City Government - Regular Meeting

Call to order.

Good evening and welcome to the Laramie City Council regular meeting for Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. And if you would like to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. City Clerk, if you can please call the roll.

Bolling.

Here.

Freed. Here. Lockhart.

Here by order of the mayor.

Newman.

Here.

O'Doherty. Here. Shumway.

Here.

Beehill. Here. Richardson. Here. And Cumbee. Here. That's nine present and zero absent, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. And next... in our agenda is public comment on non-agenda items. And before we start that, I would like to remind people that public comment on non-agenda items is limited to 30 minutes start to finish. As mayor, it is my job to be the timekeeper. So nothing personal, I'm just doing my job. I would like to announce that possibly All people who would like to speak on a non-agenda item will not be able to speak tonight. I would like to inform you that council will be approving on the consent agenda our quarterly community open forum that is scheduled for Wednesday, July 29th. In conjunction with that, Linda Devine has offered to sponsor a community dinner from 5.30 till 6.30 at the Lincoln Center. At 6.30, we will begin the community open forum, which will be facilitated by Ryan O'Neill, head of students at Wyo Tech. And so without further ado, I have one, two, three, four, five people who have signed up in advance to speak. I will choose those first. And with 30 minutes, it will probably be that another four would have time to speak considering time back and forth. So. Yes, Counselor. Would you clarify it's three minutes per person? Three minutes per person and if you can try to adhere to, if you can adhere to that so that each person who would like to speak in that 30 minutes can and we will begin that now. Our first speaker, Allie Patrick. Good evening, Allie. If you can please state your name for the record.

Allie Patrick. All right. Honorable Mayor and City Council, my name is Allie Patrick and I live in Ward 2. I'm here to speak today as a concerned Laramie resident, but I'm also here to speak as a civil engineer with 10 years of land development experience. And I want to share my thoughts about flooding risks that could result from developing the 4G property. The 4G property is valuable floodplain storage for Westside. Floodplain storage is naturally low, flat land along the river where water can safely sit during flood events. Floodplain storage also slows water velocity during flooding and filters pollutants from runoff before it returns to a river. Developing this site could remove this floodplain storage, further threatening Westside, an area that is already vulnerable to flooding. The site is about 32 acres. Based on my preliminary assessment, all but 0.1 acres of the site is designated as flood zone by FEMA. About 70% of the site is designated as zone AE, some of which is land where the river itself can overflow, called regulated floodway, and the rest of which is a 100-year floodplain, meaning it will flood from the 100-year storm. Typically, even though it is legal to do so, developers avoid constructing in Zone AE because insurance costs are so high there. The rest of 4G is in the 500-year floodplain, meaning it will flood from the 500-year storm. According to NOAA rainfall data, a 100-year storm in Laramie is 2.95 inches in 24 hours, and a 500-year storm is 3.8 inches in 24 hours. A 100- or 500-year storm may sound like it would be rare, but back-to-back storms can produce the same amount of rain as a 100- or 500-year storm. To put these numbers in perspective, Westside flooded in August of 2022 because Laramie received between 2 and 3 inches of rain in one day, comparable to what a 100-year storm would produce. That flooding occurred even with the current floodplain storage present on the 4G property. When you take away from floodplain storage by adding a bunch of buildings, parking lots, and roads, the water has to go somewhere. In this case, it would go to the rest of Westside, increasing flood depths there. In my opinion, these risks are too great, and development should not occur on the 4G property. Just because this property legally can be developed does not mean that it should. I respectfully ask that the City Council protect public safety by rescinding the blight designation. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Allie. Our next speaker, Nate Martin. If you can state your name for the record, please.

Thank you, Mayor Cumbie, members of council. My name is Nate Martin. I live at 260 North Cedar Street. As some of you know, I'm a trustee on the Albany County School Board, but I'm speaking with you tonight as a private citizen, not representing the district or my colleagues in any way. I was the lead on the ACSD one side in the project to sell the old Slade property to the city so it could be transferred to the land trust and developed into workforce housing. During the three years I worked on that project, my staunchest opposition by far were members of ACSD-1 administrative staff. This was unusual. The people who were opposing that project are people who I've worked with for years and get along with very well. This was the only instance that I can recall where we butted heads, but for about nine months when we were getting close to the actual sale, I fought with these people bitterly. In their eyes, the school district should have sold the property for the highest amount possible in order to capture as much money as we could to put toward our mission of educating this community's children. Of course, funding for education is an important value that we can all agree on, and that is normally the school board's priority. But in this instance, there was a higher and greater community benefit to be achieved by taking part in this effort to develop workforce housing. After all, although we are trustees of the school district, we don't work for the school district. are ultimately accountable to the entire community that elects us and who we represent. I see strong parallels between that situation and the situation before you regarding the 4G property on the west side. This is a project that has been driven by the city's administrative staff since at least 2020, which is when I was first told by city planners that developing the property for housing was the city's priority and that the city would be working towards that goal. Since then, the city has created the West Side Plan, rezoned the property for residential, and opened up a stream of public financing via designation of the property as blight. Of course, the city is doing all this because we need housing, and the staff's job involves figuring out how to make that happen. But just like the school board recognized that there was a value in the Old Slade project higher than education funding, the city council should recognize the greater and conflicting values here. Protecting an existing neighborhood from flooding, protecting beloved community resources in the Greenbelt and the Laramie River, and responsibly stewarding taxpayer dollars in alignment with the law. And just like the school board works to advance the district's interests while working foremost on behalf of our community, city councilors do not work for the city. You work for the people of Laramie. The thing that ultimately empowered the ACSD-1 board to go against its administrators and sell the property to the city was the fact that we had broad and robust community support. I believe that you have the community behind you when it comes to housing in general, and I count myself among your advocates. But when it comes to the Westside Blight Project, you do not have the community behind you. I ask that you consider reversing the blight designation on the property, pump the brakes on the public financing that is allowing this development to proceed, and reconsider what is best ultimate use for this land. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. Next speaker, Christina Sluka. Yes, Christina Sluka. All right. Our next speaker... She's not online, is she? Mayor, I don't see any screen names for her. Is Andrea Novotny. Good evening. If you can state your name for the record, please.

Good evening. My name is Andrea Novotny, and I'm here today to ask the city to remove the blight designation for the property owned by 4G Enterprises. And before I get into what I wanted to say, I just wanted to ask to kind of see for the record. Andrea.

Comments need to be made to the council.

Okay. I just was wondering how many people are here today specifically to express concerns about the development of high density housing on the Laramie River? I guess by a show of hands that I can't see. 12. Thank you. So like I said, I live in Ward 1 and currently I've lived in a lot of different places in Laramie and I understand firsthand and very much agree that affordable housing is a major issue in Laramie. My concern and a concern of many of my friends and neighbors I've spoken with on this issue is that the plan would exacerbate all of the issues it aims to solve. One of my biggest questions right now is specifically How affordable is the high density housing of a Riverside apartment complex expected to be? Similarly, one of the reasons to justify the designation of this land as blight is that it is floodplain. Floodplain will always exist along the river. So my second question is, would development exacerbate or mitigate flooding in the area? And then I also wanted to clarify my main concern and I believe a concern I share with many of my friends and neighbors on this issue. Often when we talk about the Greenbelt, we're referring to the asphalt path within Greenbelt Park. I don't believe and I don't believe there is an understanding that access to that asphalt path would be inhibited in any way by this development. But the Greenbelt isn't just an asphalt path, it's our access point to one of the most beautiful and ecologically important parts of Laramie, one of the most ecologically important areas in Laramie. Whenever someone asks us why we live here, The answer is almost always that we love this land and we love the natural world that exists right in our backyards. And turning this natural area into an urbanized area would inhibit access to having that in our backyards for a huge demographic of people in Laramie. So that is why I am asking you to remove the blight designation. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea. Next is Constant... All right, is there anyone else that would like to make public comment on non-agenda items?

