City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Welcome to the city council's regular meeting for Tuesday, April 26. Good morning. Welcome to the city council meeting for Tuesday, 04/28/2026. Will the clerk please call the roll? Council

member Casey. Here. Council member Crowe Iverson.

Here.

Council member Donaldson.

Here.

Council member Gold.

Here I am.

Council member Hengen. Present. Council member Lineweaver is online. Present. Council member Rainey?

Here.

Council member Risley?

Here.

Council member Williams? Here. All nine present.

Please stand for the invocation. We are honored today to have pastor Dangers from Woodman Valley Church.

The leadership of this town, thank you God for this beautiful city that you have blessed us to be a part of. God, I pray for your wisdom over this meeting today. God, I pray that that justice would flow like a river and righteousness like a never ending stream. God, I pray for the many men and women who make up our city, the the men and women in uniform, God, the first responders, the the men and women of our of our hospitals and of our of our schools. God, would you bless them or the many business owners and leaders in this city.

God, would you would you bless them and sustain them? And God, for this meeting today, I pray again for for your wisdom and for your blessing over it. Would you give unity to this to this council and cause them to make decisions that would be honoring to you and that would cause flourishing, for this city and its people. It's in your your name that I pray. Amen.

Amen. We are welcomed this morning with, some students from Sierra and Harrison High School who are going to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Moving on to our changes to the agenda. Will the clerk please read item A or 10 A into the record?

Is it 10? 10 c, an ordinance amending multiple sections of Article five administration and enforcement of chapter seven unified development code. The code of the city of Colorado Springs 2001 is amended related to procedural process.

Good morning, Mr. Walker.

Kevin Walker, City Planning Director would like to request that this item be postponed for two weeks.

Can I confirm if it's a 10A or 10C?

10C. 10C. Thank you.

At least that's the one they read. Okay.

I just wanted to make sure.

Thank you.

I wrote something down differently. We have any council members? Any questions or comments? Councilman Donaldson?

Yeah. I would just be curious the reason for the postponement, the request for the postponement.

Couple of last minute tweaks to the ordinance based on comments from the city attorney's office.

Okay, so last minute tweaks. Those are the reasons. Okay.

I have a motion from Councilman Donaldson and a second from Councilman Gold. Let's vote.

The

motion passes nine to zero.

Moving on to the consent calendar. We will now consider the consent calendar. These items will be acted on upon a whole unless a specific item or discussion by a council member or a citizen wishing to address the council. Is there anyone who wishes to pull an item off the consent calendar? Seeing none, I need a motion from councilman Gold and a second from councilman Hincham. All in favor?

Aye. Any

opposed? Moving on to item five a. Will the clerk please read item five a into the record?

Resolution recognizing May 2026 is small business week in Pikes Peak region.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. It's an honor for me to read this resolution today and to celebrate Small Business Week and what small businesses mean for our community. One of the focuses that I've had for my time on council has really been around economic prosperity and vitality because I think it's so important for the health, overall health of a community. And as you probably know, a number of us on the dais here today either work for small businesses or own small businesses, and so I think we clearly understand the power that small businesses represent.

The role of small businesses in the community are so vital and so important, this resolution, as I read it, will sort of articulate that. And I'll go ahead and read the resolution, and then I believe we've got a number of speakers lined up that would like to make some comments on behalf of various organizations. So this is a resolution recognizing May 2026 as Small Business Week in the Pikes Peak region, whereas National Small Business Week celebrates the contributions of America's entrepreneurs and small business owners who drive innovation, job creation, and economic opportunity throughout our nation, And whereas small businesses are the backbone of the Pikes Peak regional economy with an estimated 74,287, not 86 or eight, two eighty seven small businesses operating in Colorado Springs representing approximately 98.7% of all businesses in the metropolitan area and whereas these small businesses employ tens of thousands of residents and contribute significantly to the vitality of neighborhoods, the diversity of the local economy, and the continued growth of the Pikes Peak region, and whereas the Pikes Peak Small Business Development Center provides confidential advising, training, and resources to entrepreneurs and small businesses throughout El Paso and Teller Counties, helping them to start, grow, and thrive through free one on one consulting and low cost educational programs, and whereas the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado promotes ethical business practices and advances marketplace trust by supporting consumers and businesses throughout accreditation, dispute resolution, education, and community engagement.

And whereas the Colorado Springs Chamber in EDC serves as a leading advocate for businesses and economic prosperity in the Pikes Peak region, supporting economic development, workforce initiatives, and strong environments for businesses of all sizes to succeed. And whereas the collaboration of entrepreneurs, community organizations, financial institutions, and economic development partners ensures that the Pikes Peak region remains a vibrant and welcoming place for innovation, investment, and opportunity, And whereas the Pikes Peak Small Business Development Center, the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, and the Colorado Springs Chamber in UDC will host the nineteenth annual Small Business Week celebration featuring educational workshops, networking opportunities, and recognition for outstanding small business leaders across the region. And whereas these events provide entrepreneurs and small business owners with opportunity to gain valuable knowledge, build connections, and celebrate the important role small businesses play in strengthening the community and the regional economy. Now therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Colorado Springs, section one that the City Council of the City of Colorado Springs hereby recognizes May 3 through 05/09/2026 as Small Business Week in the Pikes Peak region, and it expresses its sincere appreciation to the entrepreneurs, small business owners, employees, lenders, advisers, and community partners who contribute to the strength and prosperity of our local economy.

Signed this day by our president Lynette Crowe Iverson. So with that, Brandon, would you like to make a few comments as the ringleader of Small Business Week? Is your mic on?

The green button.

There we go.

It is on, yes, thank you. Good morning counsel. Thank you so much for inviting us here this morning. And thank you for the opportunity to speak about National Small Business Week and the incredible impact that our small businesses have on our community. My name is Brandon Eldridge and I serve as the Executive Director of the Colorado SBDC serving Pikes Peak.

Our center supports nearly 700 small businesses annually, contributing an additional $500,000 of sales tax back to the city of Colorado Springs annually. These businesses are more than just storefronts, service providers, and employers. They are the heartbeat of our local economy. Through their work, our clients contribute, as I mentioned, nearly half $1,000,000 in sales tax and revenue back to the city of Colorado Springs. This helps create jobs, strengthen neighborhoods, and help us create that character of our community.

Next week is our nineteenth annual celebration of Small Business Week alongside the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC, the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, and our presenting sponsor, U. S. Bank. I would also like to recognize that we have the economic development team of the City of Colorado Springs, Jesse Kimber and Shakana Tutter here in the attendance as well today. So thank you for your support.

One of the most exciting events this year is going to be our bash at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. So in front of you, you have our small business safari flyer. And if you are interested in learning more, we encourage folks to go to www.pikespeaksbw.com, that's smallbusinessweek.com, where you can find all of the run of show and all of our events for the entire week. One of our highlights this year is we're gonna be providing a $50,000 AI prize package on Thursday evening to a business that pitches for that competition. Today I brought a few friends with me and I would hope that I can have an opportunity to let them speak.

Let me just make a couple short comments. But I before I give up the mic, just wanna say thank you once again. Our small business community truly appreciates the support that you provide. The Small Business Development Center is truly grateful of everything that this community stands for, and I believe that we are the best small business community in the nation. I'd like to bring up a couple folks. I'll name all three of them if they all wanna three come up. We have Trevor Dierdorf of Amnet, Sandra Lopez of Beside Capital, a nonprofit lender, and Amberly Brown of Soapbox Marketing. So Trevor, if you wanna speak first.

Twenty eight years ago, I was a PC tech at Best Buy North Academy. And I had this idea to start a business serving small businesses in the region. And I went to the SPDC and got guidance on registering my business with the state, what sort of business structure Amnett should have, and basics on coming up with a business plan. I And think these were instrumental tools and resources that helped me launch a business that now 28 later is still in business serving other local small businesses. So I'm grateful to the work of Brandon and his predecessors that I think enabled my business and other small businesses in our region to launch and become successful.

So thank you for recognizing them this week.

Good morning everyone. Good morning council members. My name is Sandra Lopez, Community Development Officer at Visa Capital. We are a non profit lender helping small business getting the access capital they need to succeed and continue growing. And I'm here to support this small business week proclamation and also to support the wonderful work that SBDC does for our community, but also to support all the entrepreneurs and small businesses our organization serve.

We are able to provide a finance to those small businesses because of the support of the SBDC from financial projections, business plans, and everything they need so our borrowers can come back to these lender institutions and receive the funding available for them. We focus on commercial real estate and we are able to help those businesses getting that big dream of business ownership possible because of their support of this community. So thank you so much for supporting our small business community and thank you all of you for being here today.

Good morning. I'm Amberly Brown. I own Soapbox Marketing. About a year ago, well let me go back a minute. I had met Brandon in networking and other areas. So when I decided I was gonna take the leap and start my own business, he was the first person I wanted to reach out to. And he said, hey. Take this class, and I did. And a year ago today or a year ago last week, I started my business and have brought on two more people onto my team. The small business week last year was the first thing I did as a business owner. And not only networking but the classes were super helpful to me. So thank you for supporting it and I look forward to being there again this year. Thank

you counsel.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you for your comments and giving some background about the power of small businesses and how important the SBDC is to what you've been able to accomplish in your businesses. Are there any other council members that would like to comment or share any perspective? If not, Madam President, would you like to do a commemorative photo

with a few of Yes,

of course.

We'll all join you down front if the four of you would like to come up for a

We need to Yes, we do.

There's the matter of that.

Well, can vote whenever. We have a motion from Councilman Hinjem and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

And the motion passes eight to zero.

Thank you.

Moving on to item five b will the clerk please read item five b into the record?

City council appointments and removals to boards, commissions, and committees.

Starting with planning commission. A vacancy occurred on the planning commission due to a resignation of a current member. Council liaisons Dave Donaldson and Ken Casey recommended elevating Richard Engel, who has served as an alternate member since October 2025, to a voting member position. Council member Donaldson or Casey, do you have any comments?

I think council member Casey is, is extremely familiar with the planning commission, so I'll I'll let him, speak. But I don't know if mister Engel is here today. Is he? I remember the interview with him for the Planning Commission though. He is a very a very smart man. I think he's a former Air Force general, but just a very sharp guy, and Ken can speak to his performance on the Planning Commission.

Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President. Yes, Rich Engel's been a great part of the Planning Commission. As an alternate, he attended every meeting, and with about two minute notice, he moved up from alternate to a voting member, was fully prepared, who knew every knew all the issues, participated extensively in the discussions we had, so I highly recommend him for elevation to voting member.

Next we have the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority Board of Directors. Councilman Risley.

Thank you, madam president. I just wanted to speak to this and provide some background for my colleagues and for any interested citizens. When this body dissolved CTAB, the Citizens Transportation Advisory Board, last month or earlier this month I guess it was, it triggered the need to rewrite the bylaws for the PPRTA and the PPRTA Citizens Advisory Committee or the CAC. Currently, Councilmember Williams serves on the CAC and has for quite some time not as a representative of the city of Colorado Springs but as a citizen at large. And a number of us felt like her background and experience as an engineer and sort of a subject matter expert when it comes to transportation and transit related matters makes her very well suited to remain on the CAC.

But as part of these bylaw revisions, one of the decisions that was being discussed or made was the idea of really with the spirit and intent of the Citizens Advisory Committee being comprised of not elected officials but citizens, volunteers. So in order to deconflict the potential for council member Williams to be a voting member on the PPRTA board and still allow her to serve on the PPRTA CAC, one of the solutions that came forward was the idea of simply removing her as an alternate from the PPRTA board. And so that's what this matter is here in front of us. Simply to, as I said, deconflict and allow us to revise the bylaws at the PPRTA CAC in a way that sort of is in line with the spirit and intent of the Citizens Advisory Committee. Councilmember Williams, do you have any other comments you'd like to make or?

I just wanna say that I'm honored to have served PPACG and PPRTA in some way, shape or form for almost the last fifteen years. So, I appreciate this change and I look forward to serving on the CAC and I know that there's communities around the state looking at our PPRTA in an attempt to model it and if at any point in time you think I can help with that, just let me know.

And I truly do appreciate and value your service on the CAC. I think, again, that your background and expertise truly has saved us at the board level from a lot of brain damage and a lot of issues that you've been able to identify and catch at the CAC level. So thank you for your continued service in that regard. Any questions that my colleagues might have that I can help answer? Okay. Thank you, madam president.

I need a motion. I have a motion from councilman Gold and a second from councilman Rainey. If there are no other comments, we will vote on these two items.

My screen doesn't have anything on

Moving on to mayor's business item six a. Will the clerk please read item six a into the record?

An ordinance appointing Stephanie Boster as city attorney and prescribing her duties compensation and tenure in office and superseding and repealing all prior ordinances inconsistent with the provisions of this ordinance.

Travis Easton.

