City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the Cortez City Council regular meeting for Tuesday, July 14, 2026 to order. And if you would all join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

You can have roll call.

Randall? Here. Thorne?

Here.

West? Here. Lewis? Here. Swope? Here. Wolfe? Here. Sproul?

Here. Approval of the agenda.

Mr. Mayor, I move that council approve the agenda as presented for July 14th, 2026.

I second.

Motion made by Lewis, approved by Wolfe.

Lewis?

Yes.

Wolf? Yes. Randall? Yes. Swope? Yes. Osborne? Yes. West?

Yes.

Spruill?

Yes. Before we move to our official agenda tonight, I would like to address the heartbreaking news from our neighbors across western Colorado. On Saturday, June 27th, three brave members of the Hill Attack firefighting crew made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting the fast-moving wildfires near Grand Junction. We honor and remember crew members Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson, and Sydney Watson. Additionally, we mourn the loss of pilot Nicholas Dell, who tragically lost his life on Sunday, July 12, 2026, while flying in support of containment efforts at the Gold Mountain Fire near Ouray. As a community surrounded by rugged, fire-prone landscapes, Cortez deeply understands the immense debt we owe to the men and women who run toward the smoke to keep us safe. When our community in Western Colorado grieves, we all grieve. I ask that we now hold a moment of silence to honor the memory of Emily Baker, Nick Hutcherson, Sydney Watson, and Nicholas Dell. Let us also use this time to pray for the recovery of their injured brothers and sisters and to send to our collective strength to the families, friends, and agencies they've left behind. Thank you. Let's move on to item number two, our consent agenda. The listing under consent agenda is a group of items to be acted upon with a single motion and vote. This agenda is designed to expedite the handling of limited routine matters by city council. Either the public or a council member may request that an item be removed from the consent agenda at that time prior to council vote. The mayor, myself, will ask if the citizen or council members wishes to have any specific item removed from the consent agenda for discussion. Any members of the public? Any council member? THE CONSENT AGENDA 2A, APPROVAL OF THE MEETING MINUTES FROM JUNE 9, 2026. B, APPROVAL OF THE EXPENDITURE LIST FOR JULY 14, 2026. C, APPROVAL OF THE RENEWAL OF THE HOTEL AND RESTAURANT LIQUOR LICENSE AND OUTDOOR DINING LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR BLONDE'S TROPHY ROOM, LLC BBA BLONDE'S TROPHY ROOM LOCATED AT 45 EAST MAIN STREET CORTEZ. D, approval of renewal of a fermented malt beverage and wine liquor license from Dillon Companies LLC DBA City Market. Number eight, located at 508 East Main Cortez, Colorado. Item number C, I'M SORRY, E, APPROVAL OF RENEWAL OF THE HOTEL AND RESTAURANT LIQUOR LICENSE FOR KASHMAN, LLC, DBA, LOTS OF PASTA, AND THAT'S THE PASTA, LOCATED AT 925 SOUTH BROADWAY IN CORTEZ. ITEM F, APPROVAL OF RENEWAL OF THE TAVERN LIQUOR LICENSE FOR CORTEZ ELKES LODGE, 1789, DBA CORTEZ ELKES, 1789, LOCATED AT 2100 NORTH DOLORES ROAD IN CORTEZ. G, approval of renewal of a retail marijuana store, retail marijuana cultivation facility for THA Corporation, DBA, the herbal alternative. H, approval of a renewal application for a retail liquor store license for 718 Cortez, DBA liquid assets located at 718 East Main Street, Cortez. I, approval of the special event permit to Fundamental Needs Incorporated to host a special event on July 31st, 2026 from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 209 West Main Street in Cortez. J, approval of the festival permit to Jody Jarling DBA Zoo Gallery to host a festival fundraiser called Wags and Wine on September 5th, 2026 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Montezuma Park Cortez. K, approval of a hotel and restaurant liquor license for La Casita de Cortez, LLC, DBA, La Casita de Cortez, located at 332 East Main Street in Cortez. L, approval of fermented bulk beverage and wine liquor license for Western Refining Retail Incorporated, DBA Speedway, number 9499, located at 921 East Main Street in Cortez. M, approval of a fermented malt beverage and wine liquor license for Good To Go Stores, LLC, DBA Good To Go, located at 717 South Broadway, Cortez. N, approval of a fermented malt beverage and wine liquor license for Good To Go Stores, LLC, DBA Good To Go, located at 302 West Main Street, Cortez.

I move that council approve the consent agenda. I second it.

Motion by Randall, seconded by Swope.

West? Yes. Swope?

Yes.

Osborne?

Yes.

Wolfe? Yes. Randall? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

Sproul?

Yes. Item number three, public participation. Individuals may not comment on items that are on this council agenda during the public participation time. There is no limit to the number of speakers, although public comments will be held to an overall time limit of 30 minutes. Speakers have a time limit of three minutes per person, may only speak once, and may not cede time to another commenter. We'd like to invite Susan Kinnitz to the speaker. There should be a green light on that taller post there.

It is now.

Thank you.

Good evening. Susan Kinnitz, 511 South Cedar Street.

I would like to pray.

Our Heavenly Father, hear my prayers, guide this council in all its decisions, and inspire them to do what's right. Open their eyes to their duty to all citizens to do what is right for our community. So we all prosper. Remind them of their oath of office and the greater oath to uphold the Constitution. Help them see and meet the needs of the citizens they were elected to represent, not the fleeting needs of tourists. Remind them what that they are in service to the community and not some glorified overseers. Please help them work on the city's aging infrastructure. Thank you, council members, for stepping up to serve, because I know I'd like to, but can't. And it's a lot of work, so I really appreciate that you guys do this. In Jesus' name, amen. I would also like to thank Creighton Wright and the Parks and Recreation Department for replacing the very tattered flag up at Gear Natural area. Because I was up there right before the 4th and it looked really bad. And now it's at half staff and it looks good. So thank you for doing that. Thank you, council.

Thank you, Susan. We love to see your face in the audience. Now we'd like to ask or welcome, is it Carol Heite, is that correct? Heate, if you would come up to this microphone. Pull it down to your face just a little more. There you go. Got it.

I've been a resident for 54 years. A few weeks ago, I brought here to the City Hall copies of A Common Endeavor, Realizing the Promise of America to each one of you. I hope that this may be of assistance to each of you as we work together to harness the power of unity and diversity to create peace and prosperity for this whole area and for the world.

Thank you very much. It's nice to hear the public acknowledge city council. We like to hear the good as well as, a lot better than we like to hear the bad. And I think the last two speakers did a very good job and thank you very much. Okay, we'll move on. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to address council? OK, we're going to go to item number four, presentations. We have none. Public hearings. 5A, a new hotel and restaurant liquor license for pitchers on Main, LLC. Council will consider an application for a new hotel and restaurant liquor license for pitchers on Main, LLC, located at 9 West Main Street, Cortez. And who's our presenter going to be for that? Danielle's not here.

Yeah, Daniel Wells is remotely appearing.

Hi, Danielle. Can you hear us OK? Can you hear us OK?

Yes, can you hear me?

We hear you now. We have Danielle on our Zoom call. So if you could go ahead and tell us all about the new hotel and restaurant liquor license for Pitchers on Main.

Thank you, Mayor. This application is for a new hotel and restaurant liquor license for pitchers on Main LLC, located at 9 West Main Street, Cortez. This business is owned by Paul Adams and Paul Beckler. The application was filed on May 18th, and it is complete with all the materials and fees that were required. For a new license, state law directs council to look at three things. The reasonable requirements of the neighborhood, the desires of the residents, and whether the applicants are of good character. The applicants have shown that they're entitled to the possession of the premises at 9 West Main Street, and selling liquor at this location doesn't violate any of the city's zoning, building, or fire codes, and the property is not within 500 feet of any school. The hearing was also properly noticed, posted at the property on June 4th and published in the journal on June 24th. Looking back over the past two years, the city has not denied any liquor license on the grounds that existing outlets have already met the neighborhood's needs. And in fact, there was a previous liquor license at the same property, but that license has expired. So it was not eligible for a transfer of a license. When Council set this public hearing, it set the neighborhood as the city limit, and the applicants, as well as the Cortez PD, have submitted enough petition signatures to show they've met the needs and desires of the neighborhood and of its adult residents. For the character, the background investigations through CBI came back with nothing to report. Nothing turned up that puts the applicant's character as an issue for this evening. The applicants were sent the letter of findings that was included in the packet and we'll have the opportunity to speak tonight if they wish to do so. Chief knuckles is also here tonight and will present the police department's report for the applicants that location and the petitions. Based on everything presented that recommends that Council approve this new hotel and restaurant liquor license for pictures on main llc. I'm happy to answer any questions either before or after Chief Knuckles' report or throughout the rest of the evening, if you need.

Prior to Chief Knuckles, I would like to say this is a quasi-judicial hearing. The council is sitting as the local Becker Licensing Authority for a new license. State law directs council to determine the reasonable requirements of the neighborhood, the desires of the adult inhabitants, and whether the applicants were of good character. Does anybody have any questions? No, she's still here, no? Okay, Chief.

Okay. I'm gonna read this.

Hang on, you need to be sworn in. That's what I was, okay, good.

Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in this matter will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Thank you please state your name and title for the record.

