City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Good evening. It is August 25th. It's a special meeting of the Louisville City Council. Can we get a roll call, please?

Mayor Lee.

Here.

Councilmember Hamilton. Oh, sorry. Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton.

Here.

Councilmember Dickinson. Here. Councilmember Fahey? Here. Councilmember Heffner?

Here.

Councilmember Cooperman?

Here.

And Councilmember Kern? Present.

If you'd join me as able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Welcome all. We have tonight several things on the agenda, but the first one is joint meeting with Library Board of Trustees. So welcome to the meeting. All of you. I think before we go any further, probably good to introduce ourselves to you and you to us, even though we've met before. So perhaps we can start with you, Jamie.

I'll turn this on. Good evening. I'm Jamie Dufresne. I've been a resident of Louisville for nine years and on the Library Board of Trustees for eight years now. Way back, this is my last time here, I hearken all the way back to the day when council members used to come and sit in on our meetings. And I would like to say this is an auspicious board to be related to because our most recent mayors, Chris and Ashley, were both our representatives to the Library Board. So politically, I just want to point that out.

And then hi, everyone. My name is Allie Benz. I've been living in Louisville for about three years now, and this is the second year that I've been on the board. I don't have nearly the credentials that you do in terms of the history year, but I'm happy to be here.

Hi, I'm Jean Baker. I am the newest board member here. This is my first year serving, and I've lived in Louisville for eight years now.

Hello, my name is Cheryl Ochterberg. I've been on the board three years, I guess, and I'm actually the superior representative. I'm very, very pleased to be here and to meet all of you.

Good evening. My name is Laurel Cole. I have lived in Louisville for six years now. This is my fifth year on the board and my third year as chair, and we're so happy to be here tonight.

Hi, everyone. I'm Samma Fox. I'm the Deputy City Manager.

Hi, I'm Diana Langley, City Manager. Judy Kern. I'm a Ward 2 Representative.

Caleb Dickinson, Ward 1.

Deb Fahey, Ward 2.

Chris Lehm here.

Barbara Hamlington, Ward 3.

Josh Cooperman, Ward 1. Dietrich Heffner, Ward 3. Thanks for coming.

Brandi Cummings, Director of Cultural Services.

Right, I think the first thing on tap tonight is presentation. I'm not sure, how are you handling this? Is one person doing the presenting or multiple?

We're all going to share what we value about the Louisville Public Library tonight. And Brandy has a slideshow up there that she will be driving as we talk about it. I DID WANT TO MENTION WE ARE MISSING THREE BOARD MEMBERS THIS EVENING. CAROL BURKETT WAS OUR ALTERNATE REPRESENTATIVE FROM SUPERIOR AND SHE IS MOVING OUT OF STATE AS OF THIS SUMMER. SO WE WILL BE WORKING WITH THE TOWN OF SUPERIOR TO FIND A REPLACEMENT FOR HER. Heather Wigand has served for almost three years now, and she is also moving out of state, very unfortunately. She's been a really wonderful member of our board. And Alan Halpern, this is his second year serving, and he is out of town just this week to celebrate a family member's 90th birthday. So I believe Brandy sent an email to you all, a statement from him. He wishes he could be here, but wanted to send his thoughts as well. OK. So last year, I was here last spring presenting to all of you. And I'm so happy to be joined by the board this evening. And it's not just me. But last year, we had quite a laundry list of things that we were wanting to accomplish as a library board. And we wanted to support your master plan and your priorities. We have worked on some of those things. But we've also faced a few obstacles in the last year and a half. We have onboarded a new director. Not an obstacle, but a wonderful opportunity. And we're so glad that Brandy is here. It's been a long day. And we only meet once every other month. So maybe that's something we can discuss in the future about maybe meeting a little bit more, maybe monthly with all that is on our plate. We have also learned more from the state libraries and also dug into state statute and city statutes as well about more of our responsibilities. So it's really been a learning year for us. We have put together, or Brandy has put together matters pertaining to budget for us. That's not something we have done in the past, is really advise her on budget areas and really get more involved in those details. We have also been updating library policies, which we did a little bit with Sharon, the former director. But Brandy seems to have more of a master plan, and we're going through and making sure all the policies are relevant and applicable to libraries today. And we've also learned that we need to do some of our own education. So that's been fun, really learning what our responsibilities are as a board of trustees of a Colorado library. So it's been a great year for us, and we're so glad that Brandy's here leading the way for us. In our last meeting, I brought up the idea that we as a board really felt that the library was a core service here in Louisville. Now, granted, we are not water, we are not sewer, we are not police, we are not fire. However, in our last meeting, Brandy brought up the idea the idea of a core quality of life service, and that really resonated with us. You'll hear from all the board members tonight about how we really connect to the library, and we feel it's really the living room of the city of Louisville. And it means many different things to us and also to our fellow residents in Louisville and Superior. So we're hoping tonight to share some stories about what we value with the library, but also show you some numbers about how we think other residents value the library as well. I think everyone who walks into the library can see the value right away of our beautiful building, the outstanding collection that we have, the beautiful community spaces. I mean, the library really speaks for itself. But I think when you hear from us tonight, you'll hear about some of the other values that maybe are unseen when you walk through the community doors. I wanted to share a personal story to start us out with that I moved to Louisville with my two month old six years ago. And if you recall, that was like six weeks into COVID. That was kind of a scary time to have a newborn. But as he grew and we learned a little bit about COVID and the library reopened, the library really offered me as a stay at home mom who was so isolated at that time, a community. Sorry. We saw people. And we made friends. And I made mom friends. And it was just, we go to Tuesday story time, Friday music time. And that's how I started to feel connected here. My kids are older. We still come. The library is one of their favorite places. Now they read to a dog, which is amazing. My six-year-old is reading to a dog. The library has really fostered not only that sense of community, but a love of learning and a love of reading. As an educator and a mom, there's nothing better.

Yeah. That's something to follow up on. Thank you. It just happened, a very auspicious evening. You perhaps heard that Dolly Parton passed away today. And I just heard an interview where it was stated that her single, from her perspective, her single greatest accomplishment was starting the Imagination Library. And that's because of the value she learned, she knew growing up in a family where her parents were illiterate, how important reading and access to books was. I feel the same way. I moved here to Colorado almost four years ago now, and I felt immediately to get involved in community, I wanted to work with the library. Why? Because the library, as this goes back more than 200 years, the concept is it's the foundation for democracy. It's the foundation for community. Democracy will not work in an illiterate society. We can teach children how to read in our schools, but to give all of our community members access to all of the books and resources that they need to be educated and aware and Also to stimulate new ideas, curiosity, partnership with others in the community, a deeper level of knowledge. The library is absolutely essential in any community in this country. And I'm just so happy and so pleased to serve and that I was welcomed here as a newcomer from another state to join and to represent my community of Superior as well. Thank you.

Okay, well, my library story is kind of similar to Laurel's in that I am the mom of a five-year-old boy. And when I first moved to Louisville in 2018, the first week I was here, I got a library card. It's one of the first things I did and started using the library the way most people do, checking out books. Also used the library of things to check out, you know, state parks passes, things like that. Once my son was born, you know, once he got to be a little bit older, it was, you know, became the center of our universe, basically. We're here at least once a week. Not just for checking out books, but, you know, for story time, like Laurel mentioned, for the events that are put on throughout the year. Last year, my son got his Halloween costume at the Halloween Costume Exchange. And particularly... you know, at a time when the cost of things is just going through the roof, it's so nice to have a place that provides quality, enriching programs for young people of all ages, not just for little kids, but, you know, for middle schoolers and adults, too. It's nice that we have a place where we can meet up with friends and we don't have to worry about if everybody can afford to go to a museum or something like that. We can all get together, get books for our kids, hang out in the play area, and then if we feel like it, hop on over to Sweet Cow or something like that. But it is such a huge part of our lives. Like Laurel mentioned, I have made friends hanging out at the library. My son has made friends. It truly is like the town center for us. And just being able to go there and use it the way you normally would a library, but then also you've got the wonderful town of Louisville right outside the door and so many great things to do afterward.

I'll echo a lot of what's already been said. For me, I have always been very passionate about my community. I believe very strongly in giving back. When I was in undergrad and then grad school, a lot of my focus was on national and international politics. And for the longest time, that's what I wanted to go into. But then as I went into internships, as I sort of explored what that looked like, and given the ever-changing landscape at the federal level, it felt Unmooring, it felt like it was difficult to make a change at such a great and grand scale. And I happened to start getting involved more in local organizations, nonprofits, and really feel the impact that you can have on a small community. How you can maybe not change the world, but you can brighten up your corner of the world. And so that's part of the reason why I actually started working at the Denver Public Library four years ago. was to give back to the community and to work for an organization that I was so passionate about and that I saw doing so much good. And then when I moved to Louisville, out from Denver, I wanted to still be involved in the community that I was now in. So while I still work for DPL, it felt very important to be attached to this library and to care about the way in which the library reaches community as one of the last free third spaces that we have. I think it's so important that we have this community center and cultural center and a way to meet one another and talk to each other without the need to be anything other than yourself. And the library gives back so much, not just in terms of books, though that's fantastic. And as an avid reader, I very much make use of it. but in all the other services that it provides with programming, with computers, with just a way to not feel so isolated in an increasingly isolated world. And so I'm just very happy and proud to be here today and to talk with all of you.

So you'll find that I've been given the task of talking about library funding, which is fairly appropriate. I like my numbers. And I like to see what a community values financially. One of the reasons that I made the decision to buy a house in Louisville was because I went to the library. And I saw the quality of this library. I brought my son here and saw where your funding goes. And I said, this is the type of community I want to be in, clearly a learned community, clearly one that values their library. And that was indeed the main reason that we decided to buy our house in Louisville instead of Lafayette, instead of Boulder, instead of a lot of different locations. The other thing that drew us was not just the library itself, but the fact that it was right in the middle of downtown. I knew that we could go to the library and then go get a cookie at Moxie or go get Sweet Cow. And I think I want to highlight that for a lot of folks in Louisville, The library is part of a stop downtown. It is a part of a bigger package, and I want to make sure we keep that in focus. It's a heart of our community, but also the heart of our business community.

Okay, so just to kind of start us off here, this is a snapshot of just some numbers from January through June of this year. As you can see, we are increasing in just about every way in terms of visitors, checkouts, people signing up to get a library card for the first time. What stands out to me about this is the program attendance increased by 49%. in this first six months of this year. That's pretty wild in my opinion from last year. And just goes to show, you know, something a lot of us talked about is the library being more than just a place to check out books, kind of a meeting place, a place for people to get together, have community. You know, you said it really well, Ali, in an increasingly isolated world, finding a place to get together. that's free and so people are using these programs and they're really loving them and they're coming regularly and they're bringing their friends and so I think it just goes to show that's a really important service that's not a traditional library service that that we're providing here and of course you know just the increase in checkouts unique digital users you know this is all going up people are reading books and coming to see us at the library.

So as you can see from this next slide which describes how the library is staffed, these extraordinary services are offered to the city of Louisville seven days a week and Those services are being offered when we compare to other communities and other libraries with a surprisingly small number of staff. There are 32 people who work in total at the library, only 20, actually 19 plus three-quarters of another person. are full-time for seven days a week and there are quite a few part-time and volunteers that make the library work as as we know at 22 are part-time and you can see the number of volunteer hours and volunteers that contribute to the library as well 70 hours per week That means the library is open to students after school. It means it's open on weekends. It means it's open in the evenings, truly making it accessible to everyone at some point in time during the day as well as on the weekends. So I think that's what we have to share so far about the staff.