Thank you. After a lengthy process, a process that I'd like to thank counsel for their participation in, I am introducing Stephanie Boster as the appointee for our next city attorney. This is the first of two readings. While Stephanie is here, it may make sense, or if she wants to say something now, if you have any questions of her, that's certainly great, but again, she will be here on May 12 at a second reading of this as well.

I'll bring it back to the dais for any comments from council members. If not, I need a motion. Councilman Risley.

Thank you Madam President. I just want to welcome Ms. Boster to the City of Colorado Springs. Look forward to working with you. I think you'll be a great addition to the team and certainly anything that we at council can do to help with your onboarding process, we're very excited that you're here and more than willing to roll up our sleeves and help you out.

I have a motion from Councilman Donelson and a second from Councilman Risley who doesn't have a button. Let's vote.

Aye.

It didn't show up. I'm sorry. But we have a motion and three seconds.

Four. Four. Four.

We can do a vote vote if it's easier for you. Let's take a roll, please.

Because I'm completely frozen on my screen. Do you want a roll call

or you wanna give us a roll call.

Okay. Council member Casey.

Aye.

Council member Crowe Iverson. Aye. Council member Donaldson. Aye. Council member Gold. Aye. Council member Hinjem. Aye. Council member of the line member is aye. Council member Rainey. Aye. Council member Risley.

Aye.

Council member Williams.

Aye.

Motion passes nine to zero.

Moving on to items 8A. Will the clerk please read item 8A into the record?

Resolution to authorize commercial recreation, the utilities controlled watershed areas and reservoirs.

Good morning, Abby.

Good morning, president Crowe Iverson. I'm Abby Ortega, and I'm here to talk to you about a resolution authorizing commercial recreation on utilities controlled watershed properties.

Can I move on forward? As

we talked about at utility board last week, the current city charter and Colorado Springs City Code allows commercial or allows use on water Colorado Springs utilities, watershed properties that are consistent with maintenance of proper health, safety, fire protection, and conservation standards. So council can allow recreation on on our watersheds as long as it meets those standards. In terms of commercial recreation, utilities will utilize appropriate best management practices, adaptive management process to ensure that we're managing the watersheds with it consistent with city code. In addition, we will always ensure that if we have commercial recreation, we will have a managing partner to help us oversee that recreation. The resolution that is before you authorizes commercial guided recreation within Springs Utilities oversight for consideration by council today.

And what this will do practically is today because we have studied it and applied best management practices per our North Slope Recreation Area plan that was presented to council or to utility board last week and is now posted on our website, Those best management practices will allow us to open up North Slope Recreation Area for limited commercial activity through a pilot program that will be managed through Pikes Peak America's Mountain.

Sorry, I apologize for interrupting. My fault. Trevor Velocity, attorney's office. I believe council member Lineweber had the intention to recuse from asylum, and that just needs to be

done before

we go any further

into the asylum.

Thank you.

He does intend to recuse himself. My button isn't working, so I can't click in that I wanted to speak, but he communicated with me exactly what you just said that he's recusing himself from this topic. And also, we can't see council member Lyon Weber online, but apparently he had his hand raised and was trying to let us know that. So thank you for interrupting.

So you can't see me or hear me?

We can

now. We can hear you now.

Okay. Well, good. Fine. Okay. Anyway, yes. I've been trying to recuse myself with the you know, how something's going wrong with the technology today. Anyway, so I need to step out. I actually own a commercial outfitter. And, and so because of that, I will be, stepping out. If someone could text me or let me know when I can come back in, I'd appreciate it. So bye for now.

Okay. No. That's fine. The resolution does allow us, the CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities, to approve commercial recreation on other watersheds provided we are completing the best management practices and we have that plan. But today, it's simply to allow commercial recreation on North Slope.

It would be the way we'd enact this resolution going forward. The benefits that commercial recreation activities can provide on utilities controlled watersheds include additional security measures and strengthen infrastructure protection to safeguard our critical assets, supports public recreation access opportunities that align with utilities' core operations. It also can provide financial and environmental sustainability for maintenance of those watersheds and ensure adequate resource allocation for the sustainable management of the watershed properties. And with that, happy to take any questions.

Abby, I don't see any questions at this time. I have a motion from councilman Donaldson.

You you do not you do not have a motion from councilman Donaldson.

I do not have any other questions.

Okay. Thank you. Madam president, while we're waiting for technology to, I would just make a motion that we approve the resolution, if that's acceptable. I'll second that. I have

a motion from Councilman Hinjem and a second from Councilman Gold. And I guess are we gonna vote with our hands up? You can take a roll call. Just, clerk, take a roll call.

Yeah. Just hang on. I gotta do all this old school stuff. Bear with me here. Casey.

Alright.

Council member Crow Iverson. Just say yes. Aye. Council member Donaldson.

Aye.

Council member Gold. Aye. Council member Hedstrom. Aye. Council member Lineweber is excused. Never mind. Council member Rainey. Aye. Council member Risley. Aye. Council member Williams. Aye. Passes eight to zero.

Emily, I'm gonna refer to you. Do you need a short recess to get this technology going, or do you think it's gonna matter, and should we just keep going?

I think at this point it's probably best to keep going but just know that the software system for our city clerk is down which is why your tablets are down. So I think moving forward we just need to go manual voice votes for a call for now, but I think we should press forward.

Thank

you. Moving on to item eight b. Will the clerk please read them read item eight b into the record?

Consideration of resolution settings for natural gas rates Colorado Springs Utilities March 2026 rate case.

Good morning and good luck.

Thank you. Good morning Chris. Chris Bidlak, senior attorney with the City Attorney's Office Utilities Division. At your last meeting on April 14, you heard utilities March 2026 rate case related to the DIMP rider that was proposed. At that meeting, you completed the record of the hearing and closed that hearing at that date. Yesterday, presented the draft decision order to you for further review, and today we ask for your final vote on utilities proposals and the decision order that were provided. Happy to address any questions. Absent that, we would ask for a motion.

And Madam President, I make a motion to approve item 8B.

I have a motion from Councilman Donaldson.

I second.

Second from Councilman Rainey. Clerk, can you please take a call, roll

call, vote? Council member Casey.

Aye.

Council member Crowe Iverson. Aye. Council member Donaldson. Aye. Council member Gold. Aye. Council member Heng Joon. Aye. Council member Rainey. Aye. Council member Risley. Aye. Council Member Williams. Aye. Motion passes eight to zero.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Moving on to item 9A. Will the clerk please read item 9A into the record?

Ordinance number 20 six-sixteen, repealing ordinances numbers twenty-forty four and twenty two-thirty three, thereby dissolving law enforcement transparency advisory commission.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, madam president. Before we move forward with taking any action on this particular ordinance, I will hand it over to the chief of staff who would like to share some comments on behalf of the mayor and the chief of police.

Thank you, Council Member Rainey. Based on the statement yesterday, I'll just read an excerpt from that. That is, we extend our sincere gratitude to the members of the law enforcement transparency accountability commission for their service, their time, their willingness to step into complex and often difficult conversations. Together, we'll continue to focus on what matters most, keeping our communities safe, strengthening trust, and ensuring accountability remains clear, direct, and responsible to the people that we serve. Thank you.

With that being said, I know we have to take a vote on this so I will leave my comments, Madam President, to after vote is rendered one way or another.

Okay we will now move to public comment on 9A. First up we have Taylor Gray. Could you make sure the green button's on Taylor Sweeter? Thank you.

Good morning Council. Taylor Gray. So I wanted to talk on this subject because it's not the only thing that we have that we're not consulting or that doesn't have teeth. And I think it goes a lot with everything I've been coming here a lot to try to talk to you guys about, about transparency and accountability and everything. It's been really eye opening to see that, you know, like with the transport group where we didn't reach out to them and ask questions and lean on those groups.

I imagine that this police transparency group was a lot of effort probably to get created in the first place. And I have a serious fear that it's not gonna be replaced with something stronger and something better. And it kind of feels like taking the roof off your house right now when you don't have the supplies to build the new roof. You're like, I'll get to it, you know. We can't just trust that everything's gonna be okay.

People break the rules all the time. I think that's probably my main point in even coming to this council is just to make sure you guys all understand. It's not about the rules that we make, It's about holding people accountable to those rules. And so we need something strong. We need something new.

And we need something expansive. You know, I've been talking about the ICE and everything like that. It's bringing up a whole bunch of horrible memories from my past with the police and things like that that had happened because there was no cameras. I'm actually very, very for cameras and for visibility and everything like that. I want the citizens to be able to control what happens with their police.

They are the ones there protecting us. Love my men and women in arms, and it's so important for keeping our city safe, you know? It's not the lock on our door that stops people from kicking it down. It's accountability and it's the law and it's the fact that you know someone's gonna go and do something about it. But I don't know. I I heard all this stuff about this policeman shooting citizens. If that man is not fired, gone, made an example of, someone else will do it again. And the thing about laws is they're pointless if people don't feel like they have to follow them. The law is you can't shoot citizens. Someone shot a citizen.

Someone else will shoot a citizen if we don't hold them accountable. So I hope that you guys are all planning on working together to create something very soon and something newer and better and stronger. Something that can then be used to tell you what you have to do. We need the citizens to be able to say, hey, this ain't cool. The citizens have headed, hey, it ain't cool. I hope that man is fired. Thanks guys.

Next up we have Brandon Rincon.

Hello, counsel. My name is Brandon Rincon. I'm with the Colorado Springs Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. We're a grassroots organization fighting for police accountability and justice for people who have been victimized, brutalized, and murdered by police. Not just in Colorado Springs, but all across the country.

You know, we're a branch of the National Alliance, and the National Alliance has one demand, and that is community control of the police. What that means is that it is everyday people who have the ability to decide how we are policed and who polices us. Currently, there is no mechanism to holding officers accountable outside of police investigating themselves. And we know that time and time again, police fail to actually act in a sense of justice when it comes to investigating other police officers. They call it the thin blue line, And so they have their thin blue line.

That's why we need community control of the police. We need a civilian police accountability commission or council that's all elected, all civilian, has power to hire and fire officers, that has power to open investigations into officers, and that has the power to subpoena officers as well. And, you know, this isn't something that's, like, not ever heard of. There is plenty of oversight commissions all across the country. There are plenty of oversight councils all across the country.

You know, I remind city council that LETAC did not come out of the goodness of y'all's hearts or whoever was on the council at that time. Right? LETAC came out of the struggle for police accountability in 2020 when millions of people took to the streets because we all watched a man get murdered on with our own eyes. You know, we all saw the the killing of George Floyd with our own eyes. And it wasn't until millions of people took to the streets.

It wasn't until thousands of people in Colorado Springs took to the streets. It wasn't until tear gas. It until people were brutalized. It wasn't until many, many lawsuits that lead tech was finally created. And it was created to have no teeth from the start. It was created to pacify this movement. It was created to to try and say, hey, look, we're doing something. Well, we need to do something more, alright? And so I know that y'all can't actually create a board that that, actually has oversight powers. Right?

But y'all can can talk to the mayor, and y'all can work with the mayor. And so I urge members of city council to really push mayor Yemi to create this board, to create a board with real teeth that can really rein in police violence and terror in this city. And I ask that our allies, if y'all are scared to speak out for this, don't be scared. Let the people help you. You know, the people got your back, and we will stand with you as you stand with us. Alright? There are many families that are grieving. There are many people that are have suffered immense trauma, and so we need something new, we need something better, we need community control of the police.

Thank you. Next up we have Memphis Curry.

Hi, good morning. I'm Memphis Curry. I'm with the Colorado Springs Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. I'm gonna be reading a statement on behalf of a sister of a victim of police shooting. So this statement is being read on my behalf.

I'm not only a community member, but the sister of a man killed by Colorado Springs police last year. My brother was running away when Colorado Springs police shot him three times. He was left on the ground dying while officers focused on locating a weapon instead of providing lifesaving aid. My family was left to live with the reality that my brother's final moments were not met with urgency, care, or humanity, but with the same indifference that too often follows police violence. So I need to ask this counsel directly.

Why is officer Connor Jacob Wallach, who murdered my brother, still employed and still wearing a badge? How is it that there has been no visible, meaningful accountability for taking a life? And why should the public be expected to continue trusting a system that protects its own even in the most serious cases? And like so many other families, we were then expected to trust the same system to investigate itself. That is not justice.

That is not accountability, and that is exactly why community control of the police through a truly independent civilian police accountability council, CPAC, is necessary. For too long, the city has offered the illusion of oversight while families bury loved ones and officers remain protected by the same system that failed us. We do not need another advisory board designed to absorb outrage and produce no real change. We need real power in the hands of the people. CPAC must be fully independent.

No ties to police, no former officers, no financial compensations or connections, no personal loyalties, no conflicts of interest. The people tasked with holding police accountability cannot be connected to the institution they are meant to oversee. And let me be clear. The power to independently investigate police misconduct is not optional. It is essential. Families like mine know exactly what happens when police are allowed to investigate themselves. We get silence. We get delay. We get carefully worded statements while families are left to mourn without truth, without transparency, and without justice. So I want to ask this council something directly.

