City Council - workshop

All right, we'll go ahead and get started. Today is Tuesday, July 7th at 2 p.m. We'll get started with our City Council study session. Could I get a roll call, please?

Councillor Kosso.

Here.

Mayor Kutum, lawyer. Here. Mayor Woodruff.

Yeah, here.

Councillor Yazzie. Here. And Councillor Gonzalez. Present.

Thank you. Please get a reading of the Indigenous Land Acknowledgement.

This is a call to honor and respect indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. As residents and visitors of Durango, we're called upon to educate ourselves about the history and cultural heritage of the land that we inhabit. The city of Durango is situated on the ancestral homelands and territories of the Nitu, Ute, Hickory Apache, Pueblos of New Mexico, Hopi-Sinom, Hopi, and Navajo nations. The original stewards of this land were forcibly removed and exposed to countless atrocities by the United States government, including repeatedly broken treaties, forced assimilation, the tragic legacy of Indian boarding schools, and the loss of ancestral homelands. We recognize lasting generational trauma exists within Native communities today. We affirm the continuing importance of ancestral sites to descendant communities as integral to the living cultural landscape. This acknowledgement only becomes meaningful when combined with accountable relationships and informed actions. May this serve as a step towards inclusion and reconciliation.

Thank you. Moving on to agenda item number two, staff presentations. We'll start with prosperity grant update with Mr. Tommy Crosby.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Tommy Crosby, Economic Opportunity Manager in the Prosperity Office. I'm here today to present a grant approval update. We have three grants, three different grant categories that are going to be on tonight's regular meeting agenda. As always, just a quick reminder about the process of how these grants work. applicants are submitted, staff does a preliminary review to ensure that all eligibility requirements are met. If those eligibility requirements are met, those grants then get passed on to a review committee of subject matter experts. Those subject matter experts review individually, then they convene collectively and make a list of grant recommendations to be brought to council on the regular meeting agenda. and city council then approves those grants on the consent agenda at a regular meeting. The only grant that doesn't fit this mold is the Renew Grant. That is one of our more administrative grants. We've intentionally set that up to be quicker, easier, low-hanging fruit for small businesses to apply and receive those grant funds for public-facing property improvements. All of our other grant programs follow the staff review, committee review, and council review model. And as a reminder, all of these documents are included in your regular meeting agenda. Your study session agenda did not include the backup documentation for each of these grant programs. So quick grant approval summary. Again, there's gonna be three grant types that are gonna be up for approval this evening. We have our second and final round, 2026, lodgers tax arts and culture funding. We had, again, a very strong demand, over $400,000 worth of grant requests, and we had just over $80,000 available to invest in arts and culture programs this second round. There'll be eight projects up for recommendation this evening. We're hoping to expend the full remaining amount in the 2026 budget. And after the potential approval tonight, there will be no remaining Lodgers Tax Arts and Culture Grant funds to be distributed in 2026. We're gonna have our third and final round of the Lodgers Tax Local Event Marketing Grant, recommending 17 projects for just over $41,000 to be approved. And you will see that there will be some remaining local event marketing funding in the 2026 budget. Staff will be pursuing the potential creation of a pilot program for a larger scale tier of the local event marketing funds to take advantage of that remaining 2026 fund balance. And then last but not least is the Renew Grant, two projects being recommended for funding, asking for a total of $10,000. This will leave us with just over $1,100 in the 2026 remaining funds for the Renew Grant program. We'll see if we can find a right-sized project for that remaining $1,100. But in all likelihood, tonight may be the final Renew Grants of 2026, and that program budget will be fully spent. almost fully expended after this evening's awards as always i'm happy to answer any questions that council may have regarding any of the grants being presented this evening thank you tommy uh counselor coso

Thanks, Tommy. I appreciate the administration of the grant. In the Renew grant, we've got another parking lot that we're redoing with this money, repaving it. And I'm still fairly opposed to us spending the money on the parking. We've got between this and mountain bike specialists, I cannot remember how much was mountain bike specialists, the last Renew grant approval that we did. Do you remember that? It's $2,000.

Off the top of my head, I can have that number for you by this evening. Off the top of my head, I can't recall that exact dollar amount.

Okay. With a $45,000 budget, it feels like we're at a fourth or a fifth of it's going towards parking lots, and it just doesn't. Les, a comment. I think you're administrating these grants just fine. There's no problem with that. But I guess just going back to council, it just feels like these renew grants are intended to be where people are visibly seeing the businesses improve. So it's facades, it's signage, it's those kind of things. um and this one feels like we are using the the budget to perhaps take care of some parking lot issues that are caused by our recreation programs at durango gymnastics or or whatever that that is contributing to it so it doesn't feel like a bad use of the money it just feels like the wrong budget that this kind of money is coming out of so i don't know if council's got any comments on that or not

I'll just go back to what I said originally that I feel like a weeded, cracked parking lot doesn't do well in my terms of what that public right of way should look at or what you see from a business. And so I understand the spirit behind of wanting to incorporate and add parking lots. So yeah, I think that's a perfectly acceptable use. And I think you guys are probably doing your best to vet out if there are other potential applications that are coming through that might be a little bit more worthy. But I think it's an appropriate use of using that money for parking lots that do have disrepair that do look bad from the public right away. So I think it's perfectly suitable in my opinion.

Actually, I've got a couple other things unrelated to that one. Can I keep going?

Go ahead.

Okay. Tommy, can you talk about the larger tier program that you're potentially talking about? Would folks who have received money in round one or round two be still eligible to receive in a larger tier format, round three?

Eventually, in all likelihood, we would be setting we've been referring to it as the scale tier for the event marketing grant. In all likelihood, those funds would not be fully expended in 2026. And it's going to be there's not going to be many organizations that we think would be able to take advantage of that. So if there is some overlap with the 2026 recipient, i think we would for the right applicant find a path to make it work there's probably only going to be for the scale pilot one or two recipients um as we really want to treat this as a pilot to find the right fit for that new potential avenue that we're we're carving out with the event marketing grant so the 160 000 you don't see that for two

people you see doing some kind of number for two people and having some leftover. Was that a fair summation?

Potentially. And in all transparency, we're actively still designing what that scale program will look like. We haven't nailed down what those dollar amounts will be. We still have some pretty large ranges. We want the program to actually be a reflection of what will result in the largest impact rather than staff creating a program and just throwing it at community.

Okay. And same process as has been before, it'll go through the committees and... Yeah.

The only difference is there would likely be like an intent to apply so we could try to get a feel for how many organizations could actually take advantage of a program of that size. That would be the only difference.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. Great. You answered my question about the larger tier. But looking at the – what was it? The – sorry. Yeah. The $420,000 for the arts and culture round, how many people applied for that? You'd recommended eight, but how many total applied for that grant?

For the second round of applications for arts and culture, we had 23 applicants requesting just over $420,000. that $420,000 square peg needed to fit through a $80,000 round hole. And so it resulted in fewer applicants receiving dollar amounts that are still going to move their projects forward.

Great. Well, I think it's a testament to the program that we have in place that people are applying and they're, they're excited about applying and to have that sort of demand, but that amount of money potentially being asked for, I think it's, it's, it shows that the program's working. So great job to your team. And Catherine, I can't wait to hear from, from you later on. But yeah, I think this is a testament to how well the program is working. So great job on propping that up and keeping it going. So, and, and the whole team. So thank you.

And a big shout out to the community volunteers reviewing those applications. It's no small ask.

I'm sure 23 applications didn't happen to that. All those is, I'm sure, a pretty big task. So thank you for that. And then, yeah, that's all I have. And then, Councilor Gonzalez. Thank you.

And I wanted to comment on... Kip's comments about the parking, which I think it is an eligible expense. And so I think when people apply, they know that they have that option to use it for those funds. So I think broadly speaking, people are applying for things that are eligible. Is that fair?

That's correct. The language in the grant speaks to property improvements, not just building. Dating back the last seven or eight years of the Renew Grant Program, There's a pretty consistent mix of things like sidewalks and parking lots, things like signage, lighting, windows, paint. It just tends to be a little different if you have a new business moving into a property. Maybe the parking lot was recently repaved, maybe the building was recently repainted, so priorities go to different public-facing facade projects.

I think that's an important distinction. People are applying for the parking because it's eligible. I continue to support the work that you're doing. I guess on a separate question, you mentioned that you have more people applying than funding available. I think it speaks to the ease of processing or, I guess, applying for the applications. That's one thing that I'm always concerned about with small businesses when we're applying for funding is that they can be really burdensome. But I suspect this is not. It seems like you have a lot of requests.

Yeah, I like to use the line that every year we try to fine tune the dials a little bit. We've learned a lot as the city's transitioned into a grant making organization over the last handful of years. And we're trying to tow that line of not asking too much for the dollar amounts that are being invested in these organizations and these projects. While at the same time, knowing that if you are requesting free money, you're going to have to provide a little bit of information on the who, what, where, when, why your project.

Great. Well, I've been really impressed with the work so far. So thank you very much.

Councilor Croson.

Tommy, just one quick follow-up question. Why exhaust the funds in July of the year? Is this, I mean, you're just trying to give everybody six months to spend the funds and get it done in 2026?

Correct, yeah. Back to that kind of fine-tuning the dials language. Earlier in the year, we've consistently heard across all of our grant programs, the earlier in the year that folks can figure out if they're actually receiving grant funds or not, the more of a runway that provides. Some of the difficulties that we ran into the earlier rounds of these grant programs in prior years was if we had an August or a September date you to meet the city's financial deadlines of having a project completed and delivered by the end of the year it only allowed a couple months for things to actually get done with the renew grant project program for instance in in My eyes, I think having the funds depleted this early in the year is a great sign. There's an appetite for the program. Businesses are starting to plan earlier in the year. We have great community support from the bid, the chamber. Our planning and building staff are starting to recommend the use of these projects in tandem with certain requirements that they're asking of businesses when they're pulling a building permit or certain land use permits.

earlier in the year tends to be better across all of our grant programs all right thank you council yes i'd like to say thank you tommy because i know this is a lot of work reviewing all the um applications and getting your committees to um rate them and i think the value the city gets from having these programs available is um is really worth the effort and money so thank you

Thank you. And I would like to make sure on the record, I give a shout out to JJ Derosiers. He is really the administrative engine behind all these grant programs, the unsung hero of 100 plus grants a year. So I want to make sure that he gets significant credit for moving these grants forward as well.

Uh, real quick. Um, is it possible Tommy did maybe you already have a portfolio of this, but, um, before and after pictures of some of these renew grants that be good to see kind of what it was before and then what it is afterwards and see what that tax and those tax dollars are impacting those businesses. And would that be, is that, yeah, absolutely.