So I hope I don't need to harp too much more on how libraries are such a foundational cornerstone to our community. They help connect people to each other and to needed resources. We serve around 22,000 folks in Louisville and about 13,000 in Superior. But I think what we lose when we look at these aggregate totals, these large numbers, is we forget the individual folks and the folks that are most in need. It's very easy to generalize what someone in Louisville or Superior looks like. acts like or wants, but I wanted to dive into some of the data surrounding marginalized and vulnerable populations within our city. So first, around a quarter of our service population is under 18. Compared to the national average of about 20%, Lewisville has a large child population. The library serves our young community through early childhood education, story times, and distinct spaces for children and teens. As I hope you all noticed, with the 49% increase in program attendance for the first half of 2026 compared to 2025, the programming is very, very popular with children and families. I also want to talk about how 4% of our households within Louisville do not have access to internet. While that does sound like a small percent, as we shift towards an increasingly digital infrastructure for our basic needs, what that means is that about 900 people a month may experience undue barriers in doing something as simple as paying their utility bills. The way that they go to access those resources to be able to pay for their electricity, their gas, is to come to the library and use our public computers. And you can see with our data for PCs that they're incredibly high demand. Additionally, it's not just computers that the library provides but staff time to help those folks. I have worked in the past with people that have struggled with digital literacy. I have sat down with someone that has tried to pay a medical bill and they did not know their username or password to their health portal and they did not know the password to their email to be able to reset that health portal. It was a very long and frustrating conversation with a lot of fear. And what our staff do is they're able to sit down and help those folks and make sure that they don't feel alone. And without PCs, without staff, without that help to combat that digital literacy, we have a lot of folks that are in very vulnerable positions, especially older folks. I also want to highlight that around 5% of people in Louisville are at or below the national poverty line. And while this number is significantly lower than the national poverty line of 12.2%, that statistic is pretty misleading. The poverty line is set at the national level, not at the local level, and does not account for the additional costs of high cost of living areas, which I hope you all know Boulder County is a high cost of living area. If you look at what the federal poverty level estimates that you need, it says that a single person can comfortably live off of $16,000 a year and that an adult with one child can survive off of $21,000 a year. That's not the reality in which we live. Using the MIT's cost of living calculator, it's estimated that a single person in Boulder County needs to make $56,000 annually. A single adult with one child needing childcare needs to make $113,000 annually. And a single adult with two children needs to make $156,000 annually. just to meet basic food, housing, and childcare needs. To do some quick math, that's about four to six times higher than what the federal poverty level says. So using those statistics, in Louisville, it is estimated that 58% of single adult households with children under 18 in them are at or below the cost of living that they need to survive in this county. If the library has to reduce or eliminate programming for children or its support services for adults, That can absolutely be annoying or frustrating to a married couple with children that are in private school. But for a single mom working multiple jobs, that is going to be life-altering because that family cannot afford to pay for alternatives. The services that are provided at the library cannot be met anywhere else for free or for an affordable cost. So I hope that you can hear that it's vital that these communities continue to receive services catered to their unique needs. And the library is fortunately very uniquely equipped to provide many of these services. However, I think that there's an immense opportunity here for all city services and departments to work together to prioritize that care for all of our residents because no one deserves to be forgotten or overlooked.

Thanks, Allie. So I told you I'd be back to talk about funding. Here we are. I don't think it'll come as a surprise to council that the library's funding comes from four main sources, those four that you see right there. Our total operating budget is just over $2.2 million. The city of Louisville provides the bulk of that funding at 76%. The town of Superior provides 20% of our funding. Serendipitously, that happens to correspond with the usage of the library by Superior residents. have about 20% of our library cards and usership. Just so happens to work that way. The Louisville Public Library Foundation supplies us with a grant every year. This fluctuates based on what they bring in. The number that you see there, the $73,000, which makes up 3% of our budget, is about $20,000 higher than what we typically receive from the library foundation. This is because they received a very large grant or a very large donation from a resident last year. So typically, we do not see that level of funding from the foundation. The state of Colorado grant to libraries, that fluctuates slightly based on our citizenship numbers. So if our citizenship numbers go up, that number goes up slightly, but it should stay fairly constant. I also want to give you an opportunity to compare our library funding and where our money goes to a similar size library and population. So Lafayette's library, you can see that their operating budget, they spend 75% of their budget on personnel. We spend a higher amount at 86%. We are staffing our library. We're using our funds to keep programming and bodies in our library and keep things going. We spend a great deal less on operations than corresponding sized libraries do. We make very efficient use of the funding that we have.

All right. Thank you, Jamie and Allie and Jean, Cheryl. So our priorities. Our first priority is to represent every citizen of Louisville and Superior and to ensure the highest level of library services. And as you have heard from us all tonight, that is really important to all of us as board members. And we love supporting Brandy and everything, bless you, that she's been doing for the library. All right. So in our role as the Board of Trustees, we support staff as they work to complete, finalize, and implement the strategic plan. We're very excited to hear what Brandi's team has compiled in our next meeting in September and to help her and her team move things forward. We also are here tonight providing meaningful information to City Council to help you with your citywide decisions. As I mentioned before, we also review policies to make sure our library is up to date with national policies, state policies, and city policies so that we can provide the best services to all residents. And we need to ensure ongoing alignment with Colorado library law, which has been one of our big learnings this year, as I mentioned earlier. All right, so we just had a couple of discussion points, but we're also here to open conversation. We'd love to hear what you all think about the library being a core service when we talk about the quality of life here in Louisville, and love to hear what you feel are the priorities at the library as we start to hear about the strategic plan and all the feedback that Brandy and her team has gathered. So I guess I'll pause here and open for comment or questions.

Sure. Why don't we just briefly, if people have clarifying questions for you about the presentation, and then we can address some of the questions that we've got. Any questions about the presentation? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. Appreciate the presentation and you all sharing your personal stories about connections to libraries as well. Two clarifying questions. The first one is, Allie, the data you presented on our community, can you all help me understand what survey that came from?

Absolutely. So that comes from the American Community Survey. It happens every year. Usually best practice for data is to pull five-year aggregates. So that's what we did for 2025. It's basically the annual equivalent of the census. It's considered highly valid.

Okay, thank you very much. And then my other question is I wanted to unpackage a little bit more the statistic regarding program attendance and the 47% increase. Can you help me understand what is behind driving that increase?

Absolutely. Thank you for the question. Looking at national trends, when we see economic factors that downturn for the everyman, so John Q. Public, we're starting to see some of those recession indicators show up in our programming. Typically, if we look back to public libraries in 2007 to 2008, similar program attendance results show up. but also as a visitor attraction and an economic engine for tourism in downtown Louisville. I think we pull in higher numbers for some of our programs there that also influence that. Looking back at 2025, there was a timeframe where the library was closed for the carpeting and remodeling project. Those programs were shifted to other locations, which could also have an impact, but looking program to program, month to month aggregates rather than just an overarching six month. Those program attendance did not fluctuate greatly outside of increased attendance at the things that we're doing. So a good example would be the, which is not in this poll, but the Summer Reading Carnival, which is an annual event we host each year on Front Street. This year it saw just about 1,800 attendees and last year it was 1,200. So we're continuing to see percentage growth in almost every program we do.

Okay. That's really helpful. Is it fair to say that that increase is in part driven by increased attendance in existing programs, not necessarily addition of a lot of new programs? Correct.

We haven't increased the number of programs we're doing. In fact, in line with 2025 six-month, we are about 20 programs less than we did in January through June of 2025 for the same snapshot.

Okay. That's really helpful. Thank you.

to others. Yep. Council Member. Thank you for asking those questions, Mayor Pro Tem. They were mine as well. And thank you all, really appreciate you being here. And I agree, interesting to hear your connection to the library. This is probably more for the director. So same thing with the programming. I was curious, is the increase across the board on every type of programming? Or is there like a heavier lean toward young and children's programming? It seems like that's a really popular item.

Yeah, nationally public libraries are definitely known for their bread and butter being how we serve families with young children and how we serve an aging population. We are gratefully seeing increase across programs at all levels. In fact, with a higher growth percentage for our adult programming, especially looking for those sort of midday focused at senior community opportunities. Interesting, thank you.

Yes, Council Member Fahey.

I'm going to continue on with this topic. I'm wondering when you have an increase, which sounds pretty significant in attendance, how do you staff or manage those larger events?

That's a great question. Thank you. Right now we are relying on volunteer labor for that core operation. We are far exceeding our ability for our volunteer capacity to help us manage those rooms and those larger events. And so it does take a little bit more finagling. Sometimes it's pulling me off of whatever I'm working on to come be another body during a tie-dye program or a bubble festival or even a very interesting science program. So we are doing our best to be as responsive and flexible as possible and nimble within the restraints of our staffing. All right.

Well, thank you, and thank you for what all of you do.

Council Member Cooperman. I was also going to ask questions about the program number increasing, but I'll ask a very different question. I'm just curious, how does the library foundation raise most of its funds?

That's a fantastic question. Thank you. So the Library Foundation currently operates two major fundraisers per year, one being Colorado Giving Day, which will come up in November. They run that through the Colorado Gives platform. Otherwise, they do a targeted summer reading program sponsorship program. Traditionally, they have relied on unsolicited donations. As we work closer with the foundation to set up some of those structural and foundational policies, procedures, and processes, much like the board has spoken to, we hope to see a more concerted and targeted effort in fundraising. The large challenge is that we are competing in a community with many wonderful organizations, and we're fighting for some of the same dollars. Yeah. Thank you.

Other questions? I have a couple about the library snapshot in particular. I guess one of the things I was curious about is there's, you know, you've broken it down into full-time employees, part-time, and then volunteers, as well as volunteer hours, but just the numbers of those three, full-time, part-time, and volunteers, how do those compare with other libraries, say, in Colorado, if you know, and same thing nationally?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. So looking at the front range, and especially within our consortia, so Lafayette, Longmont, Loveland, Boulder, Westminster for some things, we tend to leave Boulder out because they're the big guy. So it's hard to compare ourselves to them, right? We are more heavily staffed by part-time workers. than any of our comparable neighbors. Lafayette is our most similar in service size. And so if we flash back to the January presentation, we have about 120 less staffing hours than Lafayette does for the same number of open hours to the public. So we are staffed 70 hours per week, open to the public 58, because we need opening shifts, we need closing shifts, we need processing, things like that. So looking at the same number of staffed hours, we're about 120 hours less than our regional peers. Nationally, public libraries have always been served by a combination of professional, full-time, part-time staff. I would say that we are probably still lagging behind a bit with a stronger part-time presence than a full-time presence, specifically in our professional librarians.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Council Member Dickinson. Just curious, because I didn't see it in here, if you guys are... what role you guys might be playing in, you know, what is the revamp of front and center and what I see as sort of the outdoor library for much of the year. Like obviously street fair and farmer's market and things are known as popular events here, but I think there's a lot of intention on making that space sort of, you know, hopefully feel like the outdoor portion of the library. And I'm wondering if you guys are, involved at all in conversations in that direction, if you have excitement towards it, if it's kind of like news, or how you feel about the redo of the Steinbauer Plaza.

Yeah, can I hop in? I've been working the Winter Festival in particular for the First Light Friday for the last eight years, and I think our revamp of our patio area has kind of allowed more participation. I mean, I think our numbers in our Art Friday are up dramatically. It makes us more a part of those happenings to have that outdoor platform, to have the shading, thank goodness, so it's not so terribly hot there. I think all of the citywide events become, the library becomes more part of them because of what we've done. And I also have to say, I think all the artwork that has been added around that area, it's such a draw to folks. I mean, I don't know if you've seen, but little kids are always stopping and pointing things out and talking about the squirrels and the books and all the different things. Both as a volunteer at the library and as a citizen, I love the combination and what it's done for us. And I'm thankful that money was put aside for that.

Thanks, Jamie. Councilmember Dickinson, as far as the front and center project, the board has not been engaged on that project as it hasn't moved past LRC yet. While we have had conversations about hopes of activating that space, we recognize that, again, our restraint is in budget and staffing resources. We hope that as that design comes to fruition, we're able to find ways to continue to activate it as we do now, not overstretching past our capacity.

