City Council - workshop

find out are we waiting on councilman lineweber okay oh there he is good morning welcome to colorado spring city council work session for monday june 8 2026 will the clerk please call the roll

Councilmember Casey.

Here.

Councilmember Crowe-Everson. Here. Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold. Here I am. Councilmember Hinchel. Present. Councilmember Leinweber.

Here.

Councilmember Rainey.

Here.

Councilmember Risley.

Here.

Councilmember Williams. Here. All nine present.

Are there any changes to today's agenda? Seeing none, moving on to three, are there any changes to the regular meeting for tomorrow?

Yes, I would like to call off 4BE, please.

4BE?

Yes, please.

Moving on to item 4A, will the clerk please read item 4A into the record?

City Council Work Session Meeting Minutes, May 26, 2026.

Are there any changes to these minutes? Seeing none, moving on to item 6A. Will the clerk please read item 6A into the record?

Office of the City Auditor's Strategic Plan Review.

Good morning, Natalie. Good morning.

I do, thank you. Yep, getting it situated.

uh good morning president crowe iverson pro tem risley and members of city council natalie level city auditor i'm here today to cover the 2026 through 2030 strategic plan for the office of the city auditor As our office continues evolving and we recognize the importance of establishing clear long-term strategic direction for our office, but we need to also then evaluate how we operate as a team and support the evolving needs of our community. We have five themes that this presentation will cover. We want to talk about independent insight and how we support the city through objectivity and our unbiased assurances, emerging risks and recommendations that can be used in the governance of the organizations that we audit. We look for collaboration, strong willingness with relationships, and seek to be a trusted advisor. And then for strategic alignment, we want to be aligned to the broader goals and objectives of those that we audit. And we also look for operational excellence. We want to strengthen processes, modernize our work, and look for consistency among the work that we do. And for continuous improvement, we recognize that nothing is static that we do. Through innovation and through the work that we do, we want to continue evolving. The foundation of our work is our mission, vision, and values. It explains why we exist, what we are here to accomplish, and the standards we hold ourselves to. These should guide our decisions, protect our independence, and keep us focused on responsible stewardship. This is our first strategic plan, and our first priority is with processes and looking to align to the 2024 Global Internal Audit Standards. We do this through strengthening our processes, beginning the use of data analytics, and emerging technologies. And none of this would be possible without a skilled works force and a resilient audit team so that we can become the strategic advisors that everyone depends on. Our 2026 through 2030 strategic plan outlines the priorities that will guide us over the next several years. This plan reflects how we want to grow as an audit team, how we will strengthen our work and yet remain adaptable in the risks and communities as the risks and the community needs change. And I want to say that I am proud of our audit team, their professionalism, their dedication, make the work possible as we grow into the strategic plan. I want to spend a few minutes talking about why the Office of the City Auditor has its own strategic plan. In many organizations, strategy flows down through a traditional hierarchy. The organization establishes the strategic objectives, the departments align underneath it, and the divisions execute portions of that strategy. While we are organizationally connected to the City of Colorado Springs, our work extends beyond multiple governance and enterprise environments. Because of that, our strategic plan cannot simply function as a subsection of another organization's operational strategy. We serve to provide an exchange of insight, assurance, risk awareness, and accountability across a variety of entities. Simply put, our strategic plan should ensure we are supporting the strategic endeavors of all those that we serve. As we move from the strategic foundations into how we will carry out our work, the 2026 through 2030 strategic plan identifies four interconnected strategic focus areas that translate our mission, vision, and values into action. These areas are talent, processes, technology, and strategic advisory. They form the structure that supports every audit or advisory engagement we deliver. To meet these expectations in a rapidly changing environment, our work must be supported by a strong, cohesive system of people, processes, and tools. These four focus areas form the basis of the work we perform. In our process area, we want to be consistent, risk-based, and use methodologies that align to the 2024 global internal audit standards. We want to build clear documentation and quality assurance processes, and we want to build on continuous improvement of audit practices. In the technology area, we want to use data analytics and modern audit tools to enable us to work smarter and more effective. And our insights, must be timely and relevant and actionable. We strengthen and foster trust in our work when we deliver results. And last but never least is the talent. The talent is the foundation of our office. A high quality audit team requires a skilled and capable team. As we transfer from defining our long-term focus areas to putting it into practice, it's important to recognize where we are starting from. This is our first strategic plan, a small office, and we are learning how to incorporate this into our daily operations. That's why the initiatives I'm about to talk about are very practical and very foundational. These are the steps we need to take now to build the capacity, consistency, and tools that will help us grow into larger goals outlined in our plan. They represent the early important building blocks that will strengthen our audit function and support our future direction. One of the biggest shifts for us this year is learning how to actually use our strategic plan in our day-to-day work. Because this is our first plan, we're starting with the basics. Getting our core audit processes organized, updated, and consistent. We're a small team, and that makes clear processes even more important. Right now, we're focused on updating our audit planning and closeout procedures to align with the new global internal audit standards. And we're pulling together our office expectations and workflows into one place so that everyone has the same reference point. These may seem like simple steps, but they're the foundation of everything else. We're taking our time to get them right so our team can work more efficiently with fewer inconsistencies. We're not moving fast in this area, but we are moving. And the groundwork we're putting in now is going to support us for years to come. On the technology side, we're being very intentional. We all know that data analytics and modern audit tools can strengthen our work, but we also know that adopting new technology takes time, especially for a small office that's still learning how to bring a strategic plan into day-to-day operations. This year, our approach is to start small and start with what's realistic. We're identifying data sources that genuinely support our work, exploring tools that match our size and capacity, and testing a few analytics methods that fit naturally into our current audits. We're also making sure that our team has the training and support they need so that changes don't feel overwhelming. This isn't a big launch year for technology. It's about choosing the right pieces, building confidence, and setting ourselves up for more advanced tools when we have the capacity to sustain them. There are really two parts to this initiative. The first is working to bring more data analytics into our audits, integrating real-time metrics where we can add value. And the second is using data internally to strengthen our own accountability. As part of implementing our first strategic plan, we're developing a scorecard that will help us measure our progress, track our commitments, and understand what's working and what needs attention. The strategic advisory role is an area where we can make meaningful progress while we're still building other parts of our strategic plan. A lot of this work is simply about being more intentional and consistent in how we communicate. We're a small office and clear communication goes a long way towards helping people understand what we do and how we can support them. For us, it's about being seen as a reliable and consistent source of insight.

Natalie, I have a question from Councilman Hinchum. Sure.

Thank you, Madam President. And Natalie, good morning. Would you go back a slide? Yes. On the host and produce quarterly audit insight sessions, can you say more about who those would be for and how you would do those?

Sure. Thank you, Councilmember Hinchum. Those are intended to be five, ten minute, maybe even two or three minute micro sessions about what the Office of the City Auditor does. and they're intended to be utilized throughout the City of Colorado Springs and Colorado Springs utilities. They were the result of an ethics audit that we performed for the Colorado Springs utilities about six months ago, and wanting to get more information out, not just about the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline, but more information just in general about what the Office of the City Auditor does.

Great. And is that electronic like videos that will be sent out by email or what does that look like?

Correct. Right now it's planned for an electronic kind of video. Quickly watch one or two minute long segments. Great.

Thank you.

