Historic Preservation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, guys. Today is, 02/24/2025, and I am calling the Erie Historic Preservation Advisory Board meeting to order. A pledge of allegiance, please. A pledge of allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

K. Secretary, miss secretary, would you please, do the roll call?

Mister Turner? Here. And Deandrea is absent. Melanie Fuller, present. Rachel Folger? Here. Laura Thomas? Here. David Litsu? Did I hear David? He's not here. And Cesar Jimenez. Here.

And I see council two new council members now.

Yes. Hello. Nice to meet you both.

Nice to meet you.

Happy to be here. Nice to meet you.

Okay. We got counselor O'Connor and counselor Hesomeli. I'm gonna butcher it. So

but welcome. Thank you.

Alright. We do, we do have a quorum. Okay? Has everyone had the opportunity to review the agenda? May I have a motion, please?

Motion to approve the agenda.

A Laura has a motion to approve the agenda. Do I have a second?

Cesar seconds.

Yay. Laura has approved has moved that we accept the agenda as written. Cesar has seconded. All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. It's unanimous. Okay. Has everyone had the opportunity to read the minutes? Did everybody read the minutes?

Yes. Yes.

K. May I have a motion, please?

I can't motion because I wrote them.

So it's

somebody else.

And I and I can't motion, either. So

I'll I'll go for it again. Hey, Sarah. Minutes.

If r has motion, we accept the minutes as written. Any second?

Caesar seconds.

Okay. Laura has motion. We accept the minutes as written, seconded by Caesar. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Carried unanimously. Thank you. Harry, do you see anybody, waiting for, public comment?

I do not.

Okay. Alright. I was able to, as we go through the events, I did update the events with with the appropriate dates. I have I have submitted to the tree board and sustainability board that we will be attending Arbor Day, and we've been granted a table. So we've been granted a space.

So I've asked for table and chairs, and I'll be bringing the tent and supplies. The same for the town fair on May 17.

So where is the event going to be organized? The Pardon? Where is the event going to be organized?

Oh, Arbor Day is at the, the new part of the community center.

Oh, okay. So that's it's the post pavilion by the basketball courts?

Yes. K.

And the tree board did secure a backup space, so it is a rain or shine event?

Yeah. We had to go in was it last year we had to go inside or the year before?

It was last year. You're correct on that.

Yeah. The the library was kind enough for us. They allocated a big space for us. It was great.

Yeah. And they're they were enthusiastic about it, so they're they're more than happy to do it again. So the tree board and, as far as I know, SAB are on board with, having it inside again if needed.

Yeah. For counselor, if you don't mind, I'm gonna say Aneel. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

And Yeah. Counselor O'Connor.

You can just call me Brian.

Yep. Brian. It's as far as as from HPAB's point of view, if there's an event, we're gonna be at it.

Excellent.

So that's why we keep the events up. If there's another event between them, I do not know yet if there's gonna be an airfare. Because I had heard in 2023 that they were looking at doing it every other year. So here we are at 2025, but I haven't heard anything. So I know there's an airfare, and it's right around biscuit day. So we'll have to, see how that goes.

Mike, do you know what time Arbor Day is and what time you would need us at the booth?

Officially, it starts, what, Brian? 09:00?

10:00.

Ten? It's

it's ten to one.

It it's ten to one, but people typically start showing up at nine.

Not necessarily the attendees, but certainly the the exhibitors do.

Yeah. Exhibitors actually get there between eight and 08:30 because they have a lot of stuff to put up. So, but, as far as HPAP goes, nobody needs to be there till, quarter to ten Okay. Because I'll have everything set up by that time.

Thank you.

You're welcome. The town fair, Rachel, I don't know if if the Historic Society is gonna be having a booth then.

At the Arbor Day?

No. At Town Fair.

Oh, yes. We will.

No. Okay. Hopefully, they put us side by side, but that would be too much to ask. So

Well, we can always request it.

Yeah. Okay. Last year, we were on opposite end. Okay. And then biscuit day, I put it on there.