Good evening, Murav. If you can state your name for the record, please.

Thank you again for letting us discuss this important issue. My name is Merav Ben-David and I don't live on the west side. I'm an ecologist. I've shared my thoughts with the council about this before and I'm back here to reinforce everything that my wonderful colleagues have said before or friends. This is a critical area for wildlife and it is an important corridor in addition to serving as a habitat for fish and amphibians. and other aquatic organisms. It is also the main migration corridor for many animals that move between the snowy range and the Laramie range. We have to take it into account. We have deer, we have bears, we have moose, we have mountain lions walking using this as a corridor. And if we are going to put 94 housing units right on edge, we are going to disrupt wildlife migration corridor. So I'm asking you, like many others, please rescind the blighting designation. Thank you. Thank you, Mara.

Any further public comment on non-agenda items? Yes, ma'am. If you can state your name for the record, please.

Hi, my name is Atalia Jimenez-Studman. Thanks. I'm a lifetime resident of Wyoming, eight year resident of Laramie. My main mission today is to also ask that you resend the blight designation. But I also had a question about the report that was released about the city of Laramie Westside urban renewal plan and projects.

Constance, this is for comments. Yes. It's not a back and forth for questions.

You can state your question. My comment would be within this and the Appendix A public engagement report that says there's 52 participants and that there was dot voting that happened under Part 3, Land Use and Preferences, it was stated that the general support uses included multifamily housing, but within this, on page 10, there are photos that indicate there are seven red dots on the multifamily units in the blighted area of this community, where there is only two green dots, which then would propose that that is not true, and it is misleading in this report. I'd also go into a comment on the fact that clear oppositions that were noted in that report contained the auto strip or the shopping strip that was proposed, which received two green stickers and five red. With those numbers in account, that one was thus able to make it into what was strongly opposed rather than the multifamily units that are proposed in the blighted area. So I wanted to bring that to the attention of this renewal plan and project under Appendix A, and also, again, ask for the resignation of the blight.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate your attention to those details. Is there any further public comment on non-agenda items? Yes ma'am. Good evening, and if you can state your name for the record, please.

Thank you. Sure, my name is Christina Sluka, and I am also here to ask you guys to rescind your designation of blight. While, in general, as a landowner in the Westside neighborhood, I'm gravely concerned about the fact that I've seen no data on exactly how development on that site could negate the property's current flood buffering services to the Westside neighborhood. So should development proceed on this property without undertaking a study to determine how much water that property currently mitigates from flooding into the current west side area, it is currently not a great idea to risk the property and health and safety of current constituents in the area, let alone risking any sort of damage to homes that we already have for the purpose of trying to increase affordable housing in the area. In general, while I firmly believe that landowners are free to do as they please on their property, there is a duty of the local government to protect neighborhoods from dangerous activities. This is precisely why Superfund site mitigation occurs and why landowners aren't allowed to endanger others by setting fires during burn bans. I feel that the 4G land issue falls in the same category, and until the city or the landowner can provide exact effects of developing on this property. And I'm talking millimeters or inches flowing off of this property either into the river or into the west side neighborhood. that the city should at least partially look into doing some sort of flood study in flood simulation, specifically a flood simulation study in this area to understand the services currently given by that property. So I would like to request that the city reverses the TIF funding and blight designation and completes a full detailed flood study and flood simulation study to understand how this property currently serves the Westside neighborhood without proceeding too quickly into a development plan.

Thanks. Thank you very much. Is there any further public comment on non-agenda items? Yes. Good evening. Hi. And if you can state your name for the record, please.

Hi, my name is Katie Lin. I'm the district manager for Laramie Rivers Conservation District. The mission of the Laramie Rivers Conservation District is to lead the county in the conservation of natural resources. I just joined the district about a year ago. And it's been really interesting because I feel like about every week I get a call from a concerned citizen in the county, sometimes in the city. Right now I know the two biggest topics are this 4G property as well as the rail tie storage. So both of these projects are occurring along the Greenbelt and are obviously a really big concern to the district. And I think it's important to loop into these other folks, these other organizations that can chime in and are hearing things on the ground. I'm sure you all get lots of emails and phone calls and I do too. For us, we completed a conservation project on the Greenbelt. It was a restoration project. We finished it in 2018 and it was a massive undertaking. It took more than a million dollars in fundraising. It required more than 800 volunteers across four field seasons to get some work completed out there. Once these resources are gone, they're gone. It's really, really hard and expensive to restore and rehabilitate these areas. The folks who've chatted before me did a better job. I wasn't really preparing to say anything, but I just finished a grant application about an hour ago for FEMA funding for work to support flood mitigation for the Pioneer Canal. So this is work that benefits folks in the city. And when there are development projects like this, it's creating a lot of problems for everyone and a lot of work that needs to be done later on. So I would ask kind of along with everyone to rescind that blight designation for this property. And I'd also advise or ask city council members to please reach out to the conservation district if there are project ideas or for any support that we can offer. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments. And is there any further public comment on non-agenda items? Yes, Dr. O'Toole. If you could state your name for the record, please.

My name is Donal O'Toole. I don't live in the west side and I hadn't planned to speak to you guys tonight. I'm on the Planning Commission and I voted against the plan to put housing on this site. I agree with the planning folks and I agree with you that we need housing. I really agree with infill development and this is infill development, but to me it seems extraordinary. You would consider building on a floodplain. I think that's a mistake. We're gonna see climate change, I think. We may be seeing it this year. I don't know if you read the news about a firefighter and his family died in Utah in the last couple of days. He was camping along some area in the Laramie, I was gonna say the Laramie River, and they were all drowned. Last year in the Hill District in Texas, You may remember the camp that was flooded. I'm always impressed with the Laramie River does. I'm even impressed with what the Spring Creek does. It impresses me and I admire what it does, but this is a mistake. I think this is gonna kill somebody, and it's certainly gonna destroy some property. It'll probably destroy some lives. I think this is a mistake, and I suggest you reverse the blight designation. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Dr. O'Toole. Any further public comment? And if you can state your name for the record, please.

Hi, my name is Elise King, and I don't have any fancy words, but I'm here to just ask that you don't go with the blight apartments. I've been living here basically all my life. I know I'm young, but I am still in my 20s. I have always been fascinated and in love with the green belt. I think putting any sort of... buildings there, any sort of development will inherently just turn it into an urbanized area where there will be flooding. I've seen great things with that river with how much water can go through. And again, you know what other people have said, like the migration is gonna get so disrupted and like the restoration, I think you should just vote no on the development of these apartments. Too many risks and too many things could happen with this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. And is there any further public comment? Yes. And we're kind of moving into the last one. Good evening. If you can state your name for the record, please.

My name is Marie Kranz. I've lived in Lamerie for about a year. I've lived in Albany County for about six. I was in Centennial during the Molten Fire. That was apocalyptic. Climate change is happening. You can see it. It's here. some very serious concerns have been raised about floodplains. And I think that's your due diligence to look into that and fully consider that before you move forward with building a property there and continuing with your blight designation. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And we do have time for one more. Is there any other public comment on non-agenda items? Well, thank you all very much for your attendance tonight and for speaking. I know that that's not easy and we really appreciate it. I would like to return to council for any final brief comments. Are there any comments from council?