Vernon knuckles chief of police Cortez Police Department. Okay, I'm gonna read this verbatim for the record. It's dated July 14th, 2026 to Cortez City Council. Subject, report concerning an investigation for a hotel and restaurant liquor license to be granted to pitchers on Main LLC DBA pitchers on Main. The address is 9 West Main Street, Cortez, Colorado, 81321. Vernon knuckles has been duly appointed and directed by the Cortez City Council Montezuma County and the state of Colorado to investigate the above applicant and to state the official position of the Cortez Police Department do report the following one a poll of the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses within the neighborhood was taken to obtain an opinion on granting the slicker license as applied for by the applicant All persons contacted were advised of the time and place of the public hearing and were asked, do you have an opinion on this liquor license being granted? The following are the results of the poll. A, 23 in favor of. B, zero against. Two, fingerprints for both Mr. Adams and Mr. Beckler were submitted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and their individual background checks have come back with no areas of concern. Three, location complies with Colorado Liquor Code rules and regulation. The location does not create any known public safety issues or endanger public health. Signed by me, Vernon Knuckles, Chief of Police, Cortez Police Department.

Thank you, Chief Knuckles. Are there any questions from council? Thank you. I will now give the applicants, Mr. Adams and Mr. Beckler or their representative the opportunity to be heard regarding this application if they'd like to speak.

Good evening, Council. Thank you for your service to our community and for hearing our application tonight. Thank you to staff for all the help and guidance along the way. Thank you, Danielle. We're excited to create a new space in the community that provides a gathering, a location for people to connect and hang out and find you know a new identity with others and we want a place that is inclusive and where people feel recognized and welcome well Paul Adams and I are real estate brokers in the area and we feel like it's a it's an opportunity for us to reinvest in the community and give back and It's right next to our real estate office in the former Once Upon a Sandwich location, if you didn't know by the address. So do you have anything to add? That was great. All right. Are there any questions from council for the two of us?

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's nice to hear from you. Thank you. I will now open the floor for public comment. This is an opportunity for any interested person to speak on this application, including the needs of the neighborhood and the desires of the residents. When called, please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record, and limit your comments to three minutes. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to make a comment? Seeing no further speakers, I will now close the public comment portion of the hearing.

After considering the reasonable requirements of the neighborhood, the desires of the adult inhabitants, the necessity of any restrictions on the license, the good character of the applicants, and in compliance with all the provisions of Colorado Revised Statute 44-3-301, I move that council approve a new hotel and restaurant liquor license for pitchers on Main LLC located at 9 West Main Street Cortez. Second.

Motion made by Olsen, sorry. Motion made by Osborne, seconded by Randall.

Randall? Yes. Osborne?

Yes.

West? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

Swope?

Yes.

Wolfe? Yes. Sproul?

Yes, congratulations, and we hope to have a real nice business here in Cortez. We're gonna move on to item number 5B, renewal of a tavern liquor license for Sierra LLC DBA Patron. Council will hold a public hearing to consider a renewal of a tavern liquor license for Sierra LLC DBA Patron located at 309 North Broadway, Cortez. And presenter is Daniel Wills, our city clerk.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a renewal application for the Tavern Liquor License held by Sierra's LLC doing business as Patron located at 309 North Broadway. Because this is a renewal and not a new license, council is not evaluating the needs of the neighborhood or the resident or resident support tonight. The only question before you is whether there's good cause to deny the renewal. State law limits good cause to three things, the licensee violating a license term or a liquor law, the licensee ignoring conditions from a past disciplinary case, or evidence of an ongoing pattern of fights, violence, or disorderly conduct that has hurt the neighborhood. Patron filed its renewal application on June 3rd, one day before its license was set to expire, so it has been authorized to keep operating while this review has been pending. The application itself is complete and all the fees have been paid. As part of the renewal review, the clerk's office worked with the police department, the finance department, and the building department, and we sent the licensee a letter of findings on July 1st. This hearing was properly noticed and posted at the premises on June 24 and published in the journal on July 1. The licensee was notified of all these findings by letter and email on July 1 and will also be given the opportunity to respond and present evidence tonight if they wish. The first issue that I'd like to mention is the tax delinquency. Patron was not current on its city sales tax, and this has been a recurring problem. Finance discovered back in June of 2025 that Patron had never opened a city sales tax account and hadn't filed or paid anything for roughly its first six months in the business. The finance department agreed to forego an audit of that period if Patron came into compliance moving forward. and made clear that no further leniency would be given. The owner then promised to catch up in December of 2025 and again in May of this year when the application for renewal was filed and when the public hearing was posted and noticed the sales tax was still outstanding. However, as noted in the addendum on July 7th, the full past due balance of $12,681.81 has been paid by the applicant. There's no longer an outstanding sales tax as of this time. Just for your awareness, the Colorado Department of Revenue has reported that Patron is also behind on its sales tax and has defaulted on its own payment plan with the state. If there's any further questions, I believe Finance Director Randy Bailey is in the audience and he can answer some more details concerning that if there's any questions from Council on that matter. The second issue I'd like to bring up is the calls for service that this establishment has received over the last year. The Police Department reports a total of 53 calls for service at Patron, 10 of which led to formal case reports. That reflects the recurring police presence at the location, and Chief Knuckles is also here and can speak to the nature of those calls in a moment. And I'm happy to answer any questions before we hear from him or later on throughout the public hearing, if you wish.

I would like to remind the council this is a quasi-judicial hearing. The council is sitting as the local liquor licensing authority. Does anybody have any questions? Ms. Wells. We have no questions, I think we need to proceed with Chief Knuckles. If you would be sworn in, Chief.

Chief, attorney tells me you are still under oath, so you are good.

Okay, still under oath. Still under oath. Still under oath. I conducted a calls for service data analysis on patrons and to be fair I also looked at the calls for service for a similar establishment within the city limits as a comparison the the numbers that I pulled out a CAD are a little bit different than from I pulled out 47 numbers from our CAD report and I think The city clerk reported 52 So there's a little bit of a discrepancy between what I pulled and I think what was reported to her. But based on the calls for service data and the conversations I've had with our code enforcement or our we have an officer that that does marijuana compliance and alcohol compliance and all of their checks have been good at patrons he said there hasn't been any issues as far as the compliance side so based on the conversations with him and the calls for service i don't find a pattern that would lead me to recommend against a renewal the call volume is slightly higher compared to the other establishment that I looked into, which would merely warrant us a little bit of, paying a little more attention to what's going on, I think. But the data doesn't reflect the type or frequency of incidents that would, from a law enforcement standpoint, rise to the level of concern needed to recommend against renewal. and if if council is interested i do have a breakdown of those of patrons and the other one of of kind of what the numbers of calls were and what the what the um offenses were assault yeah etc if you're interested but does anybody have any question of chief knuckles

Do they have, or have they ever had security at their establishment that you're aware of?

I believe they employ, you know, what you would call a bouncer. I believe, but I cannot, I'm not sure if they have security or not. I can't answer definitively.

Any other questions? Thank you.

Thank you.

I will now give the applicant or applicant's representative the opportunity to be heard regarding the renewal application and the findings presented tonight. If you will state your name and your role in the business for the record, please.

My name is Anna Audionis. I am my husband and I own Patron. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak. I would just like to say, yes, we do realize we got behind on our taxes. Life throws, you know, fastballs at you and you got to roll with it. Like Danielle did say, we did catch up on the city ones. The state, we have made some payments toward it as well. We are not completely caught up. But by the end of the week, we should be. We've only been doing this for two years. We're really working towards doing better, and we will. just got set up on a system called Devo that works with our point of sale system and it saves our taxes for us. So instead of it going into our bank and then having the chance to use it if something comes up, we don't have that option anymore. So it saves it for us and then it pays it as well. So this should never happen again. We don't have the option to anyways. We do have, we do employ bouncers. We have two bouncers, so we do have security there. Like I said, we're really trying to do better, make a safe place, a fun place here in Cortez. We don't have a whole lot of late night things and we get good compliments from customers that they have fun, that they feel good being there, all those things. This is how we provide for our family. That's it, this is what we do. So I appreciate your consideration to let us keep working towards where we wanna be. Yes, that's it. Thank you very much.

Do we have any questions from Council?

Could I get a clarification? You mentioned a system that you said you just got put in and it holds out your taxes and then does it automatically make the payment of the taxes? Yeah. So you're not involved in having to issue a check at all? No. And how often does it do this? Monthly. Monthly? Yeah. And when was that installed?

I'm sorry?

And when was that installed?

This previous week Question so you were delinquent on your city taxes new notified about that and Worked with the finance office but that That was ignored and I would like a reason why you chose to ignore that after being notified I

right it wasn't necessarily that we ignored it we just things kept coming up and we just kept getting behind isn't isn't that ignoring it I I'm having difficulty when

You were notified numerous times that you needed to pay your taxes, and nothing was done. And now we're at a time to renew your license. So in my mind, I'm seeing this pattern that, for lack of a better term, it was ignored.

That's fair. Like I said, it so the way that it works is all of our taxes would just go into our account. And then, like I said, we've had a rough couple of I mean, year at least. And so we would just we were using it for things that we shouldn't have been. That's admittedly. But like I said, we have that new system now. We've taken the steps to make sure it does not happen again. I mean,

Okay, thank you.

