City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. Welcome to our work session for Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. Our uh first item on our work session agenda is the strategic plan discussion. We'll turn it over to staff. Thank you, Mayor and Councel. Uh today we are joined by Michelle Kennedy in person and Juniper Kim online. Um, so what we're going to do today is Michelle is going to go over the initial draft of the strategic plan while Juniper makes live edits on the screen above. Um, in order for this to work, so we want to make sure that you guys microphones are on so that she can hear you through uh, teams and I'll turn it over to Michelle.

Well, good evening. It's nice to see you all again. Um, we've been hard at work putting a draft together. Um so what you're going to see this evening is um the sum total of the work that we did with you when we came in person and held your plan development session and then the next day a long session with Cody and his team to take your work and um put more um meat on it and then um we worked through several iterative drafts with Cody's team to try to build this out so we could bring it to you in a solid draft um that includes all the uh necessary component parts of a good strategic plan. So you're going to see the mission, the vision, the values, uh the priority areas, the goals for those priorities, the objectives, and the performance measures. It's all here. Um so the purpose of tonight is to walk you through it. It's it's just in a word draft form so we can easily edit it. You'll be able to see any edits that you make right on the screen. Um, we'll walk through it one piece at a time, have some conversation. If you're good with what's there, we don't need to spend any time on it. Um, so what we want to do is spend the time on the things that you might like to change or adjust when um, so we'll walk through the plan piece by piece uh, getting your input and then we'll take your input from this evening and incorporate it into this draft and then it will come back to you as a final document for you to adopt as a city council. So that's the process. Any questions from you all before we get going? And I as I go through um I'll point out some changes that we made as a result of the input that we received from you as part of the process. All right. So, let's start with the mission statement. This is a revised mission statement and I'll point out what's different about this. Um so, the mission statement is

almost the same as your original one, but per your guidance, you wanted to add um something about being a community of choice. So we added that on to the end of the sentence. So it used to read we deliver sustainable citizen-driven services for the health, safety, and welfare of the community and we kept those concepts but we added to advance as the community of choice. So that's the the the change to the mission statement. Any comments or thoughts? I wasn't at the strategic plan. So, I'm just curious if we define what community of choice was.

I think it it was that the spirit of it was this is a desirable place to be, a place that people would choose not only to come to um but to stay. So, people are actively choosing Evans as a place to live.

Thumbs up to the change to the mission statement. Any concerns? All right. So, in the vision statement, it was much longer. One of the pieces, strong pieces of guidance we got from you all was, "Let's tighten it up. Let's make it a little bit more concise. It was pretty wordy. Let's see if we can focus it a little bit more." And so, the words that you really wanted to keep were um economic. You But you you wanted to change from um diverse to resilient. you like that word resilient better because it suggests um you know being able to move with the time. Um you liked to keep the idea of um uh development. Um so that was in the original um infrastructure uh was in there and so you wanted to keep that idea of infrastructure because that's a big area of focus for you all. Um so we tightened it up. Um we focused on economic resil resilient. you wanted to add the concept of being a well-connected community. So, that's a new thought that you wanted to add. And then the idea of opportunity for for residents. And so, we were able to take those key concepts and really shorten it up and make it more more punchy and more succinct.

And the well-connected, is there a different way to say that? I don't know. So the the part behind the well-connected so there was two pieces to the two parts to the conversation. One is that we're connected in a way that people can get around and we're also connected to each other right as residents in the community. I know it just sounds it's just too wordy there but I don't know maybe interconnected or something something different to kind of mean the same thing but just a change of word. Your mic's not on mic. No, I I I understand, but I'm asking questions because I wasn't there

and I'm aware that it was a consensus, but I'm just curious to I mean, right now since it hasn't in essence been approved, it's important to also see if there's a possibility for a different word for it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's, you know, set in stone. I think that wording is just fine the way it is. seems very kind of elementary, but if it was agreed upon, I mean, we can continue with that. It's just my opinion again. I think we're good with it.

All right. You want to move on to the values? So, the decision was to keep the edge values that the employees already know about them. they're kind of embedded in the organizational culture. And what we liked about the statements that go with those values, and we didn't change any of this, we love the statements um for a couple of reasons. One is that they are both internal facing and external facing. And two, they have been part of the culture for a while, and people are aware of this um edge set of values. So we thought that it was good to retain them and they work again in your strategic plan because they are also external facing as well as internal facing. Any comments or thoughts regarding the values? All right. So let's move to the strategic priorities. Um these at map exactly to what you all came up with in your session. you ended up with three pri priorities this time instead of four. Um we thought that that conversation that you had around really focusing was a was a very robust conversation and very indepth in your thought process. Um and this provides brings a lot of focus to your strategic plan. So the three areas that you really want to focus on with intention um over the next several years are economic vitality which is also clearly mentioned in your vision statement, infrastructure which is also mentioned in your vision statement and a a really significant has been a significant area of focus. Then collaborative partnerships and that one is a strong reflection of you can't do all of these things alone, right? you're you're you have limited resources and if you're going to make some changes and

make some improvements, you're going to have to leverage regional relationships in order to to do that. Comments or thoughts about the three strategic priorities? Again, those did not change from your direction and guidance. We took those directly to staff and they built the um the goal statements, the objectives and the performance measures to to um build out those three priorities. All right, I'm seeing hands nodding. I'm going to keep going unless you tell me to stop. Okay. Um okay, the first uh priority is economic vitality. Um and the goal statement is around prosperity for the people who live here. um the idea of a vibrant community, a wellplanned economic environment, so you have business that will be here. You can reinvest in the community, you can strengthen your community and you can ensure growth through the responsible use of public resources and clearly infrastructure supports right your other pillar supports economic vitality as well. So you can see there listed the objectives that staff came up with to support this particular priority. And um we can either go take them one at a time or you can read through the bullet points and pull out the ones that you might like to discuss more. I'm comfortable with however you prefer to do that. So uh just to track you back on what the conversation was. So once we had the priority, we talked about the outcomes that you wanted to achieve in five years. And so the goal statement and the

the accompanying objectives were pu pulled together from those outcomes that you said that you wanted to achieve as a city council. And so that's what you're seeing here. And this I think the staff did a really good job of really honoring um your ideas.

Yeah. So the and staff can help with this too. The wayfinding is really about, you know, signage and prompts in the community and on streets and um in different places uh in the city that help to people to get around and know where to go whether you're walking or driving or biking. Um and also to kind of um also create some additional identity for the city with that wayfinding. So, some branding, city branding with the wayfinding signage. Did I explain that well, staff? Good. Got to check in and make sure I got it right. Any of these that you want to discuss further or you need uh more information about

align city. All right. To align city code to ensure regulatory environment supports development outcomes and go a little bit more about that. I mean I I I pretty much Let me see if it is what I thought it is. Yeah, it's it's really reviewing the codes to make sure that you're going to be able to achieve sort of your longer term vision for the community. that there's nothing in the code that's going to hold you back from some of the things that you've said that you want to do and frankly some of the things that are actually in this plan.

Is there anything more specific that the staff wants to put to that? No, I think the important part of that is just rather than continuing to add to the city code um every now and then, taking time to go back and review and okay, what we have in place in the city code, does it align with the council's vision or does it align with where we're trying to take uh the community and quite frankly, do we have things in there that have been outdated and forgotten and and how do we go through and do some simple housekeeping to make sure that our city code aligns with the community's values, the city council's direction as we move forward. So, we're not just layering code on top of code that should otherwise be addressed.

Got it. Can I ask if is are these bullets on a specific order or they're just kind of random? Okay.

No specific order. I do I do like the identify and implement process processes improvements to create a more efficient service delivery. I think that's important also because as we move forward and as we start building um whether west or um wherever we um decide um it's important to kind of reook at specific areas and even see like for example one of the things um maybe look at our setbacks or see if that is something is a from a safety perspective or look at how we can you know find funding to help or incentivize um builders to do specific things. So, I do like that. I think that's important.

Yeah. And that code review is as Cody described it as really helpful because you want to make sure that you you don't have anything in there that's creating barriers u for the that incentivization of of you know creating a a truly businessfriendly environment environment where people want to develop. Other questions of clarification about the objectives to move on? The the other word the word nodes. Can you uh elaborate on that one? Which one was that? The word nodes in the established corridor features and develop concept plans for commercial and community.

