Downtown Development Authority Board - Regular Meeting

is a 50-y old guy. I don't know if I'm going to kick him out. Some of us 50 is a kid. Correct. Correct.

Should have in just a sec. Everyone

hi. Good. And how are you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you have any friends, there's more seats. That's why his beard is great. About the same color, but you don't have very good. He's adjusting. Yeah. It's nice. He's reclaiming um our garage and he's actually decided to part with real

which he's had to do with as a storage device. So that's all good. I think I'll retire soon. No, you're here and you're busy and you own a restaurant, a family business. call my kids my limit. Okay. Keeps you young, baby. I hope so. Yeah. Keeps you young and keeps your brain working between the dog and work. I have 25 30,000 sets. Yeah. A lot of it's just coming back to the two business.

Yeah. Laura Barnhart who works at the deli way Laura she um her big golden lab who's very unan she got wrapped up at it surgeries I didn't know that so yeah cool so I'm kind of putting the word out I checked on the new dog service that we brought back to a beta. It's not online yet. Okay. Shall we get roll call going anyways? Yeah,

we can just click her in later. Barry, you never do that. Katie S, Bill, Parks Thompson, Tiffany Gatesman, Fitzgerald, Greg Beckler, Nick Crab. Okay. Okay. Can we get a uh consent to approve the agenda? Some moved. Second. All in favor? I I there any additions to the agenda that we need to make? Anybody?

Cool. Um can we get an approval of the minutes? I move that we approve the minutes. Second. All in favor? I. All right. Well, then guess we should start. Open forum. We have anybody for the open forum today? No. Terry, you can say anything. Yeah, I just get up and filibuster for a little bit up there.

Um, discussion and possible action. Reappoint of board members. How did that go with the trustees? DDA budget draft as well. Congratulations, William Palmer and Tiffany Gatesman. You have officially been reappointed. U so your terms you will serve unless you otherwise resign or something comes up that makes you ineligible um for the next four years. Um beginning with the these terms officially have begun. um a ball and a chain t got it all.

So, just to update the board in general, we did just have the two applicants. Um

we put it out mostly in all the same places as the first time around. Um I was okay with that. I think a nine member board really is totally appropriate for where the DDA is at right now. We had started with that 11 member board wanting to kind of capture the momentum because we had so many applications the first time. Um and so but also and also knowing that there likely may be some attrition but set the bylaws such that we didn't have that we could take 11 members on but didn't have to stick with an 11 member board. So um we honestly were originally looking I think talking at the town level about a seven member board. So nine members I think is plenty. Um we will have two terms that are up next year. Um, and then there's always that chance for attrition as well. So, we have the opportunity if we want to go after and more aggressively recruit for new blood next year if there's other folks that want to throw their hat in. But given that we had just gotten started and with the staggered terms, it was just for a year. Um, I am happy to have Bill and Tiffany still in our ranks. Um, and I believe Antinette is going to administer the oath of office for you again since you are officially starting new terms.

Yeah, we can do that if you guys want to come stand up with me. Stand over here. So I will just have both of you either hand over heart or hand up and just repeat after me. Um I I gates do solemnly swear and affirm do solemnly swear and affirm

that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States. Support the Constitution of the United States. Um and of the State of Colorado and of the State of Colorado State of Colorado. The Frasier Town Code. the Frasier Town Code Frasier Town Code and faithfully perform the duties and faith the duties perform of the Frasier Downtown Development Authority Board of the Fraser Downtown Development Authority Board of the Fraser Downtown Development Authority Board upon which I am about to enter upon which I am about to enter.

All right, thank you Y. Thank you for your commitment four more years. Um and I will mention now so that I don't forget by state statute we will be reappointing officers at our next meeting in October. It requires appointment of officers for two-year terms in October of odd years. And so again given that we started the first round um was a little over a year. Um, so just keep that in mind. Um, for our current officers, if you would like to remain officers, if anyone else wants to throw their names in the hat. Um, but we'll talk about that in October.

Sounds good. Uh, next we have the DDA 2026 budget draft. Is Troy up for that or are we Troy is on. Um, if there's questions or anything he can help out with, insight he can provide. Let me go ahead and share my screen. Um, but Antimate also printed out the budgets and they are in the packet. Welcome Abby. Um, thanks guys. Sorry I'm late. That's okay.

No worries. All right. Um, it's probably easier looking at your paper version, so I'm trying to see this up on the screen, but um, and Abby and Nick, if you're online, this is also available in the packet if that's easier to see, but perks, Nick and I did meet um, to kind of go over the draft budget. We are expecting to get $43,731 give or take in increment. Um that said, there were a couple questions that we had for the assessor with some of the formulas and the way things were being calculated. So if any of that does change, we will revisit the budget. Um but it's a little bit more than we had last year. Um in part the strong town homes um and building came online. Um and then some increases in value in a couple different places. We are rolling over it looks like most of our funding from this year that was not spent. Um it is still possible that a thing or two comes together before the end of the year, but at this point we're expecting a lot of that to roll over. Um so that would put us at a bit under $80,000 for next year. Um, so a lot of the numbers stayed relatively the same where we kind of put the bigger bumps kind of doubling the district enhancement and the community outreach numbers. Um, again with the idea that kind of rolling what we have from this year into next year's budget. Um, and as we talked about last year, we were trying to do kind of a facilitated workshop with the DDA. we can invite input from the

community, but really trying to kind of go into next year with a more structured plan of what we think we're doing in terms of those district enhancements. Um, as well as community outreach. Um, we have a few things coming together that we've kind of been waiting on. The town comprehensive plan, we're hoping to have that published this fall. Um, and obviously the DDA is its own entity, but we want to be working in collaboration with that kind of overarching town vision. Um the wayfinding study's been completed. We'll see what the boards are actually committing to in terms of their budgets in the next month or two. Um related to wayfinding. I know signage has been a big topic of discussion. So if there are things that the town is not prioritizing that the DDA would like to look at that would be an option there. Um like there was one other thing we've been kind of waiting on. Wayfinding. Wayfinding and the comp plan might be the big ones. Um, treasures fees, we did see that the treasur has been taking about 5% and based on statute that is what they are allowed to take. So, we expect that that is what they will continue to take. Um, and then in talking with Parks and Nick, um, some of the conversation was just intentionally starting to set aside decent chunks of money, um, in addition to whatever might roll over because it's not spent to kind of build up that reserve and have that for larger projects. Um, so there's about $10,000 in that category. So, um, this is very much still up for discussion if there's any questions. um thoughts. People want to move things around. The way this works, this will last year with the DDA starting out, it kind of presented this separately to the board

of trustees because they ultimately do approve or not approve the DDA's budget because it does fall under the larger town budget. Um Lori is looking this year just to include it in the draft budget that the board will get at their September 17th board meeting. Um and then it's ultimately finalized usually at the second meeting in November, sometimes first meeting in December is when the town budget is formalized and approved. And um refresh my memory below the uh top line and revenue and expenditure.

How much flexibility do we have in the sub items? In other words, if we decide in July of next year we want to move $6,000 from one line item to another, is that pretty flexible? That is a good question. I think I we prepared a letter last year. Yeah. Lori, do you want to speak to that?

Um, yeah. So you're okay. I'm not I'm not looking right at the budget. So you're talking about moving what? From where to where? Uh it's a general question, not a specific one. So say for example, we wanted to move uh I'll just make an an example up. We wanted to move $4,000 from professional services to miscellaneous expense in the middle of the budget year. That's not a problem. Yeah. Yeah. The the only issue would be is if I were to like really be moving um an exceptionally large amount. Um honestly I do that all the time. All the time on the town budget. Okay. Good. So that's so that's not a problem.

Much more flexible than like big corporate budgets. So yeah, at a certain threshold and I'm trying to remember what I presented to the board of trustees last year. I'm looking for the document. At a certain threshold, we would have to take it to the board of trustees for approval. Um, but with in certain amounts, it's pretty flexible. Okay. Yeah. That makes me much less concerned about how this has been today.

Yeah. And honestly, um, trying to keep it pretty high level and just in that I feel like we're still working through kind of figuring out where the best use of the money is in the interim and just not knowing kind of what's coming down the pipeline. We know there's obviously a lot of redevelopment happening. So I think there's a lot of opportunities to potentially, you know, work with developers and tax increment deals and things like that. Um, which may or may not actually impact this budget. Those would probably involve some of those professional fees. But again, if it's the type of thing that we're giving them back some of their increment to provide some of the amenities we hope to see in the community and to encourage that development, that's not really going to impact this budget for next year. So, community outreach, what do we anticipate that being? I know we've hosted our coffees. Um, that sort of thing.

Yeah, we hosted our coffee. Um, we bought a couple root beers at the trash cleanup, so it's been a very small budget. Um, and I think there's a few things that could go in different categories, but back when we were doing this last year, the way we were kind of thinking about community outreach was that it could be events like that. um if we wanted to perks I can let you talk about this idea um but we had talked about you know doing things to kind of again support kind of small business or wouldbe business entrepreneurs and so whether that be having speakers or or things like that. Um

social advertising could fall into that as well if we do like the ski train promotions and actually throw some money at advertising that somewhere. Um, those are kind of the general buckets that I've thought of in community outreach, like events, marketing, advertising, outreach. So, is it like community outreach slashevents?

