City Government - Regular Meeting

Without my crew, I'm telling you. Call to order. Good evening. Welcome to the Laramie City Council work session for Tuesday, July 28, 2026. And before we begin our work session, I would like to ask, are there any public comment on non-agenda items? All righty, seeing none, we will move on to our first agenda item, City of Laramie Community Survey Results. Mr. Mullen, good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, good to see you guys. As you're aware, we do run a community survey each year trying to kind of get feedback and understand where the citizens are feeling and what they're thinking. We just wrapped up our most recent cycle in July, so this is hot off the presses, newest information we have. We've got our Zen City staff here that's gonna present this information to you guys tonight. I will try and save time and hand it off to them.

Thank you, Mr. Mullen. Can I pause just a second? We had two community members who just walked in. You were a few minutes late. I want to make sure. Did you want to make any public comment on an agenda item? Okay. Reverend Palmer. Thank you.

And I will be brief, but I want to say earnestly, thank you for what you all are doing, bringing us together across the communities, thank you. And again, I'll be brief, but I talk to different people from different religions, but one of my friends said, you know, it's so nice to ride your bicycle or your electric bike and people stop and wait for you at the intersection. This is a place where people care about each other and you make a difference, even though it may not be on the agenda, but the difference you make is a difference in teaching us to care for each other. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Sally.

All right. Now we'll continue with this portion of our work session.

Zach, we're having a hard time hearing you. Give me one second to see. I know I can hear a little something. I just can't hear it coming through fully. I don't know where it's coming from. This is not going to be ideal, but can you try to talk one more time, Zach? Zach, can you hear me? Yeah, well, I would. Thank you. Can you try to talk one more time?

Sure, is this better? Can you hear me?

It's a little bit more. We're trying to figure out what's going on, why it's not coming through our other computer, but. Let me have you try one more time. Not at all now. Can you just say check, check, check for me really quick? I sent that to Erin.

She was at the coffee shop. We were there.

OK, I'm going to go back to plan B.

Just let me know what you need me to do. That was it.

OK, you sure?

Okay. Well, thank you everybody for having us here. My name is Zach. I have worked with Laramie for a while now. With joining me today is Medina and David who have recently come on to work with Laramie as I've kind of transitioned to a different role. But since I've been the one that's kind of I've primarily worked with Laramie for a long time and have built a strong relationship here. I'll be the one presenting the data as my kind of final hurrah. I've really enjoyed working with Laramie. I know Wyoming very well. And so I'm really excited to join you and share these results today. So I'm gonna share my screen so that hopefully you can all see that. And as Brennan said, this community survey just closed. So this report is hot off the presses. This data is completely up to date. And so what we're gonna do, we're gonna start with some just quick introductions to let us know so you know who we are. We'll kind of go through an executive summary that gives you the top line information, kind of the most important takeaways. We'll dive a little bit into who we are and our methodology to help understand kind of where this data is coming from and hopefully address some of those questions. And then we'll give you the results. As we go through this, please interrupt me to ask questions. I can't see you at the moment. I can see my own screen. So please be loud and interrupt me. No offense to that. And ask as many questions as possible. So as I said, my name is Zach. I am located on the East Coast, but my father has lived in Laramie and I'm sorry, in Lander and Sheridan now for my entire life. So I've spent lots and lots of time in Wyoming and have really enjoyed working with Laramie. I'll hand it over to Medina who is taking over for me just to say hello.

Hi, everyone. I'm very excited to be attending this meeting and David and I are happy to be taking over the account and hoping you will also learn a lot from the results.

And David? Perfect. And thank you for the warm introduction. Name is David Norman. I will be the strategic account manager covering you guys going forward. I'm based in Atlanta, Georgia. Looking forward to getting to know you guys better, understanding how we can leverage data to make a positive impact. Happy to meet everyone.

So let's get right to it. So our community survey asks the residents of Laramie a variety of questions on their quality of life and satisfaction with city services. So this survey covered basically the first half of 2026, really the last three months mostly. And this survey runs twice a year. So it runs in the second quarter of the year and the fourth quarter of the year. So when we asked residents about their quality of life, 52% of Laramie's residents said they are satisfied with the quality of life. That represented about a 5% drop from the previous cycle. So that is the end of last year. 5% is something that we would consider right on the edge of significant, it probably does reflect some sort of drop in quality of life among the participants. Now why that is, could be a lot of things, could be some things that you know, could be national. There's a lot of things that go into quality of life, some of which we'll dive into in these results. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the survey that runs at the end of the year is going to show a similar drop and there might be a rebound, we'll see. Laramie performs particularly well in several of the core quality of life areas that residents have consistently valued that we ask about. So residents say 75% of residents say they are satisfied with their overall sense of safety, probably the most important aspect of quality of life. 71% of Laramie residents say that they are satisfied with their quality of parks and recreational amenities. 66% are very satisfied with the quality of post-secondary education, not surprising in Laramie, and 61% are very satisfied with the quality of K-12 through education. So those kind of four areas which make up a really strong component of overall quality of life are real strengths for Laramie. Particularly quality of life, sorry, quality of parks and rec improved seven points this cycle as a real standout. On the other side, access to quality post-secondary education and K-12 education both decreased 9% this cycle. Again, those are definitely significant numbers in terms of statistical validity. Whether that continues to drop or changes in the second half of the year is something that we'll see and report out to you. Before I move on from kind of this initial top line, we've got two more kind of top line screens. Any questions that jump out at you before we move forward?

Council questions? I see none, Zach. Thank you.

All right. So looking at the areas of strength of Laramie, as we already mentioned, safety parks education have consistently been Laramie's strengths and remain their strengths. One of the things that we do and we'll dive into in a little bit is that we benchmark this report against both national and cohort scores. And so the national comes from a national survey that we run that asks kind of about 13 core characteristics as well as quality of life. And then from that, as well as the other partner cities we work with, we also create a cohort list of residents from cities that resemble Laramie in terms of location, size, demographics. They're basically given a similarity score based on those. And so obviously the national survey consists of residents in New York City, residents in Florida, big, small, all over the place, whereas the cohort is going to be much more similar to Laramie itself. And you can see sense of overall safety is strongly above the national average of 62% and the cohort average of 58%. So something where Laramie is really excelling. Same thing with the quality of Parks and Rec, 71% compared to the national average of 64% and the cohort average of 67%. So real, real strengths of Laramie. Post-secondary education at 66% and K through 12 at 61%. Those aren't questions that we benchmark. Those are questions that Laramie is specifically asked as a city because of who you are, but are still real strengths. Laramie's access to art and cultural events, 55%, as well as sense of overall safety, are also two items that are really tied closely to what residents see as really important to their quality of life, which is something we'll talk about too. One of the things we look at is kind of the correlation between quality of life scores and city characteristic scores. And what we saw was that Residents who tend to rank safety and art and cultural events high also tended to rank their quality of life high and vice versa. Kind of on the flip side, so areas of opportunity, areas where kind of maybe some more work could be done or where maybe some strategy can kind of be focused a little bit, street and road maintenance has been for a little while now the kind of main service challenge for Laramie with only 24% satisfied and a half of residents saying that they are actually dissatisfied rather than neutral. Specifically, potholes and pavement conditions, so we ask a specific follow-up question you'll see as to like what can Laramie do to improve road maintenance. Almost 70% of residents chose pothole and pavement conditions. That might not be a surprise to you, but it's a very, very strong majority of people saying they're looking for an improvement on Laramie's roads. Seasonal snow and ice removal was the second most common looked for improvement at 15%. So you can see well behind potholes. That actually dropped down to 6% after this winter. And so perhaps a strong indicator that Laramie's residents were much more satisfied with snow and ice removal this winter. But pothole pavement condition far and away the biggest area of opportunity there. And that's kind of followed by resident engagement. So residents, about a third, so 31%, which is actually down slightly, feel satisfied with their ability to give input to the city government. A slightly higher share kind of, you know, when asked as a follow-up, what would make you, what would be a better way to give more input was easier and more consistent ways to participate, which I know is a very general category, but basically residents are saying, we want to feel that we can provide input and that you're looking, that you're listening to it in a really easy way. That's not an uncommon ask in these surveys that we give, but definitely an area that where residents are looking for kind of more opportunity. So those are kind of the big picture takeaways. Before we get kind of into the methodology, again, I'll pause for any questions.

Councilor Freed.

Thank you mayor and yeah thank you Zach for talking through some of these and when I was reviewing this slide deck you know 24% satisfied feels pretty rough for our roads and I just wonder if we continue to have kind of this lower percentage if we could tailor more questions to try to identify what that is and i know there was a follow-up about the potholes and pavement condition but you know and maybe that's more on the city side now we can kind of try to dive into what people are really frustrated with but i think that could be helpful in future surveys is to kind of dive into that because it's such a low number so i'm sure if other communities have kind of some other follow-ups that could help us then indicate where we need to focus our attention that would be really helpful

Yes, definitely. And one of the things that certainly Brennan can talk about too as well is there's an opportunity for kind of like rotating questions that you can change out and that Laramie has used for different areas. and you'll see when we get to those, but it's certainly an area where you can add some questions on, you know, that can focus a little bit more into this question, especially, and we're happy to work with you kind of on, you know, and with the city on, you know, what is it that you're looking, you know, what would be the most actionable data to get and how can we craft the questions to kind of get more into this area to get more information? All right, so a little bit on the methodology to kind of address some of those questions.

If you can hold just, if you can hold one second. Mr. Mullen, you had a comment or question?

Yeah, Mayor. So we, yeah, in the past, like Zach has said, we have an option to kind of bring in some rotating questions to each survey cycle to try and Target those trouble spots like that and we've been doing that each survey cycle trying to find those spots that we're seeing kind of those more negative responses trying to Flesh that out and understand better where we need to be prioritizing So we can absolutely try and look into finding some sort of rotating question around roads Thank you very much.

I appreciate that clarification Is that continue please?

Sure. So just a little bit on who we are, because you may have that question if you're not familiar. So Zen City is a company we work only with local governments, so cities and counties across the country. We work with about 400 different agencies, including mostly city managers' offices and police departments specifically, really with the specific idea of helping you build trust with their residents, that resident input and resident voice are the building blocks of kind of successful community government. So in thinking about it in terms of from the city government perspective if we're not measuring what the public thinks on city services we're simply not doing our job is the quote from the city manager of mcallen texas and we work with um really really big cities like new york and philadelphia and boston and chicago and la and really really really small um you know 15 000 person municipalities um with kind of in kind of different areas but all working around that one specific idea of how can we help kind of build trust um really thinking about it in terms of on a survey level and on a kind of outreach level, what research has shown is that, you know, Meeting residents where they are is the best way to get them to contribute their voices. And where residents are these days, for better or for worse, is online. 95% of US adults use the internet. 90% own smartphones. On average, we all use We all get about seven hours of screen time. And 100 US smartphone users are checking their phone 100 times a day on average. And we all know it to be the case. Studies have shown that older residents, those 65 and older, it's something like we're up to 93% of those residents are on social media now, especially Facebook. And so there's really a kind of broad, broad access online to people. At the same time, studies have really shown that, for instance, in-person events, about 60% of the people that show up to town halls and meetings come specifically to oppose whatever it is that's being talked about. And I'm sure you can think about that. And those people tend to be the same people that you tend to hear from. And the goal is hearing from all of your residents, right? Hearing from a sample of the population that looks like all of Laramie and all of its demographics. And so that is our ultimate goal when we conduct these surveys. And so what we do basically for the surveys is we distribute, we work with the city to come up with the questionnaire. We then distribute it digitally across basically any channel where you might encounter an ad. So that can include social media, that can include search engines, that can include apps, that can include any other online platform where you might be playing a game or you might be scrolling and you see a pop-up ad come up. We distribute that and obviously the ad networks have a lot of data about who uses what at what time. And so we're able to really reach different depth target, different demographics using these different ad networks. As long as somebody is using their phone or using the internet within the geofenced area of Laramie, there is a chance they're going to get this pop-up ad. And then they can click it. And it's basically, it's very neutral. It's branded for us. It's not branded in the city, but it's got a picture, images of Laramie that are very neutral, but also obviously Laramie. And it says, you know, Your city wants to hear from you and then they click into it and they're given the full explanation of the survey, which they then take online. It's designed to be very short. It's not designed to take more than about five minutes on average. So something that people can do while they're waiting for something to cook or anything else. And then they complete the survey. And as we keep the survey running for generally about three months or so, we're monitoring the different sort of responses that are coming in. We set a target number for the total number of responses we're looking for that our survey team sets to say, this is a number that is going to give us a statistically accurate representative sample of Laramie. So that if we multiplied it out to whatever number we wanted, it would still look the same. And then we also are looking for the specific census demographics. So certain percentages of ethnicity, gender, and age based on census data for Laramie to hit those. And then so we take those all in and then after the fact we weight it. So it matches pretty much exactly Laramie's demographics which I'll show you in a minute. So that when you're looking at these results that we're talking about, you can be confident that these are accurate to all of Laramie as opposed to maybe just the same people you're hearing showing up or maybe the people that are just willing to pick up their phone, which is a very small percentage. We're able to consistently in Laramie kind of make sure we get the right numbers. So just jumping to that quickly, here is the demographic number. There are populations that are harder and easier to target and to get in different areas. So the light blue color here represents the percent of the population that we took in. The dark blue represents what the final weighting was. And then the gray represents Laramie's demographics. So you can see Laramie, 91% white. We took in 94%. We were able to weight that down to 93 to really closely match the demographics. Latino population, 10%. We took in 8%, so we weighted it up a little bit to match the 10% of the Latino population. American Indian and Alaskan Native, again, We took in actually 6% and brought that down to about 7%. People can multiple identify. So sometimes it doesn't work out exactly. And everything else across here. So those are where, so really the things to pay attention to are the dark blue and the gray. Because the dark blue is what the final weighting was and the gray is what Laramie's demographics are. 400, sorry, my mouse is very sensitive. 400 residents is the number that we target based on Laramie size. We're doing that twice a year. So you're getting a total sample size over the year of around 800, 850, depending on how many we actually use for that specific sample. Any questions about, I just threw a lot of information at you. So any questions about kind of the methodology aspect of who we are?

