Town Council - Regular Meeting

First, I want to thank everybody for showing up, whether it's here or online. Thank you guys for being here. I'll start with the invocation. Heavenly Father, we ask for your guidance, wisdom, and support as we begin this meeting. We gather here today intent on doing good work. We seek to represent fairly and well those who will give us this task. Help us engage in meaningful discussion. Give us clarity and strength to use our best skills in judgment. Bless this community, its residents, businesses, and visitors. and help us to continue doing good work in your name. Amen. Call to order. Roll call, please.

Council Member Hollingshead. Here. Council Member Bracken. Present. Council Member Davis.

Yes.

Council Member Brooks.

Present.

Council Member Dietz. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Cavey. Yes. Mayor Gray.

Aye. Please rise, the presidents.

of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I'll go ahead and start with council comments. I'm not sure if everybody can see back there, but I have a pink ribbon on today. Unfortunately, I lost a close friend to breast cancer about a week ago. And it's just too much. I feel like every few days I'm finding out one of my friends either has cancer or has passed away from cancer. And it's a lot. And it's hard. Between cancer and suicide, it has been a pretty miserable time for me, and really upsetting. At the same time, it has made me reflect on my relationships with my family and friends, and I'm just asking you guys to do the same, because it is hard out there, and it's even harder when you get cancer. Tonight, it's gonna be a very passionate night. I expect it. I want it. We should all want it. But what we are gonna do tonight is we're gonna be respectful. We're gonna be respectful to each other. We're gonna be respectful in this room, give it the decorum it deserves. I do not wanna see clapping and cheering. This is not a ball game. This is serious stuff. And with that, I'm done. Council Member Hollinshead. No comment tonight. Thanks. Council Member Bracken.

Thank you, Mayor. No comment.

Council Member Davis.

Yeah, I'd just like to say thank you to all the people that showed up to the open house last Tuesday. Also a reminder that everybody here is having, all of us will be having an open house in the next week or two. So I encourage you to come out and speak your voice, ask your questions. I got to meet a lot of you guys on Tuesday. That was great. It's nice to hear from you and direct you to the people that have the answers for you. So if you guys live in Meadows, I'm sure most of you don't, but... just know that other ones are coming up soon, and I encourage you to go to those as well.

Thank you, Council Member Davis. Council Member Brooks.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. This isn't something that comes up on the town's website, but I want to make sure that folks, anybody in my neck of the woods or anybody that gets up near the Plum Creek and Ridge Road area, there's a tremendous amount of dirt being moved around up there. Again, you're not going to find it on the town website because it's not town property. It is unincorporated Douglas County. And I know that there's been some discussion, people asking questions, what's going in up there? And folks worry that there are a bunch of homes going in. I wish that there were homes going in. It actually is going to be a core substation. So if you're familiar with the area, Four Corners, there's the King Soopers there and kind of that big substation. That's going to end up being what we'll see at Plum Creek and Ridge Road. Kind of unfortunate, but again, it's not town property, unincorporated Douglas County, so thank you, Commissioner. Although, I think we all want to be able to charge up our devices and have lights in our house too, but I want to make sure everybody understands what that is and kind of try to put to bed some of the rumors. And yeah, that's all I've got. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Councilmember Brooks. Councilmember Dietz.

Yes, thank you, everybody. I'm just going to simply touch on something about downtown. There's nothing in it other than the history of what was the DRB, the Design Review Board. It used to decide large projects 10,000 square feet and above. Now, by a 7-0 vote, It only does 10,000 square feet and under. I just want people to understand there was a history and a need for it in the past, but I was one of these leery about the fact that it didn't constitutionally represent the taxpayers and come to your council for a full vote. So I just wanted to give a little history on that. I think that the processes in town deserve to be fully understood and every process needs to be heard no matter what it is. So with downtown, anything big in the future does come back to your town council. Anything in the past, That was done by the design review board, and you really can't change it anymore. I found some things to be unfortunate, but with that said, and the developing things, I just felt like there should be more responsible growth in that procedure. So going forward, as Mayor Grish noted, We can make Castle Rock even greater and better, and I beseech a lot of developers out there to work with your council. Look at things that we can do to make downtown and the other areas even better. As a council, we can get it done, but we need your help. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Dietz. Mayor Portemgevi.

No comment tonight, Mayor.

Thank you. With that, this time is reserved for members of the public to make a presentation to council on items or issues that are not scheduled in the agenda. As a general practice, the council will not discuss or debate these items. Nor will council make any decisions on these items during this time. Rather, we may refer items to staff for follow-up. Comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Time is limited to 30 minutes total. Residents will be given priority in order they signed up to address council, followed by non-residents representing Town of Castle Rock businesses, then non-residents and businesses outside of Town of Castle Rock as time permits. Council is also accepting public comments submitted online at crgov.com backslash council comments by 1 p.m. today to be included in public record. I have a lot of people signed up to speak. If anyone wishes to speak, please approach the podium after we are all done. So I will figure out. I do not have a way of doing this first and second because there's just, it's kind of hard to tell who's signed up first and last. I have caller Ozer signed up. Is that scheduled or unscheduled? This is not signed up here. It doesn't say here what if you're signed up. Is it 16? Thank you, sir. No, I know you live at 16 Oak Ridge. I know, but which item are you speaking on? Which item are you speaking on? Okay, but on number 16 then. Agenda item number 16. Most people are signed up for agenda item 16. I was just making sure. Okay, I have Dean Legasky on schedule. No, you're waiting until we get to item number 16.

Thank you. My name is Dean Legatsky. I ran for council in District 3 and lost. I say that out loud at the start because it matters to what comes next. I asked the voters to hire me. They picked someone else. I accepted it. You follow the process. The process gives you an answer, and you live with the answer, even when it's not what you wanted. That is why the August 18th meeting bothered me. A member of the design review board came to unscheduled public comment with printouts of text messages he said came from a sitting council member. No one authenticated them. No one had the chance to. As soon as public comment closed, Council Member Hollingshead moved to censure the member. Council Member Bracken seconded, and Mayor Gray backed it. It was not on the agenda. No notice, no verification, no chance for the accused member to respond. It failed 3-3. Censure is a formal judgment by this body against one of its own. In this town, it takes more process to get a fence permit than it took that night to try to brand a colleague. I'm not asking you to decide tonight whether that accusation was true. I'm telling you that you had no way to know and you moved anyway. That is not leadership. Leadership is saying we will hear this and we will hear it correctly, on the agenda, with the evidence verified, with the member given a chance to answer. Three of you were willing to be that person. Three of you were not. There's a second thing. The man who brought the accusation sits on the design review board in the Downtown Development Authority. This council appoints both. Both shape what happens downtown, and he owns a business downtown. A council appointee with a financial stake in what those boards decide stood at this podium and asked you to censure an elected official. Not one person on the dais asked about that. So two requests. Put a written censure process on a future agenda. Notice verified evidence, a right to respond, and a standard applied the same way to everyone. And adopt a disclosure rule for board appointees so that when someone who sits on a council-appointed board comes to this podium, their interests are on the record before you act.

Thank you, Dean. Moving on to unscheduled comments still. There's a few that I still have questions on, but I will start next, David Miles.

All right, Mayor Pro Tem and members of council, I am David Miles. I am that DRB member, and I am a business owner in downtown. I'm also a resident in downtown. The thing that I will start with and comment, and I know we're not supposed to respond, but my response to that gentleman that just left is ask the question, did Mark Davis admit to sending these texts? Yes, he did. Did Mark Davis admit to now deleting these texts? Yes, he did. So I am here to renew my request that council formally center Mark Davis and join me in asking him to step down. His own text messages offer town action in exchange for political favor, something that should never happen in our town. That should never happen in our town. He discussed offering buildings, town alleys, and playing hardball. He texted me this. He didn't tell me. He texted me. I'll drop getting rid of the DRB if you pull the recall. I've got to tell you, I really don't care about the DRB. That is not my issue. Mr. Dietz, that is not my issue. Who cares at this point? Before, the structure was also that town council reviewed anything that the DRB did. Still remains that way. So now I have a political operative connected to several council members that has filed a CORA request. That's Colorado Open Records Act request, seeking records involving me, even though that board, that DRB that we're talking about, has not met about anything meaningful in months. So now they go to get my records for the last month. Again, no meetings have occurred. So if that is playing hardball, Mr. Davis, I receive your message. I am back here to play hardball now. This has just begun. And in my judgment... It's just another attempt by you to do this. I offered you conversation, Mr. Dietz, I offered you conversation. I offer you all a conversation. This does not stop with me. This is not just me that's part of this. I formally request the town, tomorrow I am going to formally request the town perform a formal investigation into these text messages. This is beyond me. This is beyond normal research that's going on. This is much bigger. And from the town, I'm asking that Douglas County get involved. And from Douglas County, I'm asking the state AG get involved in these text messages. Because Mr. Davis, you sent them as text messages. You could have picked up the phone and called me. There would have been no record. But you sent text messages. This is corruption, plain and simple. And a censure needs to happen. This council should join me in asking Mark Davis to step down. If you don't, you're a party to it because you know it happened. These text messages he shared with you, he apologized to you all for sending these text messages. You know and you knew. And now you certainly know it by now. So do something about this. Thank you, David.

Thank you, David.

I continue to ask you to contact me. This is not just me.

Thank you, David. Next, I have Amy Wenzhou.

Good evening. I would like to thank the town council for putting on the agenda this evening, Initiative 109, Protect Girls, Sports Act. I hope every single member of the town council votes in favor of the statewide initiative and makes a concerted effort to promote this initiative. That's a much worthy endeavor than attempting to censor a fellow board member. With that, let's talk about censoring. At the last council meeting, Hollingshead and Bracken, along with Mayor Gray, were quick to call for a censor of a councilman. I'd like to point out a few things about Hollingshead and Bracken. In 2024, Hollingshead did not remove himself from discussions regarding DCSD's MLO bond. And he voted in favor and advocated in favor of this bond. Hollings said as a principal within the DCSD system, so of course he'd advocate for a raise for himself. He should have recused himself. That would have been the ethical thing to do. Similarly, last week, there was a discussion of the ordinance regarding DCSD and the town of Castle Rock regarding land. As an employee of DCSD, Hollingshead should have removed himself. He chose not to. Bracken. Let's seriously discuss Bracken. We all know why he fell asleep at the dais in 2023. He knows that we know why he fell asleep. We also know he didn't fulfill his duties as Mayor Pro Tem, costing him timely cost of living increases for the town manager and other staff. Regarding the last meeting, I'd like to point out that members of the Design Review Board presented the town council with the text messages. Three of the town council members, specifically Hollinsack, Bracken, and the mayor, very much knew about these text messages. Four members, it was very obvious if you look at the video, did not. That would be Cavy, Davis, Bricks, and Dietz. Now, I'm not an investigator, but since we are discussing Let's Open Investigations, let's discuss possible open meeting law violations. As Gray, Bracken, and Hollings said, we're very familiar with those text messages. Thank you very much, and have a good evening, and thank you all for your service.

Thank you, Amy. Next, I have Casey Rippey.

I apologize. I did not have an agenda sheet. This is for the Chateau Valley.

Do you want to do that? I can go ahead and put it down for Chateau Valley. Okay.

Right now?

Yep. I'll go ahead. No, not talk about it. I'll push it down on the list. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Weir? Chateau Valley? Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

Matt Smith.

I want to talk on Protect Kids Colorado.

Okay, you want to talk on that one? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Jimmy Graham. 17. 17? It's 17. 17?

It's 17 for Matt Smith. Okay.

Matt Smith and Jimmy Graham, 17. Clifford Hancock. 17. There we go. 18, 18, 17, 16, and Patty McCarmon. 17. There we go. Okay. I have no one else to speak, and I'm just going to comment. So if anyone wishes to speak, please approach the podium and speak into the microphone. State your name, and whether you are a resident, non-resident, or business owner, you'll have three minutes to speak.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I signed up back there. She still has the sheet. What I wanted to bring up tonight was riding Coach Line Sunday. I noticed there's a difference in the bike lane painting the lines. And the old section of Coach Line has a large central median area. And the bike lanes are not proper bike lanes in that portion. And seeing that there's this large central median seems to me that you could match the newer section of Coach Line, the newly painted, which has the official bike lane size and has a smaller central median. Would like to ask to see if Public Works could look into to fixing that and so that both sections of Coach Line match. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Karen. Again, I have no one else outside to speak. If someone wishes to speak, please post the podium and speak in the microphone. State your name and whether you're a resident, non-resident, or business owner. You have three minutes to speak. Seeing none, we'll move on to town manager's report.

Good evening, mayor and council. A few items for us to go through this evening. I'm going to be helped by a couple of staff members as well. Got a number of calendar reminders, as has been previously mentioned. We've got a number of open houses that we want to encourage the public to attend. We've also scheduled a tour for the new sports center. Councilmember Davis asked for an updated tour on that. I know some of you have been through it recently. If you would like to go with Mark and I and then Brian Peterson, the project manager, we're going to meet at the site at 5 o'clock. So I've asked that you let me know ahead of time. Make sure that you've got your hard hat and dust and all that stuff. We'll get you something. But if that works for you all. If you would like a tour and that September 9th date is not working, just let me know. Parks and Rec is doing just a great job. Brian, Jeff, others that are involved in that project. It's moving along really well. So it's really interesting to see right now. So if you've got an opportunity to come on the 9th, great. If not, let me know and we'll get you in there when it's convenient for you. So you see those dates and a number of other events underway going on into October. So be sure and get those on your calendars. Got a number of just community-wide events that are going on as well, and you see that we're winding down a little bit of some of the events that we had. Parks and Recreation had a record-breaking year for their concerts, so congratulations to them for that work. Again, we're just kind of walking through this because I'm not trying to spend... Too much time. This evening we've got a number of neighborhood meetings that are underway. I think we're generally familiar with these projects. The Ridge View project is off of Ridge Road. It's really right across the street from the King Soopers. That's being proposed for business commercial uses there as well. That is an annexation into the town in consideration for that property. Just as a reminder, I appreciate the council members giving me time to brief on the budget. So we'll be introducing that budget at your next council meeting. Then in October, we're considering first and second readings on the budget. And because the assessed valuation information lags a little bit, we won't have the final numbers until December the 1st for a second reading on that. As you know, we're Very dependent upon sales tax, $100 million of sales tax, $1.5 million of property tax. So it's still an important revenue source, but we're able to proceed with budget adoption before that number is finalized. It's interesting, some of the early numbers that we've seen is that the assessed valuation for Castle Rock has actually gone down. So you're seeing the moderation of the number of values within the community. One other thing I wanted to just confirm with council, that council is good to move. We obviously had to cancel the fireworks on the 4th of July, but we'd like to be able to still have that same contractor come out and we'd have fireworks on November the 11th. Don't know what the weather is going to be like on that, but we do know that it will be hopefully a little bit more moderate as well, maybe even some snow on the ground. We also know that the sun will be going down sooner, so we won't wait until 9.30 for the fireworks, but we'll let you know on that date. Is that acceptable to council? I've sent you all information on that. Is there anybody that's got a concern? Okay. And then also, in that same memo, you're not deciding this now. You'll decide it when you consider the Title IX ordinance. Both the fire chief and I are recommending that we change our ban on fireworks. Right now, we ban the use at stage one and the sale at stage two. Our recommendation is to ban the sale and the use at stage one in regards to fire restrictions. Don't need to decide that now. We put it all in the same memo where Norris was talking about moving that, but you will get an opportunity when you're discussing that Title IX criminal code rework as well. So with that, I'm going to invite Mark Marlowe, the director of our water department, to come up and give us an update on the drought and water conditions.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I have a quick update for everyone on the drought conditions. First thing I really want to note is drought is not over. You can see here what Douglas County's current drought conditions look like. So they are still significantly worse than they were in May. So we're not out of the drought. However, we have seen some improvement. The map on the right shows precipitation. There's been a little bit of precipitation in Douglas County. But the temperatures have remained high. So that's the chart on your left with all the orange and yellow. And as I have said before, orange, red, and yellow are not great colors when it comes to the drought. Locally, specifically in Castle Rock, in terms of our four weather stations, the historical weather, you can see that temperatures have continued to stay well above the highs that we've experienced in the past in July and August. And rainfall is still significantly below what we typically see in this time of year. There has been a little bit of improvement in Plum Creek. As you can see here, there are a few peaks in the little hydrograph that show that we had some rain and the creek perked up for short periods of time, which is good. And storage in our reservoirs is in a reasonably good shape for this time of year. This, you've seen before, this continues to be the South Platte. And you can see the black line is the important line. It's down near the bottom of this chart, which shows that it's a very poor water year. Below average water year continues to be very challenging from a water standpoint. Near record lows, in fact. I'm sure you're all familiar with conditions at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. This is very much a state issue, less of an issue for Castle Rock specifically, but believe it or not, Castle Rock does get a little bit of water from the Colorado River through our wise agreement with Denver and Aurora. So we get a little bit. It is in very bad shape. Lake Mead and Lake Power are the lowest levels they've ever been at since they were constructed. So last year was a record low snowpack year, and that's really causing these reservoirs some serious problems. In terms of the outlook, it does look like we're expected to get a little more rain than we normally would as we go into the fall. However, the temperatures are expected to continue to stay higher than they normally would as we go into the fall, and today might have been an indication of that. It was pretty hot. This is just kind of over the course of the whole year. Again, red is bad and brown is bad. So you can see we've had some of the warmest months on record over the course of the year. July was the second warmest on record. So a lot of warm weather. August, we don't have final results on where it stood in terms of the record, but it was definitely warmer than we would like. Despite all that, as I noted, we have seen some improvement. So we've seen a little bit of rain. We've also seen a little bit of cooler temperatures as we get into September, even though the temperatures may be higher than we typically see over September, they're still much lower than what we were seeing in July and obviously August. So that's helpful. The other thing to note is the community did respond to the Stage 2 drought. I want to thank the community for their response. Through the first part of July, we were running 18 million gallons a day. And since we went into stage two, we dropped that average daily demand to about 14.8, which is about a 20% reduction. which is very helpful and I think very good. And given the state of Colorado and the current situation with this drought, I think it's a good indicator of what our citizens are doing to help and ensure that we're being responsible with water resources. Given, however, the improvement in the creek, the rainfall, the lower temperatures that we're going to see as we go into the fall, we are recommending that we go ahead and drop back to a stage one drought declaration, which what that does is it takes us back to a voluntary conservation request from our customers. People can go back to the every third day per week watering if they would like. However, we certainly encourage folks, if you've got your timer already set for two days a week, just stay on your two-day-a-week watering. I will tell you that my neighbors seem to be doing very well with that. Their grass looks good, and they're watering two days a week. I think that folks will find two-day-a-week watering interesting. can be pretty effective. It will increase the roots, especially if you let the grass grow a little bit longer than you might normally let it grow. And, you know, that's really all I have for you guys. I recommend to drop back to stage one.

Council Member Brooks. Mr. Mayor, thank you. A couple questions, sir. Just with the with our friends in Denver that I know that they have gone to shutting everything off as far as water supply for irrigation in October, I believe. Many folks here will know that we get that delivery from Denver Aurora Water as part of the Wise Water Agreement. So just curious, has there been any sort of insinuation that we should do the same thing because we get some of our water from Denver? Has there been any pressure from Denver Water along those lines?

No, Denver Water has certainly not pressured us to do anything relative to that. Obviously, all of the water utilities across the Front Range try to coordinate when it's a statewide issue like it is from a drought standpoint. And we try to work together. We certainly do get water from Denver and Aurora. And the Wise Water actually went through some periods this summer where it was reduced and restricted in response to the drought. But Denver and Aurora did not. tell us we had to do anything in particular with respect to that agreement. And the agreement does not call for that. The agreement does allow for Denver and Aurora to shut off the Wise Connection two out of every 10 years in response to significant drought conditions.

