City Government - Regular Meeting

Order please. Order please. Good evening and welcome to the Laramie City Council regular meeting for Tuesday, June 16, 2026. And if you'd like, join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.

City Clerk, if you can please call the roll.

Bolling.

Here.

Freed. Here. Lockhart.

Here.

Newman. Here. O'Doherty. Here. Shumway.

Here.

Vigil. Here. Richardson. Here. Cumbee. Here. That's nine present and zero absent, Your Honor. Thank you, City Clerk.

And next I'll ask, are there any public comments on non-agenda items? Ms. Devine. Good evening. If you can state your name for the record, please.

I will do that. My name is Linda Devine and I live here in Laramie and you know it's important when I bring in notes. I'm standing here before you tonight during this non-agenda comment time because this coming Friday marks a vital milestone for our community and our nation, which is Juneteenth. June 19th marks a historic day in 1865 when freedom finally reached the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It's a living celebration of resilience, survival, and a reminder that we must continue the fight for freedom. Acknowledging this history has never been more urgent than it is right now. Across our country, we're witnessing deeply troubling active measures to minimize, distort, and wipe away the history of marginalized communities. When the national landscape attempts to erase or quiet these truths, the responsibility falls squarely on local communities like ours to stand up and speak louder. We don't just get to pick and choose the parts of history that make us feel comfortable. To pretend the hard chapters didn't happen is to deny the lived experience of our neighbors. Real progress takes work every single day. When we celebrate Juneteenth and Laramie, we're making a choice. We're choosing truth over erasure. We're acknowledging that the work of building a truly inclusive, safe, and equitable community happens right here, in this room through the decisions we make every single day. As our country prepares to mark its 250th anniversary, we have to acknowledge that when our nation was founded, that promise was only meant for a certain group of people. Juneteenth is in a separate history. Our country must move a step closer, however, at that moment when they... Sorry, I'm nervous. Our country moved a step closer on June 19th when they let the folks in Galveston know that the Emancipation Proclamation had occurred. So as we approach this Friday, I urge our city leadership and my fellow neighbors to do more than just observe the holiday. Let us use this day to listen, to fiercely protect our history, and to recommit ourselves to the collective work of justice Let's ensure that the promise of Juneteenth is felt, protected and honored by every single person who calls Laramie home. I want to make a special thank you City Council here. I think you're doing a good job for everything you're doing and trying to make our city more inclusive. There's always work to be done and I appreciate it. Have a good day. I'm sweating.

Thank you, Linda. Your comments are greatly appreciated. Is there any other public comment on non-agenda items? Next, is there consideration of, is there a public request to remove a consent agenda item and place it on the regular agenda? Seeing none, Vice Mayor Richardson, if you can make a motion to set the agenda.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the agenda be set as submitted. Second.

I have a motion from Richardson, second from Shumway. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed?

That motion passes. And next... We have three proclamations and I believe it's just so heartening to be in council chambers and to feel such positive energy and happiness among everyone here. And I think it has something to do with some of our proclamations, so. The first one is about National Mosquito Control Awareness Week. And whereas the American Mosquito Control Association is an international organization dedicated to providing leadership information and education leading to the enhancement of public health and quality of life through the suppression of mosquitoes, and whereas the American Mosquito Control Association is dedicated to preserving the public's health and well-being, using safe environmentally sound control programs since 1935 and whereas the City of Laramie in cooperation with the Albany County Weed and Pest Board has been involved in mosquito control activities since 1976 and whereas the mosquito control section of the parks rec and public services department treats approximately 70,000 acres of rural and urban property in a 12 mile radius Laramie and whereas the City of Laramie has an approved West Nile virus plan to detect and reduce the risk of human infection associated with West Nile virus and whereas due to the efforts of the mosquito control program the quality of our outdoor summer activities in Laramie is improving along with reducing the risks of mosquito-borne illness. Now therefore, I, Sharon Cumby, Mayor of the City of Laramie, Wyoming, do hereby proclaim the week of June 21 through June 27, 2026 as National Mosquito Control Awareness Week. Thank you. And do we have representatives? Oh, Director Bork.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I just wanted to say thank you for this proclamation. We are super proud of our mosquito control program and our integrated pest management program. We've got some great staff here representing our mosquito control. If anybody's been outside lately, we definitely need them this time of year. We've done some aerial spraying. We've already done some other treatments and the foggers have been out in town. So I just want to say thank you and tell you how proud we are of all of our mosquito control folks and really everybody involved with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Director. And I just want to say how much we appreciated the work session that was done by Mosquito Control Division. And during that work session, Council was quite curious posed a number of questions and by the next morning when I awoke and looked at my email those questions had all been answered and thank you very much appreciate your follow-through and if the oh

City manager was to get in on I was just gonna say we have a number of the mosquito control crews here I'd appreciate it if they could all stand up and come up and get a picture with you guys We did meet most of the night fogging crew, which I heard started just a couple days ago So we're glad to have them out about two.

So if we get them all to come up We see we're always on the same page. I was just about to invite them up

All right, thank you.

Our next is Parks and Recreation Month. Whereas parks and recreation programs and services are an integral part of communities throughout this country and are fundamental to the physical, mental, and environmental wellbeing of the residents of the City of Laramie, and whereas parks and recreation services promote time spent in nature which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being and alleviating illnesses such as depression, attention deficit, and Alzheimer's and whereas parks and recreation programs encourage physical activity by providing spaces for popular activities like hiking, mountain biking, swimming, and many other activities designed to promote an active lifestyle, And whereas parks and recreation programming and education activities such as out of school time programming, youth sports and environmental education are critical to childhood development. and whereas parks and recreation amenities increase a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses, and crime reduction. And whereas the U.S. House of Representatives has designated the month of July as Parks and Recreation Month, and whereas the City of Laramie recognizes the myriad benefits derived from parks and recreation facilities, activities, and resources, now therefore, I, Sharon Cumby, acting as mayor and president of the governing body of the City of Laramie, Wyoming, do hereby proclaim July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month. Director Bork.

Good evening again. You're going to see me up here quite a few times. But with this one, truly as a national effort, Parks and Recreation Month is just a great opportunity to acknowledge and recognize, as you said in the proclamation, the myriad benefits that our services throughout our entire parks, trails, facilities, and program system that we have here, which is really top-notch. And I'm super proud to be able to lead such a great crew of staff and dedicated professionals and really appreciative of all of the people that come and support everything that we do through our events and our programs, classes, rec center, just using our parks in general. So thank you again for this proclamation. And we do have a whole bunch of staff to come up and do photos again.

Okay, we are ready.

All right.