Any other council members have any questions? Okay, thank you. It sounds like you've attempted to straighten out the error, so thank you.

Yes. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Now we're gonna open the floor for public comment. This is an opportunity for any interested person to speak on this renewal application. Please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record, and limit your comments to three minutes. Does anybody from the audience have any comments? Seeing none I will close the public comment portion of this hearing. Seeing there's no further business, I will now close the public hearing on the renewal of the Tavern Liquor License for Sierra's LLC DBA Patron. The matter is now before the Council for deliberation and action. At this time, I will entertain a motion. Council's options are to approve the renewal, deny the renewal for good cause, continue the hearing for further information, or continue the hearing subject to a specific condition. Before I close it, I will have a question for the City Attorney. Is there a possibility for probation, a time, to make sure that the taxes are paid during, is there a probation that can be enacted?

I believe they're they're now current on their city taxes, which is what the city is responsible for collecting As I understand it there they still owe the state and the state has independent authority To take action on on their license if the state chooses to do so So I'm not sure any kind of a probationary period. We don't have in our code the ability to issue like a conditional license. So either be an approval or a denial or a continuation for additional information. And since they did file their application prior to the expiration of the license, they're still operating and they would be able to still operate until council ultimately votes on the application, which could be tonight or if you choose to continue it for some reason, then they would continue to operate until you vote.

Thank you.

Could I ask the finance department to step to the podium for a question? Thank you Sir, one of their options is continuing our hearing with specific record under kids specific conditions. Such as completing an audit. Filing any delinquent returns and paying all taxes penalty. Before final action is taken. It sounds as if their taxes to the city have been paid up in full at this point, is that correct?

I need to swear in.

No.

Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure I asked that. So what we know right now is they've made full payment on balance due, and we're monitoring. We haven't heard anything from the bank as to there's any problems with those payments. So at this time, they would appear to be caught up. I will be the first to admit I know very little about the system they're talking about, so I've made myself a note, and I'm going to go research that and understand how that interface works. But at this time, to the best of our knowledge, they are current. About how long in your opinion would an audit take That you would had recommended at one point in time I Think if we were going to pursue an audit It would take us a bit of time to We should be able to complete an audit within six weeks I

Would we, and they would have to pay for that? Is that, they would have to have an independent person pay and pay them to do it? Or would we perform the audit?

I would advocate for using an external third party provider at their expense.

And then as far as penalties and interest, do we have a system in place for penalties for back payments, which they have made at this point that did not include any penalties, correct?

It did include penalties and interest. The first six months we waived it for the first payment, and then once the history started to, or the decommitment, I should say,

started to to mount then we started implementing fees and penalties well we went a little bit off we closed it and we opened it we closed it so now we're gonna close it once more unless somebody has something okay

Mr. Bailey, can you explain what the city has already done? And it sounds like you alluded to six months of work with this group. Sorry to call you back. Make you run.

Sorry, can you answer the question again?

Yeah, what has the city already done with this case? You alluded to six months of work.

Yeah, so at six months we discovered that they had actually not even applied and gotten a sales and use tax license, which opens their accounts, et cetera, and starts the payment and submission process. So, at that time, we reached out to them, we talked with them, they made some arrangements to get current once in December, and then I think once again in May or March, if I believe. Both those times, they did not fulfill those commitments, and so we continued to pursue collections and reach out to them and contact them, etc. It wasn't until recently, when the renewal came up, that they stepped up their processes for becoming current. They mentioned potentially a bank loan and those types of things. Then, just recently, I believe it was last week or the week before, they actually then made full payment. And so that's one of the reasons why, in terms of this short term, we're monitoring the bank to make sure the check clears and all those kinds of things. But again, so far, they are current. We haven't heard anything from the bank, so we have no reason to believe that there's anything wrong with the payment they've provided at this time.

Thank you.

I've got to say that I have issues renewing this, and my reason is there's been a practice here of where they have been warned, they've avoided it, and now it's down to renewal, and they're making promises, and software is no better than the end user, and there's a pattern established here, and I don't think This business has a good standing with the city and just letting council members know that I'm opposed to renewing this.

It's open for discussion if any council member wants to add anything.

So for at this point since they did go ahead and pay how long does that just until we decide right? So there's no they can operate until we decide differently. So the recommendation of the audit and those things is that something that within this that we would be interested in doing just if they follow through on that and if there's a lot of big gaps or in payments for things that would be an indication that maybe this isn't very viable.

What I'm hearing from testimony, acting in a quasi-judicial manner, taking what we see from the case notes, is it's fairly evident that this case has broken the law, and our duty is to uphold that law. So if you see, I see us having this discussion at some point, and personally I don't see a point in deferring it to a later date. whether through an audit or other means. The facts of the case are in front of us. It is up to us to decide whether we hold this account equally to the standard of the law or make exceptions.

I have another question for the city attorney. If they miss their next tax payment, can we immediately hold a hearing and revoke their license?

No, we don't have the ability to do it on a monthly basis, but if they fall into their arrears on their taxes, then we can actually shut the business down. It wouldn't be revoking the liquor license. It would be a separate action to seize their assets and close it down.

I'm trying to find some soft landing spot here for both the council and for the petitioners. It appears to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears to me that we have the option of letting them continue in business as they're doing now for an X amount of time until they meet some conditions. One of the conditions that might be reasonable and would be a good faith effort to make sure that the past is totally cleared up is under the recommendation number four for us, which would be to continue the hearing with the specific conditions consistent with finances recommendations, such as completing an audit that they would be responsible for paying for. I don't think filing delinquent returns is an issue with us at this point in time, not with us anyway. And they paid all the taxes and penalties and interest on, but it would be predominantly having them complete audit to our finance department specifications, and then coming back before us in six weeks. I mean, that I believe might be a fair, soft landing space while it's also punitive. And hopefully give them the opportunity to correct whatever has been happening in their world. That's just a thought. Sorry, go ahead.

I have a question. So they still owe state taxes? And that's where I'm having issue as well. Yes, they've made payment here because they're down to the wire. But they're still, in my view, they're still not in good standing. They still owe state taxes. And as I mentioned before, I see a pattern here. And to do an audit, I think we're just delaying the inevitable. Again, I stand by what I previously said. I'm opposed to renewing this.

if there's are there any more i just had one question of how long it had been established it sounded like it was a fairly new business i wasn't sure second year of operation yes they i think they got their liquor license in um 2024 so this is their second renewal

Daniel was did the first renewal go find that they was everything all right with all that the first year was fine.

Yeah, they they were caught up with their taxes by then at that point. So we would have done the normal checks like every other consent agenda item check with all the department that are related to liquor license, make sure they're good with everyone else and would have put them forward on consent. So they would have been paid in current with their taxes at this time last year. It's good information for you guys to know, but the state will make a decision once they get a decision from us. So they'll have their own review process at the state level, and the state can choose to deny or approve their liquor license. And if the state chooses to deny their liquor license, even if we have approved theirs, then we will not be able to issue the local liquor license. So after this process, it still goes up to the state level for their approval.

There were some comments in here about getting information from the state about behavior that had happened there, but they hadn't followed through on that. What's the status on that? Is that relevant to this?

I have not heard more from our local officer or and I haven't heard anything from the state enforcement division as well. They haven't notified me of any official violations or any official like stipulations that have occurred. There's there's not I've not been officially told of anything of that nature.

Well, I would like to make a motion. Are we at that point? And we can see how that motion goes or whatever?

I think we're ready. Anybody have any more comments? Yeah, we're ready for a motion. I'm sorry, it's been closed already, so go ahead.

So I make a motion to continue the hearing with a specific condition of having the applicants complete the audit to the specifications of our finance department within six weeks time. And before any final action is taken.

With no second, do we have any other motions?

I move that council deny the application for renewal of the Tavern Liquor License for Sierra's LLC, DBA Patron, located at 309 North Broadway Cortez, Colorado, for good cause, based on the licensee's continued tax delinquency and unsatisfactory character, record, and reputation, and a continuing pattern of disorderly conduct at the premises, as described in the police department's testimony.

Second.

Motion been made by West, seconded by Lewis.

Osborne? Yes. Swope? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

Yes. West? Yes. Randall? No. Sproul?

No. The yeses carry, so it's gonna be denied. I'm sorry, sir, it's closed already. There's already been a vote. We're gonna move on to C, ordinance number 1369, series 2026. Council will consider on second and final reading an ordinance to amend the city code to implement charter changes as a result of the April 7th, 2026 municipal election. Our presenter is Patrick Coleman, our city attorney.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If you'll recall, One of the important issues that we addressed when we chose to put charter amendments on the ballot was that to avoid a situation like occurred with the tax change at the rec center Council was pretty adamant that we come up with ordinances to amend the code to ensure that we comply with the Wishes of the voters to the extent there are any code changes that are required as a result of the Charter amendments We found two One involves the payment for the council members. If you'll recall, the previous charter required that the mayor be paid $500 and the other council members be paid $400. And that provision was removed from the charter, and the new charter states that any compensation for council shall be done by ordinance from time to time. So council can approve an increase in compensation which would only become effective upon the seating of a new council. But with this initial council, because the provision stating what the compensation should be was removed by the voters, you have to adopt an ordinance that states what your compensation will be, and it can be the 400, 500 amount, which would preserve the status quo, or it could be less, it can't be more. Staff is suggesting that it remain 400 and 500 and that the ordinance states that. The other change, and I gotta look this up now, Oh, it's regarding the location of meetings. So the previous charter said that meetings shall be at City Hall. The voters approved a change. that allows council to move the meetings of council to an alternate location in emergency situations. And there was a corresponding ordinance provision that also mandated that the meetings be here at City Hall. And so the proposed ordinance would make the city code consistent with the new charter, which would allow you the option of moving a meeting in an emergency situation. So those are the two changes that we're recommending that you make. And with that, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Any questions from council? We'll open it up to the public. Any public comment?