Councilor Freed. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for everyone who's participated in this from the beginning, from long before I've been here, and for the city staff who've worked on this. We hear you. I will say that, that all the effort and information that you guys are working with, are providing to us, we hear you. And a few things I just wanted to clear up today, based on some of the comments I heard, and just to remind folks that might not be here and are gonna watch this later, this property is private, so the city does not own this property, just to make sure. There hasn't been any development plans that have been submitted for this property, and then any development that would be undertaken on this property would have to follow all the FEMA flood guidelines. So, Public safety, I think, is the city's mission. It's the mission of city council. And to hear that from you guys is something that we wholeheartedly agree with. And I just want to make those points very clear that there isn't a development plan. If any development would happen, it would have to follow the FEMA flood guidelines and would have to be developed that way. So just to provide some assurances, if things were to ever get to that point, it won't be overlooked. So I just wanted to make that clear. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lockhart.

Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you to everybody that came. I'm sorry I couldn't be there this evening. I hope everybody got the handout that's available. It's a lot of information in there.

Let me take a second from your time. To people in the audience, there is a handout. City Clerk is showing it to you. If you... would like to take a copy of those. That is what Councillor Lockhart is referring to. Thank you. Councillor, please continue.

You bet. And thank you for showing everybody the handout. It's very informational. And again, I will ditto Councillor Freed's comments. And if the blight designation also was ever rescinded, it doesn't keep the property from being developed. It's only what the blight does is allows the city to have more control and how it's developed. But if someone did come in by the land and develop it, they don't have to use the TIF funding. So I just want everybody to keep that in mind. And they still would have to do the FEMA, follow the FEMA code, but there'd be a lot less... I believe infrastructure be put in place that I think we could help with if it was developed. So I just want to make that clear to everybody. Since it's private property, we can't really tell them how to develop it outside of code. So, cause it's going to be developed. If someone wants to come in, they do not have to use TIFF. They can develop it on their own without the use of TIFF. The TIFF just helps us have a say. And I know we've said that in a few council meetings, so I just want to make sure that's clear, but thank you for everybody for your comments. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Councillor Newman.

I won't rehash what has been said, but I'll add a couple things. I don't think anybody on council wants to get rid of the greenbelt. I don't think staff would ever come in and recommend that. I don't think staff or any council members would come in and say we want to destroy the river or any of the floodplain there. Nor do I think city staff would ask us to do that as well. And I think with this blight and TIF funding that is available, it does help us create a better plan for the flooding that happens in the west side there. But we hear you. I hope you all come to the meeting if it gets approved on the consent agenda next week.

Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. So first, I just want to thank all of you for coming. You've been emailing, you've been engaging. If you haven't emailed and you still have questions, please continue to email us. We are happy to talk about this. There's been some information circulating around town about the TIF decision and it isn't necessarily accurate and many of you have brought us questions based on that information and also just other questions that you have. We are all more than happy to answer all of your questions. I want to say that your advocacy efforts, the questions you've shared have made me revisit our TIF decision. and the more closely I've looked at the concerns, I've triple checked things like flood mitigation, flood insurance, traffic studies, flight determination, and you all have made me do that. You have said, are you sure about this? What about this? What about that? and look more closely at all of those concerns. And I have become more confident because I have had to really look into that. And I really want to thank you all for making all of us do more work and think about this decision really, really carefully. I think each of us on council has done our very best to listen to your concerns and take them very seriously. Dive even deeper into the issues and then give you an honest answer or the answer that we believe is true that we in our research have decided on. I'd love for each of you to take this energy that you put into this advocacy effort and shifted toward what an overlay might look like the mayor has said give us a list of like things you would like to see you know whether that some height designation or setbacks or. other things. We may not be able to implement everything that you request but I really think that we could all aim for something that we can work on together that can make the community feel good about moving forward or at least better about moving forward. I invite you as others have to join us on the 29th. We want to continue hearing your voices. I am not willing to resend the TIF designation and the blight designation. And like I said, it's because of what I've dove into and really looked at. But I am willing to continue to work and think about if something were to occur, if something were to develop, let's get on top of that now and think about what that might look like for the community.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Any further comment? All right. I would just... I'd like to thank you all for your respect and for your interactions with council. we've had uh... many hours almost ten hours of public comment uh... an hour and a half which included an open meeting and we have tried to listen and then take your questions and dig deep and dive deep uh... two things i just want to emphasize is number one this is private property and As Councilor Lockhart said, the TIF funding would allow us a little bit of leverage to have input and to make certain demands upon any developer if a developer were to come in and purchase that at this point in time there is no plan been presented and the city is not privy to any information about the sale of the property at this time I understand some members of the community seem to have some information but right now we have no information that there's been that anything's going on but I know that the owners the private property owners are motivated to sell and we would like as much. input from city and community as possible and as the Vice Mayor said, I would really encourage you to concurrently consider overlay criteria that you might want to see in this district so that there might be another layer of protection. And again, I encourage you all to attend the meeting. assuming that it's approved of on consent agenda. July 29th, Wednesday at the Lincoln Center dinner by Linda Devine will begin at 5.30. At 6.30, community open forum will go until eight o'clock where we have open exchange and we're not bound by Robert's rules of order. So thank you all very much for your comments tonight. And we will now go on to consideration of changes in agenda and setting the agenda. Is there a public request to remove a consent agenda item and place it on the regular agenda? Good evening, everyone. Seeing none, Vice Mayor, 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 and second from Bolling. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. City Clerk? This evening, we have no proclamations, no presentations, and no public hearings. So we will go straight to announcements. City Manager Fieser, or will the Assistant City Manager be making this announcement?

Staff recognition, yeah.

Yeah, employee recognition. Good evening, Chief.

Good evening, council.

I thought that's what everyone was here for, was for Monica.

This is our favorite part. So I'll tell you, rock star of the month, Monica Chavez, and she is my rock star every day. It's pretty consistent that I get a phone call or an email from Monica asking me about some type of discovery issue that we're dealing with in the police department that I have completely forgot about. and she really makes sure that our department is taken care of when it comes to our responsibilities with the court system. So I'll talk a little bit about what she does, and I know she has a lot of family here in attendance, so I want to make sure that she gets the opportunity to come up and speak. Every day, Monica maintains physical and digital evidence collected by the Liberty Police Department. She sends the items off for testing to state crime labs and fulfills discovery requests for the City Attorney's Office and the Albany County Attorney's Office. Discover requests involving cases that go to trial, including evidence like body-worn camera footage, which coincidentally we'll talk about later on tonight, and other relevant physical and digital evidence. In attendance, she has several family members. I think her two daughters are here. There they are, all right. And then she also has a large family. And I'll tell you, Stacy Gonzalez is here too. And the one thing that I've realized about the Chavez and Gonzalez family is that they're extremely close. And usually when I'm talking with either Monica or Stacy, it revolves around something that's going on in their family life, which is extremely exciting for me to hear. So I'll tell you a quick story about Monica. When I got here, Monica worked as a record specialist in Lark. and I had an opportunity to get to know Monica pretty well, and she was looking for areas to grow in our profession. And luckily we had an evidence technician spot open, and when she was selected for the spot, I kind of asked her, slash maybe Vaughn told her, that I'd really like to see her expand, get additional training, and respond to major crimes in the community to help our detectives and collect evidence. And she kind of jumped in head first. And you can see that here with some of the rock star statements that she gave. It's very hard to find training for a civilian that does this type of work. but she was able to locate it and now she is our expert in the police department and the city as far as all types of evidence collection from physical to digital to blood type of evidence. So she's become a phenomenal resource for our organization and the city as a whole. So tonight I present to you Monica Chavez.