But they didn't do it this year. I know they can interrupt that supply. Thank you. Just one other question. I know that the rebate program in Castle Rock has been very successful, tearing up turf and putting it in with ColoradoScape. And there are obviously some guidelines that need to be adhered to with that, but there's a rebate option there. I was just curious if your department has had any conversations or in discussions, because right now my understanding is that that is for the front yard only. I've only very recently learned through a conversation I had with a constituent that that does not include the backyard. Is that something that perhaps you might look at doing in the future since irrigated turf is irrigated turf irrespective of front versus backyard. And really people have a lot more of it in the backyard.

Absolutely, Councilmember Brooks. We've discussed that many times. Earlier on in the program there was a strong desire to ensure that we were getting ColoradoScape in front of folks so they could see the transformation and understand what those ColoradoScapes could and should look like. But as we go forward, that's absolutely something we will be looking at in terms of reducing that irrigated turf, which irrigated turf, as you know very well, is one of the biggest challenges that the whole state has with respect to water.

Thank you. Council Member Bracken. Thank you.

Mr. Marlowe, can you explain the availability of water for the current proposed projects and future projects, and then how it relates to the drought? Because I'm getting some feedback from the community that that we can't water our grass because there's a neighborhood going in here or there's a project planned over here, and that's why we can't water our grass. Can you just clarify the availability for current water, future water, and then how it relates to the drought and the temporary nature of the drought and why?

Yes, thank you, Councilmember Bracken. The bottom line is the drought is a temporary disturbance. Think of it like this. If you are making a certain income and your hours are reduced at work or you temporarily lose a job, you're going to reduce your discretionary spending in response to that. That does not necessarily mean you're going to cap your future spending. So that's one example. It's kind of a temporary decrease in available supplies in response to a historic drought. And the main issue really comes down to a peak demand issue, not a total water supply issue. The two issues are obviously there's a small connection between water usage and drought. But at the end of the day, the bottom line is it does not impact the long-term future of the water supply. We're able to plan for the new development and ensure that those water resources are in place for new development. And a drought does not mean that we cannot provide for new development.

And so we have enough water for build-out for the future planned areas across all town, not just one?

Let me help clarify a little bit. So when new development comes into the town, they're required to provide two acre feet for every one acre foot of demand that that new development will use. So those water resources are provided before the development moves forward and is approved. Those new developments also pay for renewable water supplies through the system development fees to ensure that that development will have the supplies that they need for that development. So it's not a case where we're allowing new development to go forward without water rights and water supplies in place for that new development. For the development that's already been approved for zoning, Castle Rock Water has to plan for those developments to happen, period. And so if a development has already been approved for zoning, it's already provided those water rights, and it's already committed to pay for the additional renewable water supplies that they will need as a part of that development.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying because it has nothing to do with this project. We're talking about all of town, right? All of town and the ability for us to provide water for our residents.

Exactly. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Any further questions for Mark?

Thank you. TAR's going to come up and provide just a brief update on some items before the Development Services Department.

Council, this is your update on new quasi-judicial applications and pre-applications that have been submitted since the last time I presented to you all. We have a couple new quasi-judicial applications. So these are formal land use applications that have been submitted and are under staff review and will be going to future public hearings. In Councilmember Davis' district, we have a submittal from Burke & Cotter Motors. This is on the north end of town, north of Wolfensberger. They have to go through a use by special review site development plan to utilize this property for auto sales. This is a plan for after the existing church lease expires. At 422 Front Street, this is a home built in 1902 that is requesting to go through landmark designation. That'll go through Historic Preservation Board and Town Council. On the south end of downtown, this is a proposed quick trip convenience store, fueling station, and car wash. So this is south of Plum Creek Parkway, just west of Wilcox Street. In District 6, Councilmember Dietz's district, we have a proposed wireless cellular facility at Fire Station 152. And then the rest of these are pre-applications, so these are not formal submittals at this time. Every project is required to go through this process to understand what their process is, whether it's administrative or public hearing. And we probably are still operating at about 30% of these turn into real applications. In District 4, Councilmember Davis' district, Texas Roadhouse has a pre-application. There are three pads if you've been out to the outlet mall with new parking around them. So this is one of their planned future developments. So a full-service restaurant with bar and a patio. 850 New Memphis Court. So this is just south of the outlet mall, a proposed quick quack car wash where the existing Black Eyed Peas restaurant building is located. In the Encore building just south of downtown, there's a new bank that is moving into a tenant suite looking to make some interior and exterior changes for Commerce Bank. 404 Perry, this property has also been referred to as the Perry Street Social property. There is an applicant looking to change that property into a parking lot with a pay kiosk. At 200 Perry Street, so this is the Emporium. They've got a pre-application to add an 11,000 square foot addition on the rear of their building with a central courtyard, and they would retain the historic silo structure that's adjacent to the railroad tracks. At 505 Jerry Street, there's a proposal to convert this office building into a nonprofit restaurant space with a food truck kitchen for the Sunday Salmon Organization. And the Cantrell School, it's a town-owned property. We are looking to rezone it and clean up some of the zoning that splits through that property. District 5, Councilmember Brooks' district. We have a pre-application from the Castlewood Ranch Metro District. They are looking to put a sign in the Bella Mesa property that would indicate when you were entering the Castlewood Ranch area that would move through future town council meetings if it progressed. District 6, Councilmember Dietz's district, the Castle Rock Autoplex Foundation Group is looking to change an area to the east of their building. They were planning to have a building and parking in this blue area. They're going to propose some parking and outdoor gathering shade structures for employees and EV charging. And Dawson Trails, just west of the new Crystal Valley interchange, there's a pre-application for, it's about six commercial lots in this area looking to replat it and start working on installation of infrastructure. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.

Any questions at heart? Council Member Dietz.

Thank you. It goes back to the cell towers. I think everybody in Castle Rock would agree we need some cell tower coverage. And that's near my home, so I hope it happens. But are there more coming? What's the status?

I don't know. As we get pre-applications, we'll bring them forward. So this is the current one, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Katie.

Dave, just a reminder that that will have to be a standalone item on the agenda because I work for Verizon Wireless.

It's a brief history before I turn it over to the applicant. This property is in the Young American plan development. It was annexed and zoned into the town in 1983. On this graphic you can see some of the existing neighborhood in off of Elm Street and then Ash Street up to the north. But the Young American PD includes the Baldwin Park Estates area that's already been constructed. In the remaining areas, kind of south Mimmon and up here in this northern area, there are 561 residential entitlements that are remaining for this property. The applicant is proposing 402 and they also previously dedicated 14 acres of open space that you can see on this graphic that is a part of the Mimin Ridge open space and owned by the town. So with that, this is the criteria that staff is required to review each application for. And we can bring this back up at the end. So right now, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Mr. Hall. He does have his traffic engineer with him. They'll make their presentation, and then I will come back up to finalize a couple slides, and then we're ready for questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Tara.

Thank you for that introduction, Mrs. Vargas. I appreciate that. My name is Rusty Hall. I'm with Highline Engineering and Surveying Company. And our company prepared the site development plan, some of the engineering documents. And I'm here representing the applicant, Chateau Valley LLC, for this presentation tonight. That's all right. Chateau Valley Subdivision is a proposed single-family subdivision located in Castle Rock. The site consists of 112 acres located south of 5th Street, north of Plum Creek, and west of Ridge Road. Chateau Valley subdivision is surrounded on three sides with residential subdivisions. Baldwin Estates is located to the south, Glover subdivision is located to the west, and Southridge Townhome subdivision to the north. Chateau Valley subdivision proposes 402 single-family home sites and one clubhouse. 50 acres of open space, or 45% of the site, is proposed open space and proposed for trail connectivity and outdoor pedestrian enjoyment. We have over 3,700 lineal feet of of concrete regional trail, which is proposed along the existing natural channel that runs diagonally through the site. And we have 2,800 feet of soft hiking trail proposed along the center and the south edge of this development. The property is annexed into the town of Castle Rock and has completed the PUD planning process for zoning, land use, and density, all approved by the town of Castle Rock as part of the Young American PUD in 1983. The approved PED contains a 14-acre park site, which has already been dedicated to the town, and Baldwin Estates, located to the south, and Southridge Townhomes to the north are already constructed and are not a part of Chateau Valley. STP application. The land use summary contained in the approved PUD allows for 561 allowable units for Chateau. Chateau Valley proposes only 402, which is a 28% reduction in the allowable number of homes. 50 acres of the subdivision is proposed open space consisting of 45% of the site. The open space buffers, which are proposed along the perimeter of all existing subdivisions. And Chateau Valley is a proposed single-family subdivision consisting of 148 duplex lots, which are located in the center portion of the site, and 254 lots for single-family detached homes. The proposed site plan is prepared in substantial compliance with the approved Young American PUD. I'd like to point out that some of the different lot sizes that we have proposed along the west and the south is slightly larger 60 foot wide home sites. Those were designed wider to blend in with the adjoining subdivisions. Compatibility for density and similar lot size. The green homes that are proposed on the site are 45 foot wide, smaller width, higher density. The cyan colored is proposed 50 foot wide lots, which would be a typical residence. The area that are mostly clear is our duplex product, which is located here in the center of the project. The larger lot located in the north central portion of the project site is planned for a future clubhouse. The clubhouse will be proposed south of one of our proposed detention ponds just east of Valley Drive. The parking and drive proposed on this lot is for temporary parking and access to the proposed kiosk off of Eaton Street. A site development plan for this lot will be required by the town before a clubhouse may be built. Chateau Valley will have four drainage basins, A through D, proposed for single family development. Detention ponds in each basin will provide full spectrum detention and water quality in accordance with the town criteria. The attenuated runoff for basins A, B, and C, which are located on the top portion of this drawing near the channel, will be conveyed to the existing tributary And the attenuated runoff for this detention basin down at the southwest corner of the site will discharge onto Elm Street via storm sewer pipe. The orange structures that are located within the channel itself are proposed drop structures, which will help control the runoff and mitigate erosion from occurring during a 100-year storm event. Unique to this design, we already have a floodplain modification study approved by the town, but we are actually improving a portion of the floodplain near the northwest corner of the site where it encroached into some existing lots. And we went through the exercise of correcting that. Existing vegetation consists primarily of natural grass and shrubs with scrub oak and pine trees. 60 existing pine trees under the 20 foot in height will be transplanted onsite after grading is complete. for tree conservation. In addition to that, 49 trees within the existing 100-year floodplain will be replaced outside of the floodplain with a mix of low water zone evergreen and deciduous large canopy trees. That's to, as requested by the adjacent neighborhood to the north of our project to provide additional screening, we agreed to replace all of the cottonwood trees that would be hurt or removed as part of the channel construction. And since cottonwoods are not a tree that the town would like to have transplanted, that's why we're proposing the evergreens and large canopy trees. We have three classifications of roadways proposed on Chateau Valley. First, the Valley Drive, the main drive that cuts through the site, will be completed. That's been anticipated for many years to assist with the traffic in that area and that connectivity. Our entry streets. All that T into Valley Drive will have a median, which is shown on the bottom figure, splitting the road at each entrance onto Valley Drive. And of course, our local streets are standard town, standard residential streets. Chateau Valley is an infill subdivision. It has five road, this is the wrong slide. Chateau Valley is an infill subdivision having five roadways planned to provide access to the site and surrounding neighborhoods. We have proposed traffic calming devices at the entrance to each adjoining subdivision adjacent to our project. Having started our discussion on some traffic issues, I'm going to turn this portion of the presentation over to Mike Rocha, who prepared our traffic study. I'm just going to get this over here.

Hi, good evening. My name is Mike Rocha. I'm with SM Rocha LLC. We're traffic engineering consultants located at 8700 Turnpike Drive in Westminster. I'll keep my presentation brief to allow time for the remaining presentation to follow. However, I do remain available after overall presentation to answer any questions. SM Rocha prepared a traffic impact study as part of this site development application being presented before you tonight. The traffic study was prepared in accordance with the town's adopted transportation design criteria manual for preparation of traffic impact studies. The town's transportation master plan and accepted analysis methodologies used by the town for development review. The traffic study identified, quantified, and assessed future traffic conditions consistent with the level of analysis required with this site development plan traffic study. This study has also been reviewed by Town Engineering and basically is also, from my understanding, recommended for approval as explained in the engineering staff report. The site development plan stage of the development application, the basis of our traffic study includes several different items. It includes the collection and review of 24-hour daily traffic volumes, peak hour volumes, then used to begin some of our analyses. This was done from multiple intersections along the perimeter of the site. And traffic counts were recently collected and were used as basis of our study in January of 2025. While our traffic study began a few years prior to basically in September of 2021, as part of our ongoing discussions with town staff in regards to updating to address neighborhood concerns, we then have since collected the new traffic counts in January of 2025 and based our analysis off of that. So then from analyzing our peak from 24-hour volumes collected, we looked at a long-range 20-year condition, which is year 2045 in our study, with and without the proposed development. The traffic study is considered a long-range 20-year planning document. and is used to begin the identification of key potential transportation improvements applicable to development and adjacent area for later consideration upon actual site design. Additional analysis performed at the request of Town Engineering was to evaluate 20-year capacity impacts on the adjacent street connections upon assumed development approval. Key evaluations performed was site development with or without direct connection to the adjacent neighborhood local streets. Our traffic study concluded long-range 20-year intersection and roadway operations upon full build-out of site development, if approved, that they are in compliance with town master plan goals and transportation design standards. Key components included in this study were the extension of Valley Drive, as recently discussed, which is a town transportation master plan goal. The connection of the existing street network, recently discussed, which is a town transportation goal per town standards. and the impact of added site development traffic exceeding street capacity, existing street capacity. Our report concludes that the existing street capacity is not exceeded if this development is approved. In cooperation with Town Traffic Engineering, our study has been revised several times to provide additional evaluations to account for neighborhood and town review comments received to date. EXISTING ROADWAY CAPACITY CONCERNS AND EXISTING STREET CONNECTIONS. WHILE OUR STUDY AWAITS TOWN APPROVAL, WE HAVE WORKED CLOSELY WITH TOWN ENGINEERING STAFF TO ADDRESS ALL REVIEW COMMENTS ISSUED TO DATE AND IT'S BELIEVED THAT OUR TRAFFIC STUDY PROVIDES A REASONABLE, APPROPRIATE AND TECHNICALLY SOUND ASSESSMENT OF TRANSPORTATION IMPACTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT. I'd like to also emphasize that the site development plan being presented before you today, if approved, could represent a reduction in development traffic generation of approximately 28%. That's a correlation to the reduced density that's proposed on this project when compared to allowed density per existing zoning. This concludes my presentation. I remain available to answer any questions at the end of our presentation. And I now return the presentation over to Mr. Hall. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Rocha. I appreciate that. I would just like to conclude with a summary of just some of the high points, some of the concessions that we've made in working with the community and trying to make this the best subdivision that we could design out. 50 acres of open space first. The community was really interested in hiking trails, some enjoyment of the open space itself, and we've provided 45 acres of our site. 45% of our site is now open space. We have over a mile of trails proposed on this development. We are improving and making the drainage way a safer way to convey water without damage to private property. We provided buffers around the entire development adjoining existing subdivisions to make a buffer between the two developments. And Valley Drive itself is just a much needed key component to transportation in this area of Castle Rock. And we're completing that. At this point, I would just like to ask for any comments or questions that the council may have.

Sure. Questions for the presenters first, and we'll have staff second.

I still have more of a presentation.

And we should turn that over to Mrs. Vargas first.

We'll go ahead and turn to Tara, and then we'll have questions. Thank you. Sorry, Tara.

We have a new structure to how these are going out, so bear with us. No, thank you, sir. All right, so I just wanted to follow up a little bit on what the applicant talked through and give you some of the staff feedback also. There were four different neighborhood meetings held throughout the course of this application. As you can see, they were very well attended. These are established neighborhoods adjacent to this development. And as you would expect, there's a lot of concern and questions that we have gone through. Staff has done their best to respond to. You can see in your packet There's numerous quantity of public hearing comment or public comment that's been submitted. I do want to touch on a couple of the items that have come up over this time. I also wanted to point out in their first application in 2021, this proposed 423 homes. In their next two neighborhood meetings, they had reduced the plan to 415 homes. And the plan that is before you tonight is at 402 homes. so as the applicant responded to feedback they received at neighborhood meetings they did adjust their plan as well as to feedback from staff so one of the items that has come up a couple times is water concerns i did work with cath rock water director mark marlow on some of these bullets so i do want to make sure everyone is aware that Chateau Valley has been planned for residential development since 1983. The future water needed to serve this development at the higher level, at the 561 level, has been included in all of our long-term water plans. The most recent drought restrictions are really a regional drought condition, not a lack of water supply. And as you're aware, those restrictions are really focused on reducing that peak outdoor irrigation demand in these dry, hot summer days. As Mark mentioned, new development does have to meet a variety of water conservation standards. You talked about the rebate program for existing homes. All new homes built in Castle Rock are not allowed any turf in their front yard. That would apply to these homes as well. And they would have to do the Colorado scape and the reduced turf in the back of their yards, backyards. The other item I wanted to talk about, we've had a lot of email correspondence and questions from residents about saving the forested area that is Chateau Valley, or as some of those emails indicated. I wanted to first make sure everyone was fully aware of Mimmon Ridge Open Space. This is not Chateau Valley. This is to the west of Chateau Valley. I did just put a white label so you can see where that is. northwest corner of Chateau Valley begins. But this parcel of land, Mimmon Ridge Open Space, that's really three separate parcels. Parcels two and three, those comprise the 14 acres that have already been dedicated to the town. Those were dedicated to the town in 1985 by the Mimmon property owners at that time. The parcel one, the larger parcel, was then purchased by the town in 1991. So all of this land is owned by the town and is not subject to any of the development that we're discussing tonight. I did get a more recent aerial so you could see the trees in the forested area and so all of the residents and folks that are concerned could see where the trees are located. so highlighted in yellow that is all owned by the town of castle rock we own it it is zoned open space you can see that the town has put in trailhead parking there's a large number of trails you can see in the aerial hopefully some folks in the audience can see that as well so all of this is owned by the town and is not a part of the development plan tonight It does bud it, to be very accurate, because I'm an engineer. I like to be accurate when I present to everyone. Chateau Valley does touch it on the east side. And so these are the trees that the applicant was talking about. And I've got a quick zoom in for a moment so that you can see there are... Trees today on private property that is owned by the Mimmon family, and that is a subject to the application tonight, Chateau Valley. So when Mr. Hall talked about transplanting 60 of the mature trees on the property, these are the trees that he is speaking of. These are trees on the private property today that are not protected. The current owner today could cut these trees down. And so I wanted to make sure everyone was aware where the Mimmon Ridge open space was to the west and that this development is not impacting that area. Now, as the development is built out, there is grading in this area. As Mr. Hall indicated, there's a detention pond, there are some residential homes, and there'll be a future trail that winds up into the open space. So there's a new area of land that will come to the town. But due to getting Valley Drive to connect from the north end to the south end, the grading in this area does have to be impacted, which would lead to the removal of all the trees. Our code does not require him to transplant these large trees. He can technically put in smaller trees under six feet in height that will in the someday grow larger. But through all of the various meetings and feedback he has received from both residents and staff, he is proposing now a requirement that he would transplant those trees. Not all of those trees will likely survive, most of them hopefully will. And if not, he will have to then replace them. So I just wanted to make sure that was clear. We've got a lot of questions on that. So for on-site landscaping, this aerial is really just showing, so you can see a lot of the scrub oak, and there definitely are still mature trees in that area. So 60 of those trees will be preserved through transplanting elsewhere on the property. As he indicated, the largest area of buffering is in this northwest corner behind existing homes. Overall, in town code, he's required 181 trees. They're proposing 194. 60 include those transplanted trees. For local road connections, I wanted to just touch on this part. Again, it's been a very big part of all of our neighborhood meetings and discussions with applicants. So while the neighborhood was always planned to have these connections at Ashe, and Elm, Valley, and then Eaton is just a continuation and Santana Drive on the north. We did ask the applicant to review it both ways. And so this graphic shows on the left the site plan as it's presented before you tonight showing all of the connections. Their traffic study does indicate that all of that works and meets the town criteria. I know Mr. Rocha mentioned or made a comment about when the traffic study is approved. It's approved at the staff level. I think he's talking about if the project is approved tonight. So the staff review of the traffic study does meet all of the town's criteria. We did ask them to analyze it on the conditions on the right. So on the right-hand image shows limited connections. So the square boxes indicate closed to public access. So you can see a cul-de-sac at Ash and at Elm. There still would be emergency vehicle access, so that might look like the chains and bollards that you see in some places. So a fire department could access through there. However, the public would not be able to access through there. They've also proposed a closing at Eaton, if that's the will of council. This evening, that would also get a chain and bollard, if deemed possible. The circles indicate the roads that would stay open. So again, they've modeled the traffic study both ways. Both scenarios do work. As you can see on the right-hand side, it does reduce the ability for existing homes to access the new connection on Valley, and it will cause a slight longer delay at both the north and south ends of Valley for existing residents and future residents. So that is an option that council might want to consider tonight in my motions that I have proposed. One includes the project as the applicant has proposed on the left. One would include it with limiting road connections if that's the desire of council.