Counselors? I see none, Zach.

All right. Well, please feel free to, whether it's through Brennan and Owen, or to reach out to us directly if there are questions after you've had more chance to digest it. We are always happy to talk methodology and kind of talk about other examples.

Melanie?

Counselor Vigil, did you have a question?

Yeah, just maybe a comment and a question, if that's okay, Mayor.

Yes, of course. Continue.

Great. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much for this presentation. This is awesome. I think one of the things that I have been ruminating on, so before I got into City Council, before I ran a campaign, I would see Zen City ads on my social media. And one of the things that deterred me was kind of some of the stock photo images. And it was like, we want to see what you think about your community. And I was like, I don't like, I think one of the images might've been like a stock image of half acre on campus at one point. And so I, or something, I don't, yeah. And so I'm just wondering if maybe we can make it a little more personalized in the future, just with every like, right. Like we're getting asked to click on everything. every time we log into social media. And so I'm just wondering if maybe something could be a little more specific to the Laramie community. Maybe it's more personalized, maybe it's, I don't know, I'm not a marketing expert. But yeah, just kind of wondering about that and maybe any thoughts that you all have. Thanks.

Yeah, it's a great question. And I'll say, so there's a little bit of methodology behind it in that we really want as neutral an image as possible. So not city hall, not something that might either attract or push away certain people, right? So when we work with police departments, it's never police branded because that's gonna bring in people that either hate or love the police. But the images are totally adjustable. And I know we've worked with Brennan before, I think. And Brennan, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think we have recently switched out some of the photos to be kind of more lively photos. And we can continue doing that with a lot of cities. They basically give us access to a... a constantly updating folder of images that we can kind of like pull new fresh ones from if you get a great shot, you know, and if you want for the winter one for it to be a winter shot, we can do that. So we are totally happy to, you know, use whatever as long as they kind of, you know, they don't involve people's faces and they don't have, you know, all of the various, you know, privacy and neutrality issues, then absolutely.

Got it.

That makes sense. Thank you of course.

Did you have anything further? Counselor V Hill?

No mayor, I'm good, thank you.

Thank you, uh, Brennan. Did you have something?

Yeah, we have sent them some images in the past and we can certainly update that imagery to try and spruce it up a little bit and we'll start with a picture of Owens face.

Thank you. And Councillor Vigil, I think you bring up a good point. And it seems like everybody and his brother wants a survey anymore. If you even go to Walmart, you're gonna get a request for a survey. So I think something that personalizes and kind of draws you in over all the other demands that are made or requests. So thanks for bringing that point up. Zach, go ahead.

All right, so we're gonna get into the kind of meat and potatoes of it now. So as we talked about quality of life at 52%, did wanna draw attention to, you know, there was a decrease of 5% and specifically all of that movement went into the negative. A lot of times what you'll see is the movement into the neutral, which is a little bit more, you know, maybe wishy-washy, but here, you know, it's people that went from kind of feeling good about their quality of life to not feeling good. The negative is still very low. So overall, you know, over half of your citizens are very happy with their quality of life and another 30% are sort of on the fence. But it is certainly something to watch for the second cycle this year. And also to think about, you know, the last, you know, six months or so in Laramie, but also across the country, you know, in the state, it hasn't been, I will say, We've seen a general downturn in most of our surveys across the country that we've been doing this at the start of this year. It's been a bit more of a negative cycle. That could totally change in the second half of the year, but something to keep an eye on there.

Okay. Zach, I have a question or comment from Councillor O'Doherty.

Mr. Gill, it's different people, right? The 406 people in the first survey are different from the group in the second survey.

Correct. Yeah. So it's designed that if someone responds to a survey, they will not get it again that year and potentially longer. And so it's designed to be almost completely different people each time. There's obviously a chance that once every few years there's going to be a repetition, but it's a pretty small chance that that's going to happen. So yeah, it's different people. As you'll see on this slide, because of the way it is statistically, you don't see a lot of variance. Things remain pretty consistent with the survey.

Thank you. And Vice Mayor, you have a question or a comment?

Thank you, Mayor. Just a question. If there is an opportunity when we see things like this that are like, you know, the previous question, is there opportunity to provide a follow-up question to describe, you know, if you said, you know, negative or positive, even if it's a multiple choice, like what would you... what would be the reason behind that, even if it's a broad or even them a space to answer that question to give us a little bit more insight. Again, I think kind of back to maybe what Councilor Freed had said earlier, we have these kind of top level questions and they're great, but to try to understand and learn more would be really helpful. And I don't know if that's something that other cities do and that you all could kind of help us navigate and think through a bit more.

Yeah, that's a great question. So for this question, there's not really a follow-up opportunity, but it can be something that's added at the end with the rotating questions that we do have cities that ask kind of a general, like, how can we improve, you know, how can we improve your quality of life? You also, you know, as we go through this, you'll see there's a lot of questions and kind of different ways to look at that will give you a lot of data to dive through in terms of that helps provide some context for this kind of overall biggest picture question.

Thank you.

So you can see kind of on these changes that like, you know, this number has held relatively steady for a long time now, going all the way back to May of 2022 when we started doing this survey. You know, it started around maybe 56, you know, and now it's down about 52. It bumped up close to 60% once or twice, but for the most part, there's a pretty strong trend line in all of these. Same thing with the negative number. You know, if you look at this, there's the one big increase recently. Otherwise, it pretty much started around 16% and it's about at 18% now. And that's not surprising. Quality of life is not something that necessarily changes quickly, but it also helps show that this data is pretty consistent and there is opportunity to kind of move the needle here, especially in this gray bar here of the people that are neutral here.

said I have a question. When you're looking at quality of life in a specific community, are you able to then look at trending throughout the country where you know there's kind of a general concern nationwide about quality of life? Are you able to kind of compare an? Tease that out how. something in our community might be separate from a general concern nationwide about quality of life, affordability, etc.

Yeah, you're all asking me very good questions, which I appreciate. So I would say there's kind of a three-part answer to that. So the first is through the benchmarks. So our benchmarking is updated twice a year as well, kind of right in line with this. And so one of the ways that you're able to kind of suss that out is, you know, is Laramie's change consistent with the national and your cohort change, or are they kind of going in opposite directions or is one increasing faster or decreasing faster than the other? And so that kind of lets you see, you know, is this a Laramie specific issue or is this kind of a national issue? So that's one of the ways, obviously. Another way is obviously just like with your own A lot of cities are very tuned in, as I know you are, of like, we had X, Y, or Z happen over the last six months, and we know that that is showing up in this report. Whether that was a tragedy, whether there was some an election or something, or there was a big layoff or something that happened that really was specific to your community. That is obviously another factor that plays a part in this. And then there's some open response questions that we'll get to where you have a chance to kind of see you know, especially comparing over time, you know, are those questions changing? Is there anything specific that people are bringing up this cycle that might be giving us a clue to kind of what maybe caused this drop?

Thank you.

We asked two additional questions to provide some additional information for you on this. So one of them is how likely are you to recommend Laramie as a place to live? And you can see that one's pretty significantly lower than the quality of life. And so what's that? That's 38%, which was down 6% and 34% negative, which was up 9%. That's a big drop and it's a much lower number. So it's telling us that people have a good quality of life in Laramie, but there is something else that's kind of contributing to them maybe saying like, I live here, I like it here, but it's not for everyone, or maybe it's something else. At the same time, we ask people, how likely are you to be living in Laramie five years from now? And you can see that one's much closer to the quality of life. That's at 48%. That was actually up 3%. So your population is pretty stable. About half of your population plans on being here for the next five years. And in terms of addressing the college student question, so part of the survey asked the respondents, are you a resident of Laramie? Yes or no. And if they say no, they're diverted out of the survey. And so for college students, if they are not residents, they don't necessarily have the chance to respond to this. If they are residents, then they will respond to it. So I know obviously Laramie has that changing population dynamic in terms of like how likely are you to live five years from now. So one of the things that we can do in the platform is look at demographically you know okay the youngest population the 18 to 34 where did they land with this answer is there a higher number of younger people saying they're not going to be here in five years versus older people and you can really break any of these questions down in the platform by demographics on a much more you know on a much more detailed level that we won't go into in this report So looking at all of the specific questions we asked on the city characteristics, basically this says, please rate on a scale of one to five how satisfied you are with these specific city characteristics. And you can see those top four there, overall safety, parks and rec, access to quality post-secondary, and access to quality K-12, up above 60% and doing really well, particularly sense of overall safety and quality of parks with those big kind of increases. while we see the education decreasing a little bit, but still really low negative numbers there and really high positives, so really good strengths there. Followed by art and cultural events, quality of waste and recycling, and overall cleanliness and maintenance of residential neighborhoods, all above 50 percent with below 25 or below negativity, which is a really great place to be. Those are the strengths of Laramie there. You can see 44% with kind of a rising negativity there as acceptance of residents of all backgrounds. That also dropped 6%. And you can see the negative increased 3% there. For the rest, so sense of community of residents, also pretty similar to acceptance of residents of all backgrounds, a kind of a similar drop, similar score there. Affordable access to city recreation programs and centers at 42%. Overall quality of services at 32%, so this is the first one where negative starts outweighing positive. Ability for residents to give input and overall street and road maintenance down at 24 with 50% negative. And, you know, I think I'll say those three, the three where the negatives outweigh the kind of positive are definitely, you know, they've been there for a little while. Those are areas where Laramie has kind of consistently seen dissatisfaction with those scores. Any questions before on any of those characteristics?

Questions? Councillor Vigil.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, Zach, just real quick. So in terms of just streets and maintenance, I've seen a few studies just across multiple cities and it's a whole area in public administration as a field that a lot of people are usually not happy with road maintenance. So do you find this to be true in other communities as well?

Absolutely. And I will say it's also regional. I'll say, for instance, I work with a lot of Texas cities, and people in Texas hate their roads. And it's a big thing, and it's a very car-heavy place. I'll also say, and I am not as sure with this in Laramie, residents are also very unaware of which roads are local roads, which are state roads, which are county roads. And so there is often a lot of confusion here because they're just unhappy with the roads. And whether it's the Laramie city, whether it's the county, whether it's the state doesn't matter to them, they're just unhappy with the roads. And so that's something else to think about too and a potential area to dig deeper in, or there's kind of another way to look at it too. So that's another factor too. And I don't know if in Laramie county or state roads are a big problem as they are in some other cities.

Thank you. I have another question from Councillor O'Doherty. Oh this is more of a comment.

A comment then. I think that we on council and the staff are unhappy with our roads and that's why we're trying to work on them. So I'm not surprised by that result.

And I have a question, Zach, looking at access, the concept of access to quality post-education, access to quality K-12. Do you break down that concept? Because access can be affordability, it can be location, it can be any number of things. Is that the way the question's asked and then there's no breakdown about what that means?

yeah that's the way the questions ask it it is um this is a question that we worked on with laramie specifically to ask um it's designed to be kind of general on purpose uh to get kind of the biggest kind of sense of response whereas if we we kind of asked it a bit more narrow, it might limit the number of people who responded to it, or it might narrow the interpretation a bit. There is an opportunity to ask follow-up question on it on some of these, which we'll see in a little bit, and those can be changed too. And so, you know, for instance, You could say with quality K through 12 education for if someone says no, they would get a follow-up question and you could say like, which of the following are the issues you're having with access, for instance. And so that's definitely an opportunity to kind of break those questions down more. I will say that those two in particular have traditionally for Laramie been real strengths. And so there hasn't really been very many negative responses there until this cycle.