I was not prepared to talk, but I appreciate the nomination. Working as a city employee for over the past 20 plus years has been really fruitful. I appreciate that I've been able to grow in my career personally and professionally, and I look forward to what the future holds. I know he says expert, that's probably a loose word. I'm still learning. motivated to learn as much as I can. I know I've been asked multiple times, well, why don't you become a police officer? That's not my forte. I'll stay a civilian, even if that means I have to work until I'm a lot older. I'll take it. The rule of 85 is if it still comes into play when I get there, I'll consider it. But at this point in my career and in my life, I'm ready to tackle it head first and I'm here to help the city however it may be whether it be through investigations through evidence discovery requests any anything that may be needed of me I'm I'm ready so I just want to say thank you and I appreciate the opportunity and it's it's been a good ride so

Thank you, Monica. I just want to thank you. And I want to say that oftentimes I think a true expert is defined as a lifelong learner. And you demonstrate that. We'd like to get you in chief. Oh, yes.

Councillor Vigil. Sorry, Mayor. I'm all the way over here. Yeah, just if I might. I think Monica is the staff member within the city of Laramie that I've known the longest. And I got to see kind of just her dedication to the city, especially during the pandemic. So like while a lot of us got to work in our pajamas from home, She got up every day super early and was working in Lark. And so, yeah, so I, you know, I saw that this came through and I was really excited because it's about time. So yeah, congratulations. Thanks. Thank you.

And I'm wondering if we could get a photo with you and Chief Johnson.

Absolutely.

I mean, Chief Brown, sorry.

Can we call Dan?

Call Dan.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Okay.

You stand.

We move down. That way? Congratulations. You can't get next to her.

You can't get next to her. She never landed from the pictures. All right. Tell us where we're going to go, Nancy.

All right. I think you guys did a great job. Ready? One, two, three. Good job. Thank you. Congratulations.

I love these moments so much. Counselors, are there any disclosures and or conflicts? Thank you. Vice Mayor, if you can make a motion to approve 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. Second.

I have a motion from Richardson, I think a second from Vigil. It was a photo finish.

Not about volume.

City Clerk, if you can please call the roll. Bolling Aye Freed Yes Lockhart

Yes.

Newman?

Yes.

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

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. And that does mean we will be having our meeting on July 29, Wednesday, starting with dinner by... The gracious Linda Devine. Councilor Free, oops, I'm on the wrong page, sorry. Okay, item 11A, Councilor Bolling.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Laramie City Council approve Amendment 01 to the Professional Service Agreement with TriHydro for the Laramie Construction Management Contract Administration Task Order 2026 project in the amount of $432,709 with a contingency of $43,270 and authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to sign. Second.

I have a motion from Bowling, second from Richardson. Good evening, Director Smith.

Honorable Mayor, City Council, still not quite used to that, but I think you'll see me enough that I'll get used to it eventually. What you have in front of you, what this amendment does is it essentially adds two projects to that task order that we, I think... A couple months back, they all went ahead and approved. So this adds those two projects for the inspection and the second part of those engineering services. Because just to remind the council, the first part, the design, which is really exciting, was done in-house by staff there. And I promised the engineers I'd give them a shout out. So that's that right there. So the first project, the bid was actually approved at your last meeting for the Custer Sewer Project. And the second project is the Snowy Range Water Replacement Project. And you will see that bid is your next item there. I would stand for any questions on this if you have them.

Thank you, Director. Questions, Councilors? Councillor O'Doherty.

So we're having TriHydro be the field people to oversee the project that was designed by our own engineers and in other times often the engineering firm will have the oversight of the project, right? And so this is to free up staff so they're not standing by watching the construction.

Mayor through you? Yes. And so typically in a construction project, you have two phases for the engineering, that design, that beginning portion. And then on the second half, during the construction, you have construction management, and also that's working with the contractor out there, working through some of that, and also the contract administration. So that's what this piece is for those projects. You summed it up much more eloquently than I did. Hmm.

Further questions? Thank you, director. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Back to council for comments. Councillor O'Doherty.

I just want to point out how important this kind of work is. You can't just count on contractors to get everything right. And so it's good to have engineers in the field because it could just be really minor changes. And I know that, you know, minor differences from the specs. So I'm glad we'll have TriHydra watching.

Thank you. Further comments? City Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Bolling.

Yes.

Lockhart.

Yes.

O'Doherty. Yes. Vigil. Yes. Shumway.

Yes.

Newman.

Yes.

Freed.

Aye.

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

That motion passes. Item 11B, Councillor Vigil.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Laramie City Council approve the award of bid and contract with Hot Iron Inc. for the Snowy Range Water Line replacement Adams to Schroeder project in the amount of $3,624,376.23 with a contingency of $343,035 and to approve resolution 2026-48 amending appropriations for the fiscal year 2026 budget of the city of Laramie, Wyoming, and authorize the mayor and city clerk to sign.

Second. I have a motion from Vigil, second from O'Doherty. Welcome back, director.

Mayor, city council, this particular item is kind of a perfect storm to where there's some road work that is planned on snowy range. And as you can see from the cover sheet, this is a problem area with brakes, maintenance, it's dangerous, it's inconvenient for the community also to have so much maintenance going on and the constant traffic control there. So this is a way for us to go ahead and move and get these fixes done before and then road work to go in. So it kind of fits pretty well within that schedule. So I would stand for any questions.

Thank you, director. Counselor's questions. Uh, counselor Lockhart.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, director Smith. I understand we go for like if the contract and the bid was meet all your parameters, but this bid is a million dollars less than second place. And with such a big project like that, that really concerns me that we're going with the lowest bid, not by just a few hundred thousand dollars, by a million dollars. Can you clarify the decision?

Mayor, through you, just as you had concerns, I had a pretty big concern when the project managers and engineers brought this up and I spoke to them and everything that we are requiring, we have been told that we will get through this. So the discrepancy really don't have a good answer for that of why that is a There are multiple different reasons for that. You know, I just don't have a good answer for you right now, but we have been assured That what we are asking for will be provided in this contract in this bid Thank You councillor V Hill

Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Lockhart had the same question. He got to it first. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson.

Thank you, Mayor.

Whoops. So I know in the past, I guess maybe what have those assurances been? In the past, when we had a bid come in far, far under the others, there was some due diligence where we called other cities, that we called other entities who had utilized the company, and they gave us that assurance as well. Have we done that due diligence, too?

Mayor, through you, yes.

Councillor Freed. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Director Smith. Just to clarify for myself, we know that YDOT is going to do that planned road construction on 230 in 2029, and so knowing that, and then knowing that this is a specific area of concern, that public works decided to say, hey, we have money in the water fund, we can go ahead and try to do this. And so that way we don't put that, the new asphalt pavement down, then have to tear it up five years, three years, if that has issues. So that's, is that why this is coming now? It's in accordance with what we know why that is planning to do on that road.

The only thing that is more inconvenient than fixing water breaks is cutting into new asphalt, so you are 100% correct. It's to limit the impact and try to essentially make our money go as far as we can and work with our partners like White Dot on these kinds of issues.

Councillor Doherty.

So it's a water main. What is that made of? What kind of material? Just because it's hot iron and I was just thinking it's probably not a metal pipe.

As the previous water treatment administrator, I should be able to tell you this right off the top of my head, but to be perfectly honest with you, I'm drawing a blank at this moment of actually what the material is. I believe some is PVC, but I need to check that to make sure.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, further questions? All right. Thank you, director. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Seeing none, back to council for comments.

Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for presenting this. This looks like a huge project when I looked at them, you know, to really like taking the scope of this. So just to thank you, I think this will be big benefit to community and probably a real big pain in the Petoskey for a while while everything's torn up. But long run, I think this is great. We can really solve some problems and just make improvements. So thanks for that.