Yes. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask the staff to talk about nodes. So if you recall um back to the February 20 February 24th work session that we had, Councilman Farah had talked about um various points of interest or uh like cluster development along along 11th Avenue or 35th or or 23rd. So that's what that's talking about to create those community nodes and and creating a sense of place not necessarily in one area of town but at various places through town to kind of spread you know spread that sense of community through Evans and I like St. Michaels. That is correct. Gley, right? That is correct.

Does that answer your question? Okay.

All right. You ready to move to the next priority? All right. This next one is about collaborative. Oh. Oh, these are the Sorry, I went too quickly. These are the performance measures. Um, staff did a lot of work on these. And really what they're trying to create here are some ways that will let you know that you're making progress on those objectives towards that priority. And what they have here are the things they really believe they can do within the time frame, right, that they're committing to with those performance measures. So um this is really important for for them to be able to report to you on progress regarding those objectives, but also report progress to the community. Um so they they they were very circumspect and intentional about selecting these milestones and dates and percentages. Um all things that they believe are doable within their current capacity and the performance measures. You know, the objectives make the plan actionable, but the performance measures make it more actionable because it's like, okay, our feet are to the fire because we've committed to these things and we actually said we're going to do them within this time frame or we're going to try to increase or decrease something by a certain amount. Um, all right. Any questions about those

consolidate zip codes? We kind of skipped over the up in the objectives. Yes. Yes. Uh, The zip codes are established by the federal government. How are we going to work to do that? Would you have to work with our rep uh representatives to get that done?

That is correct. We'll work with our federal delegation in Washington DC to to help um consolidate all that under the the single 80620 zip code. So, the goal there is to minimize leakage of sales tax funds that should otherwise come to the city of Evans and and uh so yeah, I'd be working directly with Councilman or I'm sorry, Congressman Evans and um and the the Colorado delegation out there. I'd be in agreement with that, but doesn't that kind of jeopardize what uh saved us last time from Sam's Club moving was we had 80634 out in Grapevine Hollow.

Um I think there were I don't think that's the entire the entire thing that saved us. And and I think one of the things that the staff continually does is work to continually build those relationships with our uh with all of our businesses and and especially Sam's Club. So I think that there's a lot of things that we are doing on a daily basis that help shore that up. Um so I don't I don't think that having 80634 in Evans was necessarily um what saved us if you will. Uh but it's something that we've got to be prudent on in our management of of the daily activities.

Well, it is one it seems like it is one of the major factors towards the end. But um hopefully that I I'm not in favor of having such a small community with split zip codes because it just confuses everything. Sure.

Are you ready to move to collaborative partnerships? All right. So, the goal here is um really looking to leverage intergovernmental and community based partnerships so that you can elevate your regional voice and address community priorities. And this goes back to what I said at the beginning. Um you have limited resources, limited capacity. Um if you want to um advance in some certain areas, you're going to have to do it through partnerships and through collaboration. um not everything can be done on your own. So this is the objectives that you see here with the staff getting creative um about ways in which you can take existing partnerships further and build some new ones and and really strengthen all of them. So give you a moment to read through those and see if there's any that you'd like more information about or you want to talk about adjusting Thoughts, questions?

Got good staff here that have good minds and know how to think about these things. I think just in general, collaborative partnerships are important. um the past nine years I've probably developed some of these but I do agree um especially exploring relationships with UNCC and AS um

two of the trustees I know that just got on so I've been talking to them in regards to coming and speaking to us because we have not seen them at all at least the amount of time that I've been here as a council member I think it's important for them to come and just let us know hey like what's going on you know how we can collaborate and um have maybe our students also get more familiar with them within the city of Evans that decide to go to a two-year institution, but also UNCC. Um, that is important as well is just that connection. Um, and in addition to that, just nonprofits. I think having those relationship with nonprofits is important as well. And then the visibility because it provides visibility for the city. And that's one of the things that I've always kind of stated. Um, people although we're Evans, some people just don't know that we're an actual city, you know, and I and I continue to um see that quite often. They're like, "Oh," I'm like, "Yes, we have our own

government, city government, our own budget, our own and and so it's just there's a disconnect. Even though we're so close to specific cities, there's still that disconnect and they're not aware." So, definitely being more proactive in that end would be fantastic. I think what you'll see too with the performance measures on this one, if you want to scroll down a little bit, Juniper, um that first performance measure, um there's some work that has to be done to figure out um which uh relationships to prioritize and develop. Once that task is done, then I think some new performance measures will be able to come in here because you can have some specific then to those relationships that get prioritized out of that first activity. So, I think the what I'm saying is that um the staff will probably add some performance measures here once they've sused out um which partnerships they're going to prioritize and focus on.

I think one thing one that I would add on here that I don't see is um partnerships with other municipalities. I think we need that diplomacy um in our surrounding areas because we need to be privy on the information that or things that are happening around us as well which I feel is important and it's not in here because we are you know different cities do but up to the city of Evans so I think it's important for us to have so it's connect city officials with peers in other communities other yeah it doesn't say municipalities but right but that's what it says peers though it's not necessarily I mean unless that gets rewarded and

I think the regional stakeholders was written to broad enough to include um other cities. So we we went with a bigger a broader word so it was more encompassing. It could be county, it could be neighboring counties, it could be uh cities throughout the region. Yeah.

I I have one quick thing um for explore relationships with in Ames College. Uh, I'm all for it 100%. I've been saying that for years. Um, I was just wondering, could we throw in the high school? I know that um right the district six because at the junior year level the students are allowed to do internships and things like that and work with other entities on say for example career opportunities or like I said um the uh internship and I I think that would also build pride in our city uh especially if we get uh young people that live here and they see there are opportunities to work here and grow here. Would that be something that we could say or would it just be included with the UNCC and AS because I know the colleges also participate in some of those programs with the high schools.

Does anybody have any um concern about adding the high school to that? Well, I I I wouldn't have concerning the high school, but I think we should word it as district six. District six. Oh, okay. So, um, District 6, UNCC, and Ames College. Yeah. Okay. Juniper just made that change. Doesn't have an E in it.

Oh, Ames. It doesn't have an E. Okay, that's right. I remember seeing the sign on the road. Thank you. And I note that uh the G I think it's just a gly interfaith organization has a uh has a greater uh contact with UNCC and as at least in the context of the Holocaust remembrances and they've had that for decades I guess but Uh but we're right there. Uh no one's uh we used to have people that come from uh district 6 to the uh citizens police advisory board, but uh that's no longer in in effect. And but there's nobody's really come and presented to council and give us an update except for the superintendent of district 6, but uh nobody from the trustee board has ever come in from Ames or UNCC. I think the staff are really interested in seeing if they can find a way to create um the relationships that would and and and figure out how it can be workable for the city to actually bring in some interns. It's a lot of work. Um, and it it really takes some capacity, you know, inside the city to do it, but if you can make it work, it can be a real advantage, not only for the city, but for those institutions and for the young people um that are there. I agree. My cousin actually interned for the city of Evans. um and she is a high school student and she's um the only Better Scholar um she got a scholarship um for to go to college and so I mean it just it helps you know children really pursue their interest.

Yeah. And I'd say the one big thing that's holding us back from bringing more interns in at this point is just where do we put them? Uh we we don't have a lot of spare office space at this point. However, as we finish the police station and as we go through the renovation uh here at city hall, then we'll have more more workspace to to be able to integrate interns in. We've got a lot of great things going on. If you look at everything going on in engineering, uh the projects we've got going on, the clerk's office, we've got a lot going on. Uh so, just spread out throughout the entire city. Um, you know, we've always got our finance team busy and and so there's a lot of great things that we do here at the city of Evans that I would love to showcase uh with with more interns from District 6. Um, and and and my goal is is after we get uh some of this space renovated and we have more more workspace, then we can we can have more integration with that.

Thanks everyone. Okay, thumbs up. Great. Okay. And then the third strategic priority or pillar is infrastructure. Here there I think this one probably received the most conversation from you all in your planning session. A lot of conversation about um being able to meet future community needs and have um long-term sustainability for the for the city. Give you a moment to read. There's four objectives there. focused on the CIP, engineering and development, project management and utility codes. Each one of these, I know four doesn't seem like a lot, but each one of these is a heavy lift. There's a lot in each of these. Any thoughts, questions, anything you see missing from this objective or I'm sorry, this uh pillar?

