City Council - Regular Meeting

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Good morning and welcome to the City Council regular session for Tuesday, July 14th, 2026. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Casey? Here. Council Member Lynette Crowe-Iverson?

Here.

Council Member Donelson? Here. Council Member Gold?

Here I am on mine.

Council Member Hengem?

Present.

Council Member Leinweber? Here. Council Member Rainey?

Here.

Council Member Risley? Here. And Council Member Williams?

Here.

All nine present.

Please stand for the invocation and then the Pledge of Allegiance. Today we are joined by Pastor Pat Harkstill from Springs First Presbyterian Church. Good morning.

Good morning. You join me in the privilege of prayer. that is deeper than their own as they make decisions. We ask you to give them courage that rises above the noise and pressures that surround those decisions. Give them insight beyond the facts and figures they receive. Give each of them an inward strength and conviction to know the right and choose the right. Strengthen and deepen their relationships with one another that each council member would honor the other. God, we thank you for their selfless service to our city. We thank you for this wonderful city which they serve. And we thank you, Lord, that you are God and we are not, and that you love this city and each resident more than we do. So please sovereignly continue to love and care for this city through this city council. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. 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 forever. We will now consider the consent calendar. The items will be act upon as a whole unless a specific item is called off by a council member or a citizen wishing to address council. Is there anyone who would like to pull anything off of the consent calendar? I have a motion from Councilman Donelson and a second from Councilman Risley. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Moving on to recognitions. 5A, will the clerk please read item 5A into the record.

Community Recognition Program honoring District 6 resident Phillip Cisneros.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President, and good morning to the residents of Colorado Springs, both here in person and online. Thank you very much. And what a great way to start off this particular session by recognizing a community member and his volunteer work and efforts. So I'll give everyone a quick background of what we're talking about here and what's gonna happen moving forward with all council members. So a couple of months ago, I approached my colleagues about wanting to put together a program that recognizes people in our community that just do great things nothing political no special interests but just people out there every day who are just doing good things for their neighborhoods doing great things for the community at large in the city at large and i do want to thank all my colleagues up here for supporting that recommendation and approving it and one of the things that we're going to do moving forward is every year each council member to include at large members will recognize someone in their district for doing something that's just great in their community and i have the privilege and honor of kicking that process off by recognizing someone in district six And that individual today is Philip Cisneros. So Philip Cisneros, in his outstanding commitment to families in the Ute and District 6, his leadership at Freedom Elementary School PTA has strengthened the entire school community by supporting students, uplifting educators, and creating a more connected environment. Also, his dedication extends far beyond the school. He also is a lead in Cub Scout Pack 84, where he serves nearly every role imaginable as a Cub master, a den leader, the accountant, and more. Phillip is always stepping wherever is needed in the community. For example, when PAC 84 had lost its sponsorship to the organization, he didn't hesitate. He stepped right in and made sure that the program didn't disappear. He preserved a key source of mentorship, learning, and offered that personal growth to all the different scouts in the community. And what I like to call that is paying it forward. Just someone who's just doing just good work in our community. And let's be honest, I think these days we can use a lot more of that, of just recognizing people just doing good work in our community, in our city. So with that, it is my honor to recognize him today, Thank you for your meaningful and lasting impacts. Continue to do great work in District six and the city of Colorado Springs. So what I would like to do at this time is quickly invite you up to say a couple of words. You go right there to the podium. And just make sure that you hit the green button there.

Thank you. I'd just like to start off by saying thank you to my friend and fellow PAC leader Chris Horton for nominating me for this award. It is an honor to be recognized today and I would also like to thank my wife Robin. She is my rock and always supported me even when I'm stretching myself thin because I have a problem saying no. While I'm volunteering, taking training, she's at home taking care of our two beautiful children, Gunnar and Lila, as well as working a full-time job. When we first started attending Freedom Elementary, we had a neighbor whose kids also attended Freedom suggest that we attend PTA meetings and to be involved with the school and the community. I'm so glad we took her advice. Our family has built lifelong relationships and there's a strong community at Freedom. Freedom PTA supports the school events and also our amazing teachers throughout the year. and we help out with any needs that they have. The PTA is also the PAC chartered organization, so they are our sponsor for the PAC and allow us to meet weekly there. I'd also like to thank the Freedom staff and parents for their involvement in PTA because it really does take a village to raise our kids and teach them good character and morals. With the scouting program, I grew up in a rural area where my dad taught me about fishing, hunting, and camping. Living in a city, I wanted to pass down that knowledge to my kids. We joined Scouts in 2021. My son was very shy and timid when we first started, kind of afraid to go up and get us an award. And as he got older, He learned to be brave as part of the scout oath and law. And now he'll be up there, he'll give jokes, participate in skits, and also helps out with the younger scouts in our pack. My daughter, she enjoys fishing and archery, and she's been enjoying the program as well. Scouting has been instrumental in our parenting. The Scout Oath and Law are fantastic guidelines for helping us raise our kids with great character and morals. You can get your child involved too. Just visit BeAScout.org and locate a unit near you. Recommend attend multiple meetings, see if the unit's a good fit for you and your family and your schedule. Promise you, you won't regret it. Volunteering in general, I would ask any parents, guardians, family members, if there is an opportunity to help out at your child's school or other program that they're involved in, please do it. As a leader, I know it's kind of a struggle to get parents involved to help out and we really do appreciate it. It does go a long way and it'll help you build everlasting memories with your kiddos. So it's an honor again to be recognized and thank you for the opportunity for me to be here.

Well, thank you, Philip, for those words. And once again, to my fellow colleagues, thank you very much for supporting this endeavor. I know it was kind of an ideal I had brewing for several months, but I greatly appreciate you supporting me in this effort. And to the entire legislative staff, thank you for your hard work in making sure that I round this out and make it come to life. So thank you very much.

We're going to meet you and your family down front and take a ceremonial picture.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 5B. Will the clerk please read item 5B into the records?

A resolution recognizing July 19th, 2026 as Jack Slocum Day.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yep, thank you, Madam President, and thank you to everybody that's here today. Hey, is Lynn Bentley in the room? And I ask because Len is the gentleman who recommended this to me, like, hey, can we honor Mr. Slocum, Jack Slocum? Mr. Slocum can't be, he's not gonna be here today. He's 99 years old, coming downtown to this would be difficult and we had one gentleman about his age actually break his leg coming here once, so we don't want that again. Why is he especially worth a day being in honor of him in Colorado Springs? There's some unique things you're gonna hear in this resolution, but a brief summary is Jack was born in the Great Depression. Had to drop out of high school to help support his family. Was drafted into the Army in 45. Was his first assignment in the military. He was getting Japanese soldiers out of caves out on the Pacific Islands. um that alone is pretty unique uh then he served in korea the korean war he was in vietnam he would received and he was enlisted that whole time he was a sergeant major in vietnam he received a battlefield commission during the tat offensive i believe because the person he was replacing was either wounded or killed and then went on to finish out his Army career. So three wars, battlefield commission in Vietnam in the Tet Offensive. born into the Depression, had to leave high school after two years. That's somebody I think we all say has really given to his country, his city. And he had another career after the military. He retired after that. So his birthday is this coming Saturday. People are coming in from really across the country to celebrate it with him. They're gonna read this at his 99th birthday celebration. And I appreciate my colleagues here. There's some concern if we start doing this, we're gonna do it for everybody that has a birthday in Colorado Springs. So I'll tell you, if there's anyone else who's 99, anyone in the room who's 99 years old, served in three wars, received a battlefield commission, come on up and we'll do one for you too. But with that, I would like to read this. So it's a resolution recognizing July 19th, 2026 as Jack Slocum Day. Whereas Jack Slocum was born July 19th, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois during the Great Depression to Mary and Jackson Slocum and will celebrate his 99th birthday in five days. And whereas 13-year-old Jack Slocum graduated from Walter Scott's middle school as class president, but was forced to leave high school after only two years to go to work to help support his mother and sister. His father wasn't there anymore. Whereas in 1945, 18-year-old Jack Slocum was drafted into the United States Army where he would serve his nation for the next 24 years during three wars, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. He retired from the Army in 1969 as Captain Jack Slocum. And whereas Jack's military service to his nation began in 1945 as a private, clearing Japanese soldiers from the caves of Okinawa, And we have, for our Marine veterans, that's significant. It concluded in 1969 as a captain teaching communications to West Point cadets at Fort Gordon, Georgia. And whereas Jack received his commission as an officer during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam where he was promoted from sergeant major to captain. And those of us who are veterans, that's an unusual promotion to go from sergeant major to captain in combat. He's the first that I've known. And whereas after retiring from the Army in 1969, Jack then had a second career at Pacific Bell, a telephone company, for another 20 years. And whereas Jack moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2006, where he and his wife spent time traveling across the country. Jack has a daughter, stepdaughter, two grandchildren and four great grandchildren. He's loved by his friends and family and is a highly respected veteran. Now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of Colorado Springs, The city council recognizes July 19th as Jack Slocum Day in the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. It's dated today, the 14th of July, 2026, and is signed by the council president, Lynette Crow Iverson. And with that, Madam President, that's all I have. I don't think we need to take picture because Mr. Slocum is not here today. I know he and his family will deeply appreciate that we've done this as a council, as long as we pass the resolution.

Well, we do have a motion from Councilman Gould and a second from Councilman Hengim, so let's vote on that.

The motion passes nine to zero.

Amen, President. Again, I just want to say thank you to you for allowing this to come to a vote. And I would say to all those in the audience, if you know an elderly veteran, maybe ask them, hey, what did you do during your service? And thank them for what they've done for our nation. That's all I have, ma'am.

Thank you. Moving on to item 5C. Will the clerk please read item 5C into the record?

A resolution designating July as National Park and Recreation Month.

Councilman Lineweber.

Yes, I'm excited about this proclamation. Anytime I can promote and elevate the importance of the outdoors, I always want to take that opportunity. I was actually back in Washington DC for an event around the healthcare costs. that are a benefit if you participate in the outdoors. And I came across an interesting study that was kind of mentioned at this conference. In California, Kaiser Permanente, Northern California, they took over 500 of their members, and they looked at where they actually lived with satellite imagery and then looked at the natural landscape, like the green spaces and parks and things like that. And what they found is that those that live close to green spaces or parks or those kind of things saved on average $374 a year in healthcare costs. So we have a actual quantified number that's attributed to how important our green spaces actually are. And it's really an interesting study that I thought was kind of particular and it's why I think so many people come and live here in Colorado Springs is because we have just amazing resources and an amazing park and rec program, which we'll hear a little bit about. So I'm gonna go ahead and read this and then I believe there'll be a couple of people that are gonna come forward and talk about it also. This is a resolution designating July as National Parks and Rec Month. Parks and recreation are vitally important to establish and maintain a high quality of life in Colorado Springs and promoting the health and wellness of all citizens. whereas parks and recreation encourage physical activities by providing space for popular sports, hiking, bike trails, spray grounds, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyle, demonstrating the power of play. And whereas parks and recreation programming and educational activities such as youth sports, senior fitness, and environmental education are critical to all our citizenry well-being. and whereas our parks and natural recreation areas preserve the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors, demonstrating the power of nature to inspire, restore, and enrich lives. And whereas parks and recreation provide a connection to nature, which studies have shown result in stress relief, strengthened interpersonal relationships and improved mental health in the united states 92 of adults say they experience a positive mental health boost by spending time in their local parks and whereas Parks and Recreation increase a community's economic prosperity through increased property value, expansion of local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses, and crime reduction. and whereas parks and recreation professionals provide essential services to support thriving communities by building and maintaining accessible, inclusive, and sustainable parks infrastructure and recreational programs that foster belonging and deliver powerful benefits to our communities. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Colorado Springs that the city council recognize the immense value of the community's entire park system, as well as vital contribution of parks, recreation and cultural services, employees and volunteers as July is designated as park and recreation month in the city of Colorado Springs. This is dated Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the 14th of July, 2026, signed by Council President Lynette Crow Iverson. I think at this time, if Skylar, if I think that you want to come forward and if there are some others that want to speak, that'd be great.

Good morning, City Council President Carr-Iverson, Pro Tem Risley, and Honorable Council Members, Skylar Rohrbaugh, the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Director. It's an honor to be here today as we celebrate National Park and Recreation Month. For more than 40 years, National Park and Recreation Month has celebrated the essential role parks, recreation, and cultural services play in creating healthier, more connected, and more vibrant communities. Here in Colorado, that means so much more than beautiful parks. It means recreation programs that bring families together, cultural experiences that connect us to our history, community centers that foster belonging, trails and open spaces that inspire adventure and welcoming places where people of all ages and abilities can play, learn, connect, and thrive. This year's theme, The Power Of, celebrates the many ways parks and recreation strengthen communities every day. The power of connection, the power of play, the power of community, the power of nature, the power of belonging, and the power of well-being. Parks, recreation, and cultural services aren't just amenities. where the community comes to live and they come to life here in colorado springs we see that power every day whether someone is hiking one of our open space trails cooling off at a neighborhood spray ground skating at certage ice center exploring the colorado springs pioneers museum participating in our youth sports our therapeutic recreation programs or stepping back in time at rock ledge ranch historic site Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services creates opportunities for residents and visitors of every age and ability to connect with each other, their community, and the outdoors. Behind every trail, playground, recreation program, museum exhibit, and community event is an incredible team of professionals dedicated to serving our community. Together, they steward more than 18,000 acres of parks, trails, and open spaces, operate recreation and cultural facilities, preserve our city's history, and create opportunities that improve quality of life for hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors each and every year. Throughout July, we're inviting our community to experience the power of parks and recreation through a variety of events and activities across the city. This Friday, July 17th, we'll be hosting an outdoor movie and silent disco at Hillside Community Center featuring food trucks, music, family activities, and a movie under the stars. Also this Friday, July 17th, is Park and Recreation Professionals Day, when we recognize the incredible employees that are so passionate and dedicated to keep our parks, recreation, and cultural services and facilities and programs thriving all year long. On Friday, July 24th, we'll have Music in the Park at Pinion Valley Park, featuring local favorite band, the Sofa Killers. We'll have food trucks, youth activities, and fun for the whole family. plus an all ages coloring contest, online activities, and additional opportunities throughout the month to celebrate the power of Parks and Recreation. I'd also like to recognize and thank our 2026 Park and Recreation Month sponsors, Pikes Peak State College, Blue Sky Restoration Contractors, and Peak to Plains Weather. I would encourage you to visit coloradosprings.gov backslash parkandrecmonth to learn more. Thank you council members for recognizing the immense value of our parks, recreation, and cultural services system and the vital contributions and role that we play within our parks, recreation, and cultural services department and employees each and every day.

Skylar, did you say silent disco?

Silent disco. You know how that works? It's gonna be a hard one.

There you go. We just have to follow the... That was good. That was good. That was very silent too. I heard it screaming from here, but I get you. Councilman Hingem.

Thank you, Madam President. Skyler, thank you. Welcome again to your leadership role. We're so excited to have you in this role. And very happy that we're celebrating this month here at City Council, acknowledging with a resolution. I also just want to say, I loved your point that this is not about amenities. Our parks and our system is not just amenities. It is essential to our city. It's in the city charter that we maintain and tend to this as a critical part of who we are as a city. And I would argue that we have the most incredible open space parks trails in the country. And then I would just end with, I look forward to the day when we have the revenue that demonstrates that this is a priority and that we can take care of these incredible assets that we have in our city. And we have some work to do there, folks. Our Parks Department does not have the revenue that it needs to run appropriately. And the staff that you mentioned and the day that we're recognizing their staff, They do amazing things with a very limited budget, and we're grateful for that. And we need to continue to press for how we can bring revenue to the Parks Department, Parks, Cultural Services, Recreation, that it needs and deserves. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councilman Williams. Thank you, President Crow-Iverson. As a child, by default, I was always outside, so I didn't know there was an option to stay inside, because my dad's words were, go outside, do something, but you're not staying in this house. And for the most part, Councilman Landweber carries this torch, but... I stumbled upon this in the last few weeks and thought I would share that, and I may pronounce his name wrong, Dr. Quing Lee is a Japanese physician and one of the world's leading experts on forest bathing. His research suggests that spending time in forests can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, improve mood, and temporarily boost certain immune cells likely due to a combination of relaxation and exposure to natural compounds released by trees. if you are lucky enough to be outside and i know we're going to be talking about trees early on later on in this agenda take advantage of it but thanks for all you do thanks for this recognition and i think we all acknowledge it's a very important part of all of our everyday lives so thank you thanks councilman donaldson

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. And I just want to be sure, Madam President, that you understand these silent discos, they give you like headphones, so you actually hear music. You know that? See, she really doesn't know that. Is that correct? Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's the way they do it. They issue them out. You can ask like Travis Steele and Wayne Williams. You see them out there doing it all the time. They know all about it. And then I'll just agree with, I want to agree or follow on to what Councilwoman Hensham said about Colorado Springs and really it's our DNA, well I hate that phrase, it's in our DNA, it's our heritage to celebrate our parks and that's a huge, that's an important part of our history. You know, General Palmer, gave park land to the city and it will always be part of the city and it's unique. Our founder, that's what he thought was important. The beauty and the reason we're here, again, we don't have a major river, we don't have a port, we don't have things that you find thriving cities, oftentimes what we have is just the beauty of our landscape and the park system. And as someone who spent two years working up in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana back in the 80s, I love the outdoors, I love forest parks, and I believe Councilwoman Williams, did you mention forest bathing? Is that what it's called? And I actually did that up there, because we would be in the forest, so we would really bathe. It wasn't like the idea. We were bathing in the creeks. So that's a great part of my youth. Thank you for doing this today. Thank you for being here. Let's get porta-potties back at all of our parks. I would ask for that. And again, thank you for overseeing our park system. Let's make it thrive.

I have a motion from Councilman Gold and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote. On our new tablet. It's new.

The motion passes nine to zero.

We will meet you and anybody from Parks down front for a celebratory picture, but it has to be in disco style. So we're gonna stick with the theme since you started it.

One, two, three. One, two, three. Hold on, I'm switching out of focus.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

You have like two feet on me, so I was like, can you... Why are you...

Yeah, give me my stuff.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Just answer those emails. All I want to say is thanks. Cool. Well, you know, thanks a lot.

That's what we're doing.

We found a phone with a wallet on the back of it. And if anybody is missing that, it is over here with Sam. So Councilman Rainey stole your phone. Check the cash. Moving on to item 5D.

Will the clerk please read item 5D into the record?

city council appointments to boards, commissions, and committees.

We have quite a few appointments this morning, starting with the planning commission. The following reappointments are requested for planning commission. Nadine Hensler has completed her first term and has served since July of 2022. Jennifer Cecil has completed her first term and has served since November 2023. The reappointments were reviewed by council member liaisons, Ken Casey and Dave Donaldson. Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, I highly recommend reappointment for a second term for both Commissioner Hensler and Cecil. I served with both for two years on the Planning Commission. Both are well-prepared and active participants. Commissioner Hensler is also the current chair of the Planning Commission, so again, I highly recommend both.

Moving on to civil service to vacancies occurred on the civil service commission due to a member resignation and a member completing their term on June 3rd, 2026 council member liaison, Brandi Williams, along with human resources manager, Andy Sherwood and human services. Resource Staff Assistant Stacy Berger interviewed applicants. It was recommended that Jana Blanter and Julian McPadden be appointed as voting members. Councilman Williams, do you have any comments?

Yes, thank you, President Crow-Iverson. This is one of those boards that doesn't get utilized very often, so I called it the reactive board, that it's only when things come to you.

so i'm very thankful that janna and julianne who's in the audience thank you for coming down today have volunteered for this appointment and i highly recommend both of them thank you moving on to the independent ethics commission the following reappointments is requested for the independent ethics commission timothy simmons has completed his first term and has served since april of 24. the reappointment was reviewed by council member liaisons dave donelson and ken casey

Do either one of you have any comments?