So our fourth area is talent, and talent is an area where the reality of our size hits the hardest. When you're a small office, every person matters, and any turnover or transition can have an immediate impact on our ability to deliver. That's why one of our short-term priorities is simply making sure we have the basics in place. Onboarding tools, cross-training, and a better understanding of the competencies we'll need going forward. This year, we're creating a standardized onboarding toolkit, so that new team members can get up to speed more quickly and consistently. We're also piloting a structured cross-training process to build flexibility across the team and reduce single points of failure. And at the same time, we're taking a close look at our workforce structure, how it aligns with market competitiveness, and what skills we'll need to continue modernizing our audit work. And part of what we've done also in association with this is rolled out a competency model. And I'll talk about that here in just a few minutes when we get down to the cascading. With this graphic, I want to demonstrate how we move from operational direction to operational execution and ultimately into individual accountability and measurable outcomes. One of the challenges with strategic planning is that many organizations create plans that remain disconnected from day-to-day operations. They become documents that sit on shelves and are never fully translated into the workforce planning, resource decisions, or project prioritization, employee development, or performance management. Our goal is different. We want our strategic plan to function as an operational framework that guides how we manage the organization, develop our staff, allocate our resources, prioritize work, and measure success. At the top of the cascade are our mission, vision and values. These establish the foundation of the organization. They define who we are, what we stand for and the type of organization we are striving to become. From there, the strategy flows into our strategic focus areas, process, technology, strategic advisory capacity and talent. These focus areas then translate into strategic initiatives. These are the major efforts and priorities designed to move the team forward over the next several years. These include modernization efforts, standards implementation, technology improvements, workforce development, and enhancements to operational effectiveness and accountability. The next layer reflects our organizational execution plans. This is where strategy becomes operationalized through our annual audit plan, section management plans, workforce planning and budget and resource planning processes. Organizational strategy is ultimately carried out through the people. Employee development plans, performance plans, Project assignments, training opportunities, and competency development all become mechanisms for translating strategy into operation. In other words, we want employees to understand not only the work that they are performing, but how that work supports the larger direction and success of the organization. Finally, at the bottom of the cascade is measurement and accountability. This includes scorecards, metrics, reporting, continuous learning, and improvement. These mechanisms help us evaluate whether the strategy is producing the outcomes we intend, where adjustments are needed, and how we continue evolving as an organization over time. The overall concept behind this is cascading alignment. This slide represents the beginning of our efforts to build a more data-informed and performance-driven organization. One of our strategic focus areas is technology, and that initiative really has two dimensions. And you might recall that I mentioned the first one was integrating data analytics into the audits, but the second one was obtaining data for our own operational needs and accountability. So as we focus for the next year, we'll want to use some of the data that we have in our own environment to help us gather what we need for our scorecard. Before we close, I also want to briefly highlight the office's role in supporting accountability and public trust through our fraud, waste, and abuse reporting resources. As we look ahead, our focus is on continuing to build a modern, independent, and strategically aligned audit organization that is prepared to meet the evolving needs of the community we serve. Thank you for your time, support, and engagement through this presentation. I'd be happy to take any questions or comments, and I will note that this plan has been reviewed by the council's audit committee several times, and they are recommending it. And in our audience today, we have a council member, Jim Godfrey, who's available for any questions you might have. as well.

I don't see any questions or comments, but that was excellent. Thank you so much for all the hard work that you're doing to get us where we need to go in this new environment. Thank you. Thank you, Jim, for your service on the Audit Committee and for being here this morning. Moving on to item 6B. Will the clerk please read item 6B into the record? Quarterly Financial Report.

Good morning, Cherie.

Good morning, honorable members of City Council. I'm Shari McDaniel, Chief Financial Officer, and I am happy to be here today to provide a quarterly financial update to the City Council.

Thank you.

We'll start off as we often do with looking at our revenue and specifically the general fund sales and use tax and I have on the slide for you the most recent combined sales and use tax revenue results. And we have them, of course, one month behind, what's stated here is the collection month. So for example, February's collection amounts are for January's economic activity. So there's economic activity in January, it's collected by the city in February, and then we report out on it in March. So there is a little bit of that delay happening there. So the most recent published report for the sales tax report, indicates that for February collections, we're about flat. March collections, we're up 6.7% and this is at that month as compared to the same month of the prior year. April was up 4.6% and the preliminary results for May's collection is that will be up another 4%.

I have a question from Councilman Williams. Thank you.

Do I have to do the math backwards in my head? So the 0.88 is January, the 6.7 is February, or really is the 6.7 for March? Because I know we're doing it in a month late, but I'm trying to figure out if my slide says that March was 6.7% or if February was 6.7% and you reported it in March.

So these are the month that those revenue were paid to the city, which is the month after the economic activity. So if you wanna look at the chart, the 0.88 was for January economic activity, 6.7 was for February's economic activity and then March and then April's economic activity that was received by the city in May. It's forthcoming. Preliminary, it's forthcoming, but it's gonna be about 4%. Okay, thank you. Yes, of course.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President, and good morning, Sharae.

Good morning.

Did you have a nice weekend?

It was nice, thank you, too short.

A little bit hot to this morning. Can you just remind us, what was it that we use as projected growth in revenue for this year, when we created the budget for 26?

When we created the budget, the 26 budgeted sales tax revenue was 1.4% over the end of your estimate at that time.

Okay, so we're at least the first four months of the year, if we project May also, which isn't on here, but you told us verbally that it's probably gonna turn out to be about 4%. It's really moving along at about 4%. Correct. with a projection or a prediction of one point, what was it?

1.4. 1.4, so.

That's the budgeted amount.

So, so far we're tracking well to budget.

Do you sleep better at night with that?

Well, some.

Not yet.

But we do have, as you all know, very mixed economic information and indicators coming, so.

Okay, but so far so good.

Yes, so far so good, so far so good. Then I was informed that maybe some information on revenue, non-sales and use tax revenue, would be helpful. And so what I've put together here for you is a chart that gives you four years of history plus the current year for non sales and use tax revenue in the general fund. And so what this is looking at is through period four, which is the most recent final numbers that we have. For 2026, we have collected 28.9% of the budget. So actual revenue coming in equals the 28.9% as compared to the budget for all non-sales and use tax revenue. So the reason I gave the history is because it's a little hard to know, is that good, not good? Is that tracking to budget, not budget? and the way that revenue many of our revenue sources are seasonal and so it is not the case that through oops i'm sorry i am hitting buttons without me i'm going to put that down um we are through four months of the year, it does not necessarily mean we should have 30% of the revenue because it is seasonal. And many of our revenue streams are heavier, for example, during the summertime when there's construction. And so I did this comparison so that we could see is that tracking to budget, not tracking to budget, good, bad, otherwise. And so as a comparison, when we look back, 2022, I'm gonna start at the beginning here. When we ended 2022, the non-sales and use tax revenue came in a little bit under what was budgeted. And so that 26.7 we can see as compared to 2026 values is a lower percentage. So it was tracking a little bit behind or less at this point in the year. When we look at 2023 and 2024, those were pretty darn close to budget, almost right on budget. So that 26.5 and 26.8 were, when we actually ended the year, we were right on budget for that non-sales and use tax revenue. So that would be a good measure for, are we tracking to budget? In 2025, we were over budget by 2026. I don't know, about 15%. So that 30% then is a little bit indicative of tracking over budget. So when we look at the 2026-28.9, that's pretty much in between that 24 and 25 number. So, so far through the year, I think we're looking pretty good on the non sales and use tax revenue sources that we have in the general fund. For our other funds that we're tracking, the retail marijuana, 5% special tax. We had collections of 328, 651 collected in April, which was for March activity. And then our lodging fund, I have those three months from the most recently published report. a couple of months that were pretty far down, but then for March activity collected in April, we did bump back up to that almost 2.4%, but for the year we're still tracking less than last year. And then looking at the sales, oh sure.

sorry yeah no thank you madam president and just uh one question if we could go back uh one slide to the non-sales and use tax revenue can you just remind us sure a quick uh summary or what are the big um revenue uh drivers outside of sales and use what is reflected here in these you know the blue columns

