City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is June 16th, 2026. Tonight is a regular meeting of the City Council, Louisville, Colorado. Can we get a roll call?

Council Member Dickinson.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Hamlington. Here. Council Member Fahey. Here. Council Member Kern. Present. Council Member Heffner.

Here.

Mayor Lay.

Here.

Council Member Cooperman.

Here.

Can you join with me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

First item tonight is the executive session concerning real property acquisition. and disposition. City Manager is requesting an executive session for the purpose of discussing real property acquisitions and dispositions pursuant to Section 5 of the Home Rule Charter. and CRS 2464024A, specifically as to appraisals and other value estimates and strategy. Prior to entertaining any motion, the city clerk will read a statement required by the city code.

It is the policy of the city to conduct public business and meetings open to the public. While in executive session, it is inappropriate to take straw votes, keep minutes, or to make any final decisions. It is the duty of each member to ensure that executive sessions are conducted in strict compliance with this ordinance, state and federal law, and any applicable provisions of the state and federal constitutions. If at any time the scope, nature or parameter of this executive session goes beyond the publicly stated topic, it is the responsibility of the council to terminate and cease any further deliberation within the executive session and return to the public meeting. Only those topics described in city ordinances may be discussed in an executive session. Those topics are summarized as follows. One, where federal or state law requires that the information being discussed remain confidential. Two, certain personnel matters involving only employees directly appointed by the council and other personnel matters upon request of the city manager or mayor. Three, consideration of water rights and real property acquisitions and dispositions, but only as to appraisals, value estimates and strategy. Four, legal consultation with an attorney representing the city with respect to pending litigation.

Regarding the authority for the executive session, Section 5-2C of the Home Rule Charter authorizes an executive session for the purpose of discussing real property acquisitions and dispositions, but only as to appraisals and other estimates of value and strategy. An executive session for this purpose is also authorized by the Open Meetings Law, Section 2464024A of the Colorado Revised Statutes. The request involves potential acquisition and disposition of real property. With that, Mayor, you may entertain a motion to go into executive session for consideration of real property acquisitions and dispositions.

I move to go into executive session with the purpose of real property acquisitions and dispositions, and the executive session include city manager Diana Langley, community development director Rob Zaccaro, and city attorney Kathleen Kelly. Can I get a roll call? Actually, do you need a second? Second. Any comment? Can we get a roll call, please?

Councilmember Kern? Yes. Councilmember Cooperman?

Yes.

Councilmember Heffner?

Yes.

Councilmember Dickinson?

Yes.

Councilmember Fahey? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Hamlington? Yes.

Yes. Just to, it looks like there are several people who are on the Zoom right now. Executive session is going to be a time when the council meets itself in another room. We will resume the meeting no earlier than 6 p.m. So in the meantime, there will be a I think a caption up on the council website or on the Zoom that indicates that we'll be in executive session during that time. So thank you and we'll prepare to the executive session. Thanks. All right. Welcome back. We were in executive session. Now we're back on for the rest of the meeting. But we have a report from our city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor and council is noted on the meeting agenda. The executive session was for the purpose of discussing real property acquisitions and dispositions. And the city council had such discussion. There's no follow-up requested from the council at this time.

Thank you. First item is the approval of the agenda. Do we have a motion?

So moved. Second. Any discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Very well. Next is public comments on items not on the agenda and items on the consent agenda. Do we have any public comments? Okay, I don't see any online, so let me run. Our next item is approval of the consent agenda. Do we have a motion on that? Moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Council informational comments and committee reports. Do we have those? Yes.

Yes, I just want to mention that I'm a day late, but yesterday was World Elder Abuse Day, and I attended a Boulder County meeting regarding that, and one of our staff people, Katie Tofte, from our senior center was there participating in the presentation. I just want everyone to know that if you are experiencing any kind of abuse that you should contact our senior center staff. They know what to do. They know how to connect you with whatever help will help you and actually help you make the decision of what kind of help would help you. So I just want to say our staff is wonderful and please go access them if you have any issues at all.

Yes, Councilmember Cruz.

Thanks. Just a reminder that the 24th next week is Bike to Anywhere Day. It's most commonly heard of as Bike to Work Day, but it's literally Bike Anywhere. Bike, walk, take public transit, leave the car at home is probably what it should be called, Leave the Car at Home Day. So just encouraging everybody to get involved. The city is sponsoring a stop in the morning out here in front of City Hall, and there'll be one at Paul's Coffee, and there'll be an evening one in Broomfield that our own Infinitus Pie is sponsoring. So I encourage everybody to get involved and enjoy that. Thank you.

Other comments? Um, I had a couple. One is that we had a block party on Sunday, uh, just down the street at the fire station, um, sponsored by Marshall together and city. Um, it was a lot of fun. Um, I can say that, uh, I think I had probably the most fun on this council of people who went cause I played in the foam, um, What was it, sort of the foam spreader? I don't know. It was the coolest device to blow foam all over the place. And we got a picture of it with staff and a member of the cultural advisory committee. Anyway, but it was well attended, a lot of fun. I appreciate Iris, I think, helped to organize that on our Council of Iris Belinsky, and as did Brandy, our Director of Cultural Affairs. So anyway, that was fun. Another thing is that ballots are out. Those of you who received them, please vote in the... primaries that are coming up, all very important. Sometimes people don't vote in primaries thinking it's less important. I think in our state, sometimes it's more important. So do that.

Yes. Two things. I'm hearing that the sound is not working on our zoom. So it's, Okay, great. And then I just want to mention that Friday is Juneteenth. I hope that you guys find a way to celebrate. I'll be watching men's World Cup soccer on my back patio. If anyone wants to come by and hang out, we'll be doing ribs. But excited for Juneteenth and to celebrate that important holiday. Just wanted to mention that as well.

Um, thanks. Does the city manager report or does the city manager report have the city manager? Does the city manager have a city manager report?

Yes, thank you. So this Thursday starts our summer concerts in the park, and it's kind of kickoff of the season for our arts and events team. The city offices are closed this Friday for Juneteenth, so thank you. After tonight's meeting, council will go on break, and our next council meeting is not scheduled until July 14th. And then I just want to say congratulations to Brandy on her one-year anniversary with the city today. Thank you for spending it with us tonight, Brandy.

All right.

First item of regular business is resolution number 58, series 2026, a resolution designating the residence located at 733 McKinley Avenue, a historical landmark to be named the Hilton House, and approving a preservation and restoration grant.

And we've got a presentation from our

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, Rob Zuccaro, Community Development Director. I'm filling in for our senior planner, Jess Daniels, who wasn't able to be here this evening, but happy to present on this. So there's a request before you for a, as you mentioned, a local landmark designation and a historic preservation grant request for 733 McKinley Avenue. This has been reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission. They're recommending approval of the landmark designation and naming the house the Hilton House. House, which comes with a landmark incentive of $7,700. They've approved the alteration certificate for restoration work and a building addition on the property. They are recommending approval of a preservation and restoration grant for up to $18,555.05 and a matching credit of $7,405.06 based on the cost estimates. This is the first time I think that we've done a credit within our new funding resolution. We allow credits for previous scopes of work that would meet the requirements for preservation, restoration, and rehabilitation if it was done within five years of the landmark designation. And then there's a new construction grant that's part of the request for a building addition. So staff is recommending the same as the Historic Preservation Commission. Here's a couple of photos of the property historic photo from 1948 to a current image there is a significant amount of Architectural integrity remaining with the house and then the proposed work will bring back some of the historic elements as well So it is staff is finding it meets the landmark criteria for age social significance and physical integrity of the building and Here's just a summary of some of the costs associated with the preservation and restoration work that is eligible for the grants. Happy to answer any questions if you have any on that. Again, here's just a summary of the grant breakdown as well as how the credit works out, which would come out of the grant funds to go towards the total grant. They are proposing an addition to the building. Again, that design has been approved by the Historic Preservation Commission, and they would be accessing the new construction grant for that property in addition to their preservation and restoration grants. So with that, staff is recommending approval of the request and would be happy to answer any questions. The property owners are here this evening. They don't have a presentation, but could answer any questions if there are any.

Any questions from council? Yes.

I just had one small question. On the addition to the home, it talks about using cedar siding, and I was wondering if that is compatible with our home hardening code.

That would not be compatible with our home hardening code, so we'd have to work with the applicants on that. There are some... You know, on the historic home, you can waive that, but you couldn't waive it on a building addition. So we would have to work with them on that.

Okay. Thank you.

Other questions? Okay. Any public comment on this one? All right. Take it back to council discussion. Is there any discussion? Yes.

Yeah, generally I'm in support. I think it's fantastic. It's always nice for something, I guess, novel, like a first credit, right? I think that's a wonderful tool, right, to honor the work that has been done recently for the historic preservation, so I'm in support of that. You know, I'm reminding myself that, you know, the addition doesn't necessarily match the architecture of the original building, which is intentional to, you know, separate old from new, but it's also very cool because it's. very reminiscent of what has happened over the last hundred years of like moving like shacks and connecting them and so it's a really really cool i think honoring of sort of what lewisville has done a lot and we're doing it again a new but it will add to this historic building so i think i just think the whole project is very cool and while we're not approving the alteration we have no role in proving alteration I just wanted to speak to liking it, but from the grant and the landmarking, I'm in total support.

Other comments? I want to maybe ask a question of the director that relates to what Council Member Cooperman just raised. Given that Cedar Siding is generally not conforming to our home hardening requirements, but that there's this exception, I guess, potentially for a home that's landmarked. I'm wondering, how do you make that decision and might it be appropriate for us to direct on that? I tend to think it's probably more important for you

Yeah, so I think the exception is typically on the historic elements of the home where we would make the exception for example if they want if they had wood siding on the home and it was Deteriorated and they wanted to replace all of the siding with wood siding to make sure it was historically accurate or past our threshold We can make an exception for that but on a new addition we couldn't make an exception and I not being overly familiar with the project You know we If it is Cedar, you know, there could be Cedar. They could probably use a siding that is hardened, that mimics what they want to do from a look standpoint. But I'm not familiar with all of their plans. But we couldn't make an exception for the addition.

Any other discussion? Do you have a motion?

Yeah, I move to approve Resolution No. 58, Series 2026. Second.

Any discussion? Okay. I think it's just a resolution. So all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations. Good luck. All right. Our next item, B, is ordinance number 1927, series 2026, an ordinance amending chapter 13.08 with the Louisville Municipal Code concerning metering of water usage in mobile home parks. It's a second reading. It's on for public hearing. Recognize that we're going to have two rounds of public comment because we've got an ordinance on this. So let staff take it away.

Evening, Mayor and Council. Corey Peterson, Deputy Director of Utilities. Once again, I'll be brief on this topic. The purpose of this ordinance is to allow the installation of a primary meter for the service of our mobile home park. Follow-up questions from our last meeting was there's some concern about Those mobile home parks still being eligible for Sister Carmen and utility billing assistance along with everything else they provide, they would still maintain that ability. So that was something we were able to confirm from the last council meeting to this. And with that, I'll turn it over to questions.

Thank you. Questions from council members. Yes, council member Kern.

So there was a question and it just got answered briefly. I'm just curious, how will people get the inserts that normally come with their water bills, which are kind of public service notices, if they're no longer receiving a water bill? How can we ensure that?

This is actually a bigger issue than just this specific topic. If you recall last fall when we had our billing incident that occurred with our third party vendor, the reason it occurred was because they were attaching our billing inserts to the electronic bills. At that point in time, we stopped doing that because we wanted to minimize risk. And so anyone who's currently receiving electronic utility bill does not get our utility bill inserts. And so that's why when we send out newsletters, when we send out posts on social media, posts on the website, we're posting a lot of the same things that are in the utility bill inserts. So for those folks that do not get the paper bill that actually has the inserts, they can still have access to the same information. It's just not coming in the form of the printed insert.

So then, so they still can receive that in a printed format with the, like the lantern, since that is one of the things that we still mail out?

A lot of that same information is in the various monthly newsletters that we do or the lantern or other posts that we put out via the GovDelivery or through social media. You know, and then for people that get the paper bill, they can still, you know, augment to get the e-mail bill as well. And so this is a bigger issue than something that Ryder and I have been talking about. Like, how do we address this just to make sure that everybody has access? And in working with comms, a lot of the same information is going out in various media. So then I think a bigger discussion would be, are the utility bill inserts still valuable based upon all of the ways that we market information right now? Because there is a cost for us to print those and then mail them out.

Good, thank you. Probably, it would be good for us to talk about that then. And then, do you have plans to meet with the community members and maybe with the owner of the park prior to any of these changes being implemented so that they can be aware of what to expect?

We did plan on at least sending notices. That was kind of the bare minimum that we were planning on doing. So each individual mobile home park will get a notice about the change and what that means. And then we will plan on meeting with the actual mobile home park once this is approved.

So the individual residents will receive a notice like a couple of months in advance of this change?

Yes, to let them know that they'll no longer be a utility billing customer and kind of expect what those changes would look like.

So there will be a conversation then, so you'll be able to inform them of what they are. That's why we didn't know if you could meet with the owner and the rest, so they would know what was expected, not just what was no longer going to be provided.

Correct, yeah. The idea is to give them the full changeover so they would know what's coming prior to it actually changing.

Okay, thank you. Other questions? Yes, Council Member Dickens.

I apologize for this, but I just want to read it into the record. It's not a question or statement, but just wanted it like said publicly. The fiscal impact conversion of existing mobile home park to primary meeting configuration will result in cost to the city. associated with installation primary meter related infrastructure improvements. These costs have been anticipated and budgeted. And then the next line is utility costs to the mobile home park are expected to remain generally consistent following conversion and may potentially be reduced depending on operational efficiencies and internal management practices. So it's just something I was looking for, like is there going to be an increased cost to the mobile home park residents and just wanted to read your fiscal impact out loud to kind of add that to the record. Thank you.

Any other questions? Yes. Council Member Cooperman.

First, I want to clarify something that you sent in response to some previous questions. So at my home, which is just a single family home in a neighborhood, there's a water main in the street. And then there's a line that takes that water to my home. And then there's the meter basically where it comes into my home, right? And so the line from the street to my home, who is responsible for that line?

Yeah. So we define that as the service line. And in most cases, the service line is the responsibility of the homeowner or the property owner.

Right. Okay. So... So in a sense, what's happening is that there's the public main, then there is a private service line, and then there is a public meter in a single family home. How does that compare to what is in the mobile home park?

So the difference is with the mobile home park, you have the city main connected to a private main, which is then connected to a private service line, which is then connected to the public meter.

Okay. Thank you. Another question. So I didn't have a chance, but I was thinking, you know, why are we doing this by ordinance? And I guess the answer is that we just codify in our ordinance how this kind of, how these relationships work. So it, you know, it's not just the mobile home park, but I assume that in other neighborhoods too, the way in which we deal with these issues is also codified in ordinance.

That's correct. It's all codified in chapter 13. Right.

Okay. That's helpful. Um, And then maybe a follow-up question. So what's before us would apply to not just existing but also new mobile home parks. That is potentially. Yeah, it could potentially. So I'm just wondering, do we have similar language with regards to, say, a new apartment building or a new subdivision or whatever? Would they be treated in a similar kind of way, or is it? in what we currently have in our codes or, I don't know, are we somehow setting up a new category going forward that's different?

Yes, so this ordinance does set up a specific category for mobile home parks. All other facilities are captured already in the existing code.

Okay. And then I guess just one last question. Have we done any outreach to the residents so far?

We have not. There's been no communications with the folks in the mobile home park.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Any other comments? All right. Why don't we go to public comment? Do we have any public comment requests? Nope. All right. Back to council for any. Thoughts, clarifications, discussion? Sounds like...

I just want to make really, this is a comment instead of the question piece, but I would like to just ensure, since you are going to be sending notices to those residents, that the clarification of what they also need to provide the Sister Carmen organization to take advantage of any assistance that may be required is in that, and that those notices are in Spanish and English to help that particular neighborhood. I would appreciate both of those things. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

All right. Further public or any public comment?

No?

All right. Back to council.

Mayor, I make a motion. Please. I move that we pass ordinance number 1927, series 2026 on second reading.

Second. Any discussion? Yes. Council Member Cooperman?

Actually, can I ask another question?

Okay.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm still kind of uncomfortable with this ordinance. I mean, I feel like I might be comfortable with it eventually, or soon, but I'm not quite comfortable with it yet. I guess what I would... What I would maybe like is to have done, to do outreach to the residents to let them know that this is occurring prior to actually bringing it through. And maybe that won't result in anything, but I feel like this is a very targeted ordinance. And it also is affecting people who are probably some of the least involved in the city. And they haven't, I don't think it's required, but they haven't gotten any kind of notice from the city that something is changing about how their water service is going to be provided. And I still have a little bit of concern that we're treating them in a different way than we might treat some other neighborhoods. So I'm still quite hesitant about going through with this. I guess what I might like would be to hold off and do that kind of outreach. and then just take it back up after our break.

Might you want to make a friendly amendment in lieu of that?

We can do that if you like. Can I ask, Josh, what your concern is for an individual resident? What is it you're hoping to avoid other than just knowing about it? What's the concern that is happening to them?