And thank you to everyone in Parks and Rec for all the work you do and for the benefit that you provide our community. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And though the mayor should be impartial, I have to tell you this is one of my absolute favorites. Tonight, we are recognizing the High Plains Cremugian Society. And whereas a group of 10 semi-retired gentlemen and Cremugian supporters known as the High Plains Cremugian Society approach the city of Laramie for the 16th consecutive year, regarding community service projects and volunteering their immense skills, knowledge, and labor for the City of Laramie, and whereas the Parks and Recreation Department developed a list of community service projects and needs that the staff would like to see complete, but due to time and budget constraints had not been able to complete, and whereas the High Plains Cremugin Society worked a minimum of one day each week from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. from January through the end of May, for more than 1,260 hours of volunteer community service completing the projects. And whereas the community service projects completed by the High Plains Curmungeon Society include refinishing the tables and building new Adirondack chairs for the return of Laird Dice Lane, building new loungers for the Laramie Community Recreation Center outdoor pool, rebuilding the mosquito control sample cabinet, building new benches for the Laramie Police Department, and building new work tables. Now, therefore, we, the City Council of the City of Laramie, do hereby proclaim our sincere thanks to members of the High Plains Curmungeon Society, Clint Phillips, Walter Gassen, Tom Bailey, Lowell Bangerder, Jack Corson, Mark Greenbaum, Dick Pickenpah, John Duvall, Michael Markham an honorary recognition for Don Cleaves for their enormous community service for the city of Laramie service partners and our residents. I witness therefore I have here unto set my hand and cause the official seal of the city of Laramie to be affixed this 16th day of June, 2026. And I give great gratitude to you all for the work that you do and the contributions that you make to our city. Thank you very much. City Manager.

Honorable Mayor, it's been 11 glorious years for me to get to know these gentlemen. I have to tell you that not only are they volunteers, but they've become dear friends of mine over this time. We got to spend a little bit of time at a luncheon with them today and hear some of the stories and talk about some of the events. But I believe tonight, Clint Phillips is going to come up and give you a rousing uproar of what they've done. And then we're going to have him come up for pictures.

Thank you. And Mr. Phillips, welcome.

Thank you, thank you. About four or five years ago, Todd asked me if I wanted to speak to the city council and my reply was, I'll speak when I get old. I turned 90 in December, so I guess that qualifies me to speak now. I've got a couple of things in mind. One of them, I want to tell you a little bit about Camojuns. Most of the descriptions that are given, you'd think we're kind of a bunch of dull old guys that don't do anything but whittle on wood or something, but we have some fun and we get into some interesting projects. Another thing I wanna, and most important to be, is I wanna change the way the sort of expectation that we contribute, we Commodrens, by the way, the High Plains Commision Society was imposed on us. It was not a volunteer name that we elected and I think this was the imposer. If the city could somehow sum up all the good that the Commoderates do for the city and I hope we do do some good. And if the Commoderates could sum up all the benefits that we get out of the work we do, we would end up owning the city. No question about that. We're a group of, I think the proclamation said 10 guys. We've averaged somewhere between eight and 10 guys. I'm often asked, when did the commencement start? I have photos from 1995 when the city either owned or had responsibility for the Territorial Park that we were doing projects out of the park at that time. We were instructed, well, the responsibility for the park changed and so we didn't have a job there. I was asked by one of our friends that we needed to make some, build some bridges into the city. I took that on as a challenge and it turned out to be a really beneficial, nice, rewarding challenge. I contacted Paul Harrison from the park and he was working with Don Black and the City Beautification Committee at that time and we decided that we would who do some volunteer stuff. Well, our commensurate group didn't plant a tree, but all the trees down Reynolds out onto all of the entrances. We were involved in planting those. We didn't plant them, we cooked breakfast for the people who did plant them. And Joe and Paul Harrison, councilman, excuse me, Paul directed the people that came out to the various areas to plant the trees. After that, the City Beautification Committee sort of disappeared. I don't know what happened to it, but we went two or three years without getting involved in the city and one of the guys sitting back here contacted me and said, Clint, I miss the volunteer work. Don't you think we could get ahold of the city and see if there wasn't something for us to do? And I contacted Paul Harrison and, I won't tell you what Paul Harrison said. I'll tell you a little bit enough so you could imagine what he said. But Paul pulled his glasses down like that, looked at them, and he says, you know, Clint, volunteers can be a real pain in the... But he said, since I've worked with you and the Beautification Committee projects, I think we could do something. And Paul started our group. We didn't have the name then but shortly after that then Paul retired and Todd came on the scene and Todd not only gave us the name but he really gave us direction. I want to make this clear. The Convergence has got somewhere 20 years involved in doing community service. Very few of those years would have happened if it were not for Todd, Scott, and Mike here. Our group has been doing community service a really strong bond and an affectionate bond with those three individuals. If you were to ask me what it takes to be a successful volunteer group, I would tell you it takes a Todd, it takes a Scott, and it takes a Mike. I'm really impressed with the quality of people the city has and our group have come to really appreciate the talent and hard work that city employees do. And one of the other things that happens when you end up doing volunteer work for 20 years is you get an investment in what the city people do for this city. I don't think you can find a group of 10 guys that don't work for the city in this city. that understand the need for more tax money going to city employees and find greater support for what the city does. This is my city. I was on the faculty of the university. I retired with enough salary that I could have elected to go somewhere else to retire. I didn't want to go. This is my city. My wife passed away a year ago. She'll be buried here. I will be buried here. This is my city. One of the most uplifting that happens to be is I have five kids, two of them live in Laramie, three of them out of town, and getting a phone call from those three that live out of town saying, Dad, we're coming home for this period, not we're coming to Laramie. We're coming home. As long as they say that, this is my home. And I really appreciate what you do for the city, and I appreciate very much what, I wanna tell you what a little example, starting with the, They moved the church down to Territorial Park and we've got a connection to that. But anyway, we were asked to sort of refurbish it. And we spent a lot of time doing that. After they'd moved that down from Rock River, you walked into that church and it looked like you walked into a spider web with all the cracks and stuff. And it took us a long time to do that. But it has some benefits. One of the assignments we were given by Todd and the group was to refurbish a park at the Downtown Association. I don't know what to call the name of that.

Parkland.