Thank you, Tara. Before we move on to questions from Council and then after that, public comment, I just want to make sure everyone knows that if you guys don't want to stand anymore, we do have chairs and video feed downstairs if you'd like to. You're more than welcome to stand as long as you want, but if you're not comfortable standing, there are chairs downstairs with a video feed. Councilmember Brooks, followed by Mayor Potemkin.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. Ms. Vargas, could you back up maybe about five-ish slides, the Mennon open space slide? Sure. That one or the one before? The one before, please. Yeah, perfect. I'm glad you brought this up. I know that this is not part of what we're hearing tonight as far as the project, but It's kind of consistent with some of the other conversations that we're having with pieces of property throughout town. When infill is difficult, and the certainty of knowing what is going to happen to a piece of property, that certainty to homeowners is something that they can take to bed at night and sleep easy with. So wherever possible, I think it's advantageous to be able to give some comfort and some certainty to homeowners. So with that private parcel piece, I just wanted to bring up that when we come to motions later, I intend to make a motion to ask the town to start to investigate any and all available opportunities, mechanisms, so forth that we have available to purchase that piece of property and make it part of the Memmon Ridge open space. So then that way we're able to kind of take that off the board. Don't have to worry what private parcel means anymore. We can make that part of that open space. So I just wanted to kind of point that out right now and give kind of a preview of what I intend to do. Also for those up here at the dais, I wanted to kind of give a little bit of a heads up that that'll be a secondary kind of related motion that I'll be making later. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Brooks. Mayor Pro Temkady.

Yes, I have quite a few questions here. I am going to read something first, but it is relevant in terms of where I'm going with the question.

Absolutely. Thank you.

So our Castle Rock Municipal Code 17.10.0.30, land suitability, calls for development to respond to natural vegetation, terrain, drainage ways, and unique site features. Code 17.38.040 says, SDP approval criteria call for an effort to protect of significant vegetation where possible and preservation of significant natural features. So personally, I would call that ridgeline and those trees certainly part of things that are in our municipal code. So my first question is When you go over to Chateau Valley and you're looking, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Does that show their development?

I didn't make it to this slide. I apologize, Mayor Pro Tem. This shows their development that they're proposing.

No, actually, the ones that show the trees is a better picture. So that ridge on the top line. Right. And then the stuff that comes through the middle where you're saying, we're going to have to do significant grading to make Valley Drive come through. Basically, all those trees are going to be removed. How many trees in total are we removing?

I'll see if the applicant can look up that exact number. First, I do want to clarify that at the top end of this site is not a ridge. That's the drainage channel. So all of that does have to be removed to meet the town's stormwater requirements. And it's the road connection on Valley that requires the grading in this parcel to be adjusted. And then I'll ask Mr. Hall if he knows the exact number of trees that are being removed. I know we had 60 he identified as saving. Do you know, Mr. Hall, how many trees overall have to be removed? They're saving half of the trees.

So we're saying there's 120 trees?

That's what he's saying. Okay.

So I thought the original site development plan called for saving 100 trees, not 60.

No, I do apologize for that. There was a typo in the Planning Commission staff report. In one area said he was transplanting 100 trees and in one area it said 60 trees. What he has indicated and what the plan includes is transplanting 60 trees. That's always been what he's presented. And there's an additional 50 cottonwood trees that the plan has to remove in the drainage way that he is also going to be replacing with different trees. Somehow that got turned into 100 trees in one section of the staff report and 60 in another. And that was in the Planning Commission packet. Your packet is correct tonight.

OK. If one of those 60 trees dies, are you replacing it with another 20-foot tree?

He will have to replace it per town code. Again, he's not required to replace any of these existing trees. I understand that. I'm asking a question. Yeah, so he's not required to replace it with a 20-foot tree. The town code, I believe, is a 6-foot tall tree, and I'm not sure on the caliper. Yeah.

So we would go from a 20-foot tree to a six-foot tree?

We would, just as we do in every development area in town. All right.

50 acres of open space, how much of that is actually usable by the public? Meaning, I see a lot of it as part of the drainage ditch, and there's also a cliff, I believe, involved in designating that 50% open space. So to me, it doesn't seem like it's usable open space.

Correct. It's usable in different ways in the drainage channel. He is putting in paved concrete trail as well as some soft surface trail. Again, soft surface trail will wind up to connect to Mimmon Ridge. And then the paved trail will be in the drainage channel. So similar to you could walk to this area from Festival Park along that drainage channel. And then the ridge line going up to the east is going to be privately maintained, owned and maintained by the HOA, but it's all publicly accessible open space. So I don't believe I can answer your question on usability because it depends on who wants to use it and which way, if that makes sense. But it does meet our criteria for open space.

Another question on traffic. Valley Drive. So Valley Drive today, what level of service is it at?

Do you want to speak to that? Yes.

Just give me a moment and I'll get right to this. No problem. While you look that up, I have another question. What is the maximum buffers between the other communities and this community? How many feet?

Do you know the buffer on the south end of the North End?

It is.

I'll let you answer that certainly.

So it varies. You can see along the west property line it starts at 30 feet and then it widens to almost 60 feet at the top and then to 100 once you get to the tract where we are actually dedicating over an acre of public land space and constructing that trail connection to Mimmon, existing Mimmon Park through that space. So it varies pretty greatly as you work your way around the site. I think that the neighborhood is focused on the minimum being 30 feet and it just varies as you work your way around the perimeter of the site. But you could, I mean, in some spaces you can see over 100 feet of separation between the existing homes and the nearest lot. Does that answer your question?

Yep. So 30 feet is the smallest.

Correct.

Some quick answers regarding levels of service. So existing conditions, level of service for Valley Drive and Plum Creek, they range within the morning a.m. peak hour, your level of service C or better. When you get into the p.m. peak hour for Valley and Plum Creek intersection, you're again at levels of service C or better for the particular movements.

Okay, then my next question is, once this community is built out, what do those level services go to? I will talk to that in a moment. Can you speak in the mic a little better? Yeah, I don't think they can hear in the back. No, but they're going to make a through.

Right, right. So we're just looking at existing Valley Drive as it connects to Plum Creek. and then also existing Valley Drive as it connects to 5th. So let me talk a little bit about Valley Drive and 5th. That's, as of today, pre-construction of that intersection. You're looking at levels of service F in the morning and then levels of service E in the evening. That's pre, you know, this existing pre-construction that's going on now. So let me jump to total traffic year 2045. This includes now the connection. So the missing piece.

Right, the through street, right?

Yep. And let me go to the correct table. Okay, so Valley Drive and Plum Creek, we are looking at levels of service D or better. That's in the morning and also in the p.m. peak hour. The levels of service D are isolated to a movement. Just it's the southbound left turn movement. So Valley Drive southbound left onto Plum Creek.

Is this after the development or before the development?

This is after the development. Okay. And then we go to, let me just add on to that, that all the other movements that are associated with that intersection, they're running C or better. So the only one in particular that's kind of running at level of service D is just that southbound left from Valley onto Plum Creek. Now we get into Valley Drive and Fifth. This is with build out 20 years with the assumption of signalization at the intersection. That signalization is part of the construction that's going on now. For operations, peak hour operations, we're looking at level of service A for both morning and afternoon.

With a signal?

With a signal.

Okay. I'll stop there and give it over to somebody else.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Councilmember Davis.

Can you go back to the limited connections drawing?

Do you want to keep the traffic engineer up here or do you want me up here? Yeah, that one.

So I live in an older neighborhood, too, and having development surrounding you, you get to kind of a level of living what you think is important to you. The making the cul-de-sacs on ash and elm is, I can't say required, but I would say I would highly recommend that. I don't like having a new development dump onto an older neighborhood. We talked about that at Pine Canyon. I know I've seen Mike a couple of times and There is an engineering firm on other developments, but I think this is a big deal. There's six exits out of here, which sounds nice, but for all the people that live around that, it doesn't seem fair that you need six exits. I see Valley. That's totally required. Eaton, I think that dumps onto a roundabout. I think that's... That's a pretty good idea, but Ash and Elm, I would highly push to make those cul-de-sacs. I think there was a rumor around about C1, C2, that's the top left corner, about maybe the town buying that portion. I know that the people that live on Sierra Street and that's quite the view that we've had for a long time. Is that a possibility, Mike, that we tried to talk to somebody about that portion?

Well, certainly I think we've already had that concept introduced already by Councilmember Brooks. But certainly there's always opportunities. It just depends on whether there's a willingness on the other side. Can we start a conversation with Mr. Hall about that?

Staff has discussed acquisition with the Mimmon family and also with Mr. Hall in previous years, and it has not been indicated that they were interested in talking to the town about selling to the town. That may change. Is that responsive to your question?

Yeah, I heard somebody out there.

I'm responding to you. Okay. All right.

If there's more outbursts, we will stop the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions from council? Member Tim Cady.

I'd like to try and articulate maybe what Mark was trying to get at. That ridge that I talked about where the tree line is, I think there was a few of the larger lots up there. Maybe we could try and facilitate a discussion with Mr. Hall about purchasing that part of the property as open space.

I think it's a great idea. And we've tried to have those conversations in the past, and they haven't gone anywhere. But I always believe that we can be optimistic in the future and see if there's interest in selling the property. And if there's no interest in selling the property, as council knows, you also have the ability to acquire it through eminent domain. So that's an option that a community has as well. There's challenges with that, and there's costs with that. But we would like to have a willing seller that might be interested in our ability to buy some of that, because we know open space is an important priority for the community and for council.

Well, I think that would preserve the ridge. That would help the community that lives there. It would reduce the density, traffic, and it would be a goodwill offering to all the people that have showed up here today in concern of their properties that surround this development. Thank you.

Thank you. I've got a question for Mr. Hall, if he would. Mr. Hall, on the buffering, is there a way to increase the buffering from about 30 feet to 60 feet to 100 feet all the way around?

Is there a way to do that? You would end up with... one-sided being developed and the other side being open space on a street. It was very challenging laying out the roadways through these portions of the development and that basically doubles the cost of the roadway itself, increasing development cost as well. There is a way to erase those lines. They're just lines on paper right now that are lots. But it does have an impact to the cost of the development.

Understood. Thank you. You know, we've tried to work with developers and residents about increasing buffers when we can. I think it's, and especially in this older neighborhood, it might be important to try to increase that as well. But thank you. Thank you. Any more questions from council? I know. We have a lot of people signed up tonight, and I do appreciate you being here. And I know that a lot of people understand that this land has been dedicated and annexed in 1983, and it does have an awful lot of land there. Also, the lands where you live used to be amendment property as well. I think that we all believe in land rights and landowners' rights. But this is a difficult area. I do appreciate everyone being here, and I do appreciate the passion in the room. But again, please have your decorum. With that, Carl Ossor.

Is this on? Very good. Does the council have one of my sheets that I've handed out? Here they come. Don't start my clock until they get the sheets, please. Well, basically, I think the numbers speak for themselves. Chateau Valley is basically the tip of the iceberg, as you can see on our sheet. The explosion in Castle Rock consists of 7,989 homes. That's the iceberg. And we've heard from the Water Department, and they said, oh, in the future, we're going to have the water. Well, they said the same thing for Lake Powell, and it's empty. They say the same thing for the Hoover Dam and it's about ready to shut down. So what kind of guarantees can the water department give us that the people that have been here for 48 years are gonna have water? They can't.

It's a crap shoot.

I think the numbers speak for themselves. We got a 31% increase in current homes based on the numbers here that are right off the internet and a 28% increase in population. Ridiculous. If you turn the sheet over, I think the council needs to approve a senior ombudsman for seniors that are being pushed out of Castle Rock because of loss of economic income. I don't think any of you up there take care of the seniors in the city, as noted by my water bill of $549. The municipal code is a perfect example of the ridiculousness of the water department section 13 12 130 water discount for seniors 65 years and older initiated on december 11 2012 it's three dollars per month that's not a discount that's an insult We are now the Aspen and Vale of the Front Range. The average service worker and senior on fixed income can no longer afford to live in Castle Rock. Douglas County is now number eight on the national list of richest income per family in the entire United States. Congratulations. Three in Virginia, three in California, one in Maryland, and Douglas County, Colorado. Why can't the city do better than a $549 water bill for an 80-year-old veteran on fixed income who has lived here for 48 years? When I moved here in 1978, the population was 3,000. We had no water rationing, we had no traffic jams, and we didn't have the highest gas prices in the area. Council, you need to do something. I think the city is broken. And by the way, when they notified me of the cost increase on my water, I was ambushed. My neighbor was ambushed. He's 90 years old, does not have a computer. She got the bill. It was $408, 20 Oak Ridge Drive. She put in $20,000 for the landscaping. She got a $409 water bill because they lowered the amount that each individual could use, and then they jacked up the rates as you used it. I had the exact same issue. I was ambushed by the water company. I don't mind paying $250 or $300, but the water people in this town are out of control. They need to notify the people that are using the water way in advance that they're going to be penalized for the water that, as Mr. Bracken says, we have for everybody. So basically, that's what I have to say. You've got my phone number. These are the issues that I have. And like I said, take care of the seniors that built this town and take care of the people that service you. Because right now, they can't afford to live in Castle Rock. Thank you. Thank you, Carl.

I have Candace. I'm not going to try to pronounce her last name. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your service. As on the town council and being the mayor and the mayor pro tem, thank you. It doesn't seem like an easy job, so I appreciate that. My name, again, is Candice Matejka. I have lived in Castle Rock for 46 years, and I currently live on Larkspur Drive, which is a horseshoe-shaped street off of Santana. I have attended three neighborhood meetings with Mr. Hall's thorough presentations, and every time I've gone to these meetings, I haven't ever heard anyone in favor of this. It doesn't seem like there's ever a citizen, a current citizen who understands what's going on and is in favor of it. And I just wondered if you're aware of any citizens, current citizens in Cass Rock that are in favor of this. And if so, what their rationale is. And I don't know if you know anybody. I mean, I've been to the meetings, and as you see, there's a whole lot of really frustrated, fussy people. So that's my wonder. Is anybody who's a current citizen in favor of this? And if not, does it have to happen? And I feel like you keep saying it does, because that land was allocated a long time ago. I do live off of Santana Drive, and currently, especially when it's snowing. Two cars cannot pass each other now. And so I am a little concerned about that becoming a busier road because the homes are paired homes with very short driveways. And I don't know if you've seen that area, but there isn't. There isn't. very much parking now. So I don't know if you would eventually limit parking on Santana if you're going to make that a busier street. So especially if you give cul-de-sacs to Ash and Elm, which is wonderful, I just wonder how that's going to work on Santana. So I don't have a lot of comments that are different than what everyone else is going to say. I just sort of had questions. So thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you, Candice. Appreciate it. Vanessa Kiley.

Okay, hi. So I'm speaking on behalf of the more than 1,300 residents that we had sign the Reject and Revise Chateau Valley petition. Those signatures represent a significant number of Castle Rock residents who care deeply about the future of our community. I want to be clear that the petition is not to stop growth. We understand that Castle Rock will continue to grow. What we're asking for is growth that honors the commitments our town has made through the municipal code and the 2030 comprehensive master plan. The petition asks for two reasonable modifications, a meaningful natural buffer between the proposed development and the existing neighborhoods, including a minimum 150-foot separation, and second, greater preservation of the existing forested landscape through expansion of the Mimmon Ridge open space toward Valley Drive. These requests aren't arbitrary. They are directly supported by the Castle Rock Municipal Code Section 17.34.030. The code requires plan development proposals to be evaluated for consistency with the town's vision and comprehensive master plan and calls for consideration of neighborhood compatibility, open space, traffic circulation, public safety, and the relationship of development to surrounding properties. The code further states that adequate buffer areas should be provided when warranted. Likewise, the Town's 2030 Comprehensive Master Plan calls on Castle Rock to protect and enhance the natural environment, maintain a high quality of life, and plan for the act to manage the impacts of growth. The Master Plan also envisions Castle Rock remaining a world-class community with small-town character. These are not just aspirational statements. These are principles adopted to guide decisions exactly like the one before you tonight. Tonight, the question is not whether homes can be built on the property. The question is whether this particular plan best fulfills Castle Rock's adopted standards and vision. More than 1,300 residents believe it does not. More than 1,300 residents are asking for meaningful buffering between neighborhoods. More than 1,300 residents are asking for greater preservation of mature trees, wildlife habitat, and open space. and more than 1,300 residents are asking for a design that better aligns with the intent of the municipal code and the comprehensive master plan. The comprehensive master plan only has meaning when it informs difficult decisions. If the town's commitments to protecting natural resources, preserving community character, maintaining quality of life, and managing the impacts of growth do not apply here, residents are left asking when do they apply. This decision will outlast all of us. Once these mature trees are removed, once these natural buffers disappear, and once this landscape is developed, these changes cannot be reversed. The question before you is not whether growth should occur. Growth is coming. The question is whether the site development plan sufficiently satisfies the standards established in the municipal code and advances the goals of Castle Rock's comprehensive master plan. If those findings cannot be made with confidence, the prudent course is not approval. The prudent course is revision. On behalf of more than 1,300 petition signers, I respectfully ask you to deny the Chateau Valley site development plan as currently proposed and direct the applicant to return with a better plan, one that provides meaningful buffering, preserves more of the existing natural landscape, and better reflects the vision Castle Rock has established for its future. Thank you.

Thank you, Vanessa. Next, I have Ron Kingrey.

Hi, my name is Ron Kingery. I live on Eaton Street, very close to the Plum Creek Circle there. We moved there roughly 30-some years ago. And at the time, we were aware that there was potentially going to be a development back there that was planned in 1983. What wasn't planned at that time was water conditions that we have here in Colorado. It came well before the drought. We had water issues here in Castle Rock. We have traffic issues now that weren't there in existence in 1983. Our traffic and our water are unsustainable as it is right now. And until there's a plan to... reduce or fix our traffic problem, take care of our water problem, I think putting in a new development is not very wise. I was encouraged by the fact that you were looking at trying to protect current residences from increasing extra traffic around the Tree Streets, Ash, Elm, and Eaton Street. However, if you do Ash and Elm, that's going to increase the traffic down Eaton Street. If you don't do something as far as slowing down the traffic in Eaton Street, which is already an issue. Even with the traffic mitigation device that you have in front of our house, the speed bump, we still hear daily, sounds like a bomb going off in front when a car drives over that speed bump going too fast. As far as the water goes, I, too, am being priced out. I am a retired school teacher on a fixed income. I taught in Douglas County for 30 years, and the water rates are just going astronomic. I can't afford to still live here if we continue the direction we're going with the water. We would be wise to slow down the development in Castle Rock and take care of our water and our traffic issues before we keep adding on more and more developments. And I would hope as representatives of our community that you would listen, which I hope you do, to your constituents. Because as the last speaker said, there's 1,300 residents right here right now that are not in agreement with putting in this development. Thank you.