Yeah, I guess my main concern is that I'm still not convinced that we are treating the people who live there in the same way that we're treating people who live in some other neighborhood. So, I mean, they're, you know, as... Corey Peterson pointed out, you know, the setup of their water system is a little bit different than some other places. But there's still, you know, in most neighborhoods, there's still a private portion in between the main and the meter. And, okay, it's a little bit different in their neighborhood. So in all the other neighborhoods, what we're doing is we're going around and replacing meters, and that's it. and we're collectively paying that through the sales tax and whatnot that we've collected as a city. Whereas here, we're saying, okay, we're just gonna put in this primary meter, and yes, the city is paying for that. And then we're just leaving it up to, I don't know, whatever their, you know, whatever their management decides to do, you know, within the law for how they're then treated. So I just, I don't know, it just feels like, you know, me in my home, for instance, I'm being treated one way and these people because they live somewhere else and okay, there are a few little differences are being treated in a different way.

Other comments? Yes.

So this is definitely a concern of mine as well. And Councilmember Cooper and I have discussed this, you know, off the dais as well because we share this concern. I brought this up a couple of weeks ago and we discussed it. A lot around billing that, you know, if you have a four-person household versus a one and if the owner doesn't come up with a more equitable way to do billing, my understanding is there are some equity requirements around that. And I actually... based on more information that came from our Public Works Department, was thinking about the meters at the individual residences within that neighborhood. And if the meter is not accessible, so therefore it needs to get relocated, and that line needs to change that's on their private property, because a lot of the meters are actually not accessible by our staff and that's creating an issue. The individual owner will be responsible for the cost related to going from the community line to their individual meter in their home. And I feel that that would be an undue burden on those homeowners to have to pay because roughly 50% of those lines are being impacted. that are either blocked or would need to be relocated somehow from where they're hidden or very difficult to access anyway. And we would not, as the city, be covering that because that's technically part of their private line and the service line and would be required to pay for that. That would be far more burdensome, I believe, than receiving a bill from the park owner. And that's where I feel that this should still move forward and actually might help them from having a couple thousand dollars worth of line costs. If that helps.

Any other comments? Yes, Council Member.

I'll just say for me. I mean, I think it's a fair point But as I understand the conditions right now It's it's not safe to be sending our staff into the places they need to go to get to these meters and I'm not comfortable continuing a situation that creates a safety issue for Public Works All right Close the let's we have the motion I

I think we need to take a roll call at this point. Mayor Pro Tem.

Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton. Yes. Council Member Dickinson. Yes. Council Member Heffner.

Yes.

Council Member Kern. Yes. Council Member Fahey. Yes. Council Member Cooperman.

No.

Mayor Lay.

Yes. Thank you. The next item is discussion, direction, action on potential 2026 ballot measure, the historic preservation tax. Just this one alone. And I wanted to, I guess, introduce this only because I was the chair of the task force that started this, and most of this I'll obviously leave to others. We had a wonderful task force, which had a variety of people who hadn't done any kind of board work or anything in the city which was kind of refreshing, actually. And a number of folks who weren't that familiar with the historic preservation tax more. They were familiar with paying taxes, that's for sure, which was part of the point, right? But not so much with the program and kind of its evolution. I think staff did an absolutely terrific job, and Sama Fox, our deputy city manager, kind of was the point person on that. She's not here today, but did a great job in bringing that forward and helping us understand the issues. And I thought the discussions were really enlightening. I think the questions were really good. I can tell you that there were additional concerns that I hadn't heard from many people about the museum and its functioning and its financing that were very compelling to people on the task force, and we didn't reach entire consensus around how much or how to split the tax as between the traditional historic preservation function and the historic preservation function relating to the museum. But we're gonna hear more about that tonight. I think we've got a proposal that is very worthwhile and I'll be very interested in what the council says about it. And with that, I'm gonna pitch it to Brandi Cummings.

You can keep going while I get the slides up, that's great. All right. Switch our tech over, I apologize.

Make sure this guy comes back up. All right.

So thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm Brandi Cummings, your Director of Cultural Services. And I'm here presenting on the Historic Preservation Tax Task Force, Recommendations and Process. A brief background on the tax and the task force itself. We received council direction in late April. which created the task force by resolution. The task force was charged with providing a recommendation to council by June 30th. We are here today to do so. And then the task force by resolution sunsets on July 31st. The purpose of the task force was to answer three essential questions. One, should the historic preservation tax be placed on the 2026 fund? ballot for voter consideration with the tax ending in 2028. Should there be adjustments to the allocations of the revenue from this tax currently? Currently, 20% of the tax goes to museum operations. And then the amount of preservation tax, should the tax stay the same change? And if so, what should those changes be? The task force was made up of representation from council, community members, and also our historic preservation commission and our historic museum advisory board, as well as chamber members and local architects to ensure a robust conversation. The task force was small but mighty and met very quickly and discussed many things, as the mayor said, with a lot of conversation being had around equity, public good, allocation and alternatives. Our first meeting was May 13th, and then our second meeting, our final meeting was May 28th. During those conversations, a variety of ideas came up that the task force would like to present to council for future recommendation or future consideration, such as revisiting the program and considering adjustments, allowing more creativity or autonomy in the staff who are operating those programs. There was a desire for more education and programming around both historic preservation and the history of Louisville itself. There was a clear desire for concise ballot language that was easy for the voters to understand. And there was a lot of talk about the love of a beautiful video often shown on Channel 8 called History of Louisville. We promised the task force we would highly recommend it to all of you if you have not yet seen it. So in our two brief meetings, the task force tackled a lot of topics, dove really deep into the history of the tax, and ultimately, the answers you see before you are the recommendations from the committee. When asked if the Preservation tax should be expired or should expiring has a reservation tax we put on to the ballot the task force voted yes when asked about whether or not the amount of the tax should change the tax is a point one two five or one eight percent tax the task force felt no the amount should stay the same The task force also recommended adjustments to the allocations. They wanted to see no less than 30, no more than 40% to the museum. And they wanted to add in flexibility beyond incentives. So currently there are three provisions inside of the tax that carves out how those funds can be used. And there was a desire for a fourth item. which would include programming, capital, city-owned facilities, which right now are not provided in that tax, but also that the programming around the historic preservation, around the history of Louisville, wouldn't have to be allocated to just one department or one team, but rather that could be a group lift. And the task force also recommends extending the tax for an additional 10 years. So this would be the third time the tax would go out for a 10-year extension. So before we jump into council questions, before you, what you'll be asked to answer is, do you want to pursue the tax extension ballot question in 2026? If yes, do you want to follow the task force's recommendation? If no, we're looking for direction from council. I promised Sam a reminder of the election timeline. And so we do have a deadline of July 24th to get anything to Boulder County for coordination for that. Election and then we do have some next steps with you July 14th. We will have a joint HPC and HMAD meeting with council And that will be the same day that you read your first potential ballot question the second reading of the ballot being on July 21st With that I would welcome questions Yes

Thank you for the presentation, Brandy. My question is centered on the 30 to 40% allocation for the museum. And the reason why this question comes to mind for me is the outcomes from the open space and parks tasks and the impact of that ballot language on those funds that we're still navigating. Has there been any sort of evaluation as to whether or not that increase could have an unintentional consequence, negative consequence, on the funds that could then be used for Item 4, which is being proposed to be added, and or the current uses of the funds?

Yeah, so in conversation with Director Zuccaro, we felt that the 30% limit did not create an issue, especially looking at the history of there being a surplus in the historic preservation tax funding. However, I would open the floor to Director Zuccaro to speak further about that impact.

Yeah, so the task force did look at evaluation of scenarios. You know, we don't know how many landmarks. We try pretty aggressively with our incentive packages to try to get landmarks to come in. Based on, you know, different scenarios, you know, we would have to dip into fund balance. depending on how many residential and commercial properties come in over time. So that analysis is in there. We can certainly provide that for first reading so you can see the, because it's really almost impossible to tell, you know, some years we have two landmarks, some years we have six or more residential landmarks, which is a bigger impact on the fund. We don't know what the future holds. So that's kind of a, you know, we can't answer it for certain, but I think it's helpful just to look at what different scenarios are and what we could fund with you know we're getting about a million dollars a year right so right now it's 80 20 split about 800 000 into the historic preservation and senate fund 200 000 into the museum with the current restrictions on what they could spend it on so you know our our balance is two and a half million right now um so um If we're very successful, we could run out of funds. If we meet current trends, we may be able to sustain it, but it depends on the 30% to 40%, right? So the task force actually was split between the 30% and 40%, and I think that's intended to be the floor of what the museum gets, depending on what council decides. how to draft the language. So if it's 30%, that might be a $700,000 to the incentive fund, $300,000 to the museum, versus $600,000 and $400,000 to each group.

Sure. That's really helpful. So a follow-up question. For the open space, there is a land acquisition portion of that fund. And that land acquisition percentage can be adjusted by council. Is there a vision where something similar could benefit this, the museum and the needs of the museum if the costs do increase to have the flexibility to go above 30 to 40% and if the costs are lower, it can vary over time? Or do you think having like a set percentage is really the best path forward for this?

Yeah, thanks. I think part of the discussion that the task force had was that the current historic preservation tax funding makes up over 70% of the museum's operating funds, with that 30% that remains being split between a variable grant and direct funding from the the general fund. And so having a number that we can budget to is really important. So we wouldn't want to see it fluctuate below a certain number. So that way we can make appropriate long-term decisions and planning. However, I think that in the years depending on the will of council, depending on their decision about the percentage, there could certainly be opportunity for that flexibility. I think that was the goal with the fourth item being added with the programmatic element not having to be assigned to just planning or just HPC or just the museum, but rather that being sort of that flexibility for us to operationally be successful and then be able to provide above and beyond together rather than those funds being restricted.

Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you both.

Other questions? Yes. Council Member Dickinson.

Yeah, can you elaborate a little bit on, so, you know, what I'm hearing is, you know, we currently have been collecting, you know, near 200K a year for museum operational expenses. And if we were to go to 40, we'd be doubling the amount of money we're putting towards museum operational expenses. Can you help us understand that? I have more questions, but where that $200,000 would be spent or how that $200,000 would be spent?

Yeah, so thank you for the opportunity to elaborate. Again, to talk about the museum's budget for a moment. $24,000 come from the general fund directly. Everything else is based on the tax, which is variable based on sales tax every year. And then funding from the SC... SCFD grant which is a competitive grant and so the additional should we say 30% so a 10% increase $100,000 provides stability for the funding gaps. We currently have for the rising cost of services As you know as we explained and as we explored in the 101 South Taylor exploration city storage and city space is at a beyond capacity. And so as a result of that, one of the things that we are currently doing at the museum with our collection, which is predominantly community-driven collection, is renting offsite storage. Right now, we are exceeding our budget cost. That is now up to $17,000. And by 2028, that'll be $20,000. that comes out of the operational funds for the museum every day. So a 30% reallocation allows us to stabilize to not have to do any service level reductions with a flat budget year. Anything above that allows us to investigate what additional staffing might look like to be able to provide museum level and museum quality services based on those professional standards and also get through that community backlog. It isn't determined yet. It'll depend on what is available to us, but also there are other needs that still need to be explored and met to give you a firm, complete answer of where that money might go. Everything we do goes back into public education and public resources.

That's great. So back in 2017, we expanded the area in which the funds can go, right? So it's citywide. So there's no consideration of needing to do anything around where we can apply the funds, right? Am I correct?

Yes. In 2017, the location expanded outside of Old Town with a supermajority vote of approval from council.

So it's still subject to a vote. But anyways, they're welcome to apply and then it just has to pass.

Yeah, if they meet the age criteria and all the other criteria, there could be applications outside of Old Town.

Great. And then, yeah, so, well, those might be. Was there, so I'm curious if there's consideration for, or if it has to be in the ballot, I guess is the question, for using the funds differently for historic preservation. So for example, you know, Landmarked homes being able to come back 10, 20 years after they were landmarked and say, hey, new things have come up with my landmarked home that are really expensive for all the reasons that landmarked home, historic home is expensive. Can I come back and get more help for restoring this or dealing with this? Or now my foundation is crumbling or whatever. Like, have we looked into that?

So that's been a big ongoing policy discussion. I think as we've updated the resolution multiple times over multiple years and there's lots of discussions about maintaining the fund and equity around that. And so there's pros and cons to doing it from having a sustainable fund. We've looked at the original ballot language which heavily relies on this being an incentive to preserve. property, which has been interpreted to mean we're trying to incentivize entering into the landmarking program. That could maybe be interpreted differently. I think, you know, if you wanted, so I think that outside of the, I think it's a really interesting discussion, but maybe outside of the ballot language about when we do those funding resolutions, we have purposely limited people being able to come back after a certain amount of time. And there's a lot of debate and pros and cons to be discussed around that But I don't I don't know that it needs to be in the ballot this ballot language iteration Okay, so I'm trying to say is it would it be

Would it resolve it if it were, but it doesn't need to be because we can deal with it at another time? Like, would it be nice for the ballot measure to include language that says it can be used differently? Would that be helpful, but then would be a debate and we'd have to decide to do that? Or is it not necessary?

Right. So I think if you look at the current ballot language, it says that you have to use it for incentives for preservation. It doesn't. So I think what we determine is preservation and what does it mean to be an incentive for preservation, right? It doesn't say that it's an incentive to enter into the landmarking program, although that's how we have implemented it for the last 18 years, is that we have limited it to that because that most clearly meets what we think was the intent was that we want to use this money to preserve the property. We have opened that up to say that if you income qualify there's different allowances and I think that could be a good way to go again outside of the ballot language but If somebody has a crumbling foundation and they truly would have trouble paying for it, that could be a good use of the fund while still preserving the majority of the fund for incentives because the ability to pay with different property owners is going to be different.

Okay. And my last question, and I'll have some other comments later, but my last question would be, was there any conversation around the time, you know, I think we have a 50-year, the home has to be more than 50 years old to qualify. This is going to go out until 2037, meaning a house built in 1985. would qualify for historic preservation. Was there any conversation about setting an actual year of which we are trying to preserve history?

Yeah, this task force did not talk about that. That's been certainly talked about significantly over time. And I think that in addition to the age, you do have to meet the architectural and social criteria. So again, that's an interesting conversation. Some communities do set a period of time for significance in order to qualify for local landmarking programs. We haven't done that. I think that's in the ballot language, the 1950 language. So, I mean, it could be up for consideration, but it wasn't considered by the task force.

Okay. Yeah, because I think there's, you know, we have landmarks. What is it, 40 something? What are we at in landmark buildings?

We're around 60 commercial and residential properties.

So, you know, I think we've seen all this success in landmark and landmark and landmarking. And at what point does Louisville become... focused on preserving our landmarked properties as opposed to finding more landmarked properties. But like we've got these, let's say 80 that have been landmarked. What do we, are these funds to help preserve those 80 or is it to get 81 and 82? And I think that's where my emphasis goes on like, Do we need that language that this money is maybe shifting to preserving our landmarked properties? But that's the kind of language I'll be interested to see in this next round. I certainly want this to move forward and certainly excited to support it generally. But that's probably it for me.

any other questions yes um pardon me are you able to better explain what this added fourth item is i'm i'm a little confused by programs for the city and owned something outside of the museum i was just curious to get a little bit more information on what that idea that thinking is

Yeah, absolutely. So as the task force was working through the current ballot language, the current ballot language restricts the museum's portion of the funding to operational costs only, which means that we cannot use it for any capital improvements on the museum campus or on city-owned buildings like the miners' cabins, which are a great example historic preservation opportunity that we have started and not made progress on so by expanding that language it's going to allow for a little bit more flexibility and for the experts in those areas to apply the funds to areas that have great need for the programmatic piece there was a big desire from the community members on the committee to see more education and education opportunities around not only historic preservation actions, but also the history of Louisville itself. So those cannot currently be encumbered by the museum staff and the museum's budget strictly and solely. So the thought was that by keeping that as an open and unrestricted opportunity, that could be a collaboration between the museum and planning. That could be the library coming in and doing something. That could be interpretive signage throughout different communities and neighborhoods. And so it was to create more flexibility for how the funds are spent with the approval of HPC. So it's not just a sort of willy-nilly, we're going to slap history on this and now we're going to charge it to the fund.

And so the thought process was only increasing the budget of the museum funding by 10%, or was it that this would be additional beyond the 10% that could then go to the museum?

Correct. That would be additional that we could apply for through HPC to say we would like to do a program on the history of the empire. And it's outside of our budget capacity, but we have this wonderful speaker we'd like to bring in. Would HPC consider this as an appropriate use of those funds?

Okay. And then it would be a similar process for the museum then to apply for capital funds, kind of like you would, like a resident or a business would?

So it would open those additional funds up to capital, but also the current funds allocated to the museum, it would remove the restriction of it not being capital. So that gives us a multitude of avenues to approach for those needs.

And I think a big difference, if I can just add on to that, is, you know, preserving our historic homes, like, Preservation work is typically limited to the exterior of the home or a foundation or something that needs work. I think this would open it up to doing historic interpretation within the miners' cabins, for example, so they could use funds to renovate the interior of the cabins and make them publicly accessible and those types of things, which potentially the current ballot language doesn't allow.