Parkland. Anyway, we were down there. I was up on a ladder taking down the sign. The other guys were... doing things with their drill drivers so we could refurbish it, when all of a sudden there was a car coming down the street and it put on its brakes and come to a screeching halt. I thought there'd been an accident. I turned to look and here comes this little pipe-sized lady out of that car. And you could see by her complexion that she was upset. And she came around that car and says, what are you guys doing? What are you doing? This is mine. What are you doing? Well, it took us by surprise because we thought we were working on a city park. And she was really upset. Chewed us out good. And I don't know how many of you are Charlie Russell fans, the artists, but I like Charlie Russell. One of the things he did really well was pick out the funny, odd things that cowboys and Indians did as he painted them. And I can tell you that if Charlie Russell would have been on that site that day, when this little pint-sized woman had nine guys cowering up against the side of a building, he would have automatically painted that scene. We finally convinced her that Mike down here had told us to go do what we were doing. When we mentioned Mike, she kind of cooled down a little bit. But anyway, things got straightened out a little bit. But Mike would come in periodically and tell us how things were going with this individual. As a group, we were still in shock, so to speak. While Mike attributed this thing to a misunderstanding, he would come in straight-faced and tell us how things were improving. but he really couldn't keep from chuckling a little bit. By the time he turned around and left to go to the front door, he was in full belly laughter. Because that little gal had goodness against the wall. Anyway... Things did get better, and then next week, we were putting up those bike racks, animal symbol bike racks downtown, and she came out of the village with her husband and a baby, and I was about to run. Anyway, she approached me and said, Clint, I want to apologize. I really want to apologize to all you guys. I'm so sorry that happened. She says, I learned that the church I got married in, which was one of the best things that ever happened to me, you guys had refurbished that church. And we still get a kick out of that.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Okay.

I love the way that that went full circle. And I'm so glad that you and the other curmudgeons called Laramie home. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much.

Oh, Councillor Shumway. Mayor, can I say one thing? Of course. Clint Phillips didn't have a chance to finish his story and tell you who that short person came up that had them up against the wall, but it was Trey Sherwood.

That's good.

Well, that was very heartening and a lot of dedication from both staff and the people who live in Laramie and call it home. City Clerk, if you can please read the public hearing.

Notices hereby given that a public hearing of the Laramie City Council will be held at 6.30 p.m. on June 16th, 2026 in City Council Chambers, Laramie City Hall, 406 Ivinson Avenue, Laramie, Wyoming. The meeting shall be held with both an online Zoom and in-person option to take public comments on the following. Platt-26-0003. The applicant, Kelly Hefner, on behalf of JR Real Estate Development Inc., is requesting a final plat for the Spring Creek Village fourth filing final plat, which vacates a portion of the Spring Creek Village second filing and third filing amended and creates 18 residential lots on a 1.34 acre site in a B1, ROB zoned district, located south of Spring Creek, west of 9th Street, and south of Sanders Drive. This item was previously approved on May 6th, but the applicant has since requested minor changes be made and approved. All applications, plans, and specifications relative to these matters are available for review at the City of Laramie Planning Office at 405 Grand Avenue, Laramie, Wyoming. Anyone wishing to be heard should be present at City Council Chambers or via Zoom. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk. Is there any public comment on this public hearing? Seeing none, I will then go to the city manager for announcements.

Mayor, I didn't check with anybody. Anybody else got any announcements tonight? Mike, you'll have one? I'll go first, if that's right. First off, I have two announcements. As you know, many of you know, you attended the Wyoming Association of Municipalities just, what, 10 days ago or so. Very successful event, went off without a hitch. In that situation, you know, we get a lot of support from city staff, from Michael Bork, Kyle Peet, Mike Malloy, Spencer Coturi was around, Ryan Shufelt was around. And we had over 300 people come from all over the state to an event that's hosted by the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. But it takes a significant amount of work by a few people in our city to get this event pulled off. And tonight it gives me great pleasure to recognize Nancy Bartholomew and Nancy Oakland Potter. We refer to them as the Nancys. but they endured so much. Everywhere I went, they were at each event. Each event went off without a hitch and they've been so special to us and it's just such an honor to be able to thank them for the work that they pulled off from the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. All the support that they provide me and us at every time, it goes without measure and so we wanted to provide a little gift for them tonight for their efforts and their work and tell them thank you and so this is our chance to do that.

Honorable Byron, council members, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to have us host the WAM convention again, as we know that we did this four years ago. And Nancy and I were excited at the opportunity to showcase different things that we weren't able to do the first time. And so I just am appreciative of doing it again for you. for the gem city of the plains and just letting others know what a good community we are. And again, this is my city, so I appreciate being able to do that and working with Nancy. Thank you.

Thank you all. We also wanted to thank the planning committee. So just really quick to make sure we give recognition to all those that pitched in to help with this. Ryan Shufelt, our deputy clerk. Brennan Moen, our city manager analyst. Emma Dixon, our planner, Mike Bork, our parks and rec director, and public services, sorry, I always forget to add that now. Todd Feezer, our city manager, Sharon Kemby, mayor, Micah Richardson, vice mayor, Joe Shumway, counselor, and... Councilor Brandon Newman. And then Visit Laramie also helped by providing us giveaway bags for everybody with information about Laramie, which was great. Joseph Shahidi, one of our other planners, came to drive the golf cart on Friday morning for our breakfast at the Wildcatter, which was appreciated by some because it was a little bit of a trek for some to come across. And we also want to thank our local sponsors that donated to the event. We had Klinger Hagerman who donated $2,500 towards the event. We had Ivanson Memorial Hospital that donated $1,000. UW Charter donated the value of $1,450 in bus services for the tours. And Pilot Hill and Trihydro helped with the 5K. And then of course, WyoTech, thank you for hosting one of the tours and Mike Bork for providing our tour for quality of life. So thank you all for attending and showing everybody what a great city we have.

We had to get this really low for Nancy. One of the Nancy, one half of the Nancy's. The next one, the mayor and I talked about before this, but is with sadness in my heart that we're nearing the last day for our public works director, Brooks Webb. Brooks would in no way, shape or form, in fact, I'm surprised he hasn't stood out and walked out at this point, taking any recognition for what he's accomplished over the past 14 years. But I did want to give a chance to let everybody know that I consider him a true friend. a true public servant and a champion for this community has been an amazing partner to work with. I wish things turned out differently, but I do wish him luck in Cocoa Beach and then give you guys a chance to let Brooks know if you have any certain things you would like to relate to him. Thank you.

Thank you. And Brooks. Yeah. we promise we're not going to roast you. But I just wanna say thank you very much. I'm just amazed at your steadfast leadership, your evenness, the way that you have educated all of us, especially I appreciate your proactive approach that you always take to the work that you do. And that has really helped to advance our community. through the renewal and the sustaining of our infrastructure. You have provided us the leadership so that your department could function at the highest level to prepare the infrastructure which is the foundation for any further growth and development of our community. Thank you very much. Councilor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. Brooks, just thanks for all your service and getting to work with you back. I don't even know, 12 years ago in the Conservation Corps and I was doing glass recycling and you're the guy I was able to call and the city showed up the next day and helped me with bins instead of trash bags and helping divert glass back then when it wasn't your job, wasn't your responsibility even then and that was... My first interaction with you, but I have learned a lot in my year and a half on the city council from you and how to manage people, how you work with teams, and also what you do for our community. There's a big hole that's going to be here when you leave, and we're grateful. Maybe one day we'll get all West Laramie paved and we'll have you come back and drive it. And when you get tired of the summer down there and it's too hot and you want some winter weather, maybe we'll figure something out for you back in Laramie. So thank you for your service. Thanks.