Yeah, I think that's my hope and concern, right? This great opportunity for more programming and like, more programming? How do we do more, you know? So I think it's, yeah, it is an opportunity and potentially a problem area as well.

I just wanted to add, toss out, even before your comments, that it all depends on volunteerism. the outdoor programming, the in-town programming, it depends on the number of volunteers and their particular interests as well.

Why don't we move to some of your questions? I want to start by kind of maybe Well, hitting the first one, what are council's top priorities? I think you've laid out some good priorities. I want to, and this is, don't take this negatively. This is a question or this is kind of a comment that I have about what the boards generally do and, frankly, what we do. What we do is we hit policy broadly, and when we're doing our best work, I think leave the operational stuff to the staff who do a terrific job, and you know that Brandy does. So a couple of the priorities that I looked at here, particularly the first and the last, that is sort of supporting... Supporting staff as they work to finalize a strategic plan, encouraging teamwork and shared success. I think to the extent that's like moral support, we're all for that. And I know that that's an issue. Ensuring ongoing alignment with the Colorado library law is really more the director's role. But I do wonder on the middle two, when we talk about kind of priorities, I am interested in whether you feel like you have good opportunities to present or provide information through staff to us.

that so as I mentioned at the beginning of our presentation we have learned more about Colorado library law and part of the way we have shifted our bi-monthly meetings is that Brandi makes a budget presentation to us now so we see every line item and what the library is spending you know across the board not only personnel but with programs and technology and the New York Times subscriptions. So it's been interesting for us, I'll speak for myself being on the board now for five years, we didn't do this before. We didn't get this detailed level of library operations. So Brandy has bounced ideas off of us and said, hey, I need to cut my budget by 3%. This is what my team and I are thinking. you know, can you give me some feedback on that? So, you know, I feel that we're a good sounding board for her and we can give her, you know, some feedback on that and really get into the weeds a bit about how much it costs to really operate a successful library.

We should probably take public comment before we go into the council.

It doesn't look like we have any public comment.

Okay.

All right. Then back. Questions about priorities? I know that that's a question we get from every single board and commission. Yeah. Council Member Cooperman.

Actually, I'd like to ask a follow-up question first, sort of coming off the mayor's comments and questions. So you're called the Library Board of Trustees rather than, say, the Library Advisory Board. I don't remember from our statutes and such, but is the Library Board of Trustees more formal than an advisory board? And could you clarify that for us?

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. Thank you. So public libraries are governed by state law. Part of our state law in Colorado, I believe it's Statute 249, outlines what a Library Board of Trustees is charged with. That includes things like budgetary oversight, Typically hiring and some sort of performance management of the director, things like policy and including up to like our budgetary discretion. So if we were to make major changes, they have input in all of that. So public libraries also operate as an odd entity throughout Colorado because you can be a municipal library, which we are, or a district, which is a special taxing district as a municipal library. Typically there is a joint agreement between the board and the municipality about who's governing the library director, who's overseeing their performance, who's doing the hiring and firing there. But a lot of the dictation of policy approval lies with the board of trustees as a more formalized body than an advisory board.

I don't know if anyone from the board would like to sort of comment on whether... I mean, you said you're learning a lot about how library law works in Colorado and so forth. So, I don't know, do you have any... thoughts or concerns about how you're functioning as a board of trustees currently or not?

I can speak to that. So in the past, prior to Randy coming on board, I don't believe that we were meeting our full duties and responsibilities as a governing board. There were certain things that slipped through cracks. So it's been a lot of restructuring. ensuring that everyone has been trained on what they need to do and what they're responsible for. And I think that we're moving towards a much better state of being able to be not just a group of people that meets bimonthly and talks about how much we love the library, although that's great, but also actively is informing the governance of the library and serving as responsible liaisons both to you all and to the community as well.

I'm actually going to hop in off what Allie just said and point out, having seen the transition when Brandy came on and been for such a great deal of time, This board is more involved with a lot of the detailed decisions and serves more of a role of representing our fellow citizens than we did before. I'll give you a small example that may seem like nothing. Brandy came to us talking about an issue of needing to have folks empty out the study rooms 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes early and make that a library policy that we start shooing people out Not exactly the best word. Sorry, Randy. We kindly ask our patrons to exit the study rooms 15 minutes early because our staff is limited and they need to be able to clear the library out on time. We need to find ways to maximize our staff usage. But this is something she brought to the board and said, is this reasonable? What things do you think should be put in place along with this? How should we address this with our patients? Sorry, I'm a nurse. With our patrons, what policies do we need to put in place? What announcements should we make? All of these details, the board addressed. This is not something that would have happened before. Our role is very different than it used to be.

I'll pop in too. Based on my past experience, I formerly was serving on a school board for 10 years. And then as a dean in higher education, I oversaw three libraries. So I had a sense of the way boards are expected to work in a variety of settings. And previously, I think, with no criticism directed toward any given person, the board wasn't in compliance either with state law or what would generally be expected by other boards to public-serving organizations. And so I'm very grateful to see the changes that have occurred in the last year And it's been, I think, a little bit of a surprise to all of us as members how far off we were in terms of the state law and compliance. So that's when we've said a big learning curve, that's what it refers to.

add to that too. I feel like as a volunteer, it gives me more a sense of purpose and I know what direction we're going in. So Brandy's kind of steering the ship and we can help her correct course as needed, but going in every month, it's like, okay, this is what we're doing and it feels more purposeful and also that my time is more valuable and it's really respected and valued. So all sorts of positive changes and I think we're on a really great trajectory and a great path moving forward.

I'm going to kind of follow up on this a little bit. I'm wondering, with some advisory boards, they're not allowed to accept donations from the public and then specifically use them for their priorities. As a licensed board, are you a 501c3? Can you accept cash? And no. It's a fantastic question.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify. So yes, the Library Board of Trustees is not an independent 501c3. They are an appointed body by this body. this elected body but our foundation is so the library foundation is an independent 501 C 3 which acts as the philanthropic arm for the library which we are able to direct gifts to whether that be cash goods or artwork

And do those two boards interact and cooperate? Yes, quite deeply.

Let me speak to that. So myself or Cheryl, the vice chair, we attend every meeting so that there's great collaboration and we can make sure that we're sharing what we're working on as a board and the foundation can ask us any questions that they may have. And then once a year, we have a joint meeting. So that's planned for September 10th. And it's really great to sit down with everybody who loves the library, is working hard to make sure that our library is the best it can be. They're a wonderful group, and they meet monthly.

Thank you. So first, it sounds like then based on the discussion that the Board of Trustees parities Priorities, yeah. aligns with your duties as is spelled out, um, in a variety of different, uh, documents. So I'm going to move on then to the discussion points that you all have up here. Um, and kind of give you my, my viewpoint on those. So as far as, you know, council's top priorities for the next year, and I'm going to blend that one into kind of together, uh, for, for, for me, you know, One of the top priorities we're discussing through the budget cycle is maintaining the assets that we have and taking care of what we have. And I think that naturally extends to the library as well for all the reasons that you beautifully told us about. It's a really important asset that we maintain. As far as... you know goals and investments and such i would say we're gonna start discussions about our work plan for next year so that could help inform the direction that you all go in maybe with some of your work The thing that stands out to me that's going to hopefully be happening soon is the front and center project. I would really like to be able to lean on you all to help us ensure in coordination with Director Cummings that the library still remains accessible, how you're going to do your programs, everything else. I think we talk a lot about how it impacts the businesses, but equally it impacts you all as well in your work, right? And then for three and four about partnering and collaborating more, I think you have a phenomenal director who does a great job partnering and collaborating with you all and then bringing that information to us. So I fully put my trust in Director Cummings to continue to do that because I think that's the really, from my point of view, the best way for us to partner with you all is through her expertise, her strategy and visioning, which I wish I could channel some of that myself. I think honestly is the most impactful way to achieve three and four. So I hope that's helpful and I'll open it up to my fellow council members.

Others, yes. Councilmember Heffner.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks to all of you for coming and sharing in the presentation. I agree with everything my Word 3 colleague said. I would add, you know, on the sort of taking care of what we have front, I do think that's really important. The other thing we've all been working hard on is we just finished our comprehensive plan for land use and we'll be implementing that with a development code rewrite. You know, and depending on who you ask, I think one of the outcomes of that is going to be We're hoping to get open Lewisville to more and different kinds of people than necessarily live here now. And assuming we're successful in some of those efforts, your role in the library's role will be more important than ever. And hopefully we can continue to drive the wonderful growth in program attendance and circulation and everything else. And so on that note, I think that's one thing to come and another reason to keep up the good work. But really appreciate all the effort and all Brandy's effort. And the library is one of our gems of the city. And whether it's a core service or not, I'll leave for others to decide. But I always think about what are the things that would, you know, if they went missing, everyone would notice. And it's certainly on that list. So thank you.

We have just a few minutes, but are there other council members who want to weigh in on these? I think council member or member of town did a wonderful job of explaining, I think, encapsulating what certainly I said or want to say.

Yeah, I would absolutely echo what... Council Members Hamilton and Heffner just said. I just wanted to add, I mean, on point number two, I would say, like, one of the things we're looking for from you is advice on that. I mean, I feel like you all are much more qualified to to advise on where we need to invest or not to invest for the library. And so I would say, sort of in line with number three, you should really feel free to provide us with that information. And I, for one, am happy to have conversations about that. Or I think if you just want to send us memos or emails or anything like that, we're always welcome.

Yeah, I agree. The Mayor Pro Tem stated everything so well, I won't try to restate. I just wanted to see if you guys hear some of the same things that I do. Do you hear from the senior community at all, the members who come in and need especially books and the access or lack thereof to the newest novels that are out, especially in large print or newspapers in large print? Because what I've What I have been hearing is the only access is a digital one, and I find that that is not actually typically used by our senior population. So I was just curious to see if that was something that you guys had heard as well.

Yeah, so looking at patron feedback specifically in our senior population, we do hear quite often a frustration or a dissatisfaction with the large print collection. Our print collection budget is remarkably restrictive, and because we need to invest in the items that are most highly used, we try to lean into our consortia as best we can. The realities of our beautiful library is that the footprint is relatively small. So we have about 82,000 items in our collection of that maybe 5% is large print. For a community this size and with a growing aging population, our goal internally, so under staff's direction, is to grow that to a 7% of our collection. However, print newspapers becomes a whole different world. As the print publishing world continues to struggle in an increasingly digital age, we do see increasing costs in print publications that just aren't feasible with some of our budget constraints. So when we start to have to compare like what priority do we meet, whose needs do we put where, that is why we're turning to things like the strategic plan which is engaging the entire populace to be able to help identify some of those sort of shared values and shared priorities. So yes, we do hear some of those echoes, and we are looking for creative ways to stretch what we have and meet those needs to the best of our ability.

Thank you, Director.

If I may, just real quick, is that also something that you guys share with the foundation since they're responsible for helping to do some fundraising that that might be targeted type of fundraising and there are specific organizations that maybe they would be able to communicate with to raise money when it's something specific for that? I don't know.

Yes, so the foundation is aware of library needs. We have monthly meetings with them where we check in on our goals and priorities. They have also been a part of the strategic planning process. Their fundraising currently has focused on programmatic things like the summer reading program, which could not happen without foundation support. Otherwise, the bulk of their gift that they give us every year does already go to collections. Our collections budget is about $50,000 less than our surrounding communities from our operating budget from the city. And so we do rely on subsidy from the foundation. And as that is a variable and unreliable source of money, depending year after year, we have to make some of those decisions on a less strategic visionary base year over year.

Thank you.