I do. So, the first one I and I'm sure these are broad and again because I I was there at the first meeting, not the sec the last meeting that you all had to kind of hone in on what this was going to look like, but um one of the things that I would like to see especially when it comes to uh infrastructure, it's like a pipeline of like funding. So, like how do how are we implementing funding uh processes within every single component of infrastructure? because there there needs to be a plan for that as well. Especially when you're grant funding, you need to have a timeline and you need to hit Q um Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 in in advance. So, I wanted to I want to see some kind of structure like that that we're we've implemented and um woven into any type of big project, capital project that we have within our city.

So, I don't think that needs to be I mean that's already said. I mean we we always go and get money when we can and when it's available. It doesn't mean it's always available. I mean that's just a given on any project that if there's funding available, we go after it. I don't think it ne necessarily means needs to be specified. Staff has done a great job over the years even even through the MO and everything. When there's what little money that's available, we go after it. what we get is what we get and that's just always a given.

But that's working blindly. I think you need to have a plan with anything, especially when it comes to funding. You kind of know already in advance, especially when it comes to congressional funding, exactly what hits in the congressional year and they're pretty much the same thing over every single year. So, you can strategize and create a plan to be able to hit any given year that you have. If you have a water project, boom, let's make sure that congressionally we're we're we're applying for this. Or the next year we have, you know, road stuff. Okay, we know that hits in Q3, so let's make sure that in Q3 we're we're approaching that. So there needs to be a plan with everything, especially when it comes to funding and you have the ability to create a plan. I just think just getting it when you think you need it. No, you have to strategize, especially when you have a capital improvement plan, you know what's coming up the pipeline. So you start already making a plan for that. Just my opinion.

Staff already does that. I would like to see that plan if there is a timeline. Do we have a timeline and a plan for um congressional funding or any kind of funding for projects for each quarter? I do not have a defined plan on my desk. Jackie,

a lot of times congressional uh directed spending comes out at the same time every year as well as Yeah. as DA grants if we see some of those that come around at the same time. You know, SRF eligibility is a part of that that we have to fill out to make sure the projects are on the SRF eligibility survey in order to apply for the congressional directive spending. So, we do talk about that during the time frame that the SRF is open so we can see what we can do the following year on uh CDS funding. So, do we have like a timeline and a plan for that? Because I know 2020 27 just popped up in January. So, um I know

I'd be curious to see what we applied for for 2027 projects. So I know we are working on seeing what is prioritized for the capital improvement projects right now and I can discuss with uh engineering and public works and see what's made for uh ready to put shovels and ground for 2027 as well but 2026 just closed. So we have about a year until the next one opens. But I think that for congressional spending for 2027 it just it closed. So if we didn't apply for anything then we don't have the opportunity to go in for money. Sorry. Yes. was due in 2026, but it was for fiscal year 2027 that um I just submitted some projects for and once it opens again in 2027 for 2028, I'll do the same. So,

I'm wanting to clarify if we think we need an additional objective um to um address um council member Johnson's concern or if we can fold in some additional language into the CIP objective. Cody Well, I think that's really a council decision. Do you want to see do you want to see a bullet point specifically for grant management, grant administration, anything of that nature that plays into the CIP? I think it should just be woven into the first bullet.

Okay. So, incorporate that into bullet one.

Do that. Well, as we've noticed on this council, uh things have been totally ignored uh over the years and a total lack of planning to try to fix or get the funds to fix the problem has has occurred over the years. And Planning is is important. Uh go out need a new car, you don't have the money, you plan on saving some money up to get it or you get a loan to get it, but but uh you have to do that in your personal life. The city should be able to do it in their professional life. That's what that first bullet is about, Councelor Neil. It really is. We'll we'll come up with some language and we'll bring that back to you when we bring the plan to you for adoption. So, if you recall here over the past u well since the beginning of the year, I've been talking about one of the goals that I have for the team is to go through and create a formalized capital improvement plan uh that then we can use to influence or revamp our capital budgeting process. Um and with that is the integration of grant funds, grant uh grant administration uh to help take that burden off the back of of local taxpayers. And so that is something that from my seat as a city manager I've been preparing for as we move forward with this uh with this uh capital improvement program with the development of capital improvement program. So we can certainly add add language in there to um to be

aware of of the grant uh process to to help take that burden off of off of the local taxpayers. I know that uh we do have several sources that we look at pretty regularly. Uh and that we have and that we do receive funding from to help uh alleviate some of that burden. Um but as we also know uh across the board grant funding is becoming more and more competitive, right? The pool of folks looking for funding is growing and the the pool of available money is shrinking pretty quickly. So, um, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that we will come upon a time here in the near future where, you know, grants don't produce what they did. I mean, anything that we can get that that helps alleviate that burden is nice, but we certainly can't uh become accustomed to it and and grow dependent upon it.

Council, are they okay with that or leaving the language the way it is? Other thoughts? Any other add the language or no? Add the language now. Language added to it.

Um I don't have an opinion on this one because I think it's in there without being in there. But if we want if if it is important to call it out, then I guess call it out. But I think that the entire point of integrating it into the city's annual budget process would include going out for grant funding. That that's what I agree with, too. That's why I'm looking for four people that says yes or no. So,

I don't I think it doesn't hurt to make it explicit recognizing that um there's effort involved in the grant piece and that it calls it out that you're going to do it and it sends a signal to the community that you're going to be looking for resources other than just the city's own resources to pay for some of this. I'm good with it either way. I don't mind having the specific language in there. I don't mind. Jeff, same.

Okay. Uh discussion on any of the other objectives, engineering and development standards, the project management process or the utility codes. Right. And so the performance measures again staff decided to break out some sub measures within the capital improvement program um and set some specific dates to the different pieces of it. Um there's some the annual reporting on ADA transition plan um and some performance measures around utility codes, utility master plans and then the pedestrian mobility plan. So those are those all have milestone dates associated with them and staff u feeling that those dates are dates that they can live with and that are doable their capacity. I love that where we have a pedestrian mobility plan. I like that because I think it's important because we have a lot of people that walk and they're outside and, you know, exercising. So, that's important.

So, I guess my only question on this one, it feels like the second main bul bullet point is two bullet points. And I guess I don't understand how they're not separate issues because you have an annual report on imple presentation. It just it just didn't there was no carriage return. Yeah. Okay. So, those are two different bullet points. They are we just didn't catch that. What's the Are they both Q2 of 2027 still then? No. Um Well, they might be. We'd have to go back and check. Let me see if I can check a previous uh draft of this. Yeah, there's there needs to be a carriage return there. Yeah, that's what I thought. So,

you you caught it. Yep. I didn't see that. Let me see here. Good eyes. Those glasses are find a mirror. See if I can find that. Um I might Michelle um I believe that's an annual report. So I don't know when that begins but I believe well and honestly I don't think I care. Yeah. So I think right annual report will be once a year to be determined maybe the end of the fiscal year and then establish a standardized project management process by end of Q2 2027. Yeah. And the dates are basically Cody's concern anyway. So I don't

I don't know how all those eyes looking at this missed that and you caught the lack of a carriage return. Thank you. Appreciate that. Now Chris, I would say that uh in engineering we refer to that as checker bait to see who is paying attention. I love it.

So congratulations. All right. Anything else? So when this comes back to you, we're gonna we're going to work in that language um around um grant funding and administration into that first bullet point under infrastructure. Um we will create this um take this content and create a visually pleasing document, right, that people can look at. It will have pictures in it. It will be graphically designed. Um, so you have something that you can put on your website that's um, polished and um, a good presentable community-f facing document. So when we come back to you to have you adopt it, that's what you'll see. We'll work with the team.

I actually did find one other thing. Oh yes. Um, I don't know how a sub deliverable of the CIP plan can be completed after the CA at the end of the CIP plan. So you have the wastewater by Q2 2030, but the plan has supposed to be done by the Q3 of 2029. Any staff want to comment on that? Was that just like an oversight or did was that done with intention on the wastewater piece? I believe we started breaking it down from complete the CIP to make it a more manageable on a yearly basis. So we didn't change the main go on.