The twentieth is the third Saturday in September. I do not think that the town will cancel it this year. There was quite a few people that asked me why didn't we have biscuit day. And so, from, from our point of view to from a person who works Biscuit Day, and I know you do, Brian, there's a lot of people were not happy that it got canceled. And then it got canceled, and the town didn't do anything to the road. I just don't understand.

Yeah. That that was unfortunate. Now that one and Rachel may be able to speak better to it, but it certainly was unfortunate that didn't happen or at least happen in the way it normally has in the past.

Yes. It was unfortunate considering it was the hundred and fiftieth. And what a year to not have our historical event. But thank you to you council members for voting the other night at the meeting and approving us our grant. So we are full steam ahead, and we've already had a lot of vendors sign up. And so we are looking forward to biscuit day.

Good.

Okay. So am I.

Yeah. Okay. We're going to old business then. Is there an event that I missed outside of the airfare? We don't know yet.

Harry, you gotta bug me. I didn't get a copy of the budget report before the meeting package. So

Yeah. I don't have one from Amy today, but we have the entirety of the new 2025 budget. However, that is $5,000 instead of $10,000 as it has been in the previous two years. I don't know the full discussion that went into that decision. Because what we submitted in terms of our our request was the normal 10,000. We essentially just went off of what we used for previous fiscal years. So, but, yeah, I'm not usually involved in those budget discussions, so I don't actually know the conversation that went into that. But, in any case Yeah.

We only deal with the

tell you what the grant grant expenditures we're hoping for if we get the grant in March.

Yeah. We should know March 3, but, I think what happened is we only used half of it last year. So we got this has happened before. So we may have to rely on our counselors' representatives in case we the deal is is and I'll get to the grant and explain to you, why we need may need more money. K?

Okay. Historic district. And I have a good question. For those of you who are not used to seeing the the the agenda, at the end of it, you you'll see initials. So you got Harry Brennan, Lara Thomas. That's, so it's the person, for the, for the new counselors. That's the individual that's, doing that.

Mike, Anil I'm gonna try and say your last name. Pesaramelli? Did I

get We got Anil?

He has a question.

Oh, you're Anil. You're muted.

Sorry. Oops.

Sorry. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Yeah. So my my question is, like, why did we spend only half last year? Any reasons? What was

Last year, we had a we submitted for, in January, or we submitted for a, the railroad history Uh-huh. Grant, and we didn't get it.

Okay.

So it wasn't until last of the year we thought maybe we had some money with the hundred and fiftieth board, but we didn't. So the supplies that we needed, we bought that with that money, but we only spent about $5,000. So that's why we didn't spend the whole amount because and there's more coming this year. Because every time that we issue a landmark plaque, they're a thousand dollars apiece, and we buy them.

Oh, okay.

Okay. So and I'll get into more of that, but this grant right now that we're for is for surveys. So

Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Did that answer your question?

Yes. It did. Thank you. Okay.

K. Laura?

Yeah. I know that we have a little bit to discuss, Harry, I think, based upon that that email, you passed along. So I don't know if we wanna start there, and then I can we can go from there. I have another thing or two to update.

Sure. Yeah. So, Laura was good enough, yeah, to remind me to meet with my team about the trying to make some progress on the historic district stuff. So, after chatting with some of my team, we we think a good next step before we really get into, like, having our town attorney work on a some kinda actual code language that we would consider. You know, we would like to get sort of a, like, a temperature gauge of old town residents.

And and, you know, I know it's sort of dependent on or or if we're considering a historic district, we would certainly be having discussions about the size of the district, what blocks to include, that kind of thing. So I think that was the sense I got is that it it probably would be good to sort of do a community temperature gauge on that and, details of that, I think, would be stuff we can talk through about whether it would be sort of like a survey or whether these are just you know, I'm not necessarily expecting when we go to door to door, but maybe some mail correspondence might might be helpful too. But another, I think, initial step would be to talk to the council about it. I know we got two council members here. But

Yeah. And we need

to I saw it in your presentation, Mike, for the, semiannual update in March. So I think that could be a good place to have the conversation too and just see see what the sort of political temperature on it is as well.

Hey, Laura. Would you bring the new council members up to speed on what this is?