What if it was your brother, your little cousin, your uncle, your best friend's sibling, your son, or your father? Wouldn't you want real justice? My brother should still be here. If this council is serious about accountability, then build something with real power, not symbolism, not theater, not another empty promise dressed up as reform. The people of this city deserve more. Families like mine deserve more. Justice for Alex and justice for all. Thank you.

Thank you. That is the end of public comment. I'll bring it back up to the dais. I'm gonna ask for a roll call for a vote.

Can ask a motion? I know I know I'm just

Yeah sure. Just yes Councilman Hincham.

Thank you. I just know that we invited many lead tech members here today and I didn't Oh, you're gonna still speak? Okay. I apologize. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

And before we vote, I just wanna clear have a clear time for discussion. Is that what we're at now? Discussion? Okay. So a a few thoughts from me. You know, it was said that, hey, this police officer has shot a citizen. Here's the truth. Police officers are allowed to shoot citizens. I'm a citizen. But if I took a gun and went out in the street and started shooting at people and the police came up and said drop that weapon and I pointed at them, they would shoot me.

And I'm a citizen. So it's it's okay for them to shoot citizens sometimes depending on that citizen's action. And now whoever said that, when someone's breaking into your house and stabbing your family members and a police officer comes, what do you want them to do? So

I need to take people in safely. Okay. Somebody in the custody.

Alright. We're not gonna have a discussion. You had your time to speak, and this is mine. So it's common sense, and it's supported by the overwhelming majority of your fellow citizens that police should use lethal force in certain situations. Today, those incidents are recorded, you know, on the on the police officer's camera, and it is put up within thirty days that all of us can see what happened. So it was spoken about sometimes citizens are running from the police, and they're shot.

Only one video was released. Where is

Sir, I was silent when you spoke. I'd asked for the same courtesy. If you're running and you have a gun with you, it's a different situation situation than if you're just running. And if you point that weapon at a police officer, they may they can use lethal force, and they should. Okay? My brother was

Sir,

we're gonna ask all of the audience members to please hold their comments. You did have a chance to sign up for public comment, and you will respect the the council members on the dais.

So I'll wrap up with this. Another committee may be formed or or I believe that'll kind of fall with the mayor now or not. Hold city council and hold the mayor responsible for our actions. Vote. You get to vote on at least four of us sitting up here, the three at largest and whoever your district representative is.

So vote on us and hold us responsible. I would say that the vast majority of citizens want police to use lethal force in some rare instances. And they're always recorded, and we and that's something that didn't happen in the past, but it does today. And you can watch every one of them now. I'll support this this motion today. Thank you.

Is there any other comments from the dice? Clerk, will you please take a roll call for the vote?

I apologize. I've been trying to make this system work. Who made the motions?

We don't have a motion yet.

I need a motion.

Madam President, move approval of the motion.

I need a second.

Council Member Rainey second.

Council member Casey.

Guard.

Council member Crow Iverson. Aye. Council member Donaldson.

Aye.

Council member Gold. Aye. Council member Hinjem. Aye. Council member Lineweber is yes. Council member Rainey. Aye. Council member Risley. Aye. Council member Williams. Aye. The motion passes nine to zero. Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, madam president. Once again, I I wanted to make sure administratively things were taken care of before reading the statement. And I do plan on issuing a public statement that will go out. But what I would like to do at this moment is a a couple of things. One, thanks to the mayor and the chief of police for for issuing a joint statement.

For those who have come here twice now to offer public comment, I will say thank you. This is not an easy topic, and I will continue to say this and will always say it, it is a part of who I am. A community can never be a community without its citizens involved. And no matter what side of the topic, you're involved. With that being said, I know dissolving LEATEC was not taken lightly.

It was a multi tiered comprehensive legislative review by city council members, legislative staff, the LITAAC commissioners along with the mayor's office and and others. And I do understand the criticality of this to some of the public comments. This was a there are many critical factors that were taken before dissolving or moving in this direction. The 2019 shooting of Devon Bailey here locally, as it was already mentioned, the attention the national attention of the killing of George Floyd. A lot of those things brought a lot of attention, which led to the creation of LEATEC.

Now while the LEATEC ordinance in its former state now post vote and in the mission that it embodied had several goals. But I think it's time and it's very clear that we reevaluate and repurpose what that looks like for us as a community, especially as a body with a community in this city that's definitely growing. So I wanna do two things at this moment. One, I wanna make sure it's very clear what the next steps are because I think there is a fear that this vote is taking place and then things are just gonna drop off to the wayside. There is going to be a warm handoff of those members who are currently a part of the former, entity known as LETAC over to the mayor's office and to the chief of police by myself.

I will be helping and working with other members to set that meeting up. That's what we're calling a warm handoff. The mayor and the chief of police will then speak with those LEADAC commissioners, at least those who wanna continue to be involved, and talk about a advisory committee or whatever him and others choose to move forward with. So just for clarity, this will not drop in any cracks. There will be a warm handoff to his office.

A meeting will be scheduled to be determined, but I know it's gonna be in the very near future to have those conversations with the current members of formerly known as LEATEC now. The other thing I wanna take the opportunity to do, we do have several members here in the audience who are members of LEATEC. Once again, as the city council liaison, I've seen it firsthand. I've seen the emotions. I've seen the tough conversations.

I've seen the video footage that they all had to watch. It's not easy. It's not easy. But yet they stepped up and they volunteered their time and effort to be a part of this. And I just wanna say on behalf of the mayor's office, the chief of police, and, of course, myself as liaison, I wanna thank you all for your time and your commitment, for being a part of that, and then your effort to continue to move forward and put something else, and reevaluate and repurpose.

So with that being said, I would like to take the opportunity, all members that are here that was a part of LEADAC as commissioners, would you please stand? Let's give them a round of applause. And not that I wanna single out or highlight any one particular individual because everyone here, to include members that have already spoken, have, witnessed or been a part of a a tragedy. But also on the other side, one of the first chairs of LETAC, who is sitting in the back there, Rachel Flick, husband, who was a law enforcement officer, was shot also and and and died in the line of duty. So she took on the challenge of being a part of LEATEC.

That's not easy. It's not easy. So I I do want us to you know, there's very, high emotions when it comes to this topic, but let's make sure that we move forward, with a very clear conscious about how we wanna move forward as a city, how we wanna move forward as a council, and to the chief of staff, as I already mentioned, this will be a swift ask. This is not gonna be just a a drag out email. I I wanna see something on the calendar ASAP so we can move forward and reassure people that this is not gonna drop through the cracks. So the mayor can expect that pretty quickly. Madam president.

Madam president, if I I'd like to be recognized if I may.

Of course. Councilman Hincham.

Thank you. I I want to say a couple of things regarding the service of of the LEADAC members. My husband who's here served as the one of the first was the first co chair with JJ Fraser for the beginning of the LEADAC. And I know the effort that he and others put into it. I know that LEADAC, one of the very few commissions that met twice a month for a very, long time, they put a tremendous amount of work into their effort and into their mission and and really are the ones ultimately who felt like this was the right move to make.

But there's one in particular. There's some there's some key things that they did accomplish, and I want I want to make sure everybody knows about at least one of them. And that was a recommendation for crisis response teams that would join mental health workers with the police. And that was a really profoundly impactful, positively impactful recommendation and decision ultimately that was made by the administration, the chief of police. And I just want people to know that there were some good things that came out of this LEADAC and I'm very appreciative. Thank you.

Seeing no other comments on the dais we will move on to item 10b. Will the clerk please read item 10b into the record?

10 a, resolution authorizing the acceptance of a donation approximately 100 acres of land known as Pikeview Quarry.

Hi, Lana.

Good morning, President Krierson, President Pro Tem Risley, members of City Council. Lana Thielen, Design and Development Manager for the City Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Department. I'm here today on the Pikeview Quarry. We did present this to you yesterday. Happy to go through the presentation again if you'd like. Or if not, I do have two ownership representatives today here, Jerry Schnabel and Ron Goodwitz, who would like to make a statement as well.

I'm sorry. We we're dealing with all kinds

of issues. I'm just curious if you'd like to hear the presentation, and if not, I have two ownership representatives that would like to give just a couple moments of your time.

And Madam President, as the representative of that part of town in the neighborhoods around there, I know some of them will probably be tuning in today for the first time, so I think it would be useful to hear the presentation.

Happy to do that.

Alright, so orient you to the site today. We are West Of Interstate 25, Northwest Of Indicator and Centennial Boulevard. You can see the area highlighted in kinda gray on the screen. It is just Southwest of Logit open space in this area. Background on the site itself and how we came to this point today.

This is part of a three part acquisition. The first piece of it was with the Pikeview Quarry frontage property. It was acquired in two phases. Phase one was 88 acres acquired in 2020, and then phase two was 62 acres acquired in April 2021. In addition, there was a Black Canyon Quarry acquisition that was 165 acres acquired in September 2020.

I will show visuals of phase one and phase two in the next couple slides so you can see where those are at, but did want to mention that those two acquisitions allowed the current owner to use some of those funds to to do the Pikeville Quarry reclamation project. And so once those two purchases were made, the quarry reclamation continued on, and then at this point we are at the third phase of this multi part acquisition, the current donation request of 100 acre parcel that is the Pikeview Quarry. In total, there are about four fifteen acres that will be coming to the city. Just to orient you to those two phases, the first phase, phase one. If you look on the right portion of the red area, you'll see Allegheny Drive.

That does enter into the quarry itself. The red parcel is showing phase one and then this other red parcel here shows phase two. These two phases were both combined together to be a part of the Blodgett Open Space and have been master planned through that process and are currently trail construction happening on those parcels. And then finally, the location of the Piku Quarry is shown right on the screen. As you can see, that's adjacent to the two buffer parcels and that quarry totals 100 acres in total. I'm gonna turn it over to David Dedemeyer in our office to finish the presentation.

Good morning. David Dedemeyer, senior TOPS program administrator for the Parks Department. I wanna take an opportunity to share some of the timeline, and I'll go into a little bit more of the reclamation and that process brought to date. So as we look at the the history of the quarry itself, it began mining operations in nineteen o three. It soon expanded in the nineteen forties and fifties with the construction of the Air Force Academy and the expansion of the city of Colorado Springs.

Their current ownership acquired the property in 1972 and took on those responsibilities for the reclamation and operations of the quarry. Cut to a few years later, in 2008, there was a series of landslides that began to happen and those ultimately shut down the operations of the mine itself in 2018. At that timeframe, the ownership group moved forward with the reclamation permit through the Colorado Division Reclamation Mining and Safety. As I highlight this map here, this really tells a little bit of a different story from a graphic perspective. What I wanna highlight is three of the ownership groups that are shown on this map.

The first one in that olive green on the right hand side, that's a portion of the frontage that was acquired through our TOPS program and is now incorporated in with the Blodgett Open Space. The pink color represents the 100 acres of the Pikeview Quarry that's located in the center. And then the darker green represents the US Forest Service and the Pike National Forest ownership. As they move forward with the reclamation permit, the state permitted the area identified in the solid blue color. So that represents the the permit boundary.

Within that permit boundary is an affected area graphically that's shown on this map in that red color. That red color really represents the area of disturbance that was incorporated within the reclamation of the quarry itself. So what you can see is that red boundary overlays beyond the 100 acres and incorporates a portion of the open space as well as the Forest Service. When the TOPS program moved forward to acquire that property, it incorporated and was negotiated in that that area of disturbance would happen and was part of the contract itself for the acquisition. The additional disturbance that occurred on the Forest Service boundary was through a special use permit and that was to provide for additional access to the upper elevations as well as the layback slope that was accompanied with the reclamation work.

The last thing to highlight on this map in that northern portion in the dark crosshatch is an area of nine point acres that Or 9.3 acres that reflects a fill dirt agreement area. Again, negotiated into the acquisition of the property, that 9.3 acres was utilized to take material and move it over into the slopes that were part of the reclamation work itself. As Lana had alluded to, the acquisition process took place in 2020, 2021, but those conversations began soon before that. In 2016, we we started those conversations with the ownership group about the potential for open space acquisition and understand their future of the quarry itself. So those donation this donation piece of Pikeview Quarry was incorporated into that process.

In 2018, the ownership group announced that the reclamation would happen up at Pikeview and they would like to donate the land to the city. At that time, there was a vision that was provided about an idea of a bike park. In 2022, reclamation of the site began, so the physical earthwork started that process. Along that same time frame, we began doing our master plan process for the Blodgett Open Space and those additional acreages up in front of Pikeview itself. That process was a sixteen month window that encompassed almost 1,500 individual citizens that provided feedback along the way.

We had 30 opportunities for public engagement including our TOPS working committee meetings, our parks advisory board, as well as a city council meeting. Through that process, were very clear that Pikeview was an opportunity to be donated to the city, but that that process, that planning process did not incorporate any plans associated with the reclaimed quarry. In 2015, the reclamation work and the revegetation was completed. The state DRMS signed off and approved that late this past fall and initiated our opportunity to move forward with this independent review that I'll touch base on in a moment. But that independent review has been completed and we're moving this forward with the request.

