City Council - Regular Meeting

cooperatively with the City of Louisville and a children's art show held cooperatively with the Louisville Cultural Council that coincides with the Parade of Lights. We offer monthly meetings with demonstrations by professional artists. We offer volunteer positions that will enrich your life. All of our events are free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome. We invite you to come join us. We're located in the Louisville Center for the Arts, a historic schoolhouse in Memory Square Park, 801 Grant Avenue. To learn more about us, visit our website at www... Recording in progress.

Good evening. This is a special meeting of the City Council of the City of Louisville, Colorado, August 11th, 2026. Can we get... A roll call, please.

Mayor Lee?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Hamlington? Here. Council Member Dickinson?

Here.

Council Member Fahey?

Here.

Council Member Hoffner?

Here.

Council Member Cooperman?

Here.

And Council Member Kern.

Present.

If you could stand as able. right we have three items on the agenda but the first one is a joint meeting with the sustainability advisory board welcome and thank you for being with us tonight perhaps what we can do is to go around table and introduce ourselves we know most of you I think maybe you know most of us but I'm not going to assume that that's true so I'm Mayor Lay.

Deb Fahey, Ward 2.

Caleb Dickinson, Ward 1.

I'm Judy Kern, also Ward 2, which is the northwest corner of town, if anybody doesn't know.

Alex Betz, another LSAT member.

Hi, Tim Boyd, LSAP. Allison Kaye, I'm chair of LSAP. Hannah Miller, sustainability manager.

Dietrich Heffner, Ward 3. Josh Cooperman, Ward 1 and former LSAP member.

Barbara Hamlington, Ward 3.

Barbara Samir, Pro Tem. So we understand we have a presentation first, and then we'll probably have some questions, and then really look forward to, I guess we'll have a little bit of public comment, and then look forward to a really good conversation with you all. So take it away.

for taking time tonight to meet with us. I know that we've had to reschedule a few times. It's been a busy year, so we appreciate it. How we broke up our presentation this year is a little different than what we've done in the past. So we kind of all collaborated on slides and we'll present different slides. So how we have this presentation set up is we're going to do a little bit of kind of setting the scene, a little background definitions of sustainability, things that we were focused on. then from there we're going to move into just a little bit of voters views on climate change from there we're going to look at funding opportunities and strategies then we're going to go into some of the topics that a little more specific but have come up quite a few times so that includes both water and then things related to building codes as well after that we came up with a few questions that we wanted to talk to you all about so we'll discuss those questions and then we look forward to any questions you may have for us so with that we're going to get it started i'm going to hand it over to the next slide

Great. That's me. Starting off with a little bit of context setting and definitions here. We have climate mitigation and adaptation. And we have our nifty bathtub metaphor here. And so you have the bathtub being filled with those greenhouse gas emissions. They're collecting in the tub. So that is our atmosphere. And then as water is overflowing, it is kind of creating impacts on human beings. And so that would be kind of the mopping up of the waters, what we're seeing is climate adaptation. So this is humans adapting to the effects of climate change. This looks like fireproofing homes, creating emergency preparedness plans, and much more. In Louisville, we are pretty good at adaptation here. But adaptation also goes hand in hand with climate mitigation, which addresses the causes of climate change. This looks like decarbonizing buildings or moving Excel towards a cleaner grid. And back to our metaphor, this would be kind of turning down the faucet of emissions, which is equally important to adaptation. And so moving forward and kind of contextualizing this presentation, we are hoping to see the city of Louisville work more towards mitigation hand in hand with adaptation. On to the next slide.

Okay.