Yeah. So, basically, we are we have we've been investigating what next steps it would take to establish a historic district here in Erie. There are many historic districts. I don't know if you saw in the packet that was sent for, tonight's meeting. There was kind of an explanation. Did either of you guys see that? Because otherwise, I'm just kinda gonna repeat that.

I've got your email. I was re I had read through it.

Yeah. That explanation for what historic district is and just kinda giving some background and to what bold yeah. Great. To what Boulder and Naiwa and and Longmont, like, it is a common practice throughout Colorado. As you can see, there's 300 historic districts statewide. And so there would be hope to add Erie as one of them considering how many properties, especially in downtown area, I would say, about Main Street to Briggs Street. And then what's is it Evans that's the furthest north to Anderson?

Perry to Evans and Briggs to Maine. Basically, Old Town. Yeah. Right.

And We

currently don't have any properties on Cattell. So

Right. There wouldn't necessarily be reason to expand to that, but the that I I haven't finished the final count. I'm working on making a spreadsheet actually right now of how many properties, what year they were each built, and really determining how many properties that actually is. If I was to guess, I would say it's around 400. And the I I think it's it's all just a discussion of, you know, kinda cart and horse, to be honest.

It's like, do we come to the, property owners with a full idea of what this actually means and would be, and and have them, you know, vote on this. I mean, it's gonna be a conversation that's continuing. Right? We can't just, like, spring it on them. But I also think there is a certain extent of coming to them saying, like, we are interested in doing this, not we're necessarily temperature gauging to see if we're doing this.

That makes me a little nervous to say, like I don't know. It's a semantics thing a little bit. You know? So I don't know. I I I think it's a really delicate situation how we bring this to all of the property owners because there are certain things that do regulate what they can do a little bit.

They are 51% of the people have to approve it of the the individuals within the district, and they basically have to vote to put restrictions on themselves.

Well, and benefits too. There are fit you know,

property value goes up. And Yeah. Your house, if you're in a historic district, your house value goes up. It also puts a, another stamp in the way that if there's a property within that district, it has to go, for historic value before it can be torn down. Mhmm.

Can see where the town is coming from. I think it makes sense before we invest more time and town money in something. If people that actually live in the area don't want it, it seems prudent to be cautious before we really jump in the deep end. I can see where the sound's coming from.

Totally. Yeah. That's why, this is a big PR campaign, Brian. Yeah. So we've been mentioning it when we have meetings that we're we're looking at doing this. But outside of that, we haven't gotten in any details with the town people yet.

What, what's the cutoff age or, yeah, the cutoff age of the homes?

Fifty years.

Fifty years?

Well, there's that, but then the district itself is a boundary no matter what Mhmm. The home is within it. So if it's already built, you know, in in 2022, it still is within the district at this point.

Maybe we could think about having something at our tent at the events this year, and that could be a a starting point to talk to people that come by our tent. I don't know. Just an idea.

I almost think I almost think you need

to get

I'm sorry. Sorry, Mike.

I almost think you have to gauge the interest of the homeowners.

Well, right. Because it doesn't matter if if people in Colliers Hill want it. They're not the ones that are ultimately voting for it. Right? It has to be the homeowners themselves. So, you know, the reason I was creating this spreadsheet and starting to get an idea of just how many, there is you know, maybe we wouldn't wanna go this far yet, but it is something that I think would be beneficial as a part of this whole process, like canvassing software to where you can keep track, who have you talked to, what has been the response, whatnot. Because, yeah, we would we would wanna hear directly from the people.

Yeah. It can be a targeted survey for the people that we have chosen. That way your results would be more accurate and, like, relevant.

Totally. It just is making sure that they get it, you know, that they how it would either require walking those neighborhoods and putting something on their door or, you know

It it's, like, maximizing that because what if only 10% people choose for the 90% people? It wouldn't be beneficial, right, especially if you're putting some restrictions around it as well. Right?

I think that's where it's tough. It's like, we're effectively asking for two votes. We're asking a vote to see, are you interested in it? And then there's gonna have to be a vote of people who actually yeah. I that's what makes me nervous is, like, we're asking for people to see if they want something that we haven't had an opportunity to accurately explain to them what it all is. If that Yeah.