As I mentioned, this was a highly publicized process and over the last ten years there's been more than 36 media events or media stories that have covered specifically Pikeview reclamation as well as a post reclamation future. So just to cover a few steps on the reclamation process. Again, meant to be a very high level conversation today. If there's specific questions, we can certainly answer those. But the ultimate goal was to establish a structural buttress that helped to hold up the slope and reestablish more natural stable slope at the toe of Bikeview Quarrying.

That was completed with moving 3,400,000 cubic yards of material to build that buttress, over 127,000 cubic yards of topsoil for that growth medium. During the process, there were daily inspections with the QAQC manager on-site and they tested every 5,000 cubic yards for not only a soil composition but also for that density testing. Then there were monthly inspections with the Division of Reclamation and Mine Safety as well as the stakeholders including the US Forest Service and the City of Colorado Springs. That project ultimately seeded, erosion control blanketed, and riprap lined those drainage channels. They planted over 31,000 small trees and shrubs.

They also incorporated a Leica monitoring system which was a laser system with prisms that allowed them to monitor the slope for any displacement. In these three photos you can see a timeline that 2019 on the left image, 2022 in the middle, and 2023 on the right. It's the time lapse of that structural buttress being built up from the bottom up. As we cut to this last image, this is when the majority the earthwork was completed. You can see the regeneration of the grass growth And those drainage channels running across the slope were being incorporated into riprap channels.

So a significant amount of work to be able to stabilize this slope and move it forward. A different perspective, just to show that timeline, twenty twenty prior to reclamation beginning, you can see the series of landslides that happened in the center of the scar. Cut to 2023, the majority of that toe was being built up with the structural buttress. And you can also see in this photo the significant amount of disturbance that was required for this reclamation process. And as I mentioned in that filtered agreement and those additional areas of disturbance outside of Pikeview Quarry itself, this reflects a really good image that depicts those disturbance areas.

In 2024, the majority of the earthwork was completed. They're wrapping up the drainage channels at the lower elevations and you can start to see our final image in the fall of twenty twenty five with that reclamation and the significant amount of grass growth that we had from a wet spring in 2025. One thing I wanted to highlight because this is highly visible and we are implementing our trail system with our Blodget Open space is to touch base on that overlap of disturbance within the open space. So on this map you can see our new trailhead that's under construction in the foreground, the reclamation area in the background, and I've identified the trail hub. That's part of our Blodgett Open space where our trail system will go to.

This map now reflects the overlay of the Pikeview Quarry and you can see how that open space is integrated into the ownership group of Pikeview and how that reclamation work again was beyond the 100 acres. That green swath then represents the area of disturbance within the open space. And why I think this is important to bring up is that we are implementing our trail system per the Blodgett open space master plan and a portion of those trails do crisscross the reclaimed area within the open space. So when we do open that up this spring, there will be trail use and public access to a portion of the reclaimed area but not within the Pikeview Quarry. So to wrap up my portion, I wanted to highlight a little bit more of the reclamation review that we had conducted.

I think it's important to stress that this site was engineered, highly regulated by the state, and independently reviewed. And this process really holds fast as a transparent process where the city of Colorado Springs was welcomed at every step along the way. So as mentioned, we conducted a third party review that looked at it, evaluated the reclamation design, construction, the historic failures, and current slope condition. They identified that past instability was driven by the weak clay layer, groundwater, and the mining related slope conditions. That independent review also confirmed that reclamation improvements, that buttress and the drainage improvements, have significantly increased the stability of the site.

They conducted a water sensitivity analysis to determine that if there are elevated groundwater levels that there is a decrease to that stability. However, the site still remains stable. They further recommended that we monitor for that groundwater, for the slope movement, to maintain that LICA system, to understand if there is any displacement, and to be able to provide that maintenance as needed to move forward. So in order to do so, are some costs that are gonna be incurred associated with that. The way we looked at it was essentially three different levels or time related terms.

And in that short term, really over the next few years, we anticipate a low cost associated with the maintenance. We wanna continue that monitoring of the Leica Prism system. And then we anticipate having our staff be able to conduct light maintenance, including some of that drainage maintenance, utilizing our existing equipment and employees. We do anticipate additional costs associated with implementing the groundwater monitoring system and then to further manage that property with noxious weeds, security and signage, and then work on those proactive maintenances that are beyond just kind of the one day fixes. It may be a few more days worth of work.

That third term, the longer term really looks at if there are issues that arise in the bigger condition, we would have some additional costs to address those and we don't know them at this time and they may not ever come up. But it is important to note that with proper monitoring, if we start to see issues, we can be proactive and address those as we move forward. For our schedule here, again to highlight, we had the opportunity to share this presentation yesterday. We're here today for the vote requesting the acceptance of the donation. And part of the driving force behind that is we've had the opportunity since the state approved this back in the fall of last year to close the deal.

Part of our process as the city to feel comfortable was to be able to move this through the independent review and that took a significant amount of time. And so we've been able to accomplish that. We're here today information knowing that that third party reviewer has supported the project and reflects that it is stable. That allows us to continue to move forward with our real estate transaction to close by May 15 before any additional costs may be incurred. So we leave the motion on the screen here and open up to any questions you may have.

Councilman Hinjem.

Thank you, madam president. Yeah. David, I I don't know if you want to or Lana or or someone else wants to opine a little bit about well, I will certainly be supporting this, and in fact, I'll make a motion right now, to support this, resolution. And, bringing land into the city, into the parks department does require, as you just discussed, more maintenance. And I think it's an opportunity to do a little bit of education about the budget that we have and the challenges we have with balancing that acquiring of open space, serving our parks, but also maintaining.

And we know we have tremendous deficits in our ability to keep maintenance. So I'm just I'm just asking you to share really honestly with all of us some of those challenges you face in the Parks Department.

Yeah, I would like to turn that over. I think that's a little bit beyond my specialty right now.

Sorry, I did not give Lana a heads up about this.

That's okay, good morning. I think that's a very valid question and you are right. At this certain time in our Parks Department history, do have some significant backlogs in our maintenance of our properties as well as our assets. We're actually going through the Park System Master Plan process right now and we are figuring out kind of those deferred maintenance costs. And so as we do take on new land, we definitely do understand that it's not only immediate maintenance costs but also some of those long term life cycle costs that are included.

And we do have more of a difficulty at this point in time to look at those long term life cycle costs. We also agree that that's an important component as we take on land and want to be good stewards of our land in the future so that we can take care of those longer term. I will tell you that as we come forward with our Park System Master Plan, we will have those numbers for you and be able to give you an image of kind of where we are today and where we would like to go in the future and potentially having some additional funding coming to the Parks Department. Did that address your question?

It's a beginning, thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah thanks Madam President and Lana. I don't if you want us take your seat that's fine. Think David can probably handle all these. First I want to thank our acting Parks Director Kim King and Lana Thielen and David Diettermeyer for taking councilwoman Hengman, myself out to the site just last week. So we got to see it firsthand and answer, you know, any questions we had at that time.

I want the citizens who live near there to to know that that happened. I've expressed my, really, dislike of going what's called back to back with this where we hear it at the work session yesterday and then we immediately vote on it the very next day. That is abnormal for really anything we do here at council. We only do that under exceptional circumstances where it has to be done. And I I disagreed with that upfront.

I still think it's the wrong way to go. The majority on council want to do it this way. Can you once more explain why Parks requested to go what we'll call back to back two days in a row with this item.

I appreciate that comment and respect your opinion on that. What I would say is that during the the process of the donation agreement that was completed several years ago, it was identified a two week time period in which the state would approve and release that surety bond, that it would be transferred over to the city. We held the option to be able to do an additional third party review at that time. As it happened to move forward this past fall, we had the notification from the state that it has been approved. We initiated that third party review.

It quickly became evident that the time needed to review thousands of pages of documents to do additional modeling by our geotechnical engineer would take a significant amount of time. So we initiated that process. We made the request to the ownership group. They were patient with us. They agreed to extend it to the May 15 date.

However, I would say that they've incurred additional costs primarily since January 1 where they are ready to transfer this over and allowed us the additional time to move that forward. They've absorbed those costs between now and May 15, and so we're looking to be able to to continue with this real estate transaction to be respectful to both parties and to be, again, stewards of the resources. We'd like to also stress that the time required was important for us to ensure that we went through the accurate time, the needed time to review those documents to come forward with this recommendation that is supported by the third party review.

Yeah, and I fully support taking the months we needed to to have a third party review it and take as much time as we need, even if it cost us a little bit more. The closing date is May 15. If we had done the normal procedure and voted on it two weeks later, two weeks from today, that would be May 12. To me that still works and we could have done it that way. And as we go into a master plan for this area, citizen trust or citizen belief that we're not trying to shorten times, speed things up so that citizens don't have the opportunity for full involvement and full participation, I think is extremely important.

And I worry that when we start off like this, it sets a atmosphere where citizens are suspicious of what we're doing on the city side. So again, I wish we had done this the normal way, but this is the way the majority of council wanted to go at your recommendation. Can you say again what what I think concerns citizens up there too is in that part of town is what how's it really gonna be used once the city receives it? Can you talk about that master plan process and how that will work?

Yes. So our focus right now is, of course, to accept the donation to secure that ownership. Moving forward, we would start a public process to be able to have a conversation with the community, with the neighbors, and the stakeholders to understand their opinions and values of that property and how it should be used moving forward. The spectrum on what that is could be a wide range. Everywhere from a wildlife area for the bighorn sheep to a recreational hub as discussed by some individuals related to a bike park.

Where that falls on the spectrum, we need to have that public process to determine it. As the parks department, we're responsible for managing land, being good stewards of the resources, And so we find value in having those community conversations, but also having conversations with those professionals associated with the environmental services that can give us better direction on how to better manage those resources and the property moving forward. But we need that public process to allow us that time.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks, David. And I'll just encourage citizens to participate in this this master plan process when it opens up. That will be your chance to influence how the land is used.

And there are always, in things like this, interest groups who are organized and will strongly advocate for their use. Cyclists for one, mountain bikers. Can see that. Regular citizens who aren't parts of motivated groups, they need to be aware. That's your chance to to be part of the process, express your opinions, show your numbers.

If not, then the vocal group will will carry the day with parks, and that's just kinda how it works. So I encourage citizens to stay tuned in and participate, especially those who live nearby. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Councilman Hinjum. Thank you, madam president. And David, I don't have any questions for you. I actually just have some reflections that I'd like to make. And you can sit down if you want because this is gonna take just a minute.

It was about fifty six or fifty seven years ago, and I was a elementary school student at Douglas Valley Elementary School on the Air Force Academy. And my fifth grade teacher, mining was going on in the mountain and it was a very big scar And, we ended up writing letters to our state legislator, legislatures about the, mining on the mountain and, the damage that it was causing. And I've thought about that many times as we are now getting ready to receive this land and reclaim and it's been in the process of reclamation. And and that got me to thinking a little bit about a number of things. First of all, I I want to acknowledge that the land that we are on right now is in fact the ancestral home of the northern Ute, the southern Ute, and the Ute mountain Ute.

And short of reading a full land acknowledgment, I just simply want to acknowledge that because I want to talk about a teacher, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who wrote a book called Braiding Sweetgrass. And to you students, I think you would really enjoy it if you haven't read it. It's very powerful. And she's a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. And she shares a framework that I think is worth discussing in in this moment.

Because this is land as commodity, and that is really you know, that's how we that's how we function in our society and in our world. But that's not the only way to think about land. She has a few I'm gonna share a few of her her teachings and thoughts about land. That land is a gift, not a commodity. She contrasts our western framework of land as property or resource with the indigenous understandings of land as a generous animate giver to us as human beings.

And when we treat the earth as a gift, we feel gratitude and obligation. And when we treat it as inventory, we only feel entitlement. This reframing matters in policy work. How we name something, be it an asset, a resource, commons, a relative, it shapes how we govern it. She talks about reciprocity is the foundation of a healthy relationship with the natural world, and I want to believe that our parks department approaches their work on our land with that sense of reciprocity.

Take what you need and and ask permission. Don't take the last thing. Be in relationship with the land and the gifts that it brings to us. And lastly, she has many many more, but the last one I'll mention is restoration is a practice of relationship, not just remediation. So healing damaged land is not only an engineering or an ecological task, which we've just learned a lot about.

It is a moral and a cultural one. She asked us not to restore just only ecosystems but our own capacity to how we belong to the land. So it has direct impacts on our communities and how we develop our city and the land around us, urban forestry, brownfield reclamation, parks. We are restoring not just function, but our relationship to the land. And so I'm very proud to to vote for this.

I think we maybe even have I don't know if they're going to speak, the the owners of the land, and I would invite them actually to come up. I think we've learned a lot about how we use the land, and I'm glad that we're restoring this. I'm glad that it's coming into our Parks Department, and I hope this gives us all a moment to think a little bit about. Let's challenge our ideas about what this beautiful earth is that we have and how we're in relationship with her. Thank you.