Moving on to Parks, Recreational, and Cultural Services Advisory Board. The following reappointments are requested for the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Advisory Board. Stephanie Prochaska has served a partial term since February, 2026. Steven Lenzo has completed his first term and has served since July 2021. These reappointments have been reviewed by Council Members Liaisons David Leidenweber and Kimberly Gold. A vacancy occurred in the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Advisory Board due to a member completing their term. Council Members Leidenweber and Gold have recommended elevating Vanessa Zink, who has served as the alternate member since 2026, to a voting member. Council Member Gold or Leidenweber, do you have any comments?

Yeah, I just wanna thank Vanessa who's back in the back here and really appreciate her willingness to serve and we're excited for her to move forward. She's kind of been within there learning the ropes and I think she's ready to sit and make some great decisions, so.

Councilman Gold, I know you're online Go ahead.

I just echo Council Member Lineweber's comments. Congratulations to those appointed today and especially during Parks Month. How awesome.

Moving on to Lodgers and Automobile Rental Tax Citizen Advisory Committee. The vacancy occurred on Lodgers and Automobile Rental Tax Citizen Advisory Committee, which is also LART, due to a member resignation. Councilmember's member liaison, Nancy Hengim, and myself reviewed the applicants. It's recommended that PK McPherson be appointed as a tourist-related business ex officio member. Councilmember Hengim, do you have any comments?

No, it's simply that PK McPherson has served on that board before. She's done a terrific job. She's very appropriate. Yep, I agree with that statement.

If there are no additional comments, we have a motion from Councilman Gold and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

The motion passes nine to zero.

Moving on to item six, mayor's business. Is there any mayor's business this morning?

There is, thank you Madam Chair. We've got a number of things I wanted to address. First of those is just to let council know we had discussed potentially putting an item on the agenda for the purchase of the replacement fire engine for the one that was totaled in an accident. After research we found that there was The potential discount for advancing it at this time was less than what we can earn in investments, and so we are making the order, but we don't need to have it as an agenda item because we don't have to pay for it at this time. And so just to let you know that we are engaged in doing that. Obviously we've had a number of other things that have gone on with respect to the parade that took place. We're happy to be a part of making that happen. I would note that in the economic development area, the Creel family announced their pecan, depending on where you're from and how you pronounce, shelling and distribution center that's gonna be a peak innovation park. Surge Ice Center has reopened. Our economic development position closes at 5 p.m. Thursday. And lastly, sales tax went up again last month by 4.1%, and that's the year-to-date number as well. And then, as Council is aware, the... Our citizens have been sued for a charter provision that sets up elections in April. And I say our citizens because the city charter is established by the citizens of Colorado Springs. And that charter provides that the elections are to be in spring. The constitutional provisions for home rule provide that cities are allowed, home rule cities such as Colorado Springs are allowed to make decisions concerning the time and manner of elections, and so we plan to defend the citizens against this lawsuit. So those are a few of the things we're up to.

Thank you. Moving on to new business, item 10A. Will the clerk please read item 10A into the record?

An ordinance amending multiple sections of Article 3, Code of Ethics, of Chapter 1, Administration, Personnel, and Finance, of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to the Code of Ethics.

Madam President, I'm gonna introduce this item, if that's all right with you. Good morning, everyone. Just for maybe a quick recap, just so that everyone's operating from the same timeline and sort of how we arrived at this point in time. In April of this year, our city auditor issued a report having to do with activities of an elected official and the use of resources, primarily vehicle resources at that time. which raised some questions around what should be considered reasonable use or should there be any reasonable use for city resources for personal purposes or personal gain. In May, we conducted a work session to discuss the nature of those uses and introduced a potential ordinance to address this in ordinance. And around the same time, I think maybe just right before that May work session, the administration issued an administrative regulation which was intended to address the nature, I think, of this topic. There are some questions around whether or not that would apply to all elected officials or only certain elected officials. After that may work session, since I'm sort of sponsoring this, I received input from a number of council members with input about modifications or changes that might be desired to the ordinance worked closely with Carly Hoff as well as the city attorney's office to implement those changes. Yesterday, you will obviously recall that we had a report from the auditor, again, addressing vehicle use for elected officials. A number of those items were after the administrative regulation was put into place. And another item that came to light in terms of personal use of city resources was babysitting. So an elected official was using city staff to babysit their children. And my question yesterday went to the attorney and I believe I got the answer that would the use of city resources, city staff in particular, to babysit the children of elected officials, would that be included in the definition of city resources? And I believe our city attorney responded that yes, what we're proposing in this ordinance would include that. So with that, Carly, would you briefly walk us through a couple of the changes that were proposed by council members and any other details that I didn't hit? And then also just for my colleagues, Tracy Lessig, who is the attorney who helped draft this or did draft this, is available online if there are any legal questions or procedural questions that you might have. So with that, Carly, thank you so much.

Thank you. Carly Hoff, Senior Legislative Analyst for City Council. I'm gonna move past this first slide since Council Member Risley spoke to it already. So in front of you is a red line version of the ordinance, just so you have it. I will walk through each one, but the revisions made that were following the work session on May 11th were the removal of the center provision, the changing of the term personal errands to personal use, and adding clarifying language to specify that mechanic, service technician, and or advisor is authorized to drive a city-owned vehicle that is used by an elected official for the purpose of maintaining or repairing the vehicle. So in 13108 in the section sanctions, you will see the revision is the removed central language off page one. And 13113 conflicts of interest confidential information, you will see the revision is changing that term personal errands to personal use and is on page two. The second revision is adjusted the language to clarify the mechanics the service staff may drive a city-owned vehicle assigned elected official for those maintenance or repairs. And those are the changes that were made. Like Council Member Risley spoke to, very minimal changes, and that was feedback received after the work session. So this will come before you at the next regular meeting on July 28th for a second reading. And if there are any questions, myself, Council Member Risley, or Tracy Lessig is online to answer those.

Thanks Carly before we open it up for questions, I'll just comment that, you know, while these changes were precipitated by a current elected official, I think, in large part, what was identified were some loopholes in the system that allow the use of city resources for personal purposes by elected officials. And I, for one of the mindset that as an elected official, Our role is to be public servants, right? We are public servants. The idea is that we serve the public, not the other way around, not that the public serves our interests for personal purposes. And so I think being able to close this loophole in a way that is codified, that is locked into the city ordinance, locked in the city code prevents misuse in the future prevents any lack of clarity in the future around what city council members should be doing, how we should be using city resources, how the mayor, for example, should be using city resources. And again, this is not about this current city council or this current mayor. This is about a loophole that was identified Certainly it was identified as a result of some actions by a current elected official, but the intent here is not to address a specific elected official, but to address a loophole that holistically, again, I believe the auditor's findings have identified, and I believe this is an appropriate way to address that.

Council Member Lineweber.

So I have one question with this and I have to apologize. I've been out of town for a couple of weeks and so I haven't had a lot of time to kind of focus on this. But one of the things, I really like the idea of trying to shore up and make sure that that we're running the city efficiently and that we have checks and balances and things like that. Those things are very, very important to me. But when we're chasing after a $200 deal or something that's 50 bucks or whatever, I feel like there needs to be something in here that just says, look, we don't go after frivolous things. I mean, that's what I don't want. I don't wanna be like a nanny state and be constantly looking for nickel and dime type items and really kind of wasting my time. And so I would like to see some kind of language put in here. I guess I would direct this question to our city attorney. Is there any way we can put like some kind of language that would be like, limiting like the de minimis or i think that that's a term that's legal that's greek and sounds good i guess but but no one knows what that really means but um is there any way we can put some kind of language in that this that says look if it's 50 bucks who cares you know or even if it's 200 you know how do we set How do we set a low bar, like little things? If a staff member needed to take a personal call in my office, they're using government space, and that would be a violation. And so there needs to be something for these little frivolous, I mean, even with the kids thing, if there was an emergency, I know in my workplace, if there's, you know, something comes up or whatever, and I happen to have my child with me, my staff member would instantly say, yes, absolutely, I'll watch your child for a couple of minutes, you know? So I guess there's these moments where I don't feel like that we just need, we need, Yes, we need these changes, okay, to be clear. But there has to be like, let's just not chase after $50 items. That's not good government. So anyway, I'm gonna turn to the city attorney and say, what do you suggest we do here? And actually, even if the chief of staff would like to weigh in.

Good morning, City Council. Tracy Lessig with the City Attorney's Office. Council Member Leinweber.

Tracy, Tracy, let me interrupt quickly. We can barely hear you, so maybe give us a second to see if we can adjust the volume.

OK, I'm going to join on my phone. My computer volume isn't the best.

And while you're doing that, Tracy, maybe Council Member Leinweber, maybe I can speak to a couple of your your comments here. You referred to staff members making phone calls from an office. There is a big difference between a staff member who is an employee of the City of Colorado Springs and an elected official who is not an employee of the City of Colorado Springs. Second, the Code of Ethics does talk about the sort of threshold, if you will, of what is considered ethical and unethical, appropriate and not appropriate, which is why this was embedded in the code of ethics as opposed to another place in the code. And finally, I would argue that while I agree with you, no one wants to go after and nickel and dime anyone over any particular matter, ethics are not de minimis. Either you're ethical and operating in an ethical way or you're not ethical and you're not operating in an ethical way. And so I don't know that this is about a dollar amount or about the cost of a specific thing. This is about acting in ethical ways that are accountable that we as elected officials are being expected to do on behalf of our citizens. So while I appreciate your comments, I don't believe that that applies in this case.

Well, I'm just, my concern with that is that, it opens the door for people to start judging on $50 items. And I just don't wanna get, it opens a political door, to be very honest, that I feel like we might be opening something that we don't, we need to put some kind of limit on it. All I'm asking is something that keeps frivolous things from happening.

I think Tracy is with us now, and she might can speak to this.

Okay.

And Tracy, can you also address, there's already a limit in which elected officials can receive in dollar value.

Good morning, council members. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. So to address Council Member Lineweber's question, whether or not it's permissible to add a de minimis exception, it is. It's a policy decision whether or not to add that to the code. I have seen other codes that have language similar to that. I do also want to point out that the code currently has a mechanism for the Independent Ethics Commission to deal with things that are frivolous and they can dismiss complaints that are frivolous. They are kept confidential by the commission. And one of the reasons that you can dismiss a complaint as frivolous, I will read it, is that the alleged violation, even if true, is minor in nature and fails to justify the use of public resources to prosecute. So there is a mechanism for the Independent Ethics Commission to deal with frivolous complaints. As far as Council President Crow-Iverson, your question about already a limit, there is a limit on gifts. This is a little bit different because this is actually using city resources. And the gift prohibitions deal with gifts that come from third parties, not things that are owned by the city. Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you for that clarification. That's what I wanted you to say. Thank you.

So what you're basically telling us is that there are provisions, so people can still make accusations for violating this policy and costing the city 50 bucks, but then it would go through a process, people who we're paying money to with salaries and stuff like that will determine if the $50 offense is worth going after. And so we end up spending resources on salaries and other things to consider if this $50 is worth it. That's where I'm just, I don't like big government. I'm just a little bit, I'm just a little cautious of this. Now, again, I will probably vote yes on this, but I would like to see something that just, we don't want frivolous things happening. That's what I don't want to have happen. And so I'm going to vote on this. Let me just say yes, I'm gonna vote yes. but I would love to see something that prevents frivolous things from happening. And even if there is a commission or whatever, that's gonna cost city every time a $50 item comes up.

So if I could just clarify, the Independent Ethics Commission is a volunteer board. They do not receive any compensation when they look at complaints or when they do an investigation. I would also like to point out that if a de minimis definition is added and a complaint is filed, that still goes to the Independent Ethics Commission. It doesn't change it. And then it's incumbent upon the Independent Ethics Commission to determine whether or not the alleged violation was de minimis. So by adding a de minimis exception, it does not cut the Independent Ethics Commission out of the process.

So where and what would it look like if we added a Diminis section or actually, I want to pause and actually give the Chief of Staff, because this Chief of Staff, I mean, we're really talking about a component here. If he wanted to weigh in on what should, should we have this Diminis piece and what would you recommend?

thank you uh that is a discussion i've had uh both with some members of council and with uh attorneys because i i believe this is an important part and i think for context um And I did just send this to Tracy. First, let's recognize who this applies to. It applies to all covered persons. According to the existing definition of covered persons, that means elected officials, administrative officers, independent contractors, volunteers of the city, and members of boards, committees, or commissions appointed by city council, the president, council, or the mayor. So it is way larger than just elected officials that the ethics rules apply to. They apply to the person who is helping volunteer cleaning up a park. It applies to our employees, from part-time employees to senior. All of those are covered by it, and that's an important thing to recognize as we talk about this particular provision. And so I've been working with our city attorney. City attorney kind of segregated things because they thought that was better. So Tracy was advising one group and Stephanie was advising me. Can we put up the language? So this is... Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Emily. That's... In working with it, if we stuck in something that said, notwithstanding any provision herein, the use of city resources or benefits by a covered person or their immediate family members shall not constitute a violation of the section if such use is de minimis in nature or approved by that person's supervisor. For purposes of this ordinance, de minimis means a use that is trivial, incidental, does not result in material personal benefit or expense to the city, and does not interfere with the official duties or city operations. Whereas less than $500 an amount. That less than $500 amount, Stephanie said, hey, we should have a number there. What about 500? I'm not wed to that particular number. But I think putting it in specifically does help guide it. Here's why that's important. Yes. The IEC has the ability to do it. Again, the IEC is advised by counsel in that process. But the individual against whom an accusation is brought then often has to seek counsel for advice as to how to respond. I did that when I was accused by a different candidate of filming a fire truck from a city sidewalk. We did not ask the fire truck to drive by. We waited, and we filmed a fire truck. Yes, the Ethics Commission keeps it confidential, but that doesn't stop the person from bringing the complaint from publicizing it, which is what happened. And so the other individual publicized it. Freedom of our First Amendment, which I believe very strongly in, does not allow government to say, no, you can't publicize it. And so we had to deal with that fallout, higher counsel and everything else for a trivial use of something from a public sidewalk. Let me put in the context of an employee I was dealing with just the other day. Employee has a sick family member. her mother called on her personal cell to let her know what was going on with a sick family member. That call took place in her office. I stepped out of the room and said, let me let you take that call because I knew what was going on for that employee. The concept that a disgruntled rival employee could bring an ethics claim saying she was allowed to take a personal call in a city resource, i.e. a private office, is anathema to me, to the mayor, and I think it should be to all citizens of this city. So I believe very strongly that this ordinance, while it may indeed be well-intentioned, without a de minimis exception, has the possibility for continued abuse as has taken place. And so that's why I've worked with the city attorney Again, I'm not wed to the number, but I think if it's approved by the employee supervisor, if the supervisor, like I did, says yes, take that call from your mother and find out why that family member has an issue and what's going on and what you need to help. The concept that this ethics provision would make that illegal and subject to them having a complaint brought against them for the use of resources is untenable. And so I believe, I believe we have to, this is not just dealing with elected officials. It's dealing with a volunteer who's working on a parks project at a city park, which is a public resource project. by the technical meaning. So putting something in there to clarify, whatever that dollar amount is, but certainly if that employee has it approved by their supervisor to be able to do that, I think we need to recognize that we need to protect the 3,000 employees that work for the City of Colorado Springs. who in many cases put their lives on the line for this community, and so I would suggest that that language, recognizing who Covered Persons is, that's the existing language for Covered Persons, needs to take place.

Thank you for that, Mr. Williams. Can I ask a couple of clarifying questions? Are you aware of the language that is currently in the ethics code? Meaning if we don't adopt anything here, do you know what it currently says?

The only definition of the ethics code deals with political campaigning. And Mr. President Pro Tem, I believe political campaigning is a different matter.

I do not favor...

a de minimis exception for, hey, a little political campaigning is okay, because I think that's a different scenario. But when we talk about personal, I do think that a de minimis language needs to be there.

So your firetruck scenario, you think should still be allowable, right? So let me just read what the current ordinance says. No covered person shall misappropriate services or other resources of the city for personal benefit, period. What this is proposing to add is no covered person or their immediate family members, because as we might recall, the mayor's wife was driving a city vehicle, And it goes on to talk about for elected officials and their immediate family members. And it talks about security details because that was another concern that was raised. And so it essentially carves out for the benefit of elected officials, the ability to use security details when deemed necessary by the chief of police. The other thing I wanna be very clear on here You mentioned several times how this applies to volunteers and employees. And I certainly understand that. You talked about if an employee's supervisor were to approve certain uses. My question for you, Mr. Williams, who is the supervisor for the elected officials?

So in that case, that exception wouldn't apply because

absent some referendum of the people of colorado springs i'm talking about the three thousand employees in that case sir and i'm talking about the elected officials so answer my question if you don't mind please so the elected official supervisor in every case is the people of colorado springs that's correct and so the intent here is to protect the citizens of colorado springs from misappropriation and misuse of city resources And I'm not going to back down from that because I feel that that is very important for us to keep front and center in this conversation. Let's stay focused on what this is all about. This is not about employees. This is not about volunteers. This is about elected officials and the inappropriate use of city resources for personal gain, not for official business, but for personal benefit by elected officials.

Thank you. So I'm still in my question, but Brian, thank you for bringing those. But then I direct the question to the city attorney is, We've got a conflict of two people talking about two different things here. Which one is it? Are city employees included in this or are city employees not included in this? You're the one to answer that question.

I say Tracy's also online. I would defer to Tracy for this question.

I can take that question. Tracy Lessig, city attorney's office. There is all, it is true that that all of the people listed are covered persons. That includes employees, that includes volunteers, that includes independent contractors. The meaningful distinction is that certain people who are covered persons are under the jurisdiction of the Independent Ethics Commission. And those people are elected officials, administrative officers, so basically your department heads, municipal court judges, boards and commission members. Everyone else, if an ethics complaint is filed against them, we treat it as a personnel investigation, which every ethics complaint that's been filed against an employee since I've been advising the commission, which has been since 2008, HR handles those. And generally what has happened in the past is they look into it, and it usually is an education. Generally, it's an education for the employee or the volunteer. So it's a little different process when it is employees. I don't know if that answers your question, Council Member Leiber.

Well, I'm trying to get back to the fact that, I mean, bottom line, I would like to see this move forward. I just would like something that we're not chasing after $50. And I say 50, maybe it's 500. I don't know, maybe we can come up with a number up here. Maybe that's a moving number. I don't know what it is. I just don't want frivolous, I don't wanna be spending time on frivolous things.

so how do we avoid that i think to tercy's point right the ethics commission already is doing that that language already exists it's already in code right and you could have filed a purpose lawsuit or fill this anything already that's not changing by what the additions are being proposed by councilmember risley

But if we added a de minimis rule of some sort, either what our chief of staff has suggested or some other component, would that strengthen that? That's what I'm trying to get at.

I mean, I would leave that to Tracy to answer if it would strengthen. I think it, I would say it's probably similar based on what she provided for before, but I would leave that to Tracy to answer.

So Tracy, could you answer that question of whether, I'm just trying to get this de minimis thing. I don't want frivolous things. I just hate seeing that in government. And particularly politics. How do we work something in to kind of strengthen that?

Well, again, whether or not to add de minimis as to the code is a policy decision. Legally, can you do that? Absolutely. It is also true that there is a mechanism for the current ethics commission to dismiss complaints that are minor in nature. Whether or not to add de minimis as an additional look, I think that's a policy decision, but again, whether or not it qualifies as de minimis will still be determined by the commission. Does that answer your question?