So the main categories would be things like charges for services, which cover a very wide range of everything from your kids playing in the park soccer programs to other development type charges that, oh, and I'm not gonna be able to come up. but where we charge people to shut down a lane of roadway or while they're doing construction, those types of charges that we categorize as charges for services. We also have intergovernmental, which would be things like our highway user tax fund money coming from the state. and we have interest earnings that we book into each fund for uh as a result from our investments and then also like the surplus um payment from utilities to the city is also in there okay um and as you said i believe yeah some of that seasonal so that's helpful thank you sure And then looking to the expenditure side for the general fund again, and we had looked at this at the last quarterly update, and so I've updated this through period four of 2026, looking at the salary and benefits amount of budget remaining compared to the payroll remaining benchmark. So the orange line going horizontally across the chart is the benchmark. And so we can see how each department is tracking compared to the benchmark. When you see the blue bar over the benchmark, that means they have more savings than what we would in a very standard spend, more savings than, more remaining than what the benchmark indicates, which would indicate that there would be salary savings in that area. So I'm going to point out the city auditor. That's the most obvious one. We know that the city auditor, as she has talked about, has some vacancies that she's working on filling and getting staffed up. And so because she has some of those vacancies, that's generating some salary savings there. And we talked last time, and just as a reminder, you'll see that the fire department is slightly below that benchmark. And the reason for that is because there's a very large one-time payment that comes out at the beginning of the year. So it skews this percentage a little bit and that's for a new higher pension plan. So it's not that their ongoing salaries are necessarily tracking over budget, but that one-time payment really pushes that down. And as we move through the year, we'll see that percentage get a lot closer to that benchmark. So, so far we are looking very good on our salary and benefits spend. And that of course is the largest category in the general fund of spend. So we're looking good there. Then I thought I'd move into some of the economic indicators. This is building permits and this is, I pulled out single family homes only. So when we look at that building report that we get from regional building, they include all of the building types. But I wanted to just pull out single family homes so that, because that is a big category, we track that and things like apartment buildings or commercial construction can get very lumpy because you'll get a very large number of dwelling units added for an apartment building and that's one permit so the single family homes is a little easier to track over time and what we're seeing here is year to date which is through may here we are down four percent from 2025 on the number of single family home building permits being pulled And again, that I think largely has to do with the interest rates staying at a higher rate than we had been accustomed to for a number of years.

Councilman Risley.

Thanks, Madam President. Good morning. Good morning. Obviously, I pay a lot of attention to this type of data because it has a tremendous impact not only on my business, but many other businesses in the community. That trend that we're seeing from March through May of a decline month over month, I think has a lot of people in the industry pretty worried and a lot of the conversations that I'm having with business leaders and others in the community are that unless and until some things change at sort of a macroeconomic level that we don't have any control over, that that may be an ongoing trend. Any perspective that you wanna share or any other information in terms of projecting forward throughout the rest of the year about home construction, home sales, construction activity in general, which is a pretty large driver for the overall economy. I don't wanna put you on the spot, but if you have any insight, I'd love to hear your perspective.

I am aware that the sale price of homes has come down slightly from what it has been over a past, I don't know, number of months or the year. But I think that's also because demand is down. I think as long as the interest rates, what I believe is as long as the interest rates are gonna be elevated, that it's very likely that we'll see this trend continue. And so we have the little bit of this mismatch, it seems, between the construction and particularly single family homes and having that being lower and then this interesting, but we're up on sales tax. And so we have... these, and I think this has been the same way for the last couple of years, these varying economic indicators. The sales tax is up, but the single family housing is down, interest rates are up, and so, it makes it very difficult to project anything. And so I don't have any projections on either the single family home or construction permits. And I would certainly look to you for tracking that and if you have any information on that. But yeah, I think it's very difficult at this point in time because there's just conflicting information.

I agree, and I think, you know, a couple of other data points that are equally vexing, if you will. Unemployment in the state is down year over year, but inflation is up to almost 4% year over year in April, and that's a concern, right, if the feds are targeting 2% and we're close to 4%. yet somehow unemployment is dropping. I mean, it's just to your point, there are so many mixed signals in the economy. I just wanted to also maybe take the opportunity to comment on Council Member Donaldson's observation that although year to date we're up 4 point something percent and you and I had a healthy debate about whether 1.4 was uh was wise or not i hope i'm wrong i hope you're right i hope that the trend continues in the direction that it's going so far and i certainly acknowledge that home sales and construction of single-family homes is not the the only indicator of where we're headed but i you know i continue to have concerns over what this year in totality will look like financially for the city so Again, I hope the 1.4% that you fought so hard for is the right number and I would have been more comfortable if we'd stayed flat, but I lost that argument and we'll see how it shakes out.

And that's in part why when, you know, my sleeping better at night, some, but then we have all these other indicators that nothing is pointing in the same direction. And so, yeah, I think we very much have to wait to a number of more months to see how things go. And I've been asked a lot, wow, these sales tax numbers are great. Are we making any moves? And my answer is, not if I can help it, because I think that we need to be prudent. We have a lot of these varying, these indicators pointing in all different directions. And I think we need a number of more months under our belt to determine, are we good to go? What does next year look like? And so yes, I'm also happy that the sales tax is coming in that way. But when we're seeing these other indicators, it also makes me cautious in moving forward with particularly any changes this year, and then we'll see how next year goes.

I agree, and the furlough days that have already been baked into the budget, seven furlough days, I don't recall how many of them have been exercised thus far, but the point is you're going to have to continue to exercise those furlough days as we go through the rest of the year in order to meet the current 26 budget, unless you come back with a budget amendment and we have that conversation, but I think we're still under some economic pressure at the city just to make the 1.4% increase work. And when you put that in the context of the declines from say the highs of 22, 23 to the low of 25, right? I think, you know, just over the span of the last three years, we've seen some very interesting economic gyrations and the city's response to that has been interesting. So thanks.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yep, thanks Madam President. Sharae, how long are the building permits good for once they're pulled?

Oh gosh, I don't know that.

I think Kevin Walker knows that. 180 days. Six months. Six months. So, you know what? You get this, I guess, from regional building, is that? Correct. But it would be kind of interesting to just see how many are open, because you might go down for a couple of months, but if they had pulled them at the end of last year, I don't know what the seasonal cycle is on that, but I think you see what I'm saying. You could have a couple of down months because they've already pulled them, and it's not a reflection of... We're not gonna build, although that may be exactly what's happening here, I don't know. It could just be the data is only showing us one month worth, not what's out there that's still active, so.

And I'm gonna, is there another question?

That's it for me. I don't know. I know you're not the building guru. That's somebody else.

And I am also digging further into what does our construction tax look like? And when I've displayed before the categories of the sales tax, but that's at this point just sales tax and so i'm working on getting also much of the construction taxes come in through use tax and so i'm trying to get a consolidated construction both sales and use tax and then we can bump that up against those permits and see what um that correlation is and what the delay is in the actual sales tax sales and use tax collected on construction versus when those permits get pulled

Okay, do you know if Roger Lovell tracks that? I don't know. Six month, you know, like the rolling total of how many building permits are out there?

It's not on the report that we receive.

Okay, all right, thanks.

Councilman Lineweaver.

Yes, thank you. So one of my concerns here is, and it's not really shown on the slide, but I think you could bring a perspective, and I think Councilman Risley alluded to this, is 2025 was one of our lowest years. So we're looking at 2025 as a comparison. But if you can remind me, I think 2025 was like a record low in providing building permits and also collecting sales tax from the construction industry. So to be even lower now, I mean, it's really... it's a little bit, it's even more concerning because we're coming off such a low year. So comparing to last year like it's normal, it's not bright, we're comparing to last year which was exceptionally low. Am I thinking correctly?

Yes.

Okay.

However, I will say in the and I don't know if I'm gonna have my years right, but 2021, 2022, three, those were also exceptionally high, if I understand it correctly, and they were not normal either. So I don't know that those years are good to compare to either. But I do know that 2025 was low. The minute that the interest rates spiked, I think these single family building permits dropped off dramatically and have stayed low. But you're correct, yes, 2025 was also low.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President. Sharae, last year during the budget cycle, we had some very robust conversations about the current finance modeling that your office was operating with. And one of the things that you were gonna look at is restructuring that. Has there been any restructuring that played into some of the numbers that you've presented here today and some of the projections? Is there a new modeling structure that you're looking at currently?