So, an event could be a community outreach. Um, I had brought up an idea. We were discussing that this town's youth and kind of the 9 to5 workers that seem to struggle with rent. um that they really have kind of a downward uh view on affordable housing, things like that. Um and they don't really have a way out. So, we were thinking that maybe community members that have made their way up from that kind of position, like your daughter, uh, Ellie or me or a number of other business owners in town could come together along with a couple professional consultants and do like once a month or once every other month uh, kind of free conferences that tell stories about how people kind of went from paying rent to owning or uh building a business that was successful in town and kind of how they got their money together and did that and so that we could kind of change the outlook of being in that position in this town.

Sweet. Um Awesome. That sounds cool.

Yep, it does sound cool. I mean, Aby's uh testament, maybe she would, you know, be someone that would, you know, be one of the speakers at one of those events. That that sort of thing. Like, you know, there's a lot of people in this town that have made it into a position where they're, you know, able to um own and have businesses and kind of work their way up a ladder. And they have a very clear view of how they did that. And I think a lot of the youth and people in the town don't see that. They don't they don't get to experience that firsthand. They just are like make up things about those people. They're like, "Well, they had more opportunity than me or, you know, so maybe we can shed some light on that and give people tools from locals and professionals to make their way up the ladder in this town and become part of the community."

Grab me. That's what I heard 14 years ago. They were like, "Well, you want to live here, right? You got to figure out a business. There you are. Yeah. I mean, I think that goes in line with Jackson. Yeah. I mean, I think that's I think that's a good point is that you kind of forget. Yeah. It was wild.

I think that goes in line with what Maria Chavez and the chamber were doing with the Young Entrepreneurs um group or collective. If anybody remembers that free membership program they had, it was young. It was called Young Entrepreneurs. Um, I believe it might still be like live. But my primary question would be so it doesn't turn too gray would would you know it's community outreach focused to DDA's intentions um and like blueprint. So what how would it connect to uh the development like where would our bridge be in connectivity?

That's the development of business. So, we're teaching people how to have businesses in the downtown area. I see. And how to kind of, you know, become part of this this uh community that we're building now. I like it.

I think it's helpful, too, if we get business owners in the DDA to present. Just that's good press. like meeting people, being a leader, mentor in the neighborhood, you know, very tight-knit community of people going into stores. So, I think it's an opportunity for them to to allow them to present to a group like that with us sponsoring it. And it could even, you know, have subjects as like um subjects like, you know, like if there's multiple of the same businesses, people get really worried about there not being enough business for that when in fact there are is plenty of business. It's about how you shift your focus and kind of how you offer something slightly different or a different environment and how you cater to those people that would be buying the same products or using

the same services. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. I also feel that it'll help get a lot more support of the general community for the DDA if we are supporting um our young community. And actually, I feel like there might be a lot of people that are just assuming that we're trying to support more Starbucks from coming in and all that kind of stuff, but in actuality, like that might show everyone that we are committed to our community and our locals and Yeah. people here, not just the buildings, right?

Yeah. And back to your question, Abby, one of the core strategies in the plans of development is focusing on where business spirit and creativity are intertwined. So I would see it kind of fitting into that bucket.

And also just think about that because I do believe that community outreach, I think that that's one of the categories that we can kind of expand the most on just as a group of residents and business owners. We have immense knowledge and creativity. So, we should be able to work, you know, put our energy into reaching out and pulling and uplifting the community. So, I think that's that's big. And the trash out the trash pickup and stuff like that is great. And I think that'll have more success with the more things that we offer and people will be like, "Oh, I'm going to this event and oh yeah, there's that event and that event versus, you know, Katie Souls is the only one holding an event." You know, I think one thing to Aby's point, I think being able to take all the information from all the different areas and kind of focus it like, yeah, towards the DDA within the boundaries and business owners to make it easy, you know, I explain stuff to employees all the time

that it's like, yeah, make it super simple. Hey, this is what's going to affect you. You know, kind of bring it down. And so I think it would be easier if we were the place that was maybe a um I don't want to say it a little um well just easier to approach and ask the questions you know which would be nice because it's a lot there's so much stuff that's so it's coming right and it's going to be out and it's big picture stuff you know bringing it down that's a little bit more easy to digest and now is the timeful

because we are developing at the like people see it as like oh we're develop up now and I can't get in and I can't buy a home or I can't get a business. There's too much going on when in fact like we are at the very spark of a massive flame coming this way. Like we have way more coming. And if they get in now is the time to to build your foundation because it's like when I bought a home years ago, right, or a business years ago, we had that same outlook. It was like I don't know if we're going to make money. We just bought at the top of a boom and then it boomed again. Then it boomed again and boomed again and now we're sitting here for a even bigger boom. So I think now's the time to get people excited about starting businesses and using the retail options that are coming our way and you know we're about to have a lot of tools at our hands and I don't think people look at it like that. Um,

it's a great idea. And you might I don't know them, but I hear they're super nice people that bought a Gotti. Glad I said that. They are super nice. They're super nice. They are super nice. The business building. Okay. Yes. Can I interject? Yeah. Go ahead, Abby. Why did you say there's

Go ahead, Abby. Um, so a lot to say what Parks was saying, but most specifically there's been some unpleasable statements. I've been in the community quite a bit just like working and I've been hearing a lot of um complaints, you know, from several people that are speaking to me as a DDA member and I don't really know what to do with the information. One to just document the complaint. Well, share it with us, Abby. Just tell us really say it.

But I mean, is there is a is there a SOP for this as DDA members where we can take that information maybe in real time where when I get it like how do I document that to where it doesn't change in my brain over time? Are you are you trying to document it? Are you trying to give them a way to feel better about it? Because if we create these sort of events, then it's immediately like, well, if you feel that way, you should come to this community outreach program and maybe it can change your mind or shift your perspective.

Yeah, that's Yeah. And then sometimes just people won't do that. And so if there's a way if someone So, you know, if someone sit next to Katie at Dino's and they, you know, throw her a couple of bones on things they're not happy about. How does Katie put that? I guess you're on the board, so there's a quick way to do it. But I just like people are talking about certain grasses out near the lion's ponds, how they're not maintained. Maybe some of the restrooms aren't up to par or the or the faucets, things that they send to the town because I'm even curious like what the town's process is when they receive a complaint. Is it just go through an email? And I know you guys have so much to file through, but how could we be advocates as obviously like we're we are advocates for the downtown region. Um, but when there's areas that are improved, but then there's areas that are they're falling short. So like we're making improvements, but there's also maybe certain things that aren't working properly. I think I don't know, but I haven't been to the bathrooms out here by the lion's ponds, but apparently those have been broken for some time. Um, so like that's where I'm trying to figure out what the SOP is really, like what's the operating procedure for complaints that we might hear, whether they're little complaints or big complaints or repetitive complaints or they're coming from unpleasable individuals. um just not do you know what I mean where I want

I know yeah so my two cents on this is uh it's always in our remit to listen right we also have to apply a filter you consider the source you consider the volume um I think whenever I've encountered that as a member of the public arts committee because I stand out there at these events for hours on end and I hear all kinds of things both about the events and things in general what I usually do when I think there's veracity to the complaint or the the the issue is I bring it to the town.

It's something to do specifically with an event. I bring it to the public arts committee. Um and I think that that's an appropriate thing for us to to do, but it's not necessarily formal role. um which honestly I prefer because the other thing I'll say is in a lifetime of representing institutions, people are always going to be more vocal about their complaints than they are about their platitudes. That's right. All of you who own businesses or work in uh a governmental capacity, you you see that as well. So I I think there's a real risk here of sort of over rotating on the the you know one or two off complaint

whereas if we um hear something over and over again amongst the number of us and the best place to aggregate that is usually in the town's represent representation then that's something we can we can address and if it has something to do with the DDA then that's specific to us and I think then that's a relevant thing for us to discuss.

Yeah. also those areas that they are talking about and I know who you're talking about and what they're complaining about. So, they've been doing it for a while. Um, and they are valid complaints, but it's it's under construction right now. Like that whole area is under construction. So, I think um you know once that bike park is done and once there's people using that area more you know versus like a few people that are over there wandering by and need to use the bathroom or whatever I think it's going to become much more uh pertinent and it's going to be taken care of. But it should be on maybe the town's agenda to fix the the bathrooms at the Lion's Pond. It's there. It is.