Oh, that doesn't fall under operational.

No. Well, it falls within, well, maybe not even the 20% because that's not operational. So it opens it up to capital or buying those things. So it really opens it up pretty wide. So we'd have to have more discussions with the museum board, the historic preservation board, and city council really on an annual basis to figure out how to spend those funds.

And is there currently an opportunity for the city to get approval through HPC and use these funds for things like the White House next door since it's a city-owned property?

Yeah, so if it's preservation work, we have used funds since the beginning of the fund to do preservation work on city properties. I think this ballot language would clarify that a little bit, but we have used it historically over time to do that type of work.

Thank you.

Other questions? Yes, Council Member Koopman.

I'm going to follow up on that last line of questioning. Was there a recommendation for how much of the tax revenue would go into this new proposed sort of stream, this fourth one?

For the fourth stream, no, it wasn't allotted a specific number, but rather left open to be taken in on a case-by-case basis so it could be responsive to the other needs of historic preservation.

Okay. And maybe a question for the city attorney. I was just wondering, do you see any issues with sort of codifying that flexibility in ballot language, or do you think that's achievable?

I think it's achievable. I mean, the ballot language will come to the council for review and approval and we'll certainly, you know, take feedback on that.

Okay, that's fine.

Keeping within the clear and concise direction also from the task force.

Okay, so then I wanted to go back for a minute. In terms of putting the ballot question on this year as opposed to maybe next year, was there much discussion of that? Was it clear that people thought that was the best route?

The task force didn't delve deep into that discussion. They were provided with the information that council directed about wanting the question to come on this year's ballot and why, and they felt comfortable with that timeline.

Okay. And then I guess maybe my last question is maybe more for people who are my fellow council members who are on the task force, but I was hoping to get a little bit more of a sense for the arguments or whatnot that the task force thought were compelling to increase the amount of funding for the museum.

What I was going to do is actually Just in terms of process, I have a couple of comments or a number of comments to make that actually address some of the sort of elaborate on things that have already been said. So I can kind of parking lot those. And I think Council Member Fahey and I were both on the task force can kind of address some of that. Put it on my list. Are there other questions that you have or others? Anybody question? All right. Why don't we go to public comment, please?

Yes. First up is Sloan Witten, followed by Bob Muckle.

Hi, I'm Sloane Witten. I live here in Louisville, and I serve as the chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. I had the opportunity to participate in both task force meetings, and then the HPC had the opportunity at our hearing last night to have a group conversation about the task force recommendations. And the commission felt comfortable expressing our collective support of the task force recommendations with the one concern being expressed that's sort of going beyond 30%. allocation to the museum caused some concern about our ability to meet the funding needs for the programs that we administer, but we feel really good about the 30% number. Thank you.

Thank you, Sloan.

Next up is Bob Muckle.

Hi, everyone. Bob Muckle, 1101 Lincoln Avenue, private citizen. So during the writing of the first ballot, whatever year that was, Hank Dalton and Mike Medeker and I, who wrote most of that, had conversations about what should we do with the museum and should we include museum funding, and we didn't. And we didn't because we concluded, as I feel strongly, that the two are really not aligned missions. People say that. People say, yeah, they're kind of the same thing, but they are completely not the same thing. I mean, historic preservation is about preserving structures and places. It's about placemaking and community character building. Museums store artifacts. So, obviously... In the first ballot, we said we can pay the museum staff to do reports for the historic preservation program, but otherwise we didn't provide funding. So the second time around, we were compelled, the city council members at the time, were compelled that we should probably commit some funding to the museum. A lot of that was still because it was supporting the historic preservation program. But still, it's very clearly it's a preservation program. It's a very happy thing that we might have not enough money to spend on a historic preservation program because of the land working that's coming in. So that's all great news. So I'm not clear whether or not the idea is to cap the museum amounted thirty or forty percent or whether that's a floor It feels like, so if that's a floor, then I think you should not do this because if you want to run, because that will turn this into a museum tax, or it could, and if you want to run a museum tax, you should ask the voters, do they want to pay a tax for the museum as opposed to taking the historic preservation tax, which the voters have supported strongly, like by two to one and the re- in the second passage of the tax. But they put they voted for historic preservation tax, so I mean, I think if I'd be comfortable with. Expanding the use of the tax some and I'd be comfortable with a 30% cap. But not a 30% floor. So. Thanks for your time.

Thank you, Bob. Any other comments? Okay, we can take it back to council. As I said, it seemed to me since we're on the task force, Council Member Fahey and I, that we might take a few minutes to answer. We'll sort of maybe embroider on a couple of the issues and provide a perspective. Would you like to start? No? I'm glad to start, but I want to give you the...

I will say that I was really grateful for all the people who participated in the task force because it was a variety of residents, staff members, it was just the Preservation Commission, the museum boards, all the advisory boards, independent residents of the city. So we got a very broad impact look at the tax. I was especially glad that everyone was unanimous that we needed to pass this tax. We have to get it on the ballot, and this was the year to do it because of what's coming up on next year's ballot. And if it didn't pass next year, we would be out. So it was important to get it done this year. When they're talking about the designation of how much to the museum and how much to the Preservation Commission, there was a lot of back and forth. and that's why that the number came up is 3240 and There was discussion about whether that was the floor or a cap And that's kind of up to us to decide Which way we should go on that but that was the round-figure number range for it and So I am just in favor of passing the tax and give you over to the mayor for any further comments.

Thank you, Council Member Fahey. Just on a couple of things, there was a question about whether we talked about much doing this this year versus next year. And I think Council Member Fahey really hit it on the head. We just figured that the time to do it is this year as opposed to next year, because who knows what's gonna be on. I think people are worried about the economy, and when people worry about the economy, they would like taxes less. This is an extension of a tax, but nevertheless, and it would be an extension for the same percentage, but I think people are concerned about that. It's very clear, it was clear to us that we were setting a floor. It's not a cap. The 30 to 40 just recognizes that there was differences on the committee about what the floor ought to be. And so, I mean, not that it matters that much. My number was 35. But we went back and forth. And rather than just sort of pound this out, my suggestion to the task force was, Council's going to have to make a decision on this, so there's no need to be belaboring this. We can put it, you know, we can say that the group was split. I think there's a very, there was, pardon me? Well, someone that, yeah, more than, and maybe even more than that, more than 50, but there were some who really wanted to move it. There was one really wanted to move it to 50, and but was okay with 40. And the idea, I think Mayor Pro Tem mentioned the need for flexibility. I think that was definitely in the mind of the task force as we set that as a floor as opposed to a ceiling. 30%, what we were told, and Brandy reinforced this just a minute ago, keeping it the same. I mean, that's like continued kind of limping along, and it is kind of limping along. So that's, I think that's the reason for the lower number. And the upper number, as I said, reflects the difference of opinion about how much should be put in there. I think there was definitely a sense on the committee that it was, or the task force, that it was necessary not just to think of historic preservation in terms of structures. That is something that changed slightly in 2017. I mean, it was structures when it was first unfolded, but the ballot language very clearly expanded it to museum operating, and this would take it to an additional level of flexibility. And that's why that fourth point is on there about permitting these kinds of programs and other sorts of things to be spent. And we can talk about whether that's a good idea or not, but that is something that was important. I think the task force very much struggled with the idea of wanting to change the program and really getting into the details of how historic preservation and we really had to back away from that. That's not what the measure was designed to do. That's something that council may want to take up. It's not on our work plan this year, but that was not something that I was comfortable or staff was comfortable with within our purview as a task force to start redoing the whole historic preservation. What it does do, I think, is change a bit this notion that's been in the prior measures about incentives, that it's not just merely an incentive, but some money that is available to do the kind of programs that Brandy's already talked about. And I think one other piece that is worthwhile to think about is I know people do think of historic preservation sometimes as really old houses. And we do have, you know, a date for that. But there's history that is being made. And that history will need to be preserved, too. There are issues around the Marshall Fire, for example. That may be the most obvious example. And preservation of that sort of history is something that is... And, you know, I think that's just something that is... that we need to keep in mind when we're doing the tax. The tax is going to say whatever the tax, the issues that we're talking about today are gonna be reflected in the tax. I mean, it's not gonna be a historical preservation structure tax. to be used for all these other purposes. It's going to say what it is that we're planning to do with it. Just as the 2017 tax measure talked about adding the museum for the first time to the historic preservation tax. There's not a matter of misrepresenting anything. That won't happen. But it's a matter of ensuring some flexibility, I think. So those are just some thoughts. I'm glad to answer any other questions. It was really a good discussion, I think. So with that, why don't I throw it open? Public comment. To other comments and questions of council, because I know there are some. Yes. Council Member Heffner.

Yeah, thank you. First, thanks to everyone who participated or worked on the task force. It was a big ask in a short period of time, so really deeply appreciate all of the hard work that went into that. I am pleased with the recommendations, and I think the reason we convened a task force with the various stakeholders is to get... Well informed recommendations, which is what we now have. I am inclined to support them, especially given that it's now gone to HPC as well. And we have an endorsement or a recommendation from HPC at the 30% level. My preference would be to move forward with the recommendation at the 30% level with the additional category here to honor the good work of the task force.

Council Member Dickinson.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think we can potentially now stop talking about floor and ceiling, but a number, 30%, is a number I would support as the number that would go towards the museum. I resonated with Mayor Muckles comments around resident Mayor Muckles comments around this kind of slipping into a museum tax like feeling like is this a historic preservation tax or is it a museum tax and they're both really valuable and so I'm comfortable with doing 30% towards a museum but I think what there are two issues of timing that I'm curious about. Like one is we are kind of jumping the gun by two years. This doesn't expire for two years. We're going to extend it by 10 years, two years early. So you're really only getting eight more years out of this tax. Um, instead of, Oh, it will extend it as of 28, 28. Okay. My bad. So it will extend it at the end of it for another 10 years.

So part of the direction that we're looking for tonight would be the effective dates for the tax. And so would it be effective after the expiration of the current

Okay, well, so that might be interesting because if they need the 30% right now, we'd want it to go into effect immediately, but then I'd want it to go for 10 years, you know? But if they're okay waiting and only getting 20% for another two years, right? So, I mean, just thinking about how that works, but we're also creating basically a museum fund, like the museum will not be able to operate if this tax ever goes away and we will lose our museum. So should this be a permanent tax? Why are we putting a 10-year horizon? Like, oh yeah, we won't need a museum 10 years from now. We're absolutely gonna want a museum 10 years from now, so why are we putting a sunset on something that is for ongoing operational expenses that have nothing to do with historic preservation, they're about our museum? And so that's where I'm like, God, this does start to feel like a museum tax, and maybe it should be permanent. Or maybe we should have two. Maybe we should have a 1 16th historic preservation tax, and a 1 16th permanent museum tax. But maybe people wouldn't support it. There's some risk there, but I'm just looking at this and I think there's some issues. I would support a permanent historic preservation tax that points 30% towards the museum and be done with this. And it goes on in perpetuity because I believe 30 years from now, we'll be able to use this money to maintain our 80, 90 historic buildings that we'll find a use for that money and our museum will continue to need it. So that would be my suggestion is that we do 30% and make it permanent.

Yes, city manager.

So thank you. I also want to note that we received an email from the chair of the Historic Museum Advisory Board that they were also supportive of this measure. And then in terms of the term of it versus permanent, I think, you know, something to determine as we move forward with the museum is what is the museum in the future. And Director Cummings, you know, has discussed with this council previously about, you know, does it stay as where it meets the official requirements of a museum? Is it more of a history center or things like that? I could see with this shorter term tenure that gives time to work through those questions and provides that flexibility so that we have time to maneuver into the future of what does it look like.

Other comments, questions? Yes. Oh, Council Member Kern.

Great. Thank you. So I want to, again, I echo the thanks to the task force, especially with the last minute ask. But I definitely appreciate the sentiment about what was behind this initial tax back in 08 and how we really wanted to preserve a lot of the downtown area and really make sure that it continues to feel like old Louisville. I am in favor of expanding the tax to 30% for the museum. And actually, it sounds like a weird number, but I was going to say 32.5 so that it immediately covers the cost of the storage. Because the kind of money that we're talking about at $20,000 a year, honestly, it is cheaper to rent it than it is to try to build. given today's build costs, some permanent storage for the museum. And I thought, we need the funds for the operational piece currently, and the cost of the storage stuff is getting so expensive. And we have some people in some homes that are very generously donating pieces of Louisville history to the museum. And we're rapidly reaching a point where we have no way to, and that is part of the history of Louisville. You know, when you have people who have, and I've seen some kids in the museum, which I find lovely, by the way, and they look at some of the old stoves, because there's some original pieces, and they've never seen anything like that anywhere they go. And it's so amazing to see their face and have them understand, like, People use that in Louisville, in this house? That's amazing. So for me, that is part of the physical history. It's not just the exterior facade of a home. And so I find it tremendous value. I like the idea that for any property that we have, whether it's adding another building, which would be really amazing to do something like that, I do think the museum should be able to apply for that money to expand on a capital project. I like that coming to the board, having them look at it and decide the historic measure of that and funding it. I am very uncomfortable with a historic preservation tax going for programming, education. I think that needs to be just part of the general cultural services that we provide as a community, not a historic preservation tax. I think those are completely different things. And this is where I think that there should be some broader conversation. I think I'm fine, again, like I said, increasing the amount to actually help pay for the current costs. I think the 20% covered costs as they were 10 years ago, they're clearly not covering the expense to maintain. So that needs to happen. Again, I would do another 2.5% because the physical preservation of the pieces is important. I don't believe that any of this money should be going to programming. I think that just needs to be through donations or through the cultural services. That's my opinion. And again, I like having something that sunsets because as the former mayor said, in 08, there was an intention, new councils, new residents. So we keep changing our idea and what we feel is important. And for us to sit here in 08, had they had the decision to make this permanent, the museum wouldn't have its funding. You would have been trying to pass a different kind of tax. And I think the flexibility of revisiting this is a really smart move. I am curious to hear, though, from Director Cummings if they can wait the two years for the additional funding or if that's going to end up being something that comes to us that we have to approve from the general fund anyway to expand.

I just want to jump in and say that the extension of the expiring tax would not necessarily delay the ability for the museum, would not necessarily delay the percentages. I believe that the ballot question could be worded such that those percentages and if there was the fourth category added could be effective upon approval of the voters because you're taking a tax and extending it out. That's a separate question. That's a separate part of the question to what is the tax used for.

Okay.

So I don't think it's an either or. Okay. Good.

I like that. That helped answer that question. You don't need to answer now. We're good. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Other comments? Yes. Mayor Patel.

Thank you. And, um, I mean, just to be brief, I think my fellow council member Hefner really nicely summarized my gratitude towards the working group and also feeling comfortable moving forward with the recommendations of the task force with the 30% delegated to the museum. think Councilmember Kern brought up some really great points with programs and such but I'm fine leaving that in as the fourth item in the recommendations from the the task force as is.

Other comments? I guess my It sounds like there are a number of different issues, but I'll share my comments and then kind of try to blend it in with what I think is the thought. Did you have another thought, Council Member Kern? I'm so sorry. I'm glad to see that.

I appreciate that, Mayor. I forgot to add in the piece. Director Zaccaro brought up the opportunity to help people within specific means that we could determine. Maybe it's like 100 to 120 AMI is the cap in gradual scale, that we do help with them having additional requests in maintaining prisoners. or the preservation maintaining their homes. And I really like the idea of us being able to do that so that it is people who are currently living in some of these older preserved historic homes that otherwise might have to move because there's some work that needs to get done to continue to maintain them.

Yeah, I think with the current ballot language and the proposed additional language, there would be flexibility to do that. So I don't think we have to solve that issue with the ballot language. It would be through our funding resolutions that we look at from time to time.

Thank you.

To clarify, we have made changes in the past. If you can kind of describe.

Yes. For our 2025 resolution, we did add a new category for income-qualified property owners that have some additional grant benefits.

And that includes the continuation, like if somebody had already lived in a historic home and needed more funding?

I'm not sure I'd have to pull up the resolution and see if it includes I think it does but I I could look that up and Well, we can Thanks.