If I could add a little bit, representing the superior community, I can guarantee you that the senior community is very, very interested in the library and what resources are available. They are primarily interested in e-books. And our collection is very small relative to other libraries. So it's not unusual to have a wait list of 82 people or even sometimes over 200 people for a given book. So that's one of the strongest areas of senior interest. I agree.

I buy my e-books because I can't rent them.

Thank you very much for getting together. One thing I do encourage you, and I think you've heard it a couple of times, is watching budget and giving us input is the way we get good input from the boards and commissions. And I hope you'll continue to work with the director on that and on... on the work plan, which is coming up too. If you're interested in making some suggestions, we're getting close to finishing the budget, but there will be a draft budget that comes from our city manager the first. We're going to have to shut down because we've got other things coming. But please, if you have questions, thoughts, don't hesitate to get in touch with us. But I think working with Brandy is, as we've said, the best thing we can do.

Well, thank you all for your time this evening. And thank you for having us here. And thank you very much for your feedback. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you. Do you need a minute to set up? Are we headed back upstairs here? Are we? Okay. I'm going to use a quickie. Why don't we plan to come back in a couple of minutes when things are set. and we're ready for our item B which is discussion and direction on the draft cross guidebook that's parks rec open space guidebook and why don't we start with this presentation

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Adam Blackmore, Director of Parks, Rec and Open Space. Thrilled to be with you tonight in our rough estimates, closing in on our 30th public meeting related to this specific project as we move forward. So it's very exciting with that amount of engagement and time spent with the community, with our elected officials and our boards. To be able to present to you, and I'll highlight in all air quotes, a draft guidebook, which includes a 10-plus year long-range plan for the entire department, as well as what would be our first city's trail system plan, referenced in some areas as a trails master plan. And so the drafts you have tonight, as I mentioned, they're a culmination of... what would be four plus years of work. One of the first items when I started with the city nearly four and a half years ago was a high demand from the community to have some more concrete direction and some understanding of where this version of Louisville sits as it relates to priority for resources, priority for amenities, and all the ins and outs of what's valued in this community throughout our very broad very highly used department. And so, um, you know, we've gotten to this point, um, with the drafts, uh, we are currently in, we're right in the middle of, uh, potentially one of our last, if not our last full community engagement periods. Um, we're seeking some guidance on if we're on the right track tonight from city council, as well as, um, feedback that would be relevant to just any public input process as well after you've had a chance to review the drafts. So I would just, I reiterate that because we do still have three, two and a half, three-ish weeks left of public comment to gain. We have had some pretty robust comments thus far through our Engage Louisville site, which I would encourage anyone who hasn't done that to go and review the draft plans, but also review the litany of supporting documentation that's gone in to help get us to where we are, but also any comments. We've had comments from typos that will inevitably, no matter how many times we read it, be found to more substance and substantive feedback that we can certainly take into consideration as we work to refine these to a plan that can proudly be brought before you, hopefully in October, for adoption. And so tonight, Brian's going to go through a brief presentation for you. So if you're unaware, Brian Weber is our planning and project manager for PROS. He's wearing a ton of hats, as has been mentioned through our budget presentations over the past few months. He's also juggling an incredibly high workload while trying to crank out a really high quality product, which I think is before you tonight, to guide the department moving forward. And so Brian will go through his presentation. We're happy to take any feedback as it fits into refinements. Brian will touch on a few things that we've already kind of heard as it relates to formatting and some content that we're going to be relaying back to our consultant. We'll meet with the consultant later this week. DTJ is our primary consultant, but we have subs for all of the divisions outlined in the plans you see before you tonight, including the trails plan. And then once the public engagement period has ended, mid-September, again, we'll take all of those comments, which we'll seek some direction tonight on, how you would like to see us utilize those comments. And hopefully, again, in October, get you a final plan. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Brian to go through a brief presentation on kind of where we are and how we got here.

All right. Thank you, Adam, and thanks to Council for having us at this special meeting to review these plans. Really foundational for our department and our future and worthy of as many discussions as possible. As a quick recap, we started almost two years ago developing our RFP request for proposal for this project. That came before our advisory boards as well as council prior to being posted. Fast forward now to August of 2026 and here we are with draft plans under public review. So it's been quite a process for us. to get to this point, and that included really a foundation of robust community input. So over really the past 14 months or so, as Adam mentioned, we've had over 20, closing in on 30 now, meetings with various aspects of the community, whether that's advisory boards, pop-up events out at our trailheads or parks, rec center, opportunities for people to provide input on surveys, both residents and an open link survey, as well as through open houses. So we've had a number of opportunities for people to engage and had great response to those opportunities. We've looked at a variety of plans and policies, existing conditions, things that kind of frame the plans that you see today, as well as getting guidance from a variety of consultants on the team, everything from trail and kind of transportation experts to ecological consultants. survey experts that helped us draft and implement the survey itself, and then DTJ as our lead consultant kind of herding everything and structuring the process itself. Another thing that has been ongoing is obviously the budget and planning process, specifically this year as we look at the 27 and 28. and on capital improvement planning, as well as feedback from staff. So not only our superintendents of the various divisions, but field staff as well. And so really what this plan comes down to is we're trying to establish a clear framework and a set of priorities for how our department can move forward. The intent of the plans, lots of terms out there that can be kind of confusing but ultimately a long-range plan a trail system plan we would put them in the category of strategic level high-level plans uh... we're looking to hence the name guidebook we're looking to establish a direction for our future and kind of guide the way uh... help us to prioritize knowing that we can't possibly accomplish everything that every single person wants us to do uh... but looking at kind of the community-wide high level, how can we get kind of the most bang for our buck in investments with limited resources and kind of define the outcomes that the community as a whole desires. and then develop a framework for action that we can really implement so that we're not just talking about big ideas and lofty goals, but we're trying to break that into a series of steps that we can actually take to achieve these things, identifying priority level, timeframe, staff position, responsible, et cetera. That being said, we do want our goals and strategies to be actionable, but we by no means have all of the answers or can these plans provide all of the answers. One, for unforeseen challenges or shifting priorities, but just the level of detail, meaning if we talk about a certain amenity, we don't have it designed. So we don't know exactly how much it costs or even exactly where it goes within the community, but we're just identifying that some of these things like a recreation field, for example, are an amenity that's been desired by the community and highlighted through this process and something that we need to carve out resources for going forward. So we don't have all the details today on exactly how things will be implemented, but we do want to make sure that we're heading in the right direction and pursuing the right direction and priorities. In terms of kind of where we stand as staff, I think one of the things that we appreciate the most about the direction that these plans have gone is that they're broken down by division. So looking at parks, the recreation and senior services, open space, Coal Creek Golf Course, and the trail system, which weaves between parks, open space, and kind of public right of way. Each division has its own unique needs, in some cases has its own funding sources, has its own governing documents in some cases such as the city charter. So we really need to focus at the division level and these plans allow us to do that. There also is a sentiment from the community to continue what we're doing, maintain what we have, build on what's working. So that to say we're not starting from scratch. There's been a number of things in process for a long time that we want to look to continue to leverage and continue to build on the success of things that have been done and are ongoing now. More than anything, it's grounded in community input. So we had great response from the community to help provide us direction. At the same time, we're trying to balance lofty goals, big picture ideas with the realism of like, where do we stand? you know, as a city financially, what can we achieve? What resources do we have? And trying to strike that balance between goals that inspire us and pull us forward and elevate us to a next level, but don't go so high that we could never achieve them. And we're basically setting ourselves up for failure. So I think we're striking a good balance there as well. Combined with that is guiding decision making, right? We can't say yes to everything and every person. And so we can use this document as a foundation for those decisions going forward for where we can say yes, where we unfortunately do need to say no, and how we can best focus our resources. I think it's interesting timing coming to adoption here with where we are in the CIP process for the next couple years and kind of balancing the community input of maintaining what we have, the realism of kind of where our budget is projected to be, and the goals and objectives that this plan sets. And I think that there's a nice synergy there between this plan, how it informs CIP planning going forward, and also what's desired by our community of maintaining and leveraging existing assets. So I think we're in a good place there. And then more than anything, the way that this document is set up that I've not seen before is there is a big booklet, right? And there's literally hundreds of pages to read through, but the spine and the foundation of that is an action matrix that establishes the goals, strategies, and action items for each division. And that's something that we can not only use for implementation, but we can use that in ongoing fashion, meaning that we can update that, we can track progress, we can literally cross things off the list as they're done. We can shift priorities and timeframes more easily based on budget cycles. So it's not just a document that is intended to get adopted and sit on a shelf. It's a document that we can use on an annual basis and really be a living and working document to guide us and not be 10 years from now with another consultant going, oh, yeah, back in 2025 and 2026, we did this. This action matrix is something that we can actively use on a year to year basis. So staff are feeling good about what we have, the direction that we're headed and the idea of building on what the community input, what the community has told us over the past 14 months. So in terms of input tonight, there's a number of ways to kind of try to tackle all of the content that was put before you guys and a lot of questions to kind of stew on as you go through things. But ultimately, it really boils down to kind of this central question at the bottom. And that's, do we feel that the long range plan and the trail system plan are setting the right strategic vision for the department and each division going forward as we look at a five-year and 10-year outlook. some of the things that we've heard so far in terms of kind of refinements that are desired prior to adoption. This idea of kind of connecting the dots. So we have the long-range plan, we have the trail system plan, each one has an appendix with additional very thorough documents. So how can we better connect the dots and strengthen the plan so that a lot of that foundational work, specifically the needs assessment and the community engagement summary, It's kind of more legible in the plans itself, brought more to the forefront of those documents to understand kind of the context and the driving force. So we've heard that from some people. of looking back to the earlier stages of the project and how do we make sure that that information is present in the final plans. At the same time, kind of looking forward with capital improvement planning, how do we make sure that it's clear in these plans how the capital improvement planning will be informed by these plans, what are some of the key priorities coming out of these plans that will show up in future capital requests, et cetera. And specifically with the trails plan, how it relates to the transportation master plan that Public Works oversees, the comp plan with community development, and how is the trail system plan kind of finding its home between those documents, building off of them, being informed by them, and anticipating the future changes, specifically with the comp plan that it kind of is projecting for Louisville's future. And then... Also kind of the prioritization. So recognizing that each action item and strategy kind of has a high, medium, or low, and then has a timeframe, one to five year, five to 10, or is it something that we're doing in an ongoing fashion, that those are things that we can get input on as well. and kind of easily tweak to meet what council thinks is the best direction for us. So with that, just a quick recap next steps. We're in public comment until September 13th, seeking direction on kind of what happens after September 13th with the feedback that we receive through the website, through email. From this group from our advisory boards who are also discussing this plan at August and September meetings And really our goal is to try to make these refinements incorporate the input and be able to come back in October with a document That we feel is ready for adoption and and get the thumbs up that this is the direction that we'd like to see the department go for the next decade So with that, I'm happy to try to answer any questions. I know there's a lot to digest with all of these plans and appendices and all the things, but if there's questions we can answer, feedback we can incorporate, or things that we can try to find an answer to, happy to discuss.

Good. We will start with council questions, so I would like to kick off on this one. No questions at all. Wow. Okay. We can go to public comment. I actually, I've got a couple of questions myself, but...

Let's see. A couple of smaller questions. So on the, there's the map that shows all the open space properties and it has the different designations of types of open space. Are those currently established or are those suggestions?

So that...

I can try to find it.

Yeah, I forget. Yeah, I think I know the map that you're talking about.

45. 45. off I think I know the map you're talking about and that map reflects the recent results of vegetation survey that was done by open space staff that is one of the reports that you can link to in the appendix and is available on the engage website all of the different appendix appendix items are there to read kind of that full report but my understanding is that as a result of the vegetation study, they correlated the types of vegetation to different classifications. And so in areas where they found more native species, less weeds, et cetera, that warranted being the highest like preserve level, things that were more like smooth brome, undesirable vegetation were in the lower. So that map basically reflects classifications that were informed by the vegetation survey data so it's kind of a snapshot of where things sit today okay but it's not like a formally adopted in some sense i mean like we haven't said like

No, it's meant to reflect current snapshot using the veg survey. We do have designations and mapping for each property as it's came through council's review or OSAP's review historically that we've been using for guidance as it relates to infrastructure improvements or the way that we manage the properties. But that specific map I think is talking to just a snapshot of the veg survey.

