agree, but what an eye opener. What a great. facility for the state. And I hate to say it, but my model, Jim, has a much better model and concept than what I think the university would have, I think, done a good job, but it would have been totally different. So that private industry is doing a great job. That tour, holy cow. I WAS EXPECTING TO SEE TWO SEMIS, TWO TRACTORS. I MEAN, IT WAS HUGE. AND IN THE AUTOMOTIVE SIDE, WHAT WOULD YOU GUESS, 60 CARS? AND THE BIGGEST ONE, THERE'S TWO.

YEAH, 115. WAS IT?

YEAH. WOW. SO, I MEAN, JUST REMARKABLE WHAT THOSE STUDENTS AND IT WAS CLEANING TIME WHEN WE WERE THERE AT THE END OF THE DAY, AND I MEAN, it's almost like military and all of the different things they put them through was so that was great and seminars were great so thanks to laramie for hosting that it's very very much worth worth The company was good most of the time. There were a few times I wasn't really happy with the company. And the s'mores. S'mores were awesome.

Thank you, Pat. Anything else?

No.

Mike, are you on there?

Yes, I am.

Would you like to share anything tonight?

I don't have anything critical. I have had a few phone calls and emails about the Poplar Street construction that's going on with YDOT. And Janine and Chris have been very helpful in terms of getting some information to those constituents to answer their questions. So other than that, nothing to add.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you. Matt, do you have anything?

ALL RIGHT. RANDY.

I ALSO ATTENDED WHAM. I WOULD BE THE GOOD COMPANY KAT WAS REFERRING TO, I'M SURE OF IT. FOLLOWED HIM AROUND LIKE A PUPPY. I ALSO TOURED THE Y-TECH. LOVED IT. SOMETHING ABOUT A KID PUSHING A BROOM WINS ME OVER EVERY TIME. I'M RECRUITING. MY DAUGHTER IS ACTUALLY IN NASHVILLE LOOKING AT NASHVILLE AUTOMOTIVE DIESEL COLLEGE. SHE'S IN ROUTE RIGHT NOW. SO I TOOK NOTES. I TOOK VIDEOS. I AM RECRUITING HER TO STAY HERE. Anywho, it was my first WAM. I learned a lot, so thanks for talking me into going, Janine. I appreciate it. Let's see. I attended Tia Hansel, just retired from public health after 30 years this week, so shout out to her. Thanks for all she did for our community. She's not looking forward to missing a pandemic or something to that effect, but... We met with the judges yesterday, but you guys already heard everything they had to tell me. So I don't have anything to report there. We had the gaming meeting, Pat and I hanging out all the time now, which is why we had some liquor. I had some liquor questions, but I have a thing. We had homework. We're going to meet again in two weeks and we were trying really hard to be moratorium preemptive. I promise. Temporary moratorium preemptive. I promise.

Janine sent out, um, the questionnaire.

Oh, perfect. So I asked if they gave us some homework. I asked if they'd share it with you guys because, you know, if I'm getting it, I think you all should. So if you would please do that quickly, it would be super helpful. Kyle, I'm looking at you. I don't know that we have any strong support on your side of the fence. I'm a fence writer and I think you and Pat jumped to opposite sides. So I want to make sure I have your input. So I asked Janine to send you some questions. I LIKE TO GET YOU WHEN YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE DEEP IN THOUGHT. I WAS DEEP IN THOUGHT. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. THERE'S AN EMAIL.

I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO THE EMAIL.

AND FINALLY, TOMORROW IS THE FIRST POLITICS IN THE PARK. IT'S THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON PARK, 530. AND I TOOK A PICTURE, SO I DON'T SAY THIS WRONG. THEY HAVE CONFIRMED FOR THE U.S. HOUSE, FRANK CHAPMAN, KEVIN CHRISTIANSEN, STEVE FREESE, BO BEITMAN, DAVID GERALD, AND CHUCK GRAY ALL SAID THAT THEY WOULD BE THERE. Big one for the primary. Be there 530. No pressure. That's all I have.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. No pressure.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF.

Oh sorry Jenny sorry not true. DIRECTOR HAMPSON.

Just Randy or Councillor Haskins and Sweeney. I only sent the worksheet to the three folks on the working group. Oh, well, I wasn't sure if you wanted to send it to Council. So if you want me to send it to everyone, I can, but I only sent it to you guys thinking you might want to send it. I would prefer you do it. Okay. I'll just send it to everybody right now.

Not that I can't forward it, but then you can do it the way you want. Let's close that loop right now. Sorry I lied to you, Kyle. Shortly coming. Your homework.

That's good. Thank you, Jean. That works.

All right. Well, CNFR, CNFR, CNFR. That's about it. That's all I got. No, they, we had a meeting yesterday. We have, and it's just the next two weeks are nothing but CNFR for me. So just lots of that, lots of activities. I hope everybody puts their best face forward. Like we always do for CFR when it's in town and lots of people coming into town. They started coming in yesterday evening and they're here already. So you know, smile and welcome them to Casper. We do. I think that's Oh, you know, and see enough are related. I just want to mention somebody said something about the road. And 13th Street, Mike bonded. We did get a report on that last night at the meeting. And They're working with why not to put up some signage because you know everybody is at the fairgrounds, all the trailers and animals and livestock. So they're going to put up some signs to try to direct people down King Blvd and then turn being able to turn out that light. Take a left to come up to the Ford Wyoming Center because when they come down Collins they're not able to take a left. So yeah, so my understanding is is that they are going to be So my understanding is that they're going to be putting up at one of those big billboards.