And a lot of those conversations were the, prior to the 2026 models that we used to create the budget. And it was because we had seen that large variance that we did change those models. And so all of that had been accomplished prior to the 2026 forecast that we had created. So we have that now modified for the budget. and we've had that for about a year now. And of course, we're not projecting out this year yet, but we did use that updated process to create the 2026 budget values for the revenue.

Are you seeing benefit with the new modeling compared to what was happening in the past so far? Yes. Okay, all right, thank you.

And tagging on to Council Member Risley's comments, now we are gonna look at unemployment rate, which for in Colorado, in El Paso County, and in the US has been decreasing. And so this is through April of 2026. And in El Paso County, our unemployment rate is 3.6%. And which again, just goes to having these varying economic indicators, not all pointing in the same direction. And one of those is the consumer sentiment. This is an index of consumer sentiment, which is the lowest it's been, I think, since the time that it has been tracked. So then we have this interesting interplay between consumer sentiment being very low But then again, seeing those sales and use tax numbers higher and seeing the unemployment doing well, but then those single family permits down. So really just this variability in all of these economic indicators. Then I was gonna move on to the 2027 budget cycle. We have already, we are in full swing on the 2027 budget cycle. And so I wanted to talk through a little bit of what we're doing now, and then we can talk through, these are the key dates for once the budget is released and gets formally transmitted over to the Council. What's on the slide all happens after we release the budget, but what we're doing currently, in May, we kicked off the CIP prioritization process, which involves every department that has capital projects, they come together and prioritize the CIP requests. We have also, and I say we, and when I say we, I mean Jen Vance, the city's budget manager. She is running this entire process. She and her team have met with all of the departments to do a budget kickoff meetings, and that's where we talk with every department about the process that we're gonna go through, any instructions that we might have for them, and the timelines that we'll expect information from them. In June, we will have a very preliminary discussion with the department directors about we're gonna come up with some revenue forecasts, what might that look like for the remainder of the year and going into 2027, as well as what are those expenditures that we have identified so far or the category of expenditure. There are gonna be things like contractual increases or benefit changes increases. We won't have dollar values for those, but we're gonna start putting together our list of what is it we're gonna have to address in 2027. In July, the departments start to prepare their 2027 budget requests, and we collect all of that information in a SharePoint site, and they start submitting that to us. On July 17th, we have scheduled our prioritization retreat, which is mainly for general fund requests coming. And if we do have some additional funding that we can spend, what does the prioritization look like for any additional dollars beyond what we know we have to spend? And then moving into August, we'll be getting our compensation recommendation from HR. They are currently out in the market doing market survey and collecting that data, and we'll get their recommendation in August, as well as at the end of August, we'll be wrapping up that CIP prioritization process so that we can feed that information into the budget. In September, we'll have another meeting with our department directors and that the purpose of that is we will have now good numbers for all of those items that we were talking about previously. What are we gonna do for compensation? What are we gonna do for benefit increases? What are the contractual increases? And we'll fill that in. and then on october 5th which starts the slide in front of you we release the budget document publicly and that's when we start the council approval process starting with we do have a date reserved to just walk through the document with any interested council members which is really a time to take a look and ask any questions that there might be or if there's interest in a particular area or department we can walk through that and it really just gives dedicated time to answer any of those questions or make observations and then on the october 15th we have the budget work session with city council which is a formal work session here in council chambers and we will be bringing the departments the main departments to the council to present their budget to you On October, I'm sorry, October 26th, we will have the formal public hearing. That's after a work session. In the evening, I think we usually five to seven. And then we have our markup session on October 29th, which is Council's opportunity to provide any proposed modifications and gain Council majority consent to make any changes. And then in November, we have the two approval dates for the budget. I think that we have one prior to just releasing the budget. I believe we have one lunch date with the council to give a budget update. And then I think there'll be probably another quarterly financial report in September, which of course we won't talk much about the budget. in that formal work session. So I think that right now we have one more date to preview any budget items with the city council prior to it being distributed to you all. And that is all I have. So I can answer any questions there might be.

Yeah, tagging on to what Councilman Leyenweber alluded to, I pulled up the last five years. We've been flat since 2023. And given that the sales and use tax is soft at best, and the city's relying on all the RIFs, 30-some RIFs, for low days and deferred capital projects to close the $31 million gap, looking at the figures here, how confident are you that the 2026 budget will be met without mid-year levers like community centers that happened last year. We've closed 10 park bathrooms in addition to these things. So basically without mid-year service cuts or additional measures if this economy weakens.

At this point in time, I feel confident that based on the revenue coming in and the salary spend to budget, that if things track as they are, that we will meet budget without any additional actions needed. Of course, we already have global conflict that we're dealing with, that's kind of baked in already. But of course, this is, if things continue relatively similar to what they are now. I am confident that we wouldn't need any mid-year adjustments. If something else changes though, that would certainly need to be factored in and I don't know what actions would be needed then.

Councilman Donelson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. Maybe you've already done this calculation, I hope, and I know nobody likes to do math at the microphone, but if we projected, what was it, 1.4% growth in, was that in sales and use tax revenue?

Yes.

And it, hypothetically, let's say it just held steady and it turned out it was up four rather than 1.4, so that's 2.6. What is 2% of our sales and use tax? What is the sales and use tax? Can you just remind me what that number was last year? Is it two?

I don't have that number with me, I'm sorry. And I've learned I will never do math at the podium.

I bet Kevin Walker knows off the top of his head.

And I want to, yes, also just be a little careful in that when we look at our sales and use tax report, there are other things that we also have audit revenue that is not reported there. So there are other things that play into our total revenue, particularly even in sales and use tax. I don't want to be making any projections at this point for the rest of the year. And I understand what, I believe I understand what you're trying to get at is we already have baked in a few million of revenue over budget. But I just want to be very cautious in trying to, at this point, make any projections for the remainder of the year.

yep understood but uh you do have to look at the data that we have and so far the first four months good uh it for that one thing just sales and use revenue that's been better than expected or better than projected so far could change next month and then be down the rest of the year but so far your recommendation has held correct that that was, so far, a safe level to budget for. So, thank you.

I don't see any other questions at this time. Thank you so much for this. Thank you. We really appreciate.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 6C. Will the clerk read item 6C into the record?

Item 6C, agenda planner review.

Does anyone have any questions for the upcoming agenda planner? Seeing none for the record, there are no comments or changes to the agenda planner. Moving on to item 7A. Will the clerk please read item 7A into the record?

A resolution repealing resolution 8625, establishing fees and charges for the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Cemetery Enterprise 2027.

Good morning, Kim.

Good morning. President Crowe-Iverson, President Pro Tem Risley, and council members, thank you so much for our opportunity to bring forward our 2027 fees and charges for the cemetery enterprise. I'm going to just do a brief introduction and then turn it over to Cheryl Godbout, our operations manager. I felt like it's a great segue actually, because we are talking budget and the 2027 budget and how the enterprise operation proposes to meet that with an increase in some of our fees and charges for 2027. Just a little context again, as an enterprise operation, We operate only off of our own revenues. We do not receive any taxpayer support to that. In addition to our revenues that we generate ourselves through fees and charges, we also utilize a portion of our endowment, which is approximately 15% of our sales that is put into an endowment account, which is managed separately and is looked upon as something for both as well as we've utilized it also for capital improvement needs that we have had for the enterprise operation. Again, it is two cemeteries, Fairview and Evergreen, approximately between 85,000 and 90,000 burials currently between the two sites. Again, both historic sites, really housing a lot of the founders, of our community over the years since the late 1800s. Fees and charges process here, just a couple of comments. This is the strategy we use to determine how best to provide these services, looking at the alignment of our organizational purpose, financial viability, market position. A couple of things just to keep in mind, again, Something that we do is recognize that we are kind of the community option for burial services, both for in-ground as well as cremation burials. And something we keep in mind is that as a municipal cemetery, we do want to be cognizant of our pricing, and we do take that into account. We really do look at market options available to the community. and look at that in our pricing. And that's just something, as Cheryl will go through, will be something that we'll definitely recognize. I think the other thing is that we do provide, or try to strive to have fair prices because of that. But we also recognize that all of the The services and the products that go into what we provide also have a cost. And we have seen those costs increasing over the last couple of years. Also, we have eight staff, which is a small but mighty group to support the two cemeteries. But staffing, again, cost of staffing is also an important piece of how we provide these services even though we are an enterprise operation we follow city guidelines city policies associated with salaries and benefits so our enterprises are required to as benefit changes and those costs increase we are responsible for meeting those increases as well we are part of the overall hr comparison of salaries. So our positions are also benchmarked as well. If there are increases identified there, we are required to meet those as well.