Thank you, Ron. Steve Kiley.

Good evening. My name is Steve Kiley, and I respectfully ask you to reject or defer approval of Chateau Valley site development plan until critical floodplain and environmental questions are fully resolved. Castle Rock Municipal Code requires development proposals to protect public health and safety and demonstrate compliance with the town's adopted standards before approval is granted. The applicant's own floodplain modification study acknowledges that future FEMA floodplain revisions and additional federal review will still be required. If key approvals remain outstanding, how can the town confidently approve the final development plan today? The study also identifies wetlands and aquatic resources connected to East Plum Creek and notes the need for federal jurisdictional review. Yet the public has not been shown that all environmental reviews, mitigation requirements, and permitting decisions have been completed and incorporated into the final plan.

Finally, I'd really like to study Gilbert and see how it'll affect Gilbert. I live on Beecham Street. Eaton Street intersects Beecham at the top of that road. And while I don't partake in the activities that go on at the north end of that street, I really appreciate the activities that go on at the north end of that street when I drive through. I drive through there a lot, and their kids are playing. There's a lot of people out on that neighborhood. And I love it. I love that our small town is that way. And I think if we connect Eaton Street, that will be gone. You won't have the kids playing out there anymore. You won't have that as that communal area. And with regard to our water situation, yeah, maybe we have it, but it's expensive. And it's just going to get more expensive. Also, I don't know if you guys have looked into how adding developments like this increase the insurance on your home as well as your automobile. But there's almost a 100% guarantee that it will increase our prices on our homeowners insurance as well as our automobile insurance. adding those adjacent neighborhoods almost always increase that price. I don't see how that will change at all. So when you're adding the increased water price, as well as the increased insurance prices, as well as adding traffic to Gilbert, Gilbert's my main concern. I mean, I drive through Valley every day, but Gilbert is by far my biggest concern as far as adding this development. I would ask that You might consider Eaton Street having at least a fire block where there's a gate there where it's not actually through street so those people that live there still enjoy that community. I would also ask that possibly maybe reducing those duplexes to actual homes so that we don't have that huge increase in the number of people driving on Gilbert. And thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Casey. Next I have Chris Ware.

Hello all, thanks for showing up tonight. Appreciate your time on the matter and I'd like to take this opportunity to speak as a respectful member of society and I'd like to I'd like to respectfully ask the council to deny the Chateau Valley site development plan as currently proposed. My concern is not simply the addition of 400 new homes. It's the permanent transformation of approximately 112 acres of natural land and wildlife habitat. While the plan may preserve approximately 50 acres of open space, I believe we should carefully consider how that space will function once surrounded by homes, roads, lighting, fencing pets, increased human activity, etc. Meaningful habitat depends not only on acreage, but also connectivity, buffers, and the ability of wildlife to move through the landscape. I believe we should consider the cumulative effects of continued development. Castle Rock has experienced significant growth and each individual project may appear reasonable on its own, but collectively these decisions determine how much natural land, wildlife habitat, and open space remain for future generations. A recent community survey of 70 found that 73 percent of respondents support preserving more natural areas and open space underscoring the importance that we all have on protecting these lands there's another study And I've actually emailed you guys this report. Anyway, there's 73% of the natural habitat has been lost for wildlife. And it's just continued development that's pushing animals out while we kind of move in and pollute the surface water and poll groundwater. So I'm also concerned about impacts on the existing residents. 402 households will bring additional traffic, construction, everything that comes with it. So the character of the surrounding neighborhood will be changed, as a previous citizen mentioned. And I recognize that growth and housing are important community needs. Of course they are. My question is whether this particular project, at this scale and at this time, provides sufficient community benefit to justify those permanent impacts. Before moving forward, I would encourage the town to provide current, transparent information about housing demand, including existing inventory, active listings, absorption rates, the approved but unbuilt homes, and projected future demands. Decisions on this scale should be based on current conditions and reliable data. I also encourage Castle Rock to consider purchasing the Chattu Valley site if feasible and preserving it as public open space. The town could improve the property through habitat restoration, native landscaping, wildlife corridors, trails designed to minimize ecological impacts and appropriate public access. Such as an investment would provide a lasting community benefit while protecting natural land from permanent development. Water also deserves particular attention. Colorado's water resources are limited, and every home creates long-term demand for water. The important question is not simply whether the town can serve these homes today, but whether that supply remains sustainable throughout the future drought conditions and continued growth. The allotment of water for this development should be budgeted based on or I'm sorry, the allotment of water for this development has been based on wetter than average years rather than assuming that unusual favorable water conditions will continue.

...of our community. Please reject the plan as currently proposed and explore conservation options before preservation is no longer possible. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you, Ariadna. Next I have Stan Peterson.

Thank you mayor and council members for hearing people's concerns. I would respectfully request and recommend that you would reject the proposed Chateau Valley project. I own three homes in that area that will be directly impacted negatively. One right on Valley and Valley is going to be impacted by a large degree my concerns are that significant improvements to water distribution and sewer systems and streets have to be made significant and there hasn't been enough consideration in my view for the wildlife that is a part of our our area here there's a lot of wildlife and if possible could you bring up the picture of the trees No, sir. With this proposed development, there will be, well, basically it completely cuts off that green space behind the elementary school and the green space that is large green space that is west of Gordon Drive and or east of Gordon Drive and west of Ridge Road. Completely cutting that off from access for the wildlife and I don't believe enough thought has been given to that possibility. There's a lot of people who value the wildlife in this area and enjoy seeing it. And it's taken a big hit with all the huge developments that have gone in, where those developments have completely cut off their, shall we say, corridors that they move through. And I will say thank you again for listening to us and our concerns.

Thank you, sir. Next, I had Matt O'Neill.

Good evening, everyone. I apologize, first of all, for being the one that was mouthy back there and kind of voicing my concerns. I think everyone, you guys can kind of feel the temperature in the room. Everyone's a little heated, and they're not real happy about the... new development and the traffic and the water and everything else that's going to come along with this. A few things at the last meeting, a few things that I was real concerned about that we brought up. I didn't realize that it would be a different group. It was the planning committee last time, not you guys. So I brought up that it's weird that they put signs at the very end of these streets. So I live at the end of Ash. Lived there for 12 years, raised my son there. He's 11 years old, a bunch of neighborhood kids. Everyone has a blast. All these kids are running around having fun. We still have the turnaround traffic and that kind of stuff, but I fear once you guys, if we do open up these roads and send all these cars down here, someone's going to end up getting hurt. One of the kids is going to run out into the street. I guess it could happen on any street, but if we have the opportunity to do the emergency accesses, that's great, but then look at Eaton. If they don't get one or if Valley doesn't get one or so on, we're putting other kids in danger too. So hoping, I mean, you talked about it, Max. Maybe the town can buy it. You guys were talking about possibly buying that property just like Lost Canyon. We have so many kids and families that like to go hiking and taking their dogs out and all that kind of stuff. That would be a great opportunity right in the middle of town to have a big open area. um hopefully you guys will consider that like i said i apologize for my mouth back there i didn't wasn't trying to be rude but i'm just trying to i'm angry you know what i mean i've lived here for 12 years and in that house and i bought this house nice quiet neighborhood like everyone said there's wildlife we have bears that get into our trash cans we have you know whatever we'll clean it up you know what i mean we got bears we got coyotes we got turkeys we got All this wildlife back there that's just going to get completely misplaced. And they're going to end up out on the roads. You know, they're going to get hit. They're going to get ran over. They're going to get pushed into the other neighborhoods. It's just going to... Just like everywhere in town. I mean, do you guys live... I don't know if you guys live in town. You probably can't answer my questions. But I don't know if you live in that neighborhood. This guy's traffic study behind me is complete bogus. There is so much traffic. If I take my son to school in the morning, the roundabout at 7-11 will be backed all the way down Lake Gulch easily a quarter mile. You can't even see the end of the cars all the way up Plum Creek. Down Plum Creek to I-25 is backed up to the fairgrounds. So the bogus traffic study is nonsense. I mean, I hope you guys are actually looking into this stuff rather than just listening to what this guy has to say. and taking it for the truth. Because I live there. I see it every single day. I take my kid to school. I just really hope you guys consider this stuff. We all voted for you, right? There's going to be votes again, so hopefully you guys take into consideration. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm really not. But hopefully you guys take into consideration. I haven't heard one person in here that says, hey, this is a great idea. Let's do it. I mean, so thank you guys. Thank you for your time. Appreciate you.

Thank you, Matthew. Thank you. I appreciate the apology. Yep. Thank you. Jennifer Reed.

Good evening. My name is Jennifer Reed. I've been a resident, we moved back 12 years ago. I'm a teacher over at Mason Middle School as well, and I live right at the intersection of Valley and Santana. As Mayor Pro Tem Cavey so adeptly noticed, the open space mentioned in the presentation will be a concrete corridor of an existing creek bed. It will not be true open space that will allow plants to flourish naturally, animals to travel, or even burrow. The locations of the, quote, open spaces are the only areas that Mr. Hall would not be able to build due to the floodplains. It's curious. If you come out to our neighborhood, you'll see the plan and the presentation are designed to highlight the supposed gives, but they do not acknowledge the reality of the land intended to be developed. The aforementioned PUD that bumps up against the 12 buildings there will exacerbate the flooding concerns of that drainage area right off of Sierra. At Councilman Davis's open house, the development director said that building a huge retaining wall instead of leveling that area, that ridge, she said that a retaining wall might be possible the same way that they're doing it at the top of Valley, although it would be engineering, it would be very difficult and therefore costly and unlikely to happen. I hope that you will consider looking into that possibility because as an alternative to just leveling it when Valley goes through, we would much rather have a retaining wall than have the entire area leveled. In terms of traffic, I'd like to mention the children. I invite anyone to come down to the end of North Valley on any Sunday afternoon to watch the absolutely feral troop of children, and minor included, that make use of the neighbor-owned basketball hoop. We're a neighborhood trapped in the 1990s. We're filled with laughter and people who shovel each other's snowy drives out in the winter without a second thought. Connecting Valley will fundamentally change our very way of life, and I don't know that it's avoidable. I know it was in the master plan, but as this plan as written is discussed, I hope that this will be considered. There are also homes that open directly onto Valley, similarly to the way they do Gilbert. So anybody who drives down Gilbert, you know the driveways open straight on there, and it's difficult, there are homes on Valley that do the very same. So I absolutely agree with the gentleman who expressed concerns about the traffic volume on Valley, as it will become an equivalent street to that of Gilbert, a street on which no child can play. We understand that the land is privately owned and will be sold. We understand that it was zoned for homes 43 years ago. We understand the Castle Rock is incredible, and as people want to move here, that growth is inevitable. In the last five years of neighborhood meetings, we've asked for compromises from the developers, such as widened buffers for existing homes, because 30 feet still allows potential neighbors to see what they're each eating for dinner. It should be noted that there was an error in the numbers provided about the buffer as it did not account for the five feet of setback. That's a 25 feet of true buffer in some areas. We've asked for the reduction of density to alleviate pressures on the water and the traffic, both challenges that we already are faced with. Ms. Vargish said that there was a reduction from 423 homes to 402 homes. That's 21 homes, a reduction of 4.9%. Less than 5% is not a give. That's an upcharge that was built into the original plan so that pointing it out today might feel like there was a win. On the flip side, there was a commitment to transplant the 100 trees, and that number has been reduced to 60, although Ms. Vargish now says that it was a typo. We've asked for larger custom lots so that Mr. Hall and Chateau Valley can keep or even increase their profit margins while reducing some of these concerning impacts. And at every turn, I personally have printed the flyers.

Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate it. Perry, I'm not sure what your last name is, Perry.

Hello, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Terry Bay. That's how the last name is pronounced. Lived in Cass Rock for over 30 years. We live on Sandhurst Drive. Our house backs up to the proposed development. I'm going to second what a lot of people have said already. But first, I want to commend you on the council for your commitment to preserving open space. Things like Lost Canyon Ranch and other places that you have purchased. Some of these properties were zoned originally for business, and the town has purchased them. So I'm encouraging you to consider doing that for this whole property, not just part of it. This is a unique piece of land in Castle Rock. It's right in the middle of town. It's a natural area.

It's surrounded. Is open space in the central part of the town is psychologically good for everyone. I was just in New York running around Central Park. If the New Yorkers didn't have Central Park, They'll probably be crazier than they are now. But you have to protect the open space in the central part of town. And so having 10,000 planned housing units right now on the slate that are approved right in the town limits of Castle Rock, why do you need 400 more smack dab in the center? OK, as far as traffic. I was here basically when Valley Drive was planned. And it's a dead end. If it would have been punched through when we had 3,000 people when it was planned, who cares? No problem. If we reach 130,000 like we're supposed to, Who knows what's going to happen to traffic? I kind of relate it to the movie Jurassic Park. You know, life finds a way. Well, I think traffic is the same way. Traffic will find a way to clog up that street. And here's the thing about cut-through traffic. It doesn't only affect people that are cutting through on Valley Drive or South Street or the other ones that are being punched through. If Valley Drive gets congested, the cut-through traffic will go through the smaller traffic streets in the neighborhood like mine, Gordon Drive. They'll figure out, oh, that's a horseshoe. I can skirt around all this congestion around 5 o'clock that's happening or whatever. And we'll have dangerous cut-through traffic, just like one of the guys just mentioned, where the kids play, where people ride bikes, where people are just out and about. That's dangerous, that kind of cut-through traffic. People that come through those neighborhoods who don't live there, they're in a hurry. So anyway. I had a lot more, but I guess I'm about it. Thank you very much for your time and for listening to us. Thank you, Larry. Next, I have Nikki Hoy.

Thrilled to be here. mayor and council people. I live at the end of Valley on Hover Drive. And we've been there for about eight years. I've lived in Douglas County since, let's see, about 1988, something like that. And I have worked in the county for the last, well, When I retired, I had worked for the county for 20 years in the assessor's office. And we have lots of maps. We don't have subdivision maps, though. But I've seen a lot of maps in my day. And the first meeting that we had here, a developer had a map of all the surrounding area of this development. And I got up and I said, All the surrounding lots around your development are much larger than what you're putting in that area. And that's my concern. I have a very... Big concern of the amount of houses there, and that's already been addressed. But see the tiny little ones down there? I would assume that those are the duplexes. Our duplexes, right before, right when you get, well, it's along South Street and it's down Valley, we have duplexes. that have a front yard, a good-sized front yard, a good-sized backyard, there's no shred of grass at all where those duplexes are, unless he has a plan that he can explain to you better than what I can see on that. But it's pretty dense for what the surrounding area is, and that is my complaint. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Nikki. Next, I have Vicenzo Alessandro. Was I close?

Yes, very good. Excellent. Good evening, honorable mayor and honorable members of the council. This is a very large and it will impact the amount of density without a clear evidence that our infrastructure, water supply, traffic, and public safety can observe this development. Take the example of traffic. Our own town transportation plan already shows congestion on Founders Parkway, Crowfoot Valley, and Meadows Parkway. Adding 400 plus homes would surely add to my estimate 4,000 plus daily traffic going through these areas. This will definitely affect the quality of life that we enjoy here in Castle Rock. So I will urge the member of the council that we do independent study to find out how this traffic will impact the quality of life that we enjoy currently. Take the issue of water. We are a water-constrained community, rely heavily on non-renewable groundwater, an expensive renewable water project. Have we verified that the long-term impact of it, and this will automatically, to my judgment, will rise the water rate for those of us who already live here. Public safety, so that would be the police, the fire department, emergency medical services. Staffing level already stretched to the point that can we really observe the additional burden that strain our resources. Can we still maintain the standard we set about response time for public safety? And finally, the community characteristic. Density growth always strain our roads, school, and utility. So I would respectfully ask that you postpone this project from approving and have independent studies in all three major issues. That is public safety, water, and quality of our life. I would greatly appreciate your consideration. Thank you for listening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. Thank you.

Thank you, Vicenzo. Scott Ricks.

Thank you for letting me speak. I do have a couple concerns. Everybody's brought it up. As far as the traffic, the traffic, I live off of Ash. I don't know if anybody's been up on Ash or those neighborhoods up there, but we don't have an HOA where we can actually park on the street. People park their vehicles on the side of the roadway. The sidewalks are only two feet in length and width, I mean. If you have a car on both sides, there's only 22 feet of roadway to actually travel. So increasing all that traffic from that neighborhood through those side streets because they weren't designed for that. Now we're going to push more traffic through there. That's very concerning to me. I have a child I know that went to Mesa Middle School. She didn't even have a bus that was consistent that would actually pick her up. She had to actually ride her scooter five miles there and back. And then you're going to increase that traffic and my child's going to be riding on those sidewalks and roadways and everything else with that increased traffic. That concerns me. okay these are my concerns and worries with this um i just i urge you to really think about how many homes you're putting in there and how much traffic you're going to push through these roadways that are not designed to have that amount of flow of traffic and just like the other gentleman said if there's a will away as far as if there's clogs in one of these major roadways they're going to try to find shortcuts if people are going to try to go around it And then they start pushing them through the neighborhoods, and it becomes even more dangerous for the children. What the other thing is, we thought about, like you said, public safety response times, that increasing the police force as well as the fire department. What's the response time now? It's like eight minutes for priority one calls. I mean, is that going to increase with all these developments coming in? And are we going to grow as a community and actually have more law enforcement? These are the things I'm concerned with. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Scott. Raven Fowler.