I think pretty much so. But basically, we need to set guidelines. What we do here will be guidelines for that commission, correct?

Absolutely. And if there is an intent to move forward with the de minimis, I do have a drafting concern, but won't address that unless we're moving forward with it.

All right, I'm gonna allow other Council people to speak on this, because I'd love to hear what several other members kind of feel about this. But again, I want to state that I support this overall. I just don't want to go after frivolous stuff. That's my problem. So anyway, I'll turn it back over to the President.

Councilman Hingem. Thank you, Madam President. So first of all, I want to say I think that it's important that we have good structure and policy related to city resources in code, and that's all very important. And the original complaint surfaced something that, as my understanding is the mayor's very open and receptive, wrote a policy himself or had that policy written and is striving to live by that. I specifically have a different question related to this ordinance. And it is that under Section G, that specifically focuses on for elected officials and their immediate families. In number two, not in number one, but in number two, it reads, city-owned vehicles will be used for official purposes only and shall not be used for personal use. City-owned vehicles will only be operated by elected officials unless operation by a mechanic, service technician, or service advisor porter is necessary to support repairs or maintenance. City vehicles will only be used to transport passengers who are elected officials, city employees, or individuals engaged in official business with the city. That raises a question slash concern for me that the mayor, and not just this mayor, any mayor, let's remember that we're writing this on behalf of the entire city government and future mayors, may often need to go to an event with a spouse and or family because that's the expectation, that the family is a part of the package for the leader of the city. So my question is, are we limiting the ability for a mayor to travel to do city business in a city-owned vehicle and his family has to drive separately? I'm just trying to understand if that's the intention here. I leave that to Tracy to answer from a legal perspective.

Well, I'm not sure what the intention is. I will defer that to council. The way that it reads, I think it's unclear. So if there is an intention to make sure that the mayor's family can accompany him in the city-owned vehicle to a city event, then I do think there needs to be clarifying language.

Okay, thank you. Well, I cannot vote for it with the language the way it is, because I think whether it's this mayor or a mayor in the future, we cannot know what that family configuration is like. And the mayor uses a city vehicle to do business all the time, in the evenings, on weekends. I asked yesterday in our work session if it's appropriate and acceptable for the mayor. And I don't know if this applies to all city-owned vehicles, because there's a lot of city-owned vehicles out there. We have employees driving them all the time. But if I'm reading this correctly, this section is designated only to elected officials using a vehicle. I can't support that. We have a mayor with a family with young children who are appreciated and loved by many, many citizens in our city. In fact, I understand that when the vice president was here in Colorado Springs, they requested the family of the mayor to join for that whatever those events were. So I think it's really wrongheaded to not consider that whoever a elected mayor is, that family configuration can look a lot of different ways. And we should be supporting the mayor, which is a 24-7 job, let's be honest about it, especially in a city our size, deserves to have the ability to bring family members in the city-owned vehicle. So I cannot support this language at all. As it relates to the de minimis, I like the idea, and I like where Councilmember, Lineweber was going with that. I, too, don't want to spend time. I think we're spending a lot of time now on something, quite frankly, that we have other really important business to do, but that there should be some de minimis. I'm also open to the number. 500 might be too high. But I think we don't want to waste our time frivolously, which leads me to my final comment. And I guess question for you, Tracy, is you recently did a session with me and I believe all council members on updates to the ethics code. And intentionally, my understanding is that we have not seen that yet. We have not voted on that yet. But some of those changes were made intentionally to actually reduce the minutia that the ethics committee was getting involved in. And so, you know, should we be waiting to do this when we are updating our entire ethics code is a question I have. I don't object to having clear guidelines for ethics. Every employee and every elected official, we are public servants, and I support that. But I don't see it as evident in this ordinance. So I will be voting no, and I would consider voting yes if those changes were made to that section G2 and the de minimis.

Thank you.

If I might, Madam President, just respond to a couple of the comments. I can speak maybe to the intent, and certainly the legal interpretation is for Tracy and others, but in terms of the intent of the individuals engaged in official business, the intent there is that if it is a person who is engaged in official city business, so your example that if the mayor's wife was expected to be at an event and was going to an event, in that capacity, in an official capacity, I think the intent is that that is an individual engaged in official city business. Going on a spring break vacation to Crested Butte is not official city business, and the intent would be to not allow that type of use. The other piece of this in terms of intent is that if you recall, there was concern over family members driving city vehicles and whether or not they would be insured in that instance. And so again, a city employee would be insured, but a family member of an elected official as a passenger may or may not be insured. So I think that's something that we need to take into account as well. I also just wanna address your comment because I was here all day yesterday and I heard very clearly the report from the city auditor. And I just wanna sort of underscore, you said that the mayor is endeavoring to meet the administrative regulation. I heard yesterday that after the regulation had been put in place, that there were documented instances of the mayor not reporting in accordance with his regulation, the use of city resources. And I think Council Member Donaldson underscored that by asking questions about overreporting versus underreporting and whether there was consistency in the overreporting versus underreporting. so i just want to clear the record and correct the statement that the mayor is endeavoring i i question that and i think for you to state it as if it were fact just needs to be corrected councilman donaldson yeah thanks madam president um yeah i think i i i think it's unfortunate that we have to do this also but unfortunately i think we do need to do this

I find it disappointing when the mayor criticizes the city auditor and how much time is she spending and how much money is this costing. She wouldn't be spending any time and costing any money if there weren't true waste, fraud, and abuse reports that have truly documented, and the auditor has documented exactly what's going on with use of city vehicles and staff for babysitting. So it's unfortunate we don't just have the good judgment not to do these things and save us all this, but that's not occurring right now. So we do need to do this. I would agree we should clarify the language to make it clear that a mayor's family can travel with him to, or her, to a city event, I think, or an event he's attending. I would prefer that, I would ask for that. The de minimis thing, I think it's been covered pretty well. The Independent Ethics Commission can make that determination, but they have to look into it to make that determination. If someone came forward and said, I think I saw the mayor using his vehicle to go to this one thing which was just for him, personal use, we don't really know if that's, $1,000 worth of personal use for the vehicle, or is it one time and it's really nothing? It has to be looked into. And it is wrong for elected officials to say, ah, it's just a little bit. Don't worry about it. Certainly don't investigate it. That's absolutely wrong. It should be investigated. And if you're not comfortable with that, don't run for office or step down. We...

leaders should lead by example that's what we need to do so thank you councilman gold thank you madam president can everyone hear me okay a little louder okay is that better yes okay wonderful Um, I just have to say that I cannot support this as it's currently written, you know, as the legislative body, I think it's really important that we, um, work with the current mayor and, um, and be considering future mayors and building things that are collaborative and supportive for the best of our city. And I really think the conversation we're having is very short-sighted. Given the size of our city and the demands of the job of the office of the mayor, I think it's very easy to understand that this is really a 24-hour job. that requires the mayor to respond to a city emergency at any given time, his time or her time, whoever holds the office of the mayor. Office of the mayor is not theirs for the entire duration while they are in office. there there needs to be a bigger conversation of how we support the office of the mayor by perhaps giving them a city vehicle for them to use during the entire time with unrestricted discretion because of the demands of the position it it feels um very short-sighted for us to have such a narrowing conversation and i cannot help but wonder if it's because of who we have as the current mayor and the relationship between the legislative body and the executive office at this moment. That's all.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President. But before I go, I think the chief of staff was before me. I didn't know if you wanted to respond to anything that was already.

It went off. So I don't know if you took it off, but it wasn't there.

I'm sorry it went off, but yes, I do have a couple of things. Let me ask a question on paragraph two, if I could, President Pro Tem. The second sentence says city-owned vehicles will only be operated by elected officials unless operation by a mechanic, service tech, or service advisor porter is necessary to support repairs or maintenance. So if... let me just pick a couple of things that happen uh there's an event at the broadmoor uh you park valet this would appear to be because that's not for repairs or maintenance to prohibit the valet from driving the car at the broadmoor is that i don't think that's the intent but i think it's what it says um and so is that the intent or can we adjust the language some so i don't want to go down rabbit holes but a porter is a valet but it's to support repairs or maintenance the prepositional phrase that's after that that modifies it And so if we wanna take out the repairs or maintenance, then I think you're right. But that's what immediately follows the porter. The second question on that one is, the mayor and I have a meeting in Denver. I'm a city employee. can I drive that car or not? Because the way this is worded, if it's an elected official in the car, it looks like he's the only one that can drive. And I don't think that's the intent.

Again, that would be a legal interpretation, but obviously police officers drive police vehicles, which are city vehicles, they're city employees. So again, I think we're trying to make this more complex than we need to.

Well, I'm looking at the language and being a lawyer, I tend to do that. So Tracy, I don't know, are there concerns with those two instances that I just cited that could be tightened up better?

I think the language is unclear when it comes to the two examples that you gave. It does sound like there is some interest in clarifying that the mayor's family, if accompanying the mayor to a city event, that that should be permissible. There is language that the city of Denver has that I think would be clearer. I've attempted to email that, but for whatever reason, my email's not working in the mountains. but I'm happy to read that if there's interest in looking at clarification.

And Tracy, before you do that, maybe we can back up and again, focus on what that entire section says. So section G currently says no covered person shall misappropriate services or other resources of the city for personal benefit. What's being added or proposed to be added is no covered person or their immediate family members shall misappropriate services or city resources for personal benefit. And then it goes on to say for elected officials and their immediate family members. And then it goes into those two paragraphs that we're debating. So this is not addressing the use of vehicles by city staff or others except elected officials. And again, I think we need to be careful about not going down rabbit holes that don't result in us moving this forward.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah. My question perhaps for Tracy is if we want to make it clear about the mayor's family can travel with him to city events, I would want to be sure that would count for events like the Balloon Fiesta. If the mayor's gonna go there to give a speech and for whatever reason they feel it's gonna be in a city vehicle, can his family go there with him and go home? To me this is a common sense thing. I don't need to change anything else in this except for that. Other than that, I think it's pretty clear. Maybe we alter a word. Would you recommend we And then this is, of course, up to the mover of the ordinance, but should we work on this over the next two weeks and bring it right back? And I will support it. I think, again, I've said it, I wish we didn't need to do this, but in current circumstances, we absolutely do. Is that the right way to do it, or do you think it's something we can have you work on and bring it back later today?

It looks like the language my email did go through. Denver has a policy and I'll read it because there may be some decent language in here. As far as getting it done today versus working on it and coming back, I think either can happen. But Denver says, employees authorized approved to drive on behalf of the city may use a city vehicle to transport others who are, A, engaged in the same city business, B, attending the same city or public activity or function, C, in the care or custody of the employee in the course of official business, or D, being transported as part of a city sponsored or co-sponsored event or program.

Well, thank you for that. I'll leave that up to the sponsor if you'd like to perhaps just bring this back in two weeks bulletproof versus trying to do this at the dais or later today. I fully support this. I think we need to do this. I think it's unfortunate that we're in a situation where we do need to do this. Previous mayors have used their own vehicles and then been reimbursed for for official city business versus the situation we have now where we're using a city vehicle to go to the mountains and then misreporting the mileage. So I fully support this with that one correction.

So if I could address that Council Member Donelson and I'm looking at Tracy's email right now. I personally would be fine with including some statement like this with the exception that instead of it saying employees authorized or approved, I think again, we're clear that employees conducting official city business are certainly authorized and approved to drive city vehicles. I would change that to be elected officials Authorized or approved to drive on behalf of the city may use the city vehicle to transport others who are a engaged in the same city business. Be attending the same city or public activity or function. See, in the care or custody of the elected official in the course of official business, or D, being transported as part of a city sponsored or co sponsored event or program. If we add that to paragraph 2, and this may be a point of order for Tracy, but I think. If we could incorporate that now as an amendment or a modification to the current language, I would request a motion to approve this ordinance with that language added so that we can move this forward. And rather than taking time to make further adjustments between now and the second vote. So I would offer that and I would ask for a motion to incorporate that and move this forward.

Councilman Hingem.

Thank you, Madam President. I'd appreciate the opportunity not to edit from the dais. I think we've got a number of different issues that we're addressing here. And to make it bulletproof, to use my fellow council members' term, which I agree, it should be bulletproof, it really should be done in partnership with the administration. And, you know, I heard yesterday from the chief of staff that He saw it kind of when the rest of the public did, and he can speak more to that if he chooses. But I think we can get to a yes for everybody. And what I would appreciate, actually, if the chief of staff could speak to any of the concerns that you have that you would like to address off the dais so that we can come back with something that the mayor can support and sign. And two, if you could please share from your perspective the endeavors that the mayor has made to comply with the regulation. So I would like to hear from the chief of staff about that now.

Let me respond to the second one first. What the mayor did following the adoption of the regulation is work with his executive assistant to compile mileage based on trips that were made. They were not using the telematics data. They were using a Google search, I believe, but tells how many miles from point A to point B, and so that sometimes did not capture all the mileage, and so they have changed now to using the telematics data. I think that was a good recommendation, and that took place a week or two ago. So there have been efforts to comply, and there has certainly been no personal vacation or anything of that nature that has used the vehicle. Let me, since the time of the adoption of the regulation, or frankly since the time I joined as Chief of Staff, with respect to who's in the vehicle, I think the Denver language seems to make a lot of sense. I would still like it clarified in the language as I forget the right title, deputy or assistant city attorney Lessig. I don't know. As Tracy Lessig said, excuse the lack of the title, Tracy. One of our senior attorneys in the office, the current language is vague in the two instances I talked about. And so I think those can be reworked and I think they can be. And I think there's a very easy way to do that. and would simply just want that clarified so that we're not dealing with a language that is not clear because I don't think it benefits any of us to adopt language that's not clear. So those would be the other changes that I would suggest that should take place.

Thank you, Chief of Staff. And I, again, would like to just state that I think it would be beneficial for our entire city to see the City Council working collaboratively with the administration on this issue. Thanks.

Madam President, I'd like to address that point. So when this came up in April and May, the Chief of Staff made statements in this room about wanting to work collaboratively with Council. And Councilmember Rainey, in particular, agreed with that. and we met shortly after that work session and then we were going to have a follow-up meeting with the Chief of Staff so that we could discuss this collaboratively and work collaboratively together. And again, this was May, early May. Since that time, unfortunately, the Chief of Staff postponed the meeting and then canceled the meeting And then a month or more goes by, and yesterday the Chief of Staff comments that he saw this was on the agenda along with the rest of the public. Well, the Chief of Staff sat next to me a week ago in the agenda prep meeting where this item was discussed. Now we didn't fully discuss it, but it was discussed that this was going to be on the agenda. And so I find it difficult to think that the opportunity for collaboration was not there. And I find it difficult to accept that this is somehow coming out of thin air when we've been talking about it for months. And the idea of collaboration, I think Council Member Rainey and I were very open to that idea, but to cancel meetings and not talk about it for a month and then bring something forward at the dais, that's a problem for me.

Councilman Williams.

Thank you. I think I'm going to reiterate this a lot because I know the de minimis piece of this keeps coming up. But in my non-attorney opinion, there's nothing that adds to that because the Section G, the no covered person shall misappropriate services or other resources of the city for personal benefit. has been here like that's existing so if someone thought that they were in violation of that they could have been bringing this up the entire time and i don't know that there's a history of things happening on a daily monthly or annual basis I would like to see what Tracy sent. I think that's in the best interest of everyone. So I would eventually make a motion to approve, but I would like to see what Tracy sent so that we can incorporate that. So my question would be, can we reorganize the agenda and get that information during the DDA part and then possibly vote on it after that?

Yes, we can move it. Councilman Rainey.

Well, I definitely don't want to regurgitate a lot of what's already been stated, because I kind of concur with a lot of comments. Going back to G2, I do, and I actually even had a comment and a question for the sponsor of this earlier. I also would like to just see just cleaner language on G2, where it states are individuals engaged, just to make sure that part is very clear. The one area I do want to mention up in, and I'll say this for the record, I do think this is definitely needed. It is a gap that's been identified. We need to have it there. We need to clean up the language, the minimus part. I think it actually adds value. And then some of the recommendations from city attorney, I think could be much added value to this particular ordinance. But there was a comment that constantly kept being stated. And I guess to the city auditor, I need to make sure that we are saying the right language on the record. Constantly, the ethics committee has been stated on this topic. But when it comes to reporting something, shouldn't that initially go through the fraud, waste, and abuse office line? And if so, isn't that your office and doesn't go directly to a committee?

Thank you, Council Member Rainey. The best way I would answer that question is that I think the Independence Ethics Commission, and I'll default to Deputy Tracy Lessig, Deputy Attorney Tracy Lessig to correct me if I'm wrong, but there are two different systems. fraud waste and abuse hotline that's under my jurisdiction and then the ethics commission is an independent commission so when it comes to the de minimis conversation as i stated yesterday when we look at fraud waste and abuse we do not look at a level we simply look to see if there's been fraud waste and abuse and so the conversation they're having today on the de minimis level um maybe has a different uh you know, place in that role. And then in terms of what goes which way, first or second, you could have a fraud, waste, and abuse and an ethics component to it. So open to the attorneys to correct me if I'm misstating.

City Attorney, would you mind elaborating on that, whether that's Tracy or whomever? Tracy.

I'm happy to take that. Tracy Lessig, city attorney's office. Yes, it is true that a person can file a fraud, waste and abuse claim with the city auditor and claims could be filed with the independent ethics commission on the same topics.

Okay, I'm not gonna continue to beat this topic because you just opened up another Pandora's box that I don't wanna open up on the dice and legislate from the dice on this particular one, because I think it requires a lot more. So, because what you're really saying is we're gonna eat up a lot of resources in one office, and then I have the option to eat up resources on another committee. And if both of those entities end up arriving at different answers, now I gotta bring it back to the dais and make that argument all over and waste the people of the city, Colorado Springs City, just wasting time. At some point, we gotta legislate on behalf of the damn citizens. And that's what you all have been asking us to do. You've been asking us to do it appropriately. You've been asking us to put the right time and energy into it. And yes, I agree with my council member, Dave Donaldson, that it's sad that we are here right now having this conversation. But do we have a mechanism right now that will at least help close the gap? I would definitely say yes. I think there are some language items that definitely need to be edited. I do agree. I personally, I don't like editing documents from the dais, especially an ordinance. Now, if we want to rearrange the itinerary or the agenda for today and bring this back later on, that way we have the right language. Maybe we can even have an updated version of this with that language that the city attorney is mentioning. I definitely will support that. But damn it, let's get to the business of the city.

So that's what we will do. We will postpone this item, 10A, to, yes?

Stephanie Boster, city attorney. We don't have a main motion. So until we have a main motion, we count postponed. So I would recommend that we put- I was going to ask for a motion.

Yes. When I finished, but thank you. Yes, Tracy?

Before we go off on this topic, I do have a clarifying question. So didn't mean to interrupt. Sorry. Tracy, go ahead. Yes. So what I'm hearing is there is a desire to clarify that if the mayor is attending official business that his family will be able to attend with him. And I think the language that Denver has, um, which if we have a little time to edit this, we can get it to all of council to look at. Um, I think it covers that there are some other changes we'll have to make to that section because adding that, Oh, there's a fire drill in my hotel. Of course, of course. Um, The other question I have and maybe Wayne could clarify this is, is there an interest in clarifying the two situations such as a valet or another city employee driving the elected officials vehicle? Is there an interest in clarifying those also?

I believe there is.

Councilman Donelson.

Yeah, I would offer that I'll make the motion, we would need a second, then I'll make a motion to postpone it or to change the agenda, and then we can come back to that, answer Tracy's question when we get back here. We certainly know that part two or paragraph two under G, we want to incorporate some different language to clarify that the mayor's family can travel with him on business. So if that sounds good, I guess I've made the motion. And if there is a second by the sponsor of the bill, then I think we can move forward.