And we actually just issued our first annual grant report where we tried to include two of those before and after snapshots. One was the La Plata Humane Society had a good before and after photo. I'd be happy to incorporate some of those photos in a grant wrap up a little later in the year. That is one of the requirements that we ask of grant recipients is before they actually receive their final check, they need to fill out as part of their reimbursement request. They need to provide two photos worthy of being included in a social media post or an annual report. Some are better than others, but we can try to make that a little bit more of a marquee component because yeah, they're easy wins.

when it's as black as and white as um you know repainting or repaving or re-landscaping whatever that might be you can get you can get some good shots for sure yeah i'd love that i think that just again it just you know shows how well the program's working and it's easy success stories for us to go out in the community and be like oh you should apply for the renew grant look at what's going on you know over here at this place so um i think that'd be great to have you know in our packets in the future as the year and kind of wrap up of

like really truly how this program is impacting our local small businesses so that'd be great thank you uh counselor lawyer yes i would also like to see that i think that's a great idea um those before and after picks are you still doing the business development assistance with um any of these entities i know you initiated that program years ago when i was on the creative district board but um

Yes. The, the lodgers tax arts and culture program. That's where we have the strongest, strongest presence of that creative business consulting component. We've made some, some changes again, fine tuning the dials where it used to be an optional component. We've made that just, part of the grant program now, where we onboard all grant recipients with at least, at the bare minimum, one consulting session to talk about whether, you know, you get both ends of the spectrum, right? You get first-time artists receiving the largest amount of money they've ever received for a project in their life. They don't have an LLC set up. They don't have a business bank account. They don't know how to pay themselves. That's where we tend to see the largest gains. opposite end of the spectrum, you have Durango Art Center been around 40 plus years. They know the grant landscape like the back of their hand. So there's definitely that spectrum of how used that program gets. And our hope is to develop the local event marketing grant a little bit to try to have some of those similar business consulting components, especially as we look at developing some larger tiers of that grant program as well.

That was my next question. You already answered it and you're already thinking you're smarter than I am. So good job. Is there something we can do for these other grants to kind of help? Because you were saying, you know, doing these grants now versus waiting later, making sure they get deployed, making sure that people have like organized enough to like get them obviously an event like iron horse is going to be way more you know organized and has their ducks in a row versus like a new event or a smaller event and so um i guess that was my question there are we making sure is there like a map are the awards especially like i'm thinking the renew like we're you know updating making sure things look good is there is it geographically being used like not just all downtown you know is it north main is it out in you know boto are we seeing it use geographically? And is there a way we could maybe spread it out a little bit and advertise more to maybe some of the areas that aren't utilizing it that should?

Yeah, absolutely. We've definitely tried to do some very polite, intentional targeting of businesses. Like, for example, if you recall, the subway on North Main, the awning of that was in disrepair for quite a few years. We did multiple attempts of letting them know that this is a city resource that's available. I've been glad to see that on tonight's slate of renew grants, we do have a Bodo request. Bodo and Three Springs tend to be areas that we just get lesser volume. And a lot of times it tends to be word of mouth. You'll, you'll get neighbors. Wow. I loved your new side. I love your new, your new awning. And they let them know, Oh, it's actually via renew grant. And then again, just shout, shout out to the bid in the chamber. They've been good partners in trying to disseminate this information citywide. This is the first year. And I think three or four years where we've depleted the full renew grant budget. So I think we'll, Word has been getting out a lot more in previous years. And that's, again, closer coordination with planning and building, closer coordination with bid and chamber.

Yeah.

I think it was 30,000 last year. But yeah, we had a smaller budget in previous years that we didn't fully expend.

And then the last question, it's still kind of related. I'm thinking about that educational component. I remember when I sat on the board with you, there was people that would submit applications for various grants and whatnot, and they wouldn't quite understand what they needed to give you, or if they would have framed it a different way, they might have scored better. Is there people that are applying for funding that aren't getting it repeatedly? Are we helping people facilitate the grant? Yes.

great you didn't explain that yeah the uh the creative district i'm sorry spoiler alert um over i believe over 85 percent of our lodgers tax arts and culture grant recipients consulted with the creative district um and we've been trying to build that out jj does a really great job for the local event marketing grant um if you get those repeat applicants we have the ability on the back end to see um if someone submitted uh a grant like if you applied for your business three rounds in a row you haven't taken advantage of any of our consulting services we have the ability to see that you've started a draft submission even after you submit while we're doing that that original staff review, if you're just recycling the same broken application, we'll reach out and allow you to open and edit your application. I always tell applications, it's my job to get you grant money. So I wanna help you present the best possible grant application you can. So if we do see those frequent flyers that haven't had success with actually receiving those grant funds, we do our best to lead a horse to water. Sometimes even after, you know, there's definitely a handful of frequent flyers that Catherine and the creative district have met with. They'll get all the feedback in the world. They'll point them as clearly as they can to what a potential successful grant would look like. And they end up to submitting the same application. There's only so much we can do. Yeah.

Excellent. I just want to, on a separate note, say thank you for all your hard work that you continue to do through these programs. The way you build them, the way you develop them, it's phenomenal. And in addition to that, I ran into someone on the street the other day that is working, doing some things for the city. And she said, every person that comes into contact with you specifically, Tommy Crosby, has nothing but nice things to say about you. And that makes you feel good as like a leadership of the city to have someone on our team that, you know, a stranger on the road will come up to me and say, like, you know, he's doing a great job. And everyone in the community that I talk to and that you come into contact with just speaks so highly of you. And so thank you for your continued hard work on behalf of us. Yeah.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

All right. Awesome. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks, y'all. Appreciate it. All right. Moving on to 2.2, the Drango Creative District Q1 update.

Hi everybody, Katherine Waggoner, Executive Director of the Durango Creative District. This is a consolidated report for Q1 and Q2, so there's a lot to review and I'm going to try to be quick. Feel free to give me a signal if you'd like me to slow down. We're going to start with discussing the Public Art Master Plan that we, the last time we presented, presented the totally updated Public Art Master Plan that lists work on both public and private property and also includes a lot of policy information. We've been conducting a lot of updates on that because there were pieces on private property, not necessarily with signage. We distributed a call for feedback. I'm sure some of you may have gotten some comments like, Hey, this piece was left out or that that isn't untitled. There's a title. So we've been consolidating a lot of that information that we're going to be putting into the next version. This is a living document that will get updated annually. Before this, our last formal list of public works is from 2015, especially with lodgers tax and a lot of phenomenal public art that's coming through. It needs annual updating to be up to speed. We also have it online in the public art archive. We're also working with a number of city departments to explore uh potential locations that we could include as addendum in our next version we just had a great meeting with sarah humphrey from parks and rec and we'll be coming back with potential locations to vet potential locations for sculpture to mitigate these question marks of Folks coming to Parks and Rec saying can I put a piece here and like note that's slated for reconstruction So we're gonna have a set list and try to take a more curatorial view so we can really distribute work Throughout the city in various times that coincide with infrastructure projects I'm actually going to let my colleague Chris Warren Who's the chair of the public art master plan committee speak a little bit more about the work we're doing with the city? And then I'll come back to the rest of the presentation

Hello, Council. I'm going to read from my notes so I make sure I actually get everything I want to say. In the March study session, we presented some proposed changes to make public art more proactive with the city and how to align city policies with industry standards. Since March, we've met with the Public Works, the Transportation, and the Parks Department to discuss upcoming city CIP projects for 2027 and beyond and how public art can be integrated into those projects in a holistic and proactive way. In those discussions, it became clear that CIP funding for public art is either a low priority with cost of materials going up across the board, or that CIP dollars have very clear limitations through tax language that have been passed. We've identified possible funding sources for future public art in tandem with CIP projects in the city. Two of those include the Council Determination Fund through the lodgers' tax dollars collected, and also adding language to upcoming reauthorizations of specific city taxes to potentially include a 1% for the art or even a half percent for the art in that actual language. So that money is guaranteed by the voters. um we have identified transportation's rosa avenue rusa avenue cip projects next year that will start this year continuing to next year as a possible public art activation and have identified multiple projects across uh multiple departments that would be great candidates for public art in 2028 and beyond especially the park avenue west cip project there's a lot of opportunities for public art in that area. In addition to identifying possible projects, we've established public art consideration meetings with parks and transportation to occur with those departments and the Durango Creative District when CIP projects are at 30% phase of their design. These meetings will essentially consist of the Creative District looking over the designs when they reach that 30% threshold, offering our suggestions of possible art opportunities, and then letting the departments consider them, do whatever they want with it. We're not trying to add more work. We're trying to stay out of their way, but be a part of the conversation early on, not like when the project's finalized. As Katherine mentioned, we will be drafting up to 20 potential locations for public sculptures to present to Parks Department to help alleviate their workload of people asking them and then saying, we have other stuff we need to do. We're trying to kind of run point man for Parks Department on that. Um, also in that March study session, I showed how moving away from a full reimbursement model for commission public art by the city and moving towards a partial payment upfront final payment upon completion, how moving to that model would, um, align the city with industry standards nationwide for public art. And I'm pleased to announce that the current commission art piece that is being made for the top of Chapman hill is using that model successfully. So I want to give a big shout out to parks department for piloting that model. As a full-time artist myself, I am very happy to see the city moving towards that industry standard. And finally, we have identified the Durango Mesa Park as a possible private public collaboration for public art in the future, leveraging publicly funded infrastructure with potentially privately funded art to create public sculptures, land art, or even a sculpture garden. Thank you.

Just a few more updates in terms of public art. With the public engagement, we are also working on three public tours regarding public art. One of the most exciting one is a collaboration between the Welcome Center, the Creative District, and Transportation to develop a trolley tour. We talked to the Welcome Center about what visitors are looking for, something that's free, low barrier. This would have folks riding the trolley. We're talking about incorporating some information within the signs, within the trolley. We're going to be beta testing that in August, so we'll certainly reach out and give you details so you can give it a whirl. It also includes some training for the trolley drivers, which is pretty fun. And transportation is coordinating how to keep track of the actual writer usage on that. So after the pilot in this September, we should be able to provide some data on that as well. Any questions with public art before I move on?

Catherine, will you be talking about maintenance and maintenance backlog? Are we dealing with that in any way, shape, or form?

The maintenance is funded through Tommy's department. So there is an allocation, and there's a professional person who every year goes through and does a full recon of what condition things are in. We haven't had too many problems thus far, with the exception of the Chapman Hill sculpture. And also from that, we learned a lot about the city's insurance policies for public art, which will also be incorporated into the updated version.

OK, great. Thanks.