We have time I think to address it Okay, so I'm all for doing it this year One person in the community told me gee you should revamp the whole historic preservation program and get all that done first and then go to the voters. And I was like, well, that's a nice thing. But I think the pragmatic concern that the task force had is we're getting worried about doing it in another year and missing out on an opportunity that I think exists this year in its best form. I'm generally not for making many taxes permanent, and I think the concern that Councilmember Dickinson had raised actually supports that. I know mentioned it as a permanent tax that there may come a day when we start saying whoa wait there's a whole bunch of homes that are falling apart that we have landmarked and we need to do something about that we need to put more money into it and we can't do it with you know the flexibility even in the current fund and raising the percentage maybe uh changing the mix maybe uh excuse me but i think that's probably the way to do it i i would prefer the effective date to be immediate uh or but it sounds like we may have a way of um sort of taking care of the museum on a short-term basis, so I'm not sure I really, we need to go in there. I would, I guess I like the idea of moving up just a little bit. I'll sort of speak to, you know, this is where I guess I'm sort of representing a task force views. I think that the average was a little bit more than 30. I think it was, I figured it out, it was 33.1% or something like that. So I like Councilmember Kern's 32.5. I think that provides a little bit of extra cushion that I think would be good because you know, just doing what we've been doing, it seems like it's the least we can do, but not as good a floor as I think 32.5%, but I can go with whatever the group wants. And I definitely want to include that fourth point about using it for programs, because I think that Council Member Kern just mentioned this, that historic preservation is more than just the skin of buildings. And it's more than just the structure of buildings. It's additional kind of cultural pieces of this, which I think the museum does and helps to support in the main program. So I'm, along with others that have mentioned it, I think I'm comfortable with that. All that said, it sounded like the people are generally interested in going to the ballot. this year. I hadn't heard anything that was different than that. I think we've been talking mostly about a 10-year period as opposed to a permanent. That's not the view of everybody, but that seems to be kind of the consensus. The floor, you know, most of the comments have been about 30%. Again, what I would say is it's not just the task force's recommendation. The task force's recommendation is somewhere in there, and it varies. So we don't have to sort of say whether we're accepting the task force's number or not. It's council's number, and it sounded like 30%. And generally, I think I heard a few voices around keeping program in there. And I think those were the variables that... we were discussing. But I'm—Council response to that—yeah, Councilmember Kern.

I have, I guess, a question or comment to all of you, which is, how about increasing that percentage? I mean, Director Cummings sort of mentioned the predictability of the funding to know how to plan for. So if we did increase it beyond the 30 percent, but instead of limiting the use and creating a fourth category that's different, what if instead we just increased it, made it whatever, percentage we want, above the 30, and then allowed the museum to determine how to spend those funds, whether that's operational things or programming things. It's not limited. They can spend it however they see fit, whether that's the storage cost or what have you.

It is a limit, though. That sounds to me, I mean, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I think that's a cap.

Well, with the exception of a capital thing, like them coming to historic preservation and saying we need funds for a building or something like that or renovate the interior of one, it would be. So it would be increase the amount and say this is the amount you receive. do what you will with it, whether that's paying for new people or buying more storage or doing some programs. They best know how to use those funds to create the museum experience we're looking for as a community.

That's already included, in my view, in the fourth point. They would have that flexibility. But if we capped it, they wouldn't have the ability to go over there. We've got several comments. Why don't we take staff and then Council Member Dickinson and then Council Member Heffner.

Thank you. Just a point of clarity. The programming addition to the ballot language also allows for HPC to do programming that they are currently allowed to do within the description of the fund. And part of the task force's drive was to see more engagement in programming around what they do and how that impacts our community, which is why that piece was left unpublished. undetermined and unassigned. So that way, if the museum is the expert in the space that can bring in something and work alongside them, or if HPC has a marketing campaign that they want to get off the ground or an interpretive sign program that they want to do, this allows the flexibility for that group as well. And so I just want to make sure that the thought behind that and the task force's work and recommendation is clear.

Great point. Go ahead.

So HPC doesn't currently work with the museum. One, two, that means this is like open ended to how much money then goes to museum versus, you know, historic preservation of homes. I mean, they could end up spending half of the budget to do programming and HPC and all. I mean, there would be no I I'm just concerned that we have these homes that come before us. We're building a fund to try to do that. And now I think it's going to be looked at and be like, wow, look at that. There's an extra $400,000 there that hasn't been spent this year. Let's make sure that everybody tries to do some signage or some other thing. That's my concern is that it's not coordinated. I thought HPC and the museum would collaborate and work together. They wouldn't be independent.

HBC and the museum collaborate more together on many of these initiatives, but a lot of these initiatives, as spoken about tonight, are not the same directive or outcome or goal. A museum is different than historic preservation. The museum deeply supports our historic preservation work. We do the research, we provide research to businesses and homes, and we continue to do that sort of work. However, getting the word out about the historic preservation program is not the work of the museum. And that is where this programmatic expansion allows HPC to also be more flexible and responsive in how they choose to implement those things. And that would not be the work of the museum to do that.

Dr. Zuccaro, can you, from your perspective, kind of shed some light on that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, right now we can use the funds to promote our incentives and trying to bring people into the local landmarking program. So we definitely could use the funds for that. I think that. with the task force recommendation, we could do some additional programming with the museum to promote our success with historic preservation, for example. There's things that we could, spend money on beyond incentives to just show our successes, which could lead to more people coming in, but also educate the community on the historic resources that we have preserved. So that's where I see crossover between the museum and the historic preservation program, especially on an education piece of letting people know about the historic resources that we have been able to preserve that are outside of incentives.

So who is it that gets to determine how much would be spent on that each year out of the tax?

Yeah, I mean, city council is approving the budget. So I think ultimately, you know, there's probably going to be recommendations coming from Historic Museum Advisory Board and Historic Preservation Commission. But ultimately, I think city council is going to have to designate the funds.

Okay, thank you.

So I feel like tonight's run its course, right? I think the point of tonight is do we want to bring back? ballot measure for this historic preservation tax I think we do and I don't think tonight we need to decide if it's 30 or 32 or if it's this or that the idea is the ballot language is going to come back in a certain form and And then if we don't like 30 and we want to change it to 32, if we don't like 32, we'll have another go at the details. And so I'm really comfortable with there's no vote to be had tonight. It's just I would like to know if staff has the direction they need for the next step or if you think there's more that we need to suss out tonight.

Yeah, I'll throw that to the...

I saw Dietrich's hand going really, really high out there.

Yeah, I just wanted to. Okay. I haven't forgotten you. I just saw the city manager wanted to add a point and usually. Go right ahead.

I was just going to add on to what Council Member Dickinson said in that we've heard, this is a summary of what I've heard so far, a 10-year term that's to start upon termination of the current tax. The museum contribution sounds like the floor right now is a minimum consideration of 30% to be determined. That could be written in to start upon approval of this ballot measure and then add the fourth element and more discussion related to the program piece and then more discussion in terms of how that would be administered, but that could be outside of the ballot measure discussion. And this will be back to you in about a month. So I would encourage you to continue submitting your questions. We can gather the responses to those questions and make sure that they are included in the presentation on July 14th when we bring forward the recommended ballot language. Let me know if there's any other direction that you feel like we need to have. Okay.

Council Member Haffner. Yeah, I'd just like to make a motion to that effect. I mean, I think there is some value to making the big decisions tonight and giving some direction that then when it comes back to us, we don't renegotiate all of these same issues because this is a good opportunity to do it. I think we have most of the information. So I think consistent with what the city manager just said, I would move that we direct staff to come back with ballot language for this year, a 10-year extension through 2038 at 33%, and including the flexibility beyond incentives as proposed by the task force.

Discussion? Yes, Council Member Cooperman.

I don't know, I mean, I would find it a little bit, I think I would find it personally helpful to have especially the recommendation for flexibility sort of spelled out in some way before we commit to something about it.

I'm just committing to having it in some form. I mean, if we need to work on the language, but conceptually, as presented in our packet, we're saying yes to the flexibility. That's my motion.

Other comments?

Council Member Dickinson. I'm in support. I just would stick with the HPC's recommendation of 30%.

Are you making a friendly amendment, or are you... Okay. Others? Anybody else?

I actually agree with keeping it at the 30% if there's going to be flexible options for additional spending.

I accept 30% as a friendly amendment to my motion. I had heard earlier lots of interest in a few points higher, but 30 is where I started. I'm happy to end there. I think we're talking about a few thousand dollars here. I don't think we're talking about a huge amount of money.

Yeah, and my only comment is we're gonna be voting on the ballot language I don't want to limit ourselves and I think to that extent councilmember Dickinson is right that it's you know, we'll see some language We'll make some choices, but I don't we're not bound to them tonight until we see some it helps to narrow down a little bit, and conceptually I think we're all in agreement, so hopefully. So we have a motion, we have a second, we've had discussion, is there any more discussion? If no, then all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, do you have the direction? Hopefully you have the direction. All right. Our next item. Thank you for really robust discussion and really good public comment as well. Thanks to everybody who had anything to do with our task force and staff and you name it. All right. Yeah, it would be a little early, but are council members comfortable taking a break until about 7.50? Thanks. We're off.

Thank you.

I can take a bath. I'm not worried about that.

Oh. Oh. That's a challenge. Stay away from that. All right. Thank you. Just one minute. Yeah. I just.

All right, our next item is discussion direction action on potential 2026 ballot measure city charter amendments. And we've got a staff presentation from the city clerk. Take it away.

Thank you, Mayor, Member of Council. I'm going to go kind of quick through these first couple of slides. So the purpose tonight is to get your direction on potential ballot questions related to our Home Rule Charter. Quick background. During your workshop, you did express a desire to consider potential ballot questions. And July 21st is the last meeting Council can pass on second reading any non-ordinances referring ballot questions to the voters. We can do... We can do as many as we want, but we would really like to recommend that we don't do any more than three to six. As Director Cummings previously provided for you, this is a timeline of what we're thinking about July 14th for first reading, second reading for July 21st. We do want to coordinate with Boulder County. I have already let them know unofficially that we will be coordinating with potential questions, but nothing concrete. I have until July 24th to make that official. So in 2001, Louisville held a special election for Home Rule Charter Commission members. The commission presented the charter to council, and it was approved by voters later that year. Amendments were done in 2004 and 2009. In these proposed charter amendments I'm going to present to you tonight, I did survey multiple municipalities. And those included those neighboring Louisville, sort of regional. Surrounding communities those of similar size and I also use some that were referenced during the comprehensive plan process and you can see those municipalities on the screen and these were used to frame recommendations for the timing of when elected officials take office initiative and referendum signature requirements and meeting locations meeting locations was one that council asked that we look into after our previous discussion. So here are the proposed amendments. The first one is to align when Council takes office to current election procedures. Currently the charter states members shall take office at the first regular meeting after their election. Staff finds this problematic if there is a close A race that's too close to call at that time. 11 of the 17 surveyed municipalities wait until after the election is certified, which is usually at the beginning, or I'm sorry, at the end of November, or longer to see elected officials. Some municipalities actually wait until January. to seat their newly elected. So staff is recommending a revision for members to take office at the first regular meeting following election certification. So this would probably be the first meeting in December. And I can take questions on this or we can continue and take questions at the end.

Why don't you keep going?

We'll do. The next recommendation is to align initiative and referendum signature requirements. Currently, 5% of the voters are needed for an initiative and 2.5% for a referendum. The average of surveyed municipalities was 10% for an initiative and 8.5% for a referendum. Staff is recommending to kind of the baby and say staff recommends 7.5 for initiatives and 5% for referendums. I will let city attorney Kelly talk to executive sessions.

So I don't think there was a memo provided by me, but rather I sent out a matrix to council that highlighted the differences between our charter and state law. But generally speaking, our charter is much more restrictive on the topics that the city council can meet in executive session to discuss. And it has... Presented significant difficulties at times in properly advising informing and representing the city through the City Council so, you know, I am very much in favor of asking the voters to allow the Lewisville City Council to proceed under the same topics and requirements as the state open meetings law.

Thank you. The next item is one that council asked us to bring back to you. Currently, council and boards and commissions are limited to holding meetings in public buildings and public facilities. This restricts council and boards and commissions from holding meetings and other accessible venues or to have joint meetings in neighboring municipalities Staff recommends a proposed amendment to allow for public bodies to hold meetings in other locations as agreed to by the council or board or Commission this is in line with what other municipalities that I surveyed allow I This next one is to allow for review and comment for resident initiatives. This one came out of the process from the initiatives last year. The state Once the petitioners submit an initiative, we have so many days to respond. And with one of the initiatives in particular, we went back and forth with them because it was submitted incorrectly. We went back and said this... I disapprove this because it's not in the form of an ordinance language. They came back. There were still more things that needed to be corrected. So this meeting would be with the city attorney and staff, if appropriate, not me, concerning the proposed initiative as to form and or context prior to submission to the city clerk's office. This may alleviate the necessity for me to disprove and eat into time going back and forth to get an approved petition that they could circulate. The next item is to revise language and to update terminology or provide clarity. Change he to she to they, change citizen to resident, and change references of city offices to city website in the city clerk's office. Right now, potentially someone could go to city services and say, I want a copy of this. city services is going to have no idea what they're asking about or how to obtain it. So I would just like to provide that clarity that we are the best resource if they have questions about specific things. Obviously, with all the other charter amendments you are considering, we are asking that you prioritize alignment with current election processes, alignment with initiative and referendum requirements, and executive session alignment with state open meetings laws. Alternatively, you may progress with some or all of these for the 2026 ballots, may delay for future ballots. or may identify different amendments for consideration and so the direction i need this evening is which do you want to pursue if any and how would you like those to come back um great um let's get some ques any questions on what's been presented yes councilmember kooperman yeah um

Okay. First I'm wondering, does the county set a date certain for certifying elections?

The county, well state statute does. And it's within a certain time period after the election is held. It will change obviously as the election date changes, but it's always, it's set in state statute.

Okay. And then do other municipalities have this review comment provision for initiatives or referenda?

So I stole this from the City and County of Denver, which is where I used to work. And they use it for every initiative that comes forward. And I believe in your packet I provided a link to what their policy is and how they use it.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then one last question. So the state language around executive sessions, you know, altogether is a lot of verbiage. would the ballot measure have to include all of that language or would it be somehow like by reference?

So ultimately it's up to the council how the charter amendment would read, but it could be as simple as replacing what is in the charter with, you know, executive session shall, you know, be conducted by the city council pursuant to the Colorado open meetings law.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Other questions?

Council Member Kern.

So this is around the election swearing-in dates and how we describe it. Like currently for us it's just the meeting after. Some it's following an election certification. If it's not like a close race, if it's not within a certain percentage, would there be a way for us to say, and I'm quickly looking at the trying to find one that has it and it doesn't look like it, that person could take office or take the oath after the council meeting after that election? Because you really don't need a certification unless it is a close race, correct?

Correct. The other piece too though is, Ballots could potentially come in, not that it would make a big difference, but it might if it's a close race. Ballots still have several days after the election to come in from overseas voters. So I understand what you're saying. I would just be more comfortable if there was, if the election was certified and there was no question.

Okay. Quick question. I thought all elections had to be certified. They do. Okay.

They do.

Yeah, yeah. All right. I misunderstood. Thanks. Any other questions? All right. Do we have any public comment? You got to go back to your other role or your other clerk role, I should say.

I put both things on my one sign-up card, sorry, and in a scribbly pencil. So Bob Muckle again. I had several things I'd like to comment on, and some of these are things that... the member of the Charter Commission who I reside with wanted me to talk about. So it was very important actually to the Charter Commission to have this immediate seating of elected officials so that there isn't sort of a lame duck voting period. I'm not aware of this having happened in a long time, but there were times where significant policy changes were made by somebody who would have been voted out of office in this kind of lame duck period. I think it used to be like a month or two. They wanted to just have it when the election's over, the people who got elected are now voting on... whatever is before the council. That's one thing. My only concern about meeting in other places, I think it's really important that they're available to the public. So I don't think that their public buildings is necessarily critical, but them being open to the public is the key important thing. feature there, so I hope we won't lose that. I urge you not to change the initiative and referendum numbers this year. This has been a year where people have been voter suppressing and restricting people's access to the ballot. This is not exactly the same thing, but people will say it's anti-democratic or sort of voter suppression to make it harder for voters to bring things before the citizens. So I get it. Well, frankly, I don't think this is the point, but I don't think lining up with other governments is like... value in Louisville. I think, you know, so if you don't want to be bothered by as many, you know, initiatives from citizens, I mean, so be it. But I think that's the only reason to do this. And I wouldn't do it this year. And all the other stuff seems fine to me. So thank you. Thank you, Bob.

Any other public comment? Okay. Let's go back and can you, let's see, I don't know that we have a, what I was gonna say is if we approve of all of them, we can approve of all of them, but maybe I can just quickly tap through the ones and if, There's not a particular problem with them. We'll just take that straw vote. How about the one for aligning counsel when it takes office to current election procedures? Are we good with that? Okay, not. How about, okay. We need to have some discussion. All right. Align initiative and referendum signature requirements. Are we... In general, we can talk about the percentage, but are we in general comfortable with that? Okay. All right. All right. We got a little discussion about that. That's fine. How about executive session authorization or authorized topics? Are we comfortable with that one? It looks like that's up. when we don't have to discuss. And then update acceptable meeting locations. Are we comfortable with that one? You know, let me throw one thing out on that and see if it might help. You know, we could probably use some language like it needs to be

public accommodation it's something that has in it some reference to accessibility yeah yes could I could I just ask the city attorney if we make this change doesn't the open meetings law still require us to have the meetings be open to the public absolutely does well how can it be open to the public if it's in a You tell me.

Yes. No, I agree. It would have to be a location that's open to the public in order for you to hold a meeting that is open to the public.

Yeah. Okay. Probably not a bar, which is open to the public, but not fully. That would not be the kind of thing that we need. Okay. All right. Yes. Yes.

So, I mean, sorry. On that point, you know, right now, for instance, we broadcast our meetings. Would we have to be able to broadcast our meetings in a similar way or allow for remote participation if we have them somewhere else? Or would that be up to our how we set the question or?