So seeing that there's no more comments, I think this is pretty straightforward. It's just making sure that we're in compliance with what the voters voted for. So I move that city council approve on second and final reading ordinance number 1369 series 2026, an ordinance amending the city Cortez city code to implement certain charter amendments approved by the voters on April 7th, 2026, as described in the ordinance.

Motion made by Lewis, seconded by Swope.

Lewis?

Yes.

Wolfe? Yes. Randall? Yes. Osborne? Yes. Swope? Yes. West? Yes. Sproul?

Yes. We'll move on to item number six, which is unfinished business. We have none. Item number seven is new business. 7A CDOT Aeronautics Grant Resolution, South Apron Expansion Project. The grant resolution for the state of Colorado CDOT pertaining to the South Apron Expansion Project for the airport. Our presenter is Kyle Sloan, our airport director.

All right. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council. The 2026 South Apron Expansion Project is a large airfield project or in the federal, state and local airport capital improvement. 23 The design engineering and environmental elements of the planning have been completed with the next phase being construction the award for the construction contract has already been approved by City Council back in mid-april of this year and funds for this project include Airport Improvement Program CDOT aeronautics and local match while there is a separate federal grant resolution already signed The state is asking us to sign its resolution before the end of July so that they can program the funding into their system Federal and state grant resolutions are legally binding documents. They're generally approved by a city council or an advisory board, which ensures compliance with airport improvement program grant assurances. The fiscal impact, as outlined in the attached grant resolution, calls for a total project funding of $1,740,220. With 95% covered by the federal share, 2.5% state match, and 2.5% local match. The state apportionment is $43,505 with the local match of $43,507. Total federal funds are estimated at $1,653,208. Staff recommends that council approve the grant resolution and authorize the mayor to sign it for submittal to see dot aeronautics and Any questions?

Council have any questions

grant resolution so it's the only thing is it's got the former airport managers name on it and that has nothing to do with us that's on their end so it's all good correct absolutely thank you So if there's, I'm going to go ahead and move that the council approve the CDOT aeronautics grant resolution for the state apportionment of the South Apron Expansion Project and authorize the mayor to sign the resolution. Second.

Motion made by Randall, seconded by Osborne.

Wolf. Yes. Osborne? Yes. West? Yes. Randall?

Yes.

Lewis? Yes. Swope? Yes. Spruill?

Yes. Moving on to item number 7B, consideration of approval and acceptance of a competitive formal quote to replace the airport leach field. Council will consider awarding the 2026 airport leach field replacement project to Ramco Developments, LLC, and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and sign a contract and all related documents with the company on behalf of the city. Our presenter is Kyle Sloan, airport director.

Thank you, Mister Mayor, City Council. In March 2026, the septic system at the airport began experiencing problems which affected the terminal building and prompted complaints that toilets were not flushing properly and wastewater was bubbling up. As an initial corrective measure, the septic tank serving the terminal was pumped approximately one month later. Similar issues reoccurred in the sinks and toilets, indicating that the underlying problem had not yet been resolved. The septic tank has now been pumped three times to keep up with the failed leach field. The distribution box has also been pumped several times to help alleviate backup to the septic tank. Staff estimates that the septic system, which served both the airport terminal and fixed base operations building, was installed in 1978 and has exceeded its serviceable life. Following the reoccurring failures in the septic system serving the airport terminal and the FBO, further investigations were conducted. Inspections and excavation of the distribution box and leach field showed that the leach field had deteriorated beyond its serviceable life and required replacement. This conclusion was supported by airport and service center personnel, an outside septic inspector, and the contract engineer for the service center, who evaluated the septic tank, the leach field, and also the current soil conditions. Accordingly, city staff assembled a request for quotes for the 2026 airport leach field replacement project. A list of septic system installers was obtained from the Montezuma County Health Department and the RFQ was emailed to them on May 28th of this year. Quotes were due on June 15th this year and four companies submitted quotes staff evaluated the quotes on June 16th Using a scoring matrix established for the procurement each quote was reviewed and scored based on the valuation criteria identified in the solicitation the bid amounts and scores are listed below and their ranking matrix is attached for reference a COMPANIES WHERE IT FALLS, DANIEL CONCRETE AT $56,470. LAZY K BOBCAT SERVICES LLC, $47,551. MARK MARTINEZ AT $81,000. RAMCO DEVELOPMENT AT $47,375. Due to the unexpected failure of the septic system and the need for an immediate replacement, existing capital appropriations within the 2026 airport budget will be reallocated to fund the project. Airport staff anticipates that this reallocation will not have a significant or long-term impact on airport operations or planned capital activities. Expenses for repair and replacement of the leach field will be charged to the airport capital project account. Based on the result of the evaluation, Ramco Development LLC received the highest overall score and is recommended for contract award at its bid price of $47,375. And open the questions.

Certainly need this. There's there's no doubt about it Did you say we had an outside?

Evaluator come and look at it to see that we needed a new septic system we have a contracted engineer with the service center and he came and Okay, was he paid extra to do that I extra I don't know if he was paid extra but he was Paid what he was fine and yes Okay, okay, so so we knew that it was a failed system, but yet we paid somebody to come and tell us it was a failed system well, there was more apart with that evaluation to see what exactly was wrong and And we realized, oh, maybe it's more than that. So he thoroughly evaluated and made sure that, okay, it is the leach field. We don't have to replace the septic tank.

Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. I was hoping to hear. Thank you.

Yeah, mayor and council, I mean, they were very thorough with us. We tried everything to do interim to, you know, we fix something and just make it last longer. And the more we got into it, the worse it is. And we need to replace it.

Yeah, and I don't disagree with that at all. It's just that I don't want us spending money on some expert to tell us what we already know.

Oh, no, that wasn't the case. We didn't know or we wouldn't have gone home. Okay.

Kyle, where's the leach field located? Is it to the west of?

It is. It's west. If you know where the beacon tower is.

Okay.

And there's still room for the new leach field and that's where it will be placed.

And you mentioned you're gonna reallocate funds, but do you have a line item or line items established where you're gonna pull that money from yet?

Randy? I don't wanna answer incorrectly, so.

So in the in the 2026 budget we had appropriate about 600 K $600,000 in capital. To answer your question specifically the exact line items and trade offs we do not know what we are doing is reconciling out through the airport rehabilitation projects and some of the overhang with the grants as well as adjusting for prior match commitments on that rehabilitation project. And at this time, we're quite confident that we can squeeze it in. We will have to pinch some pennies and do some trade-offs. But again, it's more of what I would call a peanut butter cut across everything as opposed to we're replacing this line with that line. Does that make sense? Yeah.

I don't think we have any more questions from council. Thank you, guys.

Mr. Mayor, I move that council accept and award the 2026 Airport Leach Field Replacement Project to Ramco Developments LLC at its bid price of $47,375 and authorize the city manager to negotiate and sign a contract and all related documents with the company on behalf of the city.

Second.

Motion made by Lewis, seconded by? West. West, sorry.

West. Yes. Swope. Yes. Osborne. Yes. Wolf. Yes. Randall. Yes. Lewis. Yes. Sproul.

Yes. Moving on to item number seven C. ordinance number 1372 series 2026 an ordinance on first reading amending the 2026 budget which was adopted persuade for 30. One series 2025 our presenters council on airport director.

Thank you, Mister mayor City Council. The purpose of this ordinance is to amend the 2026 budget to appropriate funds for the South general. at the Cortez Municipal Airport. The city has been approved for the FAA Airport Improvement Program grant awards along with CDOT aeronautics matching funds and a local match, which together will fully fund the construction phase of this previously approved project. Adoption of this ordinance is necessary to recognize these revenues in the airport fund and to authorize the corresponding expenditures. So the budget accurately reflects the project funding. This ordinance adjusts the airport funding to align with the 2026 budget with current project funding and expenditure needs for the apron expansion. Adoption on first reading will advance the ordinance to second reading and public hearing for final approval. Now, would you guys like me to go over the fiscal impact, though I read it just before with the memorandum? I don't think so. I think I heard it just before. Understood. Staff recommends that council approve this ordinance on first reading and to amend the 2026 budget and to appropriate funds in the airport fund for the South General Aviation Apron Expansion Project and set the ordinance for second reading and public hearing on July 28th, 2026.

Council have any questions? Thank you.

I move that council approve on first reading ordinance number 1372, series 2026, an ordinance approving a budget amendment and appropriation for the South General Aviation Apron Expansion Project and set the second reading and public hearing for July 28, 2026.

Second.

Motion made by Osborne, seconded by Lewis.