Further comment? I just want to thank the director and Public Works for your foresight with this project and being proactive. And it's kind of interesting to look at how things progress because the previous council to this one began a process of wanting to develop snowy range road and the infrastructure was the first step in that process. So here we are three years to two three years later and just things are unfolding step by step and it's just interesting to see that process. Thank you so much. City Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Vigil. Aye. O'Doherty. Yes. Shumway.

Yes.

Newman.

Yes.

Lockhart.

No.

Bolling.

Yes.

Freed.

Yes.

Richardson. Yes. Cumbee. Yes. That's eight yeses and one no, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. Item 11C, Counselor Lockhart.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the contract with Motorola Solutions, Inc. for the purchase and implementation of the Besta NXT Cloud Next Generation 911 call handling system through Sourcewell Master Agreement number 030425 in an amount not to exceed $825,304.71 and authorize the city clerk and mayor to sign. Second.

I have a motion from Lockhart, second from Vigil. Assistant City Manager Brown.

Mayor, Council Members, thank you for your time tonight. This item replaces our aging 911 call handling system with Motorola's cloud-based next-generation 911 platform. The replacement was planned for and budgeted for in this fiscal year and is necessary to remain compatible with our partners in Laramie County, which serves as our backup platform public safety center, communication center, and vice versa. We serve as their backup. The new platform improves reliability, disaster recovery, dispatch efficiency, and ensures we can continue seamlessly with emergency operations. And the best way I can describe this is currently our system operates on a traditional server system. So our node or base is actually in Laramie County with our current server, and then we run fiber optic lines from Laramie County to Albany County here in Lark where it reaches our communication center. If any of those lines get cut, we actually had that happen last year when they were building the Meta Center over in Laramie County, a line was cut, and our 911 system was down for about half a day. We were able to come up with some backup solutions in Laramie County because they had the same system, was able to take some of our calls and assist us for about a 90-minute time frame until we could figure out a solution on our end. So this basically moves from that traditional server system to a cloud-based system. which could have its own challenges at times, but the best analogy I've heard is we're basically moving from watching a movie on a DVD system, where if the DVD player goes down, you're out of luck, to a Netflix system, where there's multiple different types of Wi-Fi systems that you can jump on if the provider goes down. So it's basically upgrading our system to that of the modern day 911 system. Interestingly enough, in Park County, they also have the same system. They have fiber optic lines running from Laramie County to Park County, which is a significant cost to them. So they're also moving to the same system. So there's several different entities within the state moving to the same system that would allow us to act as backup dispatch centers for various locations throughout the state. So if Laramie County went down for some reason, we could act as their backup dispatch center. If we both go down, then Clark County can do it, and there'll be a few other ones coming on online here in the next fiscal year. And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you. Questions, councillors? Councillor Shumway.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief, obviously, we have lots of partners here. I want to make sure that we're not just using our E91 funding for it, but that we're getting contributions not only from the county, but also from apparently Laramie County.

Through you, Mayor, Council Member Shumway. Yes, this is subject to the 80-20 LARC split, contractual split. So Albany County will be paying the other 20%. And then there are some discounts included. One, because we use SourceWealth for the bidding process, which basically allows us to look at bids on a national scale. So some of those larger agencies that receive bids bids at a competitive rate that we don't qualify for because of our size. We're eligible for those discounts by going through SourceWell, and then also because we're doing it at the same time at Laramie County as there's some additional discounts. Thank you.

Thank you. Further questions? Councilor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Assistant City Manager of Public Safety, I think. Just curious if you've worked with this in the past or if you know of other cities or folks that have utilized this kind of cloud-based infrastructure and how new is it? If you have any concerns with, you know, if this is a cutting edge or if this has been around for a while, if you have any history that you could talk to about that.

So through you, Mayor, this is pretty new. This is pretty new technology, but we're starting to see this with the majority of our software systems to where they're going to cloud-based systems. What does give me comfort is that this database, along with most of the government contractors right now, are operating off of the AWS government-approved, DOJ-approved, CJIS-approved database software system. So all of our data is stored on a secure, at least government-backed system, not that anything could never be hacked. But that's what we're starting to see. I think the days of us having traditional fiber optic lines six to eight feet in the ground are probably behind us as AI continues to evolve.

Thank you. Further questions? So, Assistant City Manager... When you describe these partners throughout the state who will be utilizing the same system then that provides a redundancy so that if ours goes down we can tap in and have continuous coverage and vice versa if theirs goes down so it really offers more of a secure statewide system.

Yes, Mayor, and I can tell you one of the weaknesses in our current system is we actually have a backup dispatch center in Fire Station 3. However, unfortunately, when we built that system out, we built it on the same fiber optic line. So if our main system goes down, if our main 911 phone lines go down, that goes down also. So this will also give us the opportunity to fix that issue, which would be a substantial cost to the city if we had to dig more fiber optic lines to repair our current system.

Very good. Thank you. All right. appreciate that in any further questions none all right, thank you. Is there any public comment on this agenda item. Seeing none back to Council for comments.

If you call the roll, please Lockhart.

Is that a yes locker is that a yes.

Yes.

Okay, thank you. Freed.

Yes.

Bowling.

Yes.

Newman.

Yes.

O'Doherty. Yes. Shumway. Yes. Vigil. Yes. Richardson. Yes. Cumby.

Yes.

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

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes.

Item 11D, Councillor Freed. Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Laramie City Council approve the five-year contract with Accent Enterprise, Inc. for Accent Officer Safety and Digital Evident Platform in the amount of $1,002,250.63 and authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to sign. Second.

I have a motion by Freed, second by Newman. Assistant City Manager.

Mayor and council members, this agreement continues our existing partnership with Axon while upgrading our body-worn cameras, our taser program, and our digital evidence platform. Rather than making large capital purchases every few years, which is what we had done with our tasers in the past, we had approximately a $500,000 contract for new tasers about five years ago that we paid in bulk. This subscription model provides us predictable budgeting, scheduled equipment replacement, and keeps officers operating with current technology. It also gives us the ability, instead of spending in bulk on the front end, to use those assets for other resources that are needed throughout the city or other projects that are needed throughout the city while making sure that our officers have the ability to have tools needed to de-escalate situations. And I will say that Axon is still the only major vendor in the taser area. And that's something that we've used since approximately 2008 with both our body-worn camera and taser contracts. And for that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you.

Counselors, questions? Vice Mayor? Thank you, Assistant City Manager of Public Safety. Did I say that right? Is that right? Thank you, Assistant City Manager Chief. So I just, can you tell us more about the Taser Sense 10 certificate and what that entails? Sure.

So through you, Mayor, Vice Mayor. So that's a program to make sure that all of our officers are certified in the new TASER. So this TASER is different than all of the previous TASERs that we've had. So initially when Axon came out with the TASER model, is it operated off two darts that were shot at the same time. They separated at a rate of... separation rate of about 20 degrees. So basically what we were doing from the innovation of Taser 1 now through Taser 9 is we were asking our officers to do a math equation when they fire a taser at somebody and hope that it was the right equation. So that 20 degrees changes every time you take a step forward or a step backwards. So we're asking our officers to speculate on where those two darts are going to hit. Well, the answer was always the simplest one. We train our officers to shoot here in Laramie every other month, but the national standard is at least two hours a year. So our officers are training pretty consistently on how to shoot firearms. And they're pretty good at it. So now with the Taser 10, it basically gives them 10 darts, and they have 10 attempts to get two of those darts to strike to create a current between those two darts. And what they've seen with the data since agencies have been using it, and it's been on the market for about three years now, is when Laramie County was actually one of the first ones to test it was about three years ago. is they've seen tremendous results within the first three darts. So maybe you'll get somebody who turns and one misses and they can fire another round, but it's given our officers the ability to point a laser and then fire that dart into a safe position and then fire the second dart in a safe position that creates that current instead of firing both darts at once. And the problem that we had with both darts at once, every other iteration of Taser had a maximum of two darts that they, or two cartridges that they could fire. So you would have two attempts. If one of those darts missed in either of those attempts, then you wouldn't have the ability to use that de-escalation tool. So that certification is why it's going to require additional training. Every one of our officers will be certified within the first two months of receiving the device.