The fact that the city council broadcasts meetings and provides for remote participation is not dependent upon what's in the charter. So you can change the charter to allow more meeting locations and then as policy as a city council decide, especially because the language that's proposed is like, you know, additional locations as determined by the council. So you could have that discussion at the time that you're talking about an alternate location of, you know, is it possible for remote participation? Is that important? So none of that needs to be driven by the charter.

Okay. Thank you.

Let's go back then. First one that we talked about was aligning when council takes office to current election procedures. I saw Councilmember Kern had some thoughts.

Yeah, I think I agree with the sentiment of the Charter Commission that it was a concern around somebody who is elected than not being present for a vote. And it's either that or somehow there has to be policy around know either meetings won't be held or significant decisions will not be made with somebody who is potentially leaving office or i just i think because of the nature of the small community and how impactful a lot of our decisions are i think the result of an election is is an important effect and the residents would like to see the person elected. That's why I was talking, trying to figure out if there's a certain percentage that is typically not going to be undone by the missing, the absentee ballots or the number of military votes, you know, overseas votes that we have. Like if it's typically less than 3% of a variance, maybe if, you know, there was a greater than 3% margin in the votes, the person takes seat, otherwise it has to wait to be certified, something to that effect. Because I do like the fact that people can get seated immediately.

Other thoughts about that? Do we have a comment from staff?

I'm guessing it might be the same comment as Councilmember Heffner. You know, let me provide a counterpoint to that. Under our current charter provision, a person who appears to have been elected could demand to be seated immediately at the next council meeting, and then you get certified results that say that that person actually wasn't the winner of that election. And then we've never had this happen, so I can't tell you what the law says, but it would be a problem because then you have at least one council meeting where the person has probably cast some votes and does... Does that mean that we have to go back and undo those actions of the council? Certification is required under the law. It happens after every election. Modern day elections take a little bit longer to be certified because of the number of voters, the coordinated elections. So I think that it's a relatively recent phenomena that you have this period of between election day and when you get the certification of the outcome of the election, where you probably have a council meeting, maybe two council meetings. And I believe... that the better process is to seat people after the certification of the election results. Because the certification will also tell you that there's no, you know, recount that is going to happen. It is certainty that I believe that you need before you swear in a new elected official.

Thank you.

That was my point. Said much better than I was going to say it.

I had a feeling.

My only question on that, like say it's 2027 and I'm term limited, does the outgoing council person stop before the other person is seated or do they continue in their seat until they're replaced, but even if their term has ended?

Yeah, existing terms continue until the newly elected officer is sworn in.

Okay.

So there is continuity.

Okay. Um, so that's interesting. So, so not cause I'm also thinking like if I'm in election and I'm trying to be reelected, do I get to come back? I keep coming until it's official, right? So like, because I haven't been displaced yet. And even if I'm term limited, I would also keep coming. Um, So that's, I just want to get that clarification on this. And I think there is, yeah, a concern that, yeah, a lame, I mean, I would say that it's the opposite. Like people are shocked that the election's on like a Tuesday and like, I'll be there next week. It's like, what? You're already on council? Like we're just used to like January 20th kind of like, I think it's actually pretty extraordinary how quickly someone goes from campaigning to like, oh, I'm up here now. So I actually think it's kind of weird what we do. But I do think there is a potential for, yeah, someone who's outgoing, knows they've lost. It's not close. They lost by 30%. And they come and they make a fuss at the next meeting. So I think it's possible, but I think this is better. I support it.

Other thoughts? I mean, my take on this is I guess this is a political issue, ultimately. I think there's the issue around I think it's a good thing to do to run this by the certification process and that deadline. I think a council, through its agenda setting and its voting, its decisions, you know, after somebody, when somebody is a lame duck, that you deal with this. And I can... I can foresee situations maybe where there's going to be, you know, some people going out who are going to have something they want to get through. And I can also see when it comes back, it ends up getting reversed. And that can happen. So I don't know. I don't think – I think the chances of mischief – aren't as great as the chances of mischief if we don't change it to conform with the certification.

City Attorney Kelly convinced me.

Oh, did she? All right. So are we comfortable with that one altogether? I don't, yeah, we're just doing discussion directions, so we may need to vote on some of these.

I don't know.

The next one is aligning the initiative and referendum signature requirements. What thoughts do folks have on that one? Yes. Councilmember Heffner.

Look, this is an important choice to be made by the voters, and I think we ought to propose it to them. I'm not sure it's so much to save us the frustration of difficult ballot issues, although it certainly will. But in my conversations with people here, there's lots of people in Louisville who do not like how easy it is to get on the ballot. And I think by putting this to the voters, we give them an opportunity to speak their point of view, speak their minds, and raise the bar, as it were, to show a meaningful level of support for a ballot initiative before you can get ballot access. I think it's much easier now than it probably was in 2001 to organize ballot campaign with Facebook and everything else. And so to me, it makes sense to do this. I personally would increase the percentages to 10% and 7.5% for initiative and referendum, respectively, but certainly open to persuasion on that point.

Others? Yeah, Mayor Patel.

I agree with the comments that Councilmember Hefner just made. I personally would stay at the staff recommendation for the percentages. Part of my reasoning behind agreeing to bring it to the voters is ultimately taxpayer dollars are spent to put these things on the ballot. So I think our voters have the right to determine what is the threshold by which their money is going to be spent to put something on a ballot. So I think we should bring it to them to decide.

Others? Yes, Councilmember Kern.

What if we were to give the voters the option of two different percentages to achieve? So whether they wanted it to be as Councilmember Heffner suggested or as the Mayor Pro Tem suggested instead of saying here's your only choice? we could let them actually decide what they think that the referendum requirements should be. My other comment though around the percentages, is there gonna be a discussion about how they are handled, the language that is on referendums or initiatives, how it's presented to people, the actual language and how it appears on ballots, that sometimes it is not clear as to what that is versus what the end result of an initiative might be?

Is there any way for us to... Are you talking about the title? Yeah, I think so. I think the title is... We don't have a title board, but we do have a title decider, which I think is a clerk, right? We had that hearing. I sat through one. It was kind of interesting. I've never done that before.

That was interesting, actually. You're right. But I was thinking also the language that goes actually on the ballot as to that being the decision not of the council, but that is the decision of whoever is presenting and getting the signatures for that referendum, correct? They submit that and that gets approved? The city attorney has thought.

So I just want to make sure I understand the question or the point. So it would be the petition proponents who would set the ballot title. Is that your question?

Right, and also the ballot language.

So my concern with that would be is that you want a neutral ballot title that isn't necessarily going to come from the petition proponents. And I think that the clerk is a ministerial office when it comes to elections. The clerk doesn't have any stake in any outcome. And so that's why that's a responsibility that's been designated to the clerk. And, you know, the public hearing is the opportunity for folks to weigh in on what they think the ballot title should be. But I think it would be problematic to have the ballot title set by the petition proponents.

And what about the language of the ballot measure?

That's the title.

That's the whole thing. I'm so sorry. Sorry, the ballot title is the question that goes to the voters.

Right. So...

And we set, you're not talking about the language of the initiative itself. I mean, once that's certified, it's what it is, right?

Well, initiative needs to be in the form of an ordinance. So that ordinance is said.

Right.

By the proponents.

Right. Yeah, we have no say in how that language is laid out. Okay.

Yeah. And so the ballot question is the yes or no, the ballot title.

So I guess my question is, or my comment is that we've had some in recent, relative recent years that I've heard from community members have been misleading. And I just, or confusing or unclear as to what the actual intention is. And same thing happens when signatures are being collected. There should be some requirement of... And it is, I know it's actually on the paperwork, like you have to read the title. But again, if it's not clear, if it's misleading, people aren't sure about what they're signing. And I'm not sure how we work on clarifying that.

That strikes me and maybe the city attorney can weigh in. But I think that to the extent that we are concerned about people being misleading in the petition process or whatever, we can do that as kind of a, I mean, we could have, we can have our own election laws as long as they're consistent with the state law, I think, right? Or so, because we're Home Rule, we can do that. But I think that's not, I think that's a separate thing from the ballot language that we're talking about here from,

Which is just the percent required, okay, yep.

I mean, I think it's an interesting thought and we've had some concerns, a lot of concerns expressed in the community about that. And frankly, sometimes it's been on both sides of an issue. So we can talk about that maybe after we get this done. All right, so other thoughts, yes. as the only person who's proposed an initiative? Council Member Cooperman.

So, on the one hand, 20 something years ago, right, we went to the voters and They agreed that we should have the current 5% and 2.5%. And that came from the home rule commission. I guess it was approved by council. I feel like it's somewhat different, though, for council to refer a ballot question that is asking for an increase as opposed to something being proposed by a Home Rule Commission. And in particular, it's sort of one-sided. So if there were an option, say, to lower it, or an option to increase it, you know, I feel like that would maybe give a more neutral test of whether or not our residents currently want a change to these numbers or not. So, yeah, so I don't ‑‑ I don't know. I'm not really in favor of increasing the numbers. Still don't feel like I've heard a great argument for why to increase them or why to increase them now. And just one more comment. I think the one condition under which I would be amenable to an increase would be if we allowed people to collect signatures digitally.

Other thoughts? Yes. Council Member Hafner.

Just briefly, I'll make the case for why they should be increased and why now, which is we just had two ballot initiatives that had the issues Councilmember Kern was talking about. They were misleading. A lot of people signed those petitions, not fully, this is the most charitable version, not fully understanding what they were signing. And we ended up having to A, pay for an election, and B, lots of people, including some of us, spent a lot of time campaigning Against ballot initiatives that would have done, in my view, material harm to the city. And so raising the bar to get on the ballot is important for the very reason that we want ideas to have substantial community support before they come forward for a vote. And this is one way to get there. So that's my view at least. I mean, you have to make more than a bare minimum showing if you want to put something on the ballot and put the city through a special election and so on.

Councilmember Kern. Yeah, I agree. But I think it's to the Mayor Pro Tem's point about the cost. You know, maybe 20 or 30 years ago it was $1,000 or $2. Now it's tens of thousands of dollars for the taxpayers to do this when an incredibly small percentage of residents had an interest in seeing it on the ballot. And yet everybody has to share the cost. So I agree with Councilmember Heffner. I think that there needs to be a greater interest from the community to have something on the ballot given its expense.

I'll just say that in addition to the cost of the election itself, there's also the additional cost to staff to process all the things that have to be processed and dealt with ahead of the election. And that would be eliminated then, or at least reduced.

You know, and I agree. I think another thing is I'm as much of a homer as anybody here. I appreciate Louisville. I think there's a lot of distinctive things about us. I think when the Charter Commission met, they were dealing with particular soup of problems And they were still, I mean, I remember this still on their minds were some issues from the early 80s. And which, in my view, don't exist anymore. And I think the nice thing, I mean, I just don't see why we're such different community than everybody else. It's not so much that's a reason, it's just like what makes us different lower that threshold, what keeps us at a lower threshold. And I have heard, and I, you know, the others on here I think have echoed this, just a lot of support for raising those numbers. I mean, I heard it even before last year. And so, you know, I think that's something, I mean, we're gonna find out what the voters say. Interesting point that Councilmember Kern raised about maybe having or I think having different percentages or whatnot. I think it's up to us as elected officials, not as a charter commission, which was not elected. We have the power of the duty to say what the percentage ought to be that goes to the owners. And I think we can do that. I mean, I agree with Councilmember Heffner's percentages. I think that's a good thing. But we can talk about that some more. And maybe how we come out on this depends on the percentages. Maybe given that, it sounds like there's still some disagreements that may be significant enough. I think we should take at least a voice vote on this or get a motion about that particular one. Yeah. Yeah.

So a comment and then I actually have one more question. You know, I don't know, I don't really want to, you know, I don't really like an argument that's based on how a particular initiative or referendum went. Different people see it differently. So it seems to me the more fundamental question is, do we want to have a low bar for direct democracy, or do we want to have a higher bar for direct democracy? And it's a fine question to ask. And so currently in Louisville, we have a relatively lower bar. And at the moment, I'm fine with sticking with that. And as far as the costs, again, it's the question. If we want to have a low bar for direct democracy, then we're saying, OK, we're willing to pay as a community to have those elections. And if we're not, we don't want such a low bar, OK, then maybe that's how our community feels. So anyway, my question though is for initiatives and referenda, you have a certain amount of time to gather signatures. I assume that would remain the same under the current proposal. We just increased the percentage of.

Correct. We're not, we, I can't change any of the timelines. Those are set in state statute. So this would just be changing the number that we require as a municipality.

Okay.

Thank you. Yes. Council Member Dickinson.

So I'll again give my opinion, but I think we should move on because we're not voting on it tonight. So it'll come back for a vote next time. But I would say seven and a half and five are fine. They still put us as a lower bar than most, but higher than we are. So if I'm if this comes back and somebody wants it at ten and five or if we bring it ten and five We can argue or ten and seven and a half. Sorry, we can argue whether that's too high or too low But the point is we want this to come back We want a number to vote on and at that point someone can offer an amendment that they want Ten and seven and a half versus seven half and five so mayor I leave it to you to give direction for which version you start at I think I'm hearing that it's at least what we want to talk about. And I think Josh, the point is then we put it out to the world and we say, do you want two and a half and five, which is the current, or do you want five and seven half? And that's how they get to have two choices. We have, or we're offering. So if we went and offered two and a half and five, that'd be weird, right? But if we offer seven and a half and 10, we're asking a really big question. That is a big change in my opinion. So I'm fine with either one, but it's more likely to fail. Councilmember Heffner, I think if we do something that is considered drastic, so that's why I prefer seven and a half and five. But like I said, I think we've given enough to staff on this issue that we can at least have it come back for debating the specific language and getting votes on the table for what percentage we actually want to send to the voters.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. It'll help us move on, too. But I think having those numbers, I think it's sort of right in the middle of sort of the range that we're talking about. And, you know, we need to let the public kind of have an idea that we're looking at changing this in at least some sense. In other words, that would be better, having a number in there, than just simply having it blank, because then it's like, who knows whether it's worth showing up or whatever. Are people comfortable with at least putting placeholders at seven and a half and five? I think that's what you, are we okay with that? Okay, a consensus but not a full amount, yeah. all right so let's move on to executive session we already talked about that that that one we don't have any trouble with the meeting locations I think we resolved that one okay so then let's go to Sorry. Allowing for review and comment, and it's actually not allowing for it, but requiring review and comment. Not a veto or anything like that. It's really, in many ways, review and, I don't know if advice is the right word, but review and comment. Are we comfortable about that one? Yeah, I think, okay. Yeah? All right. And I think just for the record, the preliminary record, if you will, the point of that is not for the staff to talk somebody out of something. It's simply a way of providing some background information that would help. As in the last year where there was a real question about whether one of the measures was going to run afoul of state law. And that would have been, I think, a really good thing for the proponents to have known going into, and it certainly would have been good for us to know, and the people who are voting for or against. I think that's a really great suggestion.

Can I just make a clarification?

Please.

The way this works is the proponents are not required to make any of the changes that are suggested by the city attorney or staff. They could meet with the city attorney and staff and get feedback and still submit exactly what they have presented to me. They are under no obligation to make any changes.

I think we understand that. Yes, Council Member Cooperman.

And is this a private meeting or a public meeting?

No, it's a public meeting. Denver actually broadcasts theirs. We probably wouldn't broadcast it. It would be Zoom, but it is definitely a public meeting.

Okay, interesting. And maybe for the city attorney, are there any reasons why? we would not be allowed to do this or allowed to do this or?

Well, I'll be perfectly honest. I don't love this charter amendment and Jenny and I have talked about this because I think we're really running up against that line where I as the city attorney give my legal advice to the city council and staff and I represent the city and I don't feel very comfortable giving legal advice to private persons. You know, I think that there's probably a way that we can put disclaimers in and we can say, you know, if we want to refer back to the issue with the previous initiatives, like, you know, we believe that this may run afoul of this particular law, but I'm not giving you legal advice. That's just my view on it. But I think a lot of times residents misunderstand the role of the city attorney. And we can put disclaimers on that, but I think that there will still be people who think that they're getting legal advice from the city attorney.

Is one way to handle that, that's a really interesting thought. And I bet that the same thing would be true if you did put some disclaimers and you said, The city attorney is here to provide general information about the law. You know, I mean, an average person who's really fired up about an issue enough to do initiatives at all is going to think just what you said. What if we took the city attorney out of it and it was just staff and it was just staff? You know, I don't know whether that... I don't think it defeats the purpose. I think, you know, somebody who's the city attorney is not going to be viewed in the same way, or excuse me, like the city manager. I guess the clerk would not be part of that. But, you know, being able to provide some information, I think that is still a good idea. Because I remember going through this a couple of times with different city managers. Sometimes there are some just general things that are useful to pass on that would save some time. I mean, yeah, you know, you could... pass some information off to the city manager that says, gee, you might want to look at this statute.