Councilman Williams.

Thank you. I couldn't agree more, Councilman Hendom, which is why I encourage everyone to plant daffodils as often as you can because magically they just seem to come up in the spring, irises too. They bring lots of joy and color and beauty. Thankfully in Colorado Springs, they don't need a whole lot of water. And I also want to piggyback on the notion that we don't have a lot of maintenance dollars.

We are dealing with budget challenges right now, so I agree that it's good to add this into the system, but I think the community should be aware that it may be a while before we bring it completely to fruition because there are parks where people currently live that are in need of maintenance that need some tender loving care and taken care of. And, I personally think that's our main priority. Again, thank you Kim King for shepherding this in the interim. We appreciate all of that. And I think it is important to give time when it comes to the closing of property.

We did hear this two weeks ago. Yes, we are aware of what's happening, but when you're coming to a property closing, three days is tight. So I agreed that we should hear this today. If we're going to move forward with this, we should vote on it today. That gives all parties ample time to do everything they need to do and make sure the dollars are right, the math works, and that no one's feeling rushed. So I appreciate all of your work on this, and of course I love the engineering that's happening in the background, and thank you very much.

I'll now open this up to public comment. On this topic, we have Steve Harris.

Good morning, City Council. Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak today. I am the chair of the Colorado Springs Parks Recreation and Cultural Services Advisory Board, but I am not here today speaking on behalf of the board. Although we've talked about the quarry at our meetings, we didn't take any formal action on it. So I'm really here just in my individual capacity as a citizen. And a longtime observer of the Parks Department. I actually served on the first TOPS working committee back in 1997. I've been on parks board. I was there from 1999 to 2005. Now I'm back on parks board again.

So I've had a lot of opportunity to see how our parks department has worked and how our system has developed, and we have a world class park system. And I happened to be on a panel discussion last week with Jan Martin, who used to be a city councilor, and Becky Lineweber from the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance. And we talked a lot about the Our Spacious Skies survey and how much, how the scenic beauty of this community is so important to our quality of life and our economic prosperity and how we have visionary projects. And this is one of those visionary projects. Things don't happen overnight, and I can assure you that when the master plan comes forward to Parks Board, we will have a transparent, fair, open process.

Nothing has been predetermined about this property, and we will allow every citizen to participate in that process to determine what is the best use and what's the balance between preserving the natural resources and recreation. So rest assured that that will be coming. I really appreciate the comments about funding. That is something we are very, very concerned about, as I know you all are as well. There are a lot of discussions going on about the funding issue.

I'm involved in those, and we hope after the master plan is finished, this summer, that we'll be back talking about how can we find the funding we need to preserve and protect our amazing Parks Department. So as you can tell, I'm very much in favor of this donation being accepted. I thank you for your time. And if you have any questions, you're welcome to ask me. Otherwise, I will.

Thank you, Steve. Next step, we have Glenn Carlson.

Good morning council members. Glenn Carlson with the Trails and Open Space Coalition. Just wanted to speak in support of this as well. There's an old saying, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. So if somebody's delivering a nice beautiful horse to you, please don't bother checking its teeth. And I think this is one of those cases. You know, if we were to go out and try to purchase 415 acres on the open market to add to our park system, I'm sure you can all imagine the number would be astronomical. And that's before you even put a shovel to it to do anything with it. And so, you know, growing up here there were really kinda two scars on the mountain. The big one, the the big slab that you could see, the Queens Canyon Quarry.

And I you know, when I was a kid, I probably asked the same questions you did. What what is that? Why do

we have

that? And it was there to support our growth and development for a long time. Since nineteen o three is when many of these properties first came online. So we're talking about a 123 existence here. And so, you know, but undoubtedly they were ugly. I think we can all agree on that. Pike View, same story. Similar situation. The second part of this is process though. This is how this is supposed to work. You know, there was a key part of our community for a long time contributed enormous amounts of limestone to fuel our growth and our

development and build many of

the structures that we use day in and day out. But that it's that time has come. It's it's nearing its end of life and I'm happy to see it being turned over to our parks department. You know, as David Dietemeyer spoke about earlier, this has already been reviewed by the Department of Reclamation. Checked off as stable.

They went and saw a third party review which also gave a thumbs up and and deemed it stable. And so I have no qualms with the process whatsoever up to this point. And to add four four hundred fifteen acres to an already incredible open space with Blodgett that might I add is becoming more incredible as we speak with the trail system that's being expanded as part of what was the open space plan for Blodgett in the first place. And so we're now coming full circle. TOSC or sorry, parks funding is probably a separate conversation.

I don't have enough time for it. It does spill over into this undoubtedly. What happens to this property moving forward though? I can can attest that TOSC will be accretive to that master planning process and we will bring our army out to make sure that all voices are heard to make sure the community gets exactly what they want out of this property. And so again I ask for your support in accepting this property into our parks department.

Thank you. That closes public comment. Moving it back to the dais and left there no other discussion. I have a motion from Councilman No, councilman Hinjem.

Well, I I wanted to recognize David who I think David did did the property owners wanna make some comments? I'd like to hear from them.

If I may request a time that our property owners could come up and speak. This is Ron Goodwitz. He represents the ownership group.

Good morning.

Good morning, Madam President, Council members. David, thank you very much. I'd just like to take a couple of minutes and maybe give you a little bit of context for this donation. My family, is the owner of Pikeview as well as several other businesses here in town, have been corporate citizens since 1972. We had taken the responsibility back then to quarry rock from Pikeview Quarry as well as the Black Canyon.

And over the years that we owned a company called Transit Mix, which was the principal ready mix operation here in town, we believe up until 2018 we poured roughly 60% of all of the concrete that's been used in Colorado Springs. So we've taken from the land as the council member has suggested, but we've also now returned it to the city, we believe several times over. We are pleased to make this donation. As I said, we've been a corporate citizen here for seventy some odd years. We expect to continue.

We still own two door businesses here in town, Serenity Sliding Door, which makes sliding doors nationally, as well as a door distribution business. It used to be called McKinney Door Solutions, it's now called American Door Properties, American Door Products as we expand that business throughout this nation. We're pleased to be a member of the corporate community here in town. As I said, continue to be a member and we are pleased to be able to make this donation should you all choose to take it.

Thank you. We appreciate that very much.

I just would like to recognize two people from our team. Jerry Schnabel who led the effort both to pour concrete here for many, many years as well as to oversee the rehabilitation reclamation of the Pikeview Quarry as well as Lauren Miller who was our financial person overseeing the economics of this transaction. Thank That

is the end of public comment. I see no other comments on the dais. We have a motion from Councilman Hinjem and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

The motion passes eight to zero.

Moving on to item 10 b.

An ordinance repealing and reordaining appendix k Wadlin urban interface requirements of part one fire prevention code of article four fire prevention of chapter eight public safety.

Good morning, Chris.

Good morning. Madam president, president pro tem, members of council, Chris Cooper fire marshal, I'm here this morning to present amendments to the Wildland Urban Interface requirements of the Colorado Springs Fire Code. As we've spoken before, this is tied to the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code Board and their changes, and so I'll present today the code changes that we're bringing forth to City Council. Just a note on the ADA accessibility of our slides, we believe that they are fully accessible, but if there's any questions or concerns, please reach out. So the background, the Senate Bill twenty three thousand one sixty six established the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code Board.

And that board was chartered with developing a statewide fire prevention code related to wildfire resiliency across the state. And on 06/01/2025, the state adopted that Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code and the language within that code adoption and that, senate bill process required that, all jurisdictions across the state of Colorado adopt said code or, something equivalent by 04/01/2026, and that must be implemented in all jurisdictions by 07/01/2026. We have obviously missed that April 1 deadline for adoption, but we are moving forward. There was some difficulty in getting our map adopted at the state level, which I can speak to as we move forward today. So the highlights and the impact to our community.

The new code applies to both commercial and residential properties, whereas our previous wildfire interface code only applied to residential properties. We estimate that would impact us to the tune of about 1,200 to 1,500 projects a year that come through this community for permitting that would fall within our wildland urban interface areas. We did not make any change to our existing WUI shape on the West Side of town. That has stayed the same. We have added a new portion of the WUI on the East Side of town to undeveloped land And again, we'll cover that in a minute when we show the map.

And ultimately, we believe this strengthens our community effort for wildfire mitigation efforts. So some key updates. The state broke down their code into two class ifications, class one and class two in the wildfire risk areas. And so we have done the same. This also applies to residential and commercial properties as I spoke to and creates a new map for reference for us.

When we talk about the general requirements, there's two things that we really look at when we talk about wildfire mitigation. One is structure hardening, the other is vegetation management. And so the general requirements apply to roofs, fuels being vegetation, site management, structural hardening, and there are different provisions for both class one and class two requirements. And then we take that into specific requirements and that applies based upon what risk area you're in and that includes fuel site management, retaining walls, fencing, and structure hardening requirements. So when the state did their risk map and they considered what was a class one area and what was a class two area, class one refers to the vegetation and the wildfire risk that presents, and so we're looking at light to medium surface fuels, low rate of spreads, potting possible in windy conditions, and increased fire activity as that slope increases.

When we look at a class two risk area, we're looking at moderate to heavy fuels, a more rapid rate of spread in those fuels as fire burns through there. Short range spotting is common. Medium to long range based upon windy conditions and increased fire activity on slopes 30% or greater. And so as we've created our map and look at how we've created our risk map, it's pretty clear how we've delineated those risk areas based upon those classifications. This was the state wildfire risk map that was published.

Yellow being low risk, orange being moderate, and high being, or red being high. And that was based upon a model that took into consideration the vegetative fuels, the topography, local wildfire patterns, local wildfire history, and fire behavior modeling. As we looked at this map and we're making decisions on what we do locally, our experience and our observations really didn't align and agree with the state risk map. And so we did some work on our own. We did some modeling and we developed our own risk map based on what we felt were more accurate conditions that we saw locally.

This is the map that we came up with. Again, the red is our existing WUI and that shape remained unchanged. About 24% of our population lives in that WUI area. Somewhere in the neighborhood of about 33,000 acres and 36,000 parcels of land. The new WUI is in green. Currently about 7% of our population, about 28,000 acres, and currently there's about 10,000 platted parcels within that space. Most of that space remains undeveloped. This code will apply as those new developments come into that area. So class one provisions. From structure hardening standpoint, there's really not a lot of change.

We already have a class A roofing ordinance in our community since 2003. There's requirement for non combustible gutters and downspouts, which is an industry standard. And the biggest thing on class one properties is listed and or screened vents for the attic space. When we look at the site requirements, there'll be five foot of non combustible zone around the house. No landscaping within that area.

There's some exceptions for some low flammability plants. Non combustible retaining walls that are within eight foot of the structure and non combustible fencing within eight foot of the structure. We've also brought in that our current code did not include is common areas and developments must also be in compliance with our fuels mitigation requirements that does not apply in our existing MOUI. Class two provisions takes all those things that we talked about for class one and then adds non combustible exterior materials. Base of walls are protected, non combustible decking, protected doors and windows, and spark arresters on wood burning appliances.

And the site and landscaping provisions, those do not change. Those are currently what's in our code with brush patches separated by 10 foot, hazards trees at least 15 foot away from structures and pruned and limbed up. The class two provisions that we have are very much in line with our current WUI provisions in Colorado Springs. And in fact, those were the basis for a lot of the decisions that were made at the state level for their code. So this is an example of what we look at when we look at fuels.

We have the immediate zone around the house that's zero to five foot. That area would be completely free of any combustible planting, mulch, anything within that space with the exception of some low flammability plants. That intermediate zone is that five to 30 foot. That's where we're gonna see clearing of dead material, no large accumulations of any combustible products and some separation of trees and brush. And then when we get into that expanded zone at 30 to a 100 feet, we see some tree spacing provisions there as well.

Most lots in Colorado Springs would not see much in terms of that expanded zone due to the nature of how we develop here. Here's a quick comparison of what that looks like. The difference between class one and class two. And so class one looks like we have about six of those provisions that apply within the class one environment. Class two includes all those things on that list that we've already covered.

Financial impact. Obviously any financial impact varies greatly based upon size of structure, the architectural design, the materials used. We had a local builder speak to us and provide us some basic cost estimates for class one that could be up to about $1,200 per residential property. The majority of those costs honestly are gonna fall within that restriction on combustible fencing within the structure. And same with the class two already in the existing building.

Builders are used to building to that class two requirement and that's the standard in those environments. And then the graphic just shows kinda what a protected versus an unprotected home would look like. So considerations. This was brought forward as a state mandate as a matter of statewide concern under the public safety umbrella which some interpretations have said this is exempt from our home rule status. Certainly that is up to the attorneys to speak to that.