Council Member Donaldson, when do you want to move it to? I'm looking right now. Lynette.

I will have him make that motion. Councilman Hingem.

Well, simply I'm fine with postponing it. I'd prefer not to do it today. We have an appeal that's apparently gonna keep us here late today.

And we'll deal with that after there's a motion.

Okay, I'm just sharing my perspective that I'm happy to support the motion to delay, just not to another time today. Thank you.

I have a motion from Councilman Donelson and a second from Councilman Risley to postpone today.

And I'll just say it this way, until it fits conveniently back into our schedule, our attorney has had time, I think it's clearly gonna be after lunch. At some point, we bring it back into the agenda for today, and we vote on that now. So those who think this is beyond the pale, vote no. Those of us who think, let's take a look at it, vote yes.

Before item 11A, so it'd be after. um item 10 d and e and before 11 a is the postponement time correct and at that point we may decide we need to push it you know to our next meeting um but this gets us on to the next item okay i have a motion from councilman donelson and a second from councilman risley let's vote

And to be clear, I mean, this is a motion, yeah, to postpone, yeah.

I'm sorry, I'm conferring with Council Member Gold. I do not have her vote yet, so hold on. And the motion passes seven to two.

Moving on to item 10B.

Hang on, I'm sorry, Stephanie Boster, city attorney. Sounds like the intent of the council is to postpone this until later in the agenda. So could we get that motion to postpone?

That's what we just voted on that.

And I'll confirm with the clerk, but I believe that the first motion was on the main motion. Okay, thank you. Sorry about that.

Yeah, the motion was to post the motion that I had in the system for them to vote on was to postpone to later in today's agenda prior to the public hearing items, which is section 11.

Got it, thank you. Moving on. Madam President, could we take a five minute break?

Yes.

Okay.

We're going to take a 10 minute break because you never come back in five minutes. So we are gonna take a 10 minute break. We're in recess. We are now back out of recess. Will the clerk please read item 10B and 10C into the record?

Item number 10b, an ordinance amending Article 1, Administration, and repealing Article 4, Urban Forest, of Chapter 4, Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to urban forest. and 10C, an ordinance creating a new article nine, urban forest of chapter three, public property and public works of the code of the city of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to urban forest and providing penalties for violation thereof.

Good morning, President Crow Iverson, President Pro Tem Risley, and members of council. It's good to see you again. My name is Matthew Puckett, city forester with Public Works. Thank you again for taking the time to meet with me today. As stated, I am gonna be presenting both on repealing our urban forest article four of chapter four, Parks and Recreation, and an ordinance creating new urban forest article nine of chapter three under Public Works. Excuse me. As council is already aware, I covered this recodification extensively at the May 11th work session. It did not move forward at that time because the prosecution division needed to update the enforcement language to align with changes they are making to the code enforcement section of code. So the majority of what I presented on in May remains exactly the same. Only minor language adjustments were made so our new article matches that updated enforcement structure. So I'm just gonna move through this briefly. on what we talked about in May. This is the first major update to our forestry code since 1968. This recodification modernizes that outdated language, adds missing definitions, and clarifies roles and responsibilities so that operations in code are fully aligned. We reviewed Forestry's workload. We manage 150,000 public trees citywide. Demand for service continues to always increase. But we face frozen positions, limited staff capacity, invasive pests such as emerald ash borer, and a 30-year pruning cycle. These challenges make clarity and consistency in the code even more essential. The recodification includes key definitions and clarifies property owner responsibilities in the right of way. areas where the previous code had no definitions at all. These additions simply formalize the way we have already been operating. I also shared photo examples of weed trees, private tree damage, and unapproved trees impacting city infrastructure. These examples illustrate why defining responsibility is critical because under the old code structure, private and weed tree issues were effectively unenforceable even when they posed risk to public infrastructure. City Forestry often had to use internal resources to address private tree conflicts with no invoice or restitution mechanism. Unlike other front range municipalities, oh, do we have a question? Oh, okay. Unlike some front range municipalities that place the full responsibility for street trees on adjacent property owners, this recodification maintains our current approach. Forestry will continue to manage approved right-of-way and street trees, providing the same level of service. And then one thing I wanted to address, I wanted to reiterate our storm response practices because this came up at the last meeting. In emergency situations where a tree, public, private, or weed tree, or anything unapproved, is blocking damaging city infrastructure like roads during a storm event, we do not determine ownership of that tree. Our main priority is to remove the hazard and allow citizens to use city infrastructure, so. Next slide here. This recodification reflects how Forestry has been operating for many years. We simply don't have those enforcement tools. Our skilled arborists, our main focus is to keep them focused on approved public trees that require that technical care while our foresters can assist with enforcement to address unmanaged vegetation that impacts infrastructure. Since our last work session, the prosecution division worked closely with us to refine definitions, clarify permit processes, outline maintenance standards, and ensure the language fits the new enforcement structure. They didn't change the intent or the substance of the urban forestry code that was already presented. They strengthened and clarified property enforcement procedures. We are also working closely with code enforcement to ensure we are operating and we plan to operate within the same framework and just providing consistency across departments. Can we go next slide? I don't think the remote, there it goes. So this final slide includes my contact information, along with a contrasting image of our landscape back when it was founded. And this one is in 1885. And you can tell it probably would have been quite difficult to forest bathe back then. There's not a lot of trees and you might be doing more yucca bathing or sagebrush bathing. So fortunately our city founder, General Palmer, recognized that and he later became the president of the International Society of Aboriculture, an organization dedicated to the management of urban trees across the nation. And he clearly understood why urban areas benefit from trees. So with this recodification, we're ensuring that our urban forest is well managed, preserved, and able to continue providing residents those extensive array of benefits. And thank you Council Member Landweber for providing those statistics that our residents actually benefit monetarily from our urban forest, so. Additionally, I believe it's worth noting that we have letters of support from the Horticultural Arts Society, Rise Southeast, the Old North End Neighborhood Group, Roots for Justice, and the Colorado State Forest Service, local and statewide organizations that recognize the importance of effectively managing our urban forest and advocating on our behalf for this reconfications. President Crow-Iverson and council members, that concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Thank you for the presentation. And for the contrast, it looks like if you were there in 1885, you'd be a snake catcher. Because that looks like a haven for snakes, which I hate. So I'm glad there's trees. I have a motion from Councilman Donaldson and a second from Councilman Casey. I see no questions, so let's vote.

And this is a vote on 10B.

10 b and the motion passes eight to zero with one absent

Done 10C, I have a motion from Councilman Hingem and a second from Councilman Lineweber. If there are no any questions, let's vote.

The motion passes eight to zero.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your time.

Moving on to item 10D, will the clerk please read item 10D and 10E into the record.

An ordinance of the City of Colorado Springs dissolving the old Colorado City Downtown Development Authority and 10E, an ordinance of the City of Colorado Springs correcting the central business district boundaries of the old Colorado City Downtown Development Authority.

For this hearing on 10D and 10E, we will have city staff and council member presentation. We heard these items yesterday. Next, we will have an OCCDDA presentation, and then we will have public comment, and then we'll go back to the dais for council member questions, deliberation, and decisions. Did you wanna?

Yeah, so at this time, there is no additional information from legislative services, but we're happy to answer questions regarding the board recommendation that was made, and I would defer to the liaison, council liaison, to the OCCDDA Councilmember Williams at this time.

So we will now have a 10-minute presentation. That's me. She's deferring to me. Oh, okay, got it. Yes. Okay, got it.

And then I'll reiterate. I don't think there's any additional questions. I think we all know how small Colorado Springs is. I think they use the term smaller out of Springs all the time. So obviously I've received a lot of communication regarding this and I want to take the opportunity to state because I've heard that more than once that this is a personal issue. This is not personal. Nothing about this is personal. I would have the same opinion two years ago that I do now. I just wasn't here two years ago. So, This is called the Old Colorado City Downtown Development Authority, not the New Colorado City Downtown Development Authority. The name implies Old Colorado City is old and historic, and we're gonna keep it that way. And a DDA is for redevelopment, new development, change. And I just think this is the wrong tool for this part of the city because a DDA is much larger and deeper and there aren't any instances in the state of Colorado where there are multiple DDAs in the same city. And our current DDA has about eight employees and pushing on a two million dollar budget and the math associated with this particular part of the city is never going to to bring that in or warrant that so i love old colorado city i want old colorado city to thrive this has nothing to do with that what it has to do with was the is the right tool and the right application for the right part of the city so i just want everyone to know this is not personal it has nothing to do with anyone involved it's really about the structure and i think we just need a different structure so i just wanted to add that to the record thank you president so now we'll have a 10 minutes from the occdda representation

Good morning, City Council, Council President. Thank you guys for having us back. It's been a long time. Yes, here we go. I guess I wanted to start by sharing a little bit of my story and how I ended up in Colorado Springs was I came out here to be a camp counselor in 2003. I thought it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. And I'd been in Tennessee my whole life. And as soon as I graduated college, I packed up my Camry and have never looked back. And I still believe it's... one of the most beautiful places in the world. And since moving here, I have been very involved in the community through my job as a photographer. I end up at a lot of events where I hear things that are happening and I just feel like I have my ear to the pulse or whatever. Finger to the pulse. And probably for the last six or seven years, I've wanted to serve on a board because I really love this city and have grown to love it even more through the years. And the opportunity hadn't really come my way until last year when they were forming this DDA. and I was really excited about it. I was looking forward to it. I really liked the people that we had and what we were gonna get to do, because I lived on the west side for a long time and my studio's on the west side. So I was very pumped to do this and we're a young board, as in we're not old. We just started less than a year ago and this council, voted us in they interviewed all of us and put us on the board less than a year ago and you know we're starting this from scratch so i do feel like we haven't had much time to to really uh get going but with that um yeah it this whole process has been disheartening and it only started less than a week ago when we were told that this was like on the on the ballot or on the agenda that we were going to be dissolved. So yeah, with that, I guess I'll start. I just want to share a little bit of the background of kind of how it came to be. And I'm new to all this. I've had to learn a lot the last few months about all kinds of things, a lot of acronyms. And yeah, so thankfully, does this... I don't ever do presentations. Oh God. Oh, thank you. Yeah, so this whole process started in 2018, and they had an assessment by Downtown Denver Inc. to gather lots of information, talk to business owners and residents, and this started because there were a lot of There were a lot of volunteer boards, a lot of people on just very different things. There was like OCCA and there was the Historical Society and there's all these things and there was nothing cohesive. So that's kind of what the community was looking for, was kind of a united voice. So, yeah, so we think for Old Colorado City it needs a strategic plan, it needs strategic funding, funding that comes from something besides Territory Days. And this, you know, this could help drive a strategic plan for Old Colorado City and help us create partnerships, help us hire security, a lot of People said safety is a huge issue in old Colorado City. So lighting and security and all of that is very important. And we also want to advocate for the businesses that exist there. As you know, there's hardly any chains down there. It's a lot of local people, a lot of our neighbors just running businesses. So we want to support them and advocate for them. and yeah so that kind of led to this OCC partnership and um and these volunteer boards we were trying to like all come together and you can see the list of those up there and Yeah, we raised 78,000 to hire a consultant to just assess the situation. This consultant did the Rhino District in Denver, which, as you know, is very popular and fun to be in. So, yeah once she she published her study and presented it i believe to to city council to you guys and i had some really compelling information in there and her recommendation was that we have a dda And I know that's a huge question amongst everyone here today is whether we're DDA or a bid. What I can say is I was not a part of that discussion back then, like Brandy wasn't either. And the people voted, the people voted on it and they said yes to it. And more people showed up for that special election than they did for the citywide election. It was a higher voter turnout for that one. Yeah, so in the present, next slide. Oh, well, I did wanna share, these are a few quotes that we had from people from that study that, that the consultant did. Just, yeah, that they want vision, they want everyone to come together, they want an executive director, which is something that we care about as well, being able to hire somebody full-time, like Downtown Partnership has, to help with things in the city. Yeah, so those are, yeah, just some of the quotes there. And we can go to the next slide. So in the present, this consultant at Board Leaders led the meetings, outreach, focus groups, surveys, and brought it all together, has presented it. by every city department and by the mayor. It went to the ballot. It passed three out of the four questions. The mill levy is the one that did not get the votes. It lost by 10. But based on this vote of the people, this board was created and we turned in our plan of development in June and so, yeah we're just at a crossroads now because we're kind of feeling like we're just getting started and we we really care we're really passionate about this and um this has all just um like i said you know it's been it's been disheartening to feel like you're just getting stopped in your tracks for this so Yeah, and also in present, I'll say that there was TIF money collected for us last year in the sum of $103,000. And these funds rightly belong to the taxpayers and the voters in the OCCDDA for us to carry out our development plan and our operations.

Oh.

No. So yeah, at the end of the day, it just feels like we went through the process, we did the research, we hired the consultant, we did public outreach, and this was the conclusion that these people came to was to form the DDA instead of the bid. And we do still need to get the mill approved. And let's go to the next slide, please. And this, because I know this is the hot topic here, the DDA was chosen over bid primarily because DDAs have the ability to collect mill levy dollars from both residential and commercial properties, and Old Colorado City is a heavy mix of both of those things. So if we had only gone with the bid, it wouldn't be as helpful to us and allow us to do what we feel like we need to do for the community. And next. So the future, the future depends on what happens here today. Our main ask right now is not whether you wanna vote for our existence or not, but will you vote to give us time as honestly, it felt a little bit like an ambush last week to go to a meeting, be told that we're gonna vote to dissolve you in less than a week, and you have less than three business days to make a presentation about it, and the board chair is out of town, and yeah, I mean, I know Council Member Williams mentioned she didn't know that that was happening um i don't know if she wasn't paying attention or or has a memory lapse but the fact remains as a liaison you were present at a meeting and i do have the minutes from it to show that you were in conversation with adam about this this big trip so Yeah, we, whether it's, we're open to the conversation if you guys think a bit is better, but can we just have time? Because we haven't even, because this has sprung on us less than a week ago, we haven't even had time to gather as a board and just sit with it and kind of talk about what everyone thinks and get through stuff. So I would just really love some extra time to do that and yeah. I would also propose that this item be changed to something with a solution involved in it, because now it's just dissolving with no forward motion or no solution to the problem of what to do in OCC. So that's all I have. Thank you so much for your time.

Allison, do you know the difference between the district that's built with the mill levy versus the bid, what those dollar values are different based on the district right now? What would a mill currently, if you had the mill, bring in versus if you had a bid, what would be those two, what are the difference?

I don't know the numbers. Okay, sorry, our previous consultant has that information.

sorry you have to forgive us a little bit my name is laura gardner and i'm legal counsel to the occ dda along with my partner who many of you know bob gardner we were just retained by the dda a week ago and so we don't have and haven't been given the opportunity to even look at some of these issues to be able to give you an answer to those questions and so that's part of why the the ask is to give us time let us hear your questions, give us time to come up with those answers and give them to you and then go from there as to whether or not the DDA needs to remain, whether it needs to be a bid. We're willing to have those conversations. The problem is that those conversations haven't happened and we're jumping straight to dissolution. And so we're just asking for that time so that we can actually do that research and get you those answers because we've had three business days and haven't even had the chance to call a meeting legal counsel has barely been able to engage to deal with this issue and address it in a proper fashion. And we haven't been able to talk to the consultants to get the information that you're asking.

Well, that's why I asked because you mentioned a consultant suggested a DDA over a bed. And I figured because of that, they would have the reason why. So that's why I asked that question. Councilman Williams. Thank you.

Laura, I just have a few more questions. You're an attorney in the state of Colorado, correct? Yes, I am. You're familiar with the Sunshine Laws? Yes, I am. Was there a meeting noticed for the OCCDDA and a vote taken to retain you as counsel? Because as a board member, I'm trying to figure out how that transpired without a vote. because you're standing up there and you represent me as a board member of the OCCDDA, but I never had the opportunity to vote on that. So if you could explain to me how that works, I would love to understand that.

You know, I would love to be able to explain that to you, but again, we didn't get the time to even sit down and have a, let me finish my sentence. Can I finish my sentence please? All due respect, I let you finish. Correct. Will you let me finish? We are figuring everything out on the fly. Again, Bob is not here. Bob is the one that has been primarily engaged. Again, he was out of town. That was a discussion that was had at the last board meeting. So I can't answer you as to how we were retained because I was not part of that discussion at the time. I am here trying to deal with a situation that was sprung on us with three business days. And while city council was discussing this back in May, the first we hear about it is Wednesday of last week. And so everybody's scrambling with half of our legal council out of town. to answer your question. So how he was retained and all of that, I haven't participated in that bit of the meeting. I wasn't in the meeting. I think you are well aware that I wasn't in the meeting last week. Correct.

So to ask me how Bob was retained is- You're right, I'm incorrectly assuming that you two had that conversation. We haven't had the chance to have the conversation.

Because as I said, the meeting happened on Wednesday. Bob left town on Thursday. So we're trying to create a stop gap here to deal with an issue that popped up at a very last minute and blindsided the OCCDDA.

So is there anyone else from the OCCDDA that can explain how these individuals have been retained and how it is that they represent the board? Because this was not on the agenda for the June meeting.

Yep.

So the chair of our board is also the chair of the OCCA. Sorry, sir, can I interrupt?

Could you just introduce yourself so that we know who is speaking to us?

Yeah, Ryan Lloyd, I'm on the board of the OCCDDA. Adam, the chair of the OCCDDA, got wind that we might be up for dissolution or a dissolvement. And with that, he requested, Bob, join him at that meeting because they represent the OCCA, Villa College City Association, of which Adam is also the chair of. He requested that through the OCCA because that's who they're retained with. I can't speak to today or really any of the legality, but Adam, got wind, he was told that this might be happening. He wanted representation and he requested that to happen. So that was not run through the board of the OCCDDA. But to this point, we've literally found out about this on Thursday. I was on vacation. I got back last night. Adam was leaving for Europe the next day. This is obviously a huge rush and we haven't had a chance to prepare. So that's what happened.

Thank you for that explanation. Based upon that, it doesn't sound like there was a vote of the OCCDDA to get us to that point today, so I greatly appreciate that. One of the reasons that this is operating the way that it is, is because. This body had a responsibility to bring this forward and this body has a responsibility moving forward. So I think. it's independent of the people sitting in the seats today it's the structure that we're talking about it's you know what we're going to do in this part of the city moving forward it's not about who's sitting in the seats today and i'm not saying that anyone sitting in the seats today has the answer to this but um if you do i'd i'd love to know and it's probably not going to be alice and it's probably not going to be anybody but this was approved november 5th 2024. And I wasn't on council November, December, January, February, or March. But between myself and city council staff, we can't find anything that states what was happening during those five months. Not entirely sure why the board wasn't set up during those five months. Again, a previous consultant worked on this. So obviously there's a reason the plan of development didn't start or transpire in those five months i don't have any of that information all i know is that we're sitting here almost two years later and i think in my opinion old colorado city needs something that's going to start

tomorrow if it can.

And I would need more legal advice, Allison, to say if we're going to pivot from here to a bid, can we put that in the motion? I don't know. I'd have to ask my attorney. But I would love to work with you on that to get pivoting to the right piece of information. I want to clarify, and Trevor, I'm probably going to need your help for this one. Yes, the county is in possession of monies, but the monies that the county has are not obligated to this board. I don't know who called the county. I don't know who said this past start collecting TIF because the only way you're allowed to collect TIF is if this body votes on that plan of development to then instruct the county to collect the TIF because we are giving that portion of it away that would go to other taxing entities and that has that requires a vote so if you could confirm that for me Trevor I would greatly appreciate it.