We can do that too. So we'll change that. All right. You get two gold stars. Oh, you're using that crayon. I'm using my crayon. All right.

Thank you. It looks great. Appreciate all your hard work on this. The the last thing I will say is um the this will come back to you for adoption and then um coming out of here since there were only minor changes to the plan Barry Dunn will start working with Cody and his team on the implementation planning part of this. So that's again another thing that makes it possible that a strategic plan doesn't sit on the shelf because we're going to go to the next level and we're going to take each of those objectives and we're going to build them out with action steps and who gets the assignment and what are the resources so that Cody and his team have a full-blown implementation plan for every objective so they can move forward on it. Is this the the last time or the only time we're going to see you present on this matter?

Um, I think so because you didn't make a lot of changes to the plan tonight. We probably don't need to be here to present the to have you adopt it unless you need us. You think you need us to? No, no, no. I was just asking because I I have a question on you know the survey that was sent out. Yeah. What came of that? Like exactly? Oh, so um in the plan development sessions that we held um with the city council and with the with the staff that those two backtoback days that we did a couple of months back um we presented all of that data in in what is called an environmental scan. So if you want to if you want a copy of that we can happily provide that to you.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's okay. I have it. And we and we did present all of that during that um half day that we spent with the city council in the plan development session. How did you feel about that? Um about the response.

It was good. And so one thing I will say about that is um this the team here did a really good job of pushing that out. I was surprised at the response that we got given the challenges that you've had engaging engaging the community. So I thought the numbers were good. What was more impressive to us was that regardless of the channel of of where the information came through, whether it was interviews or, you know, the the little community events that you all held, the survey, other parts of the social pinpoint site, the themes were the same regardless of the channel that the information came through. So, the themes rose to the top and those were the things that were discussed in the city council planning session. So we like to see that across stakeholders and across channels. Everybody was talking about the same priorities.

Perfect. Thank you. That's what that's what we as strategic planners want to see because it's real clear what the priorities should be and that's what I like to hear from you. Yep. Well, again, thank you Michelle and you and your team for putting all this together for us. We really appreciate all. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, absolutely. It's really been a pleasure. and we'll we'll wrap it up with Cody and his team with the final pieces and um and check in periodically to see how you guys are doing on implementation down the road. Sounds good. Thank you as well, Juniper, for all your help as well. Thanks, Junifer.

Well, thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Next up is our uh City of Evans pavement condition index and project prior to prioritization. We'll hear from staff.

Yes, mayor and council. This item is coming back to the city council uh from direction received by the city council in I believe February uh to go through and evaluate 49 street verse other other roads other arterials throughout the community. One of the things that staff uh worked on um engaged at the at the end of last year was a pavement condition index uh to go through and evaluate all the city streets within Evans to understand what that uh what what the current condition of the streets really looks like. And so, uh, Shanteneu has put together a great deal of information for you to guide through the through the conversation of not only the technical details behind street maintenance, but also some of the financials that that I think you will find uh, very interesting. So, I'm going to let him go through that through the technical side of it. Uh, and then I'm going to jump over and run you through some scenarios or some alternatives uh, that the city council can can consider. Now, one of the things that I would encourage the city council as we go through this discussion is to remember uh public policy is weighing the technical details verse the the values of public policy. All right? So, you've have you have the value of representation and ensuring the community input is considered in decision-making, the value of efficiency, maximizing the effective use of all available financial resources, the value of social equity, supporting fair and equitable distribution of public services. and then the individual rights respecting property and civil rights and public decisionmaking. And so as we go through this conversation as as as Shanteneu shares the the technical details, I just encourage you to keep that in mind. Uh and then at the end of it, I'll jump over and run you through a couple options and hopefully end this just before seven with some with some direction moving forward. So with that, Chantu, why don't you uh take it over.

Thank you, Cody. Uh, mayor, council members, good evening. Um, so today we'll talk about the payment condition index and project prioritization. Uh, for agenda, we have city of Evans payment. Uh, we have the PCI, payment condition index, project prioritization, and an appendix. Um so as Cody mentioned earlier um at the right before the end of the presentation we have some options for you to explore and Cody will speak to that but before there's a lot of technical information that'll be I I'll be going through uh that technical information and if you have any questions please stop me uh so before any further ado so city of Evans payment we have 85 miles of payment uh within the city limits it's mostly asphalt uh there's few concrete segments Um so what is PCI? PCI is payment condition index that gives you the overall health of the payment. Uh what causes payment deterioration? We've got the ADT, lots of traffic moving back and forth, right? Uh we've got weather factors. We've got freeze thro um and then we have water infiltration through minor cracks that causes lot uh lots of issues. Um soils underneath the payment. In Colorado, we have expensive soils. What it means is uh the molecules of the soil they absorb water and they expand and when they expand they buckle the streets the pavement right um in addition we have in in some of the payments we have lack of road base we just don't have the road base and then last but not the least lack of maintenance so if we were to neglect a segment of the payment it's not you know looked through um causes deterioration so who did this PCI index determination

for us. So, IMS, we hired IMS back in 2025 and in the previous years we have also hired them to look at our uh payments. Um so, infrastructure management services also known as IMS. They used a technology called Iris Pro PAVE. Um it's a technology imaging technology that looks as the the pavement takes lots of images. Um and then we did this back in August of 2025 and they follow a ASMD6433 standard American standard for testing of materials and that standard is just for surveying and evaluating payment condition. This is their fancy uh van that they use for uh taking images of our payment. Um and their accuracy is 0.255 255 mill 25 millimeter which is thickness of this business card. So I had this prop in my pocket just for that. Um so right now we have only done imaging um in in the future near future in 2027 and and further onwards we're going to be using structural testing um which we have not done this year but that's a that's a proposal from IMS and in I concur that we have to do structural testing to get better information. Not to say this is not good information, but structural testing will provide us better information. So here's a report card. Um so if you look on the on the left hand side, it gives you a scale. So PCI index is measured from 0 to 100. Um so we've got good to excellent. If you look in the pie chart, we have excellent, very good, good, fair, marginal, poor, and very poor. So overall uh we have 64% of the payment in good to excellent condition and that's because Tai and his team has been doing a lot of maintenance um and we have been doing a lot of you know uh CIP projects in the past and

that's been paying off 12% of our payment is in marginal to fair condition that means it needs attention and then uh 24% of their payment is in very poor to poor condition and that requires full reconstruction ction and in in um industry terms it is also known as backlog. Backlog meaning you know the the segments of the payment uh that require full reconstruction. So I mean if you want to remember it's the the good and the bad and the ugly. So ugly is 24%, bad is 12%, good is 64%. If I were to translate that pie chart and and show it to you on a map this is how it would look like. So if you again look at the right hand side bottom you've got PCI index 1 to 25 26 to 40 so on and so forth. So anything that is red brick red that requires full reconstruction. So, you've got County Road 394 at the bottom, uh, 49th Street, um, you've got segments of 35th, um, and then the east side, there's a bunch of reds and and and oranges and yellows. And then you also on the upper left hand side, you got 37th. Uh, that's going to be phase three, phase 4. Uh, some parts that, uh, of 37th also require reconstruction. Um, and then we also have a lot of blue and green. That means we do have payment that which is in good to excellent condition. So if I were to take this map and if I were to fix everything today hypothetically this is what it would look like. So that would require reconstruction of 35th as we have seen in the in the past in the past slide. 49th, of course, 394, parts of 37th, and again, if you look on the east side of the town, we've got a lot of red that

requires full reconstruction. Um, any questions so far? Okay, there is one. Yes, the it seems to me that the PCI index uh last year was 66%. Um, did it go go down partially because we've included more unimproved roads over on the east side or is it partially due to the new uh scanning system that we're using?

So, that's a good question. Uh, Councilman Neil, what are you referring to is average PCI? So if I were to take everything and you know divide it by 100 that's average PS for the whole 85 miles. This year came out to be 65. Um I think the last year I don't think we did scanning in 2024. The previous data that we had I can check for you. I think it was maybe 61 or 62 and that was the average PCI. Yeah it was. Mhm. Okay. So there's an increase. Yeah.