And we all know that one of the reasons why we've been so focused on adaptation is because of the Marshall Fire, so it's absolutely appropriate. But as we know, with the climate warming and our poor air quality, there needs to be equal focus on mitigation, and we've kind of gotten away from that a little bit because of the Marshall Fire. Again, totally understandable, but this is kind of a reset with that larger focus on resilience and what resilience looks like Resilience is expensive, as you all know. So the tricky thing with sustainability is we aren't just LSAB and sustainability. I mean, we've heard council members say many, many times that the thread that runs through decision-making is sustainability and equity. And so we've just, this is kind of a let's come back to that kind of a call because obviously we've been distracted by many things. So one of the things that's really exciting is the power of local action. There's a lot of research on how much impact local communities can make. And in Colorado, because we are local control, we have a lot of opportunity to set the stage with our own building codes, with our own mitigation strategies, with our own decarb plans. But they all need funding, of course. So this is the sweet spot. So waiting until a specific federal administration has rolled away or waiting until the state does things is not necessarily where the power of impact is. The power of impact is local decision-making, and we've done that in the past. We're just excited to kind of reset that stage for that momentum that we had around DCARB before the Marshall Fire. So again, the gap is always in implementation, and implementation takes dollars. But the science and the research is really clear around local climate action adoption policies. And the funding lever is one of those things that makes everything possible. It does require sustained financial commitment, right? And that has always been the hard part, that sustained financial commitment. Every department in the city is being pinched. So it's like, how do we do that? And then also leading with justice, you know, making sure that the decisions that we're making around, you know, these kind of actions with sustainability and climate action are putting forward the people that are the most vulnerable in our community. So that's that slide. The other thing is just something that our community is really good at. We've been embracing nature-based solutions. We've been embracing cows and goats and soil health on the Davidson Mesa and other parts of our community. Some of you who know the science behind climate change know that as the temperature is going up and the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is increasing, that if we have the ability to create healthy soil. Our soil has the ability to sequester and to hold the carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere and also to retain the moisture because of our drought conditions. And so the sustainability decisions we make and that we fund across our city have to not only focus on but of our buildings and of our community, internal and external, but also on the health of our, because we have a lot of open space, the health of our open space and how we take care of that soil and how that soil is holding the carbon that we continue to put into the atmosphere. So this slide just kind of talks about, you know, as that bathtub is overflowing, you know, we need to keep healthy parks and open space in our community. So, yeah.

Perfect. As you all have probably noticed, LSAT loves writing memos, and we often cite some information on registered voters' views, things like that. So just wanted to reiterate that. So currently, a lot of strong support for action around climate change. So 66% supporting transitioning from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy. And then something that I found very interesting was 65% think global warming is affecting the cost of living in the US. I think we've seen that a lot this year, particularly in Colorado. Not only is the cost of a lot of energy going up, gas, things like that, but we've also seen it with other goods. Produce, for example, has skyrocketed because of drought, lack of resources, so it's just driven up prices. In addition to that, 54% say local government officials should do more to address global warming, and then they're also voting for candidates. So it's clearly a priority for voters as well. Not only is it affecting them, but they really are looking for local government and leadership to address those issues. On to the next slide.

So this is kind of our current reality and some of the challenges that we're currently navigating. So we're unfortunately not on track to meet all of our sustainability goals and moving into a constrained fiscal environment in 2026. We're also experiencing declining traditional funding sources, as well as seeing an increase in uncertainty in federal funding. So on both sides are facing growing competition for limited grant and state funds. So to maintain the momentum we currently have on sustainability and resilience work is going to need new and more reliable funding approaches moving into the future to keep continuing the work. Next slide. So going into some of the near-term strategy ideas. We're thinking that we have to build on existing programs and funding sources, which include leveraging what's already working, which minimizes impact and also increases efficiency. Expand outreach, which you have the sustainable neighborhood network and climate ambassadors coming up. So that's going to be directly engaging more residents and strengthening the community and partnerships. Support grant matching opportunities for the city, providing the resources needed to secure more external funding. and then ensure new growth contributes to the city needs. So ensuring new development is gonna pay for its fair share to support sustainability and resilience. So these approaches altogether make better use of the existing resources that are available today while ensuring that new development's gonna be paying its fair share and strengthening the ability for the sustainability team to continue to secure grants that require matching funds to help support future uses. And a potential strategy that could be could be used as development-based funding mechanisms, such as impact fees. So that's something that can be put into consideration as the city evaluates and potentially reworks impact fee structures, seeing how that potential revenue could be put towards sustainability priorities and climate-related infrastructure, which is something that is a topic of interest among LSAT, but we'd love to hear more of your thoughts about that, hopefully, in a little bit.