Hi, thank you for your time, council. I really appreciate it. Me and my husband live on Sandhurst Drive. We're Terry's neighbor. So we're at the very bottom of that site development plan. The entire development plan is behind our home. And I would invite all of you to walk down Sandhurst Drive. Because like Terry mentioned, our home backs up to this plan. But what he didn't mention is that our properties are built into this land. So in my backyard, I have a small backyard and over a six-foot retainer wall. And then that property begins. So when you talk about a 30-foot buffer, when you talk about a 100-foot buffer, you're talking about someone living, towering over me, towering over Terry, towering over the neighbors to my right. So yes, I'm worried about traffic. I'm worried about water. But I'm worried about my privacy. That means the neighbor behind me, they would see into my backyard. They would see into my master bedroom. They would see into my kitchen. They would see into my living room. They would see into every major communal space in my home. on every floor but the basement. That's a huge invasion of privacy. So I ask for each of you to think about the privacy in your own homes and how much that is worth to you and how you would feel to sit in your living room, which has these beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows that you loved when you walked into the home. It was the absolute selling point. But now you're an animal on display in your own home. So that's all I have to say. I will also echo the other concerns here in this room. But if homes have to be built, I'm very

I know at one of the meetings when Tara was asked what she personally would do if she were faced with a situation like we find ourselves in, the director of development herself answered, she told my friend simply that she wouldn't, that she would just move away. While I'm happy that she has the economic strength to just up and leave, for many of us living around this parcel of land in some of the oldest neighborhoods in the town, in small paired homes on the north side or homes with a long history of memories on the south, most of us are not in such a privileged position to do so. Mr. Hall's categorization of these $600,000 homes as being affordable housing is out of touch of the vast majority of the people in this room. And while town abandonment is an option, this is our home and we don't want to leave. And so we ask you please for your consideration or time. I feel so encouraged to hear wonderfully reasonable suggestions about buying a piece of this land to preserve the ridge, to increase the buffer. AS YOU CONTINUE TO CONSIDER AS YOU CONTINUE TO CONSIDER THIS PROPOSAL, WE ASK THAT THIS PROPOSAL, WE ASK THAT YOU CONSIDER NOT THOSE WHO NOW YOU CONSIDER NOT THOSE WHO NOW LIVE IN TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA LIVE IN TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA AND DENVER, BUT TO VOTE WITH AND DENVER, BUT TO VOTE WITH FIDELITY TO THE CURRENT RESIDENTS FIDELITY TO THE CURRENT RESIDENTS AND TAXPAYERS OF THE TOWN OF AND TAXPAYERS OF THE TOWN OF CASTLE ROCK, THE RESIDENTS OF CASTLE ROCK, THE RESIDENTS OF THE SOUTH RIDGE TOWNHOME THE SOUTH RIDGE TOWNHOME NEIGHBORHOODS, GLOVERS AND NEIGHBORHOODS, GLOVERS AND BALD

I'd like to ask if I've skipped over somebody, because I do not have anything else for number 16 in this. If I have skipped you over, please come to the front. Seeing that I have not skipped over anybody, I will bring it back to town council for a possible motion. Max Brooks.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. I want to be very clear about the motion I'm about to make. I don't think I articulated correctly, so let me just make sure that I'm clarifying. When I spoke earlier about looking at acquisition of property, specifically the area that sits to the existing open space, it was not to imply that the town would look at purchasing the entirety of the Chateau Valley development. So if I led anybody to believe that, I apologize. Not my intention, nor will that be the intent of the motion I'm about to make. I would like to make a motion to explore property acquisition, both for that adjacent piece that is south of the existing open space, but then also the areas in the existing forested area proposed in the Chateau Valley development. And let me just, I'm sorry, let me just add that I want to ask town staff to explore the various mechanisms that they have available to them. I believe that collaboration begins with communication. And I think that there's a path forward here. However, I want to make sure that we're using all options available to us up to including possible condemnation or other options. Thank you.

I would like to make a friendly amendment. My friendly amendment is that we direct town staff and Dave to look at every possible available option, whether it's Douglas County, whether it's a Nature Conservancy, whether it's money from the Colorado Lottery, to buy this entire property, all of Mem and Young, not just the part that Max Brooks was speaking about, and permanently put it in a Nature Conservancy forever and ever. Amen.

Please, please, thank you.

Max. Mr. Mayor, thank you. I believe that that would probably serve as best as a separate motion, honestly. So then that way, those are two separate, those are two separate distinct efforts. And I don't want necessarily to tie them together if one should not be successful.

So Dave and Mike,

All we need is a second on that, and then you could then make a motion following that afterwards. There is no second on this motion right now.

Okay.

Second. I have a first from Councilmember Brooks, second from Councilmember Davis. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Councilmember Hollingshead? Yes. Councilmember Bracken? Yes. Councilmember Davis?

Yes.

Councilmember Brooks?

Aye.

Councilmember Dietz?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Cavey? Yes. Mayor Gray?

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

I'd like to make a motion to continue this property and this resolution 2026-98 to the first meeting in January. And I'd like to speak on the motion.

Second.

I have a first for myself and a second from Councilmember Dietz. And we all can speak on this as well. I want to say a few things. First, thank you very much. It was very respectful. It was very clear. And everyone here behaved really, really well. And I really appreciate the decorum. Second, there's a few things I wanted to talk about. One is there's been mention of no growth. There's a state statute actually that won't allow no growth, so that's hard. I also truly believe in landowner's rights, and although this was done in 1983, it's still landowner's rights. But I also have other issues with this property. I don't think the buffering is enough. I feel like one of the things we did was dissimilar homes and dissimilar uses. I think this might fall into dissimilar. Even though there are single-family homes going in both places, I think that they are dissimilar enough. Also, I'd like to direct staff to see how much land they can get. I think that we should get as much land as we can. I'm not saying that we have to get all of it. That would be fantastic. But I want to see if we can get land back. I'd like to see those buffers being much better. You know, a lot of you guys don't know, I do live in Young American. I live in the neighborhood. We have an unwritten rule in Young American. We never call authorities for bears. Someone had mentioned the signs. The signs for new developments or anything like that has to go next to the property. That's where it goes. Otherwise, you'd think that if it was near the road, like Gilbert Street, you would think that maybe it was the houses behind it. So there's a reason and a rationale for a lot of these things. But I would like... this development to go back to drawing board, sharpen its pencils, and do a little better job. Council Member Dietz, followed by Mayor Portemcay.

I agree, there's a lot of work left to do here. There's a lot of aspects that need to be looked at. I think some of you maybe remember me campaigning through your neighborhood, because that does fall in District 6. I think that there's just more common sense that needs to be done here. So I'm looking forward to future discussion. I'll leave it at that.

Thank you. Councilmember Brooks and Van Damme? Or the opposite? Okay.

Brooks and then Katie. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Echo the comments that you had made as far as, you know, the connections, limited connections. I think it's a fantastic start. Buffering, setbacks. I think there's a lot still to look at. So I think I'm in favor of this motion and moving it to after January. I wanted to speak to kind of how that plays into the motion that you had made or that you were thinking about making, Mayor Pro Tem, that that does give us a little bit of time also there to see what can be done before potentially bringing your motion back as well. So I don't think it necessarily takes that off the table. I think it does give staff a little bit of time to be able to kind of work and get some feedback as well. So thank you.

I do agree with most of the comments up here. I have lived here since 2007. I am District 2, which is terrain, and we've seen obviously a lot of growth there. That is actually why I ran for council in 2020, is because I care about my community and I care about what was going on in the community. And I definitely believe in responsible growth. I was out on this property, at least the edge of it, not on it this weekend, but around on the Memmon Young part of it, and it's an absolutely beautiful piece of property, and I would definitely strongly ask that town staff, Dave, Mike, that we look to see how much of this property we can acquire, if not all of it, in any means necessary in terms of coming up with the funding to buy the property holistically. I think there's so many challenges with where this property is, where it sits, setbacks, the streets that come through, the traffic. Not a lot of you are here all the time, but I constantly am talking about what do we do about the traffic in town. It's definitely something that's at the forefront of my mind all of the time. I think that we need to do whatever we can to preserve as much of this property as possible. I think it preserves the character of Castle Rock. I think this is why a lot of us moved here is because we love these things about Castle Rock. And I want to continue to see Castle Rock be Castle Rock. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Bracken.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I'd just like to make a few comments about some of the things that I heard. So Mr. Oster, the one with the really high water bill, I know that the Water Department is committed to trying to investigate and make sure that they make you as best as they can from their perspective. So we did get that commitment from the Water Department before this meeting. And I would imagine that you... would be able to enlist your neighbor as well to find out what's actually happening on the block there with the really high bill. And just a point of clarification, I asked Mr. Marlowe during the drought and the connection to that if we have enough water for the town and the future developments. So I didn't make that statement. Mr. Marlowe made the statement that we have the water for the future projects. So just to be clear, right? So what I love about this group that's in the room is the historical homes and the folks that have lived here and that really care about the town.

If you're going to leave, please make your way out. Move on to advertised public hearing discussion action items. Public comment will be taken for limited to four minutes per speaker. Number 17, resolution 2026-99, resolution of the Town Council of Castle Rock, Colorado, expressing the support for Colorado Initiative 109, male and female participation in school and collegiate sports, also known as the Protect Women and Girls Sports Act, Proposition 134. David.

Mayor and council, in discussions with council members, you've indicated that you would like to have a resolution of support for this initiative. As it went through the initiative process, it was labeled Colorado Initiative 109. As it's going to appear on the ballot, it will be Proposition 134. So there's a little bit of change in numbering. There's no change in the initiative language that you also have in your packet materials. This is a resolution of support, and it goes into a number of different issues, and you can read that as you believe is appropriate. I'm happy to respond to any questions. Again, under Colorado law, citizens can initiate a state law or even in some cases, an amendment to the Constitution. In this case, a state law, as opposed to relying on the General Assembly to enact a law. In this case, this initiative would speak toward the issue of male and female participation in school and collegiate sports. And if it is adopted by a majority of the citizens in November, which is what the resolution encourages support for, it would then become the law of Colorado. So I'm happy to respond to any questions. You've got the resolution. You've got the initiative language in front of you as well. Any questions for Dave?

We spoke... a lot about this already, so I do appreciate Council's comments on this in meetings. I do have several people signed up to speak. I got to apologize ahead of time because in all the shuffle in the paper, I'm not sure who signed up first and last and all that kind of stuff, but I will get to everybody who signed up. First, I have Anya Zavadil.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. Anya Zavadil, resident of Castle Rock, and frequent flyer here at these meetings. First of all, I notice this is not something you do very often, number one. Number two, it doesn't seem very important to the residents of Castle Rock. I just saw this room empty out. It feels a little bit like support for some of your friends' pet projects that affects 1% of the population. and not really in your purview. So just calling that out for what it is. I know how you'll vote. I know where this will go. I'm just going to say it out loud. Thanks.

Thank you, Anya. Next, I have Amy Wenzhou.

Hi, good evening, Council, and Mayor Gray, I want to say I'm sorry to hear of your passing of your friend from breast cancer. That's something I can relate to. My mother and sister passed away from that, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor. So thank you for that. I appreciate the Town Council presenting this this evening. I think most of us in this room are old enough to where we can appreciate what it took for women and girls to play sports. I think it wasn't until about 1972 that women had the right to play in sports. And it took a couple decades until late 80s, 90s, to where sports teams became a thing. So I do want to say that I sincerely appreciate this. As a woman, I just want to say thank you. So thank you all. I hope every single one of you vote for this.

Thank you. Next I have Matt Smith.

Hey, good evening, everyone. Really happy to see this here. I think it's very important as a community that we take a stand on things like this and we show the community where we stand and the values that we present here. This is something that actually affects all women and all girls, especially in a school setting. Whenever biological males are allowed to join their sports teams, take their opportunities, enter their private spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms, There's probably no one in this room that's had more direct conversations with voters in Douglas County about this exact issue than me. I spent several months last year literally knocking on doors and talking about this very issue. So this is something that a lot of people in Douglas County, a lot of folks in Castle Rock are concerned about. And so it is something that we should take a stand on. And we should vote yes for. This is not something where we need a lot of studies. This is just common sense. This is not about putting anyone down for how they choose to live their life. It's just we cannot expect society to roll out the red carpet and allow people to invade private spaces, bathrooms, restrooms, sports, take away opportunities from women, from girls. This is dangerous. And we need to make sure that we're protecting and making sure that biological males are not entering their spaces. And so I really am happy to see this here tonight, and I really hope that this is a common sense yes vote from everybody up here. I've personally signed all three petitions and have personally committed to all of these. So again, this is a no-brainer for me, just common sense. And I won't take up a lot of your time. It's pretty late. And I'm kind of hungry. So yeah. Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate the time. Thank you, Matt.

Next, I have Jimmy Graham.

Good evening. My name is Jimmy Graham. I'm a veteran U.S. Navy SEAL. I'm a protective officer, means a professional protector for the CISGRS program for overseas protectors. So I kind of know what I'm talking about. More than that, I'm a father of four, and I wear the proud title of girl dad. It's a big deal to me. So yes, the people of Cass Rock do actually care about their daughters, meaning our future, meaning our children. So it is a big deal. Welcome to September, by the way. So September 1st. September to me means Charlie Kirk, It means New York City. It means Benghazi, Libya, my team that was killed in Benghazi. And it also means national preparedness month. We have to be prepared for what's coming. This isn't like this flash in the pan. People can be as crazy as they want to be. We can't go with them. So if people want to say foolishness and make up, if you want to try to create a non-war against safe people so you can call yourself a warrior, it doesn't really fly with me. That word means something to me. To do something honorable, to have, we can't control the nation here, but you do have authority over what happens in this town. this nation is kind of losing its mind but we could show them how to do better i truly believe that right now by the decisions that we make in this town the silliness that happened when people are cutting off kids genitalia is already coming back and saying this is absolutely catastrophic to our future it is absolutely shameful so you can make up silly words like same sex and marriage and try to put them together it doesn't make it true that's not what that means Biblically. So in a world where the WNBA can put up welcome trans signs on the big screen and then censor people for wearing an XXXY t-shirt. They're already trying to retract it but they did it. And it's shameful that we saw it and our kids saw it. So it is time that we stop fighting just for freedom. I want to be free to have sex with whoever I want. I want to be free to groom children so that I can have sex with them. If it's not freedom, fight for the truth. If you're going to fight for something, fight for the truth. Because the truth will set and keep Douglas County and Castle Rock free. Not some freedom that you made up. That's just the truth. It's time to look at it. Not Jimmy's truth. Not your truth. The truth under God. Like, well, we can't get religious. Well, it is religious. Let's not get political. Political means the policies that govern our lives. There's the policy that governs my life, and it's the policy that made the nation that I love. And if you don't like that, that's okay. There's plenty of countries to live in. It's just the truth, and it's time to grow a pair and stand for what is true. We must do that. Again, I stood, people don't care about this really because I stood in three years ago. I went to Douglas County Fairground and 70 men joined me and said, not here, not here, right? And thank you if you stood there. Thank you if you did something honorable. You can't do something dishonorable and call it honorable. And your kids are watching, people shaking their children saying, aren't you scared? Aren't you scared? Look at them. I'd be scared too if my mom was shaking me and she was crazy. I would say I don't recommend it. And there needs to be a sustainable future. And adults have to come in the room and say, guys, we're not playing. You guys know this. It's not like I'm educating you and saying, hey, what is a man? What is a woman? You can check yourself. I'll give you a second. This is an easy definition. So we can look at that. So you can make up your own titles if you wish. It's just harmful to communities. So I would recommend that we... Search and say, what is good and right? Somebody told me that. That's bad drag. That was an example of bad drag. What's good? Because good equals godly. That's what the word means. What is godly drag in your estimation? And if you're afraid to say it, why are you here? I think that we should get healthy people and then elect people that can represent healthy people, maybe even call them representatives, and then maybe give them the responsibility to make decisions for a community. That would be a great idea. And maybe if they could hold fast to that kind of integrity while they move up the chain all the way to D.C., we could fix this overnight. But you have to make a decision for your kids and grandkids. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you. I appreciate you guys.

Clifford.

Thank you, and thank you for having this meeting. I'm a proud father of three children. Two of my children are young ladies. And I ask myself, and you should ask yourself as well, why are these girls under attack? It's time to protect girls' sports. May I ask you, and you should ask yourself as well, what has happened to children's safety, physically and mentally? This is about taking dreams away from young ladies that trained very hard and put their heart and soul into their sports. to either lose to a biological boy or possibly get hurt as we've seen many times in the past. Or just to lose the trophy after they've practiced so hard for a competitor that shouldn't be in the same league. I ask you what's happened to women's rights? And I believe the right decision will be made and We need to be steadfast and protect the children, and this should be a non-issue. And thank you for your time.

Thank you, Clifford. Dana Bonham?

Good evening, Mayor Gray, Town Council. Can I just say, first of all, what a pleasure it was listening to all of those long-term residents of Castle Rock and how much they love living here. I just enjoyed that. But I'm here tonight as a Castle Rock resident to speak in favor of this resolution. I support Initiative 109, Prop 134, the Protect Girls Sports Act, because I believe girls in our community deserve a fair and safe playing field in school, and collegiate athletics. For me, this comes down to fairness and common sense. When teams are divided by male and female categories, those categories should mean something. Our daughters, granddaughters, neighbors and classmates should not lose opportunities, roster spots, championships or scholarships because the rules ignore biological differences. I also see this resolution as part of a broader effort by the Protect Kids Colorado team. Their other ballot measures include the Children Are Not For Sale Act, which addresses child exploitation and strengthens penalties for sex trafficking, and the Protect Kids From Irreversible Sex Change Surgery Act, which seeks to protect minors from irreversible decisions before adulthood. As someone who cares deeply about the future of our children and families, I believe these measures put kids first, respect parents, and give Colorado voters a clear voice on issues that matter. I urge this council not only to support this resolution, but also to consider expressing support for the other initiatives I have mentioned and to stand with families seeking common sense protection for kids. Thank you.

Thank you, Dana. Next I have Patty McKernan. Close.

Good evening. I am not a Castle Rock resident, but I am on the board of Protect Kids Colorado. And I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to look at this resolution and pass this resolution tonight. I know that when I grew up in Lakewood, I had an intramural sports experience where the gym teacher let the boys take over the basketball game. And that was the way it was in the 70s and the late 60s. We had to fight our way to be able to have sports. And so we have a situation today where people think, well, why do we even have to do this? I have traveled the entire state helping and getting the signatures that we had to get on the ballot or on the petitions to get on the ballot. And I had one young girl in Pueblo who told me that she went to a volleyball tournament. No, I'm sorry, she went to a wrestling tournament. And she had to wrestle a 14-year-old boy who said that he was a girl. So we are having these things happen. They don't necessarily happen in Douglas County. But if they're happening in other parts of the state, they're going to come here too. And that's the whole reason why we have to do this. Every person I speak to says, why do we even have to do this? It's an 80 or 90% favorable issue. And I really appreciate that you would consider doing it tonight. And thank you very much.

Thank you, Patty. Keith Novak.

Good evening.

Hello again. It's been a couple of years. I'll try to keep the decorum. Mayor Gray and I exchanged some emails afterwards, and I learned my lesson. I'll behave tonight. Regardless of the merits of the ballot initiative itself and the content of that initiative, I don't believe the town should make comment on it. I think the voters in November should make the choice. Everyone in Colorado will have a say. Castle Rock does not need to get into culture war topics that will already be on the ballot. Given all the recent council drama around Mr. Davis and quid pro quo, diminishing the quality of character of this town's government, wouldn't the town want to avoid more drama instead of wading into it? We should strive for a town government that works for and protects all of its citizens. For the council members who are using this to get media attention of their November elections, don't you have anything better to do than bully kids? Mayor Gray, is this what you want your legacy to be? Mayor Pro Tem Cavey, you're running for mayor. Is this what the community will expect from you for the next four years? I think we should strive for a better form of government here. And I just want to add unscheduled, unsolicited comment here. I don't appreciate out-of-town actors and agents coming in to influence our town politics. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Keith. Next I have Angela Thomas.

Mayor and members of council, I didn't come here to speak on this topic, but after listening to some of the comments, I felt it important that I speak. I am asking you not to endorse Proposition 134. Regardless of how any one of us intends to vote on this measure, I question why the Town of Castle Rock should take an official position at all. Proposition 134 concerns participation in school and collegiate athletics, It is a statewide policy question being placed before Colorado voters. It is not about Castle Rock roads, water, public safety, development, parks, taxes, or any of the other responsibilities entrusted to this town council. The people sitting before you tonight undoubtedly have different opinions about this issue. So do the residents you represent. An official town endorsement would take the collective voice of Castle Rock and use it to advocate one side of a deeply divisive statewide political and social issue. This is unnecessary and I believe it's inappropriate. There is a larger principle at stake. Local government works best when residents believe their town government belongs to all of them. Republicans, Democrats, unaffiliated voters, conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between. You don't preserve that trust by inserting the town into every controversial issue that appears on a statewide ballot. Individual council members are citizens and voters. You have every right to support Prop 134, oppose it, contribute to a campaign, or speak publicly about your personal views. But the town of Castle Rock is something different. The town should not become a vehicle for advancing political positions on matters outside its municipal responsibilities. And once council establishes that precedent, it becomes difficult to explain why future councils shouldn't endorse statewide measures on abortion, guns, immigration, education, taxation, or any other number of controversial subjects. You don't have to decide tonight whether... 134 is good policy. Colorado voters will make that decision. You only have to decide whether taking an official position on it is proper business for the Castle Rock Town Council. I respectfully submit that it is not. Please leave this decision where it belongs, with the voters of Colorado, and do not endorse Proposition 134. Thank you.