Yeah. Very quick update on lodgers tax. I know that Tommy went into this quite in a lot of detail. The Durango Creative District, a big job of what we do is consulting one-on-one with potential applicants in advance and also creating post-award complementary programming. So I'll talk a little bit more about that when I get to First Fridays. But we're trying to use First Fridays as a replacement for Durango Arts Month, which has been defunded, to really highlight the city's success of the Lodgers Tax Arts and Culture Fund. So we're seeing a lot of Durango Creates recipients and also Lodgers Tax recipients specifically create programming that coincide with First Fridays. If you guys were out this past First Friday The wall adjacent to the Toheton parking lot, for example, there was a big projection for a Wildwood dance project that was funded through the CREATES grants. So we're trying to activate things. And also exhibition partnerships with nonprofits who have been awarded through lodgers tax. So, yes, we consulted with 85% of the awardees for the first two rounds if the second round is approved for today. And it's a real thrill to be the boots on the ground and witness all of the entrepreneurship and all these silos becoming connected. A great example is the Boys and Girls Club mural that just was completed. So that was a really great partnership that we were able to forge between the artist who came to one of our information sessions and Boys and Girls Club. We're really trying to suggest that artists, if they are going towards public art, are targeting more, I don't want to say blighted, but less attractive areas of the community. The Durango Creates grant facilitation, the deadline is this Thursday, so you guys will receive an update on round two during the next city council meeting. We'll have all of the results in. Round one saw 17 applicants requesting 65,330, and ultimately a little less than 20,000 went to eight projects, which have been approved from the previous round earlier in the spring. Another big part of what we've been working on is regional creative development. I just presented at the CCI, Colorado Creative Industries Conference in Trinidad. So that's the state's creative industries conference. I highly recommend some of you attend. There's a lot of city council members and mayors who come to this and it's the most inspiring savvy creative conference but i was a part of a panel that discussed the western slope creative consortium that we spearheaded with ridgeway colorado so um we're already seeing the fruits of these collaborations it's 13 creative districts we're meeting quarterly uh via zoom and then we have one larger uh meeting all together this year it will be in october in paonia But we're trying, no matter how much our local economies are supporting artists, it's going to be really hard to get a creative to pay their mortgage from Durango visitors and locals alone. So we're trying to create opportunities to expand these networks. This year, or in 2027, we'll already have two fruits from that project. There's a social justice exhibition that's a statewide show, Originating Telluride, that will be here in January at the Creative District Gallery. And there's also the Space Cowboy exhibition, which is very difficult to describe to people at first. But essentially, it's this interactive installation that will travel for... throughout all 37 creative districts in the state over four years and culminate at the state capitol. So this installation includes a mission control center where each community will record their oral histories and photographs and the stories of those communities and ultimately be displayed at the state capitol. Because we spearheaded the Creative District Consortium on the Western Slope, we're one of the first stops. It's too large to host in our gallery, so it will be at the Welcome Center. which is really exciting. They're becoming a really fun collaborative partner. And then just as a final quick recap for First Fridays, we've seen a huge expansion in participation with First Fridays. We've really been working to create sort of surprising nonprofit collaborations. One of the most exciting recently is we partnered with the Good Food Collective to offer micro grants. So these will have, the first activation was in June on the Catacombs lot area. So to give more opportunities for food trucks and to democratize more of the food industry paired with musical opportunities. So we funded the musicians and they funded the food truck and we co-collaborated in publicizing the event and it was a really big success. That's my quick spiel. Do you guys have any questions or comments?

The only thing I had, Katherine, I remember when I was serving on the Creative Economy Commission before it became the DCD, we talked about the Public Art Master Plan. I felt like it came up almost bimonthly. And to see from all those conversations that we had, feels like years ago now, but probably was, to see where it is now and to see actually start to bear life and to your team and thank you for being the chair and helping us navigate this i am so excited that we're starting to see like the the the genesis of this come from then to now and actually have something physical in our hands i'm really excited i can't wait to take my daughter on it she's really into art and i would just love to be able to like take her to some of these places that nobody knew even existed until this public art master plan came together so thank you i know this was exhaustive i'm sure it was a lot of phone calls a lot of community conversations but what a great way to not only invest yourself in the community but an opportunity to really showcase how creative we are and how far we've come so really excited about this and thank you so much for all the hard work and getting to this to where it is now

Thank you. Yeah, we're really working to make sure Durango is known as a true cultural hub and increase cultural tourism dramatically. There is a safety net in terms of off-season, off-peak season, weather, you know, protected that we can always develop something exciting for visitors and locals both to experience around arts and culture.

Well, once again, I'm amazed at the amount of effort that goes into making Durango creative because my creative bone, I think I didn't get one. We need appreciators too. Yeah. So, you know, when you point out these things, it's like, oh, okay, I'll go take a look because I don't normally look at stuff like that. It's like my brain goes too fast in another direction. But I really do think this partial payment for the artists to do their work is really helpful because it would be hard to do all your work for months and months and then get paid, reimbursed at the end by saving all your receipts and all that. So, yeah. Thank you for your hard work, and I really do appreciate it. So thank you, both of you. Thank you.

Counselor Lawyer?

Yeah, I'll just echo similar sentiments. I remember when I first got into council five years ago, I was on the Creative Economy Commission and we had been talking about a master plan then. So thank you. I'm super excited to see this finally going. Same comments like making sure like the art is equitable around different neighborhoods. I know that's on. We've talked about that for years and years and years. And so I think this is a good way for us to see like it's not just all downtown that we're seeing it. throughout our community. Yeah, exactly. Which is great. Um, I love the idea of the trolley. I'm, I think that's super exciting. Everything you guys are doing. Um, it's just like even better than I thought it could potentially come out. Um, I do think that there's an importance, um, with our team and keeping these art installations looking good as well. Um, you know, it's great that we have these shiny new, beautiful facilities and art installations and all these things, but we have to maintain it as well. And so that it's super important to me

um so we can keep them looking as beautiful as our right now so thank you guys so much thank you that's crystal catherine you've done a great job integrating i did first fridays um and and came down to the event there and and uh four or five of the galleries i think and i think the gallery owners are also doing a really good job of making it inviting to come in and not just go shopping there was an interactive one at earthen vessel there was an interactive one in the rain I thought that was pretty fantastic. It seems like there's good integration. Are you seeing that other people are starting to gravitate towards these first Fridays and try and add on to what you're already trying to accomplish there?

Yeah, definitely. We've had, I think, 15 new participants this year, including April's Gardens and Jimmy's Music. And we've been working really closely with the Gallery Association. Ever since opening our space downtown, we've been able to be much more involved with the downtown community and the bid. So the gallery walks are now going to be on First Fridays. And we're also working with the juggle of all these different events happening on First Fridays. So one fun partnership, which also relates to Lodger's Tax, is the motorcycle rally, who received funding last year create more opportunities for artists. So they are going to have an exhibition up at the fairgrounds, which coincides with September's First Friday. So they've got an issue in terms of parking at the fairgrounds, and it's also the gallery walk, so it's going to be a wild First Friday. But we were able to be the connective tissue with the motorcycle rally. First Friday is the gallery walk and transportation, so we're in discussion with them about not only having free trolley service but also a shuttle so folks can park downtown transportation experience first friday's gallery walks shuttle back and forth to the fairgrounds for the motorcycle rally so i think i think the true beauty of a creative district is having that sinewy connection between all these different creative things going on so we're working collaboratively rather in competition with one another great kudos thanks thank you council gonzalez

I felt like I better just chime in and also say how much I appreciate. I know sometimes I do really enjoy everything that you're doing. And you talked about First Friday. I think Councilor Yazzie mentioned that maybe she's not as inclined. So how do you get people that are not as inclined? I've yet to attend a First Friday, mostly because I feel like it's not family friendly. Oh, it's super family friendly. I mean, I can't go anywhere nice. So how do you encourage families to go when we can't go into side galleries?

Well, you can go inside galleries. I think that's actually a perfect example of what we're trying to refute with it. We're trying to encourage much more unique events or many more unique events. An example, we partnered with Devo to do an exhibition about bike art that included a lot of work by children as well as artifacts and all sorts of things. So we're roping in non, I think we have 50, TEEN PLUS NONPROFIT PARTNERSHIPS. SO NONPROFITS ARE GETTING INVOLVED WITH UNIQUE EVENTS ON FIRST FRIDAYS AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS, WHETHER THAT BE THE CREATIVE DISTRICT COMMUNITY GALLERY OR OTHER ORGANIZATIONS IN TOWN. THE WILDWOOD, WHICH IS PART OF LEGACY ONWARD FOUNDATION, WILDWOOD DANCE COMPANY PRODUCED A DANCE FILM THAT WAS FUNDED THROUGH CREATES AND THEN yeah, did their big projected dance film display at Towiton. So a good example is something like that where we're taking sort of non-traditional cross-sector experiences and putting them, packaging them in a way that is family friendly and inviting. Standard, we don't control the times. We loosely say first Friday is five to eight, but some businesses stay open four to six if that works better for them. And we include that all on our map that we produce.

every month yeah great thank you thank you both so much appreciate it again thank you all right moving on to 2.3 accessory drawing unit update with mrs lopko all right good afternoon mayor members of council jamie lobko your community development director