So yeah, average PCI is not to be confused with with this data, right? Thank you.

Um and I really want you to focus on this slide. Um so on on the left side, what we have is I've taken that pie chart and translated into a bar graph. And you see that red oval. So that represents 64% of our payment which is in good, very good and excellent condition. So we want to be here. We don't want to go on the left hand side of the bar graph. Why don't we want to go to the left side of the bar graph? And the reason for this is the table on the right. So if you have payment in good, very good, and excellent condition. And if you're doing maintenance on it, guess what? If you do crack seal, chip seal, $2, $4. But if you were to neglect that payment for a couple of months, maybe year or two, it goes from good to fair. What happens then? It falls into the middle and overlay category. And when it falls into that category, your expenses ride rise 12 times. Again, if you sit on that payment for a couple of more months, we don't have the money. We couldn't prioritize whatever the reason might be. that goes into a poor or a very poor category and then your expenses are 34 times higher. So it is beneficial for us to be on the right hand side of the graph not on the left hand side meaning doing a lot of preventative maintenance uh firsthand so we don't fall behind. And just this is a different depiction. So um if you were to focus on on the graph on the left hand side it shows on the x-axis pavement age and on the y-axis we have payment condition. So if if if I were to have a street brand new right and then I did a PCI index it has a PCI of 100 because it's a brand new

street. I let that sit for 10 years. PCI goes from 100 to 75 in 10 years. not not a lot of you know you know it's only 25 points in 10 years. However, if I let that sit uh let that payment neglected for six more years, it goes down from 75 to 25. So the deterioration from 10 years to 16 years is eight times faster than the first 10 years. So what happens then? And if you look on on on the on the right hand side, you've got the green zone, yellow zone and the red zone. So on top we have got the brand new street. We neglected it. We fell into category of 12 times in the yellow zone. If you neglected again, we fell again into the 34 times category in the red zone. So again, if you were to take that payment, brand new payment, did maintenance on it, you can have that payment in excellent condition for 25 years with proper maintenance.

So I I have a question. If you can go back to that previous slide. So, we build a brand new road. Yep. It's at 100. We'll just use 37th Street for an example. When should maintenance start taking place on that? How many years later? 10 or when should maintenance start happening on that to keep it up at that PA index of 100 or even say 90 if goes down a little bit?

It's it's not 10 years. So, I I have that answer coming for you. Um just on the financial side, we did some financial modeling with IMS and what they're proposing is if we were to set aside $4.5 million every year and then we put that funding into effort into doing the maintenance, reconstruction, whatever the backlog is. In the next five years, our PCI will increase from 64 65 all the way to 75 and our backlog which is currently sits at 24% will reduce to 11%. That means only 11% of the payment within the city will require reconstruction. And on on the x-axis, my apologies, on the x-axis we have the annual budget. So we can slide that scale whatever we want to. If you want to spend $3 million the respective PCI will be 70 not 75. So if we have you know $7 million better. So we can we can play with this financial scale financial model and see what we can do and what is the ROI on our investment. Um one more thing I wanted to mention this cyclical study. So in in 2025 we did PCI index we have the report in 2026 and based on that report we have a project prioritization list we want to repeat that in 2028 what we want to do next year is repeat 2025. So this cyclical process will continue year after year after year. And why are we doing this? Why are we spending this money on PCI index? Because we want to know what the condition is. We want to see that report card so we can put our efforts, our funding into fixing those streets so we don't fall behind. U the

other thing that I wanted to point out is we are in the reactive zone right now. We want to be disciplined. We want to spend that money. We want to follow a plan and go from reactive zone to proactive zone. And what's going to happen is when we have control over payment maintenance, we're spending less money. then we have a lot more money in conducting and executing CIP projects we don't have right now right um for the for the next three slides you know I just want a little patience from you because this is proposed solution from IMS so what they're proposing it's for the next three years uh first year looks like this so we have reconstruction on Carson 34th 29th and we got Milan overlay um on 65th I 65th and couple of streets uh north of 34th Street. And then we have a little bit of chips seal uh on the northern part of town closer to Highway 34. Second year payment treatment looks like this. We've got millan overlay. Um and again to remind you millan overlay is the category uh which addresses fair and marginal meaning 12 times more expensive. Um so you've got 32nd um 42nd Hawk Drive South Gate that all requires reconstruction and then you got Milan overlay on 31st on the east side and north and then a couple of smaller sections on on the south and east side as well. Uh the 3 to 5 year plan looks like this. Um you've got a lot of reconstruction going on on County Road 394. You've got a lot of reconstruction 49th, 35th, 37th on both sides uh of 47th and then you got reconstruction on 32nd as well. Um so if you look at the full depth reconstruction cost um for 49th Street

specifically, we have uh a section that goes from 35th to 65th that acquires a traffic impact study. We want to know how many vehicles are driving on that street on a daily basis. And that would tell us if you need two lanes, three lanes, four lanes and and is there, you know, a center lane for turn, right? That kind of stuff. Drainage study. How do we convey strong water from the north side to the south side so we don't have hydrostatic pressure blowing out 49th Street, right? And again, that makes us stay in the reactive zone where we don't want to be. uh geotechnical, we want to know what kind of source we are so we can prepare base for for our street uh land acquisition when we do the traffic impact study that will determine if we need to acquire more right away and that require you know again acquisition of land from either private party or or the county. Uh we already talked about storm water conveyance, but this line specifically this row specifically addresses culvers. How many culvers, what kind of size they're going to have, right? And how do we um how many how much money we're going to need for for installing those culvers. And last but not the least is full reconstruction costs. So the $4.8 8 million that is in today's dollars based u upon the PCI index that does not include any of the studies that I've mentioned before. So that is the number that was given to us by IMS based on current condition. So again I repeat the studies that I've mentioned before they're not included in this cost. However, at the same time, we have other corridors like 37th um 35th, 34th, 32nd again and 29th that requires reconstruction or mill and overlay and the respective cost are shown here. Um so, so with that, I think I'm going to

hand it over to Cody and he's going to speak about the options that we have. But I do want to address your question. You asked when do we do the maintenance? So once we have that schedule 2027 we do the PCI index study again that will tell us when do we need to do that maintenance. Perfect. Thank you.

All right. So um based on that that discussion over the technical data that that Shantanoo provided and thank you for that information. Um, I took um an took it a little bit further and looked at specifically 49th Street compared to um 49th Street, what we've budgeted and kind of what are your options based off of that and how do we how do we move forward? So, on page 89 the 2026 budget uh and you guys have my my memo in your inbox um that I sent out late this afternoon. So on page 89 of the 2026 budget, city council approved $1.5 million for the design of 49 street uh reconstruction. So that's for the design of the reconstruction and then an additional $1.7 million for street maintenance in the capital projects road tax fund. So again, that's page 89 of our budget. Um, so this fund supports maintenance, operation, improvement of the city street system, including resurfacing, uh, reconstruction, paved, uh, paving unpaved roads, arterial capacity expansion, and related concrete work within the public rightway. So, keep those in mind. 1.5 million was budgeted for the design of 49th Street. 1.7 million was budgeted for uh, for the regular street maintenance. So, three options I think the city council cons could consider. Number one, if the city council is absolutely committed to the reconstruction of 49th Street, keep the 1.5 million dollars there um and dedicate that to the uh to the design of 49th Street. As Shanting indicated, there are three critical studies we have to do to get the information that makes the design work before we can do any substantive uh design. We have to have the traffic impact study, the geotechnical study, the drainage study. What what is the length of the reconstruction? What is the width of the reconstruction? What is the loadbearing capacity of the soil? What kind of base do we need? Where do we need inlets or

I'm sorry, where do we need uh coverts uh for drainage? Completion of these studies will give us the information that we need to have these uh to have these discussions with council, but also to have more substantive council uh substantive discussions uh with Weld County if we're going to pursue partnerships as mayor and I have have had conversations with Weld County uh commissioners uh here over the past year or so. Um, at this point, staff really just does not have the level of data to provide you with a good recommendation on what to do in the absence of these studies. Okay? So, these studies, I cannot uh reinforce enough are critical. I also want to remind the city council, we've talked about in the past, but the design uh the design process alone of 49 street minimum of 18 to 24 months potentially uh depending you know these studies are going to take a minimum of 6 months uh we would anticipate. So I think if we if we bet on 18 to 24 months for the design process alone I think we're probably in a pretty good pretty good situation. If you elect to use the 1.5, you're not giving up other street maintenance because there is the $1.7 million uh that's been allocated uh to the street maintenance, but that is subject to availability of qualified contractors. We're already in April, right? Their schedules are booking up and so being able to uh find a qualified contractor, it's not impossible, but it may take a minute to to do that. Under option number two, I'm I'm throwing out the idea that under this option, you could take $500,000 from the $ 1.5 million that's been budgeted and you could apply that to the studies now and start getting that process moving. That way, we're getting the traffic impact information. We're getting the drainage. We're getting the geotech information.