Hi, Trevor Gloss for the City Attorney's Office. Finance would be better to answer this. However, I did touch base with Sharae this morning. The county had been incorrectly collecting TIF for the OCCDDA. Finance notified them of that issue, I believe, last month, and they have since corrected the accounts. They are still trying to correct other issues on their side before they can give the entire amount back to the city, but they are no longer collecting TIF for the OCCDDA.

Thank you. So I wanted to, go ahead.

Sorry, as to your question about the bid, that would be a separate item. Bids are a separate statutory process, and you would not be able to add that to this ordinance. I'm happy to answer any other questions, although I imagine that you all may want to wait until after public comment as well.

So given that, oh,

Yeah, a few things were mentioned just now. The months that you referred to that you have no record of what was happening, Councilwoman Michelle Tallarico was working with the city council to set up the board appointments for months and months. That's what we were doing is waiting to create a board and city council wouldn't hear us. So to say that we weren't doing anything is...

I didn't say that. I was just curious as to what was happening.

That's what was happening. Okay. As far as the TIF goes, that was voter approved. We didn't request to... We didn't do anything. It was voter approved. City called the board president and said, do you have $100,000 TIF money? And we said, great. And the next thing we heard is we're being absolved. So we're not trying to steal any tax money or do anything like that. It was voter approved and I think that was all through the city, so.

But you understand, based upon what the attorney said, that until the plan of development is approved, those TIF monies cannot start being collected. Does that make sense?

Absolutely, yeah. And that was our assumption as well. So we were surprised when we were called and told that we had TIF money.

Agreed. I think everyone's been surprised.

And as you know, sitting on our board, we've been working on this plan of development for months as well. Correct. And it's in the city being reviewed right now. Correct. So... we're doing our work, we're doing our job. And again, to say that we're not doing anything is frankly offensive.

I didn't say you weren't, I just asked what happened, because I wasn't here. But I wasn't purporting that you weren't doing anything. I just didn't know what the something was.

And just to speak quickly about the bid, that is a business improvement district. Old Colorado City is a mix of business and residential. I don't know how we collect bid money and only improve the businesses and then skip every other parcel that's residential. That doesn't make sense. So we've done the work, experts, have advised us multiple times the DDA was the right route. That's where we are, it's voter approved. So to be revisiting this from the last six, eight years in this form, it just seems absolutely crazy to me.

Can I correct one thing? I don't, and you probably weren't there then, but I was here. At no time do I recall and I was pro tem at the time, this coming forward to an agenda or an ask, but I'm gonna refer to our administrator because that just isn't true. If you would have asked to come to develop a board, I believe we would have, but I just wanna clear that up for you.

Yeah, I'd be happy to reiterate the timeline that was provided in legislative services board review recommendation. As we know, the OCCDDA was created in November of 24. The first contact with that board with legislative services to fill the vacancies was October of 25, so 11 months later. And remembering that at the time this was passed, there were five immediate appointments, so five board members were on, so they were a functioning operational board at that time. We did not hear from them for 11 months, at which time there was a request to fill some of the additional seats. Those seats for four more board members were filled within a 60-day window, and that board was then brought up to nine members by December of 25. And again, we've had little to no contact in terms of board seat fulfillment, though there are two remaining vacancies on the board at this time, and we're due for some reappointments. And to speak to, was there ever a request through Council Member Tallarico or others to bring board forward for discussion about the OCDDA? Not in any of our records, and not that I recall.

Well, could I ask a question? Yeah, Councilman Donovan. Madam President. But this is just directly on this point. One of those five board members was Councilwoman Tallarico, is that right?

That is correct, and then that liaison seat was transferred to Councilmember Williams at the time the term ended.

So if we want to say, oh, this board was not functioning properly, what were they doing? One of them was a Councilwoman. So why didn't she make that recommendation?

Councilman Lineweber.

Yes, thank you. I'd like to make a motion that we delay all further proceeding on this until no sooner than August 25th. I just feel like this has been rushed. I mean, we don't even know if we have proper attorney here. We don't know. I mean, I keep hearing, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know. Let's make a decision. That's not how we operate.

This needs to be delayed.

And so I'd like to make a motion that we delay this to August 25th or...

I would second that motion, Councilman Lineweber, but there's not even a motion to be seconded just yet. No one has motioned and had a second on that yet.

There is a motion from Councilman Lineweber to...

Did you motion to- Delay? Yeah, I just- And there is a second from Councilman Henshaw, but we- Well, first, the attorney will clear this up for us. First, there has to be a move of the motion.

I'm sorry.

President Iverman, through you to the city council. Stephanie Boster, city attorney. I'm learning in public. I understand that the rules of this city council is not to have a main motion. You can make a motion to postpone an existing agenda item. And it's my understanding that's what council member Lineweiber has done with regard to this item.

Then I do second that.

Councilman Lineweber, can we have a date certain? I don't want to leave it open-ended, please.

Well, I put August 25th.

So your motion is to postpone this no sooner than... August 25th.

But it could base off of leadership if they wanted to delay...

Let me see, I don't know if that's, Emily is August 25th, that is a regular city council meeting. Okay, to August 25th, is that your motion?

Yes.

Okay, so I have a motion from Councilman Lineweber.

Is there any way I can read?

A second from Councilman Hingem to postpone to August 25th

Correct? Correct, yes.

So let's vote on that motion.

Madam President, before we vote, may I ask a question? Oh, yes. Maybe Council Member Williams, I know we discussed it yesterday, but for the benefit of the audience and perhaps the benefit of our colleagues, could you reiterate once again, the rationale for why we need to act so quickly. And I think in particular, if you can speak to the topic of the encumbrance of death, I think that would be helpful for us.

President, do you agree that I can respond? She's otherwise occupied. I'll take that as yes until she says no. The reason that it came with what seems like the speed that it's coming with is because a plan of development has been submitted. and then once that plan of development goes through the process and potentially is approved then those tiff monies will begin flowing and the potential exists to encumber debt a piece of this is that if this body decides that this is the wrong tool and it should be dissolved then that needs to happen when there's no debt on the books so i understand your concerns about again how we got here And I know it seems very fast for certain people. In other ways, it's been very slow getting to this point, which is a bigger conversation, probably not for this dais. in order to have this conversation and to, in my mind, minimize staff time being spent on this, now is the time. And then if it's dissolved, then we have that conversation. If it's not dissolved, we'll fix the parcels and go that way. But it really is a fork in the road right now, and I think that's why it's being brought up at this very moment.

And I have a procedural question before we move to the vote.

Councilman Hincham?

Thank you. My procedural question is, assuming this is an appropriate motion and second, is it appropriate and may we hear from people who signed up to speak on the dissolution prior to voting? I personally would like to have that happen, but I don't know if procedurally that's acceptable.

If we're gonna take a vote to postpone, I don't believe we have to take the public comment.

You don't, it's up to you.

Since we have a motion from Councilman Lineweber and a second from Councilman Hingem, let's vote on the postpone to August 25th.

And the motion passes five to four.

Okay, so we will hear this again on August 25th.

And we do need to deal with 10E also.

Councilman Leimehrber, do you have the same motion?

No, on 10E, I believe that we can, that's the 17 properties from what my recollection is, right, that we need to remove?

I'm just making sure. So I have a motion from- Is that correct? Yeah.

That is correct. Yeah, so that can be done.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President. Before we move forward with that motion, the comment that I wanna make, and the first motion has already gone through and I will accept that. I mean, I just voted to postpone it, and reluctantly. I definitely wanna say, There's something very unique about what we're getting ready to vote on right now in regards to the 17 properties that are being requested in the second ordinance to be removed. The reason why I'm bringing that up is if we were talking about one, two, I would even go as far as three that were erroneously captured and funds taken against that, those are things, mistakes happen, right? We're talking about 17, 17 erroneous properties captured. That is totally, totally loss of due diligence. You mean to tell me that everyone who saw that, who voted on it, who reviewed it, didn't realize that 17 properties were not part of the city? Once again, if it's one or two, mistakes happen. 17, that's not a mistake. That is just total loss of due diligence. The last thing I'll leave everyone to think about, I'll wait till August to give all the other data points I have in regards to this particular item, but in the state of Colorado, you know how many cities have two DDAs? Zero. Zero. In the United States of America, do you know how many cities have two DDAs?

Three.

Two reside in Michigan and Colorado Springs. Now, if that did not give anyone a moment of pause on why did we think in Colorado Springs that we needed a DDA versus a BID, and in the minutes from August uh excuse me i'll start with august 13 august 7th uh 27 of 2024 that was the ongoing conversation about whether we should do a dda or bid matter of fact one council member changed their vote to not want to move forward with a dda because of the questions at the time even the council president at that time frame even question why are we doing a dda versus a bid the votes itself The formation of the DDA that went to the ballot approve, yes, 123, no, 90. Mill levy, up to five mills. Ballot question B, that failed. You know what the vote was? 98 said yes, 116 said no. You know what that tells me? There's a clear misunderstanding of what took place from the beginning up to the point that it went to the voters. And what really bugs me is that we keep hearing that phrase, well, the voters vote on it. Okay, the voters vote on it. But don't misuse the voter's voice. Because if the voters received inaccurate information, then they voted on inaccurate information. But yet the key theme is, well, the voters voted for it. If you don't have the meal levies, how you plan on collecting? Right now we have $103,000 in TIF that was collected with an erroneous, not erroneous, excuse my language, with a plan of development that was submitted last month. So my point being here is we're getting ready to try to vote on an ordinance to remove 17 erroneous labeled properties. Someone ain't doing their job. Period, dot. We can pay all types of fancy language up here on the dais. If it's one or two, mistakes happen. 17, someone didn't do their job. And guess what? All of that went forward to the city voters. And to those individuals who voted, they voted on misleading information. A vote on council was incorrect also. because they voted on 17 properties that were not a part of that area. So my point being from 40,000 foot level, there's no city in the state of Colorado that have two DDAs. In the United States, there's only three. And I'll give you a caveat. In the state of Florida, there's multiple counties that have DDAs, West Palm, I believe Delray, but those are counties, not cities. My point being is if anyone would have just took the time to do their due diligence on this, they would have realized that information was inaccurate, the information that was preceded was inaccurate, and to the point that was made earlier. We're two years down the road and now we're addressing this. And we think the quick fix is let's just get rid of the 17 properties and we'll be all good. That's not how this works. That's not how you inform the public so the public can make good, sound, rational, educated decisions. So if we want to go ahead and dissolve, not dissolve, excuse me, we want to go ahead and move to August as we just voted, great. But now let's not try to put another ordinance out there to say, well, let's just in an interim, let's just get rid of the 17. And then yesterday during the working session, there was a conversation about making an agreement that no type of debt would be collected in the interim. And of course, because of sunshine laws and so forth, that could not take place either. So this is the conundrum that we're in. But yet we wanna go ahead and make a motion and have a second to try to pass something that is not well articulated to the public. And that's where I have my concerns at here on the dais, is that there is so much misleading information. And I'm not making this up. If you all want a copy, go to the city council minutes for August 13th and August 27th of 2024, and look at everyone's comments. And you will see there was a clear confusion path to how they got to a DDA. several entities to include city stakeholders had mentioned a BID was a better path, but that's not what happened. So I leave you all with this. I know we have a motion. I don't want to belabor anymore, but what I don't want to do again, I don't want information to mislead voters in thinking, well, this was a small hiccup. No, it's not a small hiccup. Take a look at the minutes. It's not a small hiccup. Thank you, ma'am.

We have a motion from Councilman Donelson and a second from Councilman Risley. We are voting on item 10E, which is correcting the district boundaries. Let's vote.

The motion passes eight to one.

That is going to conclude our morning session. We have a lunch that we have to. Welcome back to city council regular meeting. Moving on to 11A. Will the clerk please read item 11A and 11C into the record?

um just a quick note of clarification the ethics item was postponed to be taken up prior to the public hearing items is that still the wish of council are we ready for that okay i just didn't have it in my order that way but that's fine no problem okay would you like for us to read that into the right yes can you tell me what it's item 10 a

Yeah, I just need a new printout.

Okay, so will you please read item 10A into the record?

Item 10A, an ordinance amending multiple sections of Article 3, Code of Ethics of Chapter 1, Administration, Personnel, and Finance of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to the Code of Ethics.

And if I might, Madam President, this was just obviously a carryover from this morning based on the conversation that was had this morning clarifying or wanting to clarify item, I guess it was G2. The city attorney's office has worked on incorporating some language that was read publicly this morning, but I think we're prepared to present it. It's been emailed to all council and Sarah Bruin, I believe, is going to read the proposed changes. We have copies of them here up on the dais, and we'll go from there.

Good afternoon, President Crowe-Iverson, Pro Tem Risley, and Council. I believe you all have hard copies of the changes that have been made. I would ask if we can place the ordinance up on the screen so that everyone in the audience can see it as well. Thank you. And specifically, I'd like to direct your focus to G2. That is where the majority of the changes have been made. And I won't read the entire section, but I will just highlight where the changes have been made, if that's all right. Okay, so what we did do was, in the second sentence, city-owned vehicles will only be operated by elected officials, and we added or city employees. and we edited the section that addressed driving the city vehicle and added a valet, as well as edited the section that referenced mechanics, service technicians, or service advisors or porters. In addition, we added the last sentence and the bullets, which now state, elected officials may use a city vehicle to transport others who are engaged in the same city business, attending the same city or public activity or function, in the care or custody of the elected official in the course of official business or being transported as part of a city sponsored or co-sponsored event or program. Those changes were made based upon the comments we received this morning. And I'm willing to answer any questions that any of the council members have.

I just have one question specifically on that last statement because when this came up the first time we asked risk management and it was confirmed by the city attorney's office, that in a separate policy from the city's general liability policy, it covers the mayor, but does not cover his spouse or children. Is that?

Yes, President Carr-Iverson, risk obviously would be the best entity to answer that, but from my understanding and speaking with them, that is correct.

Okay, thank you. Councilman Hincham.

Thank you, Madam President.

I know we have quite a full agenda, and I'm not actually comfortable with just reading new language right on the spot and voting right away. Having said that, I assume this is going to be voted on. If I understand correctly, the revised language does allow for a family member of the elected official to be in the car if they're going to the same city business.

That is correct. Okay.

Does this prevent an elected official using the vehicle to move from one bit of city business at one location, stop on the way to do a personal errand, and go to the next city business, pick up a prescription, let's say, and then go to the next function? Or does that have to be done in their own personal car?

As I understand it, the mayor are elected officials who are, um, able to operate a city owned vehicle who have one at their disposal. Um, the current, uh, language in the code, um, states that the vehicle should not be, should only be used for official purposes.

So they can't stop and run a personal errand while they're out doing their job as the elected official.

Yes.

OK. That's fine. And so I can't support that because I think that's ridiculous. And we didn't deal with the de minimis request at all in this ordinance. Is that correct? That's correct.

OK. Thank you.

Seeing no other questions, I have a motion from Councilman Donelson and a second from Councilman Williams. Let's vote.

And the ordinance passes seven to one.

Moving on to now item 11A and 11C. Will the clerk please read item 11A to 11C into the record.

Item 11A, a resolution adopting findings of fact and conclusions of law based thereon and determining the eligibility for the annexation of property known as PTAA, addition number one, annexation, legislative. 11B, an ordinance annexing into the City of Colorado Springs the area known as PTAA, addition number one, annexation consisting of 14 located southeast of the Stetson Hills Boulevard and Northmark Shuffle Road intersection. Legislative and item 11C, an ordinance ratifying and applying ordinance number 25-71, amending the zoning map of the city of Colorado Springs related to approximately 14.12 acres located southeast of Stetson Hills Boulevard and Northmark Shuffle Road and establishing a mixed use medium scale with airport overlay district and the related land use plan for PTAA charter school located in council district six.

Councilman Rosalie.

Thank you, Madam President. My firm was retained as the architect of record for this project. And while I believe I could be impartial and fair in my judgment on this matter, I would like to recuse myself to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

So today's annexation hearing will proceed as follows. City staff presentation, an applicant presentation, public comment in support, public comment in opposition, back to the dice for council member questions, deliberation, and decisions. We will start with the city staff presentation.

Good afternoon. Chris Sullivan, Senior Planner, Land Use Review Division. Just to clarify, this is a kind of a redo of the public hearing portion of the PTAA edition number one. There is only intended to be more of a quick dialogue from myself, and if necessary, I can provide a few slides to kind of update you on what you previously approved. Just to give you a little bit of information, this was a project that included concurrent applications for annexation, establishment of zone, and land use plan for 14.12 acres. The zone request was to go to MXM APO, which is mixed use medium scale. with the land use plan establishing elementary or secondary school use, in this case a charter school. That was approved in August of 2025 via two votes of city council. However, at the time of request to record the annexation and all of the related documents, it was determined that there was an exchange of property from property owner to the city public works as a piece went to mark shuffle right of way for the current improvements that are happening on that stretch. This, in fact, invalidated the original annexation because now the city should have been a part of that actual petitioning process. To help rectify that process, we spoke to city attorney's office as well as Public Works to come up with a solution. That solution was to redo the resolution setting the hearing date and the two readings of the ordinances that follow with that. So with that we have an updated petition meaning a new petition from the city included with the original We have ratification Acknowledging that the city is going to be a part of the process the Then in addition we have an updated annexation agreement to include the updated legal description that should be in there excluding the city from uh that agreement and then uh additionally so there's three items here uh resolution finding a fact uh making sure that we've done things correctly We have the annexation, so that would require a new vote. And then we have what's something you probably won't see really ever again, is a ratification. And that's a ratification of the previously approved zone ordinance, approving the conversion to MXM APO. And then that ratification also covers the previously approved land use plan, establishing that elementary secondary school use. With that, I didn't go through any slides. If you wanna see them, I can show them to you. Otherwise, I can just zoom past to the motion screen. Okay, so there it is on the screen. There's three separate items, ultimately to approve or deny resolution finding a fact, the annexation, and the ratification.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. Chris, can you remind us, I believe this, all three pieces passed unanimously at Planning Commission?

That is correct. All of these passed unanimously across the board.

And when they came to us the first time, they passed unanimously here? That's correct, yep. Thank you.

Do we have anything from the applicant?

Anything to add?

Blaine Perkins, I am the National Planning and Landscape Architecture Group Lead for HR Green. The only thing I did just want to add, I think Chris basically covered everything. Me and my team were not retained as the planner on the original application. We just stepped in on this redo to kind of help get it back before you all today so we could get an approval. The only additional item I just want to add is A part of the agreement that was originally done with the original PTA annexation, there's also a separate annexation plat that will be taking place with Huber Road that's currently in city review at this time, as well as CD documents or construction documents for that road redesign. And so we will be working towards that the next few months. We'll be doing that before this governing body as well. Thank you.

Thank you. I do not have anybody signed for public comment in support of the project or in opposition. So I'll bring it back to the dais. I don't have any questions or comments. I have a motion from Councilman Williams and a second from Councilman Risley. And the first would be on a light- Rainy, Rainy. Oh my gosh, Risley's not even here. Rainy, item 11A. So motion from Councilman Williams and Rainy for 11A, let's vote.

Item passes eight to zero.

Moving on to item 11B. I have a motion from Councilman Donelson and a second from Councilman Williams. Let's vote.

Item passes eight to zero.

Item 11C. I have a motion from Councilman Rainey and a second from Councilman Donelson. Let's vote.

Item passes eight to zero.

Give a few seconds for Councilman Risley.

There he is, get back in the room.

Will the clerk please read item 11D to 11G into the record?