But beware the town's falling short is we're not as explaining to the community what happened. As a board member, I know that the pipes froze and we're having um sanitation issues. And we know why they froze, too,

right? So, yeah, the pipes froze. We had issues with individuals damaging the bathrooms, breaking the doors to sleep in the bathrooms. Um, so we have tried various measures to address those issues, um, and are now looking at what to do with them over the winter so they don't break again. Um, the latest conversation was that they would be open during the day until 4:30 and someone would go and visibly check that they were locked and secured and nobody was in the bathrooms. um and that we will have propane tanks for the nights when it gets really cold to run extra heat in there to keep them from freezing. So, um we recognize that a lot of money was spent, taxpayer money on these bathrooms and then they promptly broke, which is not an ideal situation, but the town has definitely been working to address it. Um, just getting to the general question though of complaints that you guys hear. I think it's honestly a a great role for you to play as DDA members of being kind of eyes and ears and helping listen to what people in the community want. And some people aren't going to be pleasable, right? And some people are going to have complaints that are valid and not valid, but I think everybody appreciates being listened to. Um, and in terms of appropriate channels to kind of direct those comments, they're welcome to come to an open forum for DDA meeting if it's within the DDA boundaries and seems relevant to the DDA. They're welcome to come to open comments at DDA board meetings. We have mayor's hours on Tuesdays from 11 to 12. And then just as DDA members, I think you are welcome to share, you know, what you hear, whether it be with, you know, perks as chair, with myself as the interim executive director as well as town staff. Um, I mean, I always try to get that complaint to the person on town staff who that would be their area of responsibility and, you know, as appropriate to Michael Bracka's town

manager. Um, to see if it's something that we can address or not. Um, and I know we keep yielding complaints about the bathrooms and landscaping and other things. So, we should start with you. You definitely can. Yeah. And then you can pass it on because I know as board we kind of start with Michael and he's supposed to tell us what to do with it. Yeah. Appropriate topic for the DDA to discuss. We can always bring it to a board meeting as well. And we Sorry. Go ahead, Abby. the the sense of just I could even just say send an email to you and Michael and just be like, "Hey, this is you know like to me I'm like oh I just want a Google Drive document and every time I hear a complaint I'll just like bullet it and add it and not say

that's what I was going to say Abby. Absolutely. That's I think if that's within our realm of possibility with um like our bylaws and everything. That's what I was going to I was trying to say is like as a person with like mass anxiety, I can tell you going to a town board meeting or talking to the town manager or the mayor or anything is anxiety driving. And if you can just like talk to a person that you know that they can like write it down in a document then we can be those voices for those people. Yeah. Also, Abby, also if we do have open forum on every single one of these. So, that's just somewhere to bring it up to

we can just bring it up at at a meeting right when we start. Right. Well, that I mean I think that's great because the community outreach, right? It can be an event. It could be um you know these specific dates and and programs and concepts, but in the end just like getting a cup of coffee, someone talking about something like I would like a way to be able to regurgitate that information not once a month but on a continual basis like through if the bylaws approve through a consistent way of just a Google doc and being like you know I would% agree

put a put the problem and then if everybody heard it like three times times and we can be like, "All right, everyone's talking about this specific area being not up to par or this specific complaint, you know, and we can categorize it as a priority or, you know, a red flag." And, you know, we like everyone has said, there are some things that will always come up and um we'll just deal with it. But I would like to be that advocate as best as I can and hear it and then document it and not like hold it in my brain. And Abby, you're envisioning a Google doc that everybody on the board would have access to and contribute to if they so chose as

complaints or exclamations and praise came to them. Yeah, that would be great to have a a reward document. even if it was just like a, you know, future topic, agenda topics

and throw it on there and then filter some in, right? Or go through it and say that's part of someone else. And I was going to say, we've spent so much time working on big picture things and setting stuff up for success that it would be also nice if something came up that was small, we could do a small win, right? Because maybe we can get something done that otherwise would fall through the cracks. So, um, you know, everything's been so big picture and waiting, you know, to stack some cash to be able to do bigger projects, but maybe there is something that comes up that would be nice to just, you know, be able to take care of as a GDA just to, you know, get a check.

Yeah. Abby, would you be willing to make a Google document and organize it? And yeah, if that's okay with Do you see any issues with that, Antinet, from a legal open meetings perspective as long as we're not engaging in back? Well, you can't engage in back and forth dialogue, but in terms of just like a dump station, I think it's okay, but you can't you can't, you know, as long as you're not creating an online conversation, I think it's fine. If you're adding some information to a document that is internal to the DDA, I think it's okay.

Um, but just making sure that again, you're not creating an online meeting that's exclusive that nobody can participate in. And maybe if that document is created, maybe it needs to be just like, hey, it's just added to the agenda just for people to view and it's out there for the everybody to see. Yeah. It's not like a conversation. and it's like bullet point bathrooms and it might be more like have problems. You know, the way we do this at the town board level is really those comments are emailed to the town manager who manages them. So maybe it's something more like

um everything is either emailed to either a specific member or to Sarah and she contain she holds that document rather than everybody just having access to it might make more sense. I was going to say too, we have the like when you go to the downtown development authority board on the Fraser website, it says contact us email. Like if we direct people just to email us and then those are just automatically on our agenda. It's not like we have a ton of agenda items every time and those could be like, okay, let's talk about it. Let's not, you know. Yeah, totally. Just to give them like, oh, if you have an issue, go here. Like, we'll take care of it. And always just whatever gets emailed to our DBA board emails. I don't think I've seen one honestly

about the board other than from Sarah. I use it. But yeah, in terms of public, I think that's smart though because then if it feels formal and Yeah. And if they actually do it, then it means more versus like someone just blabbing their mouth. Yeah. To everybody. Cuz there's plenty of that in this town and all towns that they just gossip and want something to complain about versus like are you going to get on the computer, go to the website, and make a complaint? you're just gonna complain to everybody around you. Well, and it's like, you know, and Abby know a lot of people in town are empathetic and then people are like, "Okay, this is how I get stuff done." Is like, "Go bug Parks about it." Yeah. Let's go bug Greg.

Yeah. If we can point them to the email, then it's like, "Hey, we'll be on it, but if it matters enough to you, send an email." Yeah. Pretty low bar, right? Yeah. And certainly the readout we got at the public arts committee from the town's council was there's a difference between documenting a concern or an item versus actioning it. Actioning it needs to be in public therefore at a meeting and on the agenda. The documenting it is simply a violation and there's nothing suggestive about that. That's four years ago. I like it. Um should we get back to the budget now?

Yes. Yeah. And we have after that kind of district enhancements and can continue cut some of these conversations, but I would like to be able to cut Troy and Lori loose. Um, Troy on here. Yeah. So, any other comments on the budget, Lori or Troy, or any thoughts? But okay,

actually, I have two. So, um, so quickly, $10,000 in, um, unassigned fund balance, I think, is a really good spot or 10,174, that's just around 14.5%. So, I I think that's very reasonable. Uh, for your stage in the life cycle, the treasurer fees will be just a scoch higher. Sarah, I did the math real quickly. It's going to be uh 21.86. 86.

Okay. Yeah, I think Lori calculated those before we actually adjusted up for what we were actually estimating off of pin of last year. So, sorry, give me that number one more time, Troy. 2187, actually. Want to make it 2200. Yeah, there you go. 2200. You can make it 22. That's a nice round number. Yeah, it's a budget round up. Yeah, exactly. Those are my only two comments.

Which then will down at the bottom at your unassigned fund balance will reduce that to $9,974. That's your revenue over expenditures. And that's a bad look if those don't match. Um hopefully we're going to come in higher, but that's basically what I'm carrying down is basically just what you anticipate to be at. And that goes carries forward up into the next year straight from there. Um, so do you want us to reduce one of the other funds by 200? No. Expendures. Okay.

You can, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. We're, you know, everything's basically an estimate. We're within, you know,

a little underund and something to get you to 10,000. But I'm assuming that, you know, if you look at your current um budget, you know, you're you're coming in where your expenses, your in year-end estimates are going to uh leave a little extra room. But since we can't really count on those because they haven't happened yet, I think you're going to be carrying forward. Yeah, the green one is the the year-end estimates. So, I think you're going to come in okay to be around 10,000. Yeah, that guy. And go scroll down a little bit more, Sarah. Just down to the balance. Did I total those? Yeah, I think you did. I think you did.

Yeah, keep Yeah, if you keep going down. Yeah. So, you might come out a little bit higher. Oh, I don't know if I fixed the formula there. I'll look at those uh because uh yeah that 35643 should go down to that unassigned fund balance technically. Um and then so yeah I think you're going to be carrying forward more than you

um expect. So again, we're just trying to prove to the state that we're being fiscally responsible and not budgeting a deficit. So, whatever happens is going to happen. And then, you know, they're going to go, "Oh, okay. They're we're doing this correctly." Okay. All right. Any other thoughts on the budget? I

think so. I think we're good to move forward, right? Do you want to go ahead and ask for a motion to present the budget as is to the board of trustees for a full bond? So, but with the change the treasury's fee change. Yes. And so that's just going to increase that total to 6,9400 on our expenditures, right? Yeah. Correct. And then because it's going to change some numbers, it basically just brought down our reserves here. Yeah. Under 10,000. But again, with if extra money rolls over, we'll bring that number back up.