Thank you, Angela. Christopher?

My name is Christopher Waterman. I've lived in Cass Rock. I moved here originally in 1994. I've lived in Douglas County for 32 years. I actually came here to support a friend, my friend Jimmy Graham and some other guys here, and I didn't attend to speak. However, this is a subject that's really dear to my heart because I had a daughter. I actually have three stepdaughters, and my daughter, they're all grown now, they all played volleyball. My daughter, she went to Mountain Vista High School. And she was ranked in the top 18 in the state. She wanted to get a college scholarship. And this is upsetting to me because she actually left this state to raise her kids in another state because of what's going on in the state of Colorado. I couldn't get her to stay in Castle Rock. I wish she would have because you guys are trying to protect women in women's sports. I saw her scrimmage when she played high school volleyball at Mountain Vista. She was fantastic. And they scrimmaged with the boys. The best girls could not keep up with the boys on the B team. Right? And you start bringing in biological boys or men into women's sports, these girls aren't going to play. It's not going to be fair to them. And I'm glad you guys are doing this. I really am. Because protect Castle Rock. A lot of us moved here because we want this type of lifestyle. I don't want whatever else Colorado is doing. The stuff they're doing up there, I don't like it. That's why I lived down here. That's why I lived here for 32 years. I could leave the state, but I love Castle Rock. And I like the government in Castle Rock and what you guys are doing. I appreciate it.

Thanks. Thank you, Christopher. I think I've gone through the list. Please let me know if I've missed you. If I've missed you, please walk to the front and speak. Okay, thank you very much. Oh, sorry.

Hi, I'm Megan Zavadil. I'm a Castle Rock resident. I just want to echo some previous sentiments. This, regardless of my personal opinions on this proposition, School and collegiate sports are not under the purview of town council. You're not in control of school and collegiate sports. So I do not feel it is appropriate to put out an opinion on something that does not affect you as a council. Use your personal lives to do that if you have strong feelings one way or the other. Thank you.

Thank you, Megan. We'll now bring it back to town council for a possible discussion and motion.

Move to approve resolutions introduced by title. Second.

Third. I have a first from Max Brooks, a second from Councilmember Dietz. Would anybody like to speak upon this? Go ahead. Sorry. Councilmember Bracken.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So this is a resolution. And so it's showing our support. And me personally, I'm probably the one that was affected the most by Title IX. They eliminated my wrestling program my senior year in college. And it was a legislative decision that was put into place in 1971. The athletic directors had not moved towards equality for the gender sports. And the long story short on it is they mucked it up really bad. And they started eliminating men's programs over women's programs. That was protecting women. back in the day. And I think it was the right thing to do. Pat Summitt was the all-time great women's basketball coach. I sat with lunch with her because I literally went on tour to three different states to talk on behalf of changing and amending the Title IX ruling. and sat with Pat Summitt and she said, we literally were sitting in the basketball court and they came by and pulled the plug and turned the lights off on us. And I said, Pat, you're turning the lights off on us. and they eliminated our wrestling program and they decimated several colleges throughout the country. So I'm giving you this long story to say that if it's protecting girls and women in the same spirit of what the law was in 1971, whether it was implemented right, good or bad, I'm in support of it. It's almost the same type of thing that happened in in 1971 with title ix and um and i'm very passionate about it um and if i have an opinion to uh to offer from uh from my seat i just did and i will thank you thank you further discussion customer brooks

Mr. Mayor, thank you. I want to address a couple of things. It is absolutely routine for this body to weigh in on legislative items. We do it all the time. We will take positions on items of state legislator that we want to say, hey, we support or we do not support it. That is quite routine. That is quite normal. Now, I would like to remind everybody that this ended, it began, as a state legislative item. This was HB 26-1083, Protect Female Sports Act, by Representative Scott Bottoms. It was assigned to the State Civic and Military Veterans Affairs Committee, where it died on party line vote. That's important to understand. There is a mathematical imbalance in our state legislature. Typically, it doesn't matter if it's red that has a bunch of people or if it's blue that has a bunch of people. I will tell you that state government, any government, is going to work better when it is more even. The legislators have to work together to find policy that works for everybody. This is a representation that that system is failing. This is a grassroots effort to show that system is failing. 124,238 votes are needed to put an item on the ballot. There were three state legislative items that all failed. Those were referenced a little bit earlier. They are all back on the ballot as 134, I'm sorry, 133, 134, and 135. 124,000 we needed to get on the ballot. Each of these exceeded 170,000. There was very little money really spent on this effort. What does that tell you? It tells me that there are a lot of folks out there that are saying enough is enough. There are a lot of folks out there that say, let's put this on the state ballot because you know what? Folks up there at the state capitol aren't necessarily representing us the way that we feel that we should be represented. So let's let the voters decide. This is grassroots. This is democracy. This is fantastic in terms of what we're supposed to be supporting here. And we do it all the time. I urge you that when the legislative session begins January 11, 2027, we'll give it about a week or so, We'll have legislative updates that I just know that staff is so looking forward to coming up and giving. They will ask us to take positions, yes or no, on those. Pay attention to that. This is very common. I will tell you that I do believe that is absolutely the charge of this body. for a municipality to protect women to protect children absolutely because so goes the state of colorado as goes douglas county as goes castle rock it is a castle rock issue absolutely i'll be voting yes thank you thank you councilmember deets david

Mayor, Council, we probably need to extend the meeting.

Is there a motion to extend the meeting?

To the conclusion of the agenda.

I have a first from Council Member Bracken and a second from Council Member Hollingshead. Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Hollingshead. Yes. Council Member Bracken. Yes. Council Member Davis.

Yes.

Council Member Brooks.

Aye.

Council Member Dietz. Yes. Mayor Pretemkevi. Yes. Mayor Gray. Aye. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Move on to Council Member Dietz.

Men play in men's sports. Women play in women's sports. I'm a citizen here, and I worked real hard to get elected for a lot of good purposes in Castle Rock. And this one is absolutely simple. There's two sexes. Play in your own sport. It's that simple. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member, Mayor Porch, I'm Katie.

You know, as the only woman that sits up here on council, I can certainly talk to it in a different perspective. I don't have daughters. I have boys. But I have family members that have daughters. And as a woman who did play sports, I did play volleyball way back in the day when I was young. That wouldn't have been fair. That wouldn't have been right. And I certainly don't want males in locker rooms with girls. They should have safe spaces for themselves. And they should have places where they belong and places where they can go play sports and be successful on their own merits. You know, I know what it would be like to be in that situation where I'm competing against a biological male or I had a biological male in my bathroom or in my space or in my locker room, and that is just completely unacceptable. So I'll be voting yes.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Any further discussion? Councilmember Davis. I just want to make it short and sweet.

But we all know that there's two sexes. You can be a boy or a girl. There's boy sports, girl sports, co-ed sports. That's great. But I think if it turns into a trans community thing, start a trans league. Start running against whoever you want. I think, you know, I'm a man of three daughters. I'm going to protect my kids. And as a councilman, I'm going to protect other people's kids. So we all know that this is a common sense, easy yes. So I'm going to be voting yes as well.

Any further discussion? Just real fast, I know this doesn't happen often. It doesn't happen often. It's not wrong that it's 1% or less. But I do believe that boys in sports will beat girls in sports. It is something that doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. And, you know, I've mentioned this before. My wife ran three different sports in college, and she never beat a boy. And I think that it would be unfortunate We were allowing boys and men to participate against women. And with that, roll call vote, please.

Councilmember Hollingshead?

Yes.

Councilmember Bracken? Yes. Councilmember Davis?

Yes.

Councilmember Brooks?

Aye.

Councilmember Dietz?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Cavey? Yes. Mayor Gray? Aye. Motion passes unanimously.

Number 18, Ordinance 2026-27, Ordinance Amending Section 16.08.120 of the Municipal Code regarding land and cash fees dedicated for school purposes.

Mayor?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I know there's... Some question about if I have a conflict of interest on this particular item, and I'd just like to speak to that. I am a high school principal in Douglas County. Work in the district my whole career. Raised my kids here, but unlike Mayor Cavey does, so, you know, properly, she works for a for-profit corporation that gets contracts. I think there's some unique entities. The state of Colorado Douglas County and Douglas County School District, which we have a ton of overlap with. We have partnerships with. And so there may be times where I have a conflict of interest. Somebody mentioned that we voted on the 2024 mill levy, which we did not. But with the 2022 we did. And so yes, I did vote to support something that gave me a raise. In the future, I should recuse myself from those things. That's fair. But we have two council members who are married to teachers. We have a council member who receives a paycheck from the state of Colorado. We may have another council member who may end up getting a paycheck from Douglas County. So we're all connected to these community partners, and there's going to be a lot of overlap with a lot of issues. To me, this is a big, long-term land use and school capital funding issue that we're talking about today. And I would... I need to represent the 12,000 people of the Meadows who have kids and who are vested into this community on this subject. If anyone can connect the dots of how I will get some kind of big bonus from this topic of three acres of land next to Red Hawk or something like that, if I ever get a raise because of this, I'd be happy to donate that raise to someone. But I just feel like this is not the type of it. There will be issues that we all have that are conflicts of interest. I do not believe this is one, so I'm not going to recuse myself. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Brooks.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. I have my own opinions on whether you should or not that don't really matter, honestly. They don't matter. However, I do think that Mr. Hyman, when we're talking about the actual black and white, if there's a very clear conflict, If our legal department felt that way, I just want to make it clear that there are mechanisms by which a member can be forcibly recused. But in my conversations, and I'm going to ask legal to chime in because, again, kind of your opinions in some way about whether you should recuse yourself or not kind of don't matter either. I think from a legal perspective, it does, and I'd like legal to be able to weigh in on that, please.

These are always difficult issues because we live in the gray much of the time. And I think Councilmember Hollingshead is correct in saying that we live in the gray. I have always taken the position in my career that the decision of recusal is the Councilmembers and the Councilmembers alone. And unless there is a clear, clear violation, I will not intercede. It is your call. Each one of you has this call. And I think it's important that it remain with the people who are elected to office.

Thank you, sir. Just for clarification, that was really kind of to support your decision more than anything, not to challenge it, but I just wanted to make sure that the legality of it was answered. Thank you.

Thank you, David.

Mayor and Council, this is the second and final reading on the ordinance that would amend certain parts of the Town Code. I won't go through the presentation in full again given the hour and the issues. I think you understand the provisions of the ordinance. I would make it clear to those that are listening to this for the first time that this doesn't change any of the designations. It establishes a process for the existing designations and future designations where we would be required to have a dialogue not only with the school district as to whether or not that future school site designation continues, but also with the neighborhood so that they would have an opportunity to know about that as well. I'm happy to respond to any questions. You've seen a lot of correspondence. You've seen a number of statements made. I see this as part of the continuing dialogue on that issue.

Dave, I'm going to ask you the same questions I asked at the last meeting because there's people here that didn't attend the last meeting. When we designate or a developer designates property for a school, does that property sit with the town of Castle Rock or does it sit with the school district?

And thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, for the question. I'm going to change a little bit of your wording. I'm going to substitute the word sits with for who has title to.

There we go. Thank you.

And in this case, at all times, the property is titled to the town. Town maintains it, cleans it up, responds to issues on the property, those kinds of things. It mows it, does whatever it needs to do in order to continue to maintain the property that it owns at all times.

And it costs us money, the town and the taxpayers, to maintain those properties.

Yes, it does. I don't want to overemphasize that, but yes, it does. We've got to occasionally mow it, deal with trash, deal with issues on the property. Absolutely.

And then my third question that I asked last time, at any point in Castle Rock history have we ever exchanged any money for property that we own that's designated for a school and given it to the Douglas County School District?

The answer to that question in my research is no. There is $230,000 sitting in an account that was designated for a school at Red Hawk that was collected by the town from the developer of Red Hawk. But other than that, we have never received cash from a developer, and we have never exchanged property except for the purpose when the school district said they were going to build a school on that property, and then we have deeded that property to the school. When I say we, the town council has, as a formal action, has approved the deed for that.

Thank you.

Max Brooks. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Mr. Corliss' question, just clarification, that this ordinance is basically just putting in a motion a mechanism to review each individual property. This is not a blanket review where we're making the decision on all the properties that we have discussed previously. I just want to make sure we're clarifying that each individual property will have its own process. Is that correct?

Councilmember, that is correct. We would sit down with school district, look at that master list, have a discussion with them. Which properties do they see as potential school sites? I think there's some 13 of them. and then start that dialogue. And then if there is a report back to you all, then we would then initiate the discussion about removing the designation on those in which we don't think it's ever going to be used as a school site. And then hopefully concurrent with that, at some time in the future when the school district needs to build a school in Castle Rock, I think we need to have a dialogue about how we can help that school come to fruition in Castle Rock. I think the last school built in the community was 12 years ago. As you know, our growth has significantly slowed down. I didn't get a chance to say that when we had a larger audience this evening. But we've done three single family building permits last month. We're not seeing a lot of growth. We'll see some growth continue in the south part of town. At some point Dawson Trails will grow. We know that the Meadows subdivision, I'm familiar with that. That's taken 40 years to build out. So at some point, when the school district wants to talk about building a school in Castle Rock, I think we would want to be partners in regards to how that might be something we could help in regards to that as well.

So each one of these properties that we have reviewed before that's on your list, each one of them will have its own public hearing item, correct? To where, if it comes to council, will be the opportunity for everybody to come in and give public comment and then the decision.

That is correct, Councilmember. And the predecessor to that will then be a dialogue with the school district about that site. and significantly a notification to the area property owners that this issue is under consideration and when Town Council would be considering it.

Council Member Dietz, followed by Mayor Porton-Cavey.

And simply put, what I liked you said there, Town Manager, was there will be public comment and the public will know what's going on versus it being thrown on low, let's say, a consent calendar. Correct?

I would, yeah, the ordinance provides for a public hearing, which under our process, under our laws, means that it is just that. It's a public hearing. We have that. And then we would need to notify an appropriate level of adjacent property owners, neighboring the neighborhood, that this particular issue was up for consideration. Just wanted to reiterate. Thank you.

Thank you.

One more question, Dave. If a property comes up and we go to the school district and we speak with them and they say, yes, there's still a possibility in the next, say, five years that we might put a school there, then we leave it designated as a possible school and we revisit it. And I'm making up a timeline in five years. Like, we're not doing this... to take property where the school district would eventually want to do a school, correct?

That's how we've tried to design the ordinance in that it continues with that continuing evaluation of the issue.

For example, the school, or the school, I'm sorry, the property that has been there since 1999 in Councilmember Brooks' district, probably very highly unlikely where it's located that there's going to be a school on that property.

I think that's a fair comment. I'd like to hear what the school district says.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions for Dave? I have a handful of people signed up. Again, I apologize because I'm definitely out of order. Angela Thomas, please.

Good evening again. The more I hear about this proposal, the more I believe there is a legitimate problem here that needs to be solved. But recognizing a problem does not automatically mean that the solution before you is the right one. Crystal Valley is a good example of why we need to get this right. Land was identified and dedicated for a future school. Ultimately, that did not happen. And one of the issues that appears to be emerging is that simply dedicating acreage is not enough. School land has to actually be suitable for building a school. A parcel can look adequate on a development plan and still presents problems because of topography, infrastructure, access, grading costs, or other site constraints. If developers are satisfying their obligation by dedicating land that the school district cannot reasonably or economically use, then yes, we have a problem. BUT I'M NOT CONVINCED THE ANSWER IS SIMPLY TO MOVE AWAY FROM THE CURRENT SYSTEM. THE BIGGEST ISSUE I SEE HERE IS COORDINATION. CASTLE ROCK APPROVES DEVELOPMENT. DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS TO PLAN FOR THE STUDENTS WHO COME WITH THAT DEVELOPMENT. DEVELOPERS KNOW WHAT LAND THEY'RE PROPOSING TO DEDICATE. Those three parties need to be communicating before a development agreement locks everyone into a site that may not work. We shouldn't be deciding years later that the land wasn't suitable. Before changing the system, I'd like to know why the existing process failed in Crystal Valley. When did the district determine the site wasn't workable? Did the town know? Did the developer know? And what safeguards could have prevented it? Growth creates children. Children require schools. And those needs should be addressed as part of planning for growth, not after the neighborhoods are built. There's a problem here we're solving. I'm simply asking council to make sure we are solving the right problem in the right way. And the town and the school district are talking to each other before those decisions are made. Thank you.

Thank you, Angela. Tony Ryan?

Good evening. While I'm here today in my role as a school board director, I'm also a Castle Rock resident. I was incredibly fortunate to go to school through the DCSD system. I went to Larkspur Elementary School, then I went to Castle Rock Middle School, then I went to Castle View High School when it was brand new. As you can imagine, I spent a large portion of my life right here in Castle Rock. There's not much to do out in the forest of Larkspur if you are a teenager. I can remember when the library was where DC Oaks is housed today. I can remember when we had two blockbusters. Rest in peace. While I loved my school experiences, I had to adapt to some very long bus rides. to get to and from school. My family chose to live in Larkspur and wanted the spread out neighborhood that offered. Not having a middle and high school nearby was part of the experience. That was expected. The plan for my family is different. My wife and I live in Terrain. Sage Canyon Elementary is a straight shot out our front door. Our children will have short bus rides to Mesa and D.C. Part of the reason we live where we do is that the neighborhood has an elementary school at its center. As an aside, Sage Canyon was the last one built in Castle Rock that Town Manager Corliss was talking about. That's also the last one built in the district until the two that are set to open next year. That is due to the school board refusing to ask for bond initiatives to build needed schools here. That is why there's not a neighborhood school in Crystal Valley right now. Under this proposed ordinance, families in the Castle Rock area will be limited to the current neighborhood schools. Some of the fastest growing neighborhoods in Castle Rock do not have an elementary school. Crystal Valley, as we know, Dawson's Trail. These are not areas like the forest that is Larkspur. These are neighborhood developments where families expect to have conveniences nearby, such as grocery stores, banks, gas stations. My wife and I are very excited for the Costco. This ordinance is unduly focused on the short term when it comes to providing these same neighborhoods and families with access to neighborhood schools. While I understand the driving force behind the ordinance, my in-laws live right next to the land in Castlewood Ranch. So I've seen that property. I've been seeing it forever with the sign up that says there's a future high school. I have significant concerns with the ordinance and the impact on Castle Rock students and families. Strong schools are not just a school district concern. They enhance the community's desirability and are an integral part of economic development for our county. They also serve as community connection points. They educate our future residents. I serve as a board liaison on our Long Range Planning Committee. The Long Range Planning Committee analyzes population trends, school facility utilization and needs, and makes recommendations to the board related to school capacity and new school site locations. Members of the LRPC dedicate countless volunteer hours to review, refine, and improve the planning for the future of DCSD. Some of them have served the district for years and understand the importance of careful and thoughtful capital infrastructure investments and land use planning as new communities develop over time. The committee considers both sites the district owns and school sites set aside for future schools. They met and reviewed the ordinance and they identified concerns. The amendment restricts the district's ability to respond to changing demographics and development shifts. School sites could no longer be selected based on what is best for the most students because this would make it nearly impossible for us to pass the bonds that are necessary to build the schools. The ordinance makes it impossible to build future schools in Castle Rock. If you vote for this ordinance, you are voting for no future neighborhood schools in Castle Rock. Building new schools requires funding through a bond initiative. That takes time. The last bond that was passed was years in the making. The ordinance takes that time away. This will result in Castle Rock developments without a neighborhood school, and they will never have a neighborhood school. The time constraints do not match with how long-range planning works. With student projections, the three-year requirement, and the attendance circumstances with it create an impossible task for the school district.

Thank you, Tony. Thank you. Next, I have Susan Meek.