Councilor Newman.

Since you brought up West Laramie, kind of my first or second, maybe month on council, when I ran, I was like, we're paving West Laramie. And I got, we had a meeting and you set me straight. It was... You realize how many millions of dollars? And I was like, it's just money, right? We can take it out of the bank, but what I appreciated was how you handled the situation, how you didn't just say, Brandon, you're dumb. It was, let's come up with a plan, let's see what we can do, right? But we see that every week that you're here, and I still hope before Friday we can keep you, but I don't think that's gonna happen. I don't have any furniture left. I got a budget amendment. But I appreciate that, thank you.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. echoing some of what others have said. It's just been such a pleasure to get to know you and to work with you. And that just kind of even-keeled-ness throughout all of the, there have been a couple minor, I don't know if you remember some of the things that we've experienced over the last year or two. Very small, maybe you can think that, you might be able to remember, I don't know. But you just stayed so level-headed through that whole thing and just adapted as things changed and brought forward, I know, some really great ideas to kind of help addressed what the community's concerns were, and you listened to those concerns and helped us get to a point that also acknowledged what the community was saying to us and said, let's rethink this. How do we move forward? And my answer is that's probably how you deal with a lot of things. And so I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I want to thank you. And I guess Cocoa Beach got the word about your breadth of knowledge. And I've just been so impressed that any topic that comes, if I ask you about it, you can tell from like waterworks, the sewage treatment, the stormwater, the roads, well, all the things, solid waste, everything. And so anyway, we're so glad. We're lucky that we had you all this time and hate to see you go, but thank you so much.

councilor shumway thank you mayor when brooks came I thought this is you know he's perfect for for Laramie he's in water and we have these beautiful brooks and stuff like that but I think he's moved on so when he goes to Cocoa Beach they're going to have to change his name to ocean well

Councilor Vigil.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't know how I follow up that one. That was good. Yeah, Director Webb, thank you so much. I think particularly, you know, with the stormwater stuff, that was bright in my first, like, couple of months on council. And so, like, frankly, that was pretty scary. And just knowing that I could come to council every week and know that our staff was prepared to answer questions, to have good presentations, accurate information. That was always really comforting to me, and you had a big part in that. And so, thank you, and have fun on the beach.

Thank you. I just want to say, I thought I made it really clear I didn't want any of this, but he's the boss, so here we are. Anyway, I just want to let you know that this community is amazing. I rolled in here just over 14 years ago from how I'd spent the first 40 years of my life in Southern California, and I rolled in here February. It was a beautiful day, 55, blue skies, no wind, believe it or not. About a week and a half later, I had wet hair from the shower and stepped outside and it was negative 12 and the wind was blowing. And I was like, man, what did I get myself into? Well, I'll tell you what I got myself into. I got myself into the best 14 years of my life. This community is amazing. The people that work here are amazing. You folks are amazing. And I'm really truly going to miss this place. It's hard to leave. I'm ready for my next adventure. I'm excited for it. But my heart is here. And it's been super awesome for me, for my family. And I appreciate everything you do. all the things that we accomplished, they weren't my accomplishments, they were all of our accomplishments, all of our staff's accomplishments. I mean, from the managers and supervisors, all the way through the ranks to our laborers, everybody works so hard for this community to make it wonderful and I want to thank them because they've made my job easier while I'm here. So thank you and I wish everyone the best of luck.

Councilors, I think we're down to our last bit of fest. Oh, no, we still have one more announcement for Mike. Oh, Mike says it's all right. We'll get on to the business, but it's for the rock star of the month. I'm actually leading this one because I did nominate this team, but I want to recognize Mike Malloy, Dominic DiCello, Dusty Johnson, Kyle Peep, and Steve Graham. And if you can pull up those pictures I sent you, Nance. You know, for over the years that I'd been here in Parks and Rec, we'd had numerous discussions about how we look at our park signs and what we do with our park signs. And they were a little disheveled. There were some that were wood and routered and some that were metal and blue, some that were just kind of all over the place. And so Scott Hunter and myself sat down around the drawing board and we kind of came up with what were code compliant signs for it to be used in the parks. If you know anything about sign creation is they're incredibly expensive. It's hard to fund. It takes a lot of money to get those done. And we were able to pull the first sign together in Rotary Clubs Park, which was that first big park that we had actually built. And we were pretty excited about it. It turned out pretty good. Well, we were able to get a little bit of budget squirreled away, I believe about $38,000 last year to provide for signs. And the parks crews took these on all winter. And basically what they had done for about $14,000 under the budget had generated new signs in all of our parks, including Washington Park and Labonte Park, which are two of the signs here. They even came down to it to where a big sign, like you see in Washington Park or Labonte Park, only took them about an hour and a half to build. And then the small signs that are like at James O'Dell or in front of the park shop or in front of the band shell now or the Burns courts, the horseshoe pits in Washington Park, got down to taking about a half an hour and they crafted them in such a way that they're, how do I want to say, they're sectional. They can replace and repair any piece of this, they say, in about 30 minutes. So let's hope they don't have to do that. That type of ingenuity and that type of work really gives this community greater bang for their buck and greater advancement of the budget money that council awards us to get more done with less. And these guys are just an exemplary example of that and they worked on it all winter and just wanted a chance to recognize them. I do believe they voted Mike Malloy as the one that's going to say a few words about the park sign project tonight. So I want to welcome Mike Malloy up to the microphone.

You hate that, don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Council, right? That's the part I'm... So Todd came to us with this idea, and it was on... I still have the piece of paper. It's God. It was just drawn. They were like, we want something like this. And did we battle a little bit? Yeah. Yeah, we battled a little bit on the signs, but... Like Todd said, I think that first rotary sign took us a long time. What did that take us? Maybe two weeks. Yeah, maybe more. And then we did. We kind of got together in the shop, and Scott let us buy some new tools, which was really cool. And we started pumping them out. And Todd was right. We got down to those large signs taking about an hour. Everybody had a job in it. That's what was cool. We had Dominic. He would put the metal sign parts onto the wood. We had people cutting the rock and putting the sides on. We had somebody cutting the angles with the miter saw. We were just whipping them out. Then we'd go out in the field. It was like a well-oiled machine. We'd get locates. We'd pop the holes and get them put in with the probably an hour, if that. It was a really fun project for the winter, and I hope there's more projects like that to come. It was good, yeah.

I just wanna say I have received so many positive emails about the signs and when they started going up, I told Todd one day, I found two parks I didn't even know were there. Some of these little tiny perks and I think they're beautiful and thank you very much. Oh, shall we do a picture? Indeed, this was a Parks and Rec day. All right, with... No further announcements. We will move on to the regular agenda. Item 11A, Councilor Lockhart.

Whoops.

Oh yeah, the consent agenda. See, I got so excited by everything. Vice Mayor, would you like to make a motion for the approval of the consent agenda, please?