Yeah, and I'm curious because the cost of post-secondary education has risen significantly and there have been significant changes statewide in K-12 education. So, you know, I start to look at this and I'm thinking how do we respond as a community unless we do start to break that down at some point. Thank you.

Yes, definitely. And as you pointed out, you know, post-secondary education is not necessarily a Laramie City issue per se, but it obviously impacts your city. A lot of it is out of your hands, though.

Especially if you think that we have three institutions of post-secondary education in a town of 32,000.

Uh, so looking at just some of the kind of focus areas to break down a little bit and show you kind of what is available. Um, you know, this can be done for all of the questions, but looking at overall cleanliness and maintenance of neighborhoods, which was exactly at 50% and kind of then neutral negative, very close. Um, you can see some, some pretty strong drops, both female and male population, pretty. close in their scores, but both dropped 6 and 4%. The youngest population down 8%, which was a big jump. They have been the most positive about the cleanliness and maintenance, but have dropped a bit this cycle. On the other hand, those with a high school degree or less, up 13 points and really standing out at 72% satisfaction with the overall cleanliness and maintenance, which is kind of a real outlier compared to sort of all of the other scores here, which I find really interesting, whereas the kind of higher people with higher education degrees both dropped and are much, much more sort of in line. I'm not sure the reason for that division, but it's definitely something that it would be worth kind of maybe diving into internally a little bit more. So this was one that did have a follow-up question. We'd like to know more about your experience of residential neighborhoods or any of the following issues significant to your experience within poorly maintained residential areas. And so poorly maintained sidewalks, gutters, or curbs was the leading response at 36%, although that did fall 15%, while overgrown lawns and vegetation rose 10% to 20% this cycle. Accumulated trash or litter at 14%, abandoned or neglected private property at 14%, and then pest rodent problems is not really an issue there. The others, I don't have a great way of showing you all of the other responses. It's something you can see in the platform because they're written in, but those are again responses that don't fit any of these kind of main categories.

Vice mayor, you have a question.

Thank you and I'm sorry if you said this earlier and I didn't catch it. But when was the last time we did the last right? This one went from April to July. What was the previous one?

The previous one would have been October through December.

OK, so overgrown lawns. OK, thanks. And now.

Councilor V Hill, you have a question and or comment.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I kind of wonder about our, especially with the overgrown lawns or vegetation, we had a really unique winter, right? And so we didn't freeze very often. And I know just as a community gardener myself, like I got bugs early, it's been a whole thing. And so we've had a really unique summer as well. And so I wonder if maybe like, in terms of vegetation, overgrown lawns, et cetera, I think maybe just stuff kicked off earlier. I don't know. So I kind of wonder Zach, if maybe you have any thoughts into that in particular with other cities, because I know Colorado has had experienced like a really early vegetation season as well. And yeah, just curious about that. Thanks.

Yeah. Honestly, we tend to see the bottom one, the abandoned or neglected nuisance properties, tends to be the one that comes up a little bit more, which is always a very frustrating thing for cities, I know, because there's a lot of times not much you can do. The overgrown lawns and vegetation is a bit of a general response, I would say. I would say there's definitely Um, a little bit of question there in terms of like, is that referring to, you know, city property? Is it referring to people that are mad at their neighbors for, you know, not mowing their lawns well enough? Um, I think there's definitely a seasonal aspect to it. We're talking about a survey that was run in spring and summer. And so, um, that it's up 10% now compared to the one that was run in October and December is probably not that, you know, I think there's definitely a seasonal aspect to it.

And just another comment I'd like to make is that we are in the midst of a drought period and I've noticed in my neighborhood that is normally more manicured that people have been more conscientious about watering and lawns have been a little browner than usual. So I'm wondering about that. Councillor O'Doherty, you had a question or a comment?

I think the poorly maintained sidewalks is something that several people came up to the disability booth at the event that I attended. And people were really concerned about sidewalks when they have neighbors that are in wheelchairs. So they brought that up. So I hope all the work we're doing on sidewalks helps, but I think it's consistent with what we're hearing. Thanks.

I see no further questions, Zach.

All right, and I'll say that's one of those great opportunities if the city of Laramie is doing work, a lot of work on sidewalks to really do the kind of you asked, we listened. We got feedback from you that you wanted this and we are doing this for you. I'll say that's something that we see in a lot of cities do really successfully. You can kind of never remind residents enough that the work you're doing is because they are asking for it. Making that connection very strongly tends to be really successful and popular. And so a lot of our cities that run these surveys kind of really like to draw those direct correlations to it. On the ability of residents to give input to the city of Laramie government, you can see, again, pretty consistent scores here. Everything in the rough, you know, average of about 31%. Not really any outliers. Everyone was for the most part down, except for the male population and the middle income population. This little exclamation point here is just an indication that for this specific question, not enough people of this demographic answered for it to be completely reliable. So it was enough that we were able to include it, but it's a low enough number that it's like, in this case, it's a negative one. So it wouldn't, but sometimes we'll see like kind of a bigger swing there with that population. So we like to warn you that like, because not these questions aren't required, people don't have to answer them all. And so sometimes you'll see that, that for whatever reason, this population didn't answer this question as much. So the follow-up question here was, what are the most important things that can be done to make it easy for residents to share input about the City of Laramie's future? This was a multi-select, which is why the responses do not add up to 100%. They're way over. People could select more than one. So implement online platforms for submitting feedback and suggestions was number one at 54%, has been there. Increase public forums and city hall meetings is at 46%. And then expand outreach efforts through social media newsletters and the town website at 43%. And then provide regular surveys on city initiatives at 40%. All of those pretty close to each other. And all of them really about, right, like, engagement, like specifically reaching out for people to, you know, so here's an online thing here, like, and we're going to hold a meeting associated with that. We're going to broadcast it on social media and we'll do a post event survey associated with it. These are I would also point out things that the City of Laramie is already doing and does already have. So through Zen City, Laramie has an online platform where people can get information and have done and can do surveys. You run obviously city meetings, you have a great social media team and you're running a survey. there's maybe people unaware of some of this information. So continuing to push out the fact that these are all things that the city is doing could definitely have like a really positive effect on this specific score.

Councilor O'Doherty, I gotta say I'm disappointed that the in person so host community workshops focus groups. So all of the the Forge Laramie having a office downtown for people to stop in and give input. I guess that didn't score as much as online platforms, so that's kind of a disappointment to me because I feel like being out there at the. at the farmer's market and having a storefront downtown should should engage people more but i guess it's not it's a smaller segment of the population counselor viejo

Thank you, Mayor, and I apologize. I'm being super chatty tonight. And so, Zach, I'm going to be a pain in your butt again and just kind of ask, right? Like, so where does Laramie compare to other cities of similar size that Zen City serves, right? Like in terms of all of this, because I feel like one of our our council goals is to be transparent and to be like doing social media and to be putting you know things out to the public and so i know that's not a unique laramie problem but i just i guess i would wonder you know like where where where are other cities are at yeah so that is a great question um let me jump ahead a little bit um so

I don't see it on this one. I will get you the specific benchmark on this, because it is a question that's benchmarked. I'm not sure why it's not there. But I'll say that Laramie is a bit below what you would expect to see. This is a common problem for a lot of cities, whether they're cities of Laramie size or much, much bigger. And I think, and again, the issue is not that you're not doing enough, there seems to be a strong disconnect between what the city is doing and residents' perceptions of that. So like I said, Laramie has a great public engagement site, you're running a survey, you have a great social media team. Residents aren't necessarily putting all of those things together or they're feeling like, well, you're not reaching out to me specifically about what I want. Um, and so some of that is kind of a communication strategy, right? And, and hitting people over the head where we've seen it be most successful. So for example, um, I work with a place called Sugarland in Texas, uh, which is, you know, Houston suburb where, you know, really high quality of life and, you know, um, but they really, really, you know, hit people over the head with that. You asked, we listened type of approach and our, our constantly running kind of self-distributed surveys on different things. We have new funding for art in the park. What would you like it to be? Those kind of types of questions. And then when they do that art saying like, Again, like, here's the art you asked for. Like, isn't it great? And so that kind of approach, you know, it's hard. And even still, they have room to improve, right? It's never enough, but I think residents are really asking for, you know, kind of a deliberate push, you know, and I think you can't, you can't be obvious enough about it, for lack of a better way of phrasing it.

Awesome. Thank you.

All right. So, and you all can confirm if you feel like this is true or not. The question was, if you have reached out to city staff or elected members of city council in the last 12 months, how did you get in contact? 38% of people said an in-person meeting. That was up 11%. uh 29 said email 18 said phone and then elder was eight percent and social media eight percent so you can see the vast majority of um your residents are saying email and in-person meetings which is you know and have you know and that correlates with them wanting more kind of in in-person meetings um so just kind of some i think useful data for you to see where your residents are reaching out to you And then overall, how would you rate your level of engagement and participation on issues and activities the City of Laramie is working on? So this is asking residents about their own kind of participation. And you can see that is a very low number at 21%. This is the first time we asked, you know, that Laramie has asked this question. So there's no change data here, as you can see. 51% at negative. So, you know, over half of your population is saying they do not feel particularly engaged or that they're participating. You can see the 55 and older population in particular down at 12%. So your oldest population is really feeling that they are not involved in the activities that you're working on. Female population also low and those with kind of, you know, a college degree low, but nobody, none of the demographics like scored particularly high here. This is a Laramie specific question, so I don't actually have any data to offer you, you know, kind of on other cities in this, but I think it is very interesting how kind of negative residents came in on this question. Thinking about the most recent time you engaged with the city, do you agree or disagree with the following statement? My issue was acknowledged or dealt with effectively and within a reasonable amount of time. Again, similar to the last question, 25% positive, only 37% negative at this point, and 38% neutral, which I would say in this situation really represents the population that has not engaged with the city, right? Your negatives are saying like it wasn't dealt with well, your positives are saying it was, and your neutrals are saying most likely. I don't really have an answer for this. You can see again those numbers are pretty similar there. The 55 and older was interestingly more positive on this. So they are not participating that much, but they feel a bit more positive than everyone else that they are actually their issues are being dealt with. And then moving on, so overall street and road maintenance, you can see some drops there. So those with a higher education degree are down at 11% positive for the street maintenance. Why that specific population is so negative? I couldn't necessarily tell you. It does correspond with the 150,000 or more and the 55 and plus. And so we can certainly in the platform, you could go in and see like, is that a strongly correlated populations there? And again, you can see those with a high school degree or less are much more positive as they were about kind of the overall cleanliness and maintenance compared to kind of the rest of the population here. then as as the follow-up here the um which of the following issues are significant to you again you can see potholes and pavement condition just far far outpacing everything else here on people's minds nothing else you know frequency timeliness of repairs and then nothing else really registered for your residents um it just there's there's really one thing on their mind and that's potholes So that covers the majority of the kind of satisfaction scores. The next set of question, the next question asks residents, what's the number one thing you think the Laramie government could do to improve its services? This was an open response question. So residents can provide one word, they can provide paragraphs and they do all of the above. You can in the platform, and Brandon can definitely help with this, look in and see the responses or you can be provided with a printout of all the responses. It's a lot of pages and doesn't work well in a report. But what we do is we categorize those based on where those responses land in terms of government operations. 45 percent of residents talked about governance and engagement. I'll say Laramie City Services are generally responses that talked about just general government things. So anything from do what the people want, to spend your money more wisely, to respond when we ask to something. Community engagement is exactly what you would expect it to be. Engage us more, listen to us, and then transparency as well. You can understand what that would be. Streets and parking came in at number two, split really between infrastructure improvements and maintenance. So one would be like, you know, build more roads or better sidewalks and maintenance would be repair potholes. Only two on campus parking issues. And then taxes and budgeting, government spending waste, those are going to be your people that are complaining about. And they're going to always show up in a lot of these. You can see the rest, city planning improvements, business development barriers, community recreation events. A lot of these not nearly as high, but these top two certainly really what are on people's minds and kind of, you know, really in line with what we saw in those satisfaction scores too. People wanting more ways to engage and be engaged, people wanting infrastructure repairs Any questions on this kind of open response question?