Perfect. Moving to the long-term funding strategy. So we know that we have long had a partnership with Excel, so continuing to work with them, decarbonizing the grid is obviously a huge priority and a great way to reduce emissions. So continuing that work. We also know that the franchise agreement is coming up. We know that sometimes those... Fees are a little particular, but there are other ways, whether it's us having a better partnership, having more say in what they're doing, kind of using funds that already exist to focus on more of sustainability or being a larger voice in the decision-making process, especially with how much Lewisville was particularly impacted by the fires. I do feel like we should have a say in how things continue and move forward. In addition to that, we know that funding is extremely important. We've said this multiple times. We will continue to say that. We also know that budget is tight. So looking at other ways that we can have some continuous revenue, the sustainability team has been great on getting these grants and things like that, but long-term revenue to make sure we can continue to meet these goals. and that we continue to work on them, and affordability is not an issue. We think that those funds maybe can be put in a way that they really focus on grid and resilience investments, things that will show us that we're getting our money back fairly quickly. We know that's important to the community. We know that the bag tax was successful, but those funds are not continuing to go up. So how can we expand on that general success looking at other things? So there have been a few cases of a targeted tax or fee to create a dedicated funding source. We've seen this in Denver, Fort Collins, Portland, a few other cities. So looking at cities like that to see if we can do something similar in Louisville, like I said, to continue that streaming. On the next slide. So we think that these strategies, both the near-term and long-term strategies align with your goals on council as well. So dealing with growth, resilience and community priorities. And we think that they very effectively leverage existing resources, ensuring development contributes fairly and strengthening competitiveness for outside funding so that the city can continue to support long-term sustainability investments that benefit the entire community. Next slide.

Walking us through some key thoughts on the water conversation. We're obviously in a drought. And unfortunately, low water years are often the only time that we are forced to have these conversations. And that simply is because our habits aren't challenged, our preferences aren't challenged when water's plentiful, when there's storage up in the watershed. We can water our lawns and have our green lawns basically exactly as we'd like. whether or not that's kind of the future if we see irrigation and land management in the city. But the reality is for a toolbox for water conservation to be effective, we need to have a broad program in place before we need to use it. So we can't be caught on our heels, especially when we know that these phenomena, kind of drought and dry and lack of moisture up in the watershed can happen for several years in a row. And if you get caught in the second year or the third year after not making necessary precautions in the first, you can get yourself into quite the pickle. So residential and commercial water users offer some unique opportunities for water savings. Things like leaks, outdoor irrigation, inefficient water use. Basically all of these put unnecessary strain on our treatment, our distribution, and our storage supplies up in the watershed. The good thing is that all of these can be addressed programmatically and at the customer level as well. Next slide. I'm sure you've all seen some variety of a snow water equivalent curve. This is admittedly a little outdated from the meetings that we had rescheduled that we briefly talked about earlier, but the message here is still the same. And that's that we went into the year with a lack of moisture up in the watershed, lower supplies than we're typically used to. And that ultimately results in us having to change some habits, some actions from the city to conserve our water. This year, this looked like some voluntary measures, hopes that the residents would decrease outdoor watering use, nothing restrictive at this point, just voluntary, knowing kind of like I was mentioning that in repetitive years, this is not gonna be enough and we're gonna have to enforce some more strict conservation programs. I noticed in between when we set up our slides initially and just recently that our drought mitigation and kind of information on the website has changed. We know we started to adopt that Lewisville, keeping Lewisville in the blue, you know, talking about drought mitigation and what that looks like in terms of our little sliding scale of how well we've addressed the situation based on water supply. But again, with persistent conditions and more challenges ahead, we need to be a little bit more aggressive here. Speaking personally, I know that I've got plenty of neighbors with bright green lawns who water every day, regardless of what we're asking for them. So it's a challenge that has to be overcome from buy-in at every type of water user that we distribute to. Next slide. So our hope and our ask is that we could find a deeper toolbox, broader partnerships, and community adoption of all of these offerings. We'd like to see programs like Resource Central expanded upon, more incentives, more participation. There must be some kind of gap that we're experiencing such that there are some residents that are still inclined to water and keep green lawns even though they know that there's an ongoing drought. Rolling out expectations is not always going to be met with immediate compliance and that can be a real challenge. So drought mitigation and these strategies needs to be communicated effectively and we need to kind of use that momentum to build up on community buy-in and be transparent and the knowledgeable folks that can help our community conserve water. Looking at Superior as an example, they've used some transparency and information sharing through their websites and web platforms to share what some of those impacts could be. And those impacts look like revenue loss for the city. With a decreased amount of water to provide and decreased water use for their customers, they're not able to bill the same way and generate the same revenue. for water distribution. That can look like increased cost to the customer, can look like changes in water quality, interruptions in service. There's a number of impacts from drought that we need to be thinking about, not just in the present, but for years to come. Just as a observation that I've seen here, we had a leaking sprinkler out front of City Hall for several weeks. It might have even been months. It was a very long time. And that kind of thing, that's truly an awful example for our residents. And I think we can do better here on all fronts. Next slide.