I would like to if you want to do disclosures first.

See, I'm ready to be at item 14. Okay, counselors, are there any disclosures and or conflicts of interest? Seeing none, Vice Mayor, if you can make a motion for approval of the consent agenda.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the consent agenda be approved and that each specific action on the consent agenda be approved as indicated.

I have a motion from Richardson and a second from Newman. City Clerk, if you can please call the roll.

Bowling. Freed?

Yes.

Lockhart?

Yes.

Newman?

Yes.

O'Doherty? Yes. Shumway?

Yes.

Beehill? Yes. Richardson? Aye. Cumbee?

Yes.

That's nine yeses and zero noes, Your Honor. Thank you, City Clerk.

That motion passes. And thank you, Council, for getting me back on track. I appreciate that. We will now go on to the regular agenda, Item 11A, Councilor Lockhart.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Laramie City Council approve the submission of a grant agreement for FAA's Airport Improvement Grant Project number 03-56-0017-053-2026 for Reconstruct Apron Phase 1 Design by Laramie Regional Airport in the amount of $628,472 and authorize the Mayor and City Attorney to sign.

Second. I have a motion from Lockhart, second from Vigil. Director Wade.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. Director Terrell asked me to step in for her last minute because her daughter actually had a blowout and so she needed to go do the most important thing in life, which is help our family. Yeah, so I'm gonna do my best to sub in tonight. I do have the director's number and so if any of you have questions, I'm just gonna phone a friend and we will actually figure it out in that way. And so with the joint powers agreement between the Laramie Regional Airport and Albany County and the city of Laramie, you all as a governing body have to actually approve applications for grants. And so that's why you're being asked to approve this submission this evening. Director Terrell wanted me to pass on to you that this is a project you've seen before. I believe it is called, let me find it, the Apron Reconstruction Project, and I believe it's in phases. I believe she told me that that total project is going to be something around $15 million. What we're looking at right now is the design phase of this project, and it's just the first step in the reconstruction process. The entire concrete apron area is deteriorating due to age. causing potential safety hazards to aircraft in the form of foreign object debris. The reconstruction of the apron will provide an increased level of safety for aircraft operations on the airport. Two phases of this project have already been completed in the airport's efforts to rehabilitate the entire concrete apron. In this project, the existing concrete that borders the areas that have already been reconstructed will be removed and replaced. This project will also include the installation of subsurface drainage. So the design phase of this project is what you're looking at today. It's the amount of $628,472. The airport's match is about $16,500. They do have that match in hand. There's no city obligation that you would be approving with approval of this grant submission. At this time, I'm happy to try to answer questions or phone a friend and Director Terrell will help us.

Counselors, questions?

Vice Mayor? I just have one. If it happens to be something she told you, great. I can follow up with her later as well. Just curious, once this design is done, anticipation date for all of this starting and completion?

Vice Mayor Richardson, she did not pass that along. I will ask her that. Thank you.

Further questions? Thank you. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Seeing none, back to council. Council, any comments? City Clerk, if you can please call the roll.

Lockhart.

Yes.

Beho. Aye. Bolling. Freed?

Yes.

Newman?

Yes.

Shumway?

Yes.

O'Doherty? Yes. Richardson? Yes. Cumbie? Yes. That's nine yeses and zero noes, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. Item 11B, Councillor Newman.

I move that the Laramie City Council approves the bid award to Icon Fire LLC for a custom fire pumper engine in the amount of $1,261,744 and authorize the mayor and city court to sign. Second.

I have a motion by newman second by Richardson good evening chief Johnson.

Good evening honorable mayor members of council what you have before you is a bid we put out on replacing our engine three it's a standard pumping engine triple combination We went through a bid process. It closed in April. We have $1.3 million budgeted for the project. When the bid came in, we only had one bid that we received. When we did our budget presentations, I believe I made some comments. I wasn't very happy with just receiving one bid, so I wanted to scrutinize this bid a little closer, hence the delay in getting it before you. That being said, it's real similar to the last one we received, and it was in the upper 900,000s. This one moved in a couple years from just under a million to 1.26 million. So I wanted to check out the reasons why that happened. In calling around and doing my research, the... Most of what is driving up the cost is the price volatility on materials. In January of 2024, a lot of the body is aluminum on those. The aluminum was $1.18 per pound. And a year later, it was $1.41 a pound. And in June of 25, it was $1.72. So in an 18-month period, there was a 45% increase in that. That's one of the things I looked at. There's EPA regulations that are going to be applied to the new pumper, and that's adding roughly $100,000 to the cost of this project. So when we look at those, with the labor costs have gone up in a couple years, I was more comfortable with the number I've seen. In talking with the manufacturer, they did offer us last time, which we took advantage of, a payment at the chassis delivery to the manufacturer where we paid half down and they've reduced some money off the cost. You'll see in the cover sheet they've also extended if we prepay the whole thing, there's an $83,000 savings, which brings the cost down. Now that being said, it's an expensive project, so I would want to sit down with our administrative services directors and find out if it makes fiscal sense, because I don't know what they can do with that same amount of money if they hold it and haven't invested while we're waiting. So that would be a call. So what I put before you tonight is the full price of the bid that we received, and I will stand for questions.

Thank you, Chief. Counselor O'Doherty.

When we went over to Station 3 to watch the other truck getting moved in, we learned that the firefighters got to really spec it out in a way that was very logical for the way they do the work. Is that opportunity available with this one, too, or is it a more generalized...

Yes, Honorable Mayor, through you, Councilor O'Doherty, that process has happened. We have what we call a spec committee, and we have different people on that in our department that do a lot of work evaluating pumpers, what works for us. You know, at this altitude, the size of the engine is a little different than a stock pumper. The size of the pump, we upgrade a little bit because at this altitude... A diesel engine loses about 3.5% power for every 1,000 feet of elevation. Of course, being at 7,200 feet, we need a bigger motor than we would at a sea level. Anyway, little things like that. They do a lot of work with the configuration of the cabinetry. We have EMS, so we have a lot of equipment involved. in the pumpers. They do a lot of work with the configuration of all the boxes on the back, all the doors. They make use of every single inch that they can get, sliding ladders in straight, you know, put a kind of a hole in the water tank where it could pass through where it can get a ladder slid in, you know, for storage and stuff. So they work pretty hard on it and it takes them a long time. So I appreciate you bringing that up. I should have brought it up myself, so.

Thank you. Councilor Lockhart.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. It says in here that it's scheduled delivery within 630 calendar days. So Engine 3 that's being replaced, I would imagine, is in good enough working shape that you'll be able to not be without it at any time between that period of time.