Osborne? Yes. Swope? Yes. Wolff? Yes. Lewis? Yes. West? Yes. Randall? Yes. Sproul?

Yes. Moving on to item number 7D, city AI policy adoption. Council will consider approving the artificial intelligence AI policy, which will govern the use of AI within city operations. Our presenter is our IT director, Jay Rower.

good evening mr mayor and council before you is our ai policy this has been sent around to all of leadership and had a robust review by everybody chief knuckles reviewed the specific criminal justice information systems addendum and of course mr coleman reviewed the entire thing for legal And hopefully, you know, I have too many questions about it. Please think of this as a living document as employees who use AI tools get a better understanding of them and the tools themselves evolve. Then we also have the state legislature, which has a history of changing the goalposts of legislation. They introduced a Senate bill in 24, which was delayed until February 26 and then delayed again until June 30th of this year. In the meantime, they also passed a bill this year that kind of superseded the whole thing and changed it all up and I guess my point is that as AI evolves, expect more legislation which might cause a change in our AI policy.

Anybody have any questions?

No questions, just a few comments. This is all new territory for us, Jay, and appreciate you getting this going, but as I've been involved in various policies in my previous employment I saw that this policy covers all the major components scope and definition purpose objectives what's acceptable and prohibited uses what what training and and reporting etc so I I think you and and all of staff getting involved in this did did a great job and I'm glad to hear you say this this is a this is a document that's gonna always be changing I think the more usage we get from this the more policies that are gonna follow with that so if council has no comments I'll make a a motion to, I move that council approve the artificial intelligence AI policy for the city of Cortez as presented.

I second.

Motion made by Lewis, seconded by Swope.

Randall? Yes. Osborne? Yes. Wolf? Yes. West? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

Swope? Yes. Sproul?

Yes. Move on to item number 7E, 2026 Parks and Recreation Master Plan Bid Selection. Award the 2026 Parks and Recreation Master Plan to Kimley, Horne and Associates Incorporated in the amount of $193,000 and authorized parks and recreation directors to approve project expenses up to $213,000. Our presenter is Creighton Wright, Director of Parks and Recreation.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I am here today to talk about the Parks and Rec master plan. I will go through a brief history on where we're at Go through purpose and priorities and a little bit on the scope. Go through the process we went through and then ultimately make a recommendation on a selection. I view this as pivotal in our parks and rec system moving forward. I would classify where the system is kind of pre 2020 in a bit of a growth and development phase. And since 2020, we've been very much in a repair and addressing urgent issues. And that perspective, those perspective changes is a drastically different for us as it relates to how we manage the system. So as we've moved forward with the developing of a scope and ultimately interviewing and recommending a consultant, that shift has been at the top of mind for staff. So to get into a brief history, the Parks and Rec master plan that we're under right now was originally created in 2007. It was updated in 2013 and 2016. Kind of as I've alluded to, the demographics, the community has changed drastically since 2020. and we need to update to ensure that we're addressing and meeting the needs of our community, which includes all those that we serve, primarily city residents, but we do serve a bit of county residents and even some broader regional folks. We created a scope initially about this time last year. We started it, finished it off, worked with general services to create a request for proposal that was advertised in the early part of this year. um and the the really the purpose the intent of this master plan is to provide a comprehensive community center view of a long-term plan for the next 10 years that would create a system that was sustainable and realistic for us to implement two main things as we've developed a scope and that i expect that we're going to move forward with this plan and then also into the future i call them two tenants in the council memo memo the first one is that it's community based we really want to hear from the community i expect that we'll have two-way communication that we will share information and education about the system and our status and gain feedback and perspectives from the community that will ultimately help us to put the plan in place that the community really supports. The second item is that the plan has to be implementable. It's gotta be realistic. It's gotta be fundable or funded. In short, it can't sit on a shelf. I don't wanna go through this amount of time and effort and not be able to implement it. So it is key that we both get the needs and have, I would expect, some difficult conversations with the community about what that vision is that we're aiming towards and then draft the plan and the action items around it. We are, again, as a matter of changing our focus and our approach, we are really focused in on taking care of what we have, looking at our system and identifying how we can maintain that, sustain it, and within moderation, improve it based on recommendations we have. But I expect that any improvements or additions will have quite a bit of scrutiny and we'll have to figure out long term how we're going to pay for that before we commit to it. Just as in summary, as it relates to those two main topics, the intent here is that we have a plan that serves our entire community. It's important for us to really gain as wide engagement as we can from the community and ensure that we're incorporating that comment and that feedback into the plan ultimately. Scope of the project has six bullets, although I would argue that there's three of them that are really, really important and that are really the thrust of the project, actually four of them, I should say. Project administration, that's just how we're gonna manage the project moving forward, timeline, staying on budget, that kind of stuff. Second item is community engagement, key, important. It'll run through the other three elements of the scope. which are inventory and assessment, issue identification. So after we do inventory and assessment, the consultant will identify gaps, issues, concerns, infrastructure issues that will then start becoming issues that we will then bring up and start talking about with the community. And then we will start developing strategies around how do we address those and what that long term action plan and funding scheme is. And then the last bullet there is putting that all together in a package that we'll end up using on an annual basis for planning. So moving on to the process, as I mentioned, the RFP was issued in the early part of January. Proposals, request for proposals were received March 25th. We had eight proposals at that time. Their prices range or the cost range from $159,995 to $345,690. The complete bid packet that we received, all of the scores, all of the costs are included in an attachment to the memo. As it relates to moving on to the process, we created an internal committee that reviewed all of the proposals that included members of the Parks and Rec Department, Public Works, the PIO, Public Information Officer, Planning, and two members from the Parks and Recreation and Forestry Advisory Board. Those members scored the proposals individually. After that scoring occurred, we had two clear standouts, of which Kimley Horn was one. The second clear standout was MIG, another consulting firm. From that short list, we interviewed those two firms through the review committee. The same participants that scored the proposals also sat on the interview committee. The consultants were asked to do a presentation and then were subjected to questions and answers from the review committee. In total, the proposals totaled 150 points. After reviewing all of the scores, including the proposal, the cost, and the interview, Kim Lee Horne came out with 140 points, and MIG came out with 137 points. We had one last round of questions and answers that we had with both consultants of which we asked clarifying questions that the review committee had proposed or had suggested that we follow up on. Namely, the issues that we namely went over was any gaps from their proposal to our initial scope and talk through how those gaps were filled or if they were included in the proposal of which both firms said that the gaps were filled. The other items that we discussed was a request to lengthen the project schedule to 12 months and whether or not there was an impact to the engagement process.

and neither firm said that there were.

So I went over our top firm was Kimley Horn based on the scoring. The reasons that we chose Kimley Horn or their scores came out higher was their general overall project philosophy. They really focused in on community center planning, equitable access, stewardship, sustainable and resilient park systems, and they were very action oriented. We ultimately did reference checks and the reference checks came out very good for Kimley Horn, for both firms, but Kimley Horn especially. The other notable item that was encouraging to us is their project management time. The project manager that will be assigned to this project will have 70% of her time dedicated to this project. The other firm's project manager was 30%. That was very encouraging for us from the perspective of consistency and continuity. One of the comments that was made as a part of the interview is that the project manager will see everything that is sent to us. which as I've gone through projects like this before, that's not always the case. We get it from subs or we get it from a lower level staff and it hasn't been vetted necessarily through the project manager and they have committed to doing that voluntarily. We didn't ask that question. They volunteered it. And then so in the council memo, I did also give a brief overview of the top, the shortlisted firm that we did not choose, MIG, and the reasons for it. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on it other than to say that Kim Lee Horn's proposal pricing was a little bit higher, but their interview was very impressive throughout. From the funding perspective, this project was always expected to be a two-year project. We budgeted funding in this 2026 fiscal year at 100,000 being split between the Conservation Trust Fund and the Rec Center Enterprise Fund. And we were expecting to request funding for 2027 to finish off the project. SHOULD FUNDING NOT BE AUTHORIZED IN 2027, WE WILL CUT THE PROJECT OFF AT THE $100,000 THAT WE HAVE ALREADY BUDGETED. I WILL PAUSE THERE. ACTUALLY, I'LL JUST SHARE WITH COUNCIL THE RECOMMENDATION, AND THAT IS COUNCIL AWARD THE 2026 PARKS AND REC MASTER PLAN TO KIMLEY HORN AND ASSOCIATES, INC., IN THE AMOUNT OF $193,000, AUTHORIZING THE PARKS AND REC DIRECTOR TO APPROVE PROJECT-RELATED EXPENSES UP TO $213,000. Effectively creating a $20,000 contingency and authorize a city manager to negotiate sign and execute a contract And I will stop there and offer counsel the opportunity to ask any questions you may have If Hang on let me think about how I'm gonna wear this so

The $100,000 has already been budgeted for 2026. Is the quote, if we sign a contract now and then 2027 doesn't get funded, is the price going to change? If we sign the contract not knowing about 2027, will it lock in the price?

Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Osborne, our attorney has a phrase that he puts in virtually every multi-year contract that says, should the appropriations from council not continue into the next year, the project will end and cease at that point. So that phrase will remain. So we are under contract with that exception in the event that the funding isn't allocated in 27.

don't know if that answers my question sorry so they're waiting on us they got us bids now is that bid good for 2027 if that money gets approved oh yes i'm sorry council member osborne yes it is okay sorry i did not understand no i that's i was like i'm not wording it quite right so thank you for that clarification

Mr. Wright, thanks for sharing some time with me earlier on this. And so the RFP specifically says in there that the priorities or the deficiencies in our system or the issues in our system will be prioritized based on what they physically are and based on community input also yes correct so there's two factors that come into how the priorities are determined and the second question I have is regarding the priorities this also the RFP also had in it how much the anticipated cost would be of upgrades and So that that would be included in this specifically.

Yeah, mr. Mayor councilmember Randall. Yes, that is correct We have asked them to give us a complete assessment of the system which identifies both our deficiencies physical as well as what it would take to make the improvements necessary to bring it up to Expected standard. So yes I might make one minor modification onto the priorities item that you were just discussing the other thing that I think is really important again as it relates to an implementable plan is that the expectation is that they are going to match our priorities also based on our funding that we have available So if there is limited funding and we don't have money available, then the amount of projects, priorities, expectations moving forward for 10 years is going to be relatively small. And we are going to have to come up with strategies that address deficiencies in our system that may not be as tied to like the expectation is the solution is that we are going to renovate and replace our infrastructure. the fact is the funding might not be available to that so should that be the case the expectation is that they're going to work us through a strategy with the community that says okay we don't have the funding available to i don't know let's hypothetically pick one of our amenities we can't keep it going so how do we how do we address this do we start taking stuff offline as a strategy so i just wanted to clarify that i think there's an ex and i love this to be the case that we have the funding for all of our priorities i'm a little unsure that we're we're actually in that place so it might be more deep than just um identifying priorities and good luck here you go it'll also take that funding into consideration as well

thanks so I have a little bit of a concern there's like a fifty four thousand difference between number one and number two choices as far as the contracts are concerned that's a big difference and when you we looked at when we look at the objective so in theory this is objective and not subjective but the objective scoring that happened on these two there's only i think the rank uh there's what 137 to 140 is the is the is the total score difference and between those um i think a big change happened when the actual interview That was sort of, that's the biggest discrepancy. I think I get the feeling that you were much more relieved and happy with the situation, predominantly with the community outreach that was offered by Kimleyhorn. That and the project oversight that the main person in the organization was gonna spend 70% of her time on this versus 40% on the other one or something. So I just I have a hard time, $54,000 is $54,000. And this is for someone to come in, this is the way I look at it. This is like someone coming into my house and telling me what I've gotta change and what I've gotta fix and what I've gotta upgrade. So it's kinda like, to me this is like, this is a fringe benefit of a interior decorator with a little bit of some, construction worker help telling me what this is gonna cost me. So can you justify this $54,000, particularly for public outreach, because I believe our job is public outreach. So can you share with the council how this is gonna justify that $54,000?

Yeah, so Mr. Mayor, Council Member Randall, I think it's a good point that you bring up. And as much as I'm trying not to get into number two, I'm gonna get into number two here. So the proposal provided by MIG, I mentioned in the council memo was bare bones and streamlined. One of the biggest things that they did not include in their proposal purposely was any staff time at any community engagement. The expectation was that they were going to provide us as staff as resources, and we are completely and totally responsible for going out to the community, getting the engagement, getting the feedback, and submitting it back to the firm to respond to. I feel like there's a significant disconnect, and it's hard to ensure that the end product is consistent with the community's perspectives, which is one of our guiding facets. I really want this to be community-oriented. if i don't have a member of the consulting team that is going to the community hearing what the community is having to say being able to engage with the community i really struggle that that that's going to be and to your point that is that is a bit of our responsibility but that is putting all of the responsibility on us and from a capacity perspective i just don't know that we as staff could could do that much of a lift Essentially, that is leading to Jenny and I doing all of the community outreach for this project. And I do expect that Jenny in the next year, the assistant director, will be spending 40% to 50% of her time managing this project. I do not expect her to be at every single outreach and engagement opportunity. And collecting that feedback, compiling that feedback, and sending it back to a consultant that we're paying, as you mentioned, $160,000 for it.

It's impossible to know the future. How much money is this going to save us?

mr mayor i don't know that it would necessarily save us money i think what it'll do is it will give us a better quality more community representative plan it will do it without staff having to strictly manage what that outcome is so this will be the third master plan i've done in my career the second one i did was somewhat similar to the case that council member randall is suggesting or asking about mig and what i ended up having to do with that plan is after it was submitted to me i had to go back and rewrite it all and it was partially because it was disconnected from the community but the other part of it was we chose a low bid and we got frankly a canned proposal or canned master plan from another community that did not represent our community we ended up anyways I'm not getting into that other project but it ends up I don't want to have to fix something we're paying someone a lot of money to do and I have a bit of confidence that I won't have to do that with Kimley Horn I'm a little concerned about the number two firm I gotcha

I still haven't heard what I wanna hear. And that is, how much is it gonna cost us? How much are we gonna get out of this? What are we gonna receive? You've told us what we're going to receive. I want to know if the city of Cortez, I already know this answer. I'm just asking you because I want the public. The reason we spend this enormous amount of money, and it is a lot of money for some expert to come in and tell us what we need. But you've covered the basis. They're only going to tell us what we need that we can afford. And why are we doing that?

Mr. Mayor, I think it goes back to one of the main tenets is that I want this to be a plan that we can actually implement for the community, that I can tell the community what this plan is going to be and then be able to exercise or implement it over the next 10 years. Why am I doing this? I think in the end of the day, I want to provide a parks and rec system that addresses our community's needs. And the first thing I need to do is know what those needs are. And right now, I don't know that I have a firm grasp on it. I have a pretty good guess, but we really need to be talking to the community to understand that and then take all that information and data that we received through this process and have a conversation with the community that's delivering them plan that they're supportive of that they're That they want cure to Cortez parks and rec to become I Threw you a hardball.

I think you just hit a home run. That's what I was looking for I want the community. Oh Why you're spending this money, you know, we could take that and buy a light for the South softball complex one night But yeah, but thank you. It's cancel. I have any more questions

Mr. Mayor, I move that council award the bid for the 2026 Parks and Recreation Master Plan to Kimberly Horne and Associates Incorporated in the amount of $193,000. Authorize the Parks and Rec director to approve project expenses up to $113,000 dependent upon official budget appropriations during the two fiscal years and authorize the city manager to negotiate, sign, and execute a contract.

second motion made by lewis seconded by osborne wolf or sorry what was west sorry west osborne yes lewis yes swope yes west yes wolf yes randall yes sproul yes

We'll move on to item number 7F, 2026 Recreation Center Hardwood Floors Repair Project. Award the contract for the 2026 Recreation Center Hardwood Floors Repair Project to support court of the Rockies LLC, DBA, court builders of the Rockies in the amount of $55,422. Our presenter is Creighton Wright, Director of Parks and Recreation.

Topic number two, I think this one's a little bit more straightforward, although there is a little bit of discussion to be had about the selection. So hardwood floors in the Cortez Rec Center are in dire need of being resurfaced. That resurfacing generally includes sanding the floor down to bare wood, sealing and repainting lines, and then refinishing that surface. In the gym especially, we have dead spots in the floor. It's a suspended spring-loaded floor underneath it, and there's areas where you bounce a basketball on it and it doesn't come back up because there's a dead spot under it. So it includes repairing those dead spots as well. Some of the surfaces, especially in certain areas, are becoming an issue that we have to address more urgently than others, for sure. As you might think about the Cortez Rec Center, especially the gym, is used pretty much from the moment we open the doors every day to the moment we close. It is one of the most highly used areas of the Rec Center. so moving on to the actual process we went through to select the contractor we created parks and rec with general services a request for quotes was advertised on May 13th and we received bids from four contractors and their scores were evaluated on both bid and qualifications the qualifications part of that included compliance with specs technical quality, schedule, vendor experience, references, and their local presence. The four quotes we received were from Colorado Hardwood Floors for $51,556, Just Wood Floors for $50,736.95, Rumsey Hardwood Flooring for $34,688.40, and Court Builders of the Rockies for $55,000. Court builders of the Rockies received the highest overall scoring, and that is primarily because they provided a complete package. None of the three other bidders provided a complete package back to us. Their package showed that they are detailed, they have good workmanship, they provided great references that just raved about their work. We feel like, although this is the highest of the four proposals or quotes, we feel like based on their quality of their presentation, their references, and the use that these facilities get, that it's important that we get a high quality project. The other three contractors each provided some issues with us selecting them. The lowest cost contractor, we struggled to verify them as a good standing business. Second lowest contractor did not provide anything other than a cost estimate. And the third one provided us the cost estimate and references and nothing else that we requested. so in short court builders of the Rockies supplied a complete package it was thorough it was detailed and if we throw the low bid out at Rumsey the others are within 10% of each other So moving on to funding this project is coming in a bit over what we had expected $18,000 over what we have in the budget Again, we feel like getting a good quality project is worth the extra cost and we have absorbed that cost within the rec center enterprise and To address a question that was asked earlier of council about how do we make up that? I have proposed to manager Sanders line items within the rec center that we will reduce the spending on to ensure that we can cover the $18,000 difference in the cost. Those line items include things that haven't been expected. and other items where we're just underspent in that line item. Some of them include signage for the facility, some training, et cetera. So it's been addressed and recommended to manager Sanders to cover the cost. So with that, I will make the recommendation to council to accept the proposal from sport court of the Rockies LLC DBA court. for $55,422 and authorize the city manager to negotiate, sign, and execute a contract. And with that, I'll pause and see if council has any questions for me. Great, and I have a question.