We are here to talk about accessory dwelling units, which support our strategic plan goal of innovative housing and economic development. So let's recap a little bit. When the city created our ADU program in 2014, we were really on the cutting edge of this, and we were used as an example by other communities. It was a award-winning program that we had when ADUs weren't prevalent. At that point, ADUs were used to increase housing options for families to bring elderly family members back home, bring your kids back home, which I have just done, produce income to assist for homeownership and can be accommodated in existing and proposed neighborhoods. And ADUs are a secondary dwelling unit on the same lot as a primary home. And it can be either attached to the home, integrated within the home, or it can be detached as part of a garage or a separate structure. And ADUs are typically about 1.5% of our housing stock in Durango. So in January of 26, we presented information about ADU permitting to council at your study session. And so part of that presentation was some alternatives for stricter enforcement of our ADU regulations. So the first was a process to address our owner occupancy requirement, which I'll cover in subsequent slides. As part of that, we were going to monitor quarterly through our GIS updates in property ownership to make sure if a property has changed hands, that we're also following up on that owner occupancy requirement. And that was included in our recent compliance efforts. And then lastly was to conduct an information session to share current ADU regulations. And that was done on June 23rd at our Engage Durango Forum. Had about 15 or 20 people there, and several attendees did take the opportunity to speak with planners about specific questions they had related to ADUs. So let's talk about our owner occupancy requirements. The land use and development code requires that either the primary residence or the accessory dwelling unit be owner occupied. And then a notarized and recorded owner occupancy affidavits required to be submitted to the city on a biannual basis. Only one of the units can be rented, and there is an exception in the code that does allow the administrator to grant exceptions to that. There has not been any granted to this point. We do have waivers that exist from the previous program for the pre-1941 units, and we also do have 10 one-time waivers that were issued during the volunteer registration program, and those will be lost if the property is sold. And lastly, noncompliance with these requirements could cause the EDU to be vacated or removed from the property and turned back to a single family dwelling. So I'm giving you a visual of our approved EDUs. Our red dots are our detached EDUs. Our blue dots are our integrated EDUs. I will update the numbers on this in a subsequent slide. We have a couple of new additions to this, but at the time I made this, there was 159 ADUs and 89 of those were detached and 70 were integrated. So 56% of our ADUs are detached. This will represent a slightly lower number than was previously presented to you in January as a result of our compliance efforts. We've had discussions and found that a couple of our ADUs are misclassified and we're working with them to classify them as a duplex. SO THE CHANGE, WE'VE ACTUALLY HAD SIX NEW ADU APPLICATIONS APPROVED IN 2026, THREE DETACHED AND THREE ATTACHED. AND SO THERE WERE TWO IN EN1, TWO IN EN2, ONE IN EN3, AND ONE IN EN5. SO SIX NEW APPLICATIONS. AND WE DID ACTUALLY HAVE ONE APPLICATION SUBMITTED LAST WEEK THAT'S CURRENTLY UNDER REVIEW FOR THE EN1 ZONE FOR A DETACHED UNIT. We also have had three pre-applications in 2026 for ADUs that have not yet been submitted for formal application. So lots of activity with ADUs so far in 2026. So let's look at the current status of our owner occupancy. So it is a biannual requirement that an affidavit be submitted to the city, which has not been enforced up to this point. SO WE ARE LOOKING AT A PROCESS TO BRING THAT INTO COMPLIANCE. FOR NEW ADUs YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH A LIMITED USE PERMITS PROCESS AND THAT WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY RECORD THE AFFIDAVIT INTO OUR SYSTEM AND IT WILL TRIGGER RENEWAL EVERY TWO YEARS. SO THERE WAS ALSO A REQUIREMENT FOR PURCHASE OF NEW HOMES. IF YOU BUY A NEW HOME THAT HAS AN EDU WITH OWNER OCCUPANCY REQUIREMENT WITHIN 60 DAYS YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO NOTARIZE AND RECORD A NEW AFFIDAVIT AND PROVIDE IT TO THE CITY. I will note during our compliance efforts that we've had a lot of pushback on the recording of the affidavit. It is a cost of $43 and a trip to the county for that. So to minimize that, we are only requiring that for the first approval. And you will have to still do the affidavit and notarize it and provide it to us. You can do that online. There is no trip to the county. There is no cost associated with that. So we're trying to minimize the impact by only requiring it the first time. But we do want to make sure it gets recorded. So if somebody does title search on a property, they're aware the owner occupancy is there. So the only other time it would be required is if a property is sold. So the new property owner would then have to record a new owner occupancy affidavit. So to minimize that, we are trying to limit that. So let's talk about our campaign. We sent out letters in March 26, sent out 168 letters, got some compliance, sent out a second letter. in June of 26 sent out 132 letters. The ADUs that were approved in 2025 and 2026 weren't included in this because they already had an active affidavit. So this is only the ones 2024 and before. So before I get into the numbers, I want to update you on the ADU numbers that were slightly different from your packet, and you'll see this on the slide. So we do have a 27, which legal non-conforming, which is the pre-1941s. They were not required to have an affidavit. They're not required to have owner occupancy, and that's in perpetuity. If it's sold, no matter if it's sold or not, that unit can remain non-owner occupied. Um, we do have 10 one-time waivers that were issued in the 2014 program. Um, if those properties are sold, then they will have to be owner occupied. Um, that means we have 128, um, units that require an owner occupancy affidavit. So of that, um, 128, two of them have never been built that we're aware of. Um, two, we've, we've already changed two over to a duplex that were miscategorized. Um, 10 of them are, are 2025 ADUs. Seven are in our 2026 ADUs, and so we have 50 affidavits right now that have been submitted in our system of that. So that means we have 108 of our ADUs that are technically compliant out of the 165 total for a 65% compliance rate. So based on our data, we know approximately about 55 properties that remain noncompliant. Staff's currently working with 13 of those property owners to work towards resolution, and there are approximately about 42 property owners who have not responded to either one of our letters. SO AS A RESULT OF OUR COMPLIANCE LETTERS, WE RECEIVED ABOUT 30 CALLS OR IN-PERSON VISITS FROM PEOPLE ASKING QUESTIONS, MANY OF WHOM WERE UNAWARE OF THE OWNER OCCUPANCY REQUIREMENT. OF THAT 30, FOUR PEOPLE HAVE SAID THEY WILL GIVE US THE OWNER OCCUPANCY AFFIDAVIT, JUST HASN'T BEEN SUBMITTED YET. STILL WORKING ON THAT. FIVE OF THEM, WE'VE ALREADY RECEIVED THE AFFIDAVIT AND THEY'RE GOOD. THREE OF THEM ACTUALLY TURNED OUT TO BE LEGAL NONCONFORMING PRE-1941 UNITS. SO NO OWNER OCCUPANCY REQUIRED. Two were never built. Four of them had a one-time waiver we are unaware of that they provided to us. Two were reclassified as a duplex. Two are under review to be classified as a duplex. Three of the owners have said they intend to decommission the ADU and sign a non-living unit agreement for that. That has not been confirmed yet. And there are five other cases that are active with unique or complex circumstances. So I wanted to share with you some of those complex circumstances that we are getting with some of these calls that we're having. We have some where the property owner is deceased. that the property is in a trust, that the renters are being displaced because of this and they're breaking leases, that a parent owns the property and adult children live on the property, or a parent owns the property and a disabled child and a caretaker live on the property. that an owner lives on the adjacent property but rents the property next door, including the ADU. We have several that have said they've been misled by the owner prior when they purchased the property. They were not aware. And then we have several that are choosing to decommission it, which could be a potential future compliance problem for us, and it also removes housing options from the market. So every situation that we're getting is really unique, sometimes sensitive. And staffs are working directly with each property owner to get compliance. With over 40 property owners that we have not even heard of, it's anticipated we're going to have a lot more unique and complex situations for this. And so achieving full compliance may prove to be difficult. For some, it's not as simple as decommissioning or removing the ADU. For some, it may be selling the property. removing renters and losing income to pay their mortgage, or moving from an existing residence to the property with the ADU. Another issue we're running into is our current lane use code does not define what owner occupancy is. WE HAVE BEEN USING BASICALLY THE PHYSICAL ADDRESS AS LONG AS THE OWNER OF THE PROPERTY IS USING THE PHYSICAL ADDRESS AS THEIR ADDRESS IN THEIR COUNTY TAX RECORDS. THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE DEEMED AS OWNER OCCUPANCY AS THEIR PRIMARY RESIDENCE. OTHER MUNICIPALITIES REQUIRE THINGS LIKE A LAND TITLE, VOTER REGISTRATION OR VEHICLE REGISTRATION TO BE CONSIDERED AS PART OF OWNER OCCUPANCY BUT WE DON'T HAVE THAT BUILT INTO OUR CODE AT THIS POINT. And lastly, staff does continue to discover ADUs and have them reported to us that were never registered as part of the program. So we continue to research those and add to the list, meaning these numbers are going to continue to evolve. So let's talk next steps. If for the people who have not responded to us without a change in direction from council, the next steps for staff would be a third and final letter, which would probably be sent by certified mail and contain a notice of violation, giving them 14 days. to come into compliance that technically they are not compliant with the requirement to provide the owner occupancy every two years. And then after the 14 days, if there were continued no response, our next step would be to issue a citation or summons to court. And lastly, I wanted to put out some other considerations, some things just to think about. First is the option to, similar to what we do for ADU rebate program is a leasing to locals that would allow a property owner to lease both the primary home and the ADU as long as we had like an employment verification that they're both being leased to locals. And this would allow them to continue to rent both units and it could be for a limited amount of time to give the owner time to either figure out if they wanna sell the property, move to the property or decommission the ADU. Second option is considering removing the owner occupancy requirement from our code. Now this has pros and cons. Nationally, there's been municipalities that are eliminating it to encourage the creation of more ADUs, which has generally been considered a more affordable due to their size. So while owner occupancy provides home ownership opportunities, it can also limit the ability for a property owner to get a mortgage if they include this as part of the rental income as part of their income. In addition, removing The owner occupancy may lead to more investment properties, and that may impact the cost of buying a home and provide less ability for housing stock for people to purchase for homeownership. Staff did consider eliminating the owner occupancy in 2019. However, after significant concern from the community, this change was never brought forward. SO ANOTHER OPTION TO CONSIDER IS BECOMING AN ADU SUPPORTIVE JURISDICTION THROUGH THE STATE. SO HOUSE BILL 24-1152 CREATED A MANDATE FOR CERTAIN COMMUNITIES RELATED TO ADUs WHICH DID NOT APPLY TO DURANGO. BUT WE DO HAVE THE OPTION TO BECOME WHAT'S CALLED AN ADU SUPPORTIVE JURISDICTION WHICH WOULD PROVIDE AN AVAILABILITY OF GRANT FUNDS FOR US TO EITHER CREATE OPPORTUNITIES OR TO CREASE COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH ADUs. BUT THAT WILL REQUIRE US TO MAKE SOME CHANGES TO OUR CODE. And the first would be allowing ADUs by right, meaning an administrative process with no public notice to surrounding property owners. It would remove the owner occupancy requirements. We would increase our maximum size from 550 to 750 square feet. And we would remove the requirement for additional parking. Those are things that we would have to do in order to qualify for an ADU supportive jurisdiction. And lastly, there's the option of prorated fees. So during our voluntary registration period, there were prorated fees based on the age of your ADU. So it's something that we've wanted to consider offering to other pre-existing units that are being brought to our attention that are not currently approved. So right now, when people are bringing them to our attention, we are making them go through a limited use process, the limited use permit. It's essentially a paper exercise just to make sure we're tracking the units and that it's approved. But we have also created an inspection process for these. It's not a full inspection. It's just basics for life safety. The problems that we're running into with that is, for example, we have a gentleman right now. We did an inspection. He doesn't have a proper secondary access. He's all for putting it in. He's willing to go to the cost to put that in until he saw what the fees were. And for somebody on a limited income, he couldn't afford to do both. And so the fees are over $7,000 for an ADU, even for pre-existing ones to come into compliance. And so the potential cost of legalizing these units is actually serving as a deterrent for getting proper units to come in and make these legalized units. And I will just put that up there. This is the table that they used prior for the fees. And as you can see, our fees right now are $74.28, which does not include the recording fee of $43 and does not include the DFPD impact fees of $1,317. And like the unit I was talking about, he's from the 1980s, so it would be $3,080 for him versus $74.28 if we were to use that as a guide to go back to the prorated fees.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Lots of information.

I'll leave it there.

Great. Thanks, Jamie.