Councilor Lockhart, through you, Mayor. Yes, I'm more comfortable with this go-around than the last go-around. We were replacing Engine 4, and Engine 4 was in much worse shape. It's kind of about, you know, you do your projections. I really rely on Fleet's opinion on they take care of our equipment and they make these recommendations about when they should be replaced. Realizing we were two years out to get delivery, it takes a lot of planning. I'm an I'm much more comfortable with this unit than I was the last unit. The last unit that we were running, it was in really bad shape when we replaced it on engine four.

Further questions? Councillor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor, and thanks, Chief. Looking through this, and you might have just mentioned it while I was trying to find my notes, but what's the lifespan of this vehicle? And I know it's got the new diesel engines for those EPA standards and things, and so is this... I know they last a while, but they also get ridden pretty hard. I mean, they're doing a lot of work for us. How long do you anticipate this to be in service?

We try to get to 20 years, and then we try to get some more years in reserve on it. But 20 years is the lifespan of a pumper is what we're looking at. And the way we spec them out with not just getting steel body type stuff with aluminum, corrosion resistant, we try to build them to last. Their fire engine it gets used hard and it they typically have a bigger frame rails, they've got bigger cooling systems, you know bigger engine and it's They get worked hard and we get 20 years about Thank you for the questions Thank You chief Is there any public comment on this agenda item?

I? Seeing none, back to council. Council, any final comments? Thank you, Chief, for a good explanation and for doing that extra research on that to the point that you do now understand and feel comfortable about the additional costs. I appreciate that. City Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Newman, yes. Freed, aye. Shumway, yes. Vigil, yes. O'Doherty, yes. Lockhart, yes, ma'am. Bolling. Sorry, can you say that one more time, Councillor Bolling?

Aye.

Thank you. Richardson, yes. Cumbee, yes. That's nine yeses and zero noes, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. Next, Item 11C, Vice Mayor Richardson.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Laramie City Council approve Resolution 2026-43, making appropriations and authorizing expenditures for the City of Laramie, Wyoming, for all funds for the fiscal year of July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, and authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to sign. Second.

I have a motion from Richardson, second from Vigil. Good evening, Director Wade.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. Well, tonight is certainly a night of celebration in the council chambers and that feels really good because it's also budget adoption night and that's something to celebrate. The only thing that we shouldn't celebrate tonight is that Director Webb is leaving us and so, but you know how I feel about the budget. It really is an expression of will, of you as a governing body for how you want to deploy resources to serve our community. So public resources deployed for the public good. And you've been through, many of you have been through this process either many times or just a few times now, but you're starting to get a sense of how this works. And so you go through all of the funds, you hear the requests, we talk about the funding, the level of resources, our unusual reserves in the general fund. So what we've tried to do during the budget work sessions is really tell you that whole story to help you make decisions. And you saw some things we did differently this year. Hopefully you feel those things worked out really well. deeply grateful for your participation in them. We will continue trying to make that budget book as user-friendly as we can and capturing those core financial decisions in graphics that are easy for folks to use and digest and really understand how those resources are going to get out into the community. And so I want to extend a note of gratitude for your continued support as members of our governing body for letting us for supporting us and trying new things that takes courage. Not every, that's not the kind of relationship that every governing body has with their staff. And I'm deeply grateful for it. I'm really grateful for the care and questions and direction you give us all year long so that when we get to the budget, it's actually not hard to know what the will of our governing body is. And that actually brings me a lot of peace. I know it brings our city manager and our directors team piece as well. Thank you to the city manager for his great decision making in his first year in this position to our leadership team for all of their budget requests to the budget team for all of the work, all of the manual work that it takes to actually get this thing in front of you. And so, It's a good night to celebrate all that goes into it. And more importantly, that we continue getting to serve our community in this way. Tonight, we heard a little bit about the signs, you know, how for $38,000 minus $14,000, we were able to put new signs in all of our parks. And I think if I could capture what we often do as staff in Laramie, it's exactly that. Remember, We have the lowest cost of government in the entire state of Wyoming for municipalities that offer the same level of services. We have to be creative, we have to do more with less. But we also have to speak up about things when they're not working and I thought this year's budget was a really good blend. of making sure we continue to be creative, but also talking about some things where we need some additional resources. If we compare our total budget this year to last year, in that big budget overview chart, you're gonna see it's about 10% less. That's mainly because we're reprioritizing capital projects, and we're gonna continue to look at how we can make those planning processes better. And so even tonight, as you're adopting, we are already thinking about next year and how to really keep refining these planning processes. And that's a message I definitely want you to hear as a council, because I think it's a really important part of our culture in Laramie. Finally, I want to draw your attention to a part of your budget resolution that was present last year, but this is something that we have just been doing for a few years now. You know we have unusual levels of reserves in the general fund that creates some interesting challenges and some interesting narratives, not only within the city, but in the community. And so this year in the budget, you actually approved some things that were multi-year types of direction. And so while you cannot bind a future governing body to any type of future action, what you can do is you can commit reserves and say, you know, we as a governing body agree that these initiatives are important. I'm gonna rattle off what those are for you so you know what's included in your resolution. First and foremost, You are committing $3 million in the general fund for surface water drainage program expansion. And so that is the residual amount of the $5 million that you directed us to repurpose for this program expansion. So I want you to know that that is on reserve and committed. You'll actually see it reported in our financial reports that way. And so this action is very important. You also see $500,000 committed in the general fund for right-sizing operations. So some of those two year, three year additional levels of service that you all asked for and we authorized, this is how we're gonna achieve that. $4 million in the general fund for continued street improvement. So we've got the 10 million we're deploying now. You see street reconstruction everywhere. We have a little bit left on reserve for that. and $2 million in the general fund, $2 million in the water fund, and $1 million in the wastewater fund for housing enabling infrastructure. That's a carry forward from last year. We didn't quite get that program developed. So it's important we continue to make sure we capture your will as a governing body to devote those reserves to those purposes. And with that, I will stand for any questions you have this evening.

Thank you, Director. Counselors, questions for Director Wade? Okay, thank you. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Back to Council for comments. Councillor Lockhart.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director. You always have such a fantastic way of explaining things, especially through all the budget meetings and basically any time you're up at the microphone. So thank you. One thing I do appreciate, because this is a lot of money, how we were able to lower it 10%. That's a lot of money right there. So if the general public doesn't know that, now they do or they should, and I appreciate that. So thank you very much for helping us save money and still be able to provide for our community.

Councilor Newman.

Thank you, Mayor. Just to add on to that and taking all our ideas as crazy as they could be and making them work within that budget and still bringing it down. So I appreciate you and your office for everything that you do for council.