Councilman Hengium. Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Kim.

Morning.

So on the market position, and totally, it's a city enterprise. Obviously, we're really mindful of we're serving the general citizenry. How would you describe the market position, given that you have to generate all your own revenue, cover your expenses, be able to maintain appropriate employees, et cetera? But how do you compare, I guess, in terms of competition? I mean, what are you trying to hit? What's that point you're trying to hit?

We're trying to cover our costs. It would be nice if we could make a little bit of extra just because we have a lot of capital needs, but we really do try and just benchmark, and you'll see in some of the charts that we really do try and break even to be just a little bit ahead. So I would say we're typically average depending on the particular item, if it's a space in a columbarium versus an in-ground burial. I was pulling some of the data for other cemeteries in Denver and Pueblo around this area for Colorado's estate. The average for an in-ground burial space is $3,800. I think our average ends up being a little bit less than that. So I'd say we typically try and just be in the middle, if you will, or average. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

and uh the other item i will say and it speaks to item f up here that exploring a three-year fee structure you know the last few years and i will say since cheryl has come on board she had over 20 plus years in the death care industry comes from a private sector perspective but you really need that in an enterprise operation because you really are operating as a business that we have been looking at fees. We're also trying to memorialize fees. We're also looking at opportunities to provide additional generation of revenue for silk flowers or vases or things. So looking at some of those accessories, if you will, that are definitely optional, but to provide those as opportunities too for some additional revenue. As a result of that, we have been coming back to memorialize those and ensure that they are captured in our fee schedule. Going forward, looking at this three-year fee structure, we are trying to be more systematic about it in the future, which may be an opportunity there. The final thing, as Cheryl comes up, is that this particular item has gone through our Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Advisory Board, your board, It was reviewed as both essentially as a presentation item and action item. They did approve it unanimously in May. We also use those meetings as an opportunity for citizen input, and we did not have any input at that time. So at this time, I'll turn it over to Cheryl and she can give you more kind of the nuts and bolts behind it. Thank you.

Thank you, city council members, and my name is Cheryl Godbout. I'm the operation manager for the two cemeteries, Fairview and Evergreen. Within the two cemeteries, Evergreen handles the bulk of the expenses. Fairview right now is essentially full. So all of the expenses for Fairview are being covered by Evergreen. There are burials that happen at Fairview, but there's a lot of... a lot of pre-need that goes in, so technically they're not covering their expenses at all. So our only opportunity over time at Fairview is to expand the burial, but that requires some intensive capital expenditures of removing the hill that's there, doing development, that type of thing, which we hope to do, but again, all of that requires money. But talking about evergreen, that's primarily what we're talking about. Our burial volume has remained relatively flat, and that's one thing that I look at as an indicator of where our pricing is at. As long as we're kind of staying the same, then our prices aren't out of line. As far as being competitive with our market, we are competitive with all of the municipal cemeteries. We are way below the private cemeteries. So again, our goal is to provide the best services we can for the community, but still cover our costs. The other issue that weighs heavily on what we do is cremation rate. So our cremation rate is roughly half of our total internment volume. Where we have a 1550 opening and closing for burial, we currently have a 750 opening and closing it for cremation it's very hard to make any adjustments on the cremation side because people do not have to bury cremated remains they can take them home they can scatter them on pikes peak they can do what a million things with them so we know that and we are very thankful for every family that chooses to be bury cremated remains in Evergreen Cemetery. Unfortunately, the negative part of that is our burial families have to absorb the cost of those folks that do choose cremation. We have a question from Councilman Hincham. Certainly.

Thank you, Madam President. And I apologize. You may get to this question, Cheryl. Sure. Or what I'm going to ask about. But I'm thinking really long term. And given that Evergreen is covering Fairview operations because it's essentially full, that's going to be the case at some point for Evergreen as well. And how is the enterprise planning for a future that has operational costs covered in perpetuity?

Well, Evergreen does have some property. Not a lot. We have about six sections that we'll be able to develop. Developing sections is very expensive. So we've got one section that's up for development in 2027. Its development costs are a little bit more than a half a million dollars. Fortunately, we were able to have a large sale this year that covered the majority of it. Didn't cover all of it, we're still gonna have to find about an additional 50 or $60,000 to complete that. But that large sale is not repeatable. It was very fortunate. In 2023, we were gifted some spaces in the very center of the cemetery. Again, not a repeatable thing. That's helped us keep our revenues kind of consistent because those were top dollar spaces. But over time, unless we continue to get these good things that happen, only price increases are going to keep us going. But my estimate has been about a 30 to 50-year lifespan because of the cremation rate. Now, we have made a few changes. We're allowed cremations in people's burial spaces at a higher rate than we have. I mean, we've done some things that will keep us viable for quite some time, but it's not forever. Right. So my belief is that at some point the city will have to look at another piece of property for another city cemetery. And the longer that we wait to do that, the further east it's going to be. But that is something that's going to happen over time. Not at any time in the very near future, but it will have to happen. Did that answer your question?

Well, yes. I mean, I guess the question is at what point. Do you have to start getting serious about either, or maybe it's both, either getting another piece of property and or creating some kind of endowment that, you know, at some point you just say these are the city cemeteries, they're done, they're part of history. I mean, I think about, you know, walking cemeteries on Cape Cod where, you know, people were buried there in the 1500s and there's no more. I have no idea how they're tended, but some of them are pretty dilapidated.

There's a lot.

And we don't want that in the future, and we have some significant history in both of those.

And that's why we do have our endowment, and our endowment's been in place since the inception of the city. So it's a healthy amount as long as we're not dilapidated. tapping into it anytime in the near future which we are tapping into it now to cover some of our expenses so we do take a distribution of the earnings from the endowment so the endowment is not making as much as it might because we are taking the earnings so that again is why the price increases are a necessary part. My plan is to increase prices every two years. Maybe not as much as we're planning for 2027, but right now, we do have some, our chapel is in desperate need of renovations, and we thought we had somebody that might help us with that. But unfortunately, Colorado Springs does not have a big philanthropic base. to get donations, and if any of you have a philanthropic base, I would love to hear it, but we do need to, we do have capital expenditures that need to happen. Again, our new development, that's only, we only have one garden going in. How long that'll last, I don't know, but we'll be looking to do another one, I would guess within two years. So I think that we have, in thinking of the future, Yeah, we're going to have to make some plans.

Well, I would love to, maybe at a different time and space, have a bigger conversation about this because, you know, there's this balance of being really affordable, and I appreciate that. It's a city cemetery. And if there's such a gap between what we do and the private... And with all of the needs that you just stated in the future, perhaps being a little bit more than, you know, very affordable is something we need to look at from a long-term perspective and planning. And I don't know when and how you, you know, as the enterprise, you have that conversation, but it's... Again, it seems like it needs to happen sometime in the near future.

Yes, at some point. But again, we have that balance between being affordable to the community and being able to maintain our businesses. Councilman Donaldson?