Item 11D, a resolution adopting findings of fact and conclusions of law based thereon and determining the eligibility for the annexation of property known as Kettle Creek, addition number one, annexation. Item 11E, an ordinance annexing to the city of Colorado Springs, that area known as Kettle Creek, addition number one, annexation consisting of 19.88 acres located northeast of Kettle Creek Road and Old Ranch Road intersection. And... Item 11F, an ordinance amending the zoning map of the city of Colorado Springs pertaining to 19.88 acres, establishing an R flex medium, residential flex zone medium with stream side and United States Air Force Academy overlays zone district located northeast of Kettle Creek Road and Old Ranch Road intersection. And item 11G, establishing the Kettle Creek annexation land use plan for proposed single family residential land use consisting of 19.88 acres located northeast of Kettle Creek Road and Old Ranch Road intersection.

Today's annexation hearing will proceed as follows. We'll have a city staff presentation, an applicant presentation, public comment and support, public comment and opposition, back to the dice for council member question, deliberation, and decision on four votes. Welcome back.

Thank you so much. Chris Sullivan, Senior Planner, Land Use Review Division. I'll be giving you the presentation from City Planning. We have Brian here from CSU to give a presentation from the CSU perspective on the utilities, and then the applicant will be able to give their presentation. So the item before you today is Kettle Creek edition number one annexation. This is an annexation of private property as well as right of way. It includes three parcels located off the northeast corner of Old Ranch Road and Kettle Creek Road. So this annex, as stated, it includes three properties and then all of Kettle Creek Road will be inclusive to that. Totaling 19.88 acres. This is an enclave, a remnant of an enclave in the county. Currently zoned RR5, RR25, which is county zoning, rural residential. Under... Annexation, we're required to establish a zone or put the property within a holding zone. In this case, the request is to go to an RFlex medium with stream side overlay because of the stream system to the east of the site, and then Air Force Academy overlay as well. Everything within this area is affected by that overlay. Proposed land use is to do single family residential attached and detached. And just to give you an overview, this application package includes an annexation, a zone map amendment, a land use plan, and then subsequently staff also has under review, under administrative review, a development plan, a plat, and you will eventually see a vacation plot to vacate Kettle Creek Road as well.

Councilman Hingham.

Thank you, Madam President. Could you please, it's not shaded in at all, help me understand a little bit more exactly the boundaries of the Kettle Creek open space?

Oh designated as open space, but we're what are the boundaries of that open space it just shows a dot so kettle Creek open space reaches all the way up to old ranch road and kind of view shapes around that existing residential pocket that you see there. But it is.

So the rest of it is where that open space and the road is the boundary. whatever that road is, it's not named there, I don't know what the name of that road is.

So I think the road that you're thinking of is actually the Kettle Creek stream.

It's on the eastern edge of the project site, is that the boundary?

That's the stream and that is the boundary, that is correct. Okay, all right, thank you.

Oh, one more thing.

So there are, so NES is the agent for the property, Challenger Homes is the developer. There are actually two different property owners in this set, which is why you see multiple petitions within the package, but ultimately they all have agreed to annex as part of this overall deal. Um, looking at the overall surrounding area, this is on the cusp of, uh, a BP zone to the West. Um, which all of that business park as well as additional commercial and higher density residential, uh, primarily access is off a Voyager, um, to the East as, uh, council member engine, uh. identified Kettle Creek open space abuts this property. In the cutout, kind of in the middle there, that is Hope Chapel additions one and two, which went through this body quite a while ago and has an approved development plan for higher density residential use. And then this, that was also a challenger project. This is another one.

Here we go.

So as previously noted, it's just under 20 acres, two different property owners. All of the site is, not all of the site is vacant. There are some existing residential homes, two of them, and then there is one vacant parcel. So those would go away with this proposed project. It was determined that all the information provided does meet the annexation requirements. And then just to note that annexation of right-of-way does not automatically mean that they can include this within their development. They do have to vacate that right-of-way and then that will get further distributed based on previous property layout. And an annexation agreement is required with this and included within your packet. This is kind of a overview of the zoning. So the site isn't zoned under city ordinance, so the request is to go to MXM RFlex medium, stream site overlay with Air Force Academy overlay. And then I've identified on this image that, again, right next door is the cottages at Kettle Creek, which was part of the Hope Chapel annexation that occurred a while ago. Under the RFLEX medium, I've identified the general standards that you'll see for development that occurs within the zone district. You're allowed from five to 16 dwelling units per acre, 1,500 square foot lot, square foot lot per dwelling unit, 20 foot lot width, 10 foot general setback off the front, six foot on the sides, 15 off corner sides, 10 foot off the rear, and 45 foot height max.

Councilman Casey?

Thank you, Madam President. Quick question. So the cottages at Kettle Creek, it says R5, but that's not the case anymore? You said it was... That is still R5. Okay.

So that is developed under R5 standards.

But it is city property or city... Yep, that is in the city.

Got it. Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson?

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. And Chris, could you just tell us what, you see those two big structures to the west, they are right up against this, that we're considering today. What kind of business is that, or manufacturing, or what are those large things, do you know?

I know that there is a Walmart distribution center somewhere along that stretch. I don't know what the other one is.

It's, I'm hearing it's a church.

Yeah.

Oh, Karis Ministries. Okay, that's one of those. Yeah. Is it the one, the northern one, or the one? That's the Walmart, yeah. And then it's Karis below it. Okay, thanks.

Distribution, yeah. No, not a store, yep. And then there is additional county enclave to the south, which I've also identified on this image. All of those properties are residential large lots, and they are being actively developed in the county. This is an image from the land use plan. I think this image is pretty important because it identifies quite a few things. The establishment of residential land use is what's proposed as the future intent of the site. The site also identifies two circles, one directly off of Old Ranch Road to the south, which will be a primary access into this development, future development. I guess there is a third circle right at the corner of the cutout, which is an emergency access. And then the darker circle further east is an access through the cottages at Kettle Creek development. So these will have some interplay. Um, there is some green space also identified on here along the frontage. There's going to be some dedication as part of traffic requirement, um, and additional storm water management at the South East corner. Um, and then on the further North East corner, you see a larger piece of green and that is a buffer zone for the. Preble meadow jumping mouse habitat, which is, this is to keep that separation from that. There is a document within your packet from Fish and Wildlife Service that supports what's being proposed here today. So feel free to take a look at that.

Councilman Hingem. Yeah, thank you, Madam President. I think this is what I was trying to understand in that previous picture, that when you look at the flow of the land itself, this makes much more sense, that this would stay as part of the open space and not be cut off with this angle. So if I'm understanding you correctly, that is absolutely protected to be a part of that entire Kettle Creek open space?

My understanding is it is not required based on the documentation provided from Fish and Wildlife Service, but I'll let the applicant speak more to that. Okay, all right, thanks. Let's see. I don't think I have anything addition to add on this slide. Okay, from the timeline, this was originally submitted for entitlement review October 5th, August 5th of 2025. It went through five rounds of review and was ready for agendization in March of 2026. It went to planning commission in April, and then May it went to resolution setting the hearing date, and here we are today for the first public hearing of two. Public notices required as part of city process and the state process. Notices went out to property owners within 1,000 feet. 111 postcards were issued. This says six, it's actually eight comments were received. Nothing in support. A lot of concerns related to traffic, pedestrian connectivity, kind of the unknown of overall development within this area and what this intensity will play into that. And then you also received an email today from a neighbor that also had an issue with the site being graded and how this affects the prebble mouse habitat. We did receive plenty of comments during the review process of these applications. As previously noted, There's gonna be some dedication required from traffic engineering along the frontage, as well as a requirement for a left turn lane, an eastbound left turn lane, which is all included within the development agreement. Additionally, parks is requiring payment in lieu of land dedication, and that also goes for school-related fees and CDI fees. And then there's a note from the school district that also identifies that they can support any development that occurs in this area. I won't get into this, but staff did analyze Plan COS, as well as other documentation affected by this project, and ultimately this project complies with the applicable visions, big ideas, and strategies of Plan COS. Here are the criteria for annexation. After evaluating the annexation of Kettle Creek, addition number one, staff finds that the application meets review criteria. Same thing goes for the zone map amendment, and also the land use plan, which supports the zone map amendment. There are quite a few motions for you to make, four items in particular, the resolution finding a fact, the annexation, the zone map amendment, and the land use plan, ultimately to approve or deny. Any questions for staff at this point?

I don't see any at this point. So next we'll hear from the applicant. csu oh csu sorry i missed you brian you were hoping i would

All right, President Crow Iverson, Pro Tem Risley, members of council, my name is Brian English. I'm a development projects manager with Colorado Springs Utilities, Customer Utilities Connections. Here to provide a brief overview for service perspective on city code conditions and requirements pertinent to annexation. We will kick it off with, ooh, they got a new clicker. Here we go. A vicinity map, just to reorient ourselves. As you can see, near the northern portion of the city, there's a near enclave notch that's generally east of I-25 and the United States Air Force Academy. First up is City Code 12.4.305. This is also known as the Water Extension Ordinance. This does require City Council approval before extending water services to any properties located outside city limits. including proposed annexations. This has to be substantiated in written record, demonstrating one of the following. Not all of these need to apply, only one to qualify under the conditions of code. Either the city's available water supply is sufficient to meet 128% of the existing water usage, plus the projected water demand for the proposed water extensions. A unique and extraordinary event or circumstance exists that necessitates extension of water service to serve a critical interest of the city. The area is an enclave. It is owned or leased by the city, or it will have a de minimis impact on the city's available water supply. For today's presentation in this particular scenario, this is largely informational because as we'll see on the next slide, it does meet the enclave condition as shown in the third column of the prior slide. But it's always good to provide a snapshot of Colorado Springs Utilities' current water resources or supply and five-year demand. so currently our reliably met demand rmd is 95 000 acre feet that's the amount of water that we have on hand and available to supply current customers of the city just for informational purposes an acre foot is just shy of 326 000 gallons 326,000 gallons can serve approximately three single family homes for a year. Our existing usage, which is a five year weather normalized rolling average for the period of 2021 through 2025 is just over 70,000 acre feet a year. That's actually a reduction of the prior five year rolling average from 2020 to 2024. When we apply the 128 set 28% buffer as required by city code, the minimum water supply requirement that we must maintain is 89,747 acre feet a year. So we have an available water surplus when considering the extension of water service to property outside the city, just a little over 5,200 acre feet a year. to calculate the de minimis impact on the city's available water supply. That is 1% of the available water supply that anything less than 53 acre feet a year is considered de minimis.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. Brian, you mentioned that the current five-year rolling average, I guess 70,115 is lower than the previous five-year average. Do you know how much it went down by?

I believe about 200 acre feet a year, give or take.

Do we attribute that to just those years were wetter or is it?

That's when we would have had a higher usage year drop off and then we would have seen a net reduction in the five year weather normalized rolling average. So we attempt to control that and that's why we do normalize the data so that we don't see those big spikes and it's a more standardized average over that five-year period that better reflects or drives some continuity into the data.

I know it's not what we're here for, this will be my last question, is it conservation efforts? Why did the usage go down if we're normalizing for weather?

I could speculate, it certainly could be. We'd have to look at the data from the weather data from that year and our actual usage to determine what the true cause was.

Okay, thanks.

Application of city code to the proposed Kettle Creek annexation, just for informational purposes, the projected water demand is 29 acre feet a year. That's based on the proposed land use. While it does meet the enclave exception per 12.4.305, it also does meet the de minimis exception, but again, it need only meet one of those criteria. Again, for informational purposes, petitioned annexations, the total projected water demand for any active applications for annexation is about 52 acre feet a year of the 5,253 acre feet a year. Annexations approved since City Code 12.4.305 was approved in February of 2023. There have been 23 annexations approved to date with an aggregate projected water demand of 1,723 acre feet a year. That's important because first of all, our current water resources we saw a couple slides ago are reliably met demand, are currently available supply relative to the five year weather normalized rolling average usage. We have about 25,000 acre feet a year available for growth within the city at this point in time. However, staff has assessed growth projections, anticipated land use within city limits, and projected that the city or Springs Utilities will need about 129,000 acre feet a year of water supply to successfully meet the projected demand. So if we subtract our currently available water supply, we have about a 34,000 acre foot a year gap and any annexation does increase the amount of water that Colorado Springs Utilities will need to acquire, get into the system and deliver to our treatment facilities for distribution inside the city. From a balanced portfolio perspective, our planned water supply, these circles, these colorful circles show the different categories that utilities is focused on to continue the development of water supply into the future to address the gap as growth continues. From Colorado River projects, demand management, reuse, again, we wanna balance the portfolio, not focus too much on one area. Additional supplies are needed to meet future growth and mitigate risk. All components are needed, they're all difficult, they're all expensive, and if we complete fewer projects in one area, it means completing more in another. Now we'll move on to the requirements of annexation per city code. The owner applicant is required to transfer title to all groundwater and any other water rights that historically benefited the property to utilities. Through the application process, the applicant did provide record of two well permits serving the separate parcels, the single family residences. We have reviewed those and we'll keep those on file for future reference. Rights-Away Easement, the owner-developer is responsible for providing, dedicating any required public utility easements for any for-service utility infrastructure required to serve the property, and that would be whether the infrastructure is onsite or offsite. Service area overlap, Kettle Creek addition number one is located entirely within Mountain View Electric, MBEA's service territory. Under Colorado revised statutes, MBEA is entitled to just compensation if the property is annexed and incorporated into Springs Utilities electric service area. As for natural gas, Kettle Creek is presently located within Colorado Springs Utilities exclusive natural gas service territory and Springs Utilities would provide natural gas service to the property without respect to annexation. Here's an exhibit illustrating the overlap again as being, I think Chris characterized it as maybe a legacy enclave. The enclave of the city also matches the enclave of MVEA service territory. Now we move on to conditions for annexation. The following slides and exhibits are intended to address these four items, whether there's sufficient capacity and utilities both now and for the foreseeable future to serve the present and projected users of Colorado Springs Utilities, whether inside or outside the city, whether services and extensions can be designed and constructed to serve the property now or at some point in the future, and whether utilities revenues are deemed to be sufficient to offset the costs associated with serving the property.

We're gonna start off with water and wastewater.

The exhibit on the left does show water again with this being in an enclave in a largely developed area of the city. There is a significant amount of existing water distribution infrastructure. The onsite and offsite extensions would be typical with any other inside city infill development. The same goes for wastewater. The dashed lines represent the onsite and offsite extensions the developer would be responsible for with the solid green lines showing existing collection infrastructure. With water and wastewater, the owner developer is 100% responsible for all costs of designing and constructing the necessary infrastructure to serve the property. Moving on to natural gas and electric. Again, we're seeing a similar theme with this area being largely surrounded by developed areas for natural gas. Some offsite extensions, you can see that kind of bisecting the Walmart and the Karis facility there, a new extension, as well as the onsite extensions. And then for electric, there's a few different options that our planning and field engineering groups have identified. If this is ultimately approved, we would continue working with them to identify the best extension option that would serve that particular area as well as offer benefit to other existing customers in terms of reliability, system hardening, or reinforcement. Per a recent change to the utilities rules and regulations, the owner developer is 100% responsible for all natural gas and electric extension costs. Those facilities are designed and constructed by utilities at the owner's expense. From a Springs Utilities capital cost perspective, these are the costs across all four services plus our fiber system that we would be expected to incur if this annexation is approved and the development is developed in the manner as proposed. Looking at the total on the low end, we're at about $900,000. The high end, that includes a 50% contingency, 1.3 million with the midpoint being 1.1. Developer capital cost estimates, as I mentioned in the prior exhibits, these represents all the costs, estimated costs that the owner developer would be responsible for. I do wanna emphasize that it does not include required water and wastewater extensions as they would typically work with a third party civil engineer and utility contractor to determine what the costs are based on the scope of the extensions. But that total, excluding those costs, is approximately $2.5 to $2.8 million on the high end. From an O&M perspective, we're projecting a total estimated annual O&M costs of about $31,400. 17,000 of that is O&M 400 for vehicles, 14,000 for labor. Total cost in O&M over the projected lifespan of the development at a production or an absorption rate of 55 single family equivalents per year. is 0.7 million in 25 years and 1.4 million in 50 years. Quick cost summary, utilities capital costs again on the low end 0.9 to the 1.3 million on the high end, 1.1 million mid scenario, 0.9 million first five year capital costs, half a million dollars for the first year in capital costs, annual and O&M costs estimate at $31,000. Cost payback timeframe, we're looking at three to four years again with that absorption and production rate of 55 units per year and 26 and 27 for that four year payback.

Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Yeah, real quick on that slide there. So earlier you said that all the costs are being borne by the developer, but then you have the utilities capital costs. Can you explain what those are and why those aren't being paid for by the developer?

Yeah, Council Member Casey, my comment was specific to the extension costs for the physical infrastructure. So from Colorado Springs Utilities, there is certain infrastructure that we do provide that would be specifically meters for electric, natural gas, and water. We do provide the resource, so the generation capacity in our power plants and different generation facilities to physically serve the customer. That also typically includes transmission mains that are used to deliver electricity to the distribution system. From a typical standard development policy, Colorado Springs Utilities always covers water and wastewater treatment facility costs. as well as the fiber infrastructure to expand our network and provide connectivity to any new infrastructure to help us be more responsive to outages, monitoring the condition of equipment, and overall improving system reliability. So there are certain costs with typical development, capital costs that Springs Utilities is responsible for, and other costs that the developer is responsible for. And as we can see here, this is really primarily the onsite and offsite extensions for water, wastewater, natural gas, and electric, as well as the development charges and fees for connecting to the water and wastewater system. And going back one slide, so... is this one year cost or is this spread out a multi-year or how do you this is the total estimated capital cost for the full build out of the development based on the regardless of how long it takes okay thank you and with that that concludes my presentation i'm happy to answer any questions at this time or at any point during the hearing i don't see any at this time thank you thank you now we will hear from the applicant

Good afternoon, City Council, Madam President. Andrea Barlow with NES, representing the applicant who are Challenger Homes. I'll try not to repeat a lot of the stuff that's already been discussed.

Get my presentation back up.