A big implication that really brought us a lot of concern was we have to adopt this code by 06/30/2026 locally and the implications of that tied to state energy code requirements. Roger Lovell from the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department is here and he can certainly speak to any of those concerns as well. When we look at fuels management and landscaping, one of the biggest challenges we always have is when a home is signed off and it gets its certificate of occupancy, many times the landscaping is not complete for that home or as homeowners move in, they want to modify or add to the landscaping. There's not a real strong process in place for us to address that. And so we've relied heavily upon education of those homeowners and we've continued to elevate our programs to the point of now within thirty days of a certificate of occupancy, we're actually trying to make contact with those new homeowners and provide them educational information so they know what the requirements and rules are as they landscape their property.

We have been in conversation with HOA groups and landscapers and we will continue to do so in hopes that the HOAs can continue to support us through their artificial and review committees to help spread the word and ensure those properties are properly landscaped and compliant with code. Our public process, we very much rely on our stakeholders for feedback and we appreciate their input in this process. We've made presentations to HBA Downtown Partnership and Development Review Advisory Committee. We've also had a review by the Fire Board of Appeals and we've worked in close collaboration with Pikes Peak Regional Building Department and city planning on the processes and procedures, and we will have ongoing training and public process with stakeholder groups moving forward. In fact, I leave this meeting when we're done here and go up to HBA and do a lunch and learn with them today to help continue to educate the builders on the provisions of this code.

So our options moving forward are to amend appendix K to include the wildfire resiliency provisions that we've modified into our code. We can adopt the state wildfire resiliency code as written under a local ordinance. We can maintain our current Appendix K as written with no change or we can repeal our current Appendix K out of the fire code and adopt as a standalone ordinance. Our recommendation moving forward is to go ahead and move forward with, our proposal is to adopt Appendix K amendments within the fire code. The reason for that is our existing code already contains those code requirements.

Staff and the industry are used to looking for those there and as the enforcing agency of these code requirements, it makes sense to have those embedded within the fire code. And so, like I said, we went through and we're incorporating those applicable provisions out of the Colorado wildfire resiliency code. When we did our code comparison, we took those provisions in the state code that were more restrictive than local code, brought those into our existing code. In those areas where we were more restrictive than the state code, we kept those provisions in place. And so we didn't want to water down what we had in place already, but we wanted to ensure that we aligned with the state code.

And then obviously we would adopt our local map instead of the state wildfire risk map. The state code board has approved our local map for use, and so that was our big hurdle in the timing getting before this board. So that is my presentation for today. I'd be happy to answer any questions or concerns from this board.

Councilman Hinjum. Thank you, Madam President. Chris, can you talk a little bit about I mean this is really important for new build, correct?

Yes.

But there's no doubt thousands of homes who don't actually technically meet these code requirements in the area. Is that a fair supposition?

That is very fair. You know, we've had wildfire resiliency provisions within our code going back to 1993. And so this is about our fourth iteration of increasing the codes in our community. And we recognize that that makes it difficult for some communities that don't have, you know, the same provisions. And we see a lot of homes in our community that aren't code compliant.

And you know, that's typical with any building. When it's built, it's built to a certain standard and then, you know, as codes change, those are not retroactive codes. We work very closely in concert with 143 HOAs currently in our community and we do educational presentations of those boards on a regular basis. And we do our Living With Wildfire series. We have an exceptional website with lots of information and so while we hope that the community engages and makes smart choices on how they protect their home voluntarily, There's not a retroactive requirement other than if they do live within these risk areas and do home remodeling or additions.

Those portions of work they do have to comply with code.

Yeah, I very much appreciate that. And I think there's greater and greater awareness around wildfire and concern just based on the drought and it's something people are thinking a lot about. So I love hearing that you have those relationships with the HOAs. Not every neighborhood, of course, though, has an HOA. So, short of your efforts at public education and so forth, things you have on your website, are there any other thoughts or ideas or ways even that City Council could support the fire marshal in helping to educate people who live in homes where they may not even have any real awareness about their current environment and what they might be able to do to improve it?

That's a great question. I appreciate that. It's hard in those existing neighborhoods. I don't know in terms of the action that city Council could do to address those existing nonconforming homes, right? But I would certainly ask for this Council's support in moving forward as we see new developments come through and we ask for support of this Council in ensuring wildfire resiliency codes are approved and maintained throughout our community. That would be the important action for this council.

Great, thank you very much Chris.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you Madam President. Quick question, of the 143 HOAs that we have, of course, I don't think you've engaged with all 143, but was there any common concerns that you heard from the HOAs moving in this direction?

You know, we operate in a very open environment with these HOAs. We're invited to, we do, I think, roughly almost 60 HOA meetings a year. And so as we speak to these groups, generally speaking, HOAs that we speak with are very much in support of what we do and share a common concern about wildfire risk to this community. And so we don't hear any pushback. In fact, we hear what can the fire department do to support us.

We've spoken to a community risk survey that we're currently in the process of doing and some feedback that we received from some other surveys is about 40% of this community thinks that we're not doing enough in terms of wildfire risk. And so I think that speaks volumes to the concern this community shares of wildfire risk. And so we haven't seen any pushback or negative response as we've spoken to them.

Thank you for that. And also, because of this, and I don't expect you to be a subject matter expert on this particular question, insurance impacts. I know for a lot of homeowners when they hear things like this, they immediately start thinking that my insurance is gonna go up and what the impact's gonna be. Do you have any insight into that?

That is the great unknown. You know, we have conversations going all the time with industry groups, with insurance groups, with other HJs across the state. You know, one of my risks or one of my concerns early on is as we bring in additional wildfire provisions in areas into our community, what's going to be that impact to the homeowners? I take that very seriously. We get calls from homeowners all the time who are being dropped by their insurance companies because of wildfire risk.

And we write letters on their behalf and support them and what they can do to help mitigate their property. In some conversation that I've had, you know, I feel like we're at a greater risk if we don't acknowledge the wildfire risk in our community and put provisions in place. The co provisions that are there are very much in line with industry standard for insurance companies and what they recognize. And so I believe we're actually putting homeowners in a better spot by ensuring homes are built appropriately and safe and in alignment with industry standards that insurance companies are going to recognize rather than create additional hoops for homeowners to jump through.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President. Chris, I just wanted to quickly thank you and your team for your diligence on this matter. You know, I bristle when there's a suggestion of matter of statewide concern where the state is pushing something down on us that maybe doesn't make sense for our community. Think you've done a great job of navigating that and putting forth something that does represent what is right for our community as opposed to just simply accepting whatever the state throws our way. So thank you for that.

Want to thank you also for your coordination with Pikes Peak Regional Building Department and the HBA, again, help find something that really makes sense for our community. I can't let the moment pass, though, without also acknowledging that the state talks all the time about housing affordability. And while we agree that fire safety is an incredibly important subject matter for our community to be aware of and to address, this increases the cost of construction. This increases the cost of housing. And so, not that anyone at the state level is listening to what we're doing here, but I think we need to once again just acknowledge that some of these expectations from the state under the guise of housing affordability or under the guise doing the right thing across the board for the state does not necessarily apply for local jurisdictions.

And I think, again, this is where we as a community need to plant a flag in the ground and do what is right for us. And so, again, I thank you for doing that on this matter.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah. Thanks, madam president and, Chris. This is a little bit of a different question. Do you approve of this rain that we're receiving?

I love it. And whoever's doing the prayers and the rain dance, thank you. Keep it up. Okay, thanks. Yep.

We're not gonna ask you to do that rain dance.

I appreciate that, gonna thank you.

Spare you.

It's sparing you all.

Moving, no other comment. I have a motion from Councilman Donaldson and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

Motion passes eight to zero.

Thank you.

You're welcome, thank you. Moving on to item 10 d. Will the clerk please read item 10 d into the record?

City Council special meeting minutes 04/06/2026.

We need approval to vote on the minutes from April 6 which was the appointment of District 2. If there's no comments, I have a motion from Councilman Williams and a second from Councilman Gold. Let's vote.

And the motion passes eight to zero.

Moving on to item 10 e. Will the clerk please read item 10 e into the record?

Request for approval of settlement amount and a claim arising from arrest by officers on 04/24/2022.

Good morning, City Council. Mark Smith, acting city attorney. Here simply to ask for settlement authority. We have no presentation today. Thank you.

If there are no comments from the dais, I have a motion from Councilman Risley and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

And the motion passes. Before

we start our public hearing for 11A, I've had some requests from council members to take a ten minute break that is not eleven or twelve minutes. So we will start promptly at 11:10. We are now back out of our research recess, and we are back in session for our public hearing. Will the clerk please read item 11 a into the record and 11 b?

11 a, ordinance 26 dash 14, amending zoning map, the city of Colorado Springs pertaining to approximately 44.72 acres located Northwest of the intersection of New Life Drive and Interquest Parkway from planned development zone with the United States Air Force Academy overlay. Two, our flex meeting with United States Air Force Academy overlay. This is the second reading. 11 b, establish the creek side of flying horse land use plan for a residential development consisting of approximately 44.72 acres located Northwest of the intersection of New Life Drive and NRQuest Parkway. Second reading. Councilman

Casey.

Thank you, madam president. I previously heard and voted on items 11A, 11B, and 11C in my role as a commissioner on the Planning Commission. Since these items are quasi judicial item, I'm accusing myself from hearing and voting on all these items in compliance with Council Rule six-two. B.

Thank you. Moving on to today's hearing process will be as follows. We'll have a presentation from city staff. We'll have an applicant presentation. We'll have public comment and support, public comment and opposition, an applicant rebuttal, closing staff comments, and back to the diaspora councilman. Member questions, deliberation, and decision. So we'll start this morning with Allison. Good morning.

Good morning. For the record, Allison Stocker, senior planner with the Land Use Review Division. Alright. So this item this morning is the Creek Ridge Flying Horse zone change and land use plan. This is for 44.72 acres in the general area where Interquest, Powers Boulevard, and New Life Drive converge.

The request today is to amend the zoning from a PDZ, a planned development zone, to the R Flex Medium Zone District. And the intent of this application or these applications is to allow for medium density residential in those 44 acres. So the subject site is as seen here in the red outline. This is a portion of what is currently the Flying Horse Downtown PDZ. The general area includes open space along with the Black Squirrel Creek, other parts of Flying Horse that contain single family residential, as well as to the Southwest, the Pikes Peak State College.

So this being kind of a major kind of traffic node, the previous application kind of relied on the idea that this application or the planned development zone would be for higher density residential and intense uses. So I'm gonna go through this as carefully as I can. It will get maybe a little confusing at times, but I do have more maps and things further into the presentation that will hopefully clarify this as I go. So please bear with me as I do that. The Creek Ridge Of Flying Horse is 44 out of the 76 acres in the Flying Horse Downtown PDZ.

The PDZ that currently governs the zoning for the area is very unique. At the time when this was completed back in 2021, the idea was for the property to be high density residential and intense uses. It had a lot of office uses. It allowed higher building heights than would be typical in this area of town. It established minimum densities, which is not something we often see here in the city.

So it really was looking to create an environment that would allow for something more like a downtown but in the northern part of the city. Since there's been a lot of market trend changes since 2021, particularly with more commercial being built in this general part of town along the Interquest Corridor as well as to the Southeast of this property, there has been a request to alter the PDZ to allow for less intense, less dense uses in the area. So the removal of portions of the property from the PDZ and placing them into the ARTHLEX zone will overall decrease the potential density for the area as well as remove some of those more intense uses. The Flying Horse master plan is technically considered implemented but it is kind of helpful to understand the context for the area. At the time it was approved in 2021, it did show this property as being a regional hub.

It established high density options for 1,500 units across the 67 acres. The current downtown at Flying Horse PDZ, which you'll see here on the map, the top four blocks are what are going to stay in that PDZ. So those will not be altered by today's request. Block A is open space in a detention pond that's already been built. Block B is a multifamily residential.

It is actually approved and in construction presently. Block C and portions of Block F are in the multifamily residential block type for the PDZ and those do not presently have any entitlements. So those two would be kind of the ones remaining in the PDZ and subject to the PDZ in the future if this should pass today. The remaining blocks, block D, E, portions of F, H, G, and I are all the blocks that would be transitioned to the r flex zone with today's zone change. The density and intensity kinda comparison.

The current PDZ as it stands allows for a maximum of 1,500 units of residential, 250 hotel units, 50,000 square feet of conference space, 300,000 square feet of commercial, and then about eight eight hundred thousand for employment or office type uses. With today's request, if it were to be approved, the Creek Ridge portions, so that 44 acres, would allow an estimated gross density of about 580 units. That doesn't of course include things like landscape areas, road construction, things like that. So the actual density will be much lower. And then the remaining portions of the PDZ would have a minimum of 12 units per acre and then Block B was already approved for 242 units.