Yeah, sure, I'll try not to ask too many questions here, but that is a challenge, right, is if you raise rates at a municipal cemetery, and we have a lot of military here who will be buried through the VA, essentially for free, you can lower demand for, for plots and cremation, is that right? Or is that not really true?

We've watched that and everybody said, oh my goodness, when we have a national cemetery, Evergreen's gonna hurt. It didn't make a blip on the map. People, there are some, A national cemetery is fabulous, but there are limitations to a national cemetery that a lot of veterans don't like, like not having to have your whole family there. There's a lot of heritage, that sort of thing. We still have more veterans buried at Evergreen than the national cemetery has, but it's a fact of life. The National Cemeteries is always going to take the majority of the veterans. However, it hasn't made a difference on our call volume. So it didn't prove to be the issue that we thought it was going to be.

But you have all this supply of plots, or is that the right term? Grave sites? Grave sites, mm-hmm. And sites for ashes. Mm-hmm. to meet all the demand that you receive now, is that right?

We currently only have two sections in Evergreen Cemetery that have, where you can get more than one space together. And that inventory is dwindling very quickly. So that's why the new section is so important to us, because that will give us the ability to have multiple spaces together. It'll also have some cremation options that we've currently almost run out of. So yeah, it may sound like we have a lot of spaces if you look at it individually, but that's if everybody only wants one space, and most people don't.

And to remedy that, it is develop another section inside of which one? Evergreen, yes.

Well, to develop the rest of Fairview for the west side clientele and then continue to regularly develop Evergreen as long as we have property to do so.

Okay. How far out do you think that would take us without buying more land or getting more land and putting something out east? Is it another 20 years?

Yeah, probably. Probably 10 to 20 years. It depends on burial. I mean, as long as cremation stays where it is, then our burial pace we'll be able to keep up with. If something changes and people start burying, everything is cyclical.

Okay. A little bit ago, you said that there was a large sale and that has helped out. And you mean of burial sites?

Yeah, a big private estate. And that came, I think, before last year. And it was, again, it was a godsend to be able to pay for the development of the new section.

And you mentioned our endowment, we're using the revenue off of that, not dipping into the...

Into the corpus, no.

Yeah, how much is that? How much is the corpus? How many millions is that?

About $12 million.

About $12 million? Okay, all right, thank you.

Councilman Ray. Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for being here and you've been here before and you provided us a lot of data, so I greatly appreciate it. Your earlier comment about land, have you all start looking at different locations? Do you have like a running list of targeted land that you may want to explore?

No, not at this point. It would be great if we could identify the land just as a piece because development costs, again, are really, really expensive. And the further east you go, the less attractive it is. But that's not something we have the finances or the ability to do at this point.

Okay. And the reason why I bring that up is because you made the comment, land is becoming very scarce. And as we continue to develop, especially along the entire eastern corridor, I'll call it from north all the way down the south, land is becoming very scarce. So if that is something that you're looking at targeting, okay. Even if you're just identifying potential locations, at least that conversation can start. Because once again, over the next two, three years, I can definitely see a lot of land out in that area kind of going away, not being available.

Yeah, and that's why I think we need to look at land that the city already owns and look at some that may not be ideal for a park or something, but that could be used for something like that. And we've chatted about it, but nothing serious at this point.

Okay, thank you.

You said you have sections already. Are you talking sections with acres? Because there's 640 acres in a section. So are you talking sections? Sections. So you have how many sections?

Well, there's not 640 acres in a section. In fact, I don't know exactly how much each section has, honestly. Okay. Not even close to that.

So you don't have sections. You have... We have blocks. Parcels. Yes. In the cemetery world, they're blocks. Okay, that makes more sense because I'm like, you have plenty of land. No, no, no, no.

Not like that. You have a farm. We have blocks. We have blocks and a block will have... I don't know. That makes sense. I just wanted to clarify that. I wish we had those kind of sections. Okay, let's see. I don't know if I have anything else to say. Okay, so as far as our fees and charges, as far as the vaults, we have added concrete vaults to our offering. And the reason we've added them is they are a typical cemetery product. And the local funeral homes don't really sell a lot of vaults, so we added it so that people have an option. Are we gonna sell a lot of them? Probably not. But at least so we have an option, we've added a whole selection of concrete vaults for whatever somebody's needs are. We've- Madam President, can I just ask? Sure, of course.

Cheryl, this is your world. Describe a vault so that we and others who are listening know how large this is, how high.

A vault is a container that the casket goes into in the cemetery. At its very minimum, its job is to keep the ground from sinking in over time. So that's why the poly vault, the plastic vault, is the one that the cemeteries used for a long time. However, it's not a product that's going to provide any kind of protection for the casket and the casket's contents. If someone, and there's nothing that's impervious, but if someone wants something a little bit more protective, and there are people that do, a lot of Catholics want more protective because of our beliefs, then we offer a variety of of different options on how they're lined, what they're made of, the various levels of protective nature. Now, that's a very personal opinion. I have had people come in and say, I want the best for mom. Well, the best is a $14,000 Wilbert bronze, bronze inside and outside. Am I gonna see one at Evergreen? Probably not, but I do get people that say, yes, I do want the Monticello. I want something that has a protective nature to it.

And the vault is completely buried, though.

Yes, completely buried in the ground, yes. And again, we do require a vault unless somebody chooses a green option. And then we have a tamping option for folks that desire that return to the earth as quickly as possible. So we try to cover everybody's wants and needs. The other things that are on here, what we've done is we've tried to monetize things that we do that cost us money. So for example, a monument disposal fee, that costs us money. We have to destroy the monument, we have to have a place to put it. If we have a lawn memorial service, which is using the grounds next to the chapel for a memorial service, that takes tents, that takes personnel, that takes time. So we've tried to put reasonable pricing on these things so that we don't have unrealized costs. They happen often, no, not too often, but when they do, that's something that we need to cover.

And Madam President, if I could, a monument disposal fee, that would be to remove and destroy a headstone, is that what we're talking about?

Generally after a disinterment, where they don't want to take the memorial, so then we have to figure out how we're going to respectfully destroy it.

And in layman's terms, that is a headstone, the monument.

Monument, marker, headstone are almost all interchangeable. Okay, thanks. And then we have paranormal investigations. We have people all the time that come in and want to stay in our chapel overnight to check for paranormal activity. It's not my favorite thing, but the world is full of all kinds of people. But I can't have them using the chapel and us not, again, there's cost of personnel, there's cost of everything that goes along with it, and if they want to stay overnight, I have to have security for them and all those kinds of things. It's amazing how much, when we started charging, our paranormal activity has declined. But if somebody's really into it, and we get calls from major TV networks, the History Channel, if they want to do it, then perfect. But it's something that you wouldn't be, you'd be surprised how many times people ask for that.

But Cheryl, perhaps the activity hasn't declined, only the investigations have declined.

Exactly. I haven't detected any activity myself.

I would like to know, how many times has President Crow Iverson paid this fee?

I'm waiting for you.