I think that's a really good point, and staff's comments and review could be informed by discussions with the city attorney, but they wouldn't be giving legal advice. I don't think that you're giving the impression in that scenario, and I know when we had the prior initiatives, Rob and I had several conversations about the implications and... concerns that we had. And another issue for me, I guess, is there are points in time that the city is able to challenge say an initiated measure and prior to the ballot is generally not one of those times. And so, you know, I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the impression that the city attorney could give of like, you know, this is unlawful, you can't submit it. You know, if it were just staff, I don't think that you have those issues.

I mean, I guess another thought for us to think about is, if, say, it's the city manager who takes the lead on that, they might, you know, delegate that to a deputy or whatever. But does that sort of suggest that the city... the city is taking some point of view when somebody who reports to the city manager is going to be making a decision about language?

Well, I think what Ginny is proposing is that the city wouldn't be making any decisions about language. proponents are free to ignore all the feedback and just submit what they originally intended.

The city manager, did you have a comment?

I was just going to note that prior to the last election, we did have an individual that was inquiring about doing a resident initiative. And just, you know, we sat down and went through just general questions and provided some information. And based upon that, the individual made their own decision not to proceed forward and maybe look at something else. I think the purpose for us meeting with them is to not influence, it's to provide information and to help them understand, because a lot of times they just don't understand maybe what's already in place or what's out there. And so, you know, the intent of this is to make sure that we can provide them information if they want to proceed forward. They can. If they don't want to consider that input, they don't have to. But it is a good process from my perspective of just being able to provide them some information that maybe they're not aware of, and then they can make a decision.

Just throw one other thing out there. I've done a bunch of these with the state. And with the state, you get a memo where they, it's just like bullet points. You cross-reference the wrong section here. This doesn't make sense. It's unconstitutional, whatever. And then you have the meeting. I wonder if you'd be more comfortable sort of providing input on a memo and having that be the sort of main substance of our feedback.

Sure. So when you've had these meetings, do you have somebody from like the AG's office or Office of Legislative Legal Service?

Legislative Council is usually in the meeting.

Legislative Council.

And I think the same, I've done them in Denver, and it's the same in Denver. The city attorney shows up. I guess the way I've always thought of it is like the initiative process is in a way like invoking the municipal authority of the city to put something on the ballot. So in a way, you are still providing legal advice to the city. It's just... the city's powers are being invoked or used by not one of us, not one of the traditional actors. I'm comfortable with the process, but I think if there's something we could do to make it work for you, I'm happy.

Honestly, maybe I'm being overly influenced by our recent initiatives where there was some open legal questions that I think could be fairly litigated on either side. I wouldn't have wanted to be in the position where I was giving an opinion in a at a stage in the process that it was inappropriate on legal questions regarding violations of state law. But certainly pointing out inconsistencies with the code, and that I'm totally comfortable with.

The one that I appreciate the role, the discomfort. I wonder whether there's much of a difference in some respects between you're doing that and having a meeting and talking through some of those issues. I mean, it may be that that's something that, you know, can be provided to the, you know, the city manager giving less of a, you know, pointing out certain things that that person might want to talk to their own counsel about. I mean, sometimes people go to lawyers to do this stuff. That happens a lot, actually, elsewhere. I'd be more comfortable, personally, not involving you in that. Because I think the worry, too, is that you're scaring people off. That somebody's going to say, if you were to say, That's unconstitutional. People are going to be like, ooh. And they're going to make a big deal of it publicly. Well, yeah, we got, you know, we had this city attorney just, like, discourage us. And then, you know, gosh, we got really worried. We went after, you know, our own council. And they disagreed violently with that. And then it's like, you know, I think we put you out in a really crummy situation. you know, thing when all we're trying to be is helpful. I don't know. Yes, council member.

I wonder if I could suggest we move forward with this sort of subject to whatever tweaks you think might be necessary.

Yeah, I think that's... And if we have a charter that supports this meeting with staff, I don't know that we necessarily have to say in the charter who the specific staff members are. And so that leaves the opportunity for the city attorney to be present. I mean, that's an idea.

Yeah, that may be the best. We like flexibility on this council, I think. Are people comfortable with that direction?

Yes?

Okay. And then, gosh, the revising language of the terminology or provide clarity. Does anybody have any?

particular concerns about that are we good with that right do you have the direction that you need I do I just want to note that that's six different ballot measures when we add in the other ballot measure we're now at seven we still have the consideration for the increase in the lodging tax that would be at eight does council want us to bring forward eight different ballot initiatives okay council yes council member

I would prioritize locations, executive session, as those will actually affect our day in and day out work. next year. And then maybe the other, the seven and a half, five and a half are the initiatives. Again, I think, I feel like while it's six individual ballot measures, they're all like, I feel like four of these are quite simple and not very complicated. I don't know, won't create a lot of concern. I think it's really the 7.5%, 5% potentially changing that I think is going to be like the big ones. It's like you either do that or you don't do that one. But the other five I think are pretty straightforward and simple. And I don't think it's going to be exhausting for people on a ballot in which there's nothing else on our ballot, right? Like we don't have mayors to vote for and city council people to vote for. So the local stuff is... limited to just this, but I am hearing, it's not recommended to have this many, but I kind of feel like it's six about the charter, and if it could be one, it would just be one, but we're just not allowed to do it. So it's like, we're just kind of expanding these six questions. I don't mind having all six on, but again, I would push the when someone's seated to later, and I would maybe push this conversation we just had to later. I don't know if they'll even come up in the next year, but the other four I would do now.

Just to clarify, the election date actually would be more important because we're, what, potentially quite a number of open seats?

There are four seats up in next year's election.

So so that may be more of a that may be more of a priority as a result Conceivably not for everybody, but that would be a reason I just want to make it Yes councilmember current we know does the county have a whole bunch of things that they're adding to the ballot We're talking about hmm

I don't know how many. What I get concerned with is voter fatigue. And it's on there and people start circling and they're like, okay, I'm done. And then there's maybe four of the questions that we have that don't get answered. And so that's where my only concern is with the voter fatigue. If there's going to be a lot of other things on the ballot from the county or the state, that was why I was asking if we knew how many were going to be on there, how long it was going to be.

I have no idea.

No, but I can kind of see where if it's just grouped, here's the charter changes that are being asked to see if you like the idea or not. All six go on. That's it.

On the lower level, one thing, you know, just process wise, we could consider just putting some off that are not high profile or urgent till next year, like You know, inclusive language is important. And maybe that would be a good one to put on this year. But you could also say, all right, we could probably live another year with it. Anyway, other thoughts? Yes.

Yeah, I would defer that one if we were going to defer any of them. I also, and maybe I'll be proven wrong, I have a lot of confidence in in our residents and our voters, and I think they can make it through eight yes or no questions. Maybe I'll be wrong, but I like to think we're a pretty well-educated bunch.

Well, and maybe it's one of those things that we can sort of, think about writing a letter to the camera or putting things out that say, you know, this is kind of a constitutional issue. This is our own form of constitutional changes, that it's important. I think I'm with you. I think that people proved in the last election they really thought a lot about it. There was a lot of discussion for and against, and I was really impressed with that for something that you know, for an off-year election. But anyway, how do others feel about that? You know, do you think you want to do all of them? Why don't we just take a quick straw vote, all of them at once?

I was just going to say, Mayor, I would propose that we bring forward language for all six. At that point in time, we'd also have an idea of what else could potentially be on the ballot, and then you could make that decision then.

It's a good idea, and there'll be a... Yeah, there'll be public hearing. If it's not too much work to put all that together, that's my only concern. Sounds like a plan. All right. I think we've, do you have your direction? Okay. All right. I think our last, well, it isn't our last one.

So we have two more items to go. Yes, and so my question is, would you like me to proceed with the presentation related to the lodging tax question, or would you like to move on to the amicus brief question? I know that we have some members online of the public that I... would guess are wanting to hear the discussion about the amicus brief and also we had a lot of emails submitted today so there may also be people watching the video or the mess the meeting streaming and so um if council would like to move to that next then we can follow up with the lodging tax at the end

Are council members comfortable with switching those two right now without a motion?

I mean, do we need to vote to change the agenda? Do we need to do something? We may.

That's what I was just suggesting. Second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Good.

All right. So the next item is discussion direction action, which is a request from Superior, the town of Superior, to file an amicus brief with the Colorado Supreme Court in support of its petition for certiorari review. Is there a staff presentation on this?

There is not, Mayor. There was a communication in your packet, and I'm available to answer any questions. There was also some additional information that was provided in the first addendum that was sent out.

Okay. And the first addendum was kind of a summary, was it not?

The first addendum included the actual petition for writ of certiorari that was filed with the Colorado Supreme Court. We didn't have that at the time that the packet was published. And it also contains a summary of the arguments being advanced by the city and county of Broomfield in their amicus brief in support of the cert petition. Okay.

And the city attorney did a fine Memo, which I really appreciate and I suspect my other fellow council members Felt the same way Explaining some of the issues there I I do feel like we should introduce this a bit because I to the extent and I'm inclined to just say a couple of things about it because it was sort of pushing to at least put this on the agenda for our discussion. And there is, as I said, there's a really good memo in the materials. One of the issues is whether our council might be interested in signing on to an as yet not received a motion to the court to file a amicus brief in support of a petition for certiorari from Broomfield. The timing issues that are kind of complicated, but they boil down to we have until Thursday to file or not file, and one possibility is that we get a copy of the materials from Broomfield. Potentially, more like Thursday is probably likely, maybe tomorrow, but I don't think we have any reason to believe they'll be done until Thursday, is that right?

No, my understanding is that Broomfield plans to file on Thursday, so... using that as a basis for your decision is Problematic from a timing standpoint because our deadline is also Thursday, right?

So I guess there's, let me throw out two possibilities as we talk about this. One possibility is that we take what Broomfield does file, presuming that they file before 11.59 p.m., and essentially cut and paste it into our own and accept that.

I don't see how that would be possible for me to take a brief that is filed on the same day that I have to produce a brief to be filed. I mean, I work really hard to do the will of the council, but I cannot affect the time-space continuum.

Well, that's just unlike any other lawyers. Let me ask you, well, I guess the question is if we provide direction tonight, is that enough time to put together the material that needs to be put together to draft what needs to be filed on Thursday?

So I would need direction from the council if you want to file the city's own amicus brief. I need to understand what it is the council has to say to the Colorado Supreme Court. You know, as I outlined in the memo, generally speaking, an amicus brief is offered to the court to add to arguments already before the court. Amicus briefs that simply restate the arguments of the supported party are generally not very persuasive. So it's what can the city add to this? And that's where I look to the council to tell me, what is it that you want to say? I mean, we know what Broomfield is going to say because they gave us a summary of their brief. My understanding, my last conversation with their attorney is that that brief is still in process, and they've been working on it since last week. So is it a heavy lift? Yes, to give me direction tonight, and I have to file it on Thursday. I will do my best if that's the council's direction. The other alternative is Broomfield has offered to have Louisville sign on to their brief that will be filed. I mean, we need to add our portion of what the city's interest is in filing an amicus brief, and I can provide that to the city and county attorney. But that option is available to you as well. What we don't have is a draft of that brief for you to review because it is still in...

progress it's it's not ready okay so there is a there's a it sounds like the path we can decide we can decide now whether we want to even proceed on this but the path that is available just so we frame it correctly is that you provide whatever information is the city's interest to the city and county of Broomfield's attorney and then get the brief back to look at, right?

Right. If we are signing on to the brief, then I will be given a draft to review.

Okay.

What was not possible was to get a draft for the council to review at this public meeting because it's still... it's still in progress yet what the city would have to add to that brief is the Colorado appellate rules require that the city state its purpose and interest in the brief such as how the interests of the city's residents are affected and so you know that's a pretty simple thing to add to their brief it will probably look a lot like what there says because we all have kind of the same impacts in this area

Okay. No, I think that's helpful. Are there questions for the city attorney starting out before anything more just about the issues? Okay. Well, let's discuss the issue of filing a brief.

Yeah, I feel pretty strongly that based on the summary we got, we ought to take the generous offer from our neighbors in Broomfield and join their brief. I am pleased to hear that we'll the city attorney will have a chance to review it before it's filed. Certainly, if you saw anything in there that, you know, red flag, something you thought would be contrary to all the discussion you've heard from us, you know, over the last however many years. that you would find a way to bring that to our attention. I don't expect that will be the case. I expect their brief is going to say what the summary of their brief said, just with more words. And assuming that's the case, I don't see why we wouldn't sign on to it. It's an important issue for us. We are impacted. I think our interest is important, but not complicated. We experience a lot of impacts from the airport, and the Court of Appeals has left us in a very confusing posture with respect to what we can do about it. And somebody ought to resolve the confusion, and this is our chance to ask for that.

Okay, others? Council Member Kern. Actually, I have a procedural question. So we're past council questions at this point. Were we going to take public comment?

Correct. Yes, we should.

Up first is Jill Ruggles, followed by Cliff Harold.

I'm good. Jill Ruggles, long-term Louisville resident, Colorado native, as if that's any credential. I'm just urging you to do something because right now all we've done is talk and they've shown no good faith actions or remedy to the situation. I just think that we should... Selfishly, I want to be involved just so that we have some say to make them accountable and to improve our quality of life. We're back two and a half years after rebuilding from a fire. But while we were displaced, we lived in an interlocking apartment. An airplane crashed in the intersection, narrowly missing the building that we were temporarily displaced in, and the pilot died. So every day we had to walk. by the memorial, and it really hit home that they're flying over every day. Our safety is really tantamount to everything, and all these flight schools that they keep adding. I just felt that it's important that we just go back to the safety. The airplane traffic is not going to decrease. I've been here my entire life. People want what we have, and they're going to fly in to get it. So that's okay. I support that, but safety has got to be the number one issue. The odds are that more incidents like this will occur in our area with the increased volume of flights and students at the controls if a measure isn't taken. Doing nothing is not a solution. If I had a good faith If they said anything in good faith that they planned on changing, I mean, these flights are lower than ever before. And I'm not a pilot expert. But I've lived here a long time. And I think that if you can't carry on a conversation in your backyard, I think it's a problem. So I'm just compelling you to do what's right. I'm hoping that others join in on this, but this is Louisville's last chance. I think talk is cheap, and this is our last chance, I think. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Joe.

Next up is Cliff Harold, followed by Tamara Krantz. Cliff, we can't hear you.

I'd like to encourage your support of Superior and Boulder County and their suit against RMMA and Jefferson County. I sent you an email this morning highlighting reasons for your support. And the key takeaway from the letter is that public safety should be the primary concern about flights at RMMA. More pointedly, as the previous speaker said, students at RMMA-based flight schools learn by making thousands of training flights yearly over our neighborhoods and those of other towns and cities nearby. That's thousands of planes piloted by beginners based at the most incident-prone airport in the US, flying over more than half a million or more residents in the region, hundreds of thousands of homes, and thousands of companies and government institutions. But my email failed to raise an equally important point, and that's why I wanted to speak tonight. And that is that the Northwest Mayors and Commissioners Coalition must stand strong collectively to preserve public safety in the face of rapidly growing air traffic across the broader Northwest Metro region. As long as the FAA can fight skirmishes with individual municipalities and residents about their local airport issues, cities in the region won't likely succeed in protecting the public safety of residents. I think only a collective effort of city leaders in the region has a chance of being taken seriously by the FAA and maybe even the state. Which brings me to the November letter the MCC and city of Louisville sent the FAA, Jeffco and the state. It perfectly described the seriousness of regional risks posed by our MMA and set clear expectations about addressing them. Equally important, though, is that it had the weight of all members of the MCC. I'm afraid I don't know what has come of the letter, but standing with Superior and Boulder County at least demonstrates a degree of collective resolve, and I hope Louisville will stand with them. Thank you.

Thank you, Cliff.

Next up is Tamara Krantz, followed by Kyle Brown.

Hi, this is Tamar Krantz. I live in Louisville. Can you hear me? Yes. Sorry. OK, sorry. Thank you. I was just calling in. I wrote to you so I can just be really brief right now. I wanted to encourage you to join Superior and Boulder County by filing an amicus brief to help them get the Supreme Court, the Colorado Supreme Court, to take it up. I think that you should do whatever is most effective. And I definitely don't have any expertise, but I would love to hear you discuss whether or not it would be more effective for the city of Louisville to file its own amicus brief over joining the brief from Broomfield. So I hope you'll take the time to discuss which is the most effective and choose that route. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Tamara.

Next up is Kyle Brown.

Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for all of your service. I'm Kyle Brown, obviously, state representative for this area. This issue is very near and dear to my heart because it is so important to so many of our residents. um it feels like my entire public career i have been working to make sure that rma is a better neighbor to louisville and as our residents noted it's it's been really challenging working with jefferson county working with rma to try to mitigate the negative impacts that are on our community I appreciate Superior and Boulder County's leadership in this area. And, you know, I think the negative effects of the airport on our community are well documented. The research talks a lot about how kids who live closer to general aviation airports like RMA have higher levels of lead in their blood. I routinely get emails from residents saying, throughout our community about how planes have woken them up at 2 or 3 in the morning. And I think there are legitimate legal questions that need to be addressed here. You know, federal regulations and laws obviously preempt a lot of state actions and local actions, but we are not powerless. The legislature passed in 2024 kind of a first-in-the-nation law that established some minimum standards for airports like RMA who receive state dollars. So, having an amicus brief from Louisville will further encourage the Colorado Supreme Court to clarify whether such activity constitutes a public nuisance and whether the local community can take actions and what those actions will be. I think it's worth noting, obviously, that the FAA has recently changed flight paths, and while this has provided some relief for some neighborhoods in Louisville, it has disproportionately impacted other aspects of our community and disproportionately impacted some of our Louisville community. So, you know, I would ask that, you know, the council file an amicus brief in support of our residents who are impacted by this. And I really appreciate all of your efforts to address this issue, which is so difficult, and just know that I will continue to work with you and stand with you as you work to try to make this better for our community. So thanks again.