So there would still be some amount of remaining commercial options in those PDZ blocks, but it would generally be far less in this overall area than was once anticipated. For a little comparison on kind of what would have been seen versus what could be seen now, The downtown at Flying Horse PDZ allowed for a huge mix of p d nonresidential uses, things like bars, restaurants, business parks, general commercial, outdoor entertainment, schools, civic uses, etcetera. And those are all just the permitted uses. In the R Flex Zone District, both the permitted and conditional uses are limited to what you see on the right. So that's going to be very limited in comparison to just the daycares, churches, schools, recreation, and other kind of similar intensity uses.

This application has gone through three reviews since since November of this past year. The public notes went out on three occasions with 109 postcards. There were no public comments received. There was a couple questions but most of those questions were more related to other items in the general area such as the detention pond. All of our agency reviewers did not have any outstanding comments or concerns about this application.

Most of their comments were related to what would be required at time of development plan. So things like any CDOT required reports and studies, things from storm water, etc. This application was found to meet the requirements for plan COS and the application review criteria for both the rezone and the land use plan. So I do have optional motions here. I know that was a lot of information. I'm happy to answer any questions and clarify anything that might still be a little confusing.

I don't have any questions at this time. Good. That doesn't mean you're off the hook. We'll now hear the applicant's presentation.

Good morning City Council. Jason Allwin with NES. Just wait for my presentation to pull up.

Do I have

a time limit? Just curious to make sure I'm staying on on schedule. I should be able to do it in that. We did have two no votes. There's some detail I wanna go through. Kinda responded to some of the concerns that I brought in the Planning Commission. So I have a little bit more detail that you might be looking for, but I think it's important in the justification and context of the Planning Commission hearing. Some quick recap. The site's located it'll be the Northwest corner of North Powers Boulevard extension Interquest Parkway and the southern end of the existing Flying Horse community just east Northeast of New Life Drive. And as mentioned, it was part of the 2021 Flying Horse master plan, designated as a variety of uses, regional, commercial, multi family residential with that maximum 1,500 unit, 12 units, roughly 67 acres.

Here's the existing overall PDZ concept plan in place. It totals 67.42 acres. The area in red is our area of proposed change we're calling it, approximately 44.72 acres. As you can see here, a variety of uses were approved. Mixed use, office, hospitality, residential, residential multi family, open space detention pond, kind of a little bit of everything as part of this PDZ with the Air Force Military overlay.

And then you can see the approval numbers there with the concept plans. I know this slide is difficult to see, but I wanted to put this up there. This is the list of approved uses a part of this. You can see it's a lot. I wanted to bring that up because through all these uses, whether it's mixed use, office, hospitality, residential, residential multi family, pretty much every use is permitted in every category.

There are no areas that are strictly residential, strictly commercial. Some of the concerns that Planning Commissioner brought up that were removing the ability to these to do these intense uses. This is the good and the bad about a PDZ from several years ago is you can ask for a lot. The challenge is you ask for a lot, and there is no real path forward. It could be apartments, it could be single family detached, it could be office, it could be hospitality.

So what we're trying to do is rezone this to a more defined use, knowing the density, knowing allot minimums, knowing allot sizes, as opposed to what was approved with could be a lot of different things. If it's gonna be 1,500 units, it's gonna be all multi family. If it's gonna be 800,000 square feet of office, it's gonna be all commercial. So we start to lose that mixed use component that was originally, I think, thought of when this was approved. A little bit of recap, as mentioned, the area in blue outline is what's to remain.

That block A is the contention pond that's already existing in place. Block B is the existing multifamily that's being built today. And then the portions of Block F and Block C, those are existing today. Those are not included in this rezone request. That's about 10 acres, and that would be remained as approved with residential, residential multifamily uses.

Going back to the previous slide really incorporates potential for a lot of different items. This is where some of the detail I wanted to bring up in response to the Planning Commission. There was concerns we're losing a lot of potential for commercial. So these three areas, block D, blocks G, and H, they represent kind of what was intended to be the more intense uses. They're identified as mixed use office or hospitality, but again, that also allowed residential.

It could have been a variety of uses, and this is about 15 acres, or a little less than one third of the proposed area. Again, wanted to highlight that residential uses were still permitted within these areas, even though they're identified as mixed use or office hospitality. Additionally, there was about three acres for a park. This was the actual only use that was identified that could not do residential, but it wasn't just a park. It could also be commercial. So I thought that was interesting. It could be a park, but it could be commercial. Typically if we do a park site, we want it just to be a park and that's it. And then continued on with blocks I and F of the existing plan. These were about 16, almost 17 acres of the total land use.

These were identified as really the pure residential uses, where the residential single family detached or multi family residential. So going back to the original PDZ, with our proposed zoning change, we're in line with a third of the original approvals. We're just giving that a little bit more definition because the RFlex medium has density ranges, max heights, certain lot sizes, where the PUD, the PDZ was pretty open ended.

Councilman Hinjem. Thank you, madam president. Yes. On that that slide, Could you just describe for me a little bit more? I don't quite understand how it could be open space or commercial, and yet the open space amount remains unchanged. So if you could just

Yep. Good question. So there's

there's two open space areas. So this block e is identified on the PDZ as open space or commercial. Kind of a, think of like a central park because it's centralized to the community. On the next slide, oops, sorry, wrong button. The next slide, that dark green in the upper, I guess right hand corner northeast, that is mouse habitat and stream side. So that is simply undisturbed, do not disturb area. So that almost four acres stayed the same in both applications because it's part of the channel improvement and the mouse habitat boundary. So that's the distinction between, call it like a neighborhood park site and true undisturbed open space. Does that help?

I think so. So in this illustration, the part at the top, the open space, pupil mouse, like, won't be touched or developed. Correct.

That's correct.

The block e could be developed commercially, but developed as a park and community space?

As a part of the approved PDZ, that's correct. It could be either or based on the approval and the designation that that approved zoning has today. It could be either or. And you can kinda see it on this where it says block e open space slash commercial. So it is intended it was approved as potentially two different uses. Of course, commercial is quite a bit different than an open space use.

It is, that's why I'm confused. So, it's really just giving them the flexibility. It's not a commitment to having open space.

That's correct. The approval today.

Yep. Okay. Councilman Donaldson.

Yes. Thanks, madam president. What is it? Morning. Good morning. Just curious, is there a maximum miles per acre density with this plan?

I don't believe so. I hope not. I didn't ask that question. We did get clearance as part of the the channel update.

Just just

had to throw a joke in every once in

a while. Thanks.

I appreciate that. Wrong button. So a quick overview of again the zoning. Here's our site shown in the white outline surrounded by a mix of zoning. MXM, which is mixed medium kind of a commercial zoning across the street.

BP for planned business park, PDZ, MXN, R16. So quite a variety, but this PDZ is part of, again, the flying horse development. If we look at a little bit, some further justification on why we think removing the commercial works in here is there's a lot of commercial development within a handful of miles. Directly across the street, Kettle Creek Center is 40 acres of recently rezoned MXM. That happens maybe about a year and a half, two years ago.

That has a high intense commercial use. Within one to two miles you have New Life Commons, Interquest Marketplace, Interquest Town Center, Victory Ridge. All that we've seen a lot of development and growth in the past, probably three to five years since this was approved. A little further out you've got the Cordella, or sorry, Cordera retail Old Ranch Road. And then within five miles you have, furthermore Cordera, have Flying Horse, and this doesn't even include the Northgate Voyager Parkway area, nor does this show all the apartment complexes that have been built primarily along that Voyager New Life Drive area.

So that's why we're looking at the justification. There's been a lot happening since this is approved, and the need for this much commercial and frankly multi family has really been absorbed elsewhere within just a few miles of this site. Looking at the rezone, is a rezone request for 44.72 acres, RFlex medium. It's mixed density residential. It's a maximum density of 16 DE per acre, whereas the approved plan is a minimum of 12 to 16.

Proposed NC five to 16 Ds per acre with a max building height of 45 feet. And then looking at the land use plan, again about 45 acres. Of that, approximately 36 acres are identified as that residential component. That would allow up to five eighty dwelling units. It could be duplex, it could be townhome. There's a small, so higher density, we could do single family detached. So it does allow a variety of residential uses in this. We are identifying a 3.5 acre neighborhood park. So Councilwoman Hengen, back to your point, this would be a park site, not either or. So it would be identified as park.

Again, the almost five acres of the mass habitat up in the Northeast corner. And then with respects to the access points, they stay the same as approved. We have a ride in ride out along Highway 83 Interquest Drive into the site. We'd have a full movement utilizing that Summerstone Drive into New Life Drive. That's where that area A and B, the detention pond are.

And then it's a lighted intersection at New Life Drive and Interquest Highway 83 where the new fire station was recently built. So there's a lighted intersection to allow that full movement, knowing our access off of the highway is restricted. All internal streets would be public at this time, and then some future construction of the Black Scroll Trail in coordination with the Parks Department. And then looking at a quick comparison, the left is the existing PDZ in place. Again, it's a pretty high intense use.

Two fifty hotel rooms, 50,000 square foot of conference center, 300,000 square feet of office employment, 1,500 units. That's a pretty intense use. And just going back a couple slides, we've seen that other development in the area kinda taken the winds out of the sails, so to speak, in this area. Conversely, looking at our site, just about done. You know, the defined use of five to 16 DUs per acre, it's five eighty dwelling units.

That's 1,000 dwelling units. Has quite a bit less intensity, much less traffic. Very limited commercial use to be allowed. Max building height of 45 feet where the approved was 125 feet, so we're lowering that height, and then similar landscape buffers as approved. So happy to go into compliance and review criteria if there's any further questions on that, but really open it up to questions on the land use plan or rezone itself.

Don't see any questions We at this will now move to public comment. We have no one signed up for public comment in support, and we have no one signed up for public comment in opposition, so we will close the public comment portion of this hearing. And now we will move it on. Well, you don't have a rebuttal to anybody to review. So we'll move it on back up to the dais, for councilmember questions and deliberations and decisions.

Seeing none I have a motion from Councilman Donaldson and a second from Councilman Williams. Let's vote.

And the motion passes seven to zero.

If I could just clarify, maybe the clerk or Emily you could weigh in. 11C is a rezone associated with this same matter, correct?

The two items we just heard combined were 11a and 11b, and so I believe we're in a position now to take a motion

on 11b.

We need a motion on 11b. You need to vote on that one. 11c is a completely separate item. Thank

you. Thanks.

So I have a motion on 11 b from councilman Hinjem and a second from councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

The motion passes seven to zero.

So moving on to item 11 c. Will the clerk please read item 11 c into the record? Clerk

Ordinance 26 dash 15 amending the zoning map by the city of Colorado Springs pertaining to approximately 2.17 acres located at 4880 Airport Road from single family medium with airport overlay to multi family high with airport overlay second reading.

Council will take an administrative vote on related appeal for this and record this for item on the city council regular meeting from March 24 and said record testimony needed to be repeated. We will open the public hearing for this item but ask that participants prioritize new information and testimony only for this item. So starting with city staff presentation.

Perfect. So city staff doesn't have anything new to add besides the fact that we did receive one additional public comment that was forwarded to y'all which included a proposed condition requiring that ride out only onto Airport Road in addition to their previously proposed access point.

Does the applicant have any new information?

We do not have any, in ODOM for the record, we do not have any new information to present. I've not seen the additional comment received but I think we'd be open to discussion and considering that if that's desired. We have no one

signed up from the public in support and we have no one signed up from the public in opposition. So move it back up to the applicant if there's any additional comments. And no closing comments from staff, correct? Okay. Bring it back up to the dais. I have a motion from Councilman Gold and a second from Councilman Williams. Let's vote. Councilman Donaldson?

Yeah. Will we have discussion before we vote?

Yes, Councilman Donaldson.

All right, I appreciate it. Could Yeah, it's Chris, right? Can I just ask you, was that condition, was it from the, when the Planning Commission approved it, was that a condition of their approval that there would be a write out, I think write in, out, no that's not

No

that was not a condition of City Planning Commission?

Were were there any other conditions by the Planning Commission when it was referred or approved and sent over to counsel?

So Planning Commission didn't approve this. So they

they

denied That's right. No. Yeah. Okay. Now I remember. Okay. We we did discuss discuss accidents at this intersection, and and is traffic here? Or traffic is Todd Frisbee here? I don't believe so. Okay.

Okay.

But yes, that was discussed during the appeal process.

All right, I appreciate it. That's all. I don't have anything else.

Are there any other questions or comments from the dice? I have a motion from Councilman Gold and a second from Councilman Williams. Let's vote.

The motion passes seven to one.

We will new now move on to item thirteen, one hour of citizens discussion for items not on today's agenda per city council rules. City citizens will have three minutes to share their comments. I have a list of those who signed up. When I call your name, please come forward, introduce yourself, and limit yourself to topics that are relevant and germane to city business. We will now start with Sean Mee.

Good morning. And I wanna say thank you for allowing me to speak up here. I also wanna say thank you to my city council member, council member Rainey, who you know what, dude? You are the epitome of what public service is. When I addressed him with this factor of what I'm gonna talk about, he called right away and I appreciate that.