And so, while we're doing that, again, takes about six months. When we get that information back, then we could come back to the city council and go, "Okay, we have a bit we have a bit better idea of what we're dealing with. Study says $4.8 million for the reconstruction of 49th Street between 65th and 35th. These studies are going to nail that down a little bit better." We get the information, we come back to the city council this fall and say, "Okay, here's the information that we have. here's the data that we have to make a well-informed decision on what to do with that street or how to prioritize that street in relation to other other streets throughout the community. Again, um in doing this, uh you take the $500,000 out, you've got a million dollars left over. What do you do with that? council could roll it into the $ 1.7 million and start attacking u year one projects or leave it in leave it in the fund, see how these um various uh various studies turn out and then make a decision based on that. Um so that's option two. And then option three, if if 49th Street is not the priority of the city council, the 1.5 million could be rolled over into uh the into the $ 1.7 million. That is that is completely your your decision. That give you a budget of about $3.2 million uh to go through and and address some streets. Um I think it's also important to understand that the PCI report indicates that significant backlog of the reconstruction uh of the full depth projects and it's kind of a balancing act right the more that we put into reconstruction the less we have for uh your maintenance and preservation. So what is that balance look like? And that's something that Shantenew's been working on uh as we've as we've been going through this process. Um 37th Street. We have 37th Street. Obviously, phase three is in in in

design right now pushing for a 2027 reconstruction or a 2027 reconstruction time frame. Uh we do have money budgeted in the in the budget in the uh street uh in the road tax fund. So again, that is separate from 49th or from other road maintenance. So looking at this, my recommendation to the city council, uh, based on the available information, option two represents, I think, a balanced approach for you to consider. Allocating the $500,000 to the required studies, uh, would provide the city council with additional data to better define project scope, costs, and feasibility. Uh, the information would support, uh, I think more informed decision-making to facilitate future discussions. uh to go back to Weld County knowing exactly what is our number or in the ballpark what is our number uh gives the city council the the ability to evaluate the project with more data factual data that we can look at and we can be more confident in what does the future of that reconstruction look like. Um, and again, I think coming back if if this was the direction the city council is interested in, get the studies for 49th Street underway now, but we can still move forward subject to the availability of qualified contractors to work on uh road maintenance uh with the $1.7 million budgeted um in the road tax fund. U Mr. Mayor and Council, that is what we have unless I missed anything.

I don't think I did. We're good. Great. So, uh, we'd be happy to stand for questions.

Awesome. Great. Uh, thanks for the great, uh, presentation, Chattanoo. It was phenomenal. If you look, anybody have anything, use the request to speak and we'll go through in that order. Um, all right. I'll go ahead since I'm up there on the board. Um, I I believe in my opinion, uh, 49th Street is still a priority in my my opinion. I know when I've held town halls and spoke to several residents, there's actually some in the audience right now this evening. Um when we were going to make the um sales tax permanent, it was pretty much loud and clear people wanted 49th Street done. However, with that being said, I want to make sure we get it right. Um been on council for a while and I know council member Johnson, Neil, and um Plucka can attest to that we have built roads before in the past and they didn't turn out very well. finding out later on there's no road base, there's piping problems that should have been replaced before that road was laid down, etc., etc. So, I I agree with option two. We need to get those um surveys done. We need to find out exactly what that road entails, what's underneath there, the drainage, a lot of it, because a lot of that area is all from a lot of the agriculture in that area. They use runoff. We got to make sure that we build that road. if we build that road that it's going to be able to maintain that water that's coming through off of those farmers and not ruin it brand new road in two three years. So I need to make sure we do our due diligence and make sure we get that those surveys done and know exactly what kind of traffic counts exactly what you said. Do we need to add a center lane? Do we need it three lanes? Do we need a or can it be exactly the way the left is? So I'm for the option two do the 500 keep the million dollar set aside. maybe come back in the fall and see where we are. But we really need to do our due diligence on that road. We owe it to the people out there that have been asking for that road to be fixed and we make

need to make sure we do it right. Council member Johnson, I also agree with option two. I think we need to first kind of we need to know we don't know what's going on with that road. So I think utilizing 500,000 and and then setting aside the thousand and then waiting for the 1.7 also mean million. Huh? Set aside the million not 100,000.

I mean the but no I it's it's as you mentioned um I just want to make sure that we get it right. Um, also it's an older road and especially when we did here, um, there was a lot of things that we weren't mapped and that we didn't know where they led to. So, I also want to make sure that we keep that in mind because as we start to consider a road, especially a road that hasn't been touched in that form, like in rec in the reconstruction form, uh, a lot of things, it's like when you're remodeling, you open things up and you get surprises. So just accounting that and just knowing exactly what to do and ensuring that whether it's two road or four road that's important as well. Um but also um what I would like to see too and I know that we have a plan and the plan wasn't in essence based you know it it wasn't mentioned to us it was just that's their proposed like year one year two year three. I think it's also important to just see because again this is a re reconstruction. So it it does take if we proceed after we get um a favorable because again we have to consider a favorable outcome and what that looks like and how we proceed forward. Um I also want to ensure because it's not something that takes it's going to be tomorrow. It's going to take time as you mentioned six months for all of the surveys and finding out and then design will take potentially two years. And in that in that time frame also I just want to make sure we have a plan because there's other roads that need reconstruction. Granted, they can't work simultaneously because of course more money is needed. But just consider a plan of what that's going to look like. And I know as seeing the PCI and seeing the map, it looks so much better than it did before. And I just I want to also stress that before we used to only

have $600,000 a year and we had to utilize $600,000 to maintain roads which is impossible.

And now because we passed our community passed the 1% and you know and we received it in 2020 we were able to go to a 65 PCI which helps substantially. As you can see there's a lot of blue, a lot of green. So, it's nice to see that that that has helped substantially and now in perpetuity, it's going to help even more because now we know that we have a set amount of money that's coming in and it's going to be dedicated to ensuring that our roads are taken care of. So, going back to the plan, I just want to make sure we have some kind of plan, whatever that looks like. Um, because again, we're going to have to really prioritize and see and then create a plan for the other roads because you can't do them in conjunction to each other. Um, but yes, I do like option two. I think first finding out finding out what that looks like for us because again it's to be determined as far as price.

So, council member Delaney. Okay. Uh, going to start out with some questions. Uh, can you Cody explain to me what the difference between option one and option two B are? Because to me it seems like it's the same thing. between option one and option 2B. Yes.

Uh option one would be jumping straight into the design, allocating the $ 1.5 million to that. Option 2B is is um really committing to the $500,000 for the for the various uh studies to the various engineering studies. Okay. Um and so and then really just keeping that extra million, not extra million, but the remaining million u in the road tax fund until we get data back on what those studies look like, right? But that's 2A, isn't that?

No, it's two that's 2B. The 2A is the one that's subtracting the million dollars out and not setting that money aside for the design and putting into the payment index. The 2B is spent taking 500,000 putting it towards the surveys and keeping that 1 million set aside for the traffic design to still have that money allocated. But I think what Chris is asking is the same question I have. We're still going to have to do those studies even if we go with option one. So that's option one is just firmly committed to right.