Okay. And then another question about a map. So there's one of the trails maps showing existing conditions again. It seems like it shows some bicycle lanes, but not all the bicycle lanes. So I was wondering, you know, is it supposed to show all bicycle lanes or are there certain ones that have been emphasized or like are there actually ones that are sort of designated as parts of trails? I'm just not sure.

Yeah, so we wrestled quite a bit with the classifications and try to how to best adapt kind of industry standard or national standard trail classifications to Louisville. It's interesting because, for instance, in trails planning, there's this idea of a regional trail. in an industry standard or regional trail would be something more like Highway 36. You have this, you know, consistent width of concrete that goes between jurisdictions. But then we have the Coal Creek Regional Trail, which is anything but Highway 36, right? So we kind of looked at these breakdowns of like, what does it mean for Louisville? So kind of where we landed was We do have these regional connections. We do have secondary connections. And then we also have this idea of kind of street routes. And those are things that are more in the public right of way. Specifically for the bike lanes, that's something that I think we should go back and look at that exhibit. kind of with a fine-tooth comb, say, are we showing these accurately or not, and double-check that. In terms of the trails planning, we are considering more of the street routes being part of the system, not just like a bike lane in the road, but more of something where you have kind of like a separated bike lane. So if you think along like the north side of Cherry Street over by Heritage Park. There's like a concrete path on the north side of Cherry. That's kind of a street route trail, but not like just a three foot wide section of a lane, so to speak. Yeah.

Okay. That's helpful. Okay. And maybe... I don't know. Maybe that's all for now. Thank you.

Great, thank you. First off, appreciate, like, this is a huge amount of work. I know that I've mentioned this to you guys before, but I thought in a very public setting, I would offer that as thanks, because I think this is a big project. So I had a question about, it's under the open space, and it's, I think, in the details of the action plan that we're kind of talking about. Page 114, Chris. to help you find it. And I think it's under the Open Space 2.3. It has a mention of wildfire mitigation in with vegetation management practices and ecological restoration. And then in 2.3.1, it talks about incorporating resource protection measures into project designs and implementation, and then aligning projects with operational activities and adopted plans. Is there something like this one in also the parks area? Because I know we also have to do this on that kind of like unirrigated parks. I think I'm saying that right out on irrigated parks land. And is this enough information? I mean, given like the importance of this to the community to, I guess, since this is going to be a staff document to make sure that future people for the next 10 years or more understand like what a high priority this is. My concern is where it's living and how small it is and I just wanted to see if it felt the importance to you because as I read this it doesn't strike me as its high level.

For us it is. To your point though. I think if there's a way to make it more prominent or to highlight the language, we can certainly consider that in the final draft for future people that would be reading this or implementing it. You know, I do think, and I'd have to go do a word search of sorts, but we did take the feedback from the April meeting specific to reinforcing that message and incorporated that pretty substantially throughout the document in all aspects, really. So I think that for what we're trying to implement and in at least the short term, it's definitely got a high level of priority. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. I think for us, it's good, but we can certainly consider ways to ensure that number one, it is in parks and number two, that it's high level.

Yeah, and there is mention of it in parks and golf also, this idea of fire mitigation. I think how it fits into specifically open space with the concept of lands management, of as we do these restoration projects, as we increase the percentage of native grasses, get rid of things like smooth brome, that that is supporting fire mitigation and managing those fuels. So my understanding from discussion with open space staff is that the fire mitigation falls under those, um, the land management and kind of it's all, the goals are all, they all align, I guess, if that makes sense. So as we restore native grasses, we have better habitat. We're more resilient against wildfire kind of all goes hand in hand together. Um, so that's why I think you see it kind of nested under that broader goal about the resource management. But, yeah, the feedback's good. It's important.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Other questions? Okay. I want to follow up on one of the questions that Councilmember Cooperman asked, which is when, if and when we adopt this, probably when we adopt this in some form, As to that figure 11, what are we going to be adopting? And what are we not going to be adopting? Are we going to be, I mean, is that going to set in priority, I guess, your future activity? Is that what we're talking about? Or is there something different than that?

So the way I understand it is, I mean, everything in the document would be adopted. The key aspects in terms of priorities or future goals and objectives really comes down to that matrix. So looking at the goals, strategies, and action items for each division, priority level, timeframe, et cetera. So if there's something, for instance, we have as a low priority happening 10 years from now, and council thinks it needs to be a high priority happening one year from now, like that feedback's great, because that's going to, you know, trickle into CIP planning and staff focus, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's, you know, the type of feedback from a high level now of like, do we have the right goals, strategies, action items, and are we thinking about this the right way in terms of the priorities based on input from the community?

Okay. Got a couple of… I think Adam has a thought, too.

I was going to maybe highlight something, not that anybody asked, but I would, it's a, it's a huge component of the, the plan that we were kind of able to work with the consultant and especially OSAP. I appreciate, uh, vice chair Dorsey being here this evening and the trails plan specifically as a framework and a rubric for how to start addressing the social or undesignated trail issues throughout our system. And there will be a direct tie in to that with the figure 11. classifications based on current recommendations for what that that's going to look like in the trails plan so there's definitely a tie-in that impacts day-to-day maintenance and future larger scale investment another question I had relating to the I guess this trail 18

And I think, if I'm recalling, one of the emails that we received suggested perhaps running that along 96th. And I guess I was interested if you have any thoughts about that, whether that's something that was evaluated and what your thought is around that. I'm not suggesting plural or con, I'm just interested in what your thinking process was around that.

Yeah, so the intent of the maps is really to cast out ideas and see what are potential connections that could be made in the future. We had a trails workshop last November that involved a variety of stakeholders from different kind of perspectives and realms within the city. And some of that came out of that workshop. workshop of, you know, opportunities for new connections. I think that trail in particular relates to the Red Tail Ridge and that kind of emerging development and how that might shift circulation patterns around the city, as well as the the, what do we call it, acquisition, sorry, drawing a blank, of the Paradise Lane properties and how that kind of extends to the north. So there's an opportunity there. I will say that in the prioritization of the different trails, the feedback that we got, that specific trail was not high priority. So we asked, for instance, the OSAP group and trails task force of these, you know, 20 something different potential trails, which are your top five. That trail was not in the top five. So from that standpoint, I don't think that particular trail is something that we're looking at as a a high priority item. It was more captured on a map for the purpose of conversation and feedback collection and where the community interest is in not only that connection, but 20 others around the city. In addition to underpasses, regional trail connections, there's some different layers to that mapping that was done. So that's kind of where that trail falls in the bigger picture.

So tell me if this is right, that that's sort of a, that's in the category of things to be determined later. It's not something that we would be, if we adopted this, we would be adopting that particular piece of it.

I'll go back to the slide, a couple of PowerPoint slides again about what the intent of this plan is, right? The intent of this plan is to set strategy with clear understanding that investment will reference back to this when we make project recommendations, infrastructure recommendations, maintenance, infrastructure needs. It's not intended to be overly prescriptive. It's pretend it's intended to showcase, an incredibly high amount of public feedback that we were able to attain that leads us to saying what we say we think the community would like to see implemented out of this plan. But every one of those implementation items, especially related to items like the budget that council would be approving, would have the same public engagement that any other project or planning process would have. Okay. Thanks.

Any other questions? If there are any more questions, we'll take public comment.

First up is Matt Jones, followed by Cindy Bedell.

that on now. Matt Jones, live in Louisville. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm going to be talking about open space tonight. I appreciate there's a lot more in the proposed plan than that, but I'm talking about open space. And I'll remind you that the city charter and the standards has preservation and protection as a priority. I can read it to you if you want me to read the language. You probably know it. And it's the language that sets up the land classifications areas. A lot of places in the plan you see the word balance between recreation and environmental protection. And it's phrased a lot of different ways. I don't know why, but it is. This plan is not even balanced between environmental protection and recreation. It is way out of balance. And in part because there have been a lot of decisions over the years that put it in that place. And there's a prime example. So you should be projecting, right? That's what the charter says, our constitution says. Not even balancing, but balance isn't even happening. That's how out of whack this is. A good example is the land classifications. You have them currently. The new ones have, when we put this together, when these land classifications went into place, I was part of that. We wanted roughly equivalent property acreage in these things. And if you look at the map, preservation, the most protective category, is at 6%. Protection's at 30%. Those should be at 50% or somewhere near that. And they should each be about 25%. And I'll tell you where one of the most gluric examples of where this is a problem is in the land classifications In Coal Creek, you can look at Dutch Creek area and Coal Creek. They used the vegetation mapping for eastern cottonwood, floodplain, woodland, and only used part of it. Floodplain's a riparian area, right? It's a huge, huge miss. It should have had the whole part of that vegetation type at a minimum. And then you should overlay environmental protection criteria and use that such as repairing areas of the highest value wildlife habitat you have. That was all supposed to be in a preservation category in the 2001 inventory. It was that way. And it's not. That should all be protected. And it should be 25%. And that's relative importance. The other thing I would mention is the trail connection you were talking about. I would take that trail off the map. Off the map.

Mr. Jones, your time is over.

Okay. I've done a lot of trail planning in my life. That one wouldn't even make the list because of the environmental impact. You can read my letter. Thank you.

Thanks.

Next up, Cindy Bedell.

Oh, hi. Can you hear me? Yeah. So I'm Cindy Bedell. I live in Ward 2. And first of all, I want to thank the Open Space Parks and Rec Department for everything they do. It's a wonderful amenity, and I really enjoy it. One of my concerns is bright floodlights from properties bordering open space that impact wildlife, bird migration, and evening human walkers and bike riders. As you probably know, City Council was presented with a possible dark sky ordinance in the past, which was not passed. That ordinance did include something about residential light trespass on open space. The dark sky lighting information that used to be on the City of Louisville website didn't make it to the new website. And I'd like to see that put back up so that people who are interested can learn more about dark night sky lighting and very simple measures that can be taken to preserve our dark skies. light fixtures that point light down, amber, and the appropriate wattage. It's all that's really needed. But a lot of people have these super bright floodlights that are on motion detectors. So I walk at night in Coyote Run and they just turn on and blind me, you know, and then it's very bad for the wildlife. And when these thousands of new housing units go in that's called for in the new comp plan, especially the many planned for west of McCaslin, our dark night sky over open space is going to be greatly impacted. Right now, many of us go to Davidson Mesa to view planetary events, night photography, dark night sky, and all of that is going to be lost without out measures to protect the dark night sky near Davidson Mesa and other open spaces. And again, I've studied this a little bit about dark sky lighting and the measures can be very simple. And especially with new builds, I would think it wouldn't be that more cost prohibitive just to put in fixtures that point down, have some measures in place about wattage and, you know, amber lighting instead of bright light. So I don't think it's very expensive, especially at the new build. So I'd really like to see something about light trespass and light trespass mitigation measures on open space addressed and included in the PROS plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Cindy. Any others?

No, there's no more.