Like a fact sheet of what are the benefits of, being in a historic district might help them, you know, get that motivation to vote and be part of the historic district. But if the participation is less, it'll not be of that use because, you know, the rest of the people might not be interested. Like, we don't know. We haven't gauged that.

Yeah. That's why the cutoff is at 51%. If we don't hit 51%, then it it won't pass. And I'll be, just, you saw the, you saw the presentation that I had, the draft presentation that I had. Mhmm. And we I will be bringing this, mention this before at my briefing to the town council next month.

And as far as

Because council will have its meeting on the '24. We'll have our meeting on the twenty fourth, but the council meeting's the next night, the twenty fifth.

As far as outreach goes, I've been sorry. I did just interrupt.

Alright. I'll I'll go. As far

as outreach, I have been in talks with we we have a couple of their, or or we have a couple planners in our department that are focused or, I guess, actually, just one planner now, but, one planner who's sort of our long range planner, and he has been working a lot on the comprehensive plan. But he also is pretty well versed in public outreach kinda activities. He did a lot of that with the comp plan. So I've actually been in talks with him because he, I think part of the original plan was that there may be sort of a a subsequent document of some kind to specifically focus on the downtown con or the old town context, and just talk about sort of best practices for preserving character, one of which I think obviously is a historic district. So, so I have been talking with him to see if we can kinda combine efforts, and I might actually invite him to a HPAD meeting, maybe next month and just see.

I I actually don't know for sure what what he has planned in terms of schedule or actual outreach activities yet, but that might be an opportunity to sort of combine forces too.

Yeah. I mean, that would make make sense that if there's there's other components to this, I suppose that that that, you know, would happen simultaneously. I think I that's all I'm saying is I just can't do we're already gonna a temperature check being it's it's like like I said, it's like a chicken egg cart horse, however you wanna put it, but it's like getting your presentation out there of, like, if this is what it is, and then have people start to get feedback versus not having much opportunity to have the, quote, unquote, PR campaign for it and then to, you know, then vote for it. I don't know. It it just seems like we're doing the same thing twice a little bit.

And and that's what I just get nervous about is that are we gonna muddy the waters because we don't get I mean, I would love just ideally, like, we would have small groups where we meet with some of the homeowners and say, like, you know, that it is personal so that they are into it. Because I know Lafayette was it Lafayette? No, Lewisville failed trying to get their historic district. And, you know, if you go through Lewisville, there's plenty of lovely properties there and things that should be preserved, but I think you just have to be so careful with this, and that's where I just get anxious. Like, how do how do we do it right?

Right. Right. You don't

wanna That's very realistic. Yeah. Realistically, Brian, we don't anticipate even thinking about coming to vote on this until 2026.

Yeah. It almost makes sense to try to have a community meeting with the with the homeowners in the district or the proposed district.

Yeah. And

just you know, maybe it's it's bringing examples of existing districts around and and what are the what are the, what's the word, parameter guidelines for the districts in Naiwa and the district in Boulder and the district in Longmont? And it Erie could be a blend of those or what makes sense for those homeowners and make what makes sense for the for Erie. And and to me, it's a preservation of the small town feel also Right. Which is important to it's important to to residents outside of the proposed district.

Totally. I ask people, I ask people, Brian, all the time when I, when I mentioned historic district, and they said, why do we need why do we need one? And I say, well, do you want a three story building next to your house? And they say, no. Well, there is a way that we can help stop it.

Yeah. You it can be played on on different angles. One being small town feel, one being historic preservation.

Yeah. And and they both mean the same thing. So but okay. Let's go on to the any more on, historic district? I just wanted to make sure that Brian and Anil were up to speed on what was going on.

Totally. I guess, Harriet, sounds like maybe you and I just need to touch base and and get in touch with whoever else is doing this potential.

Yeah. That works. I I could I guess, Josh is the long range planner. Was thinking of so I could talk with him some more about it. And, and, yeah, I'd be happy to reach out, we can we can touch base on it, Laura.