Yeah. Or you could just take the 200 off of training programs and just slide it down and then you would have That'd be easier. I think we should just do that. That would be the the easiest. Um, and well, this is also just just be aware that the presentation is only a draft, right? I'm presenting the draft budget to the town board. Uh, so there are, you know, you changes can and may happen um along the way before final approval, but we're just showing the board a draft. So, this isn't a final approval or anything. This is just, hi, here's your budget.

So, I'm making a motion to approve the draft budget for the There you go. 2026. Seconded. All in favor? I Okay, moving on to the district enhancement projects future. Yes. The last month about Okay.

Do we have and this is one Troy might want to tine on. Do we have any timeline for a projection out into the future um so that we can get a better handle on when there'll be you know real assets in this? And I know there's lots of assumptions and all that but budget projections are are pretty normal. Is that on the docket or is that something we can get? I can I'll let Troy chime in, but I will say I think we have some at least sketches of some development plans that we could give to Troy. Um, and Greg, like for your developments, you might already have some of your own projections and numbers to try to at least get a partial picture. Yeah.

of that. Puts it puts things into a context where now context is 12 months, right? Yeah. Sure. Okay, chart. No, you're okay. I was going to ask the same thing on Okay. Like I'm guessing professional services is going to drop tremendously in 2020 at the end of 2026, 2027. I'm just curious.

Well, it would depend. Um, you know, professional services um covers someone like Troy. If we did have a developer present um a request to the DDA that we wanted to consider, I imagine we would be working with somebody be it Troy or legal to kind of vet that and review that and go back and forth. Um and so that would come out of that that as well. Um I think the DCI membership can come out of that if we use DCI for further consulting or workshops that could come out of that. um if we do a workshop with the community that could go into community outreach like there's some flexibility there. Um I will throw out as well I did have a conversation with um a woman Ann Cukenmeister who lives in Frraasier just outside Frasier. She works for Michael Baker which is I don't want to misspeak who they are but um they do consultant work. the town has worked with them on some projects related to water and flood planes and FEMA, which is how I've always thought of them, but she's actually on the planning, like urban planning side. They do some wayfinding stuff. One of the things she does is manage special districts. So, she works with a couple business improvement districts down in Denver. um to work with her or somebody in something similar um I think could be a really good fit moving forward because you're not necessarily hiring you're not hiring full-time staff but you'd have somebody with maybe more dedicated staff time right now. I still think it would eat up too much of our budget um was my thought to to move over to that model if the board of trustees is still willing to give you town staff so to speak to kind of fill those that role for now. Um, but that is the type of thing that in the future might actually grow that, but it would be in line with your budget growing as well. Um, and that's definitely something we can explore earlier as well. But, um, I know her current contracts with the bids, I

think, end up between like 18 and $24,000 a year. Um, so reasonable, but right now a good chunk of of the money that the DDA would have. Um, so yeah, I I've I've been just to to speak about financial services. I you know, I I think we've been keeping uh me pretty lean and mean um and standing by when available. Uh I would love the opportunity to vet a developer project for TIFF reimbursement. I think that would be a very exciting first move for the DDA. And I'll agree with Sarah's comments that yeah, I think you guys should expect to grow to a point where you need someone like uh an and in my experience 24,000 is very reasonable. Um as to the question about future planning um uh I did bring up this topic uh with Sarah when we were discussing the preliminary valuation report. Um some of the new town homes are uh did provide a little bump in um new construction which leads directly to increment. That's a good thing. Um but that project is at the time when assessors look at it they look at everything at the first of the year. So when this project was first looked at it was only 21% complete. So what that means is that when those uh town homes are constructed and the co and if that occurs before January 1st, so if that occurs before January 1st to 2026, you'll get that benefit of increment for the 2027 fiscal year. And I'm happy to do that analysis to give you guys some runway in terms of hey, this is the money we're expecting to kind of come in uh from these projects. Uh, I'm happy to

do that.

And I know that um so there was not an ask on the developer part on my part for Stro um for the taxes, but there may be from the for like property tax increment. There may be from the business owner. I know for that street we're planning to do a hotel that's well above and beyond kind of code requirements. So, I know we're going to make an ask there for a tiered property tax um uh rebate for that increment. Um but we're planning to bring our next three phases of Clayton Court to the planning commission for a sketch plan. So, I think I might have done it with Stro. I could do bring that here first or kind of in parallel just to give an overview of what is going to go on on that street and kind of the asks we would make both on the town business incentive side and then on the DDA potential property tax increment rebate ask. Um so I won't have that ready in a month but

in two two three months I could bring that here before I bring it to the planning commission. Yeah. Yeah. And the way projections work of course is we take a guess and then as the future unfolds we start filling in the reality and you adjust accordingly. Helps give us some choices in the future about investments. And like what Troy mentioned like the town home portion I think we saw 800 per unit. So 3,200 that should quadruple. So you'll see another you know 8,000 from those units for sure. And then I don't know if Carrie she said they assessed that as of January 1st at 20%. They were judging it at 20% completion of construction.

Yeah. So they'll have CO before then. So you'll get the remaining you know 8,000 wouldn't be up for you know not going to give taxes back to a residential improvement but potentially if the business owners were going to ask for something that might be something that take into account. Lori, did you want to speak? Um, are you still there? Let's see.

Oh, okay. She jumped off. Um, Nick, just a note, I did talk to Lori about Nick had raised the question of if DDA money that we're kind of setting aside or is sitting in our bank account if that is earning interest. Um, and right now it is in a bank account and should be able to earn some interest. Um, but I did talk with Lori about looking at putting that in Colorado trust. it wouldn't be much cuz it's a small amount and our town money I think it's about 4% but um so we are looking at that as a way to just the money sitting there might as well every counts exactly if it's two bucks more that's like two bucks we didn't have before but um yes like as that grows it'll just get better so

no I'm glad you guys talked about that uh that pleases me a great deal yeah just throw in column trust 4%'s a lot better than you can get in a lot of other places. Yeah. And it's very liquid. Yes. Yep. Yeah. And law requires that the money that they're investing in is pretty stable and secure. So, yeah. Um you don't lose it all if

All right. Any other budgetary financial questions for Troy or just in general? Uh, one one thing kind of in Troy's world maybe I would look while we have your time get your opinion on in that uh big bill there was mention of rural opportunity zones and redesation. Have you been dealing with any kind of towns like Frasier with

potentially applying for that? And are there any in my understanding it's obviously a benefit to outside investment and will generate a lot of outside investment into those areas that are designated OP zones. But is there a give from the town or the DDA for participating in that federal program or trying to get designated as one?

Uh I'm certain there is a give. I I'm afraid I'm not up to date on that new program. I do have a client in the southeast part of the state, very rural, that's looking at it, so uh I can be more informed and certainly share my thoughts. But yeah, typically there's a give there. Um and the first opportunity opportunity zone program um you know was hit or miss at least in from the circles I'm uh I operate within. I heard it was a hit or miss um kind of uh incentive. Um but it does work. I know it works. Um so um yeah, you know, let me look into it. I I think you know ultimately I if the give isn't that big, it can't hurt, right?

Yeah. To get that designation because the previous one that was sun setting that's now going permanent. Yeah, it was kind of all, you know, not super desirable areas that hadn't seen a lot of investment, right? And I feel like the good ones that were adjacent to better areas got cherrypicked and saw a ton of investment. Yeah. And so the new bill is

really prioritizing rural communities to apply to that. And I think it would drive investment a ton. um just having raised for some deals in good areas of opportunity zones like money flu to it. People took a much much lower return. It incentivizes people to build stuff that's not build it, sell it next year. It's build it, hold it for 10 years, build it. Yeah. Um uh tax benefit. So I think it would be at least interesting to look into if not something to pursue for Frraasier especially for some of the goals with like the larger development and you know placemaking type of stuff in the comp plan. So

yeah and somebody sent that to me on the town level as well and it's been on my list. So thank you. It's another tool in the box. Yeah, curious to know that other town experience as they go through it and I don't think Yeah, absolutely. I don't think you have to do anything till Jan 27, I think, is like the deadline. Oh, that's good to know. I mean, it'll come quick, but it's Yeah. Okay. Marching orders for it'll be good. More info would be good and just your opinion once I go through it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you, Trey. That's right. Hey, you bet. You guys keep doing great work. All right. Have a great day. Thanks.

You too. Bye.

Okay, moving on to district enhancements, mural mural possibility over at ACE. Yes. So, we talked about this at our last meeting. Um, I did speak with Rochelle Gold who spoke with her parents, in-laws, parents. Parents, right? Um, who are the owners of A's. they are open to the idea with some parameters. Um, so they would want to be able to approve the design. They'd be looking for something um, for lack of a better word, more kind of traditional and conventional.

Um, it was maybe if not directly stated, some would express that they there's some other murals around in the area that they would not be looking to put on ACE. Um, and they wouldn't want it directly on the wall. So, we'd have to come up with some kind of medium to use their space but not actually apply it to their building. Um, they also pointed out that people do park back there. Um, and so just thinking about the layout of the building um at any given time. I mean, it's not a super tall building like some of our other murals that we have around town. Um, I think it's a good level to see it from the train, but that the lower portion of the mural um could be blocked by by parked cars at any given time

and snow. That's pretty That is true area for putting snow. We were looking at this and so there was no snow storage. Yeah. So, and they're really not that excited about it. No, no. The parent the parents Yeah. I talked directly to her parents and they were like, "We don't we don't want it." But okay, Michelle is more open-minded. Open-minded. Yeah. Um and I think if we have to buy the medium to put it there, too, instead of just being like directly on the wall, I really think that we could put our money somewhere else into art, right?