How long will the gymnasium and the racket courts be shut down for this process? Excuse me, and then was that noted, was that timeframe noted in the bid process as well?

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Lewis, we did identify the expectation that the contractor would do their work expediently so that the shutdown time was as limited as possible. We have a closure week planned here in the fall that we're hoping that we can bridge some of this in so it won't cause as much impact to the community. We won't have a formal schedule until we actually select a contractor. So I can't say for sure, but the expectation is that they would rotate through the three areas and not all of them would be closed at the same time.

Okay, thank you.

Is there any kind of warranty on the work? I don't know if that's a normal thing or not, but did they include that anywhere in their bids?

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Osborne, there is a warranty. Our standard is one year workmanship and materials. If it's different, Casey is not here, so I can't ask Casey. I would expect that there would be at least the one year. I'd have to verify and get back to you if it's different than that.

Thank you, Creighton. Appreciate it. Yes.

I move the council accept the proposal from Sport Corps of the Rockies, LLC, doing business as court builders of the Rockies for $55,422 and authorize the city manager to negotiate, sign, and execute a contract. Second.

Motion by Osborne, seconded by Wolf.

West? Yes. Swope? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

Osborne? Yes. Randall? Yes. Wolf? Yes. Sproul?

Yes. Moving on to item number 7G, ordinance number 1370, series 2026, an ordinance that amends ordinance 1364, series 2026, creating the airport advisory committee. Amendment to section 3-15, ordinance 1364, series 2026, qualifications of committee members. Presenter is Drew Sanders, city manager.

Yeah, good evening, Mayor and Council. So as you'll recall, back in April, we passed the ordinance authorizing the creation of the Airport Advisory Committee. And at that time, there was some wording in there that said, quote, all committee members must be Montezuma County residents with at least two members residing within the city limits of Cortez and a maximum of two members residing with unincorporated Montezuma County. well uh that was really well intended however uh with the applicant pool that we got after several attempts we only got like one maybe two people that lived in the city most people lived in the county therefore it really is kind of shooting down our efforts so coming back to you on first reading to change the reading of that to read quote All committee members must be Montezuma County residents with a preference for residents of the city of Cortez. That simple change will put us in line to be able to appoint committee members in a short and expedient manner. And with that, I recommend the council approve this on first reading.

I move that the Cortez City Council approve on first reading ordinance number 1370, series 2026, and ordinance amending ordinance 1364, series 2026, to change section 3-15, qualifications of committee members, and set for public hearing and second reading on July 28, 2026. Second.

Motion by West, seconded by Wolf.

Wolf. Randall. Yes. Lewis. Yes. Swope. Yes. Osborne. Yes. West. Yes. Spurl.

Yes. Moving on to item number 78, city council priorities. City of Cortez council priorities 2026 through 2028. Presenter Drew Sanders, city manager.

Mayor and Council continuing on with Council priorities at our Council retreat on May 28th. Council reset some priorities that are based upon the current projected needs for the city for the foreseeable future and serve as guidelines on how we approach future operations. We keep intending these to last three to five fiscal years, but we can tend to get through them fairly quickly. We are very proud of that, but you know, we're gonna set the three to five Request again, and you know if we beat it under promise and over deliver. We're happy to do that. I Sent these out to council some weeks ago. They are attached here I would have to ask mayor. Do you want me to read them out? It's your pleasure is what you want me to do. They will be posted to the website upon passage by council or if there's additions, deletions, or corrections that the council wants me to make.

I think it's really important for the public to hear what our priorities are. I hate to waste the time, but I think it's important. So if you could quickly do those.

Absolutely. This is City of Cortez City Council Priorities 2026 through 2028. City of Cortez is dedicated to fostering a vibrant, resilient, and well-governed community. As we pursue strategic goals and priorities outlined for the 2026-28 cycle, the City Council and municipal staff maintain steadfastly committed to the highest standards of civic transparency and operational accountability. By adopting industry best practices across our fiscal management, infrastructure development, and community partnerships, we ensure that every initiative is executed responsibly and in the best interest of our residents and businesses. These priorities serve as our roadmap to enhance our municipal services, invest in our workforce, and build a stronger foundation for the future of Cortez. The adopted goals and priorities reflected in this document are intended to be realistic, attainable milestones that are directed at some of the most pressing issues affecting our community and local government. City Council priorities commitment to workforce investment the under a bullet points are cultivate a workplace built on trust respect and shared success. Position the city and as an employer of choice within the community and beyond. Offer competitive wages benefits and other incentive incentives that reinforce a long term commitment to talent retention and attraction. Seek to become a local leader in community-wide workforce development. Next, infrastructure and facilities improvements. First bullet point, address deferred maintenance in city-owned parks, facilities, and infrastructure. Strengthen asset management through ongoing use of OpenGov software. Develop and implement a long-term working plan that creates measurable outcomes in support of water supply, treatment, and distribution goals. Establish an effective strategic rate structure in support of water treatment and distribution goals. next urban renewal and economic development first bullet point incentivize redevelopment second tourism and business development next Airport Pursue annexation of the airport and its adjoining business corridor Next seek to achieve a self-sustaining enterprise fund next seek to improve economic viability of fixed based operations and hangar development Next is finance The only bullet point is update financial policies for minimum fund balances investment and revenue management next housing initiatives first bullet point 7th Street Park housing project then there's a sub bullet point of foster a thriving partnership for both park and housing development on 7th Street and next bullet point encourage housing development through favorable policies and land use code last is updating our guiding documents modernize the city charter and code of ordinances revise key non-infrastructure master plans and that concludes the priorities

Thank you. I hated for you to go through that, but I think it's so important that the community know what our priorities are. And so thank you for going through that.

Completely agree, Mayor. And yes, as I said, they will be posted on our website because we do want people to know and understand what the priorities are.

Thank you. Does Council have anything they want to add?

I just want to make one point. A lot of this is like mission statements and ongoing ideas, but a lot of it I think should be tied to specific timelines. I mean, you can't just say address deferred maintenance. I mean, I think that we, it's like when you showed us what the previous council had done, how much was done and that kind of thing. think timelines should be attached it can't to all of these things but a great number of these can be attached to actual timeline since I think that was an important thing to to move forward on okay

And I think next year we're going to reevaluate and see what we've done and I hope that we have met all of our priorities and we're going to depend a lot on our city attorney to to help us accomplish this because there's a lot of stuff that he has to get involved in so yeah, I'm looking forward to working with the city council's rest of the city council is in making all these poor priorities do a nutrition.

All right, I move to approve the City Council priorities as presented. Second.

Motion made by Wolf, seconded by West.

Osborne? Yes. Wolf? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

West? Yes. Swope? Yes. Randall? Yes. Sproul?

Yes.

Moving on to seven, I, intention to participate in the 2026 general election. Formal notice to the Montezuma County Clerk with the intention to participate in the 2026 general election. Presenter is Drew Sanders, city manager.

Yes, mayor council. So we had discussed in the workshop about lodgers tax. We've talked about it in other public meetings. And I don't think it's any secret at this point that the council intends to seek an increase to our lodgers tax by a Tabor election. So to do that, the next phase of that is that we have to submit to the county by July 24th a letter of intent. letting them know that we intend to participate in this election and You know, it's just an official letter of notice. It's just one of the steps we have to take However before the mayor can sign the council has to authorize him to do so and I am submitting this to you Requesting that you do in fact authorize our mayor to sign this Questions concerns

I move to authorize the mayor to sign a letter of intent to the clerk for the city of Cortez to participate in the election. Second.

Motion by West, seconded by Osborne.

Swope? Yes. Lewis? Yes. Osborne? Yes. Randall? Yes. West?

Yes.

Wolfe? Yes. Sproul?

Yes. Moving on to item 7J, prepared draft policy for agendizing city council proclamations. A draft proposed city policy for agendas, agendizing future city council proclamations. Presenter is Drew Sanders, our city manager.

In case you weren't tired of me already, I have one last item for you. You just mentioned the title of Agendizing City Council Proclamations. I think we're at our time in history where it's time for us to develop a formal policy on how this will work. Council, as you know, that on occasion you'll be presented with a proclamation to recognize individuals, groups, organizations, milestones, or events of great importance that directly impact or enrich our local community. We do need to have a policy, it appears, that outlines a fair and reasonable process regarding how a proposed council proclamation is agendized. The clear policy could help or should help the organization avoid misunderstandings and act as a tool to establish fair and transparent process for these matters. This agenda item is a draft document that was presented to Council for its review and comments in weeks past. Normal formal actions taken to this time is hopefully the Council will look at this, discuss, and propose any drafts or amendments to the draft that I can bring back to you for formal adoption in a future meeting.

Any questions from Council? Okay, we don't require a motion on this, and we appreciate you working on it, thank you.

Do we have, do you have any input, council?

Under prohibitions, under, we should probably put something about recognition of politically based organizations. So I would think that would be something that we don't wanna recognize.