Jamie, thank you for the presentation. We may have to come back to me. That was a lot of information. We didn't necessarily have all that in our packet as well. So I'll take a swing at a couple of questions, and then I may circle back. First off, you inherited a mess, and I totally understand that. And so I thank you for cleaning up something that you had nothing to do with at the beginning of this whole thing. The pre-1941... units there was no concept that when the property sold these would then come back into compliance with the system the original thought behind these were they had been there before anybody talked about adus and so they should have perpetuity even when sold

They were actually in existence before we had a zoning code. And so that's why it was written that as such. The only way they would have to be brought up to compliance is if they renovated the structure itself to more than 60% of the value of the structure, then they would have to come into compliance.

So this bleeds into another question. What kind of verification process do you have other than the owner saying that it has not had 65% revamping done on it? I mean, nobody was tracking whether these things had changes made to them or not over the last multiple decades, correct?

Yes, sir.

And it probably bleeds into what's the verification that anybody who's sending in affidavits are actually living in their location? Because by default, I think you said all you're doing is matching it against county records to show that there's an address there. So is there any intent on the enforcement side of things to go and double check some of these, even if it's a random sample at times?

Not at this point.

Okay. What is the negative to bringing the pre-1941 and the ones that have been granted waivers into compliance into the program over the course of sales of the property? Do you see anything that's a negative on that?

The one-time waivers, if they're sold, they will come into compliance. They will have to provide the owner occupancy. The pre-1941s, we did talk to Mark Morgan about that just and showed him a couple of copies of the letters that were issued. And based on the way the letters were worded, that we do not have the ability to go back on what we granted them when they were given those letters unless they do the 67%.

We're stuck with that no matter what. Okay. All right. Mayor, I'm going to ponder. Thanks. Great. Councilor Yazzie.

Thank you. That was a good presentation. Okay. So now I'm curious for the 54 that haven't responded and if they continue not to respond, what kind of penalty is there?

The next steps would be for us to issue the notice of violation in certified mail, just ensuring that they actually physically got the letter. And then if they still chose to not respond, our next thing would be to issue a citation or a summons to court.

And then it's up to the judge then? Yes. Oh, okay. All righty. some of my thoughts were the same with kips on the um the pre-1941 to 27. okay and my other question was okay so the the units that you deemed were duplexes what were the definitions to get to that decision

So when we had the voluntary registration program, both ADUs and duplexes were being done at the same time. So a lot of the records got mixed. And some people applied for an ADU when they were a duplex and vice versa. And so staff made a judgment call when they issued the actual final approval as to whether it was an ADU or a duplex. And some of those simply, it was built as a duplex. It was meant to be a duplex. But because their lot size was not sufficient enough for the two units of a duplex, which I believe is 7,500 square feet, staff automatically discounted it to an ADU. So what we've done is if somebody has a property that is sufficient size to be a duplex, we're allowing that property to be a duplex.

Wow.

Okay. One last question. Okay. So for the ADUs, are they in fire compliance with the sprinklers and all that or not? No.

no requirement for fire sprinklers unless you've got three or more units in a building okay thank you right counselor gonzalez the presentation so i i feel like i'm missing something important here so i got the presentation you know um Explain to me, your final slide says other considerations. Yes. So why are you making the recommendations? I think I don't see the connection between the presentation you made and your other considerations.

This is just, I'm showing you what we have now, and there are other things that staff feel are opportunities for us to consider, but did not want to make a recommendation to council without having direction from you to head in one of those directions. We have not formally looked at, okay, if we do away with owner occupancy, what is the impact of that? But if it's something you would like us to consider, that's something that we can research.

And so, for example, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with my slides. Can you go to the slide, the final one? Okay, so remove owner occupancy requirements. So how would that, so for example, some of the things that these other considerations, we'll just take one, for example, lease to locals. So how would that help?

We have several owners who have expressed concern that right now they're in long-term leases on both of these units. So if for me to try to force them to comply with that now within 14 days, they're going to have to break a lease. And they're concerned about the legal ramifications of having to do that and remove somebody from a unit based on us having to do this. And leasing to locals would allow them a period of time if we were to develop that program to go through the life of that lease and then figure out what they want to do at the end of that. Okay.

Okay. I'm following you. I felt like there's some disconnect between what I, the prorated fee part I understood, but, you know, sort of going through it. Okay. Well, those are all, I don't know, pretty big considerations, especially I feel like this is, it hasn't been very long that we are trying to do these implementation of the ADUs. It's only been since March. We haven't even had a whole year, right, of trying to get in compliance to, encourage people to build adus when we made that ordinance change you know not so long ago right did you say that was in april or june anyway not so long ago right so maybe we just need more time um before we make any changes to the existing ordinance and kind of see how things go so thank you for the presentation and the update counselor

Yeah. Thank you, Jamie, for the presentation. I agree in some extent with Councillor Gonzales. It is new. We're just trying to kind of get this off the ground. I appreciate all your efforts that you've done to try to manage this beast that has been thrown into your lap. And I do appreciate the other considerations. I think we're in a balancing act of compliance and making sure we have like the spirit and character of Durango kind of preserved in a way and also balancing what we say our goals are on our strategic plan of affordable housing. And so, you know, my thoughts are as you're saying these are these compliance issues and are these Um, regulations that we're putting these people through, is it just to do it? Or does this help affordable housing? Does it hurt it? Um, you know, and so I think there is a little bit of a, of a balancing act when you're looking at some of these things in my mind as one person. Um. things i would like us as a council to kind of keep an eye on as we're watching this develop a little bit more is like is non-compliance mostly administrative is it intentional um what percentage are actually operating improperly versus simply not filling out paperwork Are citations likely to improve compliance or is it simply to discourage participation? And so I think those are like some things we need to kind of keep a pulse on, you guys as well, obviously, just because it is important that I think the component of ADUs can help affordable housing. But if you're telling someone they owe $7,000 or we're kicking out locals because their owner occupancy isn't there, is that the intention? that we're trying to solve and achieve here. It's a balance, I think, and that's where I'm a little bit struggling as one counselor. Owner occupancy has been, there's lots of communities that have gotten rid of it because of these exact things. And so I guess, do we know, do we have specific case studies that have gotten rid of it and what they've done to I do see the benefit in some ways. It is more local housing if it's not owner occupied. Do we have more bad landlords because of that? Do we not have good oversight of their homes because of it? Again, that balance point. Have you guys done any research yet on that owner occupancy portion or is this just should we go in this direction or not?

We've started to look at it and gather some information about some other local jurisdictions in Colorado. We have not had a chance to reach out to them yet to see about the success of the program. But the general gist is, one, it encourages affordable housing options to do away with the owner occupancy. But some felt like by having the owner occupancy, you were Trying to indirectly regulate noise, light, parking, trash, instead of actually directly regulating those issues of those with your concerns.

Yeah. So for owner occupancy, as one counselor, is owner occupancy actually increasing long-term housing? Does it discourage ADU construction? And what have comparable Colorado communities done? That's what I would want to know, obviously, before I... you know, agreed or disagreed. If our goal is more housing, are our regulations aligned with that goal? And I think that that's super important for us to keep in mind as we're going through this. I don't know, you probably don't have this number off the top of your head, but again, another question I have, how many non-compliant ADUs are causing neighborhood complaints? Like, is there a lot? Is it a little?

Most of our complaints are actually people reporting non-permitted ADUs.

Okay. So not necessarily permanent ADUs that aren't compliant, but non-permitted ADUs, which is another bag of worms. And if owner occupancy disappeared, what impacts do you guys anticipate? You don't know yet. Haven't researched it. That's okay. Okay. I think those are, and then I guess my last question is, is there opportunities to simplify compliance rather than relying on citations? Because if we can simplify it and make it easier to get into compliance, then I think the steps moving forward obviously get a little easier for us. So that's one counselor's thoughts. Thank you.

Great. Councillor Cusso?

Yeah, I'll offer a little bit of a different perspective on some of this. Owner occupancy really creates better properties. I don't think many neighbors that have a lot of ADUs around them would say that when the ADUs are nothing but rentals, that the quality of the neighborhood, the quality of the property is maintained to the level as they are if there's an owner occupancy piece there. I think we've got existing neighborhood quality of life concerns that are as important as the affordable housing. I don't mean to minimize affordable housing, but the neighbors that have been there for 10, 20, 30 years deserve a little bit more consideration than somebody who's trying to make two rentals happen for a variety of reasons. I'm a little confused. How do we discover non-conforming ADUs at this point? Is it just a neighbor?

You mean unpermitted ones?

Unpermitted ones, sorry.

We do still have a list of people who applied during the registry program that did not complete the process. So we do have those to follow up on, but the majority of them are reported by a C-Click fix, or they send staff an email letting them know that they believe there's an unpermitted ADU adjacent. And we do go out and inspect the property to see if that is in fact the case. We do research to see if we have any permits on file for the address.

So there's an enforcement piece there that when there is a complaint, you've got somebody that goes and checks it out to determine if it's that. Okay. I also want to highlight 65%, the population that is compliant, that has been registering, that is following the rules, they need to be considered as well. It's important that we consider the extenuating circumstances that some of the non-conforming folks have. I understand that. I do believe we have the ability to both adjust timelines and fees. And so if we can, by good staff work, by agreement at council, come up with a way to get people these exceptions and these non-conforming people back into the program. And if there is just hurdles that are related to time or fees, I think those are negotiable. So, there's mechanisms to help a lot of folks. No matter what we're talking about the program, I think there's always going to be one or two just hard cases and we'll have to try and take those on as best we can. But it is important to remember that we can monkey with the fees, we can monkey with the timelines so that people can ease out of a long-term lease situation or a financial burden situation, I think, to try and solve this somewhat. I guess the only other thing I need to ask about is really the ability to verify that these affidavits are actual. It seems to me like at some point we have to do some random spot checks just to make sure that the owner actually is living there and they haven't just put their address down for the county and are in Arizona. I don't know. I don't know what the solution on there is, but it's certainly a concern. Thank you.

All right, great. Thanks so much, Jamie. Appreciate your update.

Can I ask one more question? Sorry, are we done?

No, go for it.

If nothing comes out of council, the third letter goes out when? I think the path you're on is set unless council decides to do something different. So when does the third letter go out?

We haven't set a date. The last deadline we offered was June 30th. And we have received a couple of people who have been straggling in to talk to us about things. But we do still have at least 40 people who have not responded to either letter. And so we will have to probably in the next two to three weeks consider sending out the certified letters.

Great. Thank you. Councilor Yazzie.

Okay, one last question, and it's more of a comment, but when I first came on council, I did ask for an update on the ADUs, and from that point, what, three years ago to now, I think we've made great progress with looking at what is out there, because we didn't even have decent numbers of what was out there. So I thank you for all the work you've done because it is a problem that probably doesn't have a complete solution, but if we can manage it, I think that's all we can do. So thank you.

Great. Thanks, Jamie. Moving on to 2.4, process of annexation of the Durango Fire Protection District with Mr. Brammer.