Cool. Yeah. I think and and I'm happy to, Mike, on the twenty fifth, come and chat a little bit about this and and just, you know, help field questions. I I I think we're we're slowly but surely figuring out next steps.

I'm sorry, guys. I can I can hear you?

Nope. We just lost Mike.

We'll give him a

I I will add just one more thing while we're, to kinda bring up to speed. I was speaking a lot with, Thornton who they're in this process as well, and that's where some of the language is coming and updating our our ordinance. And she said something that's been really effective for them is having, like, a homeowner that we know is already amenable to this and having, like, them host things with their neighbors, you know, just really trying to be thoughtful about who who brings the message to who, knowing some of the dynamics, you know, I'm just throwing out a name, like, say, Richard is a little bit of a curmudgeon or whatever, you know, I I I have no idea. But, like, that we we know how to approach one another, and we don't we're not trying to force this. We don't wanna force this down anyone's throat, but just making sure that it feels like this is something that the the community wants and that those conversations are happening internally, not us necessarily speaking at people.

That that's a good idea. It's like having a community advocate or advocates.

You know? The love. Yeah.

Yeah. I like that idea. And, we could even look into or or talk to maybe, you know, there are handful of people in Old Town that have recently done the landmarking process. And so, you know, presumably, they'd be could be a little bit let's say, you know, it's not scary. You know, there are benefits. This is why I did it.

Exactly. Or if somewhere you know, if, like, the old mind is is amenable to it, it's like, we'll have their backroom or something. Come come chat and learn about this. You know? Just making it a a more personal than just, like, here's a vote. Do yes or no? Like, let's have the conversations, and then, you know, the vote will will will determine that on down the line. We don't have our vice here either, do we?

We don't. No.

Not sure what happens.

I'm the I'm the sole officer here tonight.

Like, the speaking of the house situation.

Should we keep going, Harry?

I think we can. We still oh, there's Mike. Looks like he just hopped back

on. Oh, yeah.

Connecting. There we go.

Alright, guys. I'm sorry.

That's okay.

It happened.

We're just saying lots of nice things about you.

Oh, yeah.

No. I'm just kidding. We're just talking about the historic district a little more.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Alright. Let's go on to the planning district, the planning report.

Yeah. I don't have much. The the one I did wanna mention, that we had talked about couple months back was the, the property where the Old Depot Building is located.

Yeah.

And so I had forwarded comments, or or basically our comments from the last meeting. I had forwarded them through the other planner that's working on it to the developer, and they essentially said they're they're open open to saving it, but they would be sort of up to the town to do it. And I think the their feedback was that they were open to relocating it somewhere. Yeah, not necessarily that they would be willing to pay for it. So so I don't know. I I in terms of time line

If you if you want

go ahead, Mike. Sorry.

You're breaking up a little, Mike.

Yeah. I I was at the rate yeah. It's our it's my interconnection. I'm sorry.

That's okay. That

I gotta I'm gonna would it make a sense if I open the door?

Know what actually helps sometimes is if you turn the if if you want, you could try turning your video camera off. And the, I think the video tends to make it run a little slower. And if it's just the audio,

it's better.

Okay. I alright. Let's see. And then when I was at the rail bark the rail bike, right next to the thing, right below that across the tracks is a is a town or owned property. It's not very big, but we could put the depot right there. Now the thing is is if they could give us a cost on what they think it would cost to move it.

I could ask for that.

Yeah. So, this is something we're definitely gonna have to submit to, the town to ask for the money for. So

Yeah. And so timeline wise, I don't I don't have a good sense. I mean, I I think there's still a ways off from, you know, moving any dirt, anything like that. They still have the, I think, a zoning case they need to get through before they get into even, like, site plan and, some more specific stuff.

So so I don't all

that is to say, don't think they're close to, like, moving dirt yet, but, obviously, this is something we wanna look into ahead of time. And

I I do know there was an offer that didn't pass, so that didn't make it on paper. So it that gave us some extra time for for our council members who may not be aware. 3140 County Road 1, which is across the street from County Line Lumber, is what is the Erie Railroad Depot. And the Hobbs family, grandpa Hobbs, actually bought it and moved it to its present location to save it from destruction. And if you look at where the arrow is pointing, that's the outbuilding that's behind it, and the and the beige roof is the depot.