But we can talk later about that. Okay, again, replacements of certificates of ownership. These are all things that cost, that we just have to recover costs on tents and all the things that we, and we want to offer everything for everyone. There are, you know, we talk about being affordable, but there are people that are not interested in being affordable. They want the best of whatever it is. And make no mistake, Evergreen Cemetery is the premier cemetery for two counties, three counties. So if anybody, for the most part, has a choice, Evergreen's gonna be where they're going to be. So the fact of getting a premier cemetery at the pricing that we charge is a very big community asset. So our enterprise revenues and expenses, everything goes up, but I don't want you to pay attention to that little blip in 2024, because those were ARPA funds that we received and they got put in as revenue. So that's not really, that's not going to be something that we can consider. And then this coming year, again, large sale, we'll have another blip, but again, they're not repeatable. revenue sources. Expenses go up constantly, just like all of you. I don't know if you've, you know, you've bought a car, you bought groceries, everything goes up, everything. Water and just, you know, and employees and just all the things, mowing and all the things that we have to do to keep the cemeteries on a constant upward trend. And we don't see that slowing down anytime soon. So we just We're not looking to make money. We're looking to stay even and maybe not take as much from our endowment as what we're doing right now. Any questions on revenue? So important dates, we've already done the Parks Board and they've reviewed and approved. Now we're coming to y'all to give us our 2027 proposed fees. Again, we will not increase fees again until 2029. We did last year ask all of you for a doc fee, which has been very, very helpful in getting a little bit extra help with our revenue. But we're hoping that you will approve this as a consent item because it is, again, we're not looking to make money. We're looking to be able to sustain Evergreen Cemetery as the beautiful place that it is. And it is not inexpensive. And I think that's it. Nope.

Do you want this on consent? Excuse me? Yes, please, consent, yes. To have support to put this on consent. All right, this will be on consent. Thank you. Thank you. It's very sobering. Moving on to item 7B. Will the clerk please read item 7B into the record?

An ordinance amending multiple parts of Chapter 7, Unified Development Code of Dakota, the City of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to stormwater permanent control measures. Just a note, this one is back to back and it is on the consent calendar with its partner ordinance.

Good morning, Aaron. Good morning, city council members, president, my name is Aaron powers and the stormwater enterprise manager for the city. That's within public works today. I am presenting an ordinance to amend parts of chapter 7 of city code. This change will strengthen the city's enforcement program for stormwater, permanent control measures. And these are things like extended detention basins and filters by retention. So the city is required to maintain a permanent control measures enforcement program to ensure that privately maintained PCMs, we call them, are adequately maintained as part of the city's MS4 program. So the first reading for this is scheduled for June 9th and then the second is July 14th. And we would request this go on the consent agenda if possible. So I'd be happy to take any questions.

I don't see any questions. Can I have support for this to go on consent?

It already is on consent.

I mean, the next, this one too, she's asking.

It's on consent with the other one.

And we're good with that. Okay.

Thank you. You're good. Thank you.

Moving on to council member reports and open discussion. We're going to have council member report outs before our closed session so we can come out of that and break right down for our lunch. So if there's anyone with any council member reports, now is the time. Councilman Hingem.

Thank you, Madam President. I wanted to just make mention of the Public Safety Committee that Councilmember Rainey and myself are leading and met once a few weeks ago with our Chief of Staff, with the two police and fire chiefs. representation from our two police and fire unions, Sharae McDaniel from finance and a few others as well. And we have begun the process of exploring and looking at some of the challenges we face in operational need and revenue. And so I'm looking forward to the ongoing work of that committee. I believe An email was sent to all of council with that information as well, and there was a letter in the Gazette, or letter A, an article in the Gazette recently about that. I also want to make a note of just this last Saturday, there was a pretty short-noticed, but nonetheless, civility retreat that was hosted by Lexi Hudson and and actually is funded by a philanthropist in town who is very supportive of the civility conversation. Myself and Council Member Goldwent, there were the mayors of Monument and Palmer Lake, who in particular, those two municipalities have experienced a tremendous amount of uncivility, incivility over the last year. And it was a very positive conversation with people, represented other elected officials and volunteers in those cities to just really have a conversation about how How do we work together in a way that's civil? How do we have disagreements that are going to happen, need to happen, but to do it in a way without demeaning our fellow human beings? So that was a very good retreat. And then lastly, I want to actually just, I've had a number of people reach out to me about fireworks in Colorado Springs for 4th of July. And I know historically we've had a variety of different ways in which we've celebrated the 4th in Colorado Springs, including at one point in our history, fireworks displays across the city and in neighborhoods. And that was often funded and supported by our LART dollars. Given the tremendous decrease we've had in our tourist tax dollars this year, there will only be one event that has any funding from LART, and that is at the Ford Amphitheater with our Colorado Springs Symphony. I've had people write and express frustration and concern about that, that there wasn't enough public input on that. I think it's just really important for people to be aware that we just don't have the revenues to do those kinds of fireworks shows all over. However, we do have the sports corps who is in fact responsible for fireworks, coordinating fireworks events across the city. And they have done a very nice job of utilizing what's in their contract and making sure that our Colorado Springs Philharmonic can play at the Ford Amphitheater. In fact, the Ford Amphitheater, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Sports Corps are all really helping to make that possible, each contributing some of their own dollars and making that possible. So I think that's really important. The other thing that people have expressed frustration about is that fireworks go off and we don't enforce fireworks from private people are using fireworks in the city, which fireworks are illegal in the city of Colorado Springs. However, We have many enclaves in our city that are county, and fireworks sales are not illegal in the county of El Paso. So people will buy fireworks in the county, and then they will shoot them off. I'm sure you probably all hear them in your neighborhoods. And your dogs get scared, and we get complaints about folks with PTSD being very bothered by it. And so the other complaint is that we're not enforcing. And so what are we going to do? Should we even have a ban? And then you've got fire. You know, people complain and concern about fire risks. So, you know, I know it's our 250th year and 150th as a state, and fireworks are a really great way to celebrate those events. But it does come with a lot of challenges, and it will come with a lot of complaints on the 4th of July and the 5th of July, and we'll see them and we'll hear them. I just wanted to make note that those are all the challenges that we face, and I think our sports corps is doing a tremendous job of meeting the needs that they can with the resources that we have as a city. So in addition to the Star-Spangled Symphony and Grand Fireworks show at the Ford Amphitheater on July 4th, At Meridian Ranch Fireworks, there will be a 19th annual celebration display on June 28th. At Fort Carson, there's the Freedom Fest on July 3rd. at Banning Lewis Ranch on July 4th. There will be a celebration. I assume that is funded by Banning Lewis Ranch Metro District, although I have no idea who funds that. The Colorado Springs Switchbacks will be playing Phoenix Rising, and there will be a fireworks display there, which there is after every game, actually. It'll just be a bigger one and then the tri-lakes fourth of july celebration on july 4th those are the regional fireworks shows that i'm aware of and hopefully we will not have any fires and people will respect the law in colorado springs and not set off fireworks so with that since we won't be meeting before the fourth of july as a city council i wish everybody a happy fourth of july and celebration of our 250th anniversary as a country thank you Councilman Leinweber.

Yes, I've got a few things. First of all, Saturday, we held our 10th annual Get Outdoors Day at Prospect Lake. We had well over 3,000 to 4,000 families and kids participating in 40 different outdoor activities, ranging from fishing to kayaking to boating bow shooting to pellet gun shooting to touch a truck. We had several representations from our police force was there, paramedics, a lot of different aspects where kids could just come out and learn all sorts of different aspects of wildlife and nature. and then also participate in a number of different outdoor activities. It was a huge success. I think I saw more kids there than I think I've ever seen. And the event has really turned out to be a pretty substantial event over the years. So it was a huge success and lots and lots of participation on Saturday. Then also, three of us, me, Brian, and Lynette, participated in a town hall that we did. It was kind of a different format. We partnered with an organization called Braver Angels. And I've heard just... tons of positive reviews about how well it kind of went through for our first one we had a couple of things that were feedback but but overall it was pretty pretty great we had several other city council folks attend and be table leaders and i think it was great conversation that kind of happened and really kind of pushes forward this idea of you know how can we sit down and have a conversation face to face. And so a lot of civility was practiced. And so I'm pretty excited about that. We are going to have another one on July 27th, I believe is our next one that we'll be doing. Similar format, it'll be at Library 21C up north. And so I'm kind of looking forward to that. And then finally, I was able to participate in a training class, Grand Parenting 101. I didn't really realize that this actually was a thing. but it was actually it was like two hours of learning um how to you know keep your grandkids safe and it was quite good actually it was held at saint francis medical center and we went through some basic cpr for infants and i mean just there's so much so much stuff that's different than what you would do with adults And I just can't stress enough that there's this program that I think a lot of people in our community could take advantage of, and it's free. And so anyway, Grandparenting 101, I strongly recommend it. Take a look. A lot of hospitals, I guess, are doing this. And so kind of look for something like that. But I think it's a worthwhile course. I LEARNED A LOT. SO AS I GET READY FOR MY FIRST GRANDKIDS IN SEPTEMBER, THANK YOU.