Councilman Freed.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Director Wade. I guess just another kudos. And being a part of this process now, going through the budget, my second year on City Council, we're constantly learning so much from our city staff, from our citizens, and from this council group. And like Councilor Newman and Councilor Lockhart said, just really appreciate the way that you're able to communicate really challenging, dense topics to folks who aren't CPAs or spend time on spreadsheets. And you mentioned this in your presentation, Director Wade, but our community and our city staff works... so well and i feel like we're above and beyond our transparency requirements or obligations and the open finance tool for those in the community that don't use it and you can see where every dollar is accounted for where it's spent and i know our city staff and and your team director way to spend so much time working on that but it truly is so easy to just go online and you can see where the money is being appropriated where it's being spent out of and why uh and so and i know you're you're always available to talk to the members of public and a council and so we really appreciate it Thank you for having me.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor. I was excited, as our Director Wade said, this is an exciting day, but after spending a million dollars on a fire truck, a million dollars at the airport, and having the budget reduced by 10%, we went from having probably the greatest expenditure this council has ever had before reduced by 10%, and so this council probably had the greatest expenditure last year at this time, And this year, this council doesn't have that honor probably.

Thank you. Councillor O'Doherty.

I also want to thank Director Wade and her team. I see them back there nodding when she was explaining things. They're like, yeah, that's how it works. But I wanted to ask if we could, in this agenda, in the minutes, put a link to the whole budget book just so the public can easily get to it, if that's reasonable. And then... And the other thing I wanted to stress is that all these services that the city provides, and Director Wade said we do it at the lowest cost. I mean, it's a lot of services. Most cities don't provide solid waste. Well, all the things. So if we had to pay some outside firm to do those things, they'd also have to have the profit built into it for waste. And so I appreciate that we can do this service as a city at a low cost, the lowest possible cost. So thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to comment on that note of us really looking, and by us I mean really staff, looking for places that this year I feel like there was a real stop and a reset to say, like, what have we done before? What can we do differently? Not that anything done before was wrong, but just can we shift our thinking in how we do that? or how we approach the budget. And I really appreciate that part of it. I also, I think with that though, it allowed us the opportunity to say, okay, are there places where we can kind of cut back? And then where I actually very, very much appreciate the new staff hires that we have in this budget. because we also took that time to recognize where the pinches were and that we were not being effective for community. And so bringing on these new people that we have put into the budget means that we get to do better services for our community. And so I really, that piece of it, that staffing piece for me was like, just thank you, huge.

And I just want to say thank you to Director Wade and to the city manager for your leadership and guidance through this process and especially to your entire division. And I also saw you nodding as I loved it. I feel like we're all a really part of a team and I like the changes that you implemented. It made it more digestible. It made it more easily understandable. And as Councillor Freed said, transparent. And not only transparent to those of us who attended hours and hours of meetings and read a very large book. But I think that with the open finance tool, it makes it much more transparent to the community. I also want to acknowledge our volunteer budget advisory committee who have really been enthusiastic and committed to the work that they do. And so thank you all very much. This was You know, budget to me has always been a little bit painful process to go through but it was so much easier this year and I thank you and I look forward to our continued work and I really applaud the savings and the attitude of what can we do better for less And that just takes a lot of spirit from the staff that we have. Thank you. City Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Vigil. Yes. Shumway.

Yes.

O'Doherty. Yes. Newman.

Yes.

Lockhart.

Yes.

Freed.

Aye.

Bolling.

Yes.

Richardson. Yes. Cumbee. Aye. Yes. That's nine yeses and zero noes, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. And now, Item 11D, Councillor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the City Council approve Resolution 2026-44, amending the appropriations for fiscal year 2025-2026 biennial budget in the amount of $70,000 and authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to sign.

I have a motion from Freed and a second from Newman. Good evening, Director Bork.

Good evening once again, Mayor and Council. Thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate everything that you all do as well. I'm not bringing a request for a budget amendment for the Rec Center or the Ice and Events Center for once. This boiler that went down is here at the City Hall campus, specifically at the Annex. The boiler just is at the end of its life and has stopped working. We actually have two boilers that heat City Hall, the Fire Department, and the Annex. So two boilers that handle this large campus, a lot of square footage. I know that there had been some questions that had come up about some energy efficiency, so I just wanted to talk briefly about what we're proposing and the cost of this $70,000. The $70,000 is not just for the purchase of the boiler, it's also for the installation. And for the particular boiler that we're ordering, it's also for some control systems that are a lot more advanced than what we've got right now. What we're proposing is a non-condensing boiler, which in layman's terms, it's just how the boiler operates and condenses and puts out heat. There are other alternatives. There's condensing boilers, which is kind of the next most popular. But when we were looking at our options of what to put in, really this was seen almost as an emergency replacement. First of all, we need to be able to have the boilers up and operating. But secondarily to that, the energy efficiency on the boiler that we are looking at and what this quote is based on does have an 88% efficiency rate. So it is considered a high efficiency boiler. As a comparable, a similar size unit for a condensing boiler has about a 95 to 98%. So to put that into easy to understand, with 88%, about 12% of the heat that's generated goes up through the roof and is lost. where a condensing boiler has a much less of a heat loss because what it does is it recaptures some of the heat through the system and puts it back into the system. So we just have less heat loss. But from a cost perspective, condensing boilers are 30% to 50% more expensive than non-condensing boilers, and you gain about a 10% to 15% efficiency gain on that. And that, over time, can have a quicker return on the investment. But what is not understood always when you're just looking at efficiency is condensing boilers require a much higher level of maintenance. They require much more regular cleaning. The flues, as it's recapturing the steam and the heat, tend to corrode faster. So in our opinion, really the non-condensing boiler that we're proposing is a better option in the longer term. Now there are other much higher efficiency systems like heat pumps and things like that, but that requires a huge investment, very low return on the investment. I mean, it takes many, many years to earn that. back. So that's why we're proposing the unit that we are and we feel it's a good replacement. It's an upgrade to what we've currently got and again is considered a high efficiency boiler. So I'll stand for any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Director. Council members, questions? Councilor O'Doherty?

Am I correct in assuming that redundancy is good when you're heating a building that also houses staff, the firefighters that live there, that we don't want to have just one boiler so if something goes out, people get to freeze?

Honorable Mayor, through you to Councilor O'Doherty, absolutely, yes. Having two units, if one does go down, we can only run off of the other one temporarily. It's not really only one is operating at any given time. They're both operating, especially when it's cold, and it does get cold here. But it is better to have some redundant availability if that happens for a short term.

Thank you. Further questions? Councilor Lockhart.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Bork. What kind of timeline do you have then to be able to get it installed?

Honorable Mayor, through you to Councilor Lockhart. Once we get the approval, we actually need to make a deposit to the agency before it is. We estimate within two to three months on the outside.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Director Bork, for answering my questions earlier about this and coming with all this information. This might be a question for you or for City Manager, but just thinking about some of the City Council goals and reducing emissions and some of these things long-term, hearing your presentation and looking into this, it feels like In my head, I can classify this as when we need to have an emergency fix or something to not interrupt the level of service we provide for our employees or for the community, that needs to be taken care of faster. But if we're talking about long-term... Planning, that's really where we might be able to identify areas to reduce, you know, use or find high efficiency stuff and build a budget for that or take that into consideration. And that's just kind of like this item really made me think like that. And I don't know if that's something you or a city manager can speak on, but is that kind of how... you know, we're going to try to prioritize things like this. We had a boiler go out. We need to get it up and running soon. We might not have the budget to, you know, get $150,000 more efficient piece that's going to require more maintenance. But as we look at long-term planning of our facilities, that's where we really can see the benefit to looking at reducing our emissions and stuff. So big picture question. I don't know.