I see no questions.

all right um okay so the following uh there's one last question on that rotating section which is do you agree or disagree with the following statement overall things in laramie are moving in the right direction and this was pretty split between positive negative and neutral people saying yes people saying no people saying maybe um and pretty evenly split down the line your most positive population was your kind of middle income population and those with a higher education degree, and your most negative was those with a high school degree or less population there. Male-female pretty evenly split, ages pretty evenly split as well. So the next part is what I talked about with the there we go, the cohort. And so it's important to think about, and I just want to frame this a little bit. So when we talk about the cohort, it is less so a comparison of like, how is Laramie doing compared to X, Y, or Z city? And it's much more about context, right? Because 52% of quality of life could be a good score or it could be a bad score. If it was a test score, it would be bad, right? If it's a national election, it would be very good. And so what this benchmark really helps with is putting your scores into a little bit of context to see like, where do we stand? Where can we improve? Where do we not necessarily need to focus as much? You can see 52% puts you slightly behind the cohort and the national average by about 15, 12%. So definitely some room to improve. But you can see the recommend Laramie as a place to live is really the outlier here. That one, for various reasons, really lags behind the cohort and national averages, which are much more in line. And then how likely are you be living in Laramie is much closer to kind of the quality of life score as well. So again, it's designed to be able to help you contextualize what this score is. And the same thing on the city characteristics. I put these in the boxes because sense of safety, art and culture, parks and rec, as we talked about, those are the ones that are really your strengths leading ahead of the averages. Whereas sense of community, acceptance of residents, waste and recycling, those are the ones that are a little bit behind. And these are the questions that are actually benchmarked that aren't Laramie specific questions. Any questions on how we do the benchmarks?

Yes, I have a question from Councilor Bolling.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Zach. I am sure that I asked this question during this presentation last year, but are you able to tell us what other cities are in the cohort that we're in?

I don't have access to that information right now. I can send to Brennan a list of kind of the top 10 most similar cities. I'll see what I'm able to send and share. But yes, we can definitely get you some of that information at least to kind of show you the types of cities that you're being compared in the cohort with.

Thank you. Of course.

Councillor free. I have a question from councillor freak or comment.

Thank you mayor. Actually Zach, I can wait. It's more of a general question. So if you want to finish up then I can tag in then.

the only last thing that i wanted to do is just give you a quick you know kind of snapshot at the uh what this looks like in our platform to show you you know kind of what else is is available potentially in here um so as i said in the feed um you can um see All of the kind of specific comments in here, the good, the bad and the ugly, you can see, you know, how much some people really take effort, you know, and are kind of believing that their comments are going to be read. And some people provide very general things. We don't edit this at all. So, you know, sometimes. People aren't very nice. But you can also, again, see kind of the details on the benchmarks. And what I wanted to show you that came up is looking at that question. So for instance, quality of life here. Laramie is this blue line. And then the national and the cohort. And I can make this a little bit bigger if it's too small here. The national and the cohort are the orange and the light blue. And so you can see this cycle. Laramie definitely declined when the national and the local the cohort didn't. You were much closer to the cohorts last cycle and even before and then Laramie's been declining a little bit since you know this time a year ago whereas the national cohort benchmarks have kind of gone a little bit the other way and so to address that kind of question earlier in terms of like is this a national or more of a Laramie issue that's one of the ways you can look at that this is maybe more of a you know something something in laramie issue um compared to you know some of the other scores potentially And that is mostly it. I will say that we are always happy to talk more, to provide data through Brennan and Owen. We work very closely with them and they're great. And so if you have any questions or asks or would like a report or data to let us know.

of Councilor Freed.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And yeah, thanks, Zach. Just my general question, you talked about at the beginning, but just for folks that have now joined or who are watching this, could you just kind of summarize kind of the amount of people that took this survey and how you described at the beginning kind of that it's different, it's a different group of people that you try to represent as these surveys go on. Can you just do a quick summary of that at the end here?

Sure. Sorry. The sound broke up a little bit. So just to confirm, just go talk about how we get the sample and ensure that they're different people. Was that the question?

Yeah. And just the overall number of people that took this survey and just some of that information as we wrap up would be super helpful for me. Thanks.

Yeah, so our goal is always about 400 people. So it was 406. This last time it was 409. In the previous, when we ran it before, it was up at 500. Again, sometimes we'll take in a little bit more. But the goal is usually somewhere around 400. And again, that's a number that our methodologists come up with to ensure that it's big enough that it's representative of the size of the city. So for a much, much bigger city like Philadelphia, it's going to be A couple thousand people, but also ensure that we're not, you know, there's no survey fatigue. We're not oversampling Laramie because you are much smaller city. So that, like, it's designed to be sustainable. It's a number that we can run this over and over again. And on the chance you needed to run a one off survey or something else, you'd be able to as well without really worrying about, like. survey fatigue or running out of potential respondents. And so when we run this, again, it's distributed digitally. People are getting it in their ads. Not everyone is responding necessarily. There is a way that it identifies kind of the person's device and their IP address. This is stored separately from the other data, so there's no PII issues. And it's not anything that's particularly identifying. But we're able to basically determine that this is someone that has already taken the survey, and so they're not going to get the survey again. I can't remember the exact time period that that lasts for. I believe it's a year. I'm not entirely sure. I'll have to get back to you on that. So there is the chance that over the course of three years, someone might be able to take the survey twice. But again, because it's totally random, the chances are pretty small that more than a few people over, again, three years are going to take the survey multiple times. um and then we keep it open for as long as we are trying to get all of the different demographics the live feed that open response question that's not weighted and so that you know even if we have more than enough you know people over 55 we still keep collecting them for those open response questions but then when we wait it we're going to adjust it to match you know, match down if needed, even if we have too many. And so that it ensures that it really represents that population exactly.

Thank you. Vice Mayor, you have a question or comment?

Thank you, Mayor. I have both. Thanks so much for all of this information. Kind of as a follow-up to the previous question, are you able to also track, for example, let's say there is a popular site on Facebook that shared the post or shared the survey. Are you able to track whether, like how many came from that post? Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. So we have ways that it makes it really, really difficult to impossible for someone to like share the survey link with other people. We do have ways to notice like anomalies. Like if all of a sudden, like that same link is like being shared or people are coming in from, you know, all at once or something, we can detect that. And we, you know, we have spam protection built in and kind of bot protection and identification as well to help ensure that Again, we're not going to get a biased sample in any way that all of a sudden one neighborhood got the link and they all answered together. Yeah, we have ways to prevent that from happening, which is also why we don't share the link. So a lot of times cities will ask for the link that they can share out and we don't do that specifically to not bias the sample.

That's great, thank you. Thank you. Then my second just comment on this is that I love seeing the information and the data. What I struggle with a little bit is the broadness of it because I just want to know then the next level of questioning like why? Why do you? Are you not happy with this? Why? What is it that you think you need? And I you know if there's an opportunity to drill down a little bit further, I think that will help us. be better prepared to work toward making positive change and improving things. So I love seeing the information, but that's the one part that I struggle with this, that it is so broad that it's difficult to understand the exact reasoning behind folks' thoughts.

yeah that's an excellent question and you know that's that's kind of the goal of the community survey it's intended to be broad to then um you know for a few different reasons right to to help specific departments with you know budgeting asks with performance management with a lot of that kind of big picture stuff but also to help you know departments and council and everything to decide on those areas where they do want to dig down and laramie does have um the Engage software. And so this is basically, and you've probably all seen it. Let me see if I can bring it. Don't mind my bad spelling there. I'll just bring it up really quickly. And this is an opportunity where what it allows for is self-distributed surveys. So if you've seen it like Ford's Laramie is here, Laramie Downtown, public transportation. And what a lot of cities do is they take this community survey data and they identify those drill down areas And then they use this platform and you don't even have to have a page on here. You can just create the surveys and then share them over social media and stuff. Use those self-distributed surveys as a way to kind of drill down into some of those questions. It's like, okay, so we see that again, like arts and cultural art, you know, people are unhappy with the arts and cultural activities. So let's create a survey that we then distribute out through QR codes, through social media, through everything about like, okay, well, which of these options would be better or what are you looking for in arts and culture or you know based on this specific amount of funding would you be willing to support extra fund you know paying additional for you know improved arts and culture and that kind of gives you that opportunity to do that without also risking kind of either, you know, survey overload or also getting kind of too specific in the community survey and not getting, you know, and having a lot of people being like, well, this isn't something I care about, if that makes sense. So strongly recommend, you know, again, working with Brennan and Owen and us on, you know, and we're happy to help on this too on kind of some other examples from other cities of, you know, kind of how they've taken that step from the broad community survey down into kind of some of the narrow targeted surveys and other kind of engagement approaches to get more information.

Thank you. Councilors, any further questions or comments? Zach, thank you very much. We appreciate the presentation and now I'm going to go to public comment on this agenda item. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Mr. Glass, yes. And if you can state your full name for the record, please.

Okay, well, my full name is Lawrence Brett Glass after Sir Lawrence Olivier. And yes, I just thought I would point out a couple of things that I noticed in the results of the survey. On page 31 of the PDF, There was a question thinking about the most recent time you engaged with the city. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? My issue was acknowledged or dealt with effectively and within a reasonable amount of time. Well, it was the results of this were 37% negative, which I think is something that we really need to improve. I think we really need to be, as a city, We need to be listening more to people who have issues because that's an astonishing number. Only 25% were positive on that. And interestingly, if you take a look at the distribution by income, by far the people with the highest incomes got the best responses. I don't know what to make of that, but I'm a little bit concerned of that. It might have something to do with things such as the stormwater drainage issue where there was a cap for people with high... Mayor, sorry, just to...

clarification sorry to interrupt you we can keep your time going but just to note on that um when they pointed out that the exclamation point is to note that that data is not necessarily accurate and that's on the highest income so just want to clarify that for people for the public record okay

In any case, thank you, Vice Mayor. It seems to me that that may have had to do with the fact that there was a cap at the high end for the contentious stormwater issue, but there was no floor at the low end. There was no deductible at the bottom. The other question which I think is interesting was What is the number one thing you think the Laramie government could do to improve its services? And governance and engagement came out even above the number one gripe that people have, which is streets and parking. And so I think that also means we need better communication, that we need more responsibilities on the part of government. So just some observations. I think this might give us an idea of where we need to improve. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Glass. Any further public comment on this agenda item? Okay, seeing none, then we will move on. Thank you, Zach and David and our other person that was here. We appreciate your time and good evening to you. We're gonna move on to the next topic.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next topic, Laramie City Volunteer Program Update and Mr. Mullen.

Hello again, Marin Council. Please don't get tired of me. Yeah, I'm here to give you guys a update on the Laramie Volunteer Program and how we're doing and how we've evolved over time. So with that, I think we are good to go. We'll get the PowerPoint pulled up. All right. So we'll start with, I've already forgotten which button I hit. Which one? To the right. To the right. No? Oh. I see. do see okay um so initially i wanted to kind of give just a really quick historical run of how this program came into being um in 2023 the council passed a resolution that stated establish a municipal volunteer program and consider smartphone apps and other means for making volunteerism within the city easier that was a a really fun task to look into so with that requested we started looking into that We began by viewing demos from a bunch of software providers. We got to sit in Zoom meetings and listen to them walk us through it and explain how it works. Some of it was easy and some of it went over my head. It was a little there, a little here. But over time we also reached out to some local organizations, some local or some regionally local communities just to kind of see what sort of programs they were using what they liked what they didn't kind of trying to build a shopping list and see what was going to take the cake in the end we decided to use galaxy digital that is the same provider that uw uses and that'll come into play later so i'm going to try and build suspense there but in As the resolution requested, one of the big things was it came with an accompanying phone app called Causer, C-A-U-S-E-R, and that is a great way to be able to see all of our opportunities, check in, see your hours, do all those things on your smartphone having to deal with a computer, a browser, all that stuff. So that was kind of the groundwork we laid out following that. We trained on that software, built out the backend, that was a blast. I am super great with technology, I'm not. That was awful, but it was a blast getting it done and it was awesome to see how it turned out. Maybe this is a Gen Z term, but the soft launch. We began the build out in January of 2024. We started building out internal documentation, figuring out how we were gonna process information, how we were going to get everyone logged in and responsible and figure out our processes on logging hours and get everyone set up, working with WARM to get our waiver designed, getting everything ready to go so we could hit the ground running. First Volunteer Opportunity was published in March of 2024. Our first volunteers were our guinea pigs, so they kind of helped us figure out how it worked, what we needed to adjust and work on over time. It was a little bit of a learning experience and growing pains, but ultimately I think it came out pretty well. As we got volunteers over time, we made sure to start sending them towards that software, trying to start getting folks acclimated to it and realizing that there's a really easy way to get signed up and reach out to us and keep track of your hours and all the stuff you've signed up for. Now we're here to the UW partnership that I thought was probably one of my favorite parts of this. We realized that there was a way you could link this software between a municipality and a higher education institution because they have different, there's a different program you can use for a college or some sort of post-secondary as opposed to a municipality. And we learned that you can actually link those together where your opportunities will show up on the other page and both user bases can see it while keeping their users secure. We found out about that. I worked with Shelby Kennedy with Slice and we began talking about how we could implement something like that to try and get those UW students here involved in volunteering and getting to meet staff and see what the city is all about. And I think that was kind of a big catalyst for how this has grown. We began drafting an MOU, I believe it was a year ago now that it passed, but it was a process of getting them through both of our organizations and working out the kinks and figuring out how it was gonna work. May of 2025, we signed that MOU and we started linking our software, so now our opportunities show up for the UW Volunteer site, so all of their students can see everything we're posting, they know what's going on with us, they can sign up, it'll send their information to us to get them all sorted. but we can't see too much of their stuff, so UW can make sure that their users are secure. We don't have access to anything more than the basics, contact information and names. We've collaborated throughout this process on a number of things, like the big event. We had, I believe it was in the double digits of UW students that signed up, Yeah, it was during the big event we had some of our opportunities posted. So during the big event they were able to sign up for our volunteer opportunities. So we brought dozens of students in for the big event to come clean up trash in the community through our software, through their program. Super complicated over my head, but it was awesome to see them sign up. We've had volunteer fairs. I just got an email a couple days ago that we're going to be Ready to take a table at their volunteer fair again in September. We've gone to every one of them that slices held since we started talking about this and getting this sorted spring cleanup days. We'll talk about that in a second, but we've been working with them on that for a few years now. Spring we do a few weeks of cleaning and slice has been a huge help and they've been Working and helping bring some of the cost down by donating some things and it's been a great partnership And I we have 89 responses so far. We've had 89 volunteers come from you dub Through that just through their volunteer software not counting them coming through us For the public could you?