Thank you, Kyle. Any others? All right. So we'll take it back to Council for Council comment. Council Member Kern.

Thank you. So I actually didn't want to speak first, but the mayor pro tem in our last meeting had brought up the idea of pros and cons to either writing our own or signing off on Broomfield's amicus brief. So I want everybody to understand, I am absolutely, I live in the part of town that is now very heavily impacted by the, meaning the west side of Louisville, by the flight changes that the FAA made, the departure pattern changes at the FAA. And being part of the task force and being very present in the meeting where we were presented the raw data about the flights coming over Louisville, it is absolutely appalling to me that there is more than zero flights below 500 feet above anybody. in this community. That to me is like an off-the-tarch danger level. And obviously it's not the jets that we're talking about with, you know, very well-experienced pilots. It is inexperienced pilots in training aircraft. That was very concerning. When they changed the pattern, they're also now flying over a part of town that's newly recovered with less vegetation, so it makes it even more noticeable, but it's also at a higher elevation than some of the other parts of town, which means as the airplanes are climbing and the ground is getting higher, there isn't as much distance between the aircraft and the houses, which, again, creates a less safe environment for training pilots. So this and the noise, every two minutes or so an aircraft will go over, but you barely finish hearing one and here comes the next one, and they are well over the state nuisance decibel levels, there's no question. And so it is absolutely very difficult for people living their lives. That being said, a couple of months ago, the task force and the mayor received an invitation from airport administration to have a conversation. And they were going to be including in this conversation representatives of the flight schools. That meeting didn't happen. It has been, let's say, delayed. And a lot of it is surrounding whether or not we as a community are willing to file an amicus brief whether that's in support of Superior's position or just that we want the Colorado Supreme Court to rule on this because their decision could possibly impact Louisville. If they rule in favor, it gives us potentially some legal grounds or enforceable legal grounds, I guess. Here's the thing though, if we file this, there is also the high likelihood that they will not engage in conversation with anymore. And as a representative of the people who are so heavily impacted right now, my family being part of that impact, My concern is that the airport and the flight schools, without more conversation with us, and we have had so many residents take their time and complain and voice their concerns to the airport, that I believe is the reason we did receive the invitation for a conversation. They're responding to the pleas of our residents and want to know, how do we work together? to create some measure of relief. That conversation may not be good enough, but if we file the brief, I'm not saying that we shouldn't, but I want everybody to understand the pros and cons of this. If we file the brief, the airport personnel are going to be directed to not have these continued conversations with us, very likely. And so that leaves us with zero opportunity to represent our residents. It was said that they have not shown good faith, and I would agree. To date, there are just more planes at lower altitudes, more frequently, earlier and later. You're right, they have not yet. And that might mean it's worth it to wait and just see what happens and see if there's some opportunity somewhere down the road that we or someone else request the airport legally do something. We have to go to court, find out that there's a legal measure, that there really is a nuisance, and then it could be enforced. It could be, you know, five years or more. But if we don't file the brief, we might have a chance at a conversation and impacting some of this this year. My hope would be that they would make some changes to be good neighbors, because we would be the only community willing to sit to the table and say, let's work together and stop berating our community with pollution. They have already begun the conversion to unleaded fuel. The flight schools have already started converting their airplanes. That demonstrates an effort to meet Kyle Brown's excellent bill that would mandate it by 2030, but they are doing it in advance. My hope is that they're willing to take additional measures as well to stop a lot of the additional concerns that are coming from our community members. So I thought I would just be able to publicly have that conversation with all of you, but I wanted to know, I hear everything that I went saying and all the concerns and worries, I share them. I don't necessarily feel that the amicus brief is going, if we file it in support of this, is going to any time in the near future change the number of flights over our community and that's the goal. That should be what we're trying to achieve is fewer dangerous planes flying over our houses and also creating the noise. And I just implore you guys to think about all of that because I think it goes beyond just we support our neighbors. We have to support our next door neighbors. like our people who live in the house next to us, right, and try and help their lives be better. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Kern. Others, if you have comments? None? Josh?

Could I just ask a question? Councilmember Kern, I'm wondering, so when the airport reached out to you and the task force and the mayor, I mean, did they indicate an actual willingness to do anything for us, or was it just an invitation to have a conversation?

I think based on the people that they were willing to have in the conversation, it wasn't just a, hey, come to the airport and do a tour. It was an opportunity to meet with the people that are contributing heavily, meaning the flight school operators, to the issues that are impacting our community. And I don't believe they would have been having a conversation with them and us if that wasn't the intention was to address. And they did mention addressing a lot of the complaints and concerns from the community members.

A question. I don't remember anybody from the county commission being on that list of people who would show up. Right.

No, not on the County Commission.

I actually appreciate and I continue to appreciate Council Member Kern's optimism about these conversations. And we've talked about that, the conversations with the flight schools, with our MMA. And I don't think... I don't think anybody on council would discourage future discussions. I also don't think filing an amicus brief would make a difference in whether the county commission or RMMA's leadership would be willing to meet with us or not. I think it is the county commissioners of Jefferson County who have time and again refused to make any changes in what they've done to Louisville. And what they've done to Louisville, it's not just Louisville. It is Superior, Louisville, Boulder County, to some extent Boulder in it, Longmont, Lafayette, Westminster, Broomfield, and Erie in a variety of different ways. 400,000 people have imposed externalities on all of us. And they have shown zero interest in talking with us, zero interest in doing anything to ameliorate the situation, even though as the operator of the airport, they have the power to do that. Court of Appeals was very clear on that. And what is, and that's obviously an incredible annoyance to all of us in Louisville. The lawsuit that Superior has filed is not something we're joining. That's not what this is about. But it's about showing some solidarity on the issues that I think are discussed in the summary of Broomfield's amicus brief arguments, which I really appreciate the city attorney being able to obtain those from the city and county attorney of Broomfield. And I think our interest in all of this, and that was something that city attorney mentioned, is that we have We have an interest in protecting the safety of our residents and those who pass within our borders. There's the new flight path, and to an extent that can help, but there are plenty of planes that are flying outside that. They fly over our schools. multiple schools in that path. There are emissions concerns that we've talked about or that others have talked about. There's noise concerns. These are sort of issues of, frankly, public nuisance that other municipalities should be able to go to court and to require the operator of the airport to impose on their flight schools, the amount of money that flows to Jefferson County and the airport is astonishing and it depends very much on the number of operations is what they call them. And when you have a touch and go, you've got an operation happening each time and there is an incentive to do and to pump up those numbers because you get more money from the federal government if you have more operations. And that's what they've done. And that's a bigger issue, unfortunately, than the arguments that often we make to those folks. And clearly, they haven't been listening. They're extraordinarily not They're not good neighbors, and there's a number of counties that feel that way. There's pressure that's being brought to bear politically on them and will continue to be brought. But this is something we can do. The interest of supporting our residents in protecting their safety, And in protecting the ability of our residents to enjoy their property and their property values and not to see those devalued by this increasing amount of traffic that is largely driven by the flight schools. This is the mecca for flight training in the country right now. is coming to this airport and flying, which is, I guess, a real victory for our MMA, but it's coming at the cost of us, and we don't have a seat at that table. And when we don't have a seat at that table because we have had no seat given to us, and I think it's absolutely imperative that we do whatever we can in supporting another jurisdiction that's been able to bring a legal suit is what we have here. I think the points that— the amicus brief that Broomfield has outlined are important and good to bring. And so for all of those reasons, I think trying to show solidarity up and down the 36 corridor is really important. That helps us and will help us to be able to hold them accountable if we have our own concerns of public nuisance in the future. We get the court Supreme Court to hear the case and to try to clarify the rules which are unclear right now. There's rights without remedies and I think we deserve that as a group of citizens and if it comes out differently well then we know but we've been stymied in our own potential legal positions on this and this is an opportunity to potentially get a foothold to be able to force neighbors to be friendly even or force neighbors to do something even if they're not interested in being good neighbors or being friendly. So I'm supportive. Is there other comments? Yes. Council Member Kern. Council Member Cooperman and then Council Member Dunn.

It would certainly be preferable. if we could just sit down and negotiate some kind of agreement or something that would help with these issues that Louisville faces and our neighbors face. But having followed this for several years now, and sort of attempted that, it hasn't come to anything. And Jefferson County hasn't been, you know, hasn't been willing to come to us in good faith and actually try to help us with those issues. So I just feel like, you know, if we were going to, only try to pursue the route of negotiating and talking with them, I would need them to come to us and say, look, we have been bad neighbors. We have been doing all this stuff to you. Now we're actually at the table, and we're going to make some concessions. And I don't see any... I don't see any evidence that they're willing to do that. So at least for the moment, I think I'm really forced to agree with the mayor in all of his remarks. And I think we should file an amicus brief, again, because it's a little step that we can take at the moment in support of our neighbors. And I think we should be, We are elected officials in Louisville, but this is not just a problem for Louisville, and I think we should be seeking a solution that helps everyone in the region.

So I was curious when you were commenting about the amicus brief is a way to help the residents and the implication from your comments is that it is a way to mitigate the negative impacts of the flights. And I'm I don't know that I'm seeing that that has a direct impact. I can see where there is value in the court just hearing the case so that everybody in every municipal airport across the whole state of Colorado has a clear understanding of what they are legally obligated or able, right, or could be even legally forced to do. I think that's actually more the issue here because the touch and go activity that you spoke of that is part of the suit with Superior has zero impact on Louisville other than if they go somewhere else to do the touch and go, that's even more planes that fly over our community in the process of doing that. which would be unfortunate to add even more because they have to leave that airport and go to one of the other ones to the north, so they'll be flying over us every time they do that. Centennial Airport was really successful in working with its community, and I agree, Councilmember Cooperman, that RMMA has been successful I mean, having attended quite a few of the meetings, the roundtables, you know, that was appalling. And there were—there was previous airport administration. I think that they failed everybody in that process and did not pursue in good faith to come up with better solutions. But as the Jefferson County Commissioner stated, and I think it was in a letter that I read, they, until the lawsuit was settled or dropped, they would not enter into any conversations with Superior or Boulder County. So that's the only reason. And if it's an overwhelming request of our community members that we sign on to and support a lawsuit that doesn't really impact us, depending on how the court finds. But it makes everybody, at least we put our foot forward, we said something, and this is our effort. My concern is that It's actually not going to result in what we want. And actually keeping the only door open, we would be the only city saying, we're going to talk to you on behalf of our residents and make it better for our people. And I don't think they're going to shut down their operations recently or anytime soon or reduce the number of flights. But I think there might be some measure on times. There might be a measure on work. where they go and how high they are above our communities, that they don't fly over our schools. Those are things that can be determined by the flight instructor in an airplane and their boss, the flight school, can tell them you can't fly over Louisville schools. So when you're departing to go to your flight, to your training area, don't fly over our, don't fly over these spaces because it's dangerous. They can make that decision for us. If we, if we like kind of join this, like the movement, and I'm not saying we don't have to, but if we do, we have to understand that the county commissioners have made it clear. The airport personnel who work for them will not be talking to us because they're not talking to Superior Boulder County now because of the lawsuit. And that is my only worry, is because they reached out to us, airport administration, I just really wanted to make sure, since I knew not everybody got the email and not everybody has had an opportunity to attend these meetings, like Councilmember Fahey and I were able to be there when they initiated the unleaded fuel and the first planes were released with the modified engines. And yes, they're late to the game and they're not doing it as quickly as they should, but they're in the process of doing exactly what we asked them to do to make our community safer, and they're doing it before the state mandate. Maybe I do have unrealistic optimism, but I've seen small positive measures being made we will no longer be part of the conversation. Our residents' voices will not be heard as loudly. And I mean, I'm willing to have lots of meetings with them. And I think that my task force teammate, Council Member Heffner, was willing to do the same. to meet with the airport personnel on the behalf of our community members and advocate vigorously that they needed to continue to make more changes. So I just want to make sure that everybody knows that by saying yes to this, and we got an enormous amount of emails asking us to, but none of those community members have any of the information I've just given to all of you. None of them know what might be at stake if we submit this. So I just thought I'd make that clear.

Other comments? Yes, council.

I think all those points are well taken. I would still do the brief. I don't think we can unilaterally back down when they've done nothing. And there's no, as far as I know, there's no legal requirement they stop talking to us. If they stop talking to us, that's their choice, and it would certainly be another insult in a long list of insults. I think we have to be prepared for that, but I'm not sure that this decision is going to drive it one way or the other. I think that this is sort of the minimum we can do, and we do want a resolution to this important legal question. I mean, it just doesn't make sense that the airport or Jefferson County has the ability to do certain things, but a state court can't tell them to do those things. There's a big hole in the decision we have from the Court of Appeals, and it would be a good thing have that whole resolved in one way or another that makes sense for us and everyone else in our position. If I may, I'd make a motion that we sign on to the Broomfield brief per the procedure the city attorney outlined. Second. Discussion?

Would we rather have our own brief, sorry, that is a little more narrow scoped? We don't know the exact language that's going to be in the Broomfield one, but it would mean that our attorney also needs to wait to even see it to before knowing if that's really something that we're definitely gonna do, because none of us have a know what's in it, we did see the general information. And it's not just stating, I think, as the city attorney was saying, what makes this different, like why we would want them, why we're asking, why we're putting through a brief. It is also stating more of the merits of the case. I think there were two components. It wasn't just, this is how it would impact, like it's gonna impact our community too. The findings are really important to everybody here. There was more to that and I wasn't sure if we wanted to support that additional detailed language.

I, let me, respond to that. I think First, the avenue of doing our own brief, as I understand it from city attorney, is a time-space continuum issue. The idea of actually trying to get that done is a really difficult, if not impossible task.

To clarify, that was in response to your suggestion that after Broomfield files their brief on the day of the deadline, that I use their brief to... draft a new brief. I just don't see that that's possible. Only so much can happen in one day.

Difficult to, I mean, is it, I guess to clarify that then, if we give you direction tonight, is it possible to get a brief done to file on Thursday?

Well, it is possible. Again, to clarify, what I was responding to, Mayor, was your suggestion that I use Broomfield's brief. after it's been filed to draft the city's brief. The only thing I know is that they plan to file on the day of the deadline. And if they file that late in the day, which they certainly could, I will have zero opportunity to carry forth that direction.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. And I'm taking that.

Off the list?

That's not something that I'm suggesting. But one alternative is for you to develop or put together a brief separate from that. One alternative it sounded like was talking to Broomfield and working together with them. during the next couple of days. Did I misunderstand that?

If we're joining on to their brief, yes. Yes, I do believe. I know that I will have the opportunity if we're signing it. You know, I will do my best. Council will need to give me direction. If you want a separate brief, you'll need to tell me what it is that you want to say to the court because what I'm hearing by separate brief is that you don't want to say what Broomfield is saying. So you'll need to tell me what it is you want to say. And it is a heavy lift to do a amicus brief to the Colorado Supreme Court in a day. But I'll do my best to carry forth whatever the council's direction is tonight. I just want to make sure that if... If the direction is for us to file our own brief, that you understand that, substantively, I need you to give me input on what you want to say. Because it is the voice of the city is the friend of the court. The city is adding to the arguments already made by the supported party. Superior in Boulder County in their request that the Supreme Court review this issue now the only issue right now is Will the Supreme Court take the matter up for further review? There's additional briefing that will happen if the Supreme Court decides to review it So, I mean, that somewhat limits what we would say, but it's important for the council to understand that I need specific direction from you if you want to file your own brief.

Okay. I think we've got a couple of council members. Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Heffner, do you have your hand up?

Um, I'm fine moving forward with, um, as council member Hefner also suggested signing on to the Broomfield amicus brief. I trust you to, you know, read it and take a glance at what they've written and make your, your judgment, which I trust as to whether any of that is in conflict with the conversations that you've heard with this council. You mentioned earlier that they've spent, I think, weeks drafting this draft, this amicus brief. It's 9.42. My brain is slowing down. So I think it's unreasonable to ask you to try to turn around and draft something that's impactful in like a day or less. So I would like to move, when I'm reading the summary that they provided, I believe it's in line with what our residents are asking us to do. And I'm fine signing onto that barring any egregious disagreements from what you've heard from us.