I I agree. I don't feel like there's any need to rush into this one. There there are going to be opportunities. a lot of developments happening, a lot of moving parts as to who owns what building in that area. We know that the railroad and Amtrak are going to be doing things. So, I I just our time I'd say the same. Well, I'm wondering if it could be suspended. So if it was like two 2 by eight or 3 by eight sheets and be suspended right from their sophet up against the building it something like that. As my builder once told me everything is possible.

The the challenge you have with anything suspended out here is a a hurricane force wind is not out of the question. Yeah. Um, and therefore you have to build for that eventuality or else it could kill somebody. That would be bad. That would be bad. Okay. That makes it very expensive. Okay. Thank you.

And I really think if we're going to get some art, you know, over by the train station, maybe we look at something that's not paint and we look at more. I was going to say if they're open if they're open to it, we could just treat it like a billboard, you know, if they're willing to give us space. It is a good space to get some sort of messaging. Maybe not a $10,000 mural, but yeah, you know, but if they're willing to give us space to get messaging to train riders, like even if it's kind of subliminal, just, hey, this is Frasier, like whoa, what's, you know, colorful sign, what, you know, something that like moves. I think it's keep the relationship to have the opportunity to put up something there. But yeah, I agree with maybe

I don't speak out of term, but I know the town is talking with both railroad and track owners, right? And so maybe we're just a partner in that and was progress seek opportunities for, you know, some some sort of impact. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, and when I was talking before about some of the different moving pieces that we've kind of been waiting on to finalize some things like the comp plan was one, the wayfinding, there also are a lot of discussions about properties right there in the future for a rail station and maybe a larger kind of actual transit center. One of the things that's been brought up by Mr. Anderson who owns the building that Amtrak currently leases space from for the the station is that not only is it Amtrak and now there's increased passengers coming up with the mountain rail ski train but you've got lift passengers getting off there going in looking to use a restroom. You have Mustang um passengers also getting on and off there. So the town is very interested in having some sort of um transit center to kind of house waiting space um especially in the winter for all these folks and there's some different people interested in property and partnering with the town. So that was part of the reason in addition to wayfinding for holding off on the kinetic sculpture. Um we just continue to have all these moving pieces which is exciting um but can make it hard to to move forward with stuff. So, it's like something similar to what they have in Winter Park as their transit station.

Yeah. And I don't know exactly what it would look like. I mean, a shared parking facility is definitely in the overarching vision, too. Um, and where that actually lands has not yet been determined. And I bring that up because Winter Park's got their transit center with the parking with the parking garage right there. Makes sense. you know, potentially having some little sort of grab and go cafe or Yeah, there's been lots of ideas thrown around. Um, and I think the DDA can play a role in those as those continue to kind of develop and and move forward. So,

yeah, because I think like what I'm witnessing in the wedding industry is a lot of people are trying to figure out like where to rental cars park like if someone's going to get off the Amtrak to pick up a rental car, whether it's Avalanche or whatever. like, you know, I just feel like that whole experience is is just so far from what it could be. And I would be a big advocate for a warming station, coffee, like anywhere for them to just stop and put their luggage and and be safe and out of the elements. It's a huge problem with me right now in my industry

in the interim. Is that an appropriate place for us to invest? Because Mr. Anderson is not investing a whole bunch into that space um to do some public improvements so that he allows access to other than Amtrak p people. So, the town has had a few different conversations with Amtrak in relation to this. Um, town staff and Brian. Um, I would say we need to see where some different cards fall. Part of So, Amtrak is moving forward with improvements to the platform to make it ADA accessible. Um, that was delayed and they're required by Congress to do this. They have to make all their stations um ADA accessible. So, they have been waiting on trying to get approvals from Mr. Anderson to improve the station itself. He is on board with improving the interior, which um could use some some TLC for sure. Um so, these would be improvements largely to the bathroom and making the bathroom ADA accessible, but I think they're looking to completely redo the bathroom. Um, but along with that, they have ADA requirements for the exterior to make improvements with a ramp and a handrail. Um, and I guess that complicates the current snow removal method over there. Um, so there's been some resistance to that. So, right now, Amtrak is moving forward with the platform improvements and continuing to try to get Mr. Anderson on board with the improvements that they want to see. My understanding is he's on board with all of them except for this handrail and wants that taken away which they can't do and be in conformity. Um so that's happening and Amtrak's at this point exploring other options for stations

for that update. Yeah. And transit centers. So another thought is it wouldn't be outside the bounds of imagination that that area become commercially developed. Maybe that's what you're getting at. That's so putting money into it may be transitory. That's what we were talking about last time we brought it up was we either buy it or just let him sit there with the car wash. Yeah. And um he is again my understanding is very willing to sell for the right price. Um but nobody agrees that he has the right price except for him. So three million or something.

We'll see what happens there. But there's some different possibilities being explored by Amtrak in the town and um some different investors in the area. So hopefully we'll have some updates there in the near future. Um but all the more reason to bite our time and some of these choices and let the dominoes fall. Yeah, totally. Yeah. The other couple things I meant to mention earlier in terms of moving pieces,

the town is also exploring possibly doing a more kind of comprehensive look at the Frasier River Trail area like behind Clayton Court and over by the Lions Ponds. Um, I know Tiffany have talked briefly with you about this, but looking at a way to try to hopefully balance the ecological health of the river and make sure we're being good environmental stewards, but also kind of better developing a riverwalk area that has some um, accessibility points to the river and visibility. Um, so there may be some things there that would be, I think, great for the DDA to potentially throw some money at in the near future. Um but probably some costly items. Um the other thing that I'm waiting to kind of see what happens and would encourage any feedback actually we're doing a workshop with our board of trustees September 17th regarding kind of overarching economic development but the focus is largely going to be on the business enhancement grant program. Um, I don't know what exactly will come out of that workshop, whether it'll be a fine-tuning of the current program or if there will be some overhaul. Um, Katie, you might have some thoughts. My impression is that a lot of board members are still supportive of the program, but there are some board members who are not. Um, and some board members who I think would like to see the DDA take on this program. Um, my statements to the board about this in the past have been that one, the DDA doesn't currently have the money to really float the program, but I think it could be a great fit moving forward, at least within DDA boundaries. Most of our projects are within DDA boundaries, but it also would exclude um any businesses outside of the DDA boundaries um if the DDA were to take it on. But that workshop is happening on the 17th. Um, I've been working on touching base with the different folks who were granted awards. And I can actually pull this up

real quick. Um, to kind of just gauge where they're at. For better, for worse, if few of our different projects that were awarded haven't happened, um, which is totally understandable. Stuff comes up, it's hard to get contractors up here. Things change. Um, the Holiday and Express got something. They have a new manager who wasn't looking to move forward with the project at this time. People waiting on contractors, pricing changing for things. Um, so it's understandable. It does make it a little trickier to make a case for the program um when it's easier when you can see beautiful buildings that have new paint jobs. Um, but I think Camber's done a really nice job with theirs. There's the Colorado Corn dog Company um has put a really nice new wrap around their food truck and they've got the Frasier logo on there which was a requirement of the board of trustees given that it was a food truck that by nature is meant to be mobile that if they were to decide to move location that at least Frasier might get a little publicity out of that um was the thinking behind that and I think that worked out pretty well. Um Black Tai I think has done a nice job replacing their sighting. Um, Solstice Beastro has got some outdoor patio furniture. Grandkids, um, has done some of their work. They said they've had trouble finding an exterior painter and so that is on hold. They have somebody, but he's not available until next year. Um, that I'm missing. Frasier Beer Co says they're still looking to put in their ADA ramp in the front of their building. And then that building across from the CupKy Tim Copky's building across from Shell and Eisenhower, he said he is still planning to paint the sighting. Um, and then Frasier Valley Center, we the town had requested a site plan for them for dumpster enclosures. Um, and so they it took them a while to get that from their architect and they have submitted that and we are supposed to

get them back a yay or nay once people have weighed in on from like the fire department and whatnot by Monday hopefully. Um, so hopefully they'll have time to complete that project and then Frasier Hair Company replaced their sign. So it's the same sign they had but just a fresh fresh paint on that. So um, so yeah. So I think we've had a few great projects and then a few that have fallen through. Um but yeah, any feedback that you guys have on your role in the program or just what you've seen would be helpful and if anybody wants to attend that meeting, um it'll be at 4:30 on September 17th. But I bring this up in part to one, if you do have any feedback, but two, depending on what happens with it in the future, this is something else that the DDA could focus some dollars on at some point moving forward. If we did focus on that, would they be giving a budget to us for that or would it just strictly come out of our budget?