And then under the- Can we stop right there? So under prohibitions, you want to outlaw any sort of political party. Okay, so there is a bullet point in there that says partisan political party statements or political campaigns.

Is that not sufficient or- No, I'm talking about organizations.

Okay.

I don't think we wanna recognize any- Okay, organizations. Yeah, we have campaigns, we have statements.

Okay. organizations. Okay, thank you, next.

Under council sponsorship submitting request and under there, I think the question is, is if I were a lay public member, how would I, what would the process be for me to obtain council sponsorship? I mean, it's not really clearly evident, written out in this, how that would happen. So, I mean, I don't have an answer to that, but it's just not clearly written in here how, if I was a member of the Apple organization, or let me see, the Peach organization, and I wanted to have it recognized, how would I bring that, how would I get that to a council member? Would I bring it to the city clerk, and the city clerk could put it out for council members who might be interested in sponsoring it? or would I have to contact a city council member directly? So that would be my question on that one.

Yeah, quickly on that, the answer is yes, all of it. We will take complaints and we will take information from the public on a napkin. So it doesn't matter how that is. In a lot of cases, council members already know folks out there that want to do this. That's probably the easiest way. We can do it for the city clerk. We can do it other ways. If it came through the city clerk, honestly, it would probably go to the mayor first through me because he's my initial direct contact.

But I'm just thinking we should probably have that written in here how it would go about. So if it goes to the mayor, I'm fine with that. I just it just needs to go somewhere. And then in. So I have one other point on your. Process here. When you're done with writing that now. So under presentation and distribution to the city council it goes down to say the mayor reads it the council votes on it and if passed a physical copy is presented to the recipient it should probably just say in there that a signed copy already signed by the mayor is passed to the recipient after sign signature by the mayor because we have that later it's just the apple before the cart before the horse.

Okay so you're in number four presentations and distribution?

Yeah, that just means that the copy that is given to them is given to them after the mayor signs it, because it's got it being given to them before the mayor signs it. So those are just my nitpicking.

Okay, yeah, all right.

I'm not familiar with what a political organization might be so I did a quick Google search I was like I don't know what that would be and my own agree with you on everything my only concern is advocacy groups could fall under a political organization by definition and With my former work in substance abuse, I know like advocacy groups come about for these specific reasons to advocate for Underserved things that I'm thinking like World Children's Day the children likely would not advocate for themselves But I do think it's important to honor some groups like children, animals aren't gonna advocate for themselves, like Arbor Day is one that we wouldn't ever sign because the trees aren't gonna speak up for themselves. So I am a little concerned with organizations. I think I understand what you're getting at. We don't want anyone to financially benefit from this, right? That doesn't make any sense. and we can put that in the policy like financial gain, which I think it already is in the policy, financial gain is not the intent of it.

Yeah, like basically advertising and stuff for a company or something, private organization.

Yes. I think when we were reviewing this, talking about it, did you jog my memory and we specifically said partisan political party statements because you can clearly identify who a party is and a political campaign we because necessarily any other proclamation is gonna be political to some extent. And so if we say no political organizations, that would, as you say, that would include about any advocacy group. And I think that defeats the purpose of having a proclamation process.

agreed yeah I think the difference I I think your example of a tree advocacy group or a or a animal advocacy group is much different than let's say make America great again or something like that because there's a clear political issue with that one. So is there better wording counselor that you might suggest besides political.

Why I think the existing language should cover it obviously if you know I mean anything can be political if if the cattlemen came in and said we want you to honor. You know national cattlemen's Association month or something that they're a political group that's promoting agriculture and food production through confinement agriculture and there are groups on the other side of the equation that said we shouldn't be eating animals at all or we shouldn't be promoting confinement agriculture and I think But the council may want to honor the cattlemen, for instance. And that's just an example off the top of my head. But if it's an actual party or a campaign, which a campaign would be something that's on the ballot or is a political candidate that's running for office, We don't want to honor them or promote them. But I think the council should have discretion if they want to support, you know, the one that's always thrown out there, Tree City. You know, we want to plant more trees. Well, there are some groups that don't think we should be planting trees in a semi-arid desert. And so that becomes a political debate.

So could could you put it's a guideline?

Yeah. And it's a guideline. And you got to have three at least three of you would have to agree to it. And if it's truly a political thing, maybe you don't get three people to agree to it. But if you do, at least it's brought forth and the council can vote it down by a majority if there's some concern that it's too political. But I don't think we can cover every instance because Anyway, just a thought. These are tricky because, again, if your language is too precise, then you may never have any proclamations. If it's not precise enough, then you get into arguments and debates.

Would it be all right to just put proclamation process guidelines? Because the guidelines, we can debate whether or not we like this proclamation or not. And if it's a guideline and it's not a set, it has to be this way. I think we have enough common sense amongst the city council members to realize when there's a political bias or something of that. That's my suggestion.

If you've ever worked with me, I love a handbook, a guideline, a policy, a standard operating procedure, and I think it just builds some transparency among the folks who are doing the working, making the decisions, and the ones who are being acted upon or have to do that thing. So I commend you for making this guideline document and sharing it with us and the public so they have a better understanding of this process too. So thank you for all of this.

You're welcome. I think I have my marching orders and I'll be back.

You have your marching orders. Okay, let's move on to item number eight, draft resolution ordinances. We have none. City attorney's report. No report. I like it. City manager's report.

Mayor and council, I do have a report for you this evening, but in the interest of time, I beg leave to post it on the internet instead.

Wow. That's perfect. City council committee reports will come down to...

I have a library report. First Summer's been crazy with their reading program, very, very popular. They've even gone to Third Thursdays to get more people to sign up for that. The Parks and Rec kids come over for summer camp. They've got an exhibit, the Moments That Made Us exhibit. And they got a lot of regular monthly programs. I think one of the most fascinating things I find that in the month of June is 6,284 people there's their circulation of items with six thousand two hundred and eighty four and So that's a busy. It's a busy very happening place. So should be very pleased and proud They were stood an excellent job there and everybody has everybody's on the ball there and they're all very involved and and it's a very nice place to be Kudos to the library director

With all the rec center, PARFAB master plan is underway. They've been hard, hard, hard, hard at work on that. So very excited that council passed that today. We also had a very windy Celtic fair, but very successful 4th of July that we all enjoyed. So PARFAB's cooking along nicely.

Historic Preservation's last meeting was on June 2nd. The July 7th meeting was canceled. They've suggested revisions to the council members' questions that are asked to the board applicants, so that'll come before us. The Colorado local government 2026 grant still has not been allocated. uh there i just put out a request for a quote on a procedure on a brochure for the ccc camp a trifold one so that's coming out uh hopefully we'll have an evaluations from submissions from graphic designers between july 31st and august 6 is when we're supposed to come up with when they're supposed to come up with a recommendation Letters have gone out to historic property owners, indicating the ones who are eligible but not yet listed on the historic properties list, and the Lohr Foundation covered the postage for that. The Cortez Cultural Center, Hawkins Preserve trail work is going to be financed by Montelor's coalition grant. I'm a little sketchy on the details of that, so I can't give you exacts. The historic, there's a document that's called the Historic Context for Cortez that is listed in the majority of our applications for grants for historic preservation things, and it's been edited to a shorter vision, versions, I'm sorry. August 1st is Colorado Day, 150th anniversary. so that's coming right up and there have been some commemorative plaques historic plaques that have been offered to locally uh local properties that have historic status and those were purchased from a grant from lore so that's all that's up and their next meeting is in august don't have anything okay

We'll move on to the mayor's report on the workshop. We had a very informative presentation by our Judge Beth Padilla on teen court. It was very informative and I think it's going to be good for our community. We also had airport advisory committee interviews. We had four people volunteer to be on that. Committee this time around and we're going to have more During our next council meeting. It's great to see people get involved in our community and volunteer their time Then we discussed our lodgers tax and what the intended purpose of that lodgers tax is going to be for and we Discussed it Quite a bit in length. So, you know what our council members are thinking. I Okay, we'll go on to any other board reports, which we have none. Public participation. Individuals may not comment on items that are on the council agenda during the public participation time. There is no limit to the number of speakers and overall time limit. Speakers have a time limit of three minutes per person, may only speak once, and may not cede time to another commenter. Does anybody have anything to comment? Appears to be all employees were up this late at night. other items of business. I like to use this time for a council member to say something that he just has burning on, or he or she has burning that they wanna talk about. And I do have something that was mentioned to me, and it was by our chief of police, and I completely agree with him. We haven't mentioned the county fair, and Cortez is a big, big part of the county fair, and I just want the public to know it starts July 18th, runs through the second of August, and the exhibitors out to the county fairgrounds is gonna be there July 28th, and if you get the opportunity to go root on these children that are showing their animals, and I think you're gonna get a lot out of it. It really, really is entertaining and it's amazing the amount of work that these kids put into their animals and I think the city of Cortez should show their support. Anybody else have anything?

Mayor Sproul, I move to adjourn.

Second.

Motion made by Lewis, seconded by West.

West? Yes. Swope? Yes. Osborne? Yes. Wolfe? Yes. Randall? Yes. Lewis?

Yes.

Sproul?

Yes.

Adjourned. I want to thank the mayor and council for getting us out of here before 10 o'clock because I would have lost money if we were betting on it.