Thursday, OK, we gotta go backwards. I'm sorry municipal band Thursday 730 Washington Park. I'm sorry we're both on the board.

We're terrible in the town.

Sorry no, we're on the board and we forgot Thursday 730 at the band.

Speaking of that, I have. But had a chance to look at. The web lady, somebody in your office in the city, lists the dates for the municipal band. So I just want to make sure that that actually is on there. They did. That's where I saw it. Okay. On the city website. Okay. It is updated. Cool. Nope. That's it. Just CNFR and see you guys Thursday, City Night.

You have tickets for Thursday?

We will get them. I just ordered them. Gotcha. That's why I asked you. Okay. So, yes, I'll bring them next Tuesday, if not sooner.

The YDOT construction on Poplar, I was glad to hear that they're going to do that with the CNFR people, King Boulevard, because I've got clients that are down there on Ash and Collins, and it's a nightmare when they're running semis through there. They can't turn left to get back over to Poplar, and it holds up traffic, and it's been a mess. So I had a couple of people approach me about that. I told them that's YDOT. We'll see what we find out. And then, oh, yeah, did a little what Pat said about WyoTech. That was so fun. Cool to see they had some pretty cool projects in there. One kid had his sleeper car hitting 1,200 horsepower to the rear tires. It was fun to see. Thankfully, he has a roll cage in it.

Roll cage in it.

Yep.

Can we backtrack a minute to myself? Just another one.

This is the last backtrack, people.

I know, but then, you know, you hear. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. You guys backtrack all you want. This is a big one. It's city cleanup day starting tomorrow. And so it starts at 8 a.m. is registration. If you can do it, there are different time slots and coordinated with Liz's group of what sections of what times they're going to be in. So you need to sign up, though, at David Street Station. And then per shift, you know, so let him know what time you're coming in. But the first shift starts from 8 until I think 11 and then 11 to two and actually took a picture of it. Yeah, whatever you can come and contribute and do or you know, just walk by yourself. But there is a city truck that will be out there with lights and you know, making sure people are safe and you have your vests on and there are some protocol stuff that needs to be addressed at your check in. But they are going to be doing. It's the maps right here so. 8 to one the cleanup area is going to be starts at the Chamber and it goes up that direction and then turns on to 1st and that's where the truck is going to be 11 to two is. Clean up area that's between Beach and Walcott so that block and then. 2 to 5 is the center core of downtown. And then OID cleanup will be the last after that. And I think they're doing it throughout the day because there's a different committee for that too as well. So probably wherever you can help, just go pick up a little bit. Plants are coming in on Saturday from, I think they said Saturday, over at, from Gallus into downtown. So they'll be here for CNFR and it's going to be all spruced up and the lights will hopefully be working. So that's it.

Mr. Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a WAM board meeting last Wednesday in the conference that several of us went to. We discussed investing our reserves for that organization in a manner that generates more interest. I hope Jill doesn't mind, but I've been giving out her name and contact information a lot, pretty much to every town, city, or group that when I'm in the room and they talk about how nominal or pathetic their interest returns are, I say, hey man, you need to get ahold of Jill. Figure out what we're doing, because it's a night and day difference. So kind of a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. The more money that all of our governments, special districts, and other organizations can make off their savings, the less they will need in the way of taxes, fees, and rates. So just wanting to share that knowledge and appreciate the work of Jill and her team, you know, educating other folks about what they can be doing in that regard. We also discussed consensus block grant funding and the potential changes we may see for the Wyoming Business Council in the interim and this upcoming legislative session. There's obviously a lot of desire and will to restructure that organization and potentially change its funding, but WAM is working hard at the core of it just to protect the ability of cities and towns to apply for funding for critical infrastructure projects, especially as it relates to water and wastewater. Pretty much every town and city has need of additional resources to keep that infrastructure maintained, and so just trying to preserve that opportunity. And then lastly, the Downtown Development Authority. They did send out a survey to all their non tax exempt commercial property owners in their district, which is about 50 in regards to our moratorium, asking whether they are in favor of it, whether they oppose it, or whether they don't have enough information. Of the 17 responses that they got back, 65% supported our moratorium, 17% did not support it, and 17% needed more information. So a pretty healthy majority in support with some folks needing more information. So I guess I would encourage those folks to watch our upcoming regular meeting where we'll be talking about the, you know, we'll have our second reading. So I guess encouraging folks to continue watching our meetings over the course of the next month because we'll be talking about it a couple more times. And then I believe tough guys did finish their installation of the tree lighting downtown last week. I passed him on my way back into town on Friday coming back from Laramie. So I don't know what additional legwork if any needs to happen, but Wi-Fi. Oh yeah, there was some existing Wi-Fi stuff. So we have a board meeting Thursday and maybe I'll have another update for you in that regard this time come next Tuesday. That's all I got.

Thanks. Yeah, I've got real short one as well. Thursday I have a PSCC, which is the Public Safety Communications Center group get together. So I'll be doing that. It was the only thing I have really going on this week and then Brandi had her first WAM and I had my last and so it was really, really good to go there, meet people, talk to people. Some of the statewide candidates were there, had a good opportunity to chat with them a little bit. the governor campaign, the governor's race had three candidates, Megan, Eric, and Brent. And so that was really, really good to sit down and have the conversation that every question was really geared around municipalities, the effects, what their agendas would be, being able to work with the municipalities, everything from property taxes to So it was very enlightening on from me and and it was really, really great to be there for that. And so I will definitely miss whams, especially the summer. Wham is always my my favorite one to go to. So that's all I got so. Thank you everyone.