Say what slice?

Yeah, student leaders. Student life. Student life and community engagement. Thank you for rescuing me there. Student life and community engagement office. So they work with students to get them out in the community, get them engaged, doing volunteerism, kind of job fair type stuff, civic engagement fairs we've gone to with them. They do a lot of really awesome events to get the students out in the community. So that's a great point. Thank you, Mayor. There we go. So this is honestly probably gonna be my favorite slide to share because it's a really awesome thing to see and it's been a huge lift and I'm very excited to see it on paper. But in 2024, we had 150 users registered on the site. In 2025, we had 359 for an increase of 209 from the first year. So that's... 209 new users that have an account currently there as of 2025. And then as of 2026, it grew 89 more to 448 users as of a week ago. So I think those are really awesome numbers to see. And I'm gonna touch a little more on why that's even cooler than it sounds, which is a really, really cool. But the hours also tell this story because as you can see in 2024, we had 1,117.95 and it's important that we, Make sure we get that 0.95. Got to be very exact with it. But we had over 1,100 hours in 2024. In 2025, we logged 1,451 new hours. So that's not 300 from last year. That was 1,400 in 2025, which is an increase of 333 hours that are new hours logged. So 2026, 914 more hours than logged the year before it, 2,365. That brings the total as of a week ago to just under 5,000 hours. Independent Sector is an organization that kind of calculates, it's one of the many things they do, but they calculate the value of a volunteer, so they bring into account, and I tried to link the methodology, but the link didn't work on the PowerPoint, so I will send that to you guys. but their methodology is they factor in the hiring costs and benefits and everything it would take to pay someone to do that work, and they assign a value to it. And so using the value they assigned to Wyoming, which is $32, and it's a shaky number because some volunteer opportunities are more specialized, some of them aren't. It's really hard to pin down an exact number, but going off of the number they reported for Wyoming, we currently have $160,283 in value we have gotten from our volunteers. and I think that that is pretty cool. So I really wanted to include that and that's part of why that's my favorite slide. Now we get to talk about spring cleanup, which is also a really cool thing, but we started this in 2024. I think it existed in the past before I was here, but I think that we, as we formalize this program, we started to try and really get a good process here and kind of formalize it, make sure we've got a set timeframe and the way we're doing things and trying to really get this thing as efficient as we can. So in 2024, we didn't track the amount of trash collected, but we did count on many groups and we had 12 participate. We had approximately 178 volunteers who volunteered 485 hours, which is awesome. In 2025, we tracked the waste and it was over 11,000 pounds of garbage that was picked up in the community during that three week period. We had 17 groups sign up, only eight were able to participate. 122 volunteers, we haven't been able to completely figure out why that number dropped from the year before. But I think you'll see this most recent one will make up for that in a lot of ways. But we had 365 hours of volunteerism during the cleanup days in 2025. Now we go to 2026. And I should mention our kickoff day event. I'm going to talk about that on the next slide. But during this three weeks in spring that we've been doing this, the last two years we've hosted an event to try and get people involved. their boots on the ground, signed up, ready to go. We can give them the stuff and they can go out at a later date. They can go out that day if they'd like. Just trying to get a little energy in the room, get a bigger draw. We did it in the rec center. We had organic foot traffic roll through just to see why there's an inflatable bounce house and a bunch of tables and we're handing out shirts. But it was a great event and it's been continuously driving up our sign ups and you'll see that on the next slide. But in 2026, we picked up over 12,000 pounds of garbage in that three week period. We had 22 groups sign up and all 22 participated which is awesome that we were able to get this get this energy up and get them to want to go out there and do it we got everybody out there and we had 384 volunteers which is over three times as many as we had in 25. So I think that's pretty good. And then volunteer hours, we had just under 1,000. So we had so many volunteers go out in the community. It was a huge lift and I think it's been a really good event and I'm excited to keep doing it because I think it's just continuing to grow and we're continuing to bring in more people. Spring cleanup days continued. So here's some of the groups that worked with us. Slice, they donated t-shirts to the $22400 to really get people there. We had so many t-shirts and they went because they were some cool shirts. But trash bags from AARP, that was $400 of trash bags they donated. We've had a lot of help with collaboration. This program couldn't have achieved everything it has if there haven't been so many partners that were willing to work with us. The beautification committee donated just under $500 in high-vis vests. Gotta make sure you can see them. We did pay for some Facebook ads and Google ads to get the word out there, so organically popping up on your social medias, on your feed, trying to get that in front of people without them having to come to us to find it. And I think that was a big lift in getting people there, because I mean, that number speaks for itself. We had three times as many volunteers, and I think there's a lot of reasons for it, but that's one of them. here we go to the volunteer software users we have 200 more volunteered or registered users than we did in april of 2025. during the event we had 70 new accounts made last year so people that showed up they signed up and they were ready to rock and then this year we had 39 i think part of our reasoning behind why it was lower is we already have built out such a robust base that a lot of them that showed up were repeat volunteers they already had the account they were ready to just pop in and grab their shirt and get out there. So I think it's been an awesome thing to see. And then yeah, kickoff signups. So people that signed up at the kickoff event to go out and volunteer that day and not just made an account but signed up to go volunteer. 36 and 25 and then 21 and 26. So it's been, there's a lot of good stuff coming out of this. Where we sit currently, there are 448 registered users. And this is going to be one of my favorite stats here. We have, according to the U.S. Census estimate, we have 32,284 residents in Laramie. As of right now, with the number of users we have registered, that totals out to 1.4% of the Laramie population signed up on that website right now. And I think that's important to note because Fort Collins is someone that we've talked to about their volunteer program. They've had their platform for 11 years and they've done phenomenal work. They've built out whole strategic plans. They fill whole roles with the city using volunteers. They are a great thing to look towards when you're trying to figure out how to make this work and after 11 years with strategic plans and a whole department of people they have staff felt like volunteer staff that our only job is to get volunteers theirs is 2.5 percent So that was 11 years of a lot of resources going into it. So I think 1.4% after our third year is nothing to shy at. And I'd like to say that that's likely an undercount. We've had a lot of groups come in that were either traveling groups or didn't go through the software. Those numbers are all probably far lower than the actual amount. We had a church group from Fort Collins come through with a hundred volunteers and they only signed up the leader because it was a youth group. But we had a hundred volunteers roll through town and over the course of two days I think they put every person did like 12 hours. So those are the kind of numbers that we can't even quantify but I can say that those numbers don't even do justice to how much volunteerism has been done through this program. Like I said, just under 5,000 volunteer hours and 84 volunteers have responded to multiple opportunities. So we've got a quarter or I guess a fifth of our base has been coming back and continuing to volunteer time after time after time. And that's one of the biggest things we're trying to drive is to get them to keep coming back because we want this to be a positive experience and we want them to have a good time doing it and we want them to really get some community pride. So what's next? We're always looking at new opportunities. We're looking within departments. We're looking in different areas of the city that could use a volunteer. We're still trying to even figure out what could be done because there are so many possibilities and it's just a matter of figuring out where you could have a volunteer do some work that could really benefit the community. We're trying to seek out new partnerships. Like I said, we couldn't have done what we did without the partners that we have, without all of the people we've collaborated with to get here. And we're always looking for new organizations or people to work with to try and continue to get people out there volunteering. Because I think it's, from what I've heard from our volunteers, it's as good for them as it is for us. I think everyone really takes something out of it. And I think it's an awesome program.

Councilor O'Doherty.

Can people recommend, like, we would like to do this, like get poop off of the green belt. My group would like to do that. Can we make that a volunteer opportunity and then would you run with it or what? Or that, you know, they pick up, like, I can pick up dog poop, but then I have to leave it somewhere and I'm, you know, coordinating.

We are currently talking to an organization right now that would like to do some ongoing volunteer stuff. We're bringing in a few different departments to talk through it and try and figure out what kind of work could be done. And I think if there are needs in the community that citizens are identifying, I would really strongly urge them to reach out to me because that's something we need to know. If there's trouble spots or if there are things they think could be addressed with volunteers, I would love to hear their ideas. I think there's always new opportunities out there, new ways we can leverage this program and this software and really get things done. So if there is anyone out there with ideas like that, please email me.

Melanie has a question.

I don't even see Melanie. Councillor Vigil, do you have a question? How did you see?

Okay, Councillor.

Councillor Vigil.

Okay, great. Thank you, Mayor. Is it okay if I say a comment and a question?

Yes, ma'am. You may do that.

great well brandon i i just want to say like i i am so proud of this program this is amazing you know i serve and and so does mayor cumby serves on our town gown association and i think that this is the perfect example of that right like working between institutions within organizations government to make something work and to do something really good for the community and so i'm really really really proud of you for that and leading that and i can tell just like in your presentation how passionate you are and that is like that's what the city needs and so i think you said earlier in the presentation like sorry if this is like gen z speak i'm like no more of that more of that we need more of that and so while you're soft launching this i hope you hard launch your leadership Because this is great and I know that in particular I would say that Brandon has been really helpful for me, you know, in the Human Rights and Relations Commission. And he's proven some really, really good leadership there as well. What I would say too is maybe, well, and maybe it's a question. How do we involve, throughout the software, maybe LCCC, what does that look like? I know maybe WyoTech might be interested. What does all of the institutions look like in terms of the software and just the program moving forward? Thanks.

Through you, Mary. Sorry, a little too loud. Got to get away from the mic.

Check. No, no.

Check. There we go. Yeah, so through you Mayor, we have worked with WyoTech and I mean they were one of the three organizations that got 250 hours. They got recognized and they did a great job and we've been working with them so far and I think we could absolutely try and work with L-Trip more and we could reach out to them and see if they've got things in mind too because I mean If there's someone who wants to volunteer, I'm not going to say no. So I mean, if they're willing to work with us, then absolutely, I'd love to work with them and we can reach in and explore more into that relationship because I mean, I want to keep collaborating. I want to keep doing that because leveraging these partnerships and working together is how this program's gotten where it's gotten. And as far as the software linkage, that's a UW specific thing, but I've been consistently trying to figure out how we could work all sorts of organizations into this volunteer program, whether it's working with community partners, if they have opportunities they'd like to put out. These are things we're kind of recently brainstorming because initially this was meant to be internal city volunteer opportunities, but I think we've reached a point now where We've got a robust base and I think maybe relatively soon we could start branching out and seeing if there are other organizations that would like to go through us because if we could create some sort of community hub where everyone can come together and see what's going on, I think that would benefit all of us. So as far as working with WyoTech and L-TRIP, we've worked with WyoTech, they've been great and I hope we can continue to do that. And then L-TRIP, I would love to reach out to them and see if we can get them involved more because I want to make sure we get everybody involved.

Thank you and I just a brief comment. I really appreciate your forward thinking and your proactive approach of inclusivity. I think that's really helped the program get off the ground. I have a question at first to comment it's. It's so heartening to get this report tonight and to think about three years ago when. The vice mayor brought up snow angels in Denver. And because we were thinking about how to get help shoveling, which the concern came up from the disabilities council. And then Aaron and I got information about this and then you've really brought it forward. Now I noticed tonight that you reported on warm weather activities and I'm wondering if the snow angel program is actually housed in code enforcement and is that or are the snow angels also part of these total numbers?