And right across the tracks, right around I'm trying to point at it. I can't. But if you go to the right of where you are

Oh.

Yeah. If you see the tracks there, that space is owned by the town. So we could there's a small space that's a triangulated space that really can't be used for anything. So that might be a spot that we can move it. We don't have to move it far. It just has to probably a 100 feet.

I think this property is owned well, yeah, it's owned owned by the town, and I think it's, sort of administered or managed by, Parks and Rec, and I think it may be also drainage.

Yeah.

But So, yeah, we'd have to make sure there was a a good spot in there that wasn't gonna put it in harm's way of of drainage.

A recommendation from the rail bike people because they see it all the time.

Yeah. No. I think that's a good idea since it's town owned, right, adjacent to it. So so, yeah, the actually, maybe that's a question I could ask. I don't know if that actually would be a public works or a a parks question, but just ask them about that property and what I'm

not I don't know if it's owned possibility. I don't know if it's owned by Luke or not. I don't know.

So, Harry, since I have the property across the street there, we received the letter about the, you know, the notice to the neighbors about the meeting, which was in January. And then a few days later, we received another letter that the meeting had been permanently canceled. And then a few days later, some tenants moved in to the residence there. So what really is happening there? Are they I mean, I got the impression that they're not moving forward with building there.

Was that a neighborhood meet or a neighborhood meeting notice or not? I'm assuming okay. Not like a planning commission notice.

It was from the planning commission.

It was for the planning Yes. I actually don't know off the top of my head. I haven't heard any updates from the case planner that's working on that.

Okay.

I don't know. I I hadn't heard that it'd been with withdrawn. But, yeah, I I mean, I'm I'll I'll definitely check-in on that now because I haven't heard all this update. So

So

I'll ask her about it tomorrow.

And Yeah. Because there are people living in there now, like Okay. You know, which would make me think that it whatever. The sale didn't go through or whatever, and so they just said, okay. Fine. Let's get some tenants back in there so it's not sitting empty.

Okay. But,

hopefully hopefully, they're being nice to it and not destroying it inside.

Yeah. I'll I'll, I'll ask the other planner tomorrow, and I can, I I can actually always just send an update email to you guys so we don't have to wait till next month's meeting?

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

So I've got a question, about the depot. I am familiar with it. I I'd love the idea, but what is the thought on what its use could be in the future? Museum?

Yeah. You know, I'm shaking my head, but I don't have video. So, yes, we would hopefully use that as, the downtown museum. We currently don't have one. You know I wanna save the miner's tavern sign? The chiropractic people have an original barber pole. We just don't have any place to put this stuff.

I know.

It's too it's too big. So

I know. There's ordinances original ordinances that the town clerk's office has. There's I've got stuff that I there's there's there's a lot of history of Erie around.

And we just don't have any place to put it.

We don't have any place to

put it. The space up at the Wise Homestead is very limited. So Mhmm.

Yeah. Anyway, that's just a thought. Like, if if if, you know, moving the deep depot gains traction, having a thought about what can it be used for, what can the building be used for, and that may guide where it actually goes because looking at that triangle piece of land, it really has no access via road.

True.

And so, you know, that to me, that just helps sells the idea of what what it's the life is. We preserve the depot, and we use it for for the historic preservation of items of Erie.

Yeah. Use it as a use it as the museum. A museum inside a museum.

Exactly. Is

there anything else?

Nope. I shared my thoughts.

Yeah. Thanks. Hey. Thanks for the recommendation on the video, Harry. It did help.

Yeah. Yeah. Your your audio sounds clear now, so going through.

On social media, that's again Laura. I haven't seen Natalie recently. I don't know if you have. After our meeting next month, Laura, I think when I make the presentation to the board, I mean, the town council, maybe we can start putting something on social media. I don't know yet, but that's something we'll have to have to discuss and put it on social media and then, again, have something at at our booth.

If we don't have it ready in in April, we should try for the town fair because that'll be there'll be more part town participants in that one.

That'd be great. Otherwise, yeah, no real updates. Just continue to plot along.