That's firmly we're going to do it. Nothing else. Okay. Um, so and 2A that million that's allocated, if we go with that, we're going to do the $500,000 for the studies, but we're going to free up that million dollars so if we can get contractors this year to do other works. Correct. So under the under the option two, well, there's two option twos. That's one thing that

that is correct. And so that that is under the option two focusing the $500,000 on the studies up front. That gives you the that gives you the ability to determine do you want to hold on to that million dollars until the study information comes back and we know what direction we're going with 49th Street or do you immediately want to take that extra million dollars and apply that over to the 1.7 that exists? Okay. What happens if you move that 1 million over the 1.7? You have 2.7 million. But you do not have any additional funds to move forward with the design if the city council chooses later this fall without a budget amendment. Right.

Assuming that the fund can carry that or without budgeting it next year in in the 2027 budget. Yeah. Okay. So then I am for 2B and I don't know what 2B 2B Is that it? Mayor Bartan Plea, so with option one, just making sure I'm very clear, we still have to do the studies, the surveys. Would you bring that information back to us even with option one before we go to design?

Well, we certainly want to make sure the city council is comfortable with whatever we're doing, right? So, um, so yeah, I mean there may be some some similarities between option one and and option two. Uh, but really what I'm looking at with option two is more of a calculated approach, dipping our toes in the water before we just jump in to 49th Street.

I'll admit my heart says option one 100%. Um, but if everyone is more comfortable with 2B, um, because I still think that 1.5 should go towards that road no matter what. And even with option one, if it's designed, it could take up to 24 months. I mean, we're still looking at the same time frame. And my worry though, just one other worry to throw in there for everybody to think of is costs are just going to keep going up and uh, for everything. So that's why my heart says option one, but I'm open to 2B. I just the other two options, 2 A and three are a no-go for me. So thank you,

Council Member Crabtree.

I'd like to first start with um thanks for the citizens for passing this tax. Um it's going to help us out a lot to repair a lot of damages. Thank you for the report that we had. Really highlights a lot of the damages and a lot of report maintenances that we need to do. I just want to remind us all on council that we started with a budget with 600,000, right? And I don't understand why we're so fixated on 49th Street. Um, one person on council really wants this done, but everyone within our municipality voted to pass this tax and we have a lot of money that needs a lot of diversification and a lot of repair work. And so there are a lot of other maintenance issues that we need to spend that money on. and spending it on one street to service one community that goes nowhere that will eventually connect to Milikin does not benefit our community. We have bigger fish to fry and more streets within our municipality that need chronic repair work and then we can address 49th Street. at that time. We need to look at the other streets that have not been maintenanced over the last decade, repair those streets now, and then look at streets that are on our outliers. We need to readress these monies now, fix the things that are within the target market of our municipality that are close to the bullseye, and then work our way out. We've seen the data. We know that if we don't react now, it's just going to cost us more money. So, I'm in favor of option three just for the simple fact that our entire

community voted to have this passed. We need to put the money into our entire community and not earmark it for just a little bit of uh streets and a little bit money over here. I'd like to see it diversified across the entire community. Council member Neil.

First, I would also like to thank the voters for uh making this a permanent the road tax permanent. And I would like to thank Shantu for his excellent presentation. It jives and compliments and expands what I learned working as a warehouse supervisor for COT. I would also like to remind people of what former council member Laura Spear used to constantly remind us that uh the east side of 85, the oldest part of town is is ignored in some of this because mainly because all the the dirt roads, we don't know what's under them over there. We know that the the a lot of the sewer system or uh water systems are over a hundred years old in parts of that area. And it's going to cost a lot of money to to investigate what's under there and to bring it up to standard and put in totally new roads. I would like to see um at least one dedicated project in a uh five-year period dedicated to refurbishing those dirt road one at least one of those dirt roads and there's some small sections over there maybe could be done. Um, one of the other things that I noted when I was looking at the map the other day is San Juan Circle is all in red. That is the newest street in my neighborhood. That indicates to me that uh it was improperly done by the developer

and allowed to be done in the past because it's I believe about 20 28 years old now. uh street that I live on is 47 years old and it has less uh alligator alligator cracking in it except right from 17th on to the the west entrance to San Juan Circle. Uh the east end is it seems to be in better shape to me. I I'm also in favor of option three mainly because all the people of Evans voted to make this road tax permanent. And if we can use utilize that money to upgrade this the condition the PCI index of all the rest of our streets that's going to help us in the long run more than than focusing on uh one particular street that may or may not benefit that uh that large number of residents in Evans. I I'm all I have asked Cody about trying to get Trinidad done. I've mentioned it in council several times. uh that would uh establish another north south road in the east part of of Evans and I think that would be beneficial to have that but it's we don't know what the cost is going to be and we do know that having to lay down new asphalt and road base is very expensive but I think this is should be part of our planning to try to get things like

that done. And in the past, they just haven't there's been a total lack of planning to meet these expenses. The older residents on the east side of Evans seem to control the council for years and they just ignored it. They wanted to remain a bedroom community. And now this council, this younger council is making all these hard decisions and it's not easy. I don't like doing some of this stuff that we have to, but we only got so much money and it's tough to allocate it sometimes. And I do have a question under the engineering staff report under recommendations and assumptions. Um why were sidewalks, curb and gut are not included in that?

So council member when we did the PCI index study uh sidewalks and curb were not part of that at that time. So this looked at payment alone at this time but in uh 2027 we're proposing that we're going to do sidewalks as well and we do have cost estimate for for that from IMS.

Okay. Thank you. Council member Neil, I I agree with you regarding the east side. I I think the big thing that we run into on the east side, as I'm sure you're probably aware of talking to people over there as well as I have, you have a mix of both worlds. You want some that want to preserve it and keep it the way it is with the dirt roads. They don't want to make any huge improvements on it. They like it as is. You also alluded to that we don't know what's under there. The road that area wasn't built to sustain curb gutter regular roads and everything. What I think the best proposal is to that and I know you said you'd like to see one dedicated project down there. Why I agree with you is probably really talk with those constituents in that area and find out exactly if the a project like that was to be done, where would they like it done, what would it like to be done. Um, I think those are the big challenges is you have two competing interests over there. What would be like to be done over there? I I think if we could find out and set aside exactly what those pe what they would like to see out there, I think that could be something to be looked at in the future. Um, as far as, you know, just the area of 49th Street, I think this last storm that we had not too long ago kind of really reiterated how bad the deferred maintenance was in this area for so long. for so many years and we how much money that we threw out at these different roads just to throw band-aids, the hundreds and thousands of dollars for bandaids and projects on areas throughout the entire community. And as we may get more rain this year, we may have another huge storm, those costs are only going to continue to rise. I think setting aside at least 500 thou,000 and getting those surveys done to see exactly what is needed is beneficial.

in the fall if they come back and say, "Hey, this is what the overall picture is." At at that time, whoever's on council when that discussion happens can decide whether or not we still want to continue with that million dollars set aside for design or allocate it somewhere else. But I think just with we have a lot of projects in the city absolutely that need to be done. We still have 1.7 to do maintenance, but I really think we can't continue to throw band-aids at some of these larger projects throughout the community. That's just going to only get worse and worse over time. So, I I while I agree with both of you on on on the entire city voted audit as well, we have huge projects, too, that we can't continue to throw band-aids on there and it's just going to continue to get worse. That's why I'm kind of I'm in favor with 2B. Uh, Council Member Neil, back to you.

Well, uh, the former council of Mayor Brian Rudy voted on, um, committing to get 37th Street completed. And it's very frustrating because of we've had to do it in segments because of money for the residents. But now it seems to me that we're going to abandon that project. Uh because uh I've I've had one person suggest that we just that we don't need that uh million and a half dollars that we have already got uh a grant for to finish uh to start work on the from 47 uh 65th down to Arrowhead Drive, I believe, is the segment. And that worries me.

Uh point of information really quickly. We're not excluding doing that project still. Yeah. Is that correct? 37 phase three. Yeah. No, it's going to be in design. So it's not it's not canceling. Yeah.