Thanks. Let's take it back to council. I want to do a little bit of framing on this one. First, others can speak to this obviously, but I think I speak on behalf of all the council that this is a monumental effort and we really appreciate all the work that's gone into this by staff and by the community. I was, you know, I looked at the community engagement and we've talked about this a bit and I thought it was a really good example of community engagement following on to the comp plan. But it's actually more community engagement than in the comp plan. And I really appreciate that. I think that's, this is, you know, open space and parks are huge assets to the city. And we all want to protect them, not just because the charter says we have to protect the open space, for example, but because it's critically important to who we are. And it's worth maybe reminding us, based on some of the stats there, that we have 34 parks, 173 acres of parks. That's about 8.2 to 8.5 acres. per thousand, that's below the average nationally and it's below the average in our peer communities by a pretty significant amount. But it is, those are very important to us and especially as we attract families and so forth. That's an important concern in this. On open space, I think it's important to recognize that although there are 675 acres of city-owned open space, there's 2,000-ish acres. acres that are owned not necessarily by the city, but others as well. So, and we're second only to Boulder County. And that, I mean, it makes me very proud, but it also, you know, certainly informs the process. You know, the North Star for, certainly for open spaces charter, as Matt Jones said, I We can talk in just a minute about that piece, but it's pretty important. Two documents are going to be community documents, though. They have been drafted with respect to this wide community input, and I am confident in the staff and the work that's been done that the content is consistent. with that input. These are drafts. We're not making a decision tonight. I think you heard a little bit in terms of what we're deciding on what we're not eventually, but there's more time for community input and there will be that. So I think that's a pretty important thing for us to to think about it, and I think, as I understand what staff is looking for, they're looking for some guidance on forward direction, and that's what we're here for. So with that in mind, what kind of comments to, yes, Councilmember Dickinson.

Yeah, you know, I liken this to the comp plan. I think I said in other moments that, you know, something this big is like, it's everything and it's nothing, right? Like it's this really, really, really important document. And in the end, It isn't what we actually use on a daily basis. It's a guiding light. And so it's very important to get it right. And then there's a lot of work to do after its eventual adoption to think about like, yeah, where's the money actually coming from? Which specific project is actually being funded and when? But I think this is an awesome opportunity. draft and an awesome plan. I think one of the things that's really clear to me and I just, you know, as, as a council person, I've actually been on council for nearly seven years and yet. I take almost, in my mind, no credit for what we have as a community when it comes to the parks, the open space, our recreational facilities, all those things. It, for the most part, predates my time on council. And I think that's just a really cool story as this is my turn and I'm here. And what I think is being asked of me is don't screw it up. We've done a really, really good job over the last 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. We have incredible open space, incredible bike paths, amazing parks and playgrounds and pools and an incredible rec center. All these amazing things. A golf course that I love to play at as well. There's so many wonderful things that we have that, you know, It's not to say that we don't have our own goals, but I really like this idea of taking care of what we have because we've done such a good job of creating it and having it. And I say we as in all the people that came before me, not so much me. I think we've done a great job. And I think this plan is thoughtful. And I like how you guys, I think the conversation we had the other day is, less dreaming and more doing. Like we have all these things that we want to do and all these things that we need to do. And this plan is a little bit more oriented towards, you know, divisions getting their jobs done, divisions doing what they need to do over the next 10 years to preserve what we have, take care of what we have. And that's not just preserving open spaces, preserving facilities, our incredible rec center preserving our other incredible things. So I think it's great. Um, and I, I'm, I know it's still in draft form and I think similar to the comp plan, it's so much bigger than the seven of us, right? This is a living public document that so many people have had input on so many departments, so many boards. And we are another one of those groups that is really important. Just like so many other groups are really important. Um, I don't, currently have certainly nothing substantial to change. I think it's really well done. I think we've gotten a lot of positive feedback, both directly, people speaking to me and indirectly through comments I've heard from all sorts of people, talking to all sorts of people. But I think you guys have crushed it so far. It's not done. I'm excited to hear other people's continued feedback and to see what the next iteration looks like, but super impressed.

Others, yes. Council Member Haffner.

Yeah, thanks. You know, I know I've shared a lot of my feedback directly with staff. I think there's a lot of things to liken here in terms of the amount of community input. I think we have a lot of really good sort of statistical information about what people asked for, sort of what does the wish list look like in terms of what people want. I think there's a lot of great descriptive information about what conditions are like now, especially in the trails plan. I think there's a lot of that good information, the vegetation survey, the existing needs assessment. The thing that I struggle with is I look at the action items and a substantial majority, I mean well more than 50%, feel just really generic. Like, let's align our budget with our priorities. You know, let's assess our needs and then figure out what to do about our needs. And I don't know that it's going to be at a point for me where it's like, oh, let's go back and tweak those. I think it's kind of past that point now. And so the thing I'm struggling with, and I guess my question... To all of you is, and I think that the mayor was getting at this a little bit with his questions or something similar, is what does it mean if we adopt this as a plan, right? I mean, a lot of the things in here to me are like, they're great wishlist items. They're great best practices. Like we should align our budget with our priorities. I agree with that. and certainly wouldn't reject that idea. At the same time, it doesn't, the last time we were in here with a consultant, he said, this is going to spell out what we're doing in year one and year two and year three. And it's going to be specific actionable items in that sort of checklist to check off. I don't totally see that here. And I'm struggling a little bit with how, sort of how we adopt this as a plan when at least in my mind, it's sort of, doesn't quite rise to the level of a plan that we could implement in a meaningful way while at the same time it has lots of value in terms of what does the community want, what are good practices for managing open space and parks and recreation. So that's where I'm at and certainly don't want to discount all of the work that went into it. I know there's a tremendous amount of work and community engagement and I think the most valuable thing we got out of it is the results of the community engagement and the research into things we might do. I just would hate to be sort of locked into saying these are all things we're going to do. Like if we did all the high priority and ongoing items, it would far exceed our wildest dream of available resources. So I think that's my piece. Thanks all.

Other comments? Yes, Council Member Fee.

I'll just build on what Councilman Heffernan just said. I think that this isn't a plan. It's a guidebook. And so this is just going to guide us to the right plan and to the right outcomes without specifying, because we don't know what will be the best decision two years from now. This is going to guide us and say, you know, look at this and look at that and go this way. But we need, this isn't the plan for what we're actually going to do. And so I think it's been wonderfully put together and it does have the priorities of the public and the council. And so we're just moving forward in this direction and we can change whenever we want.

Do you mind if I just... Is your proposal we take like long-range plan out of the title Yeah, but the sort of the core document is called the long-range plan I

Right. But this is kind of guiding us to a long-range plan.

So I'm not sure exactly.

I don't think we need to be that specific in what the book says because it's just saying we're going to go in this direction. These are our priorities, and these are the order in which we would like to do things, but it's not what we're actually going to do. It's just possibilities and a guide.

That's helpful. I think I agree.

Okay. I guess, first of all, I sort of share Council Member Hafner's concerns. I do think, though, that Council Member Fahey's comment helps to allay that to some extent. I wanted to make a few more specific comments. So reading through both the trails and the and the PROS plans or whatever you might call them. So, you know, we have our guiding principles, we have goals, strategies, action items, but then we also have places where there are themes and where there are priorities and where there are recommendations and where there are challenges and opportunities and next steps. I just feel like it needs to be less confused, or somehow these things need to be condensed. Cause a lot of, I mean, if you, if you go to a page with some priorities or if you look at the challenges, a lot of those are reflected in the goals or the strategies or something like that. And I, I just find it's rather confusing to, you know, to have like read the goals, but then in next steps, it's like, Oh wait, wait, like there are these next steps, but they're not aligned with the goals. Um, and I just feel like there could be a lot more clarity in how we present, um, all of those different things. Um, And a little aspect of that, I think the challenges is very nice, especially how it really seems to have come out of feedback. The opportunities just feel a little silly because they're just like the opposites of the challenges. So it's fine, but I just feel like it's a little silly. So that's one comment. Again, something I brought up yesterday with staff, which kind of feeds into that general comment. You know, on Engage Louisville, you can go look at all the survey results and such in full. I don't know if the idea is to include those as appendices in the guidebook or not. That might be a nice idea. But I would just like to reiterate, I feel a little bit like it's reading the the two plans by themselves. It's a little hard to understand how the community feedback sort of directly flows into all the goals and strategies and so forth. So I don't know, if that could be clarified in some way, I think that would be helpful too. Okay. And then... A little bit more specifically than that. So let's see. I'll just go through a few different comments. There's talk about parking facilities at I think both trailheads and open space properties and parks maybe. But I didn't really see anything about bicycle parking at those locations. Let's see, in terms of the map with the ideas for trails and so forth, I mean, I think that's a great part of the trails plan. I would just see, and in that section, there is an introductory paragraph that sort of explains the context for those maps. I would just think about making it more explicit, like, on the maps themselves, like, these are ideas, or, you know, just to be very clear, like, these are ideas that our community has about where we could do all the improvements, but, you know, they still have to then go through that whole kind of process that you lay out in the plan. Just make that more explicit than it is at the moment. Um... Let's see. And then what else did I? Oh, so then to go back to the map with the open space designations. So on the one hand, that map is based on the vegetation survey is really informative. I guess what I might like to see is since we have established management designations, I feel like That should be shown maybe somewhere. And then, like, you could show the information from the vegetation survey as, like, informing, I don't know, like, possible changes to that or something around like that. But, you know, since we do have formally adopted management practices for the open space, I feel like that needs to be stated. Like, those things are not going to be changed unless the council makes... a new decision. And so it just needs to be clear that what's being shown in that other map is like information from this survey that we did. Okay. A couple other comments. Let's see. What was I going to say? There was a suggestion in some of the letters we got about the open space goals and whether or not they should be prioritized. On the one hand, I understand why the goals are not prioritized. But then on the other hand, it is established in the charter sort of what the priorities are. And so I do feel like we should, I don't know what the best way to do it is, but we should We should take that prioritization from the charter and somehow imprint it on those goals. That's one comment. I know I'm just kind of skipping around, but another one related mostly to parks and maps of parks. So there's a very nice map that shows all the parks, kind of the main parks. I actually think it would be really helpful if we have it to show those like smaller park segments in some other map, the rights of ways and things like that. I don't know. I think that's useful information. Not crucial though. But then there's another map that shows places sort of for potential park development. And on that I had two comments. One kind of related to the previous comment, like are there, it might be nice to know if there are smaller parcels that could still see some kind of park development but are not highlighted there. And then the other thing is kind of coming back to a comment that Council Member Hefter made in the first section of the meeting today. You know, like, we're expecting to see residential development in various places in the city, and it might be nice to say something about having park facilities in those places on that map. Okay. Okay. Maybe I have one more comment about the golf course. I don't know, maybe this didn't come out in the community feedback, but there was nothing that sort of addressed the golf course as a municipal golf course, or not very directly, I felt like. And I was just wondering, did we get any feedback about this being the community's golf course, a municipal golf course, rather than some other type of golf course? And I don't know if that came through or not. I thought it might be. Interesting if there were something around that Okay, maybe yeah, those are some comments I think that's all for now Mayor if I may yes Comments Thank You Sama

It's important to reflect that as these comments are made, we take these, unless we hear otherwise, as direction from all of council that you want us to make these changes. And so it's helpful as these comments come up to get clarification from council as to is there a majority support for some of these requests because the next steps would be for Adam and Brian to take this and then make these modifications. And also, you know, we appreciate these comments. I think that's part of the direction that they're looking for tonight as well as we obtain additional public comment, as we obtain additional council comments because you'll continue to review these and have comments. How do you want us to take this in? If staff's goal is to bring this back in October, is that a realistic goal? Or do we need to take these comments bring it back again because there's probably going to be additional comments and then say, where are we drawing the line on this? Or are we just bringing this forward as the best bet of what it reflects from a community standpoint and then also from a council standpoint? And then just one other thing that I really want to highlight. And Brian, if you could go back to this slide, the plan intent. The intent of this was to gather input, establish direction, and set priorities. As we've noted, we've had tremendous community input on this. We'll continue to have community input on this. As much as this has been an outward-facing process, once this moves forward, it's going to be more of an inward process. FACING IMPLEMENTATION DOCUMENT. AND SO, YOU KNOW, STAFF WANTS TO MAKE SURE THAT IT REPRESENTS COUNCIL AND THE COMMUNITY'S PRIORITIES BECAUSE IT REALLY IS GOING TO BE A GREAT DECISION TOOL. AND SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WE TALKED ABOUT LIKE YESTERDAY IS AS WE RECEIVE REQUESTS FROM INDIVIDUALS LIKE FOR SPECIFIC RECREATIONAL AMENITY AND YOU MIGHT GET, YOU KNOW, SICK PEOPLE THAT SUBMIT AN E-MAIL TO COUNCIL But when you look at the survey results, we received two survey results for that item, but we received 1,000 results for another item. That helps council and staff determine what projects move forward. And to Councilmember Heffner's point, You know, this document, while initially intended, may have been to outline more details related to projects, I think we're at a good point. I trust staff to take this to the next step in terms of development, particularly with the challenges that we have with our budget and the CIP and capital funding and figuring out prioritization based upon the funding available. I would not, while the consultant is helpful, I would not rely on the consultant to make those recommendations or decisions. I would rely on staff to do that. And so I just want to say that I'm very appreciative of staff and how you've gotten it to this point. It is very valuable. And when I hear staff say, this is what we need for the next 10 years to be able to operate this department and be able to present options to council that are supported by statistically valid information and supported by a lot of input from the community, that means a lot. And I truly appreciate all the effort I appreciate council's input on this. I appreciate the public comments. And as you noted, tonight is not adoption. We will continue to make these changes. But it is important for our staff to understand what are the specifics of what you would like to see in the next round that comes forward so that we're making sure that we're using our time most effectively. Thank you.