Sure. Okay. And when I mentioned the landmark plaques earlier, according to the HPAB ordinance, we cannot landmark a property before it's been surveyed. Okay? And you may ask why there are so few landmarks in downtown.

Well, after it's surveyed, the nomination form must come from the property owner. So if the property owner does not want his property landmark, there's nothing we can do. And, I'll give you an example. 370 Briggs, for those of you who don't know, was Erie's first hotel. It was the Eggnu Hotel, and it's prior to the turn of the century.

Okay? 1900. And then it became a brothel, of course, so all the miners, but it has a colorful history to it. And I've spoken to Rob who owns the property, and they say no. His wife says they refuse to be told what to do.

So there's and it's really not all that restrictive. I don't care I said, I don't care about the outside. And I said, I mean, I don't care about the inside. I only care about the outside, but they still say no. So now on March 3, after we get the re results, then we have to if we get if we get awarded, then we have to go out for a a bid.

And this is where the $5,000 thing comes in. History Colorado State Historical Fund didn't get as much from as much money as they would normally get federally. So they've capped all the all the grants for CLG, which normally didn't have a cap at all, up to $250,000. Well, now it's capped at 25,000. And doctor Lindsay Flewellen, who's the CLG coordinator at History Colorado, expects 25 properties to be anywhere between 30 and $35,000.

So what we did to sweeten the pot to try to get this grant was we said, in addition to 25,000, we would kick in $6,000. This is before we knew we weren't gonna get $6,000. So but I'm just, telling you, it won't happen immediately. It may not even happen until later, you know, way later in the year, when we select a vendor. But that is, that's what we're a little concerned about having our budget trimmed because we may need it to get this to get this awarded.

And that's why, we're talking about maybe having, you and Anil in our corner. In those properties that are selected, the 25 properties are Eagle Mine, the depot, the rail depot we just talked about, and the middle school because it was Erie's first high school. So those are public properties, if you will, outside of, 22 other, private properties. And we selected these. There's nothing on this that's prior to 1935 that's that's later than 1935 except Eagle Mine because it didn't start till '39.

And it is not only the last existing mine in Erie, it's very close to the last existing mine in in this entire in Weld County or Boulder County. Okay. Cesar, you waited a long time. You're up.

No worries. No worries. Yeah. As far as the tax credits, I believe I I'd started doing some research last year. I think it was December. I created a new folder, Mike, in our shared point, labeled it let me see here. It's a Colorado historic preservation tax credit. Still doing more research. I know the town was mostly interested in this. If there's any other specific information, I was able to find, more statutes from the state.

There's some federal regulations. I'm just not sure how much to compile, if there's something specific you want me to put together, but I'm starting to dump everything that I'm finding there, and then I can organize it later in a more digestible format.

Yeah. I could ask if you have time, maybe not for March, if that's too soon, in the April time frame, if you have an opportunity to put together a short presentation.

Yeah. Of course. Like a slide deck? Yeah.

Of course.

Sure. I'll put together a PowerPoint for us, and then we we're meeting in person, so it would actually be easier. So

Okay. Yeah. Can do.

Okay. Thanks.

Of course.

And then we move on to the did did I send you Bob Rummer's information?

No. I I saw the minutes, but I I didn't see an email.

Oh, alright. I'll I'll do that. I see him every week at church. So and so he's got history galore on the railroad. The only thing about the railroad, it's owned by RTD, so the town really has nothing to do with it. But he's got historical markers and stuff that he could help us with.

Perfect. And, Mike, is this one stored in the, do we have a working document that I can access for this grant application?

We don't have a no. Whatever you create is what we have.

Okay. Are there, the question prompts, are they the same from the last year's application or the year prior?

Yeah. If you see, anything, it's, tax credits have been worked on, over the years by different people, but once they take it on, they seem to resign. So

It's cursed.

Yeah. And Melanie's got a hand up.

I just had a question for the minutes. Did you ask Cesar to put together the PowerPoint for the March meeting or the April meeting?

Let's go April.

Okay. Thank you.

It it gives him time to get it together.

Okay. It.