It means a lot to me. Anyway, what this was when I first heard about the, what do they call it, the police called it surge enforcement, I actually thought and I was kind of excited thinking that it might be that they're finally gonna go after the illegal pot sales in this town that are affecting our children. Sadly, it wasn't. It was about the vehicles that are unregistered or unlicensed driving around, which I wholeheartedly support. Didn't think it would ever affect me.

And I'll try to show you the baby without the whole birth. On the fifteenth of this month, we live in a neighborhood, you used to live right down the street and we tried to take really good care. Last year, you helped me save a tree and I'm not a tree hugger, but it's a beautiful tree. And so we try to take care of our neighborhood and my son's vehicle was in the street. It's inoperable and we had it out there for somebody to look at that to purchase it. I worked three jobs. My wife's a flight attendant. I did not know it was towed until my other son called me the next day to ask us if we had sold the car. No. We didn't know where it went.

First, we thought it might have been stolen. Don't know how, but that's the first concept that came to our mind. And then we called our neighbor across the street who has a ring doorbell and showed us that a tow truck pulled up and took it away. Later on that day, I was talking to my next door neighbor and he said that he had talked to a community service officer that was blocking his driveway and said, what are you doing? And she said, they were towing the vehicle and he said, it's not abandoned. We're trying to sell it. He asked for a card. She said she did not have one and that was it. They towed the vehicle. Did not get anything official until just yesterday, thirteen days later, incurring numerous charges.

Lost my job last year. Thirteen years as an insurance underwriter inspector. Mister Cooper, fire marshal earlier, known him for years because I stood up for what's right. And that's what I'm trying to do to hear today and I don't think I'll get anything rectified, but I think you guys need to investigate this because right off the bat, there was a $500 tow fee charging us for an hour and a half for a 15 mile drive. The I can't afford to pay this.

I'm almost out of time. I apologize. But I think you guys really need to look into this because I think there's some shoddy things that are going on and when it comes to the towing companies, they're overcharging. The certified letter state allows $75. I'm being charged at a $150. If I were to pick my vehicle up yesterday, it would've cost me $1,200. I don't have that.

Mister Meade, I did forward your email on. I don't know if the chief of staff has any more information on that, but I did forward it on, and they are looking into it.

No other information at this time, but yeah, we are looking into that and yeah, definitely get back to you when we have more information.

I appreciate that. I don't know if it'll help me at all, but if it helps somebody else because there's people that made mistakes. I it was my mistake to leave it out there. I should have pushed the doggone thing back in, but like I said, three jobs. I get up at three in the morning to be able to go to work and clock in at 04:30 and I work ten hour days. And sometimes I'm, you know, I'm getting old. I'm not as surprised I used to be and and just forgot about it. And that's not an excuse. I know it isn't. But a 20 foot step from the person's car to my front door because it was parked in front of our house and just knocks it, hey, we're gonna tow this thing.

I would have my son and I and probably my neighbor push it right back in, you know, or a little orange sticker on the window saying, hey, you got twenty four hours. But there was nothing until yesterday, a certified letter, you know, and and the bills just keep adding up. So I appreciate it, and I appreciate your time.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President. Sir, thank you for being here today and for bringing this to our attention. I just wanna reiterate what chief of staff has said, that the city is absolutely going to take some action on this. They're looking into it. I would encourage the staff to do whatever we can to not only rectify this situation but to help the gentleman out with fees and fines that may not actually be appropriate. And I know, Travis, you're a very reasonable person in that regard and having helped me on some other similar matters. So please do whatever you can to make this right. Thank you. Will do.

Yeah, I appreciate it. And like I said, if it helps somebody else out, that's what's important to me too. Again, thank you sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Brittney Smith.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is Britney Smith and I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. I'd like to thank Ms. Williams and Mr. Samuel Friedman for their prompt response to an email I sent pleading for assistance for my neighborhood.

About a year ago, I purchased a home at 753 East Moreno Avenue, which is just a few minutes from where we meet today. In the last year, I have been witness to multiple shootings and several shots fired incidents, all occurring on the property of a felon with at least seven minor children living in her home. After harboring multiple fugitives, including a man charged six times for indecent exposure to children, as well as attempted murder and a laundry list of other charges, this woman has paid no consequences. This woman along with her family and large list of known criminal associates has drastically impacted the safety of their neighbors, forcing multiple homes to be sold, including the one I was unfortunate enough to purchase. Intimidation in concert with constant shootings, obvious flow of criminals that strongly suggest an illegal distribution network is an extremely effective form of psychological warfare.

I cannot emphasize enough how unsafe myself and my neighbors feel, but I can tell you that since miss Lemuel inherited the house in 2023, three houses within eyesight have sold, a fourth was on the market but did not sell, and multiple homes as well as a church have been struck by bullets and forced to install very expensive alarm and camera systems to protect ourselves from those who claim to run our block. This claim of running the block sounds like big talk, but time and time again, legal consequences seem to be deemed unnecessary. So one is forced to admit they actually do have the ability to continue to instill fear in their law abiding neighbors, and there's nothing we can do. The often not even misdemeanors get issued. And if they do, the penalties are reduced despite extensive criminal history.

Even for serious offenses, bonds are greatly reduced on high risk individuals, including David Anthony Dean, the pre the fugitive I previously mentioned. In December 2023, his bond of $100,000 was set meeting the average recommendation, but far from the amount that could have been requested for such a high risk offender. And yet it was reduced to just $10,000 by Hillary by magistrate Hillary Ellis Perry Gurney. This reduction placed this man in this home with minor children until my home was surrounded by SWAT in May of last year, and I was forced to seek shelter in my basement for many scary hours with my mother who's here with

me

today. Again, the legal avenues that could have been pursued against miss Lemuel were not. She was not cited for firearms possession during that raid nor has she been cited for harboring multiple fugitives including a violent sexual predator in her home with her children. Despite that fact, the charges could result in sixty four months. I just ask that this council, in conjunction with CSPD, the Department of Human Services, and our 4th Judicial District, try to intervene on behalf of these children and the poor upstanding citizens who are being subjugated to this criminal activity and enlist intimidation. Thank you for your time and consideration. I apologize I went over.

Councilman Williams.

Thank you, and thank you, Britney, for being here. I think everyone agrees that that's a lot, and that's a lot for you to have to endure. And I think one of the things that we see here all too often is what you're experiencing. And I know that there are elections coming up and I know that we've gotten to a point, in my humble opinion, that some people view the people living in your neighborhood as having almost a right to inflict upon your happiness and your safety and your health and your welfare. I want you to know that I don't agree with that.

I think that your safety and your health and your welfare is paramount. And I heard that Travis Easton is working on this and Sam will, as you know, be in touch. But yes, thank you for coming here today and we definitely think that your self, your health and safety and welfare is very important in our community.

Thank you and thank you again for your prompt response to my email. It means a lot. I appreciate you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Bruce. Oh, councilman Donaldson.

Yeah. Thanks, madam president. And, yeah, thank you for being here today, Britney, and kinda telling your story to us. But I think it's important to remember that in our charter, there's one elected official who's charged with enforcing our laws. And what we're charged with is passing a budget and passing ordinances and laws.

It is the mayor who is charged with enforcing those laws, and it is the mayor who hires the chief of police and has direct supervision and control over that. So while we're happy, we want we want our constituents to come to us. But our we we aren't as powerful as sometimes we wish we were or that citizens believe we are. And again, in the charter, there's a one elected official charged with enforcing our laws and that is the mayor.

Bruce Barron.

Thank you. I'm Bruce Barron. I live at 1086 Fontmoor Road, Unit C, barely into Dave Donaldson's district near the Garden Of The Gods. I have a long history in public service, and I'm glad I don't have to do it. My friend Sam Friedman knows that I have that background and I appreciate the quality of what you do. I have the pleasure of giving you a much more lighthearted presentation in the next two minutes about something that's become a real pain in the butt for me, literally, the matter of porta potties in neighborhood parks. I live near the neighborhood of near the Garden Of The Gods. I was president of Pikes Peak Roadrunners in 2024. I'm still trying to stay in shape. Unfortunately, I'm getting old.

So no matter what I do in the bathroom before I leave, often when I start running within five or ten minutes, I have to poop. As a result, that porta potty in Westmore Park in Pleasant Valley has been a great source of relief for me. On a recent run, I found no porta potty there. I don't know if it was an early victim of Parks and Rec policy or just a temporary issue because there was one there yesterday. If I had a presentation style like either John Stewart on The Daily Show or President Trump on Truth Social, I would now go on to describe in graphic detail what happened to that poop at Rock Ledge Ranch, where it landed, and how heroically I raced to the Garden Of The Gods bathroom and returned with toilet paper to clean up my mess before anybody else stumbled into it.

But I'll save you that. I will just point out that those porta potties are important. As I said, Westmore had one yesterday, but I could not find one at Thorndale, where a man said to me, yeah, I think you either go to old Colorado City Library or you pee on the ground. And that reminded me of my son, who some of you might know was an Olympic athlete while he was studying at Colorado College. His uniform is in the CC athletic building.

When I was training with him as a teenager and he had to go to the bathroom, I'd tell him where the nearest bathroom was, and he said, there are bathrooms behind every tree, which, since I was homeschooling at the time, was a wonderful teaching moment to explain to him indecent exposure and disorderly conduct. He's learned that lesson, and I want our kids to all learn that lesson. So I hope you can all make sure that even though I understand the permanent bathrooms are an expensive matter, and I understand if they remain closed, that you make sure the administration is encouraged to keep porta potties in the parks. I'll just also observe briefly that at the Palmer Red Rocks Loop Trailhead on Gold Camp Road, that's also a crucial porta potty for many that seems to have disappeared recently. Thanks for your time, and have a great day.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah. Thanks, madam president. And since it's a District 1 constituent and a fellow runner, I'll pass along some information. And councilwoman Hengymal was there for this. When we were up at the Rock Quarry last week with parks, I brought up the issue of porta potties that have been removed in parks.

Largely neighborhood parks is what parks told me. And I asked for information on how much do we really save by removing this porta potty or these porta potties from different parks. And she has passed that information to us just a few days ago. So I'm working on that to try to find a way to get some of these or all of them ideally restored. And I can tell you, as a fellow runner, you know, I run on the Santa Fe Trail oftentimes from the Edmondson Trailhead.

I sent the former parks director horrible photographs from inside the porta potty when someone was doing awful things in there with some of those substances you were talking about. And so have played a personal role in the cleanliness. And they would send someone out and and our our acting chief of staff here, he and I were going back and forth, and we almost I mean, the the it was considered to close that one because someone just kept just making it unusable and disgusting inside of it. So I share your concern with this issue, and we'll we'll see what we can do to solve that problem.

Yes. No. I appreciate it. I remember you coming to Pikes Peak Roadrunners when you were preparing for your first term. So I appreciate your attention.

K. I appreciate you coming in today.

Thank you.

Councilman Hinjem? Thank you. And, Bruce, I I am gonna say something, and I'm actually gonna ask you a question. I appreciate you coming and bringing this to our attention. We hear it from many people by email and and other ways. But my question for you is, would you ever consider voting for some kind

of

revenue generation that would help us deal with the challenges we have in our in our park system and, quite frankly, in our city?

Yeah. Well, I think I've supported the previous ones, so I don't think you'd have a hard time persuading me. But if you have any trouble, get Susan Davies to call me because she has a lot of influence too.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up we have Damon Cox.

Thank you very much for allowing me to address you. It's a tough subject to follow-up on. I'm Damon Cox, resident of the area and retired from the renewable energy sector. So I have some insight and knowledge into the subject I want to address which is the Nixon coal fired power plant. I'm urging the City Council as the Springs Utilities Board to close that Nixon power plant on schedule at the end of twenty twenty nine you know, as it previously committed, and to treat the matter with the urgency it deserves, which which, have concerns that it's not happening.

And to replace that power generation with renewable energy primarily solar and utility scale batteries and any other forms of renewable energy that makes sense. I want to be sure that you are hearing from the residents like me that it's in the best interests of this community, the region and most importantly that the children and the young people that were sitting on the front row earlier in this meeting that live with these decisions that we're making and that we want and need clean renewable power. While you may not be getting the deluge of comments and feedback from the community because this isn't the sexiest of subjects, so to speak, I trust that I'm speaking for a majority of residents here that want air, a healthy environment and to be able to fully enjoy the natural resources that we have in this area. It warmed my heart to hear references made to braiding with sweet grass earlier in this meeting. I think it's equally applicable here in this matter that that we take those principles to heart and be be the stewards we need to be for the community.

So just this is nothing earth breaking and new, but I wanna remind you guys that it's renewable with with with utility scale. Battery is the lowest cost option these days. And I want you to please reevaluate or continue to evaluate this solution before you invest time and money committing you down a path of burning more fossil fuels. I ask you to be creative and innovative about virtual power plant tools, distributed electricity opportunities and incentives and credit programs for businesses and households so that they can be part of the solution. Thank you for your consideration and efforts.