Um, you anticipated me. I haven't made my comments yet and I want to try to bring together and try to summarize some of the things that I hear so that we can move forward and answer some of the questions that you've raised, Sea Manager, because I think those are really important, particularly practical questions about how we proceed. Um, I... I really wholeheartedly think of Councilmember Cooperman's observations and recommendations are terrific. And maybe to the point, I think part of this that is difficult is what's always difficult in this, which is the level of specificity. and the level of generality that we bring to this. And, you know, almost all of the comments, you know, kind of wrestled with that. I agree especially with if we can kind of clean up the many different descriptions and reference points of plan, strategy, goal, priorities, challenges, strategy, you know, next steps, I think it'll read better for the public, for us. I think we can, that'll provide a good lens in which to see this in a way that I think it's harder now. I don't think, you know, I'm mindful of the timing in the process because we're not going to redo all this. We're just not. And nobody is suggesting that. I saw your eyes get very big there for a second, Adam. We're not going to do that. We don't have the resources. But we have an extraordinary product to work with. These are, in my mind, the things I'm talking about are tweaks. And frankly, I don't think I've heard anything from any council member that is anything but. I think, from my perspective, it may be good to distinguish more between the policy direction and the more granular projects. I don't know how you do that. I don't know that you necessarily want to put them in an appendix. That may be too much. But I think linking them to the goals and linking them to the public comment a little bit more tightly will be, you know, I think a better result, at least for me. On parks, particularly, it would be nice, as I think was mentioned, to think about, have some information reference to the kinds of things that we've we've decided or the direction we gave in the comp plan. We know certain parts of the city, particularly west of McCaslin, are going to develop over some period of time, or at least we believe that it will, and we certainly are encouraging that. But it might be nice to understand some thoughts on that and at least have it referenced so it's not out there. And, you know, to Matt Jones' point before, I think it's always critical to be looking at what I call the guiding star, which is the charter. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. And I do believe that staff has done a good job with that. I think it may, based on what you've heard, maybe worth fleshing out a little bit more. I'm not going to. try editing any of that, and I'll leave that to staff's good judgment. I really do appreciate the degree to which you've worked with so many different boards, commissions, people, you know, in all of the public engagement, and I think we just need to bring that out. I think to summarize, and I would like some feedback on these, because they are different points. I didn't hear a lot of conflict. You may disagree with me on the level of specificity. We may disagree a little bit on that. I think there were some just questions about, how the document is written, which I think you've taken in, and I don't know are going to be really things that we really need to debate too much here. I think all of the comments that were made about, you know, a revision of it were pretty good in terms of just language and organization. You know, I think... One thing I certainly heard was the need to establish connections between a little bit better than perhaps was done between the vegetation survey and the open space map and address perhaps a little bit more what the decisions were internally to get to that point. I think we talked a little bit about parks, where parks might be built. I think we talked a bit about maintenance. I heard that coming particularly from Councilmember Dickinson, that it's really important to address and maintain what we have and do it well. I don't think it ought to be in there in the language, but don't screw it up. It is not a bad thing. We've got a really good sense of... I think we've done pretty well on open space, and there's some disagreements around that, but I do think we need to build. We are building on that, and I do appreciate... affirming that. A couple of other things. I may have mentioned this, but just sort of the distinguishing between policy areas that council really needs in there and has talked about. and that we're going to be really adopting as a main issue. I mean, we're going to be adopting the whole thing, so I don't want to minimize, but I think distinguishing the major policy goals from the more granular projects and so forth is something I've heard from several folks. Let's see. Those are the main things that I've heard, but I don't, first, I don't know if people agree with the way that the ones that I've stated should be in there, but two, whether I've left something out.

Yeah. Council Member Abbott. Yeah, so I guess I think about it in a slightly different way. which is it's been the better part of two years of engagement. I am reluctant to insert ourselves directly into the editing process. I think this is all, in my view, this is all useful feedback to staff, and they should sort of think about it and chew on it. and consider whether it makes sense and whether there's sufficient remaining resources to accomplish the feedback if it does make sense. I don't know that I'm especially comfortable sort of directing fine grain adjustments at this point. And the one that I think I, Most of them I don't necessarily object to. I just don't want to sort of write from the dais. The one I do think might be a problem is sort of substantial reorganization to try and collapse the recommendations and opportunities and all action items into a more better organized format. That would be nice, but as I understand it, we've run through almost all of our $400,000 budget for this, and I don't want to send a consultant back to rewrite the whole report to organize it differently um even though i mean i think i share the quibble about you know council member cooperman said it very well that there's like a lot of different action items and recommendations and things sort of scattered about and it's difficult to follow them i also don't know if it's the best use of our remaining dollars to try and fix that so back to sort of the bigger picture, my preference would be to let staff continue through the remaining engagement window, consider this input as part of that engagement window. And then I really don't know, and others may feel differently, like I don't know that I necessarily want to adopt this as a council plan per se. I think maybe we receive it as like you know, the plan that we have, we receive it from staff and say this is good work and important work that you'll be able to use in the future. But I don't know if I'm at the point where I want to, you know, sort of do a resolution saying this is the plan for the city. And so in that vein, I'd prefer to let staff just continue doing the engagement they've done.

Let me clarify one thing, just... I said I think I'm not interested in the staff doing a rewrite either, and I'm not sure Council Member Cooperman was. But, you know, these are, I think, suggestions. There's a few suggestions, and certainly the budget for this is we don't want to blow. We've already spent plenty of that. We don't have very much left. Um, and we do, you know, we trust you in terms of taking the input that you've had and you decide what you want to do with it. Um, I think the suggestions have been useful, but, um, and I think it's interesting. It's an interesting question about whether we adopt it or not. I, I'm, um, these, it includes policy level issues. recommendations and I think not to not to adopt some form of that is I think a real problem. I understood that there may be parts of it that you don't want to adopt. But I mean, I think that's what staff has presented, what we have directed them to come up with, what has been spent in terms of the consultant and the public process. I think it would be irresponsible not to see that process through. But anyway, I'll leave others to kind of debate that. But it's an important point. I think what it may auger for is more time for staff to work on things as much as they expect as opposed to trying to push this too fast, you know, to the October deadline, which I don't know is a, you know, it's not a hard and fast deadline, especially given, you know, the time that has been spent. But others. Yes. Mayor Patel.

I have a question for my Ward 3 team member. Help me to understand from your point of view the difference between adopting it as for council adopting it versus it being a staff document. Walk me through that.

Yeah, so I mean I think of it as are we signing off sort of that these are the right set of recommendations and priorities that have been sort of informed by our input and at least what i'm looking at especially with respect to the long range plan less so with respect to the trails plan it's it's more of just a sort of a summary of a lot of information and so to sign off on it as a plan and thinking about 10 years into the future when most of us probably all of us won't be sitting here and some proposal comes forward and it's like, well, that's in the plan, we should go do it. This plan could justify almost any idea. It just speaks in such broad generalities that I would rather have it as a tool than a plan, and maybe it's just a semantics thing. I think about, for example, the police strategic document that was presented to us, which was really a police department ideas that weren't substantially informed by us on a policy basis. It was just sort of brought to us as here's some ideas we have and we're presenting it to you and this is all interesting information. And I think we heard it and said, that's great, we've received your strategic document, but I don't think we adopted that as our plan. I think we did a similar thing with the sustainability plan where there was some question about, does this really reflect the sort of cost-benefit analysis we were interested in? And I think we received it, but didn't necessarily adopt it as a formal plan. I may be misremembering that, but I know there was discussion. Or maybe it was the DCAR plan. community decor plan. And so to me, I think these documents have a lot of value insofar as they're informative. I think they have a lot of value insofar as the information is persuasive. But I think of a plan as something different, like here's how we're going to go about our business. This is what we intend to do. And even the best laid plans, you end up doing something different. But I don't see this as something we could just say, okay, let's go execute the plan. Because to the level of generality thing, it's just a lot of... There's a lot of plans to make a plan. There's a lot of best management practices. There's a lot of things we're already doing. But I don't see sort of an actionable... set of priorities. And I also, you know, to the extent I had comments earlier, I just don't see those comments really reflected.

Others? Council Member Fee.

I'm wondering about the same kind of thing. And instead of calling it our long-range plan, we could just call it our guidebook, our prose guidebook for what we would like to see, but there is no requirement, there's no timeline, and it's up for discussion and changes at any point. That's a long title.

Others?

Yes, let me pretend.

So I would like to hear from the city manager and other staff about Councilmember Huffner's thoughts around adoption versus not.

So Adam, are you okay with me taking this first? Okay. I think if council chooses not to adopt it, it's going to create confusion within the community as to whether or not this is council supported. We have other plans within the city that are not council adopted. There's a stormwater plan. As you know, there's the decarb plan. But I think that has also created questions within the community of like, well, You created this plan, but why didn't council adopt it? Is this your official plan, or is this just staff's plan? And for staff, I think it'll be confusing, too, because as there's inquiries from the community or we are referencing this plan to say why we're not putting something forward as a recommendation, then that could be challenged in terms of, well, this wasn't adopted by council, so does this represent council's feelings on this, too? Yeah. Yeah, so that's, Adam, do you have anything to add on that? Or Samma as well?

I would add that I think, while I respect the comments, I think that from a staff perspective, there is specificity in the draft. I think we've heard that there's a desire to tie more specificity into the final product to kind of align with where we got from a scope of work or maybe be more clear. We're big fans of the matrix. I think the matrix can be refined. It's specifically outlining what we consider to be the goals and future action items with priority listing of where that would fall based on available resources. You know, I also think to the point earlier that I was going to chime in on, I think there's real validity to the comments we've heard tonight about making it easier to read. And I think that's really helpful for us. I don't think we have to rewrite it to reformat it in a way that combines four or five of those areas of focus into more of the executive summary up front. Here's what this is going to say. And then you get into the charts and the graphs and the other things behind it. So that's fine. For me, I think it may be a bit of semantics, but I do think to city manager's point, and in our industry, right? So I'm just speaking for how other communities go about doing this process with people in my role sitting in this chair. is there is real value to adopting the document from a support standpoint, from a, you know, I think it can be anecdotal. It can have comments that are associated with it about interpretation. It's similar to the resolution that accompanies Parks and Recreation Month, for example, and aligning with that designation. I think it kind of reinforces that. to staff and to the mayor's point earlier about the level of community engagement, even exceeding that of the city's 20-year plan, the value of that community's input through the adoption process. That being all said, we're here to serve at the pleasure of the council and the city manager. And so if it's supported in its...