We've got a whole crew coming up today. It's a good afternoon, Mayor and members of council. Thank you for this opportunity today to discuss the process of inclusion of the fire district and what it entails for our residents and our business owners. I'm Bob Bremer, City Manager, and I'm joined today with our CFO, Gloria Pat, Transportation Director, Sarah Hill, and our Fire Chief, Randy Black. This topic aligns in two areas of our strategic plan currently, organizational stewardship and safety and quality of life. And just a quick recap to refresh the council's memory, staff has introduced this topic for inclusion into the district on three prior occasions this year. The first time was on January 6th, 2026, when Robert Finn with Matrix Consulting, along with Chief Black, presented a brief update on the findings of the 2025 evaluation of fire services and future operations. And again, that full report is in your packet for a review again. And on February 3rd, staff presented to the council a presentation on funding priorities, which included conversations regarding the library, transportation, and housing, and the status of each one of those divisions. And on May 4th, I provided the council with a presentation about the fire district history and how the contract with the fire department came to existence, as well as the future electric options and timeframes associated to the upcoming expiration of that fire contract in 2028. REFERENCING THE MATRIX CONSULTING GROUP STUDY RESULTS, HERE ARE THE RECOMMENDATIONS AS WELL AS WHEN OUR CURRENT CONTRACT WILL EXPIRE. I WOULD LIKE TO HIGHLIGHT THE RECOMMENDATION FROM MATRIX CONSULTING WAS TO SEEK A VOTE OF INCLUSION IN THIS DISTRICT AS THE MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD TO CONTINUE OUTSTANDING FIRE SERVICES WITHIN THE COMMUNITY. The other options available to us were a contract renewal, which was estimated to cost between $15 and $18 million a year. We know that price will go up based off the service usage in the population that we have in relation to the rest of the district. Or we could create a miscible fire district, but that cost would be about $86 million to buy out those portions of the fire district currently for operations within the city. IF THE COUNCIL'S DIRECTION IS TO JOIN THE DISTRICT, HERE ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF INCLUSION TO THE DISTRICT IDENTIFIED BY MATRIX CONSULTING. FIRST, IT WOULD BE THE LOWEST PER CAPITAL COST FOR THE RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES. GOVERNANCE INTEGRATION, AND IT'S IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT ACCORDING TO CHIEF BLACK, THIS WOULD PROBABLY PROVIDE THREE SEATS ON THE FIRE BOARD BY CITY RESIDENTS IF WE WENT INTO THAT INCLUSION. There's long-term stability, operational efficiency, and the precedence and feasibility with public support and the viable pathway to continue those fire services within the city itself. And with that introduction, I would like to now pass this off to our CFO, Gloria, to explain the financial component of what this looks like as we seek this opportunity.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Gloria Plath, Chief Financial Officer. As Bob mentioned, we want to review the current mill rate and funding structure for our current agreement with Really, our goal is to show how we're currently funding this agreement and how this would change if, in fact, we did choose inclusion with the district in the future. So, this slide shows over the last period since 2013 of the mill rate for the city and of DFPD and that difference. So, as you can see, in 2017, there was an increase in the mill rate of 2.5 mills up to 5.07. I'm sorry, 5.007. So, this was the same until recently in 2025 when the voters approved an increase up to 4.45 mills for, again, for fire protection services for beginning of 2026 tax year. So the column over to the right is just showing a comparison with DFPD's rate. And the reason for that is because our agreement basically states that the city pays based on the assessed values within the city and with the rate, the mill rate for DFPD. And so then that right column shows the difference in those mill rates. And so that's really how we're basing that amount that we are subsidizing currently from the general fund to pay for fire protection services. And as you can see from the note down below, based on current taxable assessed values and then including the other portions of the agreement that are currently in existence, we also pay a piece for specific ownership tax with the, based on the fire district's rate. and a capital contribution. So right now it's a little over $3.2 million that we're subsidizing from the general fund. So this slide is showing the difference basically in where we are now and where we would need to go if we did in fact become included with the fire district. So we're currently at that 8.537 mils. And the fire district, although we swing back, they're at 11.73. They did have approval to go up to the 12.65, and we know that's where they're going and will be there by 2028. And so that difference, that's why we're showing those two numbers there is the difference in the 4.113 mils. So the city would need to increase to that 12.65 mil rate. in order to annex into the district. So according to our current taxable values that we have now, this is a difference of about $3.2 million in mill levy. If we were to go forward in this manner, this would free up funds in the general fund that are currently subsidizing those components. And I just wanted to comment as well, in case there's any confusion on the slide. So we do show the 9.457 on the top row. That is because that is the total that voters did approve for us to go up to in our rate as well. So there's a 0.92 mils that are still sitting there. It's the same difference as what the fire DISTRICT WILL BE INCREASING TO. THAT IS LIKELY TO BE CONSIDERED IN OUR 2027 BUDGET DISCUSSIONS. BUT WE CURRENTLY HAVE AN APPROVED RATE OF 8.537 AND SO THAT IS THE BASIS FOR COMPARISON THERE. We did want to talk just for a minute. We're talking about the cost of these services. A lot of times it's brought up the per capita cost. Really what that means is a business cost divided by the total population of the community. And so we're currently paying based on that 11.73 mils, so it's just that difference of the .92. mils so there's not really a difference in the per capita cost i think we're showing here a dollar in that increase if we divide it out if we're showing it in this manner manner by per capita by population Of course, we know that property taxes are not evenly distributed among the population, and so they're based on property values. So, this slide is really giving an example of how that is calculated and what that could mean to a taxpayer. So, this is based on a $735,000 home value, and this is just showing that calculation. So, the way that it's calculated is there's an assessment rate, and that is how we get our assessed value. Basically, we multiply that value times that assessment rate, we have our assessed value, and then we multiply that times the mill rate to come to our property tax number. so it's this top row is showing the current property tax at the 8.537 mill rate for the city and then the next row is showing at the 12.65 rate and so that would be a difference in 581 dollars and 392 dollars that annual increase is about 189 dollars divided out monthly would be about 1574. On this slide, we're attempting to give you the same kind of information for commercial property. So we did reach out to La Plata Tax Assessor's Office to try to get an average value for business to use for commercial value. They were not able to provide that based on the varying types of businesses within the city. They did provide a report to help us to try to drill down, but it was pretty difficult. They're the experts as tax assessors. And so at first glance, it looked like maybe this was the $224,757. We did the calculation based on that number. I think that really the $735,000 that we use for residential is a fair number to use. So the assessment rate is different based on the Colorado State assessment rates. And so basically we plug in that assessment rate for the value times the mill rate, and we get our property tax number. So on the $735,000 value of a commercial business, at our current rate, that property tax would be about $1,694. At the increased rate, it would be about $2,510. So that is an annual increase of about $816 divided out monthly at $68. Pass it to the next presenter. Oops.

We have a section at the end, Counselor, if we want to just get through the presentation and we can ask questions at that point, it'd be great. The next part is going to be introduction to Chief Black. He's going to provide us with a little bit of information on the legal options, which he sought out through his counsel, and he's providing that handout to you now.

Hello, Mayor and City Council. I'm Randy Black. I'm your Fire Chief. I passed this copy out so you've got it to reference. It actually has all the statutes in it specific if you've got questions later that Mark can hopefully help answer for you. It also has this in writing and I forward a PDF to City Manager Brammer so he's got it so you have it in the system to be able to display so you've got that as well. What I wanted to go over with you, this document came from our attorneys and our special counsel up in Denver. This is probably the best special district legal firm in the state, and we've been working with them. They actually helped come up with a plan to exclude the city initially after two failed tax attempts to get them into the district. So they came up with the plan of, hey, the only way you can move forward is to try to do this. So the city was excluded in 14, which ultimately kicked the can down the road that you're all trying to solve now. But they are incredibly smart and they took the entire, all the partners, everybody to try to come up with this document and come up with these solutions. to provide some options for you. So I want to, it starts on really on page three under the options. And option one is an inclusion election at the district's full mill levy. You'll see in page one and two, it's got all the kind of the preamble of the laws that dictate special districts, which is what we fall under. And so that's where it's gonna give you the basis that we can't have two different mill levies to be in the district. If you're in a district, everybody has to pay the same thing. And so that's all in the first couple of pages. So option one is basically there's an election that happens and the voters agree to come in to pay the balance of the full mill levy and they come in. It's a single election. It's the fastest, simplest process, the challenge. And you can see the pros and cons that are in here. is that it is that sudden tax increase to come up to what the residents and the district are paying. And I do wanna point that out as Gloria was pointing out those differences and those cost increases, that's what people in the district are currently paying. The challenge that you've got is that right now the city is subsidizing those amounts using the general fund. So to come into the district, the residents have to take that property tax to where they're paying the same rate as anybody in the district or outside of the city is. So it's basically an evening of the playing field. So option one is that inclusion of the single election come up to the mill rate. Option two, and things start getting a little tricky with some of these, is the city does an election and the city over, say, a three-year timeframe slowly increases the mill levy until it gets up to match the fire district. And once that happens, then you have to have another election to do the inclusion into the district. Because we have to have the same, basically, you would be increasing maybe 1.9 mils per year over three years. And at that point, the numbers would match. Then a second election would take place to bring the residences in. So again, the pros for that, the big thing is the financial hit is less per year. So it's a more gradual increase. The drawback is you now have two elections, increased costs to be able to get to that point. Option 3, not likely to be taken, but it's noted in here, is the fire district lowers our mill rate and to be something that's more palatable for the city residents to come up to. But the city makes up the difference across the city and the district to get up to operational funds. So it's a way to ease in. But as you can see in the cons in there, the city is probably not likely to be excited about paying for the district and covering those costs to be able to balance that as we stagger that back in. So it is a legal option, guessing it's probably not one that's going to be at the top of your list, but it is in here with all the details. Option four, And this came up a little bit. If you recall last summer when we all met and started talking on the mill levy increase, we discussed the sales tax and it was not favorable at that time. We didn't get that direction from council. We didn't get that from our board as well. At the time we were competing against the county that was looking at that. But this is basically we look at an offset to the mill levy to where we could go to a lower mill levy and we do a district-wide so city and district sales tax to offset that difference so those are the four legal options that are available um to be able to do the inclusion um i am i know we've got a little bit more i believe in the presentation but obviously still here and available to answer questions once we get to that point

Lastly, we have transportation director Sarah Hill here talked about the impacts that this would have on transit since it does overlap a little bit.