Thank you. Further questions? Councilor O'Doherty.

So the body worn camera, is this the one and only body worn camera and we're getting that from the same people? And the software is all part of this?

through you mayor, council member. Yes, there are other body-worn camera operators out there. The problem is once you enter a same software platform, just like we were talking with Monica earlier with our digital evidence, the platform we use is called evidence.com. It's the leading platform in the industry. So all of our digital evidence goes into this platform form, including our body-worn camera footage. And it's all compiled in one database. It also integrates with our tasers. So that information, as far as usage, how many darts were fired, what time, how long the device was deployed for, is all in the same operating system. So it's part of the same suite. So in essence, yes, everything is at a one-stop shop. including we have the ability, and maybe some of you guys have experienced this in your day jobs, to send our community members links so that they can upload footage that they have either from the Ring doorbell cameras, from their personal cell phone cameras. Our partners in loss prevention, whether it's with Walmart, Homebase, or any of our other partners, can upload their loss prevention video also to the same database. So that's all included, and it's an unlimited data storage package. So we have the ability. We passed, I think, three gigabytes, which was the highest you could get before you go to unlimited a few years ago. I think the last contract, actually.

Further questions? Councilor Shumway.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick question. I know anytime that there's a firearm, there's a follow-up where you go in and do a look at the appropriate use of the firearm. I don't know how often tasers are used, but is there a follow-up every time a taser is used to make sure that it's appropriate use and that it's been used properly?

Through you, Mayor, Councilmember, so we average in the last four years six or less taser usages every year since I've been the Chief here, and every single one goes through a use of force review policy, and that includes a review by the initial supervisor on scene, by the taser expert in our department, the person most knowledgeable, which I think currently is Miles Cushman, Sergeant Miles Cushman, then it goes through his lieutenant, the training lieutenant, and then if there's any, and then also the patrol lieutenant. And if any of those entities rule that it may not be within our policy then it also goes to assistant chief Smith and myself for review and that isn't just for taser uses that's for anything a control holder or actually it's pointing a firearm control or holder or higher all of our use of forces go through the same policy and review and then also at the end of the year they're presented to our police advisory board for review.

Good question counselor Strumway. Any further questions? Councilor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. Man, we're learning a lot tonight. Thanks, Assistant City Manager, Chief. I saw in here that this also includes that AI-assisted report writing, and I think I remember some of the times you presented about how that has really helped move things forward or slow down some of the time that it used to take to get some of these reports written. Can you just describe what this would also help do?

I think Mr., through you, Mayor, Councilmember, I think Mr. Gruber's back there, and we had the opportunity actually to present on that in some of our acts on policy to the City Manager's Budget Advisory Board Committee last year during one of their meetings. So yes, we have been using it now for about two years, and what we've seen is consistent with the nationwide trend, which is about a 67% reduction in report writing time. And our county attorney's been using it our city attorney's been using it for court prosecution Cases and our officers still have to review their reports before it's released from the system to make sure that everything is accurate But what we're seeing is especially towards the end of shifts where you're running into that 11 and a half hour 12 hour 13 hour time frame or maybe even coming back the next day where the incident happened the day before is we're utilizing this tool to help streamline some of those report writing processes. I think I might have mentioned this last time I talked about it. Nobody becomes a police officer to write police reports. But we're asking them to do that for the majority of the time. And the reality is our community doesn't want that. Our community wants them out there engaging the community, having conversations, de-escalating incidents, and receiving additional training. And that's really what we're focused on. And this tool allows us to do that at a better rate, a higher rate. Thank you. Thank you.

Any further questions? Councilor Doherty.

I was trying to figure out, so it's a five-year plan that we're paying the whole thing up front, or I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't clear. Thanks.

Through you, Mayor, Councilmember, it's approximately $200,000 a year, give or take, so it's split up over five years. So we'll be rebudgeting that every fiscal year for the next four years. And that's pretty, it's actually, when you combine the AI technology, the body-worn camera technology, and the taser usage that we paid up front last time, it's actually not a significant cost. I believe year over year, it's about a $30,000 to $40,000 increase, which is pretty consistent with what we're seeing based on a million-dollar contract, is that's about a 20% to 30% increase increase in software costs and hardware costs. So that's pretty consistent with what we're seeing. We're seeing on average about a 19%, give or take, increase in software costs year over year, which is a pretty significant cost. And a lot of that's because of storage fees and some of the data center conversations and the required storage locations that we'll be talking about here in the next couple weeks.

Thank you. Further questions? Thank you, thank you. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Yes, Ms. Devine.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I had no idea that we used AI. to write our police reports. So it sounds like just from listening to the chief that that's been going on for a couple of years. Because when I initially saw it from Vice Mayor's agenda today, so that was kind of where I came. And I love our chief, so this isn't to bash him or anything, but... It concerns me, I think, that we're using AI to write reports. And while I appreciate that the community does not want Lowndes-Wishman to spend time writing reports, we're working with people's lives and these police reports. are drafted and people get charged with crimes, they can lose freedom, they can lose a lot of civil rights. So I'm just, and maybe I just need to visit with the chief just a little bit more to gain a better understanding of how it works. Because we're talking about, you know, people that are facing crimes. It's not just a piece of paper and a report to them. So that was just something. And then, again, probably something I need to visit with the chief about, and he's actually very accessible, are the body cams. I actually appreciate that we have them. And... The biggest concern that I have sometimes is just the positioning of them, and I don't think that's intentional, but like law enforcement, like on a DUI investigation, as a defense attorney, the first thing I want to look at is the reason for the stop, but a lot of times the way the body camera is positioned, you don't actually, or you're not actually able to see the stop, so I'm hoping maybe with the increased software that it will expand what you can see. And that's something I'll visit with him about. I just wanted to come in and comment on it because it's something that is extremely important to me. Thank you.

Thank you. And Council Bowling, did you have a comment you wanted to make?

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. And thank you, Linda. And thank you, Chief. Just to address the comment about the AI use in police reports, and I'm sure that the Chief can speak to this too. But police advisory board has reviewed this several times. And I want to be clear because we've also done this with police advisory board in mock scenarios. AI does not write a complete police report for our officers. However, the minute an officer is in an engagement with a police, with a person in the public that is gonna require a report, the software that the police department has can take the audio from their body camera and start to immediately transcribe those actions, right? Including like things that the officer says out loud or that the person that they're talking to says out loud. Memory is fallible. And this has actually become a tool that has provided more factual reporting than going back after the end of a shift and recalling, well, was that person holding this in their left hand or their right hand? It actually has even gotten to the point where officers knowing that this is happening will start to dictate to their camera what is happening. I'm encountering a white male and he has something in his right hand. I'm standing on this corner of the street or something like that. And after that process, when the officer is at the end of their shift and is completing those reports before that shift is over, There's a template, but those are reviewed line by line by those officers for accuracy and all of those things. So in no way is a report just being simply written and submitted, but it is used as a tool that I think is actually increasing accuracy. I will count myself in the AI skeptic category, especially when it comes to writing and things like that. That's... However, we participated in this and wrote mock reports by hand after watching an altercation versus seeing how it was done with the combination. I think across the police advisory board, we saw better accuracy, which is going to then be better suited to the legal process from using the software as a template, as a mechanism.