Sorry. Forgot where we left off with that. Yeah. Okay. So, I guess I would need the question prompts. So you said they'd live somewhere in the SharePoint, or you're gonna Yeah.

It should be on, HPAB SharePoint if it's there.

Okay. I will take a look. And if I can't find it, I'll just, send you a quick email.

Alright.

I I did was able to get in contact with, Patrick, the, I believe, deputy town manager. He has more information of the research the, professor from CSU or CU did last year. He just needs to run a couple things with me. So, hopefully, we get more, context from a DEI standpoint, if there's any. I know there was limited findings from that, study, but, hopefully, we could get some leads and maybe more points on that application, for that specific section.

Yeah. Malcolm always at he says, when am I gonna get tax credit? So

Got yeah.

Asking for it for four years now. So Yeah.

Is Okay. I was just wondering, Mike, I don't or Mike or maybe maybe Cesar, would any of the materials we put together for the survey grant application that we just did, Would any of that be helpful? Maybe not. I mean, it's not obviously, not the same grant application, but I could I'm I'm happy to share. You could poke through it if you want, if there's any of that. I don't know, any language you can leverage or anything like that.

Yeah. That'd be great.

Anything would help.

Yeah. Because I don't know if it comes under tax credits or not, but if you're landmark, it authorizes you up to 5,000 in a in a state historical fund grant. I don't know if they if they fall under the same thing, but you know and you can't get it could be that you can't get tax credits if you're not Landmark, so I don't know. And, and, again and I know Laura is just gonna love this. If we get to tax credits, then, that'll be another, modification to, the ordinances and bylaws.

But that's down the road. So

And that'll be We can do

it we can do it the Historic District. What?

That'll be somebody else's job?

Well, I said someone else's problem to to write rewrite and just go to the pen.

Thanks for all the work you did.

No. It'll be great.

And, Mike, what is the deadline for this grant? I I thought I saw somewhere March 1, but

That's what we were aiming for. I don't think we're gonna make it, so we may have to push this back till on a competitive branch, it's May 1 or October 1. So we may have to target October.

Got it. Okay. The other thing I was looking at, the state housing fund, it was just a match requirement. What would be the match requirement for this The

match requirement for competitive grants is 25%.

Okay. And is that what we leverage our internal budget for, or is that something we ask the the the town to contribute to?

Well, if we submit in October, right, that means we won't we will know what we have to do before next year. So we, will submit that budget because we wouldn't have to pay anything before 2026 for this.

Okay.

But, whatever we come out with where the the contractors or the consultants, whatever they bid, the lowest bidder last time was 25,000. So that left us that left us at $62.50.

And that was, coming out of our our internal budget? Or, again Yeah.

That comes out of HPAB budget. Yes.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay. We go on to the next one. I've been looking over the SharePoint to see what properties aren't there because I have them all on a flash drive. And we still have to get with I'm I I have to meet with the IT department to find out with Gabby and the IT department to figure out how they wanna do this Or if they need a proposal from us or something, I don't know.

They they'll probably have a preferred I mean, I'm sure IT has a preferred method of transferring the files. Or

Yeah. My my flash drive has been scanned by Randy

Okay.

In past, so it's good to go.

Okay. Cool.

And then the last thing I see here is next month on the twenty fifth will be their presentation. I gave you all I included that in the meeting packet. If you have any comments, please get them to me. I have to have them to the town clerk by the March. And I it has to be two weeks before the meeting.

So so if you have any comments, I need them pretty much right away. Thanks. Is there any new business? I guess not. Now our next meeting will be 03/24/2025.

And I said 06:30, but Michelle told us that she's gonna request a training session before the meeting, so she's gonna want everybody there at 06:00. But there she's gonna put out an email tomorrow. She didn't wanna she sent out the email to all the other boards and commissions, but she didn't include us because she didn't wanna confuse tonight's meeting. So we'll we'll get ours tomorrow. So

Yeah. You guys can come check out the new building.

Yeah. I've I've I've been in it a couple times. So

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Because I've been to the council chambers. And I've also been there for the tour.

Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay.

Okay. Alright. If there's nothing else, I call this meeting adjourned.