Mayor through you to consular freed. Exactly. I mean, again, this was seen as an emergency repair. Um, we, we don't, we, we did not have, uh, felt we had the time to look at, you know, new, new whole systems. Cause even the condensing boiler would require, uh, additional flus and, and other venting, um, different things that would require, uh, potentially even some infrastructure changes to the building itself to put that in. I won't speak for the city manager. I know that my approach as we're looking at preventative maintenance on all of the facilities that we've got, anytime we're looking at future improvements that we can plan for, absolutely we want to look at anything we can do for, whether it's emissions or just general energy efficiency, gas reduction, you know, better output, better controls. So that's our approach. But this one, again, we did not feel that we had the time to necessarily go through that full process.

Thank you. Honorable Mayor, through you, Councilor Freed, you know, the way that I view this is this is one piece of what is a rather massive system, right? We're talking three buildings, water pressure, boiler systems, VAVs. We've actually just invested in the building next door and VAV systems, which are, for a commercial building, probably considered to be the most efficient at this point. We absolutely will look at efficiency options when it's not just a replacement of a piece of the whole system. But when it comes to the whole system, that would be a massive, massive project and expense.

And I just have a question kind of within the framework of equipment and function. When you say catastrophic failure, what exactly does that mean?

Honorable Mayor, really what that phraseology is, it's not something we had the option to repair. Really the only option was replacement.

So it was like a sudden collapse?

Yes, we had a major failure in several parts of the boiler. Okay.

And then you're saying that it will be about 60 days out before you can get the boiler, get it installed, et cetera. So that brings us into September. So thank you very much because it doesn't give a lot of time.

Yes, absolutely. And that's why we wanted to make sure we brought this to you in a timely manner and get it installed hopefully before the cold weather.

And then this boiler is one of two that are essential for the entire city hall campus. Three buildings, half a block, and a full block long.

Absolutely, Mayor, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any further questions? All right, thank you, Director. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Yes, Mr. Glass.

Honorable Mayor, members of Council, Brett Glass. As I asked last night in a more informal setting, I just wanted to find out, given that Council has a zero carbon goal and has expressed that and also is interested in energy efficiency and keeping our expenses under control, have you considered trying to find a way to move to renewables for this system? Right across the street, the county has done that with the old bank building. They now have photovoltaics on the roof and a heat pump, and that's now serving that building, and they're saving a ton of money. Here we still, especially at the City Hall Annex, right now there's no one actually working in there as long as we keep the pipes from freezing and we have some time. It's only June and it only really gets to the point where it gets extremely cold in say October, November timeframe. So have you considered at any point looking into taking this opportunity to move to a more efficient, less expensive system. I've heard the concerns about trying to make the system work, and yes, it is harder. I've actually designed HVAC systems as an electrical engineer. I've done the engineering for the electrical things. I've held an electrical contractor's license. and design photovoltaic systems as well. You may wanna consider, even if you go ahead and approve this, and I think you have time, actually, to look at the options before you approve this. I'd like to strongly suggest that in the future you look into those options, because in the long run, it's gonna save the city and the taxpayers money. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Glass. Is there any further public comment on this agenda item? Back to council for comments.

thank you. Vice mayor? thank you, mayor. I appreciate Mr. Glassa' comment. I know that moving into the annex is pretty imminent. I think it' s about ready to go. I don' t think we have time to look at something different necessarily. However, I would love to know if city, not at this moment, if you could get back to us at some point about if we have looked into the photovoltaics and what that could look like for us, if that is a Explored at least moving forward honorable mayor through you to vice mayor.

We are looking into photovoltaics You know the next cycle coming around and probably most identified Facility is to land one on the fire department that would service these meters and try to pull it off that way But as always we're watching for grants and funding opportunities to make those systems more affordable for us. I

Thank you further comment counselor freed Thank You mayor and yeah, I appreciate the public input on this and as well the city staffs time and finding something that's gonna work and be efficient and and not reduce Safety or getting people from back in the annex.

So, thank you Any further comments City clerk if you can call the roll, please freed.

Yes bowling

Yes.

O'Doherty? Yes. Lockhart?

Yes.

Vigil? Yes. Shumway?

Yes.

Newman?

Yes.

Richardson? Yes. Cumbie?

Yes.

That's nine yeses and zero noes, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. Next, is there any public comment on non-agenda items? Seeing none, back to council. Councilors, any consideration of future council work session topics? Councilor Newman.

Thank you, Mayor. I was talking to city manager and I had some questions and I'm sure a lot of other councilors do. So I would like to see about a work session on development codes associated with mobile home parks.

I would second that.

And then City Manager, you will get with Councilor Newman and the Vice Mayor to get further details about what is desired. Any further suggestions before we close? Now, our work session on data centers is scheduled for August 11. Okay. And we are hoping, yes, well, we are hoping to do a comprehensive dive in that. And I want to thank the staff who are working so hard and diligently to put together a response to my rather long list. I appreciate it. Councillor, oh.

Mayor, just a quick reminder on work sessions. We have canceled next week's work session.

Yes, we have.

And no meeting the following week on the 30th, so we'll be back on July 7th.

Yes, and... What am I going to do? I'm going to go down the barbecue.

It's like... It's like Garrison Keillor when he was making jokes about Laramie said, if the wind stops, everyone falls down. So when council stops, what are we gonna do? But we've worked really hard since January to work on budget we've done double meetings multiple weeks in a row and council I just want to thank you in addition to doing double meetings you all have kept up with your boards and commissions you have been at public events you made a great showing at WAM and at WAM many of the vendors and people who were there who attend many conferences said, this is amazing, everyone is so happy. And I think part of that was the Nancy's because when things go right, people are happy. And when things go wrong, they're grumpy. And everybody had a wonderful time and connected. And it really meant a lot, not only for our city, but for our entire state. And people just loved being here and they love our city. And I was just so proud. Thank you. Councilor Shumway.

Since we're not going to have another chance, I want to wish everyone a successful and happy sesquicentennial.

Oh, thank you.

Sesquicentennial.

Sesquicentennial. Happy 250. Councilor O'Doherty.

See you at Freedom Has a Birthday, right?

Yes, we'll see you all at Freedom Has a Birthday. And come by and see us. We've got some, we'll enjoy seeing you and talking to everybody. And I move we adjourn. Second. I have a motion from O'Doherty, second from Vigil. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed?

We are adjourned.