Thank you, Counselor. Other comments? Is there any further public comment? Any further comments from counselors? City Clerk, if you can please call the roll.

Freed.

Yes.

Lockhart.

Yes.

Shumway.

Yes.

Newman.

Yes.

O'Doherty. Yes. Bolling.

Yes.

Vigil. Yes. Richardson. Yes. Cumbie? Yes. That's nine yeses and zero noes, Your Honor. Thank you, City Clerk.

That motion passes. Next, Councilor Newman, item 11E.

I move that the City Council approves the memorandum of understanding between the City of Laramie, Wyoming and WyoTech for school resource officer services and authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to sign.

Second. I have a motion from Newman, second from Vigil. Welcome again.

Mayor, council members, this is my last one for the night, and you can feel free to call me whatever you want. It doesn't have to be perfect. I'll take whatever you have left. This MOU formalizes a partnership between the City of Laramie and WyoTech to provide a dedicated school resource officer focused on safety prevention, relationship building, and emergency preparedness. It also establishes a phased funding model that ultimately transitions the full cost to Wyo Tech. I have been asked a few questions about the funding model. So this is something that we negotiate and work with Wyo Tech on. It's kind of a proof of concept up front. And the way that I envision it, I'm not sure if they envision it this way yet, but if you look at the University of Wyoming is that they have their own independent police department. As Wyo Tech grows, the population coming to Wyo Tech is not necessarily the same type of population that you're seeing. at the University of Wyoming. And not to say that they're any better or worse, just different. They're coming from different parts of the country. They're bringing a lot of their vehicles. The dorms infrastructure right now in WyoTech is spread out throughout the city. And I can tell you that I would assume the majority of my complaints or estimate that at least over 50% are probably related to WyoTech. usually around vehicles, parking issues, but it's a significant amount. And I know that I've worked with some of the council members sitting here today on some of those issues. So this is an opportunity for us as the Laramie Police Department to have somebody onsite who can provide education to the students and the faculty at WyoTech while working with them to solve long-term community issues. And this position is not just isolated to on campus, it's also the surrounding neighborhoods, complaints we get in the area, and then also any of the current living, dorms, rentals that they're using throughout the city. And the funding model is for year one, the city will take on the cost year two, and then year three it'll be 75% salary and burden, and year four I believe is 100% salary and burden. And I can tell you that I kind of base it off the way that we built our contract with Albany County School District number one a couple years ago when they were going through some financial hard times. And they weren't happy, to be honest with you, they weren't happy with the service the Laramie Police Department was providing. So we made an agreement with then city manager Jordan and the new superintendent, to have the city provide the cost for two years and slowly schedule a way to recoup some of those costs that we have now. And that contract is still not anywhere close to what this one is. Getting them to reimburse a salary and burden, in my opinion, is a pretty significant deal for the city if we continue this relationship long term. And my hope is as WyoTek continues to grow, we can grow this program and potentially have two or three different officers there later on down the road and build an infrastructure similar to what they did at the University of Wyoming. And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you. Counselors, questions? Oh, Councillor Freed.

I almost let our chief get out of here. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. I think this is a great idea. I mean, especially knowing the volume of calls and folks that are out there and as WyoTech continues to expand to see how we can work with them. I think that's a great idea. My only question would be, do you think that this is now... kind of a model that could be replicated? I mean, talking about the school district and Wild Tech, looking down the line, you know, if this one is successful, is this something that we might think about the city of Laramie kind of getting into with other entities, you know, down the line, if this seems to be a program that provides, you know, more public safety and outreach and engagement in specific areas that are of need? Do you think that's something that we could form out, depending on how this goes?

Through you, Mayor, Councilmember, yes. The one entity that comes to mind off the top of my head is maybe Ivinson. And looking at other entities of that size that may need it. Now, if you look at our large providers throughout the city, retail providers come to mind too. The difference with, say, a Walmart, which is a pretty large entity in the city, is the type of services that they require. And generally, you're talking about... some type of shoplifting need that occurs once or twice a week. Here we're talking about a huge portion of our residents essentially that are here for at least nine months. Sometimes they get extended programs and hopefully they decide to stay here in the community. But that's who we're engaging with. So we're basically laying that groundwork to have positive relationships with them throughout their duration here in Liberty and whenever they come back. And I can tell you just coming from another community myself, the expectations of law enforcement in the community here in Laramie are very, very different than Southern California. They're very different than Colorado. They're very different than Florida. They're very different than even our neighbors to the north and west and east of us. So I think those expectations need to be relayed to those students. Otherwise, we're kind of setting them up for failure, in my opinion.

Thank you. Further questions?

Thank you.

Any public comment on this agenda item? Ms. Devine.

I think for the most part I do support these types of engagements. My only concern with these are when an SRO is at the entity, whether it's public schools or whether it's biotech, the students see them all the time and then sometimes they almost feel like they're buddies, which is good. But then if they are, the SRO is investigating potential crime, that a lot of times these people don't realize that they don't have to make any statements to the SRO and so that's where I sometimes have issues with it because they feel like they can trust the SRO and I know that they're just doing their job but I think sometimes we run into some 5th amendment issues I had a situation in Rollins which I won on a suppression case but it's just because we just want to make sure that in our interactions and our desire for public safety that we always are protecting people's constitutional rights I thank you all very much.

Thank you Linda. Is there any other public comment? Seeing none, back to council. Any comments? Councillor Newman.

A couple things, Ms. Devine, I'll go to Ms. O'Neill's office tomorrow and see if we can put something in the student handbook that could help with that and maybe mention it at orientation. So thank you for that idea. The second thing is I appreciate this because maybe we'll get less phone calls, we'll get less emails. I appreciate Assistant City Manager Chief You need a director fun kind of title. For thinking outside the box, right? Right, director safe, there we go. To where, you know, this isn't the norm for maybe a for-profit school or maybe a trade school, I don't know, another trade school that maybe has this. So I really appreciate the work that I know the mayor has put in this, the vice mayor, and everybody at WyoTech to make this work. And I hope it does what we intend it to do.

Councilor Vigil. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Chief Brown. That's your name tonight. Thank you. Yeah, no, I just hat tip. I think, you know, this partnership between the city and WyoTech is really innovative. I think it's a really good example for all of our institutions here in Laramie to see what can be and what can be possible when we work together. I think that's so critical here in Laramie in particular. I work in student welfare myself for my day job and I can absolutely see how this is gonna benefit WyoTech. And so I think this will be great just in terms of community partnerships and relationships all around, thanks.

Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to add on that I feel like this is the public good and the benefit to community. We hear a lot of complaints, as the Chief noted. I think it's just going to be worth this initial kind of foray into it where we are, you know, we aren't charging yet at this point. I also want to note that as part of this original conversation, if I remember correctly, yes, this person will be the resource officer, but they also are tasked with kind of being in touch with community members. So that might be kind of address some of what you're thinking about, Ms. Devine, because they're not going to be so infiltrated just with students. It's going to be a broader kind of approach to tackling, I shouldn't say tackling, to building, community. So anyway, and I also really like this stepped approach where we're eventually, they will be paying for the services. So thank you.

Councilor Freed. Thank you, Mayor. I'll keep it short. I just want to thank the Chief for this presentation and the public comment from Ms. Devine on how to make sure that we're doing this the right way. And appreciate one of the things that the Chief said is that we hold our officers here to a pretty high standard in Laramie, different from other places in other cities, communities, states, and that is real. And so appreciate going towards this type of model because we do hold our officers to a high standard and that's what we expect of them and that's what they're doing. I just wanted to note that, and I appreciate Chief bringing that up.