There you go. Let's go back, see if this is working. Alrighty, let's go the right way. Okay, we're here to talk about the Kettle Creek, addition number one, annexation, zone change, and land use plan. So it's just short of 20 acres. It is currently zoned RR 2.5 and RR 5, which are rural residential zonings in El Paso County. We are proposing a city zoning to R-Flex medium. It will have stream side overlay and also Air Force overlay because of the relationship to the Air Force Academy. We are proposing a land use plan with mixed types of residential and in the range of five to 16 units per acre which is consistent with the R-Flex medium zoning limits. So here's the site location. It is on the north side of the city, immediately north of Old Ranch Road, west of Powers Boulevard, and east of the highway. There is the Interquest and Voyager development area where there is significant amount of retail, residential, businesses, industrial, and a wide mix of uses. On the south of Old Ranch Road is an enclave within the county of rural residential, and then you have the larger development of Briargate, Pine Creek to the south of Old Ranch Road and east of this site. The property is currently three separately platted parcels, two in one ownership and one in a second ownership. My client spent a good part of a year negotiating with these property owners to purchase the property. It was a follow on from the purchase of what is called the Hope Chapel annexation, which is an area just to the east. which is being developed by Goodwin Knight, who are the multi-family development arm of Challenger Homes. So they're two separate companies, but they're under the same mother company. So that was a result of the need to extend utilities and access and so on from that property into this property, so it would be seen as more of a comprehensive development. Some of the items related to that I'll show you in the land use plan. So this is an image from the Assessus website which shows the existing city boundaries, so the grayed out area is the city, and the non-grayed out area is county, so you can see that this is a complete enclave, completely surrounded by the city, and it has 100% contiguity with the city. We, as I mentioned, we worked on the Hope Chapel annexation, which was completed in 2023, and there are a number of other parcels in and around the area that were annexed over a series of years, which have started to bring all this area really into the city boundary. Some of the benefits to the city as part of this plan, we will be required as part of a future development plan and plot, we will be required to dedicate 13 feet of right-of-way for old Ranch Road improvements, which I'll talk a little bit about. And it's obviously going to be a residential infill development. It's going to be more attainable, higher density product. We're continuing there to preserve the mouse habitat. That was part of the development which is called the cottages at Kettle Creek on the Hope Chapel site. That retained a significant area as part of the mouse habitat as required. It is a requirement to preserve mouse habitat. and that is continued into this property, which I'll talk a little bit more about. We will be developing all the public utilities on the site, all the necessary extensions into the site to serve the area. And I want to point out, because there was a lot of discussion I thought probably over the top discussion about the costs on utility side. We have a fiscal impact analysis which shows that we have a positive fiscal impact for the city with this annexation over a 10 year period. So the costs that were noted for utility extension were costs that were, I would say, to be absorbed further down the line rather than the immediate development costs, which is what the developer will be covering. And they were to be recovered in a four-year period. So well within that 10-year period of the fiscal impact, analysis for an annexation. That's the bar, 10 years, we have to show a positive impact. We do show a positive impact. And in terms of utility costs, it's a positive impact after four years. We've gone through various rounds of review with utilities. They have adequate capacity to serve. We're already in their gas service area. There is already a water main loop through adjacent cottages at Kettle Creek, which we will be connecting into. And there will be a requirement for an upsized gas main, which the developer will fund. So Brian talked about this. I just want to emphasize the fact that it is, again, or, or, or, or, or, lots of ors in this ordinance, and we fall into an enclave. We are a clear 100% enclave, and therefore we meet the extension of water service requirements for an annexation. So, zone establishment. Currently, as I said, we're zoned rural residential in the county. We're proposing the R-Flex medium residential. There clearly is a permitted use in that zone. The density range that's allowed is five to 16 units per acre. Maximum height is 45 feet. The stream side overlay is because of the proximity to Kettle Creek. We don't actually have any portion of Kettle Creek within this property, nor do we have any of the stream side inner or outer buffers for people who are familiar with that, but we are within the 150 foot, I would say, influence area of the stream side, and that triggers the stream side overlay. And as noted, we're within the Air Force overlay zone for the Air Force Academy. So this is our land use plan. It's very broad. We are, as Chris mentioned, processing a development plan which provides much more detail. We are proposing a mix of detached and attached single family residential. For the land use plan purposes, we are proposing that density range that's consistent with the zoning and the height. The area in green is identified as natural open space and that is where the mouse habitat is. We had a detailed report prepared by Bristol Cone Ecology that was forwarded to US Fish and Wildlife who concurred that provided that area remains preserved, we will be compliant with their habitat requirements and there's no risk to any federally listed species. Just as point of note that there is in the development plan we're processing a further setback from that mouse habitat area to avoid any grading into that area. I believe that was one of the concerns expressed by email that was received late this morning and there will be no grading in or near that area. Stream-side overlay, like I said, it doesn't traverse a property and there is no in or out of buffers, so we're not really impacting the stream-side criteria of the code. So access, one of the main concerns expressed during the process from neighbors in the area was traffic on Old Ranch Road, and there was some reference to pedestrian traffic to the schools. As you may know, Challenger Middle School is about a mile or so to the east, and then Pine Creek, which was referenced, is probably another mile further on, but on the other side of Powers Boulevard. So the primary access for this is off Old Ranch Road. There is an existing road, as you can see, dashed in this, which is Cattle Creek Road as it exists, along the western property boundary and it terminates in a cul-de-sac currently. That will be vacated and it will kind of swing around on that south side to the new access point which is circled. That access point has been chosen for two reasons. One, it's always preferable to meet street to street at a right angle, not have that angled access, which the current Kettle Creek Road does, and also for spacing of accesses to the proposed access for the cottages at Kettle Creek and other access further west. As I noted, Old Ranch Road is to be improved via a PPRTA project. That is primarily to increase the width of the road from the bridge and Chapel Ridge Drive just to the east. So from Chapel Ridge Drive to the east across the bridge and all the way to Voyager Parkway. It will be widened, but the plan is to retain it as two lanes, but there will be an addition of a center turn lane and a sidewalk. The comments regarding the ability of people to walk to the schools will be vastly improved by this project and this development is needed to complete that project. The additional right of way that will be dedicated to the city as part of this project and has already been dedicated as part of the cottages at Kettle Creek are a requirement to be able to complete this project. And noting that the property is currently in El Paso County, that wouldn't have happened unless my client took it upon themselves to negotiate with the existing landowners to develop the property and bring it into the city. There will be also as part of the PPRTA.

I have a question from Councilman Hingham.

Finish your thought, Andrea, and then I'll ask. Yes, I was going to say, as part of the PPRTA project, the Voyager Parkway southbound left turn lane will be improved as well. So there will be improvements at Voyager and Old Ranch. So as you turn from Old Ranch left going southbound onto Voyager, there will be lane improvements there. And I understand... I believe it was Gail Sturdivant who said at the planning commission hearing that that was gonna be a dedicated or additional left hand turn lane in that location. In addition to which, we are required as part of this development to install an eastbound left turn lane going into the site. So on Old Ranch, we're adding a left turn lane. So sorry, I have finished my thought now.

No, that's great. It sounds all like great improvements. Certainly love seeing sidewalks added. I was curious about the comments on the walking to school. Unfortunately, I think once they reach the end of that sidewalk, they will have to walk along the road if they're going to walk all the way to Challenger Middle School, correct? Because there's not sidewalk that goes all the way along Old Ranch Road.

I am not sure where the sidewalk stops, but as part of the PPRTA project, the intent is to widen Old Ranch Road to Chapel Ridge Drive. Oh. which is, I believe, the next intersection to the east going into the neighborhoods, and that will add sidewalk there. I assume beyond Chapel Ridge Drive there is sidewalk, but I don't know for sure. Okay, thanks.

Councilman Casey? Yes, sir.

Thank you, Madam President. Just a quick question on that, and I talked with Todd Frisbee earlier, because my understanding, and I'm on the P2P RTA board, is that the scope of the project is listed as four lanes, which you're talking about. And I just wanted to clarify whether it's four lanes, Todd, or two lanes there, or is it...

two lanes with additional bike lanes and just it's four lanes wide but only two lanes actual maybe more of a question for i would welcome todd's comments on that because i missed i misspoke at the previous hearing a planning commission said i thought it was going to be four lanes um improvement that was my understanding but i was corrected and told that it would be three lanes with a center turn lane but uh todd okay

Todd Frisbee, City Traffic Engineering, members of council. Yeah, regards to Old Ranch Road, it is the current planning, but we haven't started the design process yet, is four lanes to about Lexington. If I start from the east end, four lanes to Lexington, it would then become a three-lane road, which is essentially a lane in each direction with the center turn lane. It would have shoulders plus a multi-use path, sidewalks, built as part of the project. And then as the project moved further west, it would widen out to accommodate longer tours turn lanes and dual left turn lanes on Old Ranch Road to go south on Voyager. So that's our current planning. Like I said, we haven't started the design process yet, so there's always a little bit of things that may change during that process, but that's what we're thinking right now.

So timeline-wise, I'm just trying to figure out, is the road gonna be after the development gets done?

Yeah, likely it will go to RFP for design toward the end of this year, beginning of this year. That design process will take about a year, so we believe that construction would begin mid to late, if I do my math, 2028 kind of timeframe.

And then question for Andrea, following up, what's the timeline? If your project's approved, what is the timeline for? That's my client's name.

Okay, so the developer indicated that they'll be starting site work this year and building homes next year, probably in the spring of next year given the construction period.

Thank you.

But as I noted, as part of our development, we have to construct that eastbound left turn lane into the property as an interim measure.

Okay, sorry, it's back to me.

So these are a summary of the review criteria. I'm not going through each one. They're fairly lengthy and some of them aren't relevant. But as usual, compliance with Plan COS or the annexation plan, which is still 2006 in this case. No detriment to public health safety welfare. Location's appropriate. compatibility with the surrounding area and then the land use plan builds a little bit on that in terms of adequate access capacity and utilities and transitions in height, intensity or character. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about Plan COS. Doesn't say a lot about the site because it's not currently in the city but just generally the area around it is a newer developing neighborhood and it is the policy of Plan COS to encourage infill and a full spectrum of attainable housing. The big ideas is everybody in the neighborhood, housing for all, and embrace infill adaptation and land use change. So we feel we're complying with those overarching goals of Plan COS. The 2006 annexation plan, I know we're in the process in the city of revising the annexation plan, but until that's done, this is still the annexation plan, and that shows this parcel is in area three. It requires annexations to be logical and sequential extensions, which I believe this is. It benefits the city in terms of providing additional housing choice and also that right-of-way dedication to complete Old Ranch Road improvements. And it's also identified as eligible for annexation as it functions as an enclave. Surrounding zoning is a mix. So to that point, I think it was Council Member Donaldson who was asking the question about the adjacent land uses. This is probably not the best map because it is not showing the properties, but it's all zoned business park and it is. Those four parcels are a Walmart distribution center on the north. The middle parcel where the BP letters are is the Charis Christian Center, which is a church plus. I mean, it functions administrative offices as well. And then the two subsequent parcels are more office-related uses. And then the R5, the multi-family residential zoning of the Hope Chapel is there consistent with the approvals at that time and the plans have been approved for the cottages there and the surrounding zoning. And the line, the hard line there is the extent of the open space. I believe Council Member Hendren was asking about that. That area is to the east of that is all part of the Kettle Creek open space. Our land use plan compatibility and transitions, we believe that we are providing that. The multifamily residential on that Hope Chapel site allowed for up to 25 units per acre. I believe it's come in at around 16. This project is going to be around five to 16, but it's gonna be on the lower end of that. I'd say more around, I think it's around seven-ish at the moment in the development plan. The surrounding residential densities range significantly. Obviously, you've got the large lot rural to the south, but in the single family areas to the east, you have a range in that three to four units per acre. And then there is a mix of other uses. It transitions to the more intense development in that Victory Ridge area where you can see there's various lots plotted for development and a substantial multifamily residential apartments occurring in that area as well as townhomes. And with that, I'm happy to answer any further questions.

I don't see any further questions for you this time. Thank you. I do not have anybody signed up in support of the project for public comment, and I do not have anybody signed up in opposition for the project in public comment, so we will move it back to the dais for council questions, deliberation, and decision. I have a motion from Councilman Hengim and a second, oh, Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, I wanna bring Todd back up. i'm trying to i'm trying to kind of put my head around this idea that we're going to put a bunch of apartments here and the school that they're going to go to if they walk they have to cross this bridge and i've been google mapping it so there is no there is no sidewalk there is a space like four foot space on each side of a two-lane road when you're talking about 2028 is when you're gonna redevelop this. I'd imagine that bridge is gonna probably get redeveloped also. Cause that just seems to be, I mean, I'm looking at that and I'm just, I'm concerned of the safety of kids walking to school across that bridge. It's not, there is some space there. It looks like three or four feet on each side. How do you define safety in that? Because we're gonna have an apartment go up in a year and they're gonna start renting those things out and then they're gonna walk to challenge, which is basically they have to cross that bridge. So how do we solve that?

Okay, Todd Frisbee, City Traffic Engineering, Councilman Leimover. I would say that we are addressing that by moving forward with our PPRTA project. And as you know, there is sometimes a lag between and this is the best answer I'm gonna be able to give you is that, and the infrastructure that you might want to get for someone to walk to that school. So in the interim, it's difficult to address that. So in the interim, they're gonna have to, they're gonna be driven to the school. That's the safest bet for now. So I mean, we can't address that gap right now. The ridge is inadequate to accommodate pedestrians right now. It's pretty narrow and it needs to be widened with the project. So there's just a, just given this project, our PBRTA project was planned later in our program. Because of some of the development in this area, we did move it up in our program, moved the design up and moved up the construction to match some of the concerns with current development in the area. So that's about the best I can do for that, thanks.

Well, yeah, it just, I know, it's, you know, I mean, there does seem to be a sidewalk on the east side of that bridge. So, but it's gonna be that bridge. And I think, it looks like on the west side, The current property is being developed right now. And I imagine the sidewalk's going to be required.

Yeah, there is some space on that bridge for pedestrians. But once you get used to the bridge, you don't pick up sidewalk until you get closer to Lexington.

Like I said, there's like four feet of space. So it's almost like a bike path almost. So it's not horrible, but it's not...

Yes, there is space. There is space there. So we're accommodating that need in the interim with the infrastructure that we have.

All right. Is there anything we could, like, anything we could, I mean, any ideas like we can do or, I don't know, just, again, I just, I'm always thinking about kids, right? And that's a pretty, it's a fairly busy road.

Yeah. I don't like to do engineering from the dais. Yes, I understand. I get you.

But I'm trying to kind of resolve that problem in my head of how do we protect kids.

Yes, we can, we'll look at, I'll look at it. Okay. And maybe, since there is some space there. Yeah. I'll have to go back and look at the bridge. I can't remember the specifics of the bridge, if there was a barrier or a curb or maybe we put the wind.

It's a concrete, there's concrete barriers on both sides.

Okay, so there is space there. So that is a challenge, at least in the interim. Yeah, okay.

All right.

Councilman Risley.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. I just wanted to jump in on that because I wanted to make sure I heard what I think you said and make sure that I am correcting the record if I can. I think you said apartments. And when I read the land use description that's in the applicant's packet, it talks about single family detached and single family attached. So I just want to make sure that we're not talking apartments, right? And this isn't a talk question, but... Housing is one thing, and I certainly understand the concern.

I made an assumption that I was inaccurate about it.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something. What I'm reading here is that it's not...

So it would be less volume. So it is less volume.

But your concern is a valid one.

No, no, even if it's less volume, it's still a concern. I want to make sure the record is correct. It's not an apartment complex, which would be more volume. Fair, thanks.

He just made it up.

Yeah, yeah. All right. I just wanted to raise it because I just saw it and...

I appreciate that you raised the concern. All right. Thank you.

Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President. More of a comment, but maybe talk and opine on it further. So on July 8th last week, the PPRTA board approved a city project to rehabilitate the old Ranch Road over Kettle Creek Bridge. Do you have any, I understand that was preparatory work for the widening of the road. Do you have any timeline for that? Is that going to be ongoing sooner rather than later?

Yeah, and I would say I'm not privy to all the information related to the bridge, but I know you did say that there is a contract that you did approve. Did you say that you approved the contract for- We did.

Okay. It says improvements include ridge rehabilitation, widening of the existing bridge to accommodate the proposed cross section. of the future PPRTA-3 A-list roadway project?

So yes, so that bridge will be widened and improved prior to the construction of the road project. So we'd have a little bit more space. We'll build that bridge sooner before the roads there. So you'll have a little bit wider A little more space, so thank you, Councilman Casey.

Just one other question on, well, it's more of a constituent issue. We talk about traffic studies and that sort of thing, but nobody talks about the traffic study during the construction itself. So you're constructing a widening of a bridge project. We're trying to also do development there as well. They're trying to put additional lane in.

on old ranch road we got all that kind of movement and then we got otero that's that interchange pretty coming north on otero taking right or left particularly left on old ranch road can be pretty hazardous so so any pro yeah so any road construction project has to go through our um uh goes through a permitting process for construction traffic control uh so um uh So whatever construction traffic control is there for the bridge to accommodate the bridge construction has to be compatible with any construction, other construction that might add an access point to add a left turn lane. And if it's not compatible, we may delay you can't construct that access, or you can't construct that turn lane until we're at this point, or until this project's at this stage, so we don't have conflicting traffic control features.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Williams.

I should have withdrew as soon as Councilman Risley said what he said, no comments. Okay. You're good, thank you.

I have a motion from Councilman Hingem and a second from Councilman Williams. We will vote on 11D. Let's vote.

Item passes nine to zero.

Item 11E. I need a motion. I have a motion from Councilman Casey and a second from Councilman Lineweber. Let's vote.

Item passes nine to zero.

Item 11F, I have a motion from Councilman Casey and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

Motion passes nine to zero.

11G, I have a motion from Councilman Casey and a second from Councilman Rainey. Let's vote.

Motion passes nine to zero.

That concludes the hearing. Moving on to 11H, this is going to be a very long hearing because we have a lot of people signed up for public comment, so I am going to take a 10 minute break. We are back in session. Will the clerk please read item 11H into the record?

11H, Ordinance Number 26-26, amending the zoning map of the City of Colorado Springs pertaining to approximately 7.93 acres located at 1625 Springcrest Road from Business Park with conditions of record, high-rise overlay, and the United States Air Force Academy overlay to mixed-use medium scale with the United States Air Force Academy overlay. And... 11I, establishment of the Briargate-Voyager multifamily land use plan for proposed multifamily residential consisting of approximately 7.93 acres located at 1625 Springcrest Road.

Today's hearing will proceed as the following. City staff presentation, applicant presentation, public comment in support of the project, public comment in opposition of the project, applicant rebuttal, closing staff comments, back to the dais for council questions, deliberation and decision, and there will be two votes. So we will start with the city staff presentation.

Good afternoon, Allison. Good afternoon. For the record, Allison Stocker, senior planner with the Land Use Review Division. So as mentioned, today we're going to be talking about the Briargate and Voyager multifamily zone change and land use plan proposal. For some context, this property is located at 1625 Springcrest Road. This is northeast of the intersection of Voyager Parkway and Briargate Boulevard or Parkway. It is consisting of 7.93 acres of undeveloped vacant land. The current zoning is business park with conditions of record, high rise overlay and the Air Force Academy overlay. The conditions of record that are presently on the site pertain to the maximum height. So with the high rise overlay, There is a somewhat convoluted process for figuring out the maximum height, so I won't go into that, but the condition of record did cap the maximum height under the current zoning at 68 feet. The proposed zoning is MXM with the Air Force Academy overlay, so the proposal is to remove that high-rise overlay, which would mean that the maximum height for any future buildings would be capped at MXM's 50 feet maximum. So as you can see here, the property is zoned business park. There are a number of county enclave parcels in the area, as well as some agricultural zoned properties, some MXM properties, and some other residential in the area. The proposal includes the zone map amendment and land use plan that will generally explain how the site will be kind of used, where the access points will be, what improvements will be required by the city. Currently, the proposal anticipates an approximate density of 236 units on two buildings, which you'll be able to see here on the next slide.

I have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Good afternoon, Alison. Maybe this is just a zoning question. Are schools and churches allowed in agricultural? That's just a use of agricultural?

I would have to double check to give you a firm answer. It could be that these properties maybe are legally non-conforming. I can't say for sure without looking into it.

okay but their zone that zoning is correct that's zoning is correct as far as i'm aware madam president i might be able to help answer that question as someone who works a lot with school districts the city of colorado springs code does allow schools to be located in a zone districts and in almost in all zone districts because it's actually governed under the state statutes that apply to school districts as political subdivisions of the state

Thank you for that. And Mr. Pro Tem, is that true for the churches also? I could see why.

i don't want to answer for sure on churches because i don't know with 100 certainty but i believe churches are allowed in zone districts that are not your kind of typical commercial zone districts um i well does do we have a city uh staff that knows the answer to that for sure here and if not that's fine it's just curious because i see it right there

Okay, okay.

Kevin's on it. Thank you. So if you want to, oh, Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President. So the property to the north of Slatewell is agricultural. Is that county or city property?

The one immediately to the north is city.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, you can continue until his two minutes are up.