Good evening. Good evening, Mayor Gray and members of the Castle Rock Town Council. I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight to speak with you. My name is Susan Meek. I'm the president of the Douglas County School District Board of Education. And I'm here tonight in that capacity to respectfully ask you to table the ordinance 2026-27 and give representatives from the town and the school district and the board an opportunity to sit down and meet directly before a final action is taken. Mayor Gray, I'd like to thank you for speaking with me and taking time today to provide some background and additional information and perspective, especially around how the experience surrounding Crystal Valley property contributed to some of the concerns that have brought us here tonight. So I understand why that experience was frustrating for the town, for the council, for the entire community. And regardless of how or why it occurred, residents should not feel surprised by decisions affecting property in their neighborhoods. I believe we share the goal of creating greater transparency, predictability, and public understanding around these school-dedicated sites. At the same time, the school district has a responsibility to plan for students and communities well into the future. Neighborhoods grow, change, and turn over, and decisions made today about land dedicated for schools can affect our ability to serve students decades from now. Those interests do not have to conflict. Rather than allowing the difficulty surrounding this property to further strain the relationship between our organizations, I believe we have an opportunity at this moment to build a better process. The district and board would welcome the opportunity to work with the town to work through a school-dedicated property process together and develop a transparent process that gives Castle Rock residents greater certainty while preserving the district's ability to meet future educational needs. Where there are properties that clearly will not be needed for schools, let's talk about those. Where there are properties that may be important to future students, let's understand why. And let's establish a process so that neither organization or the community is caught by surprise in the future. Our two organizations serve the same families and the same taxpayers. They should expect us to work together. The board is now directly engaged in this conversation and we would welcome the opportunity to engage directly with the council. Before taking an action with long-term implications for public assets, I believe we owe it to the community to make that effort. So tonight, my request is simple. Please table the ordinance and give our two governing bodies an opportunity to meet before you make a final decision on this. A short delay does not commit either organization to a particular outcome. It simply gives us an opportunity to listen to one another, work through the issues, and determine whether we can reach a solution that better serves Castle Rock residents, Douglas County School District families. Thank you.

Thank you, Susan. Next I have Michael Kemp.

All right. I'm Michael Kemp. I'm the chair of the Long Range Planning Committee speaking to you as an individual in the community. So as mentioned, we spend a lot of time looking at the future forecasts between 0 to 5 and then 5 to 10 to assess the district's capital needs as well as growth and decline and monitor the land inventory that the district currently owns. There is precedent for municipalities to come to us with requests for alternate designations and things like that. And I think the school board is very open to those initiatives. So I think as I heard you all describe what you're attempting to accomplish with this ordinance, I felt very aligned with the words. There are, however, issues in the details of the ordinance specifically referring to the timeframes that will make it very challenging for us to do the master capital planning process create holistic plans for the school district more broadly, as well as really land and effectively execute the bonds that are funded. So it definitely restricts our ability to plan for the future. And I'll ask you to table that. I'll also refer to a couple of actually very successful engagements, specifically Topher Park and Sweetwater Park, which were school sites that municipalities approached the district about. And we were able to dispose of that land in an effective manner that benefited the community. So we're definitely on board that we don't want a repeat of the Crystal Valley process. But we also definitely think that there are issues with this ordinance that will affect our ability to plan with the district and would welcome the opportunity to work more closely with this board. So thank you for your time. Thank you, Michael. Aaron Cain.

Mayor Gray and Town Council, thank you so much for having us tonight and for considering our remarks. I too would like to request a tabling of this ordinance so that we can work collaboratively on the ordinance to make sure that it is meeting the requirements that you all have. We are happy to talk about school sites and have them designated as open space as appropriate. This ordinance, however, gives us a whole number of concerns that I'm certain are unintended consequences of the ordinance. If I could, though, I'd like to start with just talking about growth in general. When somebody gets a building permit here in Castle Rock, for example, there are fees associated with growth. There are fees for police, there are fees for park and recreation, transportation, fire, and police, all of which make sense. The school district has impacts from growth as well, needing to expand school facilities. It's not just building new schools, expanding new facilities, new bus routes for students, new safety measures in place, crosswalks, et cetera. There are a lot of expenses that the school district has from growth. The only impact fee or the only fee that a school district is able to collect is land dedicated or cash in lieu for new schools from a developer. We don't have the $1,200 per building permit or whatever it might be to impact those costs of growth. So I wanted to make sure I kind of level set that conversation. With the ordinance in particular, Our biggest concern is not so much dedicating land to open space. We want to talk to you and we want to go through our sites and we are really committed to doing that and not having any surprises or a repeat of Crystal Valley. The bigger issue is future schools. Because of the timelines that are put in place in this ordinance, it actually makes it impossible for us to build future schools. For example, in order to access Cash and Lou, and Cash and Lou helps us with things like crosswalks and expanding an existing facility, expanding the parking lot, whatever we might need to do for growth, we would not be able to access Cash and Lou until we've secured funding for literally building a new school. We also wouldn't be able to designate a site without securing funding for building a new school. We can't ask the taxpayers for funding for a new school without telling them what that site is and having that site dedicated for that purpose. It puts us in a chicken and an egg kind of cycle. We are so committed to sitting down with this ordinance, with the town of Castle Rock, to redline it together to go through how can we make sure we're meeting your needs and your requirements, but we're also making it realistic for us to build future schools in the town of Castle Rock. Part of our strategic plan in the school district speaks to thriving schools and thriving communities. We all need young families to move into Douglas County in order to preserve our property values and ensure that our community thrives for many, many years to come. In places like Crystal Valley and Dawson Trail, that's going to be a difficult proposition for families when there isn't a school in proximity of that new community. They're going to pick Aurora Highlands or somewhere else that has a school in their community. thriving schools to thriving communities means having our schools where the children are and making sure that we're serving our entire community to keep it thriving for years to come thank you so much for listening to my remarks i went off the cuff instead of reading my remarks but i appreciate you listening to us and considering all we're asking is an opportunity to sit down and redline the ordinance together so that it's pragmatic for building new schools and it meets the needs of dealing with the school sites now and in the future to prevent anyone being surprised. Thank you again for your consideration. I appreciate all of you and thank you for your service to our community.

Thank you, Erin. Next I have Sarah Kellner.

Hi there. My name is Sarah Kellner, and I am an attorney for the school district. And I just wanted, I'm not going to reiterate everything. There's a letter that I believe you all should have received this week that outlines some of the legal concerns that we have with this ordinance that are not just for schools. you know, legal challenges and issues that will play out for your fire districts and your other communities. I encourage you to take a close look at the ordinance. We want to work with you to make sure that land and fees that are dedicated through the development process are not challengeable by developers, that they are things that you can retain. And we want to make sure that these fees are used for the purposes that the developers are dedicating them for. So I'll ask you just to turn to that letter, take a look at that, And what we're asking you to do is to table this today, to posit so that those issues, legal issues and other issues that you're hearing from the district can be worked out and resolved. The district wants to collaborate and partner with the town to find ways to make sure that there is certainty about what is going to happen with these sites and to make sure, too, that these sites and the sites that are usable will be used for schools going forward. There's a few things that I want to point out. Yes, the title is with the town. The property is dedicated as part of these developments and the title rests with the town, but it rests in trust for the district. It is dedicated at the time of the PD to the town to hold in trust. Same deal with those $230,000 in fees. The developers dedicate that land and those fees to the town to hold in trust for this purpose, which is for the school district. And there is case law ensuring that things that are dedicated remain dedicated that way so that there is clarity for the population when these developments are actually passed. When you go through that process like we heard today, people get certainty about what the land is dedicated for and how it will be used. The next point I want to make is, yes, this is an ordinance to address a mechanism for review, and it does include a public hearing item. But I want to point out that 15 days' notice to the public about the potential of losing a school site is not enough for meaningful engagement from the neighbors, from the community. That is the amount that is in the current ordinance, and that is just not enough to make sure that the people who live by these schools find out about the fact that they may lose school sites in their neighborhoods and meaningfully engage. Similarly, in the ordinance, and what you're hearing today is that the process for school planning is very lengthy. It is very complicated. There's a committee that looks at that. And the ordinance as it sits today provides the school district 30 days notice before it lets the district know that it is considering a site and putting it up for hearing to remove as a school dedicated site. That, similarly, is not enough time for an organization like the district and the planning committee and everybody to take a look at that site and meaningfully confer with the town to make sure that you are making thoughtful and forward-thinking land planning decisions. As I mentioned before, there are other issues that are in the letter that I relayed, but I do think that the school district shares the concerns that the town has expressed for transparency about what's going to happen with these sites, for a process to figure out when and how sites will be addressed that exist now that may not end up being school sites in the future. Those goals are shared. this ordinance is just not the right way to do it as it's drafted now and the district would like to cooperate with the town to find a path forward that works for both parties thank you next i have chris spike

Thank you all. Thank you, Mayor Gray. Thank you, council. I'm here on behalf of myself and everybody that's hopefully in bed by now, all the students out there and future students. I've worked in Castle Rock for 16 years. I've lived in the county for 20. My kids go to school here. I'M HERE BECAUSE I'M A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT. I'VE WORKED IN THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT WORLD FOR 20 YEARS. I'VE DEVELOPED PROJECTS IN THE TOWN, WORKED WITH A NUMBER OF THE FOLKS ON STAFF HERE. I'M ALSO CURRENTLY WORKING ON ABOUT FIVE PROJECTS THROUGHOUT THE STATE THAT ARE ALL SCHOOL PROJECTS. AND I CAN SPEAK, I'M HERE TO SPEAK SPECIFICALLY TO THE DURATIONS THAT I SAW AND READ IN THIS ORDINANCE. AND I BELIEVE PERSONALLY THAT AND I BELIEVE PERSONALLY THAT AND I BELIEVE PERSONALLY THAT THE THREE YEARS IS DEFINITELY THE THREE YEARS IS DEFINITELY THE THREE YEARS IS DEFINITELY TOO SHORT AS MENTIONED. TOO SHORT AS MENTIONED. TOO SHORT AS MENTIONED. I THINK THE COUNTIES SET SOME I THINK THE COUNTIES SET SOME I THINK THE COUNTIES SET SOME PRECEDENT IN WHAT THEY'VE DONE PRECEDENT IN WHAT THEY'VE DONE PRECEDENT IN WHAT THEY'VE DONE RECENTLY WITH STERLING RANCH RECENTLY WITH STERLING RANCH RECENTLY WITH STERLING RANCH AND WE SHOULD LOOK AT THAT. AND WE SHOULD LOOK AT THAT. AND WE SHOULD which is probably more in line. But I agree with the speakers ahead of me that we need to collaborate as a team. I'm also, I failed to mention, I'm on the Long Range Planning Committee, which is why this was brought to my attention. We actually meet tomorrow night. Encourage anybody to attend. It's an open public meeting as well. And we'd love to talk more about this subject. Sorry, it's well past my bedtime as well. I HAVE A COUPLE MORE THINGS THAT I HAVE TO GET IN. I HAVE A COUPLE MORE THINGS THAT I HAVE TO GET IN. ONE OF MY BIGGEST CONCERNS AS ONE OF MY BIGGEST CONCERNS AS WELL IS THAT THIS DOESN'T WELL IS THAT THIS DOESN'T CLOSE THE LOOPHOLE THAT, TO MY CLOSE THE LOOPHOLE THAT, TO MY ATTENTION, IS POTENTIALLY ATTENTION, IS POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING THIS OR POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING THIS OR POTENTIALLY FACTORING INTO THIS. FACTORING INTO THIS. AND IT WAS DOWN IN CRYSTAL VALLEY AND IT WAS DOWN IN CRYSTAL VALLEY RANCH, THIS PROPERTY, THAT THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT WAS THE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT WAS REVERTED BACK TO THE DEVELOPER. REVERTED BACK TO THE DEVELOPER. AND THAT WAS AN AGREEMENT THAT AND THAT WAS AN AGREEMENT THAT WAS MADE BY THE TOWN OF CASTLE WAS MADE BY THE TOWN OF CASTLE WAS MADE BY THE TOWN OF CASTLE ROCK AND THAT DEVELOPER, NOT ROCK AND THAT DEVELOPER, NOT ROCK AND THAT DEVELOPER, NOT THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU GUYS AND THE TOWN ATTORNEY CAN GUYS AND THE TOWN ATTORNEY CAN And that gap that it's meant to close, I believe. I could be wrong. But I think that's probably what we need to focus on as well, is how we prevent the properties being reverted back to the developer when the school district deems it surplus and unusable. So I'd ask you to table this reading and direct your staff to a joint work session with the county and the school district. and to get that and assure that that supremacy question is answered and on the record before it comes back for a vote. That's all I have. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Chris. Krista?

Good evening. Thanks for letting me speak here. My name is Krista Gilstrap, and I'm here as a concerned citizen regarding the land ordinance for DCSD. First, my question is, what problem are you trying to solve? I can't understand what the intended purpose of this ordinance is. However, it appears a consequence, unintended or otherwise, of this ordinance would be that DCSD can never build a new school in Castle Rock again.

Is that the purpose? Is that the goal?

I ran the Invest in DCSD campaign advocating for the most recent bond for DCSD during the 2022, 23, and 24 elections. Yes, it took us three times to pass a bond. And that was with a clearly defined bond plan and clearly defined land areas for the new schools. I can most certainly tell you that they will not pass another bond if they cannot produce a dedicated site for the school. So that's why we say, you're basically taking away any effort in the future for a new school to be built in Castle Rock. Again, I'm not sure if this is the purpose or if it's just an unintended consequence, but I do think a decision to build a new school should be up to the future residents of Castle Rock whenever that time comes. I'm also a volunteer of the DCSD Long Range Planning Committee, and I can tell you in the Master Capital Plan, we currently have four potential new elementary schools needed for Castle Rock in the next 10 years. Now obviously things can change, and I'm not sitting here advocating for new schools right this minute, but shouldn't expanding communities have the option to one day build a new school for their community as needed? And lastly, one of the biggest objections we've heard during the bond campaign is why don't developers pay to build schools? And it's a fair question, but as you may know, that's not how it's designed here in Colorado. What the developers are required to do is provide land or cash in lieu. This ordinance appears to be circumventing that process and taking what was intended to help DCSD with future capital needs and redirecting it as this council sees fit. I'm not a lawyer, so I'll let them argue the legality of that, but at a minimum, it feels unethical. So again, I ask, what problem are you trying to solve? If the ask is for DCSD to release some land they won't be needing, you don't need this ordinance because you can already do that. On LRPC, we've advised the board to release multiple areas in Highlands Ranch to the county for repurposing. Topher and Sweetwater Parks, as previously mentioned, and Highlands Ranch are wonderful examples of how municipalities can work together to do what's right for their communities. So I join everyone tonight in asking that you please just reconsider this ordinance and work to find a collaborative solution to solve the problem that you're looking to solve. Thank you.

Thank you, Krista. Rudy Lucas? Yes.

Thank you tonight, City Council and Mayor, for your time. Again, my name is Rudy Lucas, and I'm a 30-year resident of Highlands Ranch, but I've also been, maybe more importantly, a member of the school district's long-range planning committee now for almost 23 years. So it really puts the long into my service there, I guess you could say. I am speaking tonight as a private citizen and not as an official spokesperson. But I do want to add my decades-long experiences and thoughts about the proposed ordinance, which I hope you're actually going to table. My concern tonight about the ordinance is that with respect to your proposal for how quickly these things need to happen, it just doesn't work with how we do planning and how we look at things. You know the board committee I sit on as mentioned by several of my other colleagues, and we're all volunteers by the way is We're really focused on capacity buildings and sites CBS for short and With that we look at it holistically across the entire district as you know our district is almost the size of Rhode Island so we have a lot of things to consider and the district is both urban and as well as very rural. Hopefully at some point you get a chance to get down to the southeast corner of the county where we have basically a one-room schoolhouse compared to the other bigger urban campuses that we run. The proposed timelines are also going to limit and actually, I think, preclude future school needs that may be really important to Castle Rock. If you've not had a chance yet, I urge you to get up to Lone Tree as soon as possible and go visit the Legacy Campus. What we're doing up there is really the future of education. And you can't really think of education and modern facilities anymore in terms of the traditional model of elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. We've got all kinds of different vehicles approaching. And in fact, speaking of vehicles, a good example is the program up at Legacy, which is focused on turning out 11th and 12th graders who can fix electric vehicles. 23 years ago we had no idea that we would need to have a high school program that would actually teach people how to fix electric vehicles but as a very active program likewise we've been actually adding more trades programs as well too for career pathways and just recently we opened up a brand new center here at douglas county high school in the south building which is focused on cosmetology A program so in demand that for every kid who got into that program, we need two or three more seats to support that effort. This is an example where we need to plan not just for what's happening today, but also the opportunities for what's going to happen down the road as well. If we put this in terms of perspective, I just want to mention how it's been going up at Sterling Ranch. As you may know, we're building a new school up at Sterling Ranch. It's the first one that Sterling Ranch will have as part of DCSD. We put in the last steel beam last week. It was a lot of fun. We got to sign the beam, and they put it up in the building. But to get to that point, it has taken almost 15 years. From when we first said, gee, we may need a school at some point where this place is being built called Sterling Ranch, to where we actually put the steel beam in last week. It's also a new type of school. As mentioned earlier, Tony was talking about going to Castleview High School and what have you. I was on the committee when we were first planning that, when that was a blank piece of ground. So it's actually kind of humorous for me to have him talk about being one of the first students there. But Sterling Ranch is interesting because It's also a brand-new type of school, and the last school, as Tony noted, was also built back in 2010, actually not far from here. We thought in 2010 that that was the most amazing school design you could ever have, and today we're building a new type of school because things have changed. Just like we wouldn't have built a school... Sorry, I will finish then. Thank you. But thank you for your time tonight. It's been a great evening.

If I pass over you, please approach the podium. Seeing none, we'll bring the town council for a discussion and possible motion.

I move to approve the ordinance as introduced by title.

Second. First by Councilmember Dietz, second by Councilmember Davis. Further discussion? No, Max. Oh, sorry, Max. Sorry, second by Max Brooks. Councilmember Bracken.

Yeah, I think... Yeah, I think we should hold off. I think the new information in the timeline based on the lifecycle of actually selecting a school is very long. I think that the last comments that were made of the whole design and the size and the things, that legacy campus is amazing. I mean, that doesn't just happen in in a three-month window or six-month window even, right? So I think I've gotten more information tonight than even the last meeting. So I'm even stronger against moving forward. But again, back to my original comments from last meeting, I'd like to collaborate with the school district better to be able to understand what the impact is um and i just i want one one point of clarification um the the folks that spoke keep keep speaking of um the developers well the developers by and large don't own the property it's it's town owned so there's no cash in lieu to be able to shift over to the project. It's the developers by and large don't own the land. So I just wanted that point of clarification. Those are the kind of things that I think we need to clarify what we're doing and how we're doing it based on what I heard tonight. And so I'm going to be a no vote on the proposed motion.