Councillor O'Doherty. Would this be an opportunity to address noisy vehicles before they noise around town? Thanks.

Well, first of all, Linda Devine, I want to say thank you. Always a defense attorney, and I appreciate you bringing up things that, you know, we're not a defense attorney, so we might not think about. And I, Councilor Newman, I appreciate your comment that that information be part of orientation and things like that so people are informed. I just want to thank Let's see, what can we say? ACM Brown, but Assistant City Manager and City Manager. I want to thank you both. This has been a long time actually in the process. It started actually with town and gown and us taking some of the concerns that were coming in from the neighborhood and trying to discuss what would happen. And it was the time when law enforcement and people from the various higher education schools were present. And we began to address this two years ago or more. And then last year, I was contacted by a group of residents who began to send me photos of street infractions, of oil being dumped in the gutter, of license plates that went with that oil dumped in the gutter, et cetera. And I want to thank the neighbors who took the time to do that, to send that to me, to allow me to share it with the chief, with the city manager, and with the people out at WyoTech. And that got a lot of people to the table. And this is one of our first steps in the solutions we've explored about how to make that neighborhood more neighborly. And so thank you very much for moving this forward. And it's just so exciting to see something you start working on it two years ago. And here we are. So thank you very much.

Sorry, can I interrupt just one? You may have the last word. I just realized Councilor Newman gave me credit. I had nothing to do with any of this. I'm guessing it's maybe the mayor and Councilor Vigil. So I just want to make sure that credit is due elsewhere, not to me. Thank you.

City Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Bolling. You okay?

Yes.

Freed.

Yes.

Lockhart.

Yes.

Newman. Yes. O'Doherty. Yes. Shumway.

Yes.

Vigil. Yes. Richardson. Yes. Cumbee. Yes. That's nine yeses and zero nos, Your Honor.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. And item F, Councilor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Laramie City Council award the contract for the purchase of furniture for the annexed portion of the City Hall Campus Remodel Project to Beck Total Office Interiors Loveland, Colorado through Ominia Partners Cooperative Purchase Agreement in an amount not to exceed $202,040.26 and authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to sign. Second.

I have a motion by Freed, second by Vigil, City Manager Freezer.

Mayor, City Council, it's a pleasure to be here tonight. If I could clarify one thing, we could call Brian Assistant City Manager Brown or Public Safety Chief. I think that works either way. So you don't have to try to put it all together. And me, you can call Big Poppy. I'm just kidding. What you have before you tonight is the furniture contract to finish out the city hall campus renovation project. If you'll recall, a couple months ago, we had a furniture contract that provided the furniture for the basement. The city hall campus renovation project, and for those of you that have been down there, it's all very well appointed and well done. I don't think it's overdone, I think it's appropriately done, which is our goal of this project has been about appropriate safe, healthy workspaces for our staff, and that's what this is intended to do. This contract, before you deny it, actually covers all three floors of the annex, which includes a future location of the city manager's office on the top floor, community economic development on the second floor, and then the IT division and fire prevention in the basement. project is coming to a close, we expect to be able to move furniture in beginning September 1. We opted to use the Omnia contract, which is similar to the Sourcewell contract that Chief explained. We get to capture nationwide pricing and oftentimes get the lowest price available through the Omnia purchase project, which is bid out competitively across the nation, allowed by Wyoming State Statute 16-1101, which is the authority to cooperate. So with that being said, oh, the one other thing that I wanna add is there are some places that we aren't purchasing new desks. Staff had desks that came in in the past couple of years that were still good, but I will reiterate that we still had some 1970 surplus desks in our inventory that we are not gonna be returning into the new construction. So be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Councilor Doherty, what happens to the old furniture?

Bronner-Romeyer, through you, right now it's going over to the North 4th Street, which is packed full of old furniture, and then we'll probably have to auction that off at some point, or potentially it doesn't have the value to be required to go to auction. We'll see what happens as we move forward.

Further questions? Councilor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Big Papi, or city manager. You know, I will say the price, it's a lot of money. And so for folks in the community that want to say, this is a lot of money for furniture, you know, you just kind of hit one of the questions that I had is some of this furniture that staff is still using is from the 70s. You know, this is three floors of furniture. And in this packet, there's also contracts from Rollins, Fort Collins, Johnstown, Colorado, where they're paying a lot more for furniture. And so is it safe to assume that the city went through a process to identify what could be salvaged? We're not just completely buying new stuff frivolously. Can you just describe kind of what that looks like?

Honorable Mayor, through you to Councilor Freitas, it was by assessment by each department head on which desks met the mark to be retained and which ones didn't. There are places where staff are keeping their current office chair or we're replacing it with a new one or whichever. So there was an evaluation at the department level on who needed what new stuff. And you'll see that if you look at the drawings that show the three-degree rendering. It might have an office with just a chair in it or an office with a table and two chairs, but no desk. That's because that desk is what's being repurposed. So ones that were not broken, that were still of use, that had value, were reused and ones that were not will be taken over the North 4th Street. You're welcome.

Further questions? In this The trend in office furniture now is more toward ergonomically correct as occupational therapy has identified some of the problems with previous furniture, is that correct?

Honorable Mayor, through you, as you may notice in most all of this, in fact, I think in all of this, the desk, working desk, is height adjustable. So if we have somebody that's maybe Vice Mayor Richardson's size versus somebody who's Councilman Newman's size, that desk is adjustable for what they need and it moves. It also allows for that standing option for the ergonomics, for the health of our employees. And you'll see that through the entire realm of what we do. Yes, ma'am.

Very good. Further questions? Seeing none, thank you. Is there public comment on this agenda item? Back to council for comments. Councillor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thanks to City Manager for putting this on here, and I know that trying to get our working conditions for our city staff is a huge push. I think we're going in the right direction to have offices that can really support what our community needs, so thank you.

Councillor Bolling.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Todd. I just want to say in kind of tacking on to what the mayor said, would be interested as we move into other years about making sure that, you know, the many other offices and the many other buildings that we have, those employees are, we're also inventorying those furniture, making sure that they have, you know, the chairs that are going to be the most healthy and the most appropriate standing dust options and stuff. I know this is for the annex, but as we move forward.

I agree. Councilor Vigil. Thank you, Mayor. Not to just pile on, but there's actually studies that show that the more dignified the workspace, the more productive the staff member. I've been through many office furniture changes in my relatively short career, I don't know why. But yeah, office furniture is really expensive. You'd be shocked what even one of these tables would cost. It's a lot of money, but I think that's actually a pretty fair price for what's being requested. So yeah, thanks.

Councilor Newman.

A question not to be answered any time, but since you brought me into this conversation. we we need different tables up here because i feel the pain that you just said like sometimes like typing down is really hard for me and then when i make the c go down then i feel like a little kid setting up here so let's guess i'm not implying anything vice mayor big poppy down there did

Honorable Mayor, through you to Councilor Newman, we do have one table up there that is height adjustable. We'll just have to start making sure we landed on Councilor Newman's space.

Okay, I just want to say I really appreciate your using the Omnia Cooperative to buy at a nationwide reduced price, and I just think that that's such a good initiative and a conscientious use of expenditure. City Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Freed.

Yes.

O'Doherty. Yes. Shumway.

Yes.

Beehill. Aye. Newman.

Yes.

Bolling.

Yes.

Lockhart.

Yes.

Richardson. Yes. Kembe. Yes. That's nine yeses and zero nos.

Thank you, City Clerk. That motion passes. Are there any public comments on non-agenda items? seeing none. Counselors, do you have any consideration for future council work session topics? I do think we have enough on our plate right now. Thank you. Counselor O'Doherty. I move we adjourn. I have a motion from O'Doherty, second from Newman. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. We are adjourned.