I'm Aaron Council Sarah Hill, transportation director. I'm grateful for the opportunity to represent the Transportation Enterprise Fund in this conversation today. Excuse me. And I'll be giving kind of a description of one way that this funding could directly benefit our community if the fire subsidy is freed up. So the Transportation Enterprise Fund includes transit, parking, and multimodal operations, faces a structural funding gap of $2.2 million a year beyond what existing revenue sources can support. For at least 20 years, the city's relied on a series of one-time or incremental solutions to keep the Transportation Enterprise Fund solvent. Most recently, Council directed the sale of the property to the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad to provide enough funding to cover this year's current budget and the 2027 budget. By the end of 2027, the remaining fund balance is expected to be around $735,000. So that's going to be $1.5 million short of what we need to operate our existing service level in 2028. Excuse me. So at this time next year, as I begin developing the 2028 budget for transit operating, I will be proposing approximately a 50% reduction in transit service if no funding solution is identified. And unfortunately, those service reductions are going to coincide with the first year of the UCI World Mountain Bike Championships. And we're expecting approximately 10,000 additional visitors into town who are going to have a need to be moved around town. followed by an estimated 60,000 people in the immediate years that are following for those events. One perspective that you might hear because I have heard it is that we should treat the transit budget like a household budget, and if we can't afford it, then we should cut the service. It may sound intuitive, but as you all know, one of the reasons that local government exists is to provide services that create a public benefit, even when they don't pay for themselves. And we know that transit does provide benefit to people who never ride the bus. It reduces traffic congestion, lowers parking demand, supports local employers, improves air quality, helps people reach businesses, and provides independence and choice for our community. And then I have included data that we do know about the people that do ride the bus. Nearly two-thirds of our riders, or 64%, are transit dependent. and they depend on Durango Transit as their primary means of transportation. And then the flip side of that statistic is that 36% of our riders choose transit even though they have additional options. RIDERSHIP HAS INCREASED ON DURANGO TRANSIT MORE THAN 100% OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS AND IT'S CONTINUING TO GROW TODAY. OUR RECENT NATIONAL COMMUNITY SURVEY FOUND A 19% IMPROVEMENT IN RESIDENTS' PERCEPTION OF PUBLIC TRANSIT AND THAT EXCEEDS THE NATIONAL BENCHMARK AND OUR RESIDENTS RANKS MOBILITY AS ONE OF OUR COMMUNITY'S HIGHEST PRIORITIES. SO I SAY ALL OF THIS JUST TO ILLUSTRATE THAT THESE ARE NOT EMPTY BUSES DRIVING AROUND TOWN. More than 470,000 passenger trips each year represent people getting to work, medical appointments, school, shopping. And for many residents, transit isn't simply a convenience. It's essential to participating in daily life in Durango. So if we can't close this $2.2 million annual funding gap after 2027, service reductions are unavoidable. FEDERAL LAW REQUIRES THAT WE DO FOLLOW A TITLE VI EQUITY ANALYSIS AND A PUBLIC PROCESS. SO EXACT REDUCTIONS ARE NOT DETERMINED BUT BASED ON THE MAGNITUDE OF WHAT THE REDUCTION HAS TO BE, WE CAN EXPECT SOME COMBINATION OF THE ELIMINATING MICROTRANSIT SERVICE, INCREASING WAIT TIMES FROM TODAY'S 20 OR 30 MINUTES TO AN HOUR OR MORE. decreasing service hours and potentially entire service days, eliminating or reducing existing routes, and reducing number of buses and transit employees. So this fire district decision could be a potential way to finally cover the transit funding gap for the long term and preserve access for the hundreds of thousands of annual rides.

Thank you.

And the last slide before we move into discussion is just a refresher for the council of the different election dates that we have before the expiration of the contract with the fire department. And when we would have to make a decision prior to posting that. And with that, we can certainly move into discussion.

Just an addition on that council, Bob, if you can go to that other last slide. I think the July or the November 3rd is pretty much out just with that timeframe because we're not asking you for a decision, but the possibility scale it would be possible if y'all were like let's go i think the better solution would probably be looking at that april 6 2027 but before kind of coming with any official direction we believed it'd be a good idea to have a discussion with the council first all right thanks counselor coso i think she had her hand up from the previous

getting three, but what's that out of seven?

It's the three in addition. Sorry. I used to sense it's part of the seven.

no the suggestion is three of the seven and it's trying to make sure that from a geographical area we've got to make sure that we are still covering the 325 square miles and we don't end up with people that want to pull the resources and just protect the city limits and ignore the rest of it so we want to make sure that we've got the entire district represented and protected

City's 70-some-odd percent of your service are city-related, right? Okay. So the city's almost three-quarters of the demand for the fire district.

Yes, and 28% of the revenue.

Yeah, yeah. Good point. I'm concerned about the inaccuracy that we've got around figuring out what the commercial impact might be. And so I guess I'm a little worried that we're throwing darts at what an average might be. I don't know if you looked at it from a median perspective, could we run something that says 50% of the properties are above and beyond and get some analysis based on median rather than average?

We can work with the county on that. Basically, the reports that we get are, you know, they have very varied types of properties, several. Yeah. And within those are kind of lumped values. So we don't have a good understanding without working with them. So we can work with them to get some better averages for you or medians. Also, I mean, if we have an idea of, you know, a business we wanted to look at, so the La Plata County Tax Assessor's Office has on their website where you can do a property search and you can look at, you know, property taxes and values. And so you can even drill that down in GIS and look at a specific property if you think, you know, kind of think that might be one that you're kind of wondering about or think that's kind of an average or anyone could do that themselves, a taxpayer.

Laurie, could we do a bell curve that just kind of shows the property values over all property values and at least see where those peaks are? There might be something that's a little bit more illustrated there, but it just seems like we've got a lot more confidence in the residential number than we do in the county number. And it's not you. I get it. It's county data and you're trying to work on somebody else's system, but... I don't know about the rest of the council, but that's that's leaving me a little bit unsure of what this is actually going to mean, because the commercial impact, I think, is what scuttled the last couple of attempts at this for sure. So I think it's going to be important to try and track that down for sure. The options. A couple of questions on the options. Two elections option in that we scale it up and then we have an election to be included in at the second. If that fails, we've scaled up the mill levy already at that point. Are you following me? Am I saying this correctly? So we've scaled the mill levy to say over the course of three years, we've scaled that up. And then we have a second election to say, now we want to be included in the district. If that failed, where do we stand? We've failed.

Either way, you're going to end up surpassing the end of the contract. So there's going to be an extension at some point to get there. This is less dealing with the specifics of the contract. And this is about the specifics of just the inclusion process and the legality surrounding that. So it was providing some options outside of a full single time step in, jump in with both feet option.

So you're hoping for us to maybe rank the options, what we'd like to see and start working on our first and second?

I believe that the request is for you all to make the decision of what direction you want to go. These are the four options that exist to be able to solve that. But my opinion, I'll punt this either to Jose or Bob, is that you all need to make that decision. These are just the four options that we've got for you to be able to get to that point of the inclusion.

Okay. Sorry, counsel. Let me ask one more and then I'll take a breath. The option where we've got a reduction in the mill levy that we're charging back to the businesses because we augmented in some way from the general fund. That is always a two election thing. We could go in, we could say the mill levy is going to be X after three years. We're going to augment X. each of those three years, decreasing each of those three years from the general fund. Is that an option?

I believe that's going to be... Option three, right?

That's option three.

Yes, option three is going to be that staggered piece where... the city, and the example that's in here, we could reduce the district mill levy that was 11.73, I believe, this past year and increase into the 12.65. We could step down to the 8.85, but then the city would need to make up the difference to get us back to probably closer to 12 for next year. So it becomes... a more expensive venture for the city because you're having to cover because everybody has to pay the same you're having to cover the district deficit and the city deficit to get back to the operating expense okay i got a couple other questions but i'll let counselor lawyer go and circle back counselor

Okay. Thank you, guys. Thank you, everyone. Okay. I got questions answered on the board seats, so thank you. There will be no differences with this. If we're integrated, no operational differences, no differences in response times, no differences in staffing, no differences in capital planning, correct?

That is correct. The district has been functioning since 2014 as this is all one. You know, all of our functions, our operations, our stations, our building, our staffing, we treat everything the same. So from the district perspective, nothing changes. The only changes would be the contract to the city and where the revenue comes from. It doesn't even change our revenue at all. It's where it's coming from and then it would eliminate the contract.

And no matter what option we choose, it's all the same. Like in terms of operationally, your staff time, response time, all the things is all the same. The only thing is we need to decide how we're going to fund it.

Correct.

Okay, great. Um, going before going to voters, what do we anticipate for like an educational campaign? Is there, you know, is there enough time for the April election, that sort of thing?

Yes, once we receive direction from council, obviously, are we going to go to ballot? Which ballot are we going to go to? Which option are we going to do for the funding structure? Then, yeah, we'll all be on a roadshow going out there and promoting that and hopefully clarifying all the concerns that they may have and also the potential impacts if this doesn't pass.

Yeah. Um, I, I, with councilor Koso too, the biggest thing for me obviously is the impact of affordability to the city. Right. And trying to balance all that out. Um, and so being able to explain it, right. Being able to take, I'm confused the phased approach and option two, we can't just become included and do a gradual increase. We have to do two elections. Um, okay. What happens if we do the first election? They say, oh, that's very nice city. Thank you for doing a phased approach and supplementing us for three years. But then they deny the inclusion, even though the

I think that's the same question that Kip had, and I don't have an answer for that. I don't see why they wouldn't at that point because, again, you've now exceeded the contract time. The money is now the same, which is really the issue, and that's what it's been from the beginning is with the assessment rates being so much higher for commercial properties, that's always been the push is that going back to the elections, and I believe it was 2008 and 2011, was the city residents, primarily the business owners said, this is a service that we're currently getting for free in their world because it was coming out of the general fund. And you're asking us to pay for an existing service. So it was a new tax for an existing service. The palette, I think, has softened a little bit as we've gotten some of these tax increases that have offset that and they're understanding that that revenue, you know, the money's got to come from somewhere. And then the balance, I mean, all of DMR, there's a lot of commercial areas that are paying off of that schedule that are in the district.

We don't get the seats on the board until we've done the inclusion vote or not? Correct. Okay. So for three years, we'll be... Our taxes will be increasing slowly. We'll be offsetting less and less, but there's no board representation until we've done the inclusion.

And that's the legal piece of it. That's in that basis of you can't be on a board that you're not a part of the district. And to be in the district, everybody has to pay the same. So it is one of those challenges with that.

Can we get four seats and give ourselves an exclusion?

Okay. Those are my biggest questions. The transportation piece is sort of like, I feel like that's next. We know that you're not funded. We know that sewers and water isn't fully funded. We know that we're missing funding for lots of things. But I just want to wrap my head around this first before we decide exactly where it comes from and then the exact impact on commercial. I think we're going to need that when we go to voters. Anyways, there you go.