Councilman Gould. Thank you, Council President, and congratulations, Councilmember David Lineweber, for becoming a grandparent this fall. That's really exciting. I think June is awesome. There's a lot of celebrations going on, and we're gonna do a lot of recognitions tomorrow. We're not doing some of them, but I do wanna highlight a few recognitions that are happening for the month. There's Caribbean American Heritage Month. We have a sizable Caribbean, maybe not sizable isn't the best word, but we have representation for our Caribbean American population here in Colorado Springs. Um, it's also men's mental health months, which I think is interesting in addition to national PTSD awareness month. Um, it's also bike month and I do want to thank council member line Weber for bringing the bike to work day proclamation or resolution tomorrow. Um, and, um, Father's Day, so happy Father's Day to all the fathers, and last but certainly not least, it is Pride Month, and Pikes Peak Pride will be doing their festivities the 13th to the 14th, and you can find that information on pikespeakpride.org. Lastly, I believe ballots go out today, so please make sure you vote, and In support of that, I would like to share that Pikes Peak Bulletin is hosting a Colorado Governor's Forum this Sunday from 5.30 to 8. Several candidates will be there. I will be moderating. And I just want to encourage everybody to get out and vote in the primary elections and every election. Thank you. Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President. Just a few items and thank you again to Council Member Hingham for mentioning the Public Safety Committee. It's been a privilege getting that off the ground and getting all those stakeholders all together and to Council members who've supported that endeavor i just want to thank you also i also want to thank utilities for taking opportunity to take a few of us out to jackson fuller substation for a tour of that particular location uh myself uh council member donaldson council member hingem and i believe uh council member lineweber was out there to learn a lot more about uh some of the unique efforts that our csu uh team is putting together uh to try their best to give us uh you know the lowest rates that they possibly can and use energy efficiently and wisely uh also like to uh just highlight the fact that several council members participated in the leadership pikes peak local government day that was last week and What an opportunity to see a lot of young leaders in our community, having the opportunity to engage with a lot of them and get some ideas actually and to hear some of their questions about the city. So looking forward to seeing them volunteer more in our local government. And I want to highlight and send a special shout out to Deputy Chief of Staff Travis Easton and the entire Public Works team. Last week we had several meetings and we were able to put together with the help of our PIO team, kind of a media campaign to highlight a very unique traffic reconfiguration and the impacts that reconfiguration was gonna have on small businesses and has had on small businesses. And it was really great to see Public Works, the local community business owners come together and just really have a great engagement. And then that engagement ended up turning into something pretty special. With a lot of business owners in that area with a block party that happened this weekend, a lot of activity, a lot of patrons going back to those businesses, even with the construction that's currently still in place to support those small business owners, which is very important. And because of that, I am going to be leaning in. and putting together in the next couple of weeks, details to come forward, a small business economic forum. So I've had a meeting with our CEO of the chamber, our chief of economic development at the city, our deputy chief of staff for infrastructure and development, and our small business leader. We will be putting something together. I will send that email out and invite all small business to this economic forum. so they can learn everything that's available to them as a resource across the entire city. So once again, I just want to highlight the great work that the Public Works team did and also bringing together a lot of bright minds to continue to support our small businesses that tend to get impacted when we have these major traffic reconfigurations. That's all I have. Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks Madam President. First, I'd like to thank Commander Velazquez with CSPD who retired on May 27th after 29 years of service to our city and our citizens. And at these ceremonies, these retirement ceremonies, you're always struck by how dedicated uh commander velasquez and others who retire are to our city and what a you know what a tremendous um it's not a sacrifice because they love what they do, but how much of their heart they pour into our city and the camaraderie and the police force. And we're really lucky to have good men and women like him serving us. The second thing is this last Saturday was a busy morning because we've heard of a couple of events, but the one I went to was the fire department's third annual open house. I highly recommend that for families, especially if you have children, kids, or adults. They do demonstrations there. The helicopter, the Flight for Life came in, vehicle extractions. There's hands-on stuff for kids to see and touch. And then there are also multiple tables inside. It's where they do the promotions on Printers Parkway. tables with information about all kind of things, including emergency preparedness. So a really good event. Attendance was down, but I got a feeling there were kids over catching fish at Prospect Lake at the same time. Third for me is last Friday also I attended the El Paso County Sheriff's graduation for their deputy sheriffs for post-certification. And it's just another piece of public safety here in the city, also in the county. Number four is on, when was this, Thursday the 28th, I held a town hall at Fire Station 14 with support by Corey Farkas from Public Works. He's the head of the operations and maintenance, and I've always found Corey to be super support, full for me personally and for citizens and neighborhoods. And I've heard a bad rumor this morning about Corey and whether he's still with the city or not. I certainly hope it's false and that he is. And again, I've always found him to be a, Connects fantastically with neighborhoods when he goes in the hot seat and tries to explain why the roads in their neighborhoods haven't been resurfaced yet or why they're going to be resurfaced and they don't want it to be done. Always willing to participate in town halls. I think a great spokesperson for the city, explaining why things are happening, including, you know, we always saw him, see him for snow removal. So I want to thank him for being there that night, you know, on his own time to help answer questions. And also I want to thank our staff, including Alex Wright and who kind of, he coordinates these things and Sam was also there and Ludmer was there. A couple of others. I believe it was, someone's already touched on the Jackson Fuller substation tour, which we did on Monday early in the morning. So thanks to Councilman Rainey for covering that. Thursday night, the Resort on the Streets, the opening reception, that's an annual thing, but again, that was very good this year. And since grandparenting has been brought up here, I've gotta thank my daughter, who gave us our first grandchild on May 20th after a long day at CSU. And so we have like a little over two week old grandson now. So that's all I have, but that's a lot. So especially the grandson part.

Councilman Casey.

thank you madam president i just wanted to uh one item i'm hosting a town hall for district two on june 30th at 5 30 at fire station 19th on research parkway public works traffic cspd and utilities there and then formal announcement should be out shortly thanks i don't see any alibis so that will finish our um

Council reports and discussions. We're going to go ahead and read in and take a vote to go into executive session and then we'll take a break to flip the room. So will this city attorney's office please read 10BA into the record.

Good morning, Madam President, Stephanie Boster, City Attorney. In accordance with City Charter Article 3, Section 3-60D, and its incorporated Colorado Open Meetings Act, CRS Section 246402-4B, The city council in open session is to determine whether it will hold a closed executive session. The issue to be discussed involves consultation with the city attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding the old Colorado city downtown development authority. The president of council shall pull the city council members and, upon consent of two-thirds of the members present, may conduct a closed executive session in the event any city council Council members is participating electronically or telephonically in the closed executive session. Each city council member participating in the closed executive session shall affirmatively state for the record that no other member of the public not authorized to participate and the closed executive session is present or able to hear the matters discussed as part of the closed executive session. If consent to the closed executive session is not given, the item may be discussed in open session or withdrawn from consideration.

Will the clerk please poll the council members for executive session? Council member Casey?

Yes.

Council member Crowe-Iverson? Aye. Council member Donaldson?

Aye.

Council member Gold? Aye. Council member Hedgeham? Aye. Council member Rainey? Aye. Council Member Lineweaver.

Aye. Council Member Algar.

Council Member Risley.

Aye.

Council Member Williams. Aye. All nine agree.

We're gonna take a 10 minute break to.

We're back in regular session.

We are now back in regular work session after that executive session, but we are now adjourned from the work session.