I think the idea is that at some point in the future that some the DDA could put money towards it. Um, but I think it depends on what happens at the town level too. Like right now, I don't think the DDA needs to, but if if this program were to be diminished or maybe away from the town. Um, this is the type of program that a lot of DDAs do kind of take on something like this to encourage those particularly exterior improvements. Yeah, I think you said it right. It's like, yeah, if we had more money, it'd be easier. Binance you would have to figure out. But it also makes sense that yeah, if it gets it off of other people's plates and puts it on ours and there's money that's already earmarked for that that we could use. Seems like it would make

it would make sense. Yeah. I feel like just personally I I wouldn't mind taking that on, but with the money we have, I think it's important that we use it on things like the Frasier Trail at the moment and things that are more widely used, you know. Yeah. community oriented and used versus like individual businesses. Yeah. And some of the idea behind the program and other programs that I've seen like this or yes, it's an individual business, but it's improving the overall curb appeal of Frraasier, right? Like whether you actually go into Camber or Black Tai, if you're driving by, you know, it's the impression that you have of is this the downtown you want to spend time in?

Yeah. And I get that. I'm I'm just saying if we had more money then but yes with limited funds you have to prioritize those decisions. I would say that's one of the I would support the town to continue to fund it because if you look at before and after pictures of all those things that got done it's like a no-brainer to keep funding that sort of stuff and the town has to play that role until others can fit into their shoes. And right now we can't. But and I think it would help compartmentalize some of the stuff that it's like Yeah. that would really be under our purview which I think would help long term so we're not like oh someone got something from the town and now they're asking something from us. Yeah. So

Right. Yeah. And I I mean I think both can exist in parallel for a little and once we have the size and scale we can take it on. Right. Yeah. Um yeah, and there are some communities where they have it's basically like Montrose. Um I think the program might have two different names, but basically where the money comes from depends on if it's within the DDA boundary or not, or they might have a URA. I don't remember. But um so there's different possibilities moving forward, but um

but yeah, I think there's value in the program. I think a lot of businesses has used the money well and it has benefited the community and part of it too is meant to recognize that I think the town's making a lot of larger investments in infrastructure and developing a main street and kind of things to build out the area and to support new development and new businesses. Um but recognizing that it is can be a difficult environment to have a business um and that a lot of these businesses do have thin margins that they're running on and so that support to do some of those improvements that we do see a community benefit in um it is helpful to have that assistance from the town. And how tight is the sorry to interrupt how Go ahead.

How tight is the boundaries meaning like we talked about signage and other stuff which would be our boundaries well defined. Yeah. But is if there's something that comes up that might technically be outside of the DDA boundary, we can't do it.

So if it was something like an individual business enhancement grant, I think that would be out of I don't think we could touch that. Something like say a monument sign or a directional sign that was slightly outside of the boundary. My understanding is you can make a case for something like that if you can tie it to benefiting the DDA and the planet development. And the other thing is is that you can get the town to I believe vote and then petition to extend boundaries, right? There is a process that you can go through to extend the boundaries. Correct. Which might need to happen at some point. Yeah.

So I'd encourage anybody that is interested to go ahead and just come to that workshop and chime in for your support for the program. I think in general that the board does support it. We have a couple of members that are concerned because we have a lot of big expenses coming up for the town. We're looking at a new public works facility and then a workforce housing project and um so anyway, but I I believe it's important. It is important, but it would be good to hear, you know, just a two cents worth from some of our DVA members.

Yeah. And I think some of the concerns are valid and require some refining of the program and just maybe clarity behind, you know, these are the goals of the program and this is how these projects tie into those goals and and where we see the community benefit. So now Sarah, clarify for me though at at workshops um public's allowed to participate. Well, these guys aren't really public. They're our DDA. Yeah, it is up to the mayor. Um, but generally I feel like public comment is invited and encouraged. Yeah. 4:30. Yep. I've sat in on workshops before. I'd like to sit in on this one, but I'll be on the plane at that moment.

Okay. Well, and I'm happy if you've got comments like I I am putting together the workshop. So, I am happy to incorporate feedback discussion. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. When is this workshop again?

It's September 17th from 4:30 to 5:30. So, it's before our board meeting and it'll be focused a little bit on overarching economic development, but largely most of the time will probably go towards the business enhancement grant program um and what it kind of looks like for next year just moving forward. Okay. If the town does kind of want to dissolve it into the DDA at some point, maybe if the DDA can have more of a presence in the, you know, in the discussions and everything like that. I know that we reviewed a lot last uh this spring, not last year. Um but maybe we actually have a standing in vote or I don't know more. So what we did last year just as a reminder um and for clarity originally I think some of the idea was you guys would be great could be great ambassadors for the program right and talking to people encouraging them to apply and then help kind of review them. Um, the point was brought up, which I think was valid by one of our board of trustees members, that if businesses from outside of the DDA can apply in order to try to make sure it's not biased towards DDA properties, that there should be outside voices in that, which I think made sense. And so what we ended up doing was forming a subcommittee. So, it was actually Bill and Lori Hannon um from the DDA and was it Nick? Diane Butler who does economic development at the county level and I'm blanking who else was on our committee?

I think that was it. I don't remember the three of us plus you. Oh, and then Sarah Wick. Myself and Sarah Wick from town staff. Sorry. Um

if anyone else is interested in serving in that committee, I think that worked pretty well. I would like to streamline the program a little bit more. We've talked about um at least giving more of the admin chunks to our lovely clerks um who do that more efficiently than I do sometimes. Um with I know one of the things and if you have any feedback on this um Mayor Sergenick would like to see the deadline moved up to February 1 um and really encourage people to apply by that deadline. we had pushed it back a bit to um actually I think accommodate some of the suggestions from this group that coming off of the holidays and just a busy time. It would be hard for businesses to have their ducks in a row by February 1st. But trying to balance that with it is hard to get contractors line things up here. make sure that people have enough time to do that for the summer because our goal really is that the money we're allotting is spent that year and knowing that it is such a short construction time and all those folks are in high demand. Um so February 1st is what um I think the board or at least the mayor would like to see this year. Um I think we'll still allow applications to roll in, but we'll see what happens in the workshop. But I brought all that up to say too that um it does become time consuming if we are putting applications together, giving them to a subcommittee, bringing them in front of the GDA board, bringing them in front of the board of trustees. I think it works for that initial batch, but then it just gets to be a lot for those one-offs that are coming in that we're trying to be reasonably quick with processing. Could we just like similarly to how the town prefunded the DDA budget with 30 grand to kind of get us off the ground, could we just absorb their budget for this and then on the process?

I could ask the trustees if they wanted to do that to take that off their plate. The sense that I have gotten is particularly with the larger dollar amounts that the board of trustees is going to want to weigh in on those decisions. Is that your thought, Katie? I got that feeling off. Yeah. Um, one of the things I would like to ask them is that for, you know, to set a threshold, whether it be 2,000 or whatever the amount is, that they allow us, if they meet the criteria, to just administratively approve it. Again, just to avoid the time that it takes to prepare it for the board packet, present it to the board. Yeah.

Um, we did that. Frasier Hairco was looking, it was like $420 towards our sign. Um, and so we just signed off on that administratively. That seemed appropriate, but cuz that would I think it makes sense for it to sit with us, but we don't have the money. But if we can do the same thing they did to fund us initially, which I assume statutoily we can since we did it once, I think they could. So I can present that as an option. Um, and just yeah, if it's over 10 grand or whatever, it's off the consent agenda and on your regular board agenda to approve, but otherwise just dis outside of the DDA boundaries. There's not

and that's how we ended up going with the subcommittee last time versus the DDA board. Um, and we did I think the only one we got outside of the DDA boundary boundaries was grandkids which did come up and was questioned because it is technically a nonprofit versus a business. Um, you

you can argue that they could easily be a for-profit daycare and then would be, but those are some of the things that we just need to clean up in the criteria so that people don't feel like we're giving out money to anybody who asks for it and that we actually do have criteria that we are adhering to that are tied to the goals of the program. But we not give them money. We did give them money, but there was a lot of discussion about it. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen some programs that are tied to a commercial district like an area which I think could make sense. And so then they some programs even allow residential properties because again the idea is it's curb appeal of that commercial district.

Um so those are some of the things that we need to define. Yeah. Well, that's one, too. Like the business enhancement grant that the town does is not for residential, right? But I would argue it's worth including residential. You know, if there's, you know, for instance, if the train station develops, there's houses all along kind of the streets that you would take to get there. I think that's something that we would turn over to the DDA. That's what I'm saying. like the DDA. I would want to include residential facade improvements in our downtown district if there's undesirable anything residential, commercial, whatever it is.

Yeah, that would be a great turnover because it's opens up a huge can of worms for the town of Frasier. Yeah. Yeah. We did get one request from I think the Spock Rone Apartments. Yeah. That was denied and we said that it did meet the eligibility and I think they made some valid points in trying to argue that but they're not. Yeah. Those are areas we need to tighten up. No, they're not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think if we're going to have a business district program, like whatever's in there has got to look good and be enticing and get people to want to hang out.