I had one question. Thanks, Councilor Cosa, for moving down. Option three. So if we end up doing option three and we do a tiered increase of property taxes, but we do the one vote to be included in, Jose and Bob, maybe... if we're paying, the taxpayers are paying incrementally more, but the city's taking on or taking in some of that mill levy to the general fund, correct? So the backfill would be what we're doing now because we're backfilling currently with the mill levy, right? With the property taxes that we collect, we would just then transfer those over to the So if option three is that we slowly increase the mill levy, the taxpayers pay a little bit more before gradually stepping up, but we're still collecting as the city, some of that tax, the property tax is correct, right? We're collecting those property taxes, correct? Am I making sense? For us, in how this goes, I want to make sure I'm really correct with my answer before I- Because we're collecting the mill levy as it stands now and then transferring that over to DFPD as it stands currently. Yes. If we pass option three and gradually increase that, is all of that property tax going to DFPD or do we collect some and then some goes to DFPD?

I believe all of the property tax is going to DFPD. Cause currently right now they get that. Plus we use sales tax funding to offset the offset. Okay.

I was thinking if we got, if we were getting some, then the backfill wouldn't be as onerous for us to, to supplement. Does that make sense?

Correct.

Okay. So how much would we Gloria have to backfill potentially, you know, if option three is potentially the best option?

so you're saying if we incrementally raise the rates if we have option three available and that's what we decide to go with what would that backfill look like okay so it just depends on how we increase that every year and then that would decrease the subsidy so it would still be the revenue of the city until we went into inclusion with the fire district and we're still making we're still trying to make um up to the rate that the fire district has and so unless we you know increased over that rate which we are not discussing then everything would still be going to the to the fire district right but it would just decrease incrementally our subsidy base what is our current subsidy that was about 3.2 million that's how much we pay out of the general fund to dfpd i see okay all right um council gonzalez

um so if we if we went for option two which is the phase city mill levy increase followed by inclusion um that would allow us to have a face and approach and does it impact services in the meanwhile

No, none of these impact any of the services because they're all based on a full budget. All the question is where that revenue is coming from.

Okay. You know, I think as we just proceed, I think anytime we can do a phased-in approach, it's better for the community. Give some time to get used to it, make adjustments, you know, ask questions, and, you know, and then, you know, followed by this other inclusion piece. It's, I don't know, I would feel more comfortable with a type of a phased in approach, just given that, you know, it's significant. And I think anytime we can ease that burden, I guess, and in terms of when it goes to the voters, that doesn't impact your spreadsheet either. Now, whether it's November or April or the following November, even.

because i think that's listed here yeah there's it's basically all those dates were listed are the the elections prior to the end of the contract as was those four election dates um but again none of this affects our our budget our service delivery because the revenue basically stays the same it's all adjusting the math in the background for city residents only so the district is still paying whatever we're going to certify the mill levy out. If it's 12 this next year, they're all paying 12 out of their property tax, and then the city's paying the 5.7, and the balance of that is coming from the residents. So all it is is a math issue in the background.

If it's a three-year phased in and we go past our contract, though, we would have more costs coming out of the city budget in that third year, correct? Correct.

you're gonna have more cost of a second election, then we would also have to figure out what that extension looks like as well. If it's working towards a, hey, we have an approval for this and this is our inclusion and this is our plan, obviously that's different than we have no plan, we're not sure what's happening and that's gonna go forever.

Oops, sorry. Did you hear that? I'll chime back in in a minute. Thank you.

So just a follow-up on the transportation piece then, Sarah. The services are maintaining the current services in 2027. What you've shared here is maintaining current services 2027 and then seeing a really significant decrease in 2028. The way the budget is organized, though, we could start seeing decreased services in 2027, correct?

I'm proposing full level of service for 2027, yeah.

I would suggest that we talk at least about demonstrating to voters what a decrease in services might mean and look like as a ramp up to the election. And I think it's open for council discussion, but I'm not sure that I'd rather see 60% of services over the course of two years than 100% of services and 40% of services in the second year.

I would say the only consideration for that is that we are required to do the title six equity analysis for any service reduction, which can be kind of a lengthy process. So, um, you know, we have made the decision in the past to operate at a hundred percent rather than build a fund balance because that's a little less, um, defensible for our federal funding.

Okay. You just keep throwing complications at this Sarah. Other options for transit support, it is feeling like this is really a binary choice in some ways that if we don't free this money up for transit, transit's toast.

At this point, we don't have another significant enough source to sustain the level beyond 2027. Obviously, that's something I'll keep working on throughout 2027.

You're taking ideas, though?

Yeah, we'll open. If I can, Sarah, because I don't know if that's really fair for Sarah to answer on that, because the plan that was developed was we were going to sell the train parking lot with the understanding of that was going to give us a two-year buffer with operations in transit until another solution came across. Could there possibly be other solutions? Yes. Lodger's tax could be something we could possibly look into and increasing that to determine if that would look at being able to bridge the gap between transit and housing. Because housing is also another one that's still out there that doesn't have the sustainable funding. It's just a different tax and a different method that goes through it. This one was a little bit more clear because of the urgency that we do need to do with the Durango Fire Protection District because If we don't get something done by the end of 28, our costs dramatically will go up and it will be all on the burden of the city where we might have to actually look at some serious cuts throughout other departments within our organization. Unfortunately, just the way the contract is, and it's not a fault to Randy. So anyone who's out here or Chief Black, I do, I want to say that it's just the way the contract was. We have a deadline and we need to find a way to figure out the fire services. And if we could figure that out and on that, the benefit being that we no longer had to supplement it, We could utilize that for transit and possibly housing as well and kill two birds with one stone.

That's all. Hopefully we're going to have some discussion.

Do we do that here or do we do that in our regular meeting?

We can do it in a regular meeting.

We do not have it on agenda yet because this is that one part of placing it on an agenda without counsel kind of being educated about it and at least having an opportunity to ask questions. So what we do here is we present it. We look at being able to present it to you, see if there's questions, see where more information might be needed. From that, we can determine whether maybe we need another study session with answering some of these questions because it looks like a transition. Sales tax looks like something that you would like or property tax. implementation looks like something that's be interested in. But this is a whole different way of we don't really have that opportunity where I can, outside of a public forum, join with you on something like this. Hey, what do you all think? And how do we go from here? So it has to be done publicly. And I know Mark has been very well at educating us on the study sessions, not being able to be given direction.

Just as a reminder, if you get into extensive discussion about options and what your opinions are, you're excluding the public from participating in that when you do it at a study session. So we'd want to have it on a regular meeting agenda where the public could participate in that discussion when you guys are discussing your feelings, your options. In other words, I always encourage you not to telegraph your position on any upcoming matter at a study session. Wait until the regular meeting to do it.

So that being said, then, November 3rd election is really out. We wouldn't even be able to pull a meeting together where we could discuss it. So we are really talking about an April 6th

Yeah, I think that's what I was saying earlier that November 3rd is probably a non-starter for this. So April 6th would probably be the earliest. Does council feel like there needs to be another study session going through more in detail the options, the four options presented and then

I think as long as we can have, I don't know, property tax, uh, lined during the presentation on of the options, you know, I think then we could make a decision about the election. Right. Uh, so you think in a study session or just on a regular agenda item, then we'll have more ability to talk and like hear from the public and make a decision going forward. I mean, we've heard about this quite a bit.

Yeah, I almost feel like we need a whiteboard in the room and start saying what these dates look like. If it's a three-year phase and if it's a two-year phase and what are the numbers associated with that from subsidy from the general fund, from the mill, you know, I'm getting lost in the numbers.

And that could be a part of the presentation maybe for any sort of motion?

It could be, but I keep feeling like the staff comes up, gives us a presentation, and we come up with, well, tweak that one. And then they got to go back and do it again. So I don't know.

There's a way to have like an active spreadsheet.

An active, just a whiteboard or something. But anyway, that might just be one counselor. And I understand that's... It's a good spreadsheet. Sorry. I'd like to see a two-year and three-year phase in. if anybody else is interested as well.

Um, you know, listening to, you know, my, my fellow, um, counselors, um, No matter what happens, we're going to take a hit financially. If we don't join the fire station, the fire district, we're going to probably have to pay more after December 2028. At this point, you know, the residents, you know, in the city had a substantial property tax increase, you know, so no matter what going forward is going to be a really hard, hard thing to push forward. But ultimately, I think the best option for me is option number one. It's clean. We just get the information out there. But at any rate, we have a very good fire department, excellent chief and support services. I do think that this residents here would like to see that continue. So thank you.

So maybe something we'll bring up on our new business today?

don't think that we have to have it under new business like just kind of very similar to i think what we as a council or you as a council us as staff it's a partnership and we're having to be able to listen and learn we can't we we never want to do is or at least under me is put you on a regular agenda item be like here's this big issue here's our recommendation solve it so this is usually that first step of us taking a temperature of here it is ask questions we're able to decipher information We can come back to a regular agenda meeting with these options, with some of the things and comments that we've heard. This is how it plays out. Very similar to what we did with the city hall parking, which options are a no-go, which options are the one that you want to go. And it's a series of what I just call dances and meetings that we get to the point of where we're able to call a council election meeting. And we understand that there's a timeline we want to get out in front of this. And I think we did pretty well with the 2005 sales tax reauthorization. And being able to do that. So we have that. This is absolutely just that first part of we're going to put this out there. It's closer than it was before. It is our intention to get us to that point unless the council says stop. But at this point, it was just the informational side. We'll have other meetings and steps to go through that will kind of get us gathered towards a final outcome.

Great. Any questions or comments? Thank you all so much. Appreciate it. All right, moving on to item number three, proposed new agenda items for discussion. All right, seeing none, Councilor Grosso.

My apologies. Is this where we bring up stuff that we want to be on the city council meeting? This is new study sessions.

This is, remember, this is, I know we get complicated. This is where we try to help. This is a part of if you just have something that you may want to just discuss before even thinking of bringing it up as a new agenda item. This is that opportunity to discuss.

Okay. And I think we've taken care of the powerhouse presentation, correct?

That is correct.

The only other thing that had been floating out there that I just wanted to bring up was opening up on the interviews for the CDC and the FAB, opening it up to any council members that might be interested in being part of the panel. uh hiring committee the interview what am i reviewing yeah the review process the application process for new members so um we talked about it and we've gone through another round of them and um i just wanted to see if council was interested in just opening that up to any council member that might be interested in being part of that since those two committees in particular are most impactful i think that was fine that any counselor could be a part of it at some point in time i don't remember

We do have assigned the interview team of two counselors and board chairs simply from the public meeting process. Doing the interviews in public meetings was uncomfortable for the interview, the candidates.

Yeah. Well, they can be uncomfortable. That's all right. I'm fine putting that either on the new business or whatever we need to talk about.

Anybody else have a objection or positive? No. Okay. Can we throw that on the next new business?

Part of the interviews could be part of the interviews, right? Okay.

Is that need to be reflected in ordinance or resolution?

Oh, I hope not. I think it would just be a resolution, I believe, or a board and commission manual update.

Revision up to Mark.

Resolution.

Final answer. All right. Anything else? All right. Yeah, I guess moving on to adjournment.

Sounds good.

Thanks.