Mayor, so the snow angels program is through me. Most of these opportunities are through Ray specifically in the code administration. And I am gonna shout him out at the end. He's not gonna like me for it, but I'm gonna do it anyways. But snow angels is through the city manager's office. So I oversee that program. I can tell you that we had a number of returning snow angels this last winter. At one point we had all of the addresses covered. They didn't need to. Unfortunately, I think they went out maybe twice and I hope that doesn't take away from next year because I'm already getting ready. I've already had some folks reach out to me saying I want my address. next year like they called me I think in June and said I want to be on the snow angels list this winter and I went on it hopefully it snows so I think we may have lost a little traction as far as not needing them but they were there and I hope that they continue to return because they've done awesome work and it's been really heartening to hear a lot of those folks call in and just say it's been such a huge relief to know that when I go out there my driveway is clear I'm not going to fall I'm not going to hurt myself I'm not going to get a violation. Everything's good. I'm really appreciative of those volunteers because they went out in the nasty cold and shoveled that wet foot of snow that weighs 100 pounds. So I do amazing work and I'm really proud of them and these numbers do reflect them as well. They are included in these numbers.

Well, thank you. And I just really appreciate how an idea three years ago has taken form and your leadership and tenacity has helped to contribute to that.

And if I may say one more thing, Mayor, I would like to thank the Epson Center because the Epson Center has been super proactive in sending addresses to me. I have not had to do a whole ton of outreach.

Is that for the Snow Angels?

Yeah, for the Snow Angels. Sandy has been shooting me addresses as soon as she knows them. I have not had to do much of anything as far as outreach on addresses. We've posted and sent it out, but... She's been the one going and getting them. I haven't had to do a whole lot to get those addresses together.

Thank you. And just for the public, the Snow Angel program is to help seniors, elderly and disabled individuals or someone who might be temporarily disabled to shovel snow during the winter. Thank you. Any further questions or comments? You've got another slide.

Yeah, this will be very short. I promise I won't waste any more of your time.

You're not wasting any time. This is why we're here.

Yeah, and I think that slide at the end is pretty self-explanatory. We hope to grow and continue and make things better. So then the last slide is going to make a lot of people mad. Maybe.

Did I ever shoot the runway?

There it is. Yeah, so first I'd really like to thank Ray. He has been the one on the ground going out with these volunteers, getting them set up with the stuff they need to go clean up, going and picking it up. He's done weekends. He's done late hours. He has poured so much into this program. He hates technology, but he sat there and learned how to use this. I think I probably he wasn't a fan of me for a long time for that alone but he's done a phenomenal job working to get this thing figured out and he's been at this point doing the major lift like I've just gotten to sit here and manage the back end but he's been the one getting the volunteer sorted ready to go getting out there and doing it. Robin has been a huge lift with the cleanup days she's She coordinated so much of the cleanup days event and a lot of the cleanup days in general. She drafted the report that's also in the agenda. That report was hers about the cleanup days and all that stuff. She built that out and she's also done a great job of keeping tabs and running numbers when she can. Owen's done a great job doing outreach. Don't have to say anything more. He's great with media and communication and he's doing the best he can and he's getting that information out there. So I think he always deserves to get shouted out. Parks and Rec for their help. Public Works for their help. You can see Charles was at the cleanup days. He made the cut. Ray's hiding in the corner. You can see that. Wendy's gracious enough to always let us use the rec center. The animal shelters recently started getting their opportunities ready to rock on the software. And I think I want people to clean up garbage, but if you get to walk a dog, I think that's going to be really hard to compete with. So I'm worried that once I get them on there, there's going to be a wait list, a hundred people long. Cause I might be on that list, but I, and it's, we've had a lot of other staff that have worked together. And like I said, all of those community partners and people we've worked with, it's been a gigantic team lift. I think, without everybody pitching in like volunteerism should be everyone pitched in and we all got it done and i think there's a lot to show for it so that's all i got i'll stand for any questions all right

Council Doherty question or comment?

I was wondering some of those opportunities the volunteer opportunities are really really funny like the text is that is that you and Owen or is that Mr. Sandoval what's what's going on there because I encourage people to like sign up and be a volunteer just to be entertained by their descriptions.

Yeah, through you, Mayor, that is all Ray originals. Ray has named every one of them something funny. I don't know where he got the creativity, but every single spot you clean up, there is a funny name for it. Yeah, that was all Ray.

Thank you very much, Brandon. I really appreciate the presentation. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Yes, Mr. Glass.

Honorable Mayor, Members of Council, Brett Glass. I have an activity that I would like to propose for our volunteers. It's very timely. Today is the 28th of July, and on the 31st of July, three days from now, most of the leases on rental properties in Laramie expire. And as you know, more than half of our population is renters. We can expect on the 31st for lots and lots of old furniture, other junk, all sorts of refuse to be left on the curb. And the fact that people put up a sign on the abandoned sofa or whatever that says, free, doesn't excuse doing this. It's something which needs to be cleaned up. I think we should put our volunteers to work on this the 31st of August, on the 15th of May, and on the 31st of May, which are the other two days when this happens. I think it would be a great use. I'll volunteer to help with this because it really annoys me to see so much junk left on the curb and it can sit there for weeks and no one will clean it up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Glass. And just by the way, I would like to let you know that Town & Gown is actively working on trying to better manage that. So I appreciate your comments. Any other?

Vice Mayor? Sorry, Mr. Glass, if you could real quick come back up. I didn't catch all the dates you suggested.

Yes, through you, honorable mayor. The three dates are August 31st, May 15th, and May 31st.

July 31st, not August 31st.

Oh, sorry, July 31st. You're correct. I'm sorry. Thank you. July 31st, May 15th, and May 31st.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Glass. Any further public comment? All right, we will move on now to our last work session, discussion of Laramie Dog Park. And I welcome Director Michael Bork. Good evening, Director Bork.

Good evening, Mayor, Honorable Mayor and members of council. What I lack in my slides for content of Brannan's I make up for with cute pictures of dogs. So I think it's a good trade out. So just briefly today, I'm gonna be just going over kind of what we've currently got for our dog park inventory, some of the challenges generally that we have with dog parks, some level of service numbers, A lot of numbers can be produced. These are just ones that I was able to pull up. And then just some general recommendations as we move forward on dog park development ideas. With that said, before I go into any of the content, I am a dog owner. I own four dogs. I enjoy the Laramie Dog Parks. I really think that there's a lot of merit to the community members' ideas on dog parks. I'm speaking on behalf of the Parks and Rec Department though on an operational and project basis as we're going through this. So with just starting with the next slide. Oh, do I do? I got it right here.

Got it.

Okay. All right. I've got it. Thank you. So we technically list four dog parks, although I really am uncomfortable with the last one being listed as something that we encourage. But obviously we've got Optimist Dog Park, our largest dog park. Rotary Clubs Park, our newest dog park. The Aragon Field Park up by the softball and Little League Fields. And then Depot Park, which we do list, but it is an unfenced area. And again, I'm not certain I necessarily like promoting that we should have unleashed, unfenced activity going on. So just a quick overview of the different parks. Optimist Park is about a little under an acre and a half with three different areas in there. You know, I really consider it our only true real full dog park in the sense that it's got double gated entries. It's got water there, although the water is not currently working. It does have a dog waterer. It's got multiple areas for large dogs, small dog activity and agility area. Kind of in a good central area, easy to access, good parking. There are a few challenges, no doubt. It's not huge, it's not a gigantic open space, but it is a very serviceable dog park used by a lot of people in the community. Then Rotary Clubs Park, again, that's our newest dog park. It's very small. It's less than a half an acre. It's also not situated as really a public use dog park as it is an asset of that community playground and park that's there. There's no good parking access, et cetera, et cetera. It does have a double-gated fence, but there are No water, it's again a fairly small area meant more to be used by the people in that community. Aragon Field, a longer serving dog park but one that is a little rough. It doesn't have a double gated fence, it's just a single entry gate. There is a porta potty there but no running water. There are some agility elements there but I've just finished doing some inspection of them and I think Most of them need to be removed for just safety. The wood is getting pretty splintery and dried out and so it definitely needs some upkeep from our end and we're making plans for that. And then as I mentioned, the Depot Park unfenced area that we currently list as a dog park, it is an area for off-leash people, but I get nervous knowing dogs and people and owners and responsibility of having an unfenced area that we list, especially in such a central part of the community. So there's all kinds of challenges. I've built and designed and run dog parks for basically my whole career. They started out as a fad back when I was first starting. They were popping up in downtown areas in major metropolitan spots for people who have condos and apartments and it would just be a little area that you could take your dog out to go pee. And then they started getting developed and bigger and bigger and communities started adding them. Dog parks are great. They're fantastic, but they are a fairly high maintenance need. It doesn't appear that they would be, but unfortunately, as much as we put up signs and provide pet cleanup stations and do other things, there's a lot of pet waste that gets left behind because it's a high traffic area keeping grass. And the turf in the areas is difficult. There's constant damage to fence lines that are needing to be repaired. You know, it's just, it's a fairly maintenance heavy. And so I would list that as a challenge from an operational standpoint. I love using them, but I also understand the level of effort that it takes to keep them looking great. So that kind of goes into the maintenance and the cleanliness. The cleanliness part is a constant challenge and I'm one of those people when I'm out at the dog park, I'll certainly approach somebody if I see them just letting their dog squat and not picking it up, but I'm probably rare in that instance. A lot of people just let it go and literally let it go and just leave it out there in the park. And so that has a myriad, and I don't need to get into all the bacteria numbers and the just gross nature of it, but that has myriad problems from a public safety and use standpoint. And then, again, just not the time most important maybe issues but the three that came to mind the third one is the dog versus dog and dog versus people issues you know as much as we we hope that people are responsible out there I'm even reticent to bring my puppy out to the optimist dog park at this point just because the last three times I've brought them out there have been aggressive dogs and and he's just a puppy he doesn't know how to how to react and so you know there's gonna always be those Users that probably shouldn't be users of the dog park, both for maintenance and not cleaning up after themselves, and also their dogs maybe not being socialized to a dog park environment. So again, not all of the problems and challenges with dog parks. there's a lot of opportunities and great socialization opportunities for dog parks as well. And so I don't want to just talk about challenges. There's a lot of great training opportunities, socialization opportunities, just general recreational opportunities for both people and their pets, especially as Our citizens recommendation was for a large multiple acre area that has trails and other amenities. That's a fantastic idea. Does it fit in our current operational plans right now? I'm not sure on that. That's really for you all to make that determination. But with that said, we did conduct just a very brief level of service analysis according to the National Recreation and Park Association. When we are looking at number of people population versus number of dog parks, the national average is one community dog park for every 40 to 45,000 people. Now, again, that's just a number. Even on NRPA's website, they recognize that there are things like area densities that can be considered, service range of where other dog parks are. But we also here in Laramie have the fact that We're rural, generally, but we have kind of an urban development in the town part. But you drive a few minutes outside of town and there's a lot of off-leash opportunities. All the national parks in the Medicine Bow Trailhead area allows for under vocal command off-leash dog activity. Lots of areas that are fairly close, relatively speaking, to town for those activities. And so we, one day, a dog park for every 40 to 45,000 people. We really have two public dog parks, three if you include the Rotary Clubs Park one as well. They're not huge, again, and so there are considerations. I'm not saying that this is the only level of service to look at, but this is the one that the National Rec and Park Association uses. So does Laramie need a new dog park? My answer is maybe. I don't know that right now because we're getting ready next year, not this fiscal year that's just started, but the next fiscal year. We are getting ready to engage in our master plan redevelopment. Our current master plan is about 10, 11, almost 12 years old now. It's need of a refresh. That was my time that I was planning on asking dog park questions during the public engagement needs assessment phase of a master plan development. That would be one of the amenities that was brought up in focus group studies and statistically validated surveys. Does the community need to consider a dog park? So with that, some of my recommendations are you know i would recommend and this is again just from the parks and rec director standpoint holding off any plans right now for the city to do a lot of studies and and ramp up uh you know plans to put in a a larger dog park uh notwithstanding you know location or anything just general planning efforts Incorporate that feedback into the new master plan for FY28. Support grassroots volunteer groups. There's sounds like a really good vibrant group out there and support them in ways that we can as appropriate. but i also recommend my final that that existing volunteer group we certainly certainly could use volunteers at our existing dog parks uh helping go out and and coordinate cleanup efforts and uh you know do uh projects out at the dog park and that would be a really great grassroots way to to start getting that dog park community together so as i said nice and short not a lot of content but some pretty pictures uh and so with that i'll stand for any questions that you may have

thank you uh counselor bowling thank you mayor thank you director um aragon's facilities um owned by uw what sort of uh agreement do we have with the with the university understanding that that's something that you know that we list as part of our you know city facilities

yeah honorable mayor through you to uh counselor bowling um we have a an agreement right now that is uh that needs to be renewed with the university for that property um the property in question that was talked about uh where the where the aragon dog park is now and just expanding that that size um doesn't sound like it's outside the realm of possibility um I would caution I did not get into any financials of you know cost of you know building an acre of fencing and you know other amenities and stuff but you know to put in a dog park of that size in that area would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. which again, not outside the realm of fundraising and project. And again, I'm not even saying it's not a project priority. You all can determine that. My recommendation is we look at vetting that through the master plan process.