Yeah. I think we've discussed this before, but I think also the DDA being maybe better about outreach to specific places and businesses because I know it's also hard feel like a lot of people, this is just my opinion, so tell me if it's wrong, a lot of people who are property owners, right, might have more interest or insight or dealt with the town more than like business owners who are like leasing space who I think sometimes forget that this stuff is also available to you. Mhm.

And I know there's a whole another process that you can't just do anything if you don't own the building, but you know, for instance, like I use it for garage doors and I was like, "Yeah, I didn't own the building, right?" It'd be a much different conversation, right? If you know, a landlord was willing to partner with a business or something like that, right? Versus like, "Hey, this is something that I need that would help out, you know, kind of forcing the hand." Um, so hopefully we can also do better outreach to specific places and maybe help them understand even if you don't own the business, right, there's opportunities or sorry, if you don't own the property, there's opportunities that maybe

still thinking about that, there's um a sign in Frasier and one of our businesses that really needs replaced, but down in Frraasier, we have that matching program where they have to contribute dollars, But something highly visible. Is that something that they could bring to the DDA and do a There was multiple people who who in their um submission right basically said they didn't have enough money to match or there was a multiple like hey this is how much we could put in or we have nothing to put in. Um I think we talked about it and it was one of those where it wasn't it wasn't hard to discuss that. Yeah. I'm thinking on the outreach especially for low dollar amounts. It's like

y and I think and we talked about this a bit and I think we the group correct me if I'm wrong felt that the current business enhancement grant program was largely covering most of the needs and the same things that the town covered was what the DDA based on our documents and kind of plan of development and the um investment document that Troy put together. Um, so what what the town covered was the same that the DDA could cover, but we very much could create kind of some sort of supplemental or different program that covered things that weren't being covered by and I'm thinking just DDA. So, I'm going to just stick my neck out. It's ice box. They needed a new sign

and they I talked to them about this program and I thought they might apply and they never did. Right. For the DVA? No, for the town. Why don't because we've got that matching program. I think that they struggle with I don't know, but I think that they're really tight, but that's super visible. It's right in the heart of Frraasier. And it seems like that might be something that we might want to reach out to them for to say, "Okay, we'll we'll help you with that new sign. You know, we'll we'll pay for the new sign and see what it takes and we get approval of it." What do you think about that board? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the perfect example of, you know, Yeah. if they did some some sweat equity and getting some information and that type of stuff

and get the design done. I don't know what do you think board because I'd love to reach out for a month. Is the is the what is it bylaw or is our do we require that they meet half is that right they have to match guidelines in the investment document um that are related to grant programs like this I would have to look back I think in suggested match amounts I don't know if there's like a hard required I would suggest with something like that that we might want to have a little bit of caution in just reaching out to a particular business and paying for that without establishing I think that would

a formal like parameters and program that other businesses yeah I really I really feel like we could reach out to them but we could maybe use the sign next door and say hey Frasier Hair you know it cost them $490 so if we just went ahead and paid half of that you know you need to fill out this application we could lay it out for them but they need to do something otherwise Then it's really pretty unfair, you know. Slippery slope. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Then everyone's like, "Why aren't you giving me money for free?" Nick,

I'm here. But what was the question? I'm sorry. I'm here now. Um because yes, their project would be eligible for the town's program right now too. Say Miss Frasier, her companies. I agree. I think it's a little slippery to reach out to a business because then you can have other business saying why why didn't you contact me per personally, you know, I think having those parameters and encouraging people to apply is is really the way to go.

Well, that's what sliding into other business if I'm not like moving it. I kind of wondered um I was talking with Sarah about the the amount of communication from all different organizations and I was mentioning I was kind of giving the town manager a hard time because I enjoy his Friday emails because I think they're a little bit more poignant and specific to you know some things that I'm interested in and I didn't know if there was a better opportunity to yeah have a more focused communication whether it's email blast or something to more business owners in the boundaries of the DDA, you know, I don't care if it started off quarterly or something to be more um yeah, business DDA focused.

I think so much stuff gets wrapped up. When I was talking with Sarah, I use the example of like the chamber emails. Like there's a lot of information in those. Like it's a lot, right? And usually I don't read through them. Most people don't. I think I think that you could maybe or we could ask the town manager to send something out if we wanted to as well. I was just using that as an example of it's like I don't want to sign up something for weekly, right? But it's very, you know, more succinct, more to the point, you know, specific. Um, and I think there's a lot of things happening that are

that would help business owners in the area, right? I always use the example of like employee housing, right? Everyone always is looking for housing and then it's always word of mouth, right? Someone lives in one of the employee housing options, right, in the county and like that's how I found out about it as an employee like, "Hey, someone's moving out, right?" So, he's telling everyone at work, "Hey, if you're not you're not getting your lease renewed, right? Look at this place, right?" you know, just some more specific um communication um that might be might be an opportunity for us to get out more to like I said, more of the business owners in in the boundaries that may not know what's going on or they get, you know, fatigued from all the other communication.

Sure. And if we kept it short and simple and to the point, you know, Yeah. for business owners in the boundary area, apply now if you want your sign redone. Yeah. So, um, this just this is putting the cart before the horse, but, um, it's germanine to the conversation. The old Hilly's hooker sign outside the post office. Um, I've been talking to the new business owner of the post office who also owns that sign about a potential Frasier Valley Arts um, sign that would go up that would promote events. Mhm. Um and it would be relatively simple till we get the center built and then we spruce it up a bit.

Um but part of what we're thinking is an electronic um signboard. Um not like the one up in Winter Park which um is really kind of hard to read and it has tons of different information so you don't you don't hit it. But I want to hit the tens of thousands of people who drive up and down that road every single day. One of the things we could look into is um using that space to also promote things like you're talking about. We put up there, you know, um workforce housing applications open on October the 15th.

Yeah. or DVA um has blank um go to the website, you know, and so we're we're not at all close-minded to the idea of incorporating town of Frasier Germaine stuff into that. Um I'd want to collaborate with both the BDA and the town, you know, the the funding of it. But, um that's certainly an opportunity and that's one unlike emails that you can't help but read. Yes. Yeah, every single person who comes to this valley has to go up and down 40. Only negative of that location is it's after Safeway. Um I prefer it to be before Safeway, but it is what's available. So yeah, I'm looking into that. Um

if the DDA is interested when I have a little more information um about, you know, the the possibilities and the cost and that sort of thing, I'd be happy to bring that here and just brief you and it's something we're interested in. Yeah, like I said, I just think I've just been thinking more about something that's a little bit more compartmentalized to specific Y right that specific group that would be easier to Yeah. get the right contact information for, you know, all the businesses in the area so that we know when we have something we can send something out that then wouldn't be Yeah. cherrypicking or look like we're reaching out. It's like, hey, this is this is it. And I think that would be much easier for like me individually to help is get the correct contact information for the business. And it's like, hey, you're not going to come to the meetings if you're not going to sit here, you're not going to read everything. Like here's one that would be, you know, useful for you to join.

You know, like I like that we get the updates for the agendas for, you know, I sign up for the town and then our, you know, board and then our board. Like it's simple. There's nothing else I'm looking for. It's not convoluted with a bunch of information. and it's like, "Oh, good. That's my notification. There's an updated agenda. I can read it." And we do have a business email list that's basically just taken from the business licenses. And so I do periodically send something out to them. Yeah. Um, so I'll send things like the open DDA board member. I sent the business enhancement grant. Um, business owners, I would love to know if you actually see and open these emails. Um, I mean they show you like the click rate and this and this, but the sense is I send them into a void because

they don't require you to respond to me, but I've always like wouldn't somebody like write with a question or I don't know. Um, and I I have been on the side of I sent in an email, I gave you the information, I don't know what else to do. And then I think about like emails I get from Frasier Valley Elementary. It's a lot of good information and I feel like a poor parent because I know I don't read a lot of them and I should um because it is there's just so much in your inbox or

some of that is just subject matter. So in the subject if I see something from the town and it's just not interesting or like update half time I'm not going to read it. But if you were like do you want money I'd probably open that. Yeah. you know, if you were like you're like, you know, so maybe things like that like or there's grant money is available now or something, you know? Yeah. Focus on more of like an urgent breaking news story. It's affecting you now. I feel like then those business owners are going to read that because they really don't most business owners aren't going to respond to stuff they just don't have time. No, not nobody has any time.