Sounds good. So this project did come in just about a year ago. It came in in June. It's gone through four reviews and it was deemed ready for hearing in April. It did go to City Planning Commission in May, which we'll talk a little bit about how that went toward the end of the presentation. So here on the slide you'll see the proposed land use plan. Those purple dots are kind of the areas anticipated for the new structures. Excuse me. The green areas are kind of where the landscaping would go. You'll see the dry vials as well as proposed access points. There's proposed access directly onto Voyager about midway across the property as well as a full movement intersection at the northeast corner of the property closest to the tca campus sorry i'm going to be doing that a little bit for a little historical context this property is a part of the briargate master plan the latest iteration of that plan did have this property designated for office industrial and research and development type uses. So that's kind of how the Briargate master plan anticipated the area developing. However, per resolution 43-22, so it was approved in 2022, this master plan was considered implemented. So city planning is not enforcing that type of land use on the property, but it is useful context to understand why this property is zoned business park from the start. The current zoning would allow types of uses such as office, light industrial, and as I mentioned previously, the current maximum height allowance is 68 feet. The proposed MXM zone would drop that down to 50 feet per 7.2.304 with the removal of the high-rise overlay. The land use plan, of course, is conceptual. So at time of development plan, if this is to be approved, there would be some deeper analysis to see if that density is achievable based on things like parking, landscaping, other site amenities that are required per city code. But as mentioned before, there is an anticipated density of 236 units as of right now. For a little context for this property, one of the big concerns that has been raised by the neighborhood has been compatibility issues. compatibility issues with, toward the north, there is a lot of county enclave properties. There are estate size lots, both in the county and in the city. There's a variety of civic uses, both with churches and the TCA campus. There are some hotels and some retail further east along Briargate, but there aren't any major high intensity or higher buildings in the immediate area of this property. Additionally, there are very limited roadway connection points from this property and the other areas. Basically, all traffic is going to end up either being funneled onto Spring Crest or onto Voyager. To the south, however, is a very different kind of perspective. There is the regional commercial center, the promenade shops at Briargate. There's also the research business park further to the south, as well as other multifamily residential. I think my slides might have gotten out of order. Or I went too far? Okay. Not sure what happened there. Continuing on, this site is at the corner of two major arterials, so higher intensity and density uses are typically preferred in those types of locations because they're on roadways that can handle higher volumes. However, with Springcrest being a residential designated road, it does not have maybe the same capacity as say a principal arterial, a collector, or other roadway types. additionally otero which you'll see called out on the screen is a county road so it is not built to the same kind of city standards that we would have elsewhere and from my understanding from the community there's a lot of traffic that does build up on spring crest and on otero roughly correlated with the schools going in and out of session Additionally, with Springcrest serving most of the neighborhoods in the Northeast, there are traffic considerations, particularly with life and safety issues for those neighborhoods, because there are no other alternative access points for emergency services to get to those locations. Alamosa is a dead end, so that does not take you anywhere. And Mulligan is an emergency exit only. Councilman Donelson.

Thanks, Madam President. And Allison, you said, hey, we like higher density uses at intersections of major arterials, but that's because you're hoping they can exit onto each of the arterials, right?

As a general rule of thumb, yes.

And in this case, it cannot. It only exits onto one.

Well you can, there is a right in right out onto Voyager directly, but then alternatively there is the full movement onto Springcrust.

But that's not an arterial, the other arterial is Briargate and you can't leave this and get onto Briargate, right, through the proposal, you can't? That's correct.

Okay.

Councilman Hengem.

Thank you, Madam President. And maybe you'll be getting to this. I'm sorry, Allison. But from a traffic safety perspective, in your report, it also mentions that Otero Road is the only other alternate route. And that's a county road. It's not a city road. So it really can't handle, according to your report, it's limited for emergency vehicles.

Yes, so I don't want to speak for too much of the traffic details and the roadway infrastructure, but my understanding, it is a county-designed road and is not necessary. And Otero is that green one? Yes.

To the kind of parallel to Voyager? Okay. I can't read it very well, so I just wanted to be sure. Thanks.

Okay. With this project, there are a number of requirements that will be placed upon the developer should this zone change and land use plan be approved. So for some traffic improvements that will be required of the applicants, They will need to re-stripe the right turn on Voyager. That is that right in, right out that I had mentioned. They will also have to stripe an eastbound right turn on and off of Springcrest. That's that northeast full access movement. They will need to coordinate with CDOT to make sure that all the roadway improvements do not conflict with traffic that correlates with work time, travel, and the backup that can occur on Voyager. So this will include things like hydraulic analysis with CDOT, as well as looking at drainage reports and things to make sure that there won't be any runoff issues. Additionally, the developer will be required to dedicate nine feet of right of way on the northern side of the property, five of which will be included in a public improvement easement that will allow for the development of a sidewalk. On the west side of the property, there will be a requirement to build the Skyline Regional Trail. This is a trail that runs along Voyager already, and the developer will be required to continue that trail through the property. Aside from those improvements, the general comments that we had received during application review was that the application meets the criteria based on the traffic engineering code as well as the other relevant codes for each agency. Most of the comments were informational. That would be dealt with at time of development plan when additional levels of detail are brought into the site plan. With stakeholder involvement, there was three iterations of the public notice. So at time of first submittal, prior to city planning commission and prior to city council, there were 22 postcards that went out. However, I did receive probably a good 300 plus public comments due to the tight-knit community that we have in this area, making sure that everyone was aware of the project coming online. There was a lot of public comments following the initial public notice period, which resulted in a change.org petition. Last I checked, it was about 1,000 signatures. I haven't looked since maybe April, so that could be higher now. And there was also a neighborhood meeting on August 28th at the Classical Academy, which was attended by about 70 individuals, and it was hosted by Kimley Horn and Blackburn Communities. And throughout the process, there has been ongoing outreach with each submittal. I've been attempting to make sure that the neighborhood is aware of all of the changes and proposals being made throughout this process. So this slide here is my distillation of all the public comments to the best of my ability. So this is just kind of a little snapshot of what I heard throughout the process. The main issues were traffic safety and the fact that Spring Crest is the main access for multiple institutions in the area. Additional traffic could further compound the traffic issues already being seen on this roadway, and the lack of alternative routes can cause further traffic issues and make things more challenging for emergency response to reach individuals. Student safety and wellbeing is another concern. Having individuals living next door to the school fields was a concern for parents and guardians, as well as more traffic on the road during pickup and drop off. And then just generally impacting the school's relationship with the outdoor areas because of the new buildings. Additionally, there was compatibility concerns. As mentioned before, this area is very low density and has a lot of county enclaves. There are no other super tall or intense uses in this immediate area. And some of our commenters did mention and point out that there are not many instances throughout the city where multifamily is immediately adjacent to schools.

Councilman Donelson.

Allison, it says Spring Crest is the main entry for TCA. Isn't it the only entry for TCA?

Yes. Apologies. So to access TCA, the only access point is off Spring Crest, but traffic could come from Otero as well.

Okay, but you could come from, but you're gonna be on Spring Crest before you get to TCA. So it's the, and I don't think we'll ever see these slides again, but I think the accurate statement is it's the only entry for TCA in some neighborhoods, thanks.

Staff did find that the project did generally meet the plan COS compliance for that part of the review, which there is further details in the staff report regarding that. And I have the application review criteria for both the zone map amendment and land use plan. Staff did find that the applications met both criteria. I can get into that a little bit more if you'd like, or we can talk about that as we go forward. and i did want to take a more dedicated moment to talk about the proposed motions that you'll see here on screen the first would be the general motion to approve so approving as is the middle is approving based on the conditions of record proposed by city planning commission At City Planning Commission, due to all of the public comments and concern about what would happen should the zone map amendment be approved, but the multifamily part falls through, the planning commissioners wanted to make sure that the property and the school were protected from incompatible uses moving in should there be a change in scope. So the proposal was to prohibit marijuana-related uses, heavy commercial and storage, industrial hemp, natural medicine, adult retail, and liquor sales. So again, this would just be in the event that the multifamily project didn't move forward, just to further protect the neighborhood.

And marijuana sales and natural medicine already have a buffer from schools. That's correct. I like to see them in there, but they do already, they already cannot because of the thousand foot buffer. I saw a name, but it went away. So I just wanted to clarify that.

So council can accept what city planning commission proposed, or they can alter it if they'd like, or they can go with the general motion to approve. And then at the bottom, there's also the general motion to deny. And this is particular to the zone map amendment. And then in regards to the land use plan, you'll see kind of the same setup here on this slide. The conditions of record proposed by city planning commission for the land use plan was to refer any development plan associated with the land use plan back to city planning commission. So elevating the decision making from an administrative level decision to a city planning commission related decision. Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President Allison, can you expand a little bit more on not only that requirement for a development plan approval to go back to the planning commission, but also the prior comment about certain use types that are normally allowed within the sort of the base zoning that would be precluded. Should we choose to adopt what planning commission recommended and also maybe talk a little bit about that process that we. we could approve this or we could deny it and we could do that with or without Planning Commission recommendations. Can you talk a little bit more about all that?

So hearing the public comments at City Planning Commission, there was of course a lot of concern about the proposed multifamily use, of course, but then also just MXM being a much more open and broad uh zoning district it allows a much greater expanse of uses than the business park zone district so there was some concern that if the multifamily were not to occur what were to happen if say a more intense commercial use were to move in next door such as um such as heavy industrial or marijuana-related facilities, things like that, that would not be compatible with the adjacent TCA building. So a part of that thought process was protecting the area from allowing the potential for the multifamily to move in, but protecting the neighborhood from these other incompatible uses that would potentially have been introduced otherwise.

Sorry, and I understand all of that. And I tend to agree with it. But isn't that the job and the purpose of the planning department in your review of these applications?

So in a normal circumstance where there wasn't a condition of record, these uses would all be a by right use. Of course, there are some use specific standards that would preclude some of these anyway, but that would go through the normal review process through a development plan, which would of course have public notice and be appealable. So whether, if they were not prohibited, there would still be the ability to comment and for the neighborhood to appeal and for there to be public discussion.

And the opportunity also exists that if the planning director views one of these potential uses, even though it's a use by right, views that it could be controversial or even though it's a use by right, could be a problematic use, that individual, that role has the ability to elevate or refer an item to the Planning Commission regardless. Is that correct?

Absolutely, yes. There's always an option for our department to do that if we feel so compelled. Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President. Could you go back to slide three? And some cross-referencing. There we go. And to answer the question I kept earlier about can you have churches and schools and agricultural, the answer is yes. It's a permitted use for both of those. So the property just to the north, according to your staff report, that's under review for a zone amendment change to a mixed-use neighborhood scale, is that correct?

Yes, I think it was last fall there was a proposal that went to City Planning Commission to amend that zoning to MXM. I don't believe that that has moved forward. It was referred back to staff following city planning commission, and I don't believe it has moved forward and taken any steps to return to city planning commission. So I think for the time being, it's probably safe to assume that that application is not moving forward. I can't say with certainty, but there was at a time a proposal for that zone district to be changed as well.

Right. If I remember correctly, I would think I was on the Planning Commission then it was, we voted it down five to one to disapprove it.

I believe so, yes.

For a variety of reasons, but MXM was inappropriate for that area. Which gives me a broader question on mixed-use medium scale. According to Unified Development Code, it's supposed to support multimodal access and circulation and minimize impacts on established neighborhoods. And then I read also in your staff report that you talk about MXM could be seen as a rapid intensification from agricultural and single family enclaves, single family estate enclaves most immediately adjacent with. Can you comment on your comment there?

Yeah, so what was interesting with this proposal is the fact that this area does have such diverse land uses within such a small area. So with there being the shops at the promenade, immediately across the street, other business park and retail uses in the area, MXM does, from that perspective, seem like a logical next step. But then when you look to the north and you see the enclaves and you see lower density residential, you can make the argument that that is a rapid intensification. So how you look at it can kind of change how you perceive it.

Okay, and can you go to slide A, please? so when you coordinate with academy district 20 that's just for the fees in lieu of type things or what what does it count what's the coordination consist of

So the coordination consists of us alerting the school districts to the fact that there is new residential moving in. They will do typically an analysis of their capacity within the school district to take on potentially new students and they have calculations on roughly how many students per unit type can be generated. That's a very mathematical approach that I can't really get into too much because that's I don't have it locked and loaded, but.

So we don't talk to the classical academy directly then?

The classical academy? I did speak with them through the process. I don't believe they are a part of the formal review routing process, but they also would have received public notice by being within 1,000 feet.

Okay, because Academy District 20 doesn't manage the day-to-day operations of the classical academy. They operate as an independent public charter school. They have their own governing board elected by the parents. They have an administration. They have their own operational autonomy. So I'm just kind of wondering why we didn't, seemed like the biggest stakeholder next door, and we sent them a postcard, is that what they got?

They did get a postcard. I also did talk with some of their administration at the public meeting, the neighborhood meeting, and they did not want to, at that time, take a stance on the application.

Okay, I have a bunch of other questions for you, but I'll let everybody else go, and I'll come back after the applicant, thank you.

Councilman Rainey?

Thank you, Madam President. Quick question, Planning Commission vote, what was that vote?

Yes, so the zone change was nine to zero for approval and the land use plan was eight to one with Commissioner Robbins voting no.

Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President and Allison. I think you're doing the slides, I think. If we go back to the overhead slide with, yeah, the zoning on it, you know, you've pointed out that, well, if you look south, you know, you can see more intense uses, but if you look, you know, to the east or north or even west, there's less intense. To me it's significant that I think all of us see major roads as dividers, and things below Briargate are more intensive uses, but it's kind of like one side of a river or the other side, things change, and... It seems like that should be factored in when we're deciding if we have like heavy use to the south and then you like jump one up, and we did with the apartments right out of the intersection there, but at the entrance to these neighborhoods, can you come, do you want to comment on that? If you don't, that's fine. That's an observation from me that large roads, these big four or more lane roads are natural dividers where you can keep residential up here shops and other things down here or lighter use office complexes kind of fit in with with lighter use but go ahead or else um thank you i think i'll allow the applicant to to weigh in on that and justify their choices for mxm councilman lineweaver

Yeah, I was just kind of looking at that and I kind of disagree because there's two hotels that are MX on the north side of Briargate and they're literally just right across the way from it. And then you have, I mean, the school is in an agricultural zone. I get that, but the school, that's pretty impactful. So I don't know. I mean, there's lots of development here. And I mean, just down the way, it's 65 feet. They can build buildings up to 65 feet from what you said, correct?

The current property could do 68 feet with the high rise overlay. 68 feet, right? Because of the high rise overlay, yes.

Right, so we could have a business park with 68 foot high buildings in this community, right?

On this parcel, yes.

Yes, that's all allowable right now. I just want to, that just seems like there's a lot of leeway and maybe we're getting a better deal if we downscale it to what we're talking about.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, final comment on this before we move on is when you're on these roads though, when you're on Spring Crest and the roads that it runs into, you do not see the hotel at all. What happens in this lot, you will every time you go in the neighborhood. So that's the difference to me is What you experience here is at a lower density, lower scale than what's going on down around the shops at Briargate. Thanks.

All right. Well, I'm available for any follow-up questions as we go forward.

Next, we'll have the applicant presentation.

Good afternoon, counselors. My name is Joseph Minke. I'm with Kimley Horne and Associates. I sit here locally, downtown, just across the street. I'm joined by a couple folks, our traffic engineer and senior planner, Jeff Plank and Jennifer Shagan as well. We're here representing Blackburn communities for the rezone and land use plan for the parcel at the northeast corner of Bargate Parkway. and Spring Crest. So as Alison just mentioned, the property is currently zoned BP Business Park with the condition of record with the high-rise overlay. The proposed land use would be multifamily with the MXM designation. There would be the Air Force overlay that is consistent with all of the parcels in this area. So as I just mentioned, yeah, the property is currently zoned business park. It was part of the Bargain Master Plan, which was approved in the late 90s. There was a development plan associated with that that was approved in 1999, approving a office building complex with that max height utilizing the high-rise overlay being up to 68 feet tall. So with this new use of the multifamily in the MXM zoning, the maximum height would be reduced by 18 feet to be 50 feet in total. And the MXM would create some continuity here with the uses to the south. I think there's some good arguments with the division of the roadways, but there is some heavy use to the south that would be consistent with this new MXM designations. Let's see, there are no deviations requested as part of this, whether that be to setbacks, landscape buffers, or any other aspects of the code. Quick other hit on the master plan. The property was part of the master plan, and it is considered fully built out as Allison mentioned, so there would be no amendment required as part of this application to the master plan. We were in coordination with the Broward Gate Business Campus Owners Association as part of this submittal process. They did review and provide initial approval. They have a similar process of reviewing a kind of sketch plan as well as the application documents that have been submitted to the city. And they did respond in full support of the project when that letter is provided in the notes for the agenda today. So regarding Plan COS, this proposal is consistent with the vision and policies outlined in Plan COS. The property is located on the edge of the existing suburban neighborhood, and it is identified as an area of change where the city anticipates redevelopment and infill over time. The plan recognizes the importance of character in these areas. They've been established and it's well understood that they have a significant contribution to the city. We believe this project can accomplish several goals through thoughtful reinvestment in the community to a parcel that has been vacant and undeveloped for decades now. The proposed multifamily use will also provide several unique housing types or a unique housing type to this area that currently only contains a single housing type, which would be the single family. It would also provide a unique price point relative to the single family homes that are in this close proximity to the north, which supports Plan CUS's goal of creating vibrant neighborhoods with a diversity of housing choices. A little bit technical, but the stormwater here, there is a regional pond to the south. That area is currently zoned as that kind of mixed agricultural BP on the map, but it is a regional detention facility. The plan for the project would be to utilize this facility for detention on the project. There would be onsite treatment required in order to meet the city stormwater enterprises requirements. The property is located in Zone X, meaning outside of the floodplain, so it is adjacent to the regional detention facility, but it is outside of the floodplain. CDOT has provided comments on this, as Allison mentioned. There would be further review during a later entitlement phase of the project where a review of the final drainage report would be required. There is the Skyland Regional Trail, again indicated in yellow on this map, that would make a connection to the existing trail system, which is on the south side of Briargate Parkway. The trail would continue north to Springcrest, and then terminate there, and then a sidewalk would continue to the east that would terminate at the edge of the property adjacent to the school. That would be in the area,

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, that would be in the area on that very north side of the property, that small little leg that we've got just to the south of Springcrest. In terms of access to the site, there are two points of access. The primary would be a right in and right out along Morriger Parkway. That's where the majority of the traffic is anticipated to come to and from on the site. A full movement access would be proposed along Springcrest. Full movement, so there would be a left turn out of the property directly onto Springcrest in order to encourage traffic flow and movement onto these larger arterial roads, primarily being Voyager Parkway. There are several improvements recommended in the traffic study, including stop signs at both of the access points, right turn lane into the property on Voyager, right turn lane into the property on Springcrest. That would be in the area that Allison mentioned being dedicated to the city as additional right of way. CDOT has also reviewed this with no objections, and they'll continue to provide feedback during future phases. In terms of traffic, there were several phases of traffic counts that were done on the project. Initially counts were done utilizing the peak hours of the proposed use being multifamily. After comments from city staff in the neighborhood, additional counts were taken at the corresponding time to the peak use of the school. As a result of those, there was a condition of gridlock traffic that occurred during these peak hours of the school. That is certainly something that is recognized. Fortunately, the peak hours of the uses do not overlap. There's an offset of an hour or so there. There are recommendations provided in the traffic study to help alleviate this issue. certain things that the school could pursue utilizing smart solutions like staggering bill times, smartphone applications, bringing cues further into the property of the school that could help alleviate concerns to the regional gridlock traffic concern that occurs. The important thing to note though here is the comparison between the existing use of the property and the traffic that could be generated there and the traffic that would be generated from this particular use. Over 1,000 fewer trips would occur on a daily basis with this use compared to the use by right today. So from a traffic standpoint, there's a much less intense use with this proposal than what is currently allowed with the BP zoning.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President. And I'm sorry, sir, I just didn't jot your name down.