Council Member Brooks.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. First of all, thanks to everybody for hanging in. It's been a long evening. I appreciate you. sticking around and coming up and giving your opinions and your insight. You know, this process started some time ago, by my understanding, a year and a half. So there has been opportunity, certainly to have discussions, There's been opportunity to be able to review these items. This is not rushed. And even when it comes to each individual public item, we're not deciding what's happening with the sites tonight. That will come in the future. Each one of those sites will have its own public hearing. I think we just saw tonight that even on a notice, if there's a belief that two weeks notice is too short, We just continued an item that was originally entitled in 1983. So there are opportunities to continue. There are opportunities in each one of these discussions to be able to have collaboration, to be able to have a robust discussion. And quite frankly, I'm a little put off by what I would consider to be not just hyperbolic you know, verbiage, but wildly hyperbolic that we're talking about never building another school in Castle Rock. That is not what we are discussing here. I believe that's unfair saber-rattling, and I reject it. We even at the beginning heard our own town manager say that we look forward to being able to work with the school district in the future on future sites in Castle Rock. There will be opportunities in the future to build additional schools in Castle Rock. So any sort of assertion to the contrary is just It's just inaccurate. And then further, any sort of assertion that the property that's being designated is unsuitable, that's a position that not even the school district themselves has taken. That's out of left field. So I will be supporting this tonight. I understand the difficulties that the school district is in beyond just this. And I'm not... I don't have a lack of sympathy for some of that. They take on some of the most expensive students, the behavioral issues, the very complex medical needs, and they have to serve every single kid that walks in the door. So I very much appreciate what the school district does. However, this ordinance to me does not compromise their ability to do that, I'll give you a yes. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Mayor Portapakini. Followed by Council Member Hollinshead.

So... I agree a lot with Council Member Brooks. There is no unethical behavior going on here. We want you to build schools here. We want you to do something with these properties. But when property sits around since 1999 and nothing's happened with it, and we the town are responsible for the care of that property at taxpayer expense, we need to have a discussion with the school district about what is going on with that property. We're not trying to take property from you. I said it at the beginning. If we have a conversation with the school district and you say, no, we need more time with this property to see if we're going to be able to use it for a school, fine. We're not trying to take property from you, but we are trying to put some timelines on this. And yes, it was spearheaded in part by the Ryle Light Park issue when the school board put a piece of property on the consent calendar and just... threw it back over the fence with no discussion with the town, with no discussion with the people over there, with no discussion with council. And guess who took the heat for it? We did. We had a room full of people in here that came for us saying that we as council had caused this issue. And then I want to highlight the fact that somehow in all of this, the school district managed to get $500,000 from the developer on a piece of property that you didn't own. So no, we're not trying to take anything from you. We've tried to work with you for 18 months, and now all of a sudden it's a fire drill. I think we can still work together. Once again, nobody's trying to take property or say that we never want another school built in Castle Rock again. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hollinshead.

Yeah, I agree. The Crystal Valley property was a bad deal on all ends, all people involved. It's the only property like that in the county, and I hope we're not acting based on that event. I think we've gotten the school district's attention. I think we've got an ordinance that hasn't been out there very long to review, and I think this is a great learning experience for all of us that maybe we slow down a little bit now and actually sit down with know both groups and work through that ordinance i think that we can vote no on it tonight bring back a revised version of that that is more acceptable and promotes future collaboration um just by maybe tweaking a few of the things i i mean i feel like we're rushing to this a little bit at this point because we did talk about it for 18 months but we really have talked about this ordinance in its written form now for about a month. So I think there's something to be said for waiting another few months and actually sitting down at the table and going through some of those things that we're all learning. I mean, this school finance stuff is super interesting. And our land use stuff is also something we all need to learn about, so. Council Member Bracken.

Yeah. Again, I think the lifecycle of of their process if they have to go onto a ballot, look for a bond, and basically find the money, designate it, then fund it. Like our process, if we're requiring them to do that in a window that's too short for them to actually achieve it, then it's not achievable. So that's my major concern is what I heard tonight. If it's... If it can't fit the process, then they have to break their process to fit within our timeline. And then it doesn't happen because they can't request the funding until they've identified the site. And if our timeline is too tight, then it really precludes them from building a school. So we're in a catch-22, in my opinion, based on what I heard tonight. That's where I think it's at. And to Mayor Pro Tem's point, I know it's not my intent to take the land from the school. And I don't think that there's money from developers available for cash in lieu on any of the properties that I'm aware of. However... in the good spirit of trying to build schools and holding the property whole for you guys to follow your process. I think that that's important. I think we might be a little rushed with unintended consequences here. And so that's where I'm at.

Thank you. Any further comment from council? I'd like to finish up then. You know, the timeline is probably my biggest issue. I think that from talking to a few members of staff here tonight, the three years, 10 years, I think that really, really pushes the limits of the school district. You know, I would like to have seen better communication. I know that both Douglas County School District and County Council believes that they tried to communicate. There were times when it didn't feel like either one wanted to communicate a lot. And I know that that can be disputed both from the town of Cass Rock and Douglas County School District. But that, I mean, I would like to start over and I would like to get tabled. But if this does pass tonight, I would like the town and the school district to talk in earnest and try to figure out some of these issues. With that, roll call vote, please. Oh, sorry, Council Member Dietz.

I do appreciate everybody's comments tonight. Thank you. This is an important issue, but again, we've had time. We were surprised in Crystal Valley. It sounds like you guys are trying to build some larger legacy campuses anyway, so how does that pertain to the property here? Future Castle Rock Town Councils will have every opportunity to have citizen input way past us. So, I think this is the right decision that you have to come back to town council and talk to us. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Hollingshead? No. Council Member Bracken?

No.

Council Member Davis?

Yes.

Council Member Brooks? Aye. Council Member Dietz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Kavik? Yes. Mayor Gray?

No.

Motion passes 4-3.

Thank you. Number 19, discussion direction 2026-21, revisions on Title IX and Castle Rock Municipal Code, public peace, morals, and welfare. This is just discussion. There's no motion at the end of this one.

Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, members of town council. I will try to make this as quick as possible. I know we're late. We're looking at Title IX of the Castle Rock Municipal Code and some related amendments here. It's a global ordinance, global fix. It's really our criminal code. No other way to say it. As the governing body of a home-run municipality, Town Council has the power to do this, adopt ordinances necessary to protect public health, safety, welfare. 1968 was when the Town Council, I think the Board of Trustees then, first adopted Title IX to provide a comprehensive set of laws that are enforced in our criminal court, our municipal court. A lot of those provisions are still in place, and we have had 60 years of case law since then that we need to address and haven't. So a lot of these code sections are obsolete. They require substantial revisions to meet constitutional standards. So what have we done? A team of volunteers from our own Cass Rock Police Department worked closely with our office, our former police legal advisor, on an extensive update of Title IX. After that point in time, our Chief Prosecutor, Chris Yosmus, has had an opportunity to weigh in, as well as our outside counsel firm of Hoffman, Parker, Wilson, and Carberry. They've all kind of thrown in and given their thoughts concerning this ordinance. So many thanks to everybody who participated in this effort and would direct those thanks to Chief Cawley, if you could convey them for me. Now, with that, we're ready for your consideration. I'm just going to go through the highlights. We've added a Chapter 9.01, defining terms, defining culpable mental states at the request of Cass Rock Police. This section of the code did not have a standardized definition section. It will work better with that. We've added 9.02, kind of clarifying the intent of council in adopting this code, providing express authority for our police department to enforce its provisions. 9.04, offenses against public peace. So we've really expanded what these code sections say. And these are just typical sections you find in any criminal code. Trespass, assault, disorderly conduct, theft. We're flushing it out so we can have an ordinance that actually advises the public of what is against the law. So we are also, through this section, protecting our law enforcement officers, as well as our citizens, from those persons who choose to obey the lawful orders of a police officer and instead seek to disrupt the public peace. and that the request for our school resources officers were adding a new offense, unlawful interference with an educational institution. We need to protect our students, our teachers in the classroom. We now have that protection in this code section. 9.08, offenses against property. We're expanding language here. For instance, our code prohibits damage to public property. doesn't prohibit damage to private property. We fixed that. We added a specific offense that prohibits unauthorized connections to the property of a utility provider. I think Mr. Marler will appreciate that. And then we created a new section, new chapter 9.09, offenses against the administration of government. These are things like false reporting of crimes and emergencies, interference with our public safety personnel. We now address those types of violations in a better manner, more thorough manner. Chapter 9.10, we discussed complicity, attempt, accessory offenses. These are adjunct offenses to the main offense. For example, we've added an offense to impose responsibility on parents and guardians. for the criminal actions of their minor children. And now we require parents and guardians to accompany their minor children to municipal court. Critical emissions that we are trying to fix. 9.16 is noise control. We had a case a couple of years ago in the Supreme Court, Hobbs versus City of Salida. The town now is bound, according to that Supreme Court decision, to noise levels that are set by state statute. So we've kind of created that, recognized that decision. Unless that's fixed by the legislature, which they chose not to do this last year for some odd reason, we're stuck with that decision. A couple other things that I would highlight. We amended our general penalties section. We codified the decision in the case of Inry People v. Camp. Essentially, we're ensuring that penalties imposed by the municipal court do not exceed maximum penalties imposed by state law. but only where the municipal ordinance and the state statute prohibit the same conduct. So we wanted to essentially clarify that. The general penalty has gone up in years past to 364 days in jail and $2,650 in fines. We'd like to go ahead and catch our code up to those levels. And also, there's been a big gap in our code about restitution, about public service. We're filling that gap now in a new section that will allow our municipal court to award restitution to crime victims and public safety agencies, and also order a person who's convicted for crime to perform public service. Now, we've got a couple of our requested updates. I put them in separate ordinances so that the council will have an opportunity to discuss that tonight. I would mention that Councilmember Brooks has recommended these sections, so we have those ordinances placed for you to discuss. One is the duty of a corporate entity to report theft. This is really modeled upon the county ordinance that was adopted. There's a duty under this ordinance to report theft to law enforcement of a corporate retailer within 96 hours of becoming aware of that theft. We're also making an unlawfulness ordinance for that retailer to retaliate against its employees should they make that report. Also, we're looking at Kratom products. We've had a lot of development since 2019 when the former town council essentially prohibited sales of Kratom to minors. We have a proposal to impose a blanket prohibition on those retail sales. And I think we are acknowledging in that ordinance more recent information from medical providers and federal agencies that indicate that Kratom products do carry serious health and safety risks and risks of addiction. So we've got that. I think our talent manager has requested that we also take a look at fireworks sales during a stage one fire warning or restriction. And so that may actually not end up in Title IX because it's in both Title IX and in Title VIII under the fireworks section. But the proposal would be to ban those sales in both Stage I and Stage II. With that, I think we can recommend that the Town Council move forward with the adoption of this comprehensive update. One thing I would note is that one of the more recent sections that we amended was Chapter 9.06. We're actually not touching that. We may move the definitions into the general definition section, but we're good there. So we're taking a look at the older sections, the ones that were done when I was seven. And that's a long, long time ago. So, if Town Council agrees, we'd like to bring forward the Title IX comprehensive ordinance and whatever else you decide you wish to bring forward at the upcoming meeting on September 15th.

So, turn to you for questions, comments. No, I appreciate it, Michael. Since it's not going to a vote, we can give our opinions and questions right now. Mayor Pro Tem McKay, followed by Council Member Brooks.

Could you go to the slide that talks about retail theft?

Yes.

So I have a concern here. And I understand what we're trying to get at because some of these retailers kind of throw up their hands with theft and just sort of let it happen. But I also know and I trust our police. And I know they have good relationships in town with our retailers. What I don't want to do is hurt the relationship between our police officers and the retailers by requiring the retailers to have to do something within 96 hours and put them at odds with our police. So that's... Just my overarching concern on this. I understand what we're trying to get at, but I also don't want to put our police in a position where they're the bad guys with our corporate retailers. Just my comment.

Thank you.

Max Brooks. Mr. Mayor, I have a question. Mr. Hyman, when this comes back to council, will we have the opportunity at that time to vote individually on the things that we want to have included or do we need to separate that if we have a loss of appetite about any particular item that we need to get that sorted out now so then that way when this comes forward that you just get a yes vote on what we've kind of agreed on?

Yeah, I would say that what I'm looking for here is just some direction from the council about how you want to do this. So if there is a consensus to say include the additional code updates in the body of the Title IX ordinance, we're happy to do that. Right now, I think we wanted to originally focus on the code and the update that we worked so hard on as a group. That's why I split out the ordinances. So council had the opportunity to at least discuss that tonight and give us direction to either take one ordinance two ordinances, three ordinances, perhaps four with fireworks. So it probably would make sense to take, I would just say, the corporate reporting ordinance, the creative ordinance, and the fireworks ordinance separately. Because there's not necessarily consensus on that. So if that's council's wish, we're happy to do that.

I think that makes a lot of sense because I can see that there's going to be some various discussion about that and various opinions on each of those. So I think that having that discussion as part of the vote and speaking about those individually, I'm not a fan of the fireworks piece. So we could have discussions at that time, I think this probably makes a lot of sense.

And I would just add, too, that if council would like town staff to do so, the manager's office and so forth, to do some outreach on some of these additional updates, that's also at your option. Happy to do whichever direct you ask us to do. Mayor Porto, I'm KP.

When you say additional outreach, would that be to, like, The example that I use is I just don't want to put our police in a bad position with retailers. Are we reaching out to the retailers for their opinion or are we reaching out to our police chief and his command staff for their opinion? Like who are we reaching out to?

I'd suggest both. I don't know. I mean, we've got, for some reason, Pete Mangers is still here. We've got, what do we got, 3,500 business licenses? Yes, sir. Okay. I don't know that we would do that to all of them, but I mean, we, you know, I think we could let the business, we could find some way to let the business community know, the outlets, some other places that, you know, that could have that level of impact. And obviously hear from other staff. There are, I know there's one creative retailer I noticed, because I did a Jersey Mike's run, and there was the place next to it.

And they said, create them.

I said, oh, yeah, that reminds me. We're going to talk about that. So I know there's at least one retailer. I don't know. We may be able to find others pretty quickly. Let them know, hey, we're about ready to ban that. That's probably good to do some level of outreach. I would recommend that. We haven't built that into this. You look at a lot of the other stuff that Mike has been working on on this ordinance. I don't think there's really good ways to do outreach on some of the other topics that he's got there, but those are at least two suggestions I would have if that was something that you would want them to do. They're the ones that are going to be impacted by the ordinance. And same thing on the firework sales. We know who's been pulling those permits. We can let them know. They came last time, and the last time we considered doing that, the council voted against that. It's a different council now, different experience. If you all still feel that way, we've got direction again. And we could bring that back.

When, do you think? How long do you need for that?

I think you're ready to go with the ordinance. Oh, we're ready. We have everything drafted. I think we plan on the next meeting. We'll start the outreach starting tomorrow. Some means of communicating that to some people.

Okay. I think it would be good to get a good cross-section of retail businesses. Small, medium, large. That kind of thing.

We have a downtown merchant association. We have a chamber of commerce. We regularly talk to the management at the outlets, for example, because there's a lot of things going on there as well, those kinds of things. But I wouldn't do it to all 3,500. I think it's too confusing. But I think there's a way to get that out. The Kratom stuff, I think we can find out. The fireworks, we've got licenses for who provided those sales last year, the last couple of years. I think we can get that out. relatively quickly. And just let them know this issue is going to be considered at the next council meeting.

Thank you. Any further questions or ideas? Seeing none, I do not have anybody else on the speaker. If anyone wishes to speak, please approach the podium. Speaking of microphone, state your name and whether you're a resident, non-resident, or business owner. You have four minutes to speak. Seeing none, we'll move on to number 20 on the agenda, 2026-100, Resolution Approving Professional Services Agreement Between the Town of Castle Rock and Fellsburg Holt-Ulvig, Inc. for United States Highway 85 and Colorado Highway 86 Traffic and Safety Plan. Dan Seiler.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council. This is the last item. I'll try to be as brief as possible. But this is an important project. This is to kick off the evaluation of a safety and operation study of portions of US 85 and Highway 86, as shown here on the map. So essentially, the limits of the project would be US 85 and Meadows Parkway on the west, continuing along all of Founders Parkway, which is also known as Highway 86, and then where it turns to the end of the town boundaries. This is a portion of our Transition Master Plan that recommended a more detailed evaluation of one of our busiest corridors within the town limits. As such, the community has provided indication to us on what elements are really valued by them and what they expect from the transportation system. So we keep that in mind when we're assessing these important issues. We've done that in this case. Essentially, we're trying to look at opportunities to improve safety, reliability, and decrease the amount of downtime associated with travel on Founders Parkway and portions of US 85. Excuse me. The overall goal will be to develop projects that will address those issues that we will also prioritize against the balance of projects that we've identified in our transportation master plan. As part of the five-year CIP, we have identified a potential placeholder for an identified project. I know Dave might want to expand on that a little bit. I'll turn that over to him and let him talk about that before I move on.

Thanks for the swift handoff. Just quickly, as we're going through our long-range capital budget for transportation, we're challenged by a couple of things. We want to get the results of this study. Very important to see if there's going to be new capital projects in this area. But we're also challenged by the fact that with the growth slowdown, we have a slowdown in our impact fee revenues that go into the transportation capital fund. So we're not, and the projects are increasingly expensive, so we're not sure exactly how we're going to be able to get at some of those projects here in the next five years. But we do want to provide that capacity in this area.

That's right. So we'll be continuing those discussions on priorities for council that wants to implement it with every annual budget and development and adjustments of those five-year CIP. We did receive a decent amount of proposals with this because this is a system that is owned and operated by the state. We're required to utilize their procurement process, which doesn't necessarily just look at low bid. It looks at a variety of different criteria as outlined on this screen. And FHU rose to the top as being the most qualified to be able to move forward with this scope of work. We do have an allocated budget this year of $750,000. The contract would be for just under $700,000, and we're asking for the balance of the budget to be utilized for a contingency. This is a high-level overview of the overall project schedule. We anticipate that it'll be close to a year to complete the evaluation, and we'll have a final draft report ready for approval by fall of next year. We did just take this to the Public Works Commission last night. They did unanimously recommend that town council approve this contract with the Pelsberg Holt and Ullevig. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Mayor Portamchi.

I'm sorry, I know it's late. What does CDOT have to do with this?

It's their road. Yeah, they- It's their road.

Oh, this is, okay. Sorry, I'm tired.

It's okay.

Good question. I'm tired. I'm not going to start.

We understand. Any other questions for Dan or our staff? Councilmember Hollingshead.

Dan, last night at Public Works, I think they asked a question about how they look at the next 20 years of growth, not just in Douglas County, but also in Elbert County. And that's a connector. Can you just kind of speak to how important this road is for that?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, because this is a regional infrastructure that's owned by the state, it's much broader than the town. And what it takes into consideration is, of course, we've master planned. all the projects to accommodate full growth of the town. But CDOT has also looked at what this corridor needs to serve the growing region beyond us. So as part of this effort, there will be a regional model update From from dr. Cog that essentially takes all the surrounding growth of the region into consideration as part of this evaluation to make sure that we're trying to account for What that growth might be looking like in this corridor area, so I think that's what you're referring to Councilmember Holland said as far as like the discussion last night, so it's a good reminder that we are just looking we're not just looking at the boundaries of Castle Rock, but the overall regional aspects

Thank you. Any further discussion? Move to public. Had no one signed up to speak, if anyone wishes to speak, please approach the podium and speak into the microphone. Please state your name, whether you're a resident, non-resident, or business owner. You have four minutes to speak. Seeing none, we'll now bring it back to town council for a possible motion and discussion.

I move to approve the resolution as introduced by title. Second.

First by Council Member Brooks, second by Mayor Piper, Town of Katy. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Hollingshead. Yes. Council Member Bracken. Yes. Council Member Davis.

Yes.

Council Member Brooks.

Yes.

Council Member Dietz.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Cavy. Yes. Mayor Gray.

Aye.

Motion passed unanimously.

Thank you. The time is now 1055. I'll accept the motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved.

Second.

First by Council Member Bracken, second by Mayor Pro Tem Cavy. Roll call vote, please.

Councilmember Hollingshead? Yes. Councilmember Bracken? Yes. Councilmember Davis?

Yes.

Councilmember Brick? Aye. Councilmember Deese? Yes. Mayor Patemkavy? Yes. Mayor Gray? Aye. Motion passed unanimously.

Thanks, everybody, for all your hard work. Have a good night. We are adjourned.