Yeah. But if it involves helping their business and it's not like in six paragraphs, it's like right at the top, there's grant money for your business right now. And I think word of mouth, it's a really powerful tool. I mean, Vicious Cycle came looking for business enhancement grant money and they had heard about it, I think, from Barry and Nick maybe, but they applied after they had completed their project and so that made them ineligible. So, the timing was off, but um but yeah, I just I do think word of mouth is is great. And I would love to hear like if you're talking to people and they tell you like this is how you will get me to an event or this is what would be valuable or this is

like because we know that our methods are not foolproof. Um but we don't necessarily always have

I feel like I do I do a lot of compiling information and then regurgitating it to like like employees like employee housing is like the great example. like I have to ask cuz I don't know how like St. um Lewis Landing like how is that working right? I don't know the answer to that, but I've had multiple employees ask me, right? Hey, can you figure that out and tell me? I think if it's if it's anything that can be presented, if it's to the business owner, that's probably easier. But if it's something that's going to help an employee, like housing or something, something that has an attached PDF that you can literally print off and hand out to your people, that would be like super helpful. And so another thing is if we do end up doing those kind of conference sessions with different local owners, those are tools that business owners can use and people that are aspiring to make businesses that that can help them, you know? So it's like those are things that are still community outreach, you know what I mean? So that that can kind of fall under that. if you want to do more marketing for that, then we can throw it in there. Because I'll tell you what, if I didn't have a whole lot of money to start a business and you were like, "Hey, there's grant money available." And I knew that it'd make it a lot easier for me to put my $10,000 that I saved throughout the year to start my business knowing that, hey, they could possibly match that and I would have 20,000 or 5,000 to then improve this area so that it would make this people want to come in, you know?

Yep. So, I really feel like it's it that that is definitely our job is to get that that word out there and how we do it. We're going to have to be creative because people aren't going to answer a lot of things. So, we we probably do need to look into new ways to get out there versus email or text blast, you know?

Yeah. So maybe there is a time and a place where we can, you know, the coffee hours are great and stuff, but again, what's the subject matter on that coffee hour? Because if you're like, "Hey, I'm having a coffee hour over here with the DDA, lots of people aren't going to come. They're going to that coffee shop to get their coffee and get out, right?" versus like this is a coffee hour specifically aimed at how we're going to give you money, how we are going to help you out with your business because buy coffee and we'll buy you your coffee. Yeah. And it's like, you know, so these people that are complaining about the bathrooms and stuff like that. Yeah.

This is a coffee hour where we're addressing that. We're addressing complaints. You know, I bet you have a lot of people show up if they can complain. You know, it's just we we really have to to break this. Vast majority of people are far more comfortable sending in a text or an email. Totally. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I guarantee you they don't they don't seem to hold back when you're standing in front of them. Yeah, that's how you get it. Do it public. We'll just put the the most approachable member there waiting for him. Okay. Do we want to move to updates? I think so. I think that would be nice. Can we move to updates?

Um, I mentioned board appointments will be at our October meeting. Um, just a couple things on the town side. Uh, Steve could speak to this as well. I think the Mural Fest was a great success this year. Um, I heard anecdotally from a couple businesses that they had a great weekend um, and a lot of foot traffic and actual sales. Um so I think that was great. Um how did the film festival go?

Film festival went really well. Uh we had a similar attendance rate but we had a far bigger impact this year. So like the last two years uh filmmakers came and they got their awards and you know people were happy with them but there really wasn't anything. They were like this is a great event. You know, they've said that for years. This is a great event, but nobody was really going online. This year we had like hundreds of posts all of a sudden from people like and and people's families are posting about it and and the awards ceremony was crazy. It was like standing ovations like all the time. It was it people were crying. Um so it really felt like the trophies meant something this year. Like you know you're a film festival for one year and it's like people are like cool I got this film this trophy. Someone said my film was good. So then the second year people were kind of like, "Oh, I got another trophy. Film was all right." This year it was like insane how much those trophies meant to people. And like the I was doing interviews this year. Um I took out a camera and interviewing filmmakers and just people at the and people were coming up to me begging for like interviews. They were like, "Can I get that interview?" Cuz I really want to say how unique this is cuz we really want this to stick around. Uh the disability category just blew up. People were like I I it's all online too, so you can go look at kind of the results. Um we'll be posting more of them, but um you know TGR entered this year, which was huge. So we're talking one of the best Teton Gravity Research, one of the best um film production companies in the ski industry entered without us asking them to, without us seeking them out. Um they reposted all of our stuff which is huge. Um news sources are starting to post this. We just got posted in New Orleans for um for one of the films that

won God as my Witness won the documentary category and uh that's now going onto the Guardian. Um so we're really starting to see some some some impact and uh we really did very little marketing this year. Like it was actually very hard to find us because we didn't have a budget for it. We had like zero money to dump into ads and to dump into paper posters and post them all around town. We did none of that. We didn't put one single poster up and we had this more than this the attendance that we had last year

and we had a far bigger impact and I think the impact was huge. Um, the red carpet was cool this year. Instead of putting aspen trees up on the side of it that, you know, we we kind of fashioned together arts and crafts style. We had John Henley came and dropped off two big statues, you know, and he was like, "If these sell, we'll give you half the proceeds." Like, people are really starting to want to be a part of it. And they're asking us,

"How can we help you expand? What do we need to do to make this bigger?" And I think our answer was yes, we need your help and your money, but we also don't want the filmmakers to not have what they have now, which is intimate settings at the distillery and film trivia and birdie lounge and, you know, uh, Devil's Craft, top of the uh, Sunspot. So, we want to do more small events where there's 200 people at these events, 100 people. And if there's a thousand people, that means we need to have five events going on at that time because that's where people really feel like they're at home versus walking into a crowd of 800 people, the filmmakers holding their trophy and no one talks to them at all. Like I had people from LA saying that they've been to 40 festivals this year and that not one of them felt like this and that they really felt at home here and they really want to be here. They want to bring films here. They want to make films here. And so that's just extremely inspiring that we actually made a real impact this year. So I think from now on we can see that you know there's going to be growth but the impact is the most important thing. So thanks for giving me that time. I didn't expect to talk about that but yeah it went great.

That's awesome. I love it. But you you mentioned mural festival, but more important um I think the Frasier is pler and also it's Labor Day weekend. Um we're we're now the year of five and I will tell you sometime around three or four you'll probably see a dramatic uptick if our experience is like yours. Um we we sold out um we ra we'll end up raising somewhere north of $50,000

which is our operating budget for the year. that enables us to um put on these events, but also more importantly, it enables all our fundraising. Um and the fundraising we do will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars between now and Colorado Gives Day. Um you should know that we're approaching $4 million um dedicated to the center. Um when we get another two um we'll um borrow the rest uh and break ground. So I'm thinking we're within a few years. Um, so it's shifts some of our thinking from, you know, when it happens to how we handle that happening. And then of course you'll have another venue for your film festival.

Yeah, we talked about that actually with Scott and we're really excited to move into the arts center and do some some major major events there. It's going to be great and we we'd be happy to, you know, plan around it. Yeah. Yeah. And if you guys need um some help designing with like uh you know what what kind of projectors you need and stuff, we have a lot of information on that. So, okay. And we have the vested interest there too because we do National Theater Live London like that. That's all downloaded same way. Yeah. Films are DCP files. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Yay. Great news. Yep.

Just gonna make a plugin. I can't wait to have a fashion show there. Yeah, totally. Yeah, keep coming up with ideas because you know and and this is this is really germanine to this group. I want that place to be full of people all the time. And that means community events, that means classes during the day, but if we can if we can have people in that building 250 to 300 days a year, that means people in the community spending money. So, fashion shows, uh, community theater, rehearsals, wedding, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're all in. Great. Any more updates?

No. Any other business is what it says. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about what you were talking about, a community conference or something. I feel like we should put that on the agenda. Yeah. Yeah. to actually make something. And I feel like we should probably do it in one of the mud seasons. Probably this mud season is Well, it's here, so probably not. But maybe we can start planning for something, right? I think we should. Can we put that on the agenda, Sarah? And I think um my whole thing was that it wouldn't just be a a day thing. It would more be like spread out throughout the year. So it would be like

once a month we everybody knows that every Tuesday we do it, you know, at a certain time. And so it really starts growing that way and it's not like this flop where people are like, "Oh, well, you did it, but I didn't I couldn't make it." It's like, "Well, you can make it to the next one." Perfect. Guess what? We do it every Tuesday. So find a way to be there, you know? Um cuz the more that that happens, it's like picnic in the park. Like by the last one, it's packed. The first one's probably like, you know, it's like, okay, cool. People made it, but they forgot that it was there or didn't know about it. If it's throughout the year and it's, yeah, it's moving forward, I feel like. And new community members are coming in. So, it's like, it's just constantly something that we can work on, I feel like.

So,

yeah, on the agenda. And I did add because I'm sure I I must have missed the conversation about the community conference, but I'm guessing that the Google doc I designed a rough draft of uh intake information that will have drop-own menus. Um I'm I designed it to be pretty easy. Um but I did drop that link into the chat if that could be emailed out um Sarah after the meeting. And then if we want to make any edits or um make it more brief or more detailed, whatever, so that we can kickstart that intake um community outreach form off on the right foot and then use that for community conferences.

Totally of discussion points. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Sounds good. Thanks, Abby. I did put celebrations in there, too. Sweet. Yay. Everybody likes to celebrate. Yeah. All right. Yep. I've got the link and I can share that. Thank you. Anything else? Or do we want to make a motion to adjourn? Well, first I just want to say thank you all. And I move to adjourn. I second. All in favor? I already know, right? That's fine. [Music]

Employee survey do it for me noises.