Set aside. But the next segment are we going to have if we do this 49th thing are we going to have the money to complete it which is going to be the most extensive and we have to meet federal requirements because that there's a bridge involved and a wetlands area. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And uh I'm afraid that all of a sudden we're not going to have we're the next council's going to say we don't have the money to do that and it's not going to be completed and I don't want to see that at all. So I think uh we established a priority originally uh seven years ago and I think we should stick with that priority of getting uh one project completed in its entirety before we start in on some other project that uh the mayor uh when I asked uh specifically if this uh meeting with uh Neville's cross crossing residents was going to be posted so that the other council members could could attend and you said you were the one that was invited. So the rest of us were out of this decision that you made with them and that's uh supposedly not the way this council is supposed to work. Well, if I'm as the mayor invited to a specific area, that's not the council involved. They wanted to talk to me, I have that right to do it. I didn't make any deal with Neville's Crossing. That's not my decision. We had a discussion

about that. The majority of this council that makes the decision. If I believe just like anybody else believes that they have a position on a specific topic, they're allowed to raise it and bring it. That doesn't necessarily mean the whole council has to agree with it. We each on this council have projects that we are all passionate about. It we would like to see done. Doesn't necessarily mean that project will be get done because the majority of the council may not see it. So, point of order. I have a question now. Go ahead.

Okay. So, back to your band-aid response. Um, I don't want to throw half a million dollars to research and development until the Weld County is behind this project. We have fields that are washing out our road and that's really what's happening. Um, so until they really get behind this, we can do as much research and development on fixing this road, but until Wel County really gets behind this and resolves the issue that we have zero water mitigation on this, we're going to have a catastrophic problem until this really gets resolved. And we're not going to be able to fix this until Wel County gets involved with us. So until we have that partnership, I don't want to spin our wheels on this. I want to resource our dollars to places that we have control, where our tax dollars have been spent and our community has voted for. And when the Weld County system can partner with us, then I'm willing to come to the table with that wholeheartedly. But until then, I'm going to pass completely on that. And this isn't a band-aid fix. Even throwing half a million dollars at research and development is a waste of our money right now. we have other projects that we can spend money on this and until those fields get damned up or water is diverted appropriately and the county is the only person that can actually help us with this, we're just going to be spinning our wheels on this. So, until the residents and the rest of the county or the rest of the uh a involvement population can help us with this challenge. This is something that we can't fight independently and we don't have a big bankroll to take care of it independently. So, no, it's not a band-aid issue and throwing half a million dollars in R&D is a waste of half a million dollars is all I've got to say.

Tim, um I do just want to say that when we did vote with Mayor Rudy, we knew there were more than there was more than one street that needed fixed. We knew 37 was not the only street and we did discuss putting money towards other streets. So I just wanted to make that point clear that 37th was not our only focus during Mayor Rudy's time because the first report we got showed how horrible it was all over the city.

And so I just wanted to clarify that. Uh secondly, my other clarifying question is u is it 1.7 is that all the money that we get each year to spend on maintenance that but see that's what I want to clarify for everybody is we've got this 1.5 set aside. It's not a yearly thing. It's not a yearly spend. It's not what we're going to always have. 1.7 was set aside for maintenance. How much more is set aside for maintenance besides the 1.7.

I only looked at the road tax fund and that's where the 1.7 is at. Um I believe we took the 600,000 out of the general fund transfer a couple of years ago. Um that way we could have focus more of the street maintenance from these the 1% street sales tax uh trying to free up some room in the general fund. Thank you. And then one last question for uh all the agriculture we have along there. Is that county or is that us? And then if so like do we seriously own all that road but they control the land?

Yes, we we own the road right away. and they so if we did get those studies done and there's a fair fair amount of Weld County properties that that do butt up to that city street. Right. Right. So if we did get those studies done which I do still think we need and I understand your point. I do um it would be depending on Weld County to get those addressed or would that be all on us? Who would the responsibility of whatever is needed the mitigation who would that fall to us even though it's county lands mitigation in the agricultural fields? Yes sir. We would absolutely have to work with Weld County.

Yeah. County won't come to the table unless we provide them the information exactly need that road. So we would need the study. No they've already said that. You have no one's told me that. They've already said come to us with what you what the proposal is, what you need, what the road is, what kind of engineering is done, and then we'll talk. No one's told me that. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Uh, council member Neil, is that you again? Yes. Okay. Go ahead.

Uh, I don't believe we did any study when, uh, Mayor Rudy went to the to the uh, well county uh to talk to them about uh helping us uh put uh 23rd Avenue through after um we discovered that uh or I did anyway that uh the Habitat uh uh plan development was going to exit only through an already existing neighborhood that was already having traffic issues. And I actually think that um I know I voted against it and I and I am a strong supporter of of Habitat. I just sent uh three grand down to the Alamosa Habitat. Uh, so that was a very difficult decision for me and I think one other council member to do, but Mayor Rudy found a way to make to divert some funds funding so that we could put in uh the west side of 23rd Avenue and worked he worked with W County and got them to finance the east side. So now we have a a nice four-lane road divided going through there. And we have uh an exit uh out of the Habitat development without them having to exit through an existing community that's already has pro uh traffic pro problems. And I would like to see that kind of uh uh step upmanship

with the mayor and the county to get that done out there. U let's get the meeting going. Council member Johnson.

So I just wanted to go just get clarity because this is a work session and discussion before anything kind of goes. um to vote. Um I know you had mentioned so I I am for the 2B because I think again this road is with it's our road. It's the city of Evans road. We have to maintain it. It is in red so it's in very poor condition as well as other other roads. Um, granted, we can't take on all the reconstruction projects, but we need to take some. Um, and then also use some of the extra monies to take care of the other other areas that need addressing. But my question is, you had mentioned um with Weld County that they're willing as long as we have these studies done to work with us. As of now, the last discussion we have, they're willing when they have their next election and coun and commissioners change. That could change, but as of now, they have said, "We are interested in it, but we need numbers. We need to know what that looks like. We can't tell you a dollar amount that we're willing to partner with you until you provide us some kind of concrete information. So, if we don't have concrete information, how I'm going to go to the county and say, "I need $10 million." 10 million for what? Five million for what? Show me what exactly is this five million or whatever money that we're possibly I don't even know the amount that we're willing to partner for you if you don't have any engineering work, don't have any studies done. We don't know what that design looks like. What is it?

I know one time they even mentioned, hey, you take part of the 49th Street that we have, we'd like to give that back to you since you've already maintained that. I mean, there there's a whole bunch of conversations that both him and I have had with both Commissioner Scott James and and Moxy, but they're like, "You need to come to us with some defining information. Tell us what that number looks like." I think that's an important equation to the conversation just because if they're willing to that I think would help others kind of make a better decision based off that if they're willing to come to the table and help because it it is an area that you know again we kind of share it frantically own the road but you know it's mostly surrounded by well county um and then we have Noblesville's crossing but I think it'd be advantageous for us to partner with them so we can kind of like 23 right similar to that um but I to but it's good to hear that you said stated that right

um and still for Tuby I I because I think it's important for us to know what's going like figure that out because then that'll give us a better path because I have so many questions but I don't think those are going to be answered unless I know exactly what that looks like. Well, if if the city council would like we we do not have to have firm direction tonight, right? This is a discussion. If the city council is interested, I can I can get another meeting with Commissioner Maxi and have a conversation with him and then I can report back to the city council as to what what the county's position is currently. I would like that.

I would feel more comfortable with that because I think that would solidify a better like more better direction. Um and then it becomes a collaborative. I would like I would like help pulling this wagon and I'd like him right here. Yeah, because that'll change my perspective. But I'm not pulling this wagon by myself. But you also get us understand you got one commissioner out of the five. That I mean, he's going to be one. We have to get the other commissioners on on board. But knowing the other commissioners the way I know them, they're going to like, "What's your numbers?" Uh, well, we'll start there then. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's important. We'll start with that conversation.

Yeah. It's important. He may say no and and that looks then everything looks different, you know, because again it's I mean they said they've already said they're interested, but we don't have a number. Hey, it's going to cost us 10 million. It's going to cost us We don't have a number to give them. It's just following up. Let's follow Let's follow up with that conversation and then Yeah. And then we'll come back. Okay. I can do that. Yeah, the information was phenomenal. Phenomenal. Yes, I enjoyed working on it. I can tell you that. It's a nice pulse of what our city needs and where the fires are and what fires need to be put out.

And I just want to stress also that it looks so much better than it did prior to that 1%. because we have been able to do a lot and just seeing that it's it makes me happy because that means that we're doing good and by the monies and allocating them appropriately. So, thank you. Know the goal, post the goal, exceed the goal. Yes. Thank you. Great presentation by the way.