One suggestion I might make, which I think may be consistent with the motion, but I'm glad to make it as a friendly amendment, is that we have, when you have had a chance, well, back up, I think it is perhaps a good thing for the council to at least have some small input to make sure that we're comfortable with what comes through. That's not a reflection on our trust in you, but it may be useful to have our task force take a look at that when it comes through, and I would expect that that's going to happen You know, that'll happen pretty quickly. That may be too much. I mean, that may be too much to ask for. I'm fine giving that to you. I just don't know whether that's too heavy a load to look at what's been provided by... Broomfield and take that as what our intentions are. But that's for council to think about. If you're comfortable, as Mayor Pro Tem suggested, with having the city attorney do it and see to it that you're carrying out our intentions, that's great. I just don't want to put too much of a burden on you as a policymaker on that. So I'd be interested in your thought on that.

Right. I appreciate that. You know, I would want to get the input of the Broomfield attorney who is the drafter of it, how far it would be circulated before. I know that she has said Lafayette is signing on to the brief, and she has said to both Lafayette's attorney and me that, yes, I'll send you the brief if you're signing on to it for review. I don't know how far I can circulate that beyond me. I just need to talk to her and see what her comfort level is. It wasn't available for this meeting tonight. That was not certain.

It may be more complicated to have other people involved in it.

then council member Heffner. I would just say given the stage we're at, I think we should leave it to the city attorney to review it. Certainly you know how to reach us if you're authorized to share it and want to reach out to the task force or anyone else. I would say feel comfortable in doing so, but otherwise I think we trust your judgment. I honestly do expect that their brief will follow the summary of what they sent us because it would be pretty rude to write something that departs substantially from what they said they were going to do. And I think these are exactly the arguments we would make, so I see no reason to send anyone on a fire drill mission to write something tomorrow.

I absolutely agree with that.

Yes. Yeah, I was going to agree. I was going to say that City Attorney Kelly has been part of all the Task Force conversations, been at all of our meetings, and I think, you know, there's been also some discussions back and forth about this prepping, and so I think that if she is comfortable with it, I think her level of expertise, you know, in legal matters is, and her connections with the Broomfield attorneys who have spent weeks on this, as the Mayor Pro Tem was saying, I think is sufficient.

Okay. All right. Then I think the motion, seconds on the table. We've had our discussion. Is there anybody else who wants to provide any input? Does the city attorney have enough guidance before we vote to be able to carry out our will?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Very good. Thank you, Council, for wrestling with this, and I appreciate the vote, and I'm sure others will, too.

I'll say thanks for just listening. I just needed everybody to know all the information I had. I didn't think it was fair if that wasn't, if you guys didn't know everything. And I appreciate that.

I think we all do. It's been a good discussion amongst us. Thank you to the community members who wrote and to the ones who showed up and the ones who showed up online. And thank you very much to the city attorney who I think presented to us really good materials for us to chew on.

All right, the last, is it the last?

It's not, yes, it is the last. Discussion, direction, action on potential 2026 ballot measure, the lodging tax. So take it away.

Thank you, Mayor. So the purpose of this item is to get direction on whether or not council would like to potentially place an item on the ballot related to increasing the city's lodging tax, which is currently set at 3%. I'm gonna go through these slides because you've seen them. So as for background, the city has an existing lodging tax. It's codified in our municipal code. It's for less than 30 consecutive days. In November 2002, resident passed the lodging tax. Since January 1st, 2003, the tax has generated approximately $8.5 million or approximately $370,000 annually. And then this is addition to the sales and use tax. When considering whether or not to place this on the ballot, there's several things to consider, so this is required to be voted on by the voters. The purpose and use of the revenue, the current lodging tax is for recreation and cultural and other activities government uses. Economic impacts on the local tourism sector, this would apply to lodgers within Louisville. I did ask the question as to whether or not Louisville residents could be exempted from this. They could not. It would have to apply to anybody that's staying within a hotel or short-term rental in Louisville. The community impact in terms of public perception of tourism, many times lodging tax is considered to be It's not placed necessarily on the residents. It's the people coming to visit Louisville. So is there more of an appetite to consider that? The fiscal impact and projections, alignment with council's work plan, and then timing considerations, you know, based upon the conversations earlier tonight related to the other ballot measures, is now the time to consider this. Communication, what would the messaging for the residents, businesses, and visitors look like? And then again, we previously discussed this related to the number of ballot questions on the ballot. As noted previously, we've accumulated approximately $8.5 million between 2003 and 2025. This last year, it would equate to each percent was about $133,000. So that doesn't take into account the short-term rental program that's been approved for Sundance. The direction requested tonight is, does council want to place a ballot measure on the 2026 ballot to consider increasing the existing lodging tax? If yes, what percentage would you like to propose? And then where would the collected funds be directed? And with that, I'm happy to answer questions. I will note that the council communication report provided the current lodging tax for surrounding agencies. Erie's currently in the process of doing a public survey to determine their community's appetite for a lodging tax. Boulder's currently 7.5%. Lafayette's at 2%. And Superior is $4 per night for an occupied room. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions?

Yes, Council Member Cooperman. Just a little clarifying question. So this, I mean, you mentioned the city sales and use tax, that it stacks on top of that. I assume it just stacks on top of the county and other taxes that, okay. Correct. And then as it's currently written, does it, It says what you can use it for, but it doesn't mandate anything about how those funds are allocated.

No, and the way it's written, it specifically says for operating, maintaining recreational and cultural facilities and for any lawful municipal purpose. So there's a lot of flexibility there. With the money that's collected, you can say that it goes to cultural services, it goes to recreation, but there's a lot of flexibility. I think if we were to propose increasing this The language, because it does provide flexibility, you could determine if you wanted to maintain the current language or if you wanted to add in an economic vitality or some type of marketing component to it to help with either programs or marketing of the city related to this. As you all heard from Director Cummings earlier today related to the museum, there's similar conversations to be had about library operations, cultural services operations. So as much as we talked earlier about museum allocation, She would happily take an additional allocation for operation of her department. But with that said, you also received an email from the chamber today regarding support for this ballot measure with the hopes of being able to direct some of the funds, or I'm sure they would appreciate all of the funds, towards marketing tourism for Louisville. So I think the first question is, is there interest in placing this on the 2026 ballot?

Council? Okay. Would you like to be heard?

I would love to be heard. Thank you. So I am open to discussing a lodging tax. I just don't know if this year is the year because I feel like even though the historic preservation tax is not an increase, it's a tax on the ballot and I think this puts that at risk. I don't see a huge amount of urgency behind this one so my preference would be to get HPC across the finish line and if we're successful for that this year the next year talk about increasing this tax I just I'm concerned it could put the HPC tax at risk I agree and I'll just add I

I'm not necessarily opposed to this as a policy idea, but I'm a little uncomfortable with just coming up with a tax essentially on out-of-towners because we think it's a good way to raise money without impacting Louisville residents. It doesn't sit that well with me. I think it would be one thing if we were saying, oh, well, there's all these costs and created by people staying in hotels or what have you that we need to cover or they're benefiting from city services in some way that we need to do some cost recovery. But if the idea is just this isn't an easy and politically safe way to raise some extra money, that just doesn't sit that great with me.

I would, I guess, respond to that. I don't I think there's a very good point about whether we put it on the tax because of other taxes that are going to be on there for us. I think on a lodging tax, I think it would be pretty clear to our residents, or we can make it clear, that this is not a tax that's going to be on them. And I think for that reason, it's distinguishable pretty easily from the historic preservation tax. So I'm not as worried about that. That's to the point about treating folks differently. I'm trying to remember one piece of the puzzle. There are other... I mean, we are lower on our tax, on our lodging tax, than a number of other nearby jurisdictions, correct?

No, not necessarily. So Boulder is at 7.5%. Lafayette, 2%. Longmont, 2%. Louisville's 3% lines is 5%. And so we're kind of in the midpoint right now.

And we're the closest to Boulder. I guess... I'm comfortable with raising that. I think it's, I don't know that wanting to raise that tax this year in part because of revenue concerns really bothers me as a reason for putting that tax in. We know that there's gonna be Plenty of folks that are going to need our lodging. And I think it's worthwhile to raise the tax.

So that would be money.

I mean, I think what we raise it to, you know, we can talk about. But I don't think just simply doing it at 3% is, or excuse me, raising it from 3% this year is... particularly big issue. I think what I would say also is if you raise it or try to raise it next year, you will have a bunch of folks who are renting out their houses who are gonna raise a lot of concerns because you probably have more after next year and it's gonna make it all the more difficult to raise it in the future. that's sort of good to get, I think, out ahead of instead of waiting.

Yeah. I guess I would just ask, and I know it's late, what is unique about lodging that it's appropriate for us to charge them a combined sales tax rate that is already over 10%, and if we increase it, it will be substantially over 10% compared to other sales taxes we charge, which are hovering somewhere just below 10%. What is unique about lodging that makes it appropriate to charge a dramatically higher rate of sales tax? And maybe there's an answer to that question, but I don't know what it is.

Council Member Kern.

I don't think I have a good answer for you. In fact, I know I don't. I was just going to answer your question sort of, which is there is a historic precedent in the lodging industry that municipalities do use that visitor lodging tax to help promote their communities versus taxing the actual residents on food and other day-to-day goods for that promotion, which I realize sounds counterintuitive because the more people who are coming into your community more than they spend in your restaurants and what have you, so that maybe the everyday taxpayer should be a participant in that. But as we're seeing with our budget, we're struggling to even meet the day-to-day needs of the community. So the lodging tax helps to facilitate that now in our case we're using it for some of our day-to-day things we need to do some promoting as we've been discussing with evc we've been hearing from the chamber there is a real need for some promotion of the city of louisville i gotta tell you that visit golden one is good i don't know if you guys have seen their ads but they're amazing i want to go down to golden for the afternoon instead of coming here because it's such a good ad and i see it on the weather channel and i see it on x earth x when i watch that and it's It's amazing. Part of that came out of lodging tax. And so those kind of things that can help really like elevate and help our team, but maybe even work with the chamber to elevate our community and do more to help us bring more of that business in that we're looking for, this is a non-harmful, non-directly negatively impacting the day-to-day consumer. But the visitor who wants to be here and go to a CU game or go to a CU graduation, they can help us to advertise our city and our community. And that's where I don't think that this necessarily, the increase should go into cultural services, the rec center. I do think, to your point, because they're not necessarily being impacted directly, but it should go to helping us promote our community, market it, and work with the economic vitality of the city.

Council Member Dickinson.

Yeah, I think it's good. I'll echo some of that. There's that, you know, I think the hotel industry doesn't necessarily fight these things too hard if they're used correctly. Again, one of the, like, going to book a hotel for 200 bucks. Then there's these taxes. It's not the hotel's fault. There's just these taxes that you end up paying. And so the consumer still gets to see the price. of the hotel and then the tax just gets passed on. But when you use that money for tourism, like to try to encourage people to visit your community, then more people are staying at those hotels and their revenue goes up. And again, they don't pay the tax. The lodger pays the tax. So are hotels like it if you're using it correctly? And yeah, it's the visitor who's paying that. And do they serve to pay more or less? I don't know, but I think it's... something that we experience like everywhere i travel and i stay somewhere i pay a lodging tax for the most part um so i've gotten used to it airbnb it's very common thing right so um there's just these taxes and fees that are added on um so you know i think it i think it is something that we can do i think it is something that people will pass and i think it is money that we can use thoughtfully you know the two areas that i would like to see the money used for are marketing of Louisville and affordable housing. I think a lodging tax supporting affordable housing in Louisville makes a ton of sense. Those are the two directions I'd like to see that money go. I don't know where or not the support from other council members are on those two directions. I continue to support the arts. Recreation seems a little weird for lodging as one of the directions. I would go with cultural arts, marketing, and affordable housing. And remember, too, that with Sundance coming, it kind of all plays into that. There is going to be a negative impact for some residents in Louisville to have a hundred thousand people come to Boulder County and when they pay a lot of lodging tax, that's nice at least, like we're going to collect that lodging tax. And so our hotels will be full, people who do the Sundance thing, their places will be full and we'll get some more money from that event that's coming to us and we'll get to market Louisville as a great place to visit for dinner and other things for people who are coming to that event. So I think it all ties in quite nicely and why I think we should do it this year. And again, I'll say that if we don't want two taxes, the HPC has three year, we have three chances of the HPC. We could do it this year, we could do it 2027, or we could do 2028. So why are we rushing the HPC tax when it isn't even within two years of expiration? So I would do the lodging tax 26 and the HPC 27. And if for some unforeseen reason, HPC fails in 27, we still have a second shot at it. 28 unlike our open space tax where it was like do or die so I would if you wanted to separate them I would do the opposite order I would do lodging first HPC second but I would do them both together other comments yes

I'd like to hear more, because I wasn't really concerned about putting both of the taxes on the ballot, because I think one is a tax that the community members, I think, really appreciate the benefits of, which is the historic preservation tax. And that is something that they will continue to pay into. But it's not increasing any of their taxes. It's just a continuation. And this is an increase in a lodging tax that probably the majority of our community members will not be directly impacted by, will have to pay more of. That differentiates, I think, to Councilmember Heffner's point before, that we have a pretty intellectual electorate, and they would probably be able to distinguish a continuation of a tax and an increase of a tax that's really not theirs. But if there is a concern, Mayor Pro Tem, I'd really rather hear more of it, because I And I apologize because I actually think it's really important that we do what we can to help this historic preservation tax be renewed. And waiting one more year to increase the lodging tax I don't think is quite as important. I feel the reverse if we do need to delay. So if you wouldn't mind indulging some of your concerns so that I can...

Yeah, thank you. So I think part of the concern comes from the fact that we don't have clarity around what the county might put on the ballot. So that's an unknown variable at this point in time. I think that with that being said, I am concerned about, again, the potential collateral damage, that being the historic preservation tax. that could result from the 370K that we would get this one year by doing the lodging tax this year. So I'm concerned about the long-term impacts of HPC from, and to me, 370K is not worth that potential risk. I could be completely wrong here, but... It's the unknowns with the county is a big part of it. I'll just, for the sake of time, say my last thing here on this. The other part is where the funds should be directed. I'm not prepared tonight to give a lot of direction to staff on that i would disagree with council member dickinson i would not put it towards affordable housing i'd say let's slot sustainability in there because when people come in and they drive you know that's an impact on carbon emissions so should they have to pay for us to try to you know offset that so i i think we could sit here for a long time talking about where we think these should go and not agree So I personally think it's not the year and we need, I think the budget this year could be really enlightening of where we want to direct these funds next year if we put it on the ballot. Personally, I just think it's a timing thing right now.

That's a pretty good compelling argument. Thank you for sharing actually the detail of your thoughts, especially around the concern of Understanding how we want to spend the additional funds, because currently we will still collect the $300,000. It's actually a worse impact. It's only, like, going to be $100,000 plus, that would be the extra. So we'll still get the bigger chunk. It's just, right?

It's $133,000 per percent.

So maybe we would be increasing it by 1%. So we still get our 3% lodging tax. So we'll still get that. Yeah. So honestly, I have been in favor of bringing this. I mean, I thought it was a good idea. I thought that I was with the chamber and everything. But I can be persuaded that we need more time and more detail into what we spend on this and wait a year knowing that we would potentially miss out on some of the additional Sundance things.

I think the answer, I'll say the answer to Councilmember Heffner, we've heard a little bit from both Councilmember Kern and Councilmember Dickinson. But I think we're going to be fighting for folks to try to get lodgers. There's just a lot of places that people can go. And I think the more... The more marketing we can do, the more money we have for that, I think it's a good reason for doing it. But that's a separate question than the one that Mayor Pro Tem has suggested. And I've actually changed my mind on the issue, and I think you're right. I think we could wait for a year. and we could have better information about this. I don't know where that leaves folks. Yeah, Council Member.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to repeat myself, but the HPC is in place. We'll get that money next year no matter what. If we change this to, say, 5%, we get $270,000 that we didn't have. Like, we have budget issues, and we're going to, like, nah, let's push this until another year, but we just pushed $270,000 out a year. Like, I don't understand the... the benefit of that so I like we get the HBC is in place we're good on that one there's no rush there's no hurry it's doesn't expire for two-and-a-half years but increasing lodging tax by 2% would get us 270K this year, next year, the year after, the year after, the year after, whether we direct in the exact same places directed right now, which is totally ambiguous. It goes to anything legal. So we can decide what we want to do with that 270, but it'd be our money. So I just, I think it's an easy thing. I think it'll pass. 70 30 and i think it we already have the tax we're just changing the number we we can do very very very little except go control f from three to five and we're done and we get an extra 270k we don't want to do it we don't have to do it but i don't think there's a reason to delay it we can we can decide other time what we want to do with the 270k but i mean that's i am repeating myself so i'll stop

So the first question is, do we want to place the ballot measure on the 2026 ballot proposing an increase of the lodging tax? Yes or no? Looks like Josh. Do we have to do a vote? Or Josh, are you going to?

Let's do a vote.

I would sit down. Let's just do the vote.

Let's just do the vote. There's four downs.

Do we have four down?

Yes.

There we go. All right. We're good. Sorry. It's late. All right. That's direction. Thank you. That's about as good a direction as you're going to get. All right. All right. Before I think, do we have a city attorney's report?

No report this evening. Thank you.

upcoming agenda items and identification of future agenda items. Council, other things you want to bring forward? Sounds like not. Do we have a motion? So moved.

Second.

To adjourn.