Councilor Doherty.

It sounds like we have kind of a chicken and egg thing with our volunteers that are willing to raise funds for such a thing that they need some vision to get an idea of cost. So the Amoco property was brought up. I thought because it's a super fun site that that was not acceptable, but it sounds like it might be. And then so if we could have some vision, so my preference would be to have some vision where if we could expand a dog park. Where that might be an and what kind of ballpark cost that would be so that grassroots efforts could manifest and you know have some have some real backing behind it. But that said, we've had grassroots efforts to build the ice ice rink and the and the rec center. But then the maintenance falls on. The city and that's to me. That's that's the strain. Although I think if other people, if you have those poop grabbers, I gotta tell you, it's really not a problem picking up poop. I do it a lot so. So if any other volunteers wanna join me for poop cleanup, I think that would be a good thing to put in our volunteer program. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Councilor Newman.

Comment and a question if that's okay.

We're in a work session, both.

Thanks. Thank you, Mayor. First off, the comment. Thank you for all this information. Thanks for the nice dog pictures that made this way easier to look at than just a bunch of numbers. And then Councilor Bowling, thanks for spearheading kind of that part of the work session when I think a couple of us couldn't come to it, so. I appreciate that. I guess I have two questions. My first question would be the dog versus dog and dog versus people. Do we have stats on how common that is? I have a super... not friendly dog that I cannot take to the parks, and I know not to, right? But then my hybrid dog, I'll take her there all the time, but I notice I have to leave when some of these other dogs show up, right? So do we have stats of kind of, Any of these altercations?

Honorable Mayor, through you to Councilor Newman. I don't have any off the top of my head, but I can certainly get you some. I'm not aware. I would have to check with Animal Control for local stats, and I can probably get you some more general national ones as well.

And then follow up if I could. Follow up? A whole nother question, I guess. The maintenance part of it, do we have, and I haven't traveled to all the dog parts, do we have some that are like artificial grass or are they all grass to where the maintenance is? even more than like artificial grass would be.

Honorable Mayor, through you, they're all dirt scrub grass. The one at Optimus is I would say more turf level grass. That's why we shut it down every May to let that grass grow back and get replenished. But the one at Aragon, it's scrub sage and thistle and other stuff out there. It's not great service. there are artificial turf dog parks there they are not inexpensive uh they're they're cool a lot of great features to them but but they are very very pricey uh vice mayor and

Thank you and thank you director Bork for the information. I like this idea of getting citizen feedback in the master plan. That feels like a nice approach to it. I also at the same time like this the opportunity to support the grassroots effort. How might those folks who are wanting to get behind the grassroots effort to materialize something. What's the best route for them to kind of think about next steps with with you or I would assume with you to begin with and then you know move forward and share that with Council is that is that comes to fruition if they are all ready to go and have some thoughts.

yeah honorable mayor uh through you to the vice mayor uh the the short answer is you know just starting the conversation like like marav uh did uh several months ago getting that the getting that conversation started um you know location is a challenge we we just don't have a lot of great viable options that are both city owned and would be of a large enough size for what this group is looking at. Generally speaking though, most successful grassroots efforts start with a smaller idea that moves up and grows into the bigger fruition and that's why one of my recommendations is working with me and my maintenance department, my parks crew, let's get a group together that then when we can mobilize, if for whatever reason, if we hear back from the university on that property there or something else becomes available, then it's a lot easier to activate that grassroots group. But not expecting that we can go from zero to 100 in a year. It's a large project, as you're all aware.

Councillor Freed. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Bork. Yeah, I think this appreciate all the information and there's a lot of ways I think that we can take this and there's certainly a lot of interest, I think, from the public about more dog parks. And so I really do appreciate the idea of waiting for a master plan. Get some. Get some surveys. There's already been a survey done, obviously not through the city, but from a group who's passionate about adding dog parks. And a couple of thoughts that come to my mind are, as we look for more like a new cemetery, is there a way that we could, if we're already gonna be looking at a big piece of land, tie into something like that? Obviously not having dogs run over. but if we're gonna look at a big piece of land, you know, for that maybe there's an adjacent dog park and I think that something like that the city managers could be really cool and I think, you know, my big question as we move forward is if there is the community interest, then what are people willing to pay? There's a 69 acre dog park in Denver, Chatfield Park, and it's fenced in, but you have to pay and you have to always have your off leash or leash dog permit with you if you're on that property, but that helps pay for some of the maintenance. And I think it'd be interesting to see as we collect data about this, if people are willing to pay for something like that, then I think there's, let's maybe talk about moving forward, but a lot of ideas to take from this, but I do appreciate the approach and the information you provided.

And I appreciate your thoughtful look at this. And one thing I've come to realize while being on council is that such as with the volunteer program over three years ago, we thought about it and it comes to fruition. It takes time. And I know that right now we're facing the challenges of catching up with maintenance with the rec center and parks and rec. and you even tonight discussed some of the maintenance issues in current parks that need to be taken care of. So I think that your idea of going into that next master plan schedule to me makes sense, but also the idea of getting that cohesive group that can begin to input that. and possibly begin to think about current maintenance or think about progress with the university. The other challenge we are facing in November is the possibility of the people's initiative which could offer significant challenges to our city and our county and our community. And so I think we have to hold that mindfully as we move forward with a vision and planning. So I think that your suggestion to begin the input and to building the grassroots group and solidifying that as we move into the next planning phase to me makes incredible pragmatic sense. I have a dog, I would love for her to have a big park and she loves going out. But just the last comment I wanted to make is she's been attacked a couple times at the dog park, so we don't go there anymore. And I have not called animal control and reported it. I just get her out of there to keep her safe. So I think whatever stats you're gonna get are gonna be underreported. Further comment? You had Councilor Newman.

I'm just gonna plant the seed since you're talking about dogs and then maybe the study or budgets. The other thing that I've heard is people won't take their dogs on the greenbelt as much anymore because of the asphalt. So just to plant that seed there.

Councilor Bolling.

Thank you, Mayor. And just again, thank you, Director Bork. And to reiterate, like everyone else, I'm a dog lover and owner, not currently, and use our dog parks. And I'm in full support of us exploring the idea of another wonderful recreation place for every dog in the city and their human companions. But I appreciate that we also need to approach this from the perspective of what are the realistic logistics that happen inside of that for the city, for the maintenance staff, et cetera. and i think i don't know that there's anyone up here that is not in full support of you know can the uh community uh still creating volunteer opportunities garnering support bringing us more data you know bringing us updates from conversations that are happening with uh either the university or other landowners things like that we're in support of all of that and i know from conversations with mr bork from the pre-meeting to this work session that I think you're going to the like National Conference of Ron Swanson's soon. And Mike is gonna.

The National Recreation and Park Conference, yes.

Is going to be thinking about that as he's convening with colleagues from around the country. You know, it can bring us back some more information. So thanks, we'll look forward to that update. Thanks, Mike.

Councillor O'Doherty.

I see one one constraint of staff so far is that when we did our. When we did our goals at the beginning of the year, we talked more about recreation opportunities for families or for people of all ages, and we didn't mention dogs, which is unfortunate. I wish we had put that in our goals back in January. That would give staff more. Leeway in that direction. But the other thing I just wanted to ask like open space versus a dog park and I know you had concern about open spaces and is that like liability issues because of gopher holes and stuff or is it? it do we need such a high expectation that it's this you know looks like turf and uh you know some beautiful the manicured lawn or or does it have to do with our liability if we just open say this open space you can have your dog in it

Honorable Mayor, through you, it's all of those things, Councilor O'Doherty, that I've got in my consideration. In best practice dog park design, it doesn't have to be a full manicured golf course lawn, but you do want to make sure that you're not creating opportunities for dogs to injure themselves. A lot of ACL injuries and knee injuries with dogs happen at dog parks. uh from stepping in chuck holes and and things like that there's i mean even even the debate of trees versus no trees or uh you know the the fire hydrants versus none there's there's lots and lots of examples of dogs injuring themselves or even uh you know fatally injuring themselves by running into uh things because they're playing with another dog and they're not paying attention and they run right into you know solid objects so there's there's a lot of thoughtful design that goes into dog park design it doesn't have to be pristine, but it should be safe, you know, safe for everybody to use. And so there does need to be some design consideration for making sure that where you're placing it isn't, you know, at least inherently setting up, you know, potential for injury.

Thank you. And thank you for that question. Any further questions or comments? Thank you, director. And now we'll go to public comment on this agenda item. Marav. And if you can state your name for the record, I won't ask for your full name.

Thank you, counselors. Marav Ben-David. I am very impressed that the survey we conducted as part of a design with... Michael Bork, received 147 responses. If you think about the survey that you heard a lot about earlier, you're relying on 406 people. So we're talking about 147 responses to the dog park. People are interested, people need it, people want it. You have received my proposal or the proposal I sent with help of other people back in April and I am here to offer an update that there are three possible locations that we will keep pursuing and hopefully we'll get at least one of them secured for a new dog park If you look at the update I've sent, I have been in negotiation with BP and Wyoming DEQ about the site on Greenbelt. The responses from both agencies are very positive. It will take time for both of them to figure out the contamination issues but they're working on it. Both think a dog park is an excellent solution because it keeps the place fenced, can be regulated by entrance fees or others and other health certificate issues that other places are using. And so that is a potential. I would like you to keep that in mind. Another one that is moving forward is the south end of the fairgrounds. Belongs to the county but is currently encumbered to the state under a grant that was authorized back in 2017 and hasn't been pursued. That is moving forward and that location may be available. Again, the people in charge are excited about the opportunity to make it into a dog park with other facilities adjoining. And finally I got through to the Board of Trustees of the University of Wyoming and the Aragon field is definitely an option on the table. The reason why We ask you to remain involved and be part of this effort. Believe me, we don't need to spend hundreds of thousands on a survey and a plan for the next 5-10 years. We know what we need. We know what we want. We have an expert in designing dog parks. We just need a location to be able to build a budget. The reason why we are asking, just one thing, why we are asking, I know, I know, we're asking you to be involved is because this is for the community. We appreciate your comments.

Thank you. Further public comment on this agenda item? Yes, Peggy, and if you'll state your name for the record, please.

Yeah, my name is Peggy, and I'm speaking in favor of a bigger dog park. Now, I've been advocating for a large dog park since 2011 when I served on the last City Parks Trails and Recreation Master Plan Ad Hoc Committee. Now, at the time, I proposed a large dog park where people could actually walk and run with their dogs off leash in a fenced area. Now, at our current fence to dog parks, the humans tend to stand around and watch while the dogs have all the fun. Now, alas, my idea for the dog park was not put into the plan, but I still think it's a brilliant idea and I haven't given up on it because what people do right now When they want to move with their dog off leash and they can't get out to the outlying areas, you know what they do? They go to our public parks and they let their dogs off the leash. And they move with their dogs in our public parks off leash. That is a danger to everybody else and every other dog in the park. Now, other Wyoming towns see the benefit of larger dog parks. Sheridan's a good example with three parks. One is four acres and it has a walking path all the way around the perimeter so dogs and people can exercise together. They have one at 1.8 acres and one at 0.35. Now look, here's what Sheridan has to say about their dog park from their city website. Did you know that Sheridan is the dog park capital of Wyoming? Sheridan currently has more dog parks per capita than any other community in our state. The American Veterinary Medical Association calculates that the average American household has 1.6 dogs. That equates to roughly 18,000 dogs in Sheridan County. The advantages of dog parks are simple and powerful. Public dog parks allow dogs to get ample off leash exercise. They facilitate socialization. They can be wonderful resources for dogs that have too much energy and no good place to put it. Dogs encourage people to walk more. Research shows that being outdoors in a dog park offers diverse therapeutic and psychological benefits. It's been found that owning a pet is directly linked to fewer visits to the doctor and improved overall health. They benefit the community and are important outlets for humans. They provide recreation opportunities, bring together dog lovers of all ages and socioeconomic status. They provide a place for owners to talk and share info. They serve as a conversation starter and people indicate that they meet other people through their pets. We encourage all community members to bring their four-legged friends and visit one of our dog parks today. Now Laramie can and should do better for our dogs and their human companions by providing a big dog park where humans and dogs can move and amble freely together in a safe fenced area. Thank you.