Yeah, I would support Director Blackmore and Manager Langley as well in that it's really helpful for us as staff to have council adopting these because we have clarity for the community, for staff in what council supports. Now these plans are living, breathing things and I think that Brian has done a really good job of explaining that this will continue to breathe. I recognize that some of these things are subject to appropriations, right? We can't do all of these things all the time, but this will help guide staff when they're bringing forward CIPs, when they're balancing projects and knowing what the community has decided is a priority and having that council support and community support through this robust process and the board and commission support really helps them use this as a tool to do all of those things.

Thank you. That's very helpful. I hear Councilmember Heffner's concerns and comments. My takeaway is it's really important that it's an adopted document. I really don't have any interest in workshopping tonight with Council what the title is or what we're going to call it or anything. But I think... Maybe you all can take that offline and maybe workshop it a little bit. But I hear you that what I'm hearing is it's really important that it's an adopted document is what I'm hearing. So thank you for enlightening me on your thoughts and staff for sharing your thoughts on that as well.

Others who haven't spoken? Yes, Council Member Kern.

So do you mind if I like segue off of this for a moment and just go to actually just something that's in here combining trails and the guidebook? Thank you. Is that OK? So one of the things that you guys had mentioned in here was providing trail connections to parks. And there is one map that has like the parks numbered so that it's easier to see where they are on the map and then have a reference sheet. Would it be helpful or is it possible, because I would find it helpful, if one of those trails plans actually had these numbered 34 parks with it so we could see where those connections were? And it mentions, I think, throughout, because I agree actually with Council Member Heffner, I really think that the trails guidebook is particularly well put together. But that was the one thing that I was going back and forth between the two plans to try to match that up and thought, maybe I'm missing something. And I would just bring it up with you guys. You had said, like, take a little, you asked us the other day, like, look at it in a little bit more detail. And I realized, oh, that is the one thing I couldn't find. So I appreciate that. Thank you for the indulgence. Anybody else who hasn't? Unless, of course, nobody agrees and then they should not listen to me at all.

Yeah, I don't think you have, actually, on this issue.

I mean, I guess we never maybe made it explicit in our previous conversations, but I just sort of assumed all along that we would eventually this would come to us and we would vote on whether or not to adopt it. So, I don't know, I do like the sort of the certainty that a formal adoption would give to staff. I think, I don't know, maybe I just need to think a little bit more about that question. But at the moment, I do think it would be helpful to our staff if we considered it for adoption.

I agree. I think that staff needs the assurance that we're supporting what they've done and the public needs to know that we're supporting what the staff has done. So I would also support supporting the long-range pilot.

I guess I want to I want to push this a bit because I'm very concerned about where we are right now. I think we can take a vote about how we do it. We've given direction on this for some time. Now, there could be a question, of course, whether you followed the direction or not. I happen to think you did. Generally, there's things that we all... disagree, you know, probably disagree with. It sounds like the trails plan, everybody, I haven't heard anybody complain about that. So that one, it would be awfully odd in my view to accept the trails plan or, and not do the same with the cross plan. I think it would be equally bizarre to all agree on the trails plan and not adopt it. But how much have we spent on this? What is the budget for it and how much have we spent?

It's a $400,000 total budget, 300 for the long-range plan, 100 for the trails. We have 14,000 remaining in contingency and 5,000 contractually obligated.

I mean, when I say it's irresponsible, that's what I mean. I can't imagine anything. I certainly haven't done anything in 14 years on council. where we had an idea, and I don't think there was any question that we were headed toward adoption, where we just said, a month left to go, maybe not. I do think that that, among other things, it leaves staff out to dry. But I also think more importantly, because we are deciding how to move forward, I just don't think that's a very wise thing. I can speak to one thing that Councilmember Heffner mentioned. I think it was mentioned about the sustainability action plan, or at least that was kind of the illusion. The sustainability action plan was adopted by council because I did it. It was part of that. And when we've changed it, it was changed by council. So, you know, others, the transportation plan, you know, go on and on about the plans that we've had. Now, you can distinguish between them, I suppose. My view is fix it. Don't mix it. I don't think it's good to throw the baby out with a bathwater, not at this point. Go ahead.

So, Mayor, to try to move this along, what I'm hearing, so there's specific recommendations for map changes, clarification on the map, trying to make some connections between the action items priorities and the public input, refining the executive summary to make it more robust, move the matrix up to the executive summary to identify these action items, look at nomenclature to see if we can try to kind of make it more condensed or easier to read. I think those things are all achievable. To address some of Councilmember Heffner's concerns, I would like to take a step. We have a CIP meeting in September where we're going to do further refinement of the CIP. We have a meeting, I believe, this week with PROS related to CIP. I would like to take a step to let us kind of work through the CIP and see if we can't somehow make a connection with that. So you can see that we are taking this plan, implementing it, applying it to the CIP. It may not be part of the document, but you can see how we're applying it. And then, so just leave a couple of specific items that I need direction on to move forward, one being specific to Trail 18. So if you remember as part of the comp plan process, there was conversations, there was input received related to this Goodhue-Ditch Trail Connection, which is Trail 18. So I pulled up the comp plan, one of the figures, and it says, Goodhue-Ditch Trail Connection is conceptual only. Future evaluation will occur outside this plan, e.g. Trails Master Plan, and will consider ecological, agricultural, and legal constraints. So the comp plan says that this trail will be, you know, considered as part of the trails master plan. So we do need direction at some point as to if you would like to have this connection removed from the plan. if you would like further consideration of this Trail 18, if you would like further clarification of the Trail 18 to say, you know, additional feasibility studies will need to be required before this is conceptual only, you know, kind of similar to the language that's in the comprehensive plan. So that's one of the specific items. And then we've heard, you know, through some of the emails received today, we'll condense those, give you some themes from the additional public comment that's received, note how we've addressed it. The other thing that I want to point out that I, you know, hear clear from Councilmember Cooperman in terms of this and some of the others of you related to this open space map, that's based upon a vegetation survey versus a map that is the actual like council designated classifications, we can address that as well. And just to note that that's based upon a vegetation survey. So I think a lot of these things can be addressed. We do need specific direction related to Trail 18. And if you would give us some time to go back and kind of digest all of these comments and come with a recommendation to move forward.

If the council is inclined to both give you what you need and staff to go back and do the reworking, the time is going to have to slip. I mean, based on where we set it, right? This is not going to get...

I think it's to be determined. Okay. You know, some of this information exists already. And so from a mapping perspective, it might be an additional paragraph that's added to the map. Or it might be taking a map from another source. I'm looking to Adam and Brian. I think we need to have more conversation as to if this is going to make the timeline slip. Some of these things are pretty straightforward to address. Others we already knew were going to take a little bit more time in terms of moving things into the executive summary. So I would not ready to say that it's going to slip right now. We need to review it more.

It's fair enough. It's premature. That's what I'm hearing. Well, why don't we take the... um the smaller if you will it depends whether it's a small or big issue but it's not the the big issue that councilmember hefner made how do people feel about the uh that trail 18 yes thank you i think um

There's a desire from the community to have connection. And I would be in favor of making sure it's clear, like we did in the comp plan, that it's conceptual and additional due diligence would need to be had before anything were to be implemented. But I do believe people want a connection between RTR and downtown and other places within our community.

Yeah, I would agree, but I would also say that that includes 17, 18, and 19, all three of which are heading south and are in the necessary to be expanded and evaluated. I think all three could use greater evaluation as to the Mayor Pro Tem's point. As we develop Red Tail and see where those needs really lie, it could be that it is greater access from a multi-use wide path along 42 to quicker, easier to get to the hospital or the businesses or what have you versus a recreational trail. And I think that would be that would require a lot more evaluation than we should be doing tonight.

I mean, the Staff can correct me, but the way that I look at that map with the possible future connections is like we went out to the community and we asked them where they want to see connections. And then we tried to summarize that, and this is the summary of that engagement. And so I don't have any problem just showing that. I just would want to be very clear. This is the status of that map. These are things that are ideas that our community had. But to move forward with any of them, we'd have to go through that process of figuring out should we actually go through with any of these? Just to make that very clear.

Can I just read from the plan and see if this solves the issue? The proposed trail improvements are for consideration purposes only, each of which will require further evaluation prior to final approval. All proposed trail system improvements will undergo a thorough staff review and city council approval prior to implementation. Evaluation criteria may include connectivity, safety, ecological protection, maintenance cost, and staff resource ability. That sounds good. Put that in there. It seems like a good disclaimer to me.

Does that solve your issue on that? To the larger point, I guess at this stage, I mean, I think we've had good discussion about whether to adopt this or whether we're heading to that direction, whether people ultimately choose to vote for it or not. Is the direction to bring back a plan i mean in terms of something council would adopt as opposed to just receive are we going to vote on it and adopt it as a as as american one clarifying question i think also within

That conversation is the conversation for what staff would be bringing back to you next as a whole. So based on the conversation tonight, is there a desire to have another bite at the draft apple or adoption or supporting or whatever we're going to call it when it gets to its final stage, is there a stage that we should be considering that happens between that?

I guess I had understood that we wanted to get it back, but is that a hand up or is that a thumbs up? Hand up.

I think the city manager had proposed earlier that we continue on the path forward of adoption of a document. And she's planning through CIP conversations to bring examples back to us of how the document is going to be used to plan. So that was my understanding of the path forward is we're still planning for adoption.

As opposed to bringing back one more and then making a final decision on adoption?

Well, I think we are now blending together two separate things. So the question you asked was, are we going to adopt the document or are we going to receive and file? And I think the city manager earlier had proposed we move forward with adoption because she thinks she can show us how it's being used as a plan through some CIP conversations with staff. And then Adam just, Director Blackmore just asked, I think, a separate question, which is between that point and now, is there another meeting where we want to go into more detail about the document? So I think there's two, right? Am I hearing? There's two separate things here.

Put that way.

First, yeah, go ahead. I'll just say on the second question, for my money, the time is better spent having staff continue the community engagement window, focus on that process. That's who we really want to hear from. And I'm sure to the extent any of us have additional comments on the draft, we'll share those. But that's just my view.

yeah, I would support both adopting when we're done and Not having another bite at the draft Apple Fair enough, I keep I keep trying to find places where you where staff might Want another chance to come back? I I think that it sounds like We want to keep moving toward, one, to get the public input, two, to keep working toward a draft that we come back ultimately for adoption. And that we will see the changes after when we are on that path. Any thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs up. Okay. Does staff have the direction that it needs?

I think so. Okay. From our side. Right. We'll try to incorporate some pretty intentional effort into when we provide that plan for adoption, how this feedback, has been incorporated and we appreciate the comments.

Okay. If council members have additional thoughts they want to share with staff, fine. We'll have thoughts from the public most certainly and look forward to that. Good discussion. Thanks for working through this with us. Tough discussion, but a good one. Right. I think the next part is C, appointment of council committee for potential amendments to city manager employment agreement. I think those who are working on the evaluation of municipal judge and the prosecutor are I venture to say not going to be those who work on this next.

Mayor, if I may, just make a brief presentation on what's in your packet here. So this is staff requesting council to appoint two council members to serve on this committee to review and recommend council potential amendments to the employment agreement for the city manager. As you pointed out, this came up after the city manager's review, which happened very recently, and council directed staff to follow up. We do have two council members who have volunteered to be on this committee, and that is Mayor Pro Tem Hamlington and Council Member Hefner. So if council is supportive, they could make a simple motion to appoint these two to the committee.

All right. I spoke too soon.

Go ahead. I was just going to say I would make a motion.

Okay. Second. As long as they're willing. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? So moved that we return. Second. Aye. Aye.