Thank you Peggy McCracken. Yes, ma'am. You and Peggy had your hands up almost at the same time. Welcome, if you can say your name.

Michelle North.

Thank you.

And I did not plan on this just this morning. But I do support expanding opportunities for dog owners, but I'd encourage the city to think beyond just another off-leash dog park. Personally, I've been training dogs for over 30 years. I compete in high-level sports. I go down to Denver, pay $50 an hour to rent a pool for dock diving. So as we think about more than just an off leash dog park, there are many people that need secure fenced areas that their dogs cannot be with other dogs. So I kind of think that having fields that people can rent and take their dogs out there like a family or whatever. I know I go online, rent something by an hour, pay the money and I just go and a lot of them have like key codes. So a lot of people can go out there and take their dogs out to play fetch and whatever. Second point, I'd encourage the city to also consider a larger field that could be rented or reserved for organized dog sports or groups to have trials or events at that can also be rented out. So that's kind of what I had to say. Any questions?

Thank you very much, Michelle. I appreciate that. Okay, and then you'll be next.

Okay.

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

Yes. My name is Rachel Hayes. I'm in favor of an expanded off leash dog park. I want to push back just very gently on the idea that we have, you know, ample off leash recreation opportunities nearby because we do have some best in class wildlife. Our wildlife is very special in this area. And, you know, if you take your dog out, there can be instances and interactions with wildlife that can put the dog safety at risk, can definitely put the wildlife safety at risk. So that I think is one of the downsides and drawbacks to off leash dogs in those areas. And I would also bring your attention to trapping. There have been instance where dogs have been caught in traps. And I don't know if you've ever like been to a demonstration where you've like had the opportunity to try to release one of those traps. I lift, I try not to skip upper body day. I could not get those traps open. And I just have to hope that like the adrenaline in the moment, if God forbid it ever happens, I'll be able to get that trap open. That's definitely something that is on the mind of pet owners and the fenced area can just provide that peace of mind. So those are two of the reasons why I would urge this council to consider expanding the dog park.

Thank you very much. Good evening.

Hi, my name is Steven Magnifico. I live in Ward 2. I'm a regular at the City of Laramie Dog Park, Optimist Park. I'm there literally three or four times a day. I think people in this town recognize me. They recognize my dog more than me. She's a little blue fur missile named as Mira. She's a healer. If anyone here has owned healers, you understand exactly why I'm there three to four times a day. So I'm not going to talk too much about a new dog park. I think a new dog park is largely rooted in frustrations with the current dog park and that's why people are talking about it. So I'm going to suggest things that can be done with the current dog park that might mitigate some of those frustrations in the meantime. One of the things that I've noticed is that you can't really use it in the winter. You get daylight from like 9 to 4.30 and most people are off work 5 to 5.30. So I would appreciate the park being kept open after dusk in the winter time and perhaps the addition of like solar powered motion detector lights that would be able to allow people to use the park after 4.30. I know that's a big frustration for me because I have a hyperactive healer and she's like begging me in the winter time when I first moved here like, let's go outside. And I'm just thinking like it's 4.30, it's dark. There's no lights at the park, not really a good spot to play fetch and it's kind of closed anyway. I've also been talking with a lot of people currently at the dog park, letting them know that like, hey, this meeting's happening. Are you gonna be there? I'm gonna be there. What are some of your concerns? So maybe if you're not there, I can talk about that. A lot of us bring our own water because the water thing is broken. That's been talked about, it's been addressed, but that really is a source of frustration for almost every single person that I mentioned that this meeting was happening to at the dog park. like 90% of them I would say mentioned the water thing being broken as a big frustration. So that is a matter of, in my opinion, urgent attention. I bring my own water, so not typically a big deal. I would rather that than the non-potable water that that fountain is for. But for a lot of other people, that is a really big deal. And then one of the other concerns that I have is we've talked about safety and dogs being potentially aggressive. And one of the triggers I've noticed for dogs being aggressive in many cases is kids. And I wanna be very careful about how I say this because there's a place for kids in the dog park, but I have concerns about the age limit being currently too low. There are kids that are up to 10 years old that I've noticed who don't know how to act around animals and their parents don't necessarily do a good job teaching them. And this is a danger for the kids. If the kid is being triggering to a dog and the kid does not know how to act, I fear for the kid's safety. I fear for what the dog might do in some cases that I've seen. And it is in every dog. There's people who don't know how to train their dogs around kids, and that's as much of a them problem as much as it is a parenting problem. But that age limit is still very, very low and is something that I would like for the city to be mindful of and maybe figure out a way to navigate in a way that's sensitive to parents who need that space for their children. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Stephen, thank you so much. Further public comment? Sylvia. Good evening.

I'm Sylvia Bagdonis, and thank you for taking the time to listen to this issue. I have not talked to anyone who has not supported the idea of a new large area where they can exercise with their dog. I have always taken care of dogs. I've been a foster family. And so I have experience with a lot of dogs that have been mistreated. And we're lucky that we have an excellent shelter, laws and people who do that kind of thing. But I can tell you when you get those dogs, They have PTSD, emotional problems. And so when I take them someplace, I hope that nobody else is there or very few people. And so I think that's why we need a large park that can have sections where you can take your dogs. If you're one of those kind people who has adopted one of these dogs, you need to get them out there, otherwise it's gonna drive you crazy and then you're gonna abandon that dog again. There's a lot of reasons I think we need to start moving forward and I appreciate your consideration of all these issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Sylvia. Further comment? City Clerk?

We have Linda Devine online.

Okay, I have one person here that just raised her hand and then we'll go to Linda Devine. Good evening.

Hi, I'm Kara Pratt. I have a dog and I take him out on the prairie. I live south in town, like at the end of Corthell Road, and there's a big prairie out there. Almost every time we're out there, I see, we see, we watch a dog off leash, because we all love our dogs, we want our dogs to be off leash. I see a dog off leash who's chasing pronghorns, and especially now, I see them chasing the babies. And it just, I mean, my heart rate goes, it's not a peaceful walk. I'm always rooting for the pronghorn. But this happens all the time out there, every time. I don't even like going out there now. So possibly if there was a big dog park, expansive one with some, so it might cut down on the people taking their dogs and just letting them run out on the prairie. I think there's even fines for that, but I don't think Game and Fish can keep up with that. So yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comment. Now we can go to Ms. Devine, please. Good evening, Linda. We can't quite hear you yet. Hold on. Speak again. Not yet. Hold on.

Okay. We should be. We good? Yes.

That's good. Just two things. I agree with the majority of folks.

There, can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you, Linda. Go ahead.

I'm so sorry. I did support the expansion when the city's able to do that. I agree with the commenters tonight. I'm one of those dog owners that has dogs with PTSD, so I don't go over there just because my dogs are very reactive but my other thing is is that i would caution on entrance fees and i know that always you know it helps with the budget but once again then we're separating and it becomes a class issue of folks that have the money versus those that don't and so that's the only thing that i would cost and i know when they built the rickson it was the same thing you know community rec center but then so many folks aren't able to take advantage of it just because they lack the financial resources i appreciate y'all taking the time to visit with this tonight and listen to everybody thank you

thank you linda is there any further public comment on this agenda item and thank you all for your time and engagement and being here it's been very informative uh to us i think i think generally uh there's support uh for this and um so um

So I just have a follow-up question based on the comment. I was out at Greenbelt running the other day and came back to water my dog as well. Can you give us an update on the status of that if there are plans to have that water? Because I know that the water fountains for humans are also not working. So if you could just give us a quick update, that'd be great.

yes honorable mayor through you to the vice mayor um we we are uh looking at a better option uh the the water fountain that's out there um has just continually had frost problem like basically winterization uh problems and so After multiple attempts to try and repair and patch it together, I've just made the call, we need to replace it. So as we're looking at some other dog water fountains in a couple of other spots, so we hope to have an order placed and installed before the end of the summer. May not be helpful this year, but hopefully start up in the spring with a working water system out there.

Thank you for that update. Thank you for the update. And this concludes our work session. And thank you very much. And next we'll go on to council updates. Councillor Freed.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't have any updates as of now, but come a week or two, I'll have four boards of commission, so I'll be able to report back soon.

Thank you. Councillor Lockhart.

I was able to attend the Planning Commission last evening and they just had one subject and it was at the Cirrus Sky Park to a final plot for four new lots and then moving UL to another building, an existing building, and then moving Saffron to two other existing units, but expanding Cirrus Sky Park. That's about it.

Thank you. Councillor Newman.

Just an update that we have a meeting tomorrow. with a dinner.

Okay.

Vice mayor. Thank you, Mayor. The DDA met. They did not have a quorum. The downtown plan is kind of coming together and getting ready for the public part of it, but we wanted to wait to kind of approve that until we can all come back together, and so we postponed any further discussion on that until we could all be there. Pilot Hill had a big celebration day to kick off The... the oh my gosh words the trailhead trailhead thank you the new facilities facilities huge huge turnout of people it was fantastic um something that I think we can be proud to have supported along the way um and then uh let's see main street meets Monday I will not be in town for that but they have said it's okay that we don't have somebody there I'll just send an update from city council And I think other than lots of meetings with lots of people that I'm sure you all have had too. That's it.

Thank you. And believe this or not, I've been in 10,000 meetings, but nothing official. So I did go to the Pilot Hill Trailhead grand opening. It was a fabulous occasion. And it was, I really received, as I shared with you all, a lot of very positive and encouraging comments from the people who were there about the work we do. We have LCBA coming up, Airport Board coming up. Other than that, Councilor O'Doherty, updates?

So the letter that we're asking Council to send to Pacific Corps, that was at the advice of the Environmental Advisory Committee. And I just want to point out that when I contacted the Blue Sky program at Pacific Court, they said over 10,000 customers in Laramie are paying into the Blue Sky program. And if you think about, we have 8,000 water customers. And so at my house, there's four people, one customer. And so apartment buildings could have one water customer, but four, you know, whatever. Anyway, I think that's phenomenal that at least a third of our population is paying extra to Pacific Corps. in the hope of encouraging renewables so that we shouldn't be shy about asking them for projects for the city like we have, but I mean, to bring more back into Laramie. And then the Environmental Advisory Commission meets again next week. That's all I have to say. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Shumway. No updates. Okay. Councillor Vigil.

Hold on.

um but i just wanted to give a big shout out to um our larry main street for our farmers market i have gone the past two weeks and it's been amazing we have a lot of really great produce from a lot of different areas and it's been really fun i've gotten to try some of the new green beans they're like white and purple spotted and that's super fun and then i'd also like to thank the lds church I know that there's a huge semi-truck coming to Laramie here this week, and a lot of people will benefit in our Laramie community from that. So I would like to thank the church very much. Thanks.

Thank you. And Councillor Bolling.

Thank you, Mayor. If you think the produce at the farmers market is great, you should see the haul that Councillor Vigil pulled out of her own yard. A couple of things. We had two applications to Youth Council. They were both re-applications from participants last year and so the other counselors and I just approved those via email vote. I did attend beautification committee for Councillor Richardson. There was some reports on the community cleanup from Mr. Sandoval, some discussions about ongoing funding and fiscal agent, fiscal sponsor options now that the beautification committee is no longer in partnership with ELPAC. and a conversation about some wifi connectivity for downtown and creating a mesh network that can help tough guys more accurately control those lighting mechanisms. The last thing that I'll say is that on August 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th, the LPD is hosting an inter-agency active shooter training. I think the 5th and the 6th are full days with the option of people volunteering as role players. I'm attending the 10 to four slot on the fifth, and we'll be volunteering to be, for lack of a better word, a robber, not a cop. So if you are interested in role playing, you can contact me. I'll put you in contact with Evan Karamer over at the LPD.

thank you uh counselor doherty um i i noticed that the police advisory board had an op-ed in the paper about that i thought maybe you'd want to mention yes thank you for for mentioning that there was an op-ed about this exact thing so people can be directed to that thank you

Thank you very much. So, counselors, have you had a chance to look at the agenda? And are there any suggestions for, first of all, change to the consent agenda? Okay, seeing none. our regular agenda? Any comments or concerns?

I think it's too long.

Too long. I will tell you that Chief Johnson told me the shorter the agenda, the longer counselor questions. Keep that in mind.

Not like a three-hour work session.

All righty. With no further ado, We are adjourned. Thank you, counselors, very much.