So one of the things that came up a few months ago, I guess it was, was a little bit of a discrepancy of how we should move forward on building codes. We had the Building Code Board of Appeals feeling one way and LSAP feeling another way. And when we were at that city council meeting, none of us knew each other. and I know you had made an effort with the museum board and with the library board to get together. So one thing we want to ask is some collaboration with these two boards because the goals are the same but there was no discussion between the two committees before that city council meeting and it was just a little discouraging that the We all have the same goals in mind, but the strategies hadn't been articulated between the two boards very well. So one of the things we'd really like to do is to work with them. So yeah.

Perfect. So with that little presentation, we have a few questions that we had come up with from our meeting to kind of get to know what your priorities are, a little bit more about sustainability from the city's view, what you all are looking for. So we have a few questions. I don't know if you guys want me to go question by question or just read them off and go from there. Is there a preference?

I guess I want to get to those questions. If council members have any initial questions about the presentation they can answer now. It would be my preference to jump right into the questions that you all are asking because they're good questions and the discussion will be really helpful at some point, probably after we get toward the end of where we are. Actually, why don't we do this first because it may help to inform some of our discussion. Why don't we take public comment right now and then jump into questions. Do we have anybody who signed up for public comment?

So we have John Leary.

If you'd like to make a public comment, just fill out the form and give it to the clerk.

Thank you for giving me a chance to talk. I'm John Cowley, a Louisville resident. I had some comments to make that support what's been said, but not directly. Since 2017, I've been tracking the emissions of Louisville. I use the Excel's community energy reports. I treat those as gospel. Hopefully they are. You may not realize this. If you look at the Excel numbers for those nine years, it looks like we've I should put my glasses on. It looks like we've cut our emissions by, I don't know, 14% or something over that time period, but that's misleading. We've cut those because Xcel Energy has been cutting the emissions in its electricity generation. We benefit from that, but they've cut those emissions more than the 14% it looks like Louisville dropped. If you subtract out Excel's emissions improvements, which I did, it turns out that over that nine years, our emissions have increased 3.5%. So Louisville is losing the emissions battle, except for Excel's contributions. And it turns out from that same data, it gives us a good place to start. It turns out that for electricity use and for residential natural gas use, they are level or going down. What's going up is commercial natural gas use. If you do a per business account of how much emissions come from commercial natural gas, It has been growing 2.6% a year and it's gone up 29% since 2017. So the commercial natural gas use is on a steady upward trend and it's not slowing down. So I think there are three possible things that could be considered to deal with this and maybe sustainability is, I know they're about to embark on one of these. I'm one is to support their efforts. Try to cut. Commercial emissions. And it's there some funding that's been available and you'll probably hear that story. If if they we could decarbonize a 160 commercial buildings. That would cut 1% of Lewisville's emissions. So the point is, it's really hard to cut those emissions. But the low-hanging fruit is commercial natural gas use.

John, I apologize. Your three minutes are up.

Oh, rats. Okay. I have more to say next time. Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Kevin Labardo.

Hello, I'm Kevin Lombardo. I'm a Louis villain, I guess. Thanks for LSAAB and for City Council for being here and meeting. I think it's very important. I guess I just have maybe two points quickly. Gosh, a little while ago, maybe a few years ago, I think you guys started coining the phrase like through the lens of sustainability, right? Like you look at everything through the lens of sustainability and the comp plan was through the lens of sustainability and lots of really good goals in there and everything. But I don't see how that's possible when sustainability is missing from a lot of key processes within the city. And I don't know, I think to Tiff's point, I don't know if it's LSAAB or the Sustainability Division, but they're absent from discussions in building and energy codes. They're absent from discussions of building and planning meetings and things like that. And I think we need to insert them, whether it's LSAAB or the Sustainability Division, into those processes so they can be there, so they can be a voice, so they can understand what's going on within the city, so we can truly look at things through the lens of sustainability. The other thing I would say is that, you know, you guys got this ICLEI report, showed a pretty big, you know, failure in terms of our greenhouse gas emission goals, right? I know you all don't have a lot of levers to pull, probably. Probably not getting a big pile of money dropping out of the sky, right? Everything I hear about the funding or revenue situation within the city is not great, right? But things you can do, one lever you can pull is... building performance metrics, energy codes, more aggressive building performance standards. And they check a lot of boxes, not just greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Occupants of those buildings get higher comfort during weeks-long heat waves. They get lower energy bills. There's inherently higher fire resiliency to those buildings because of the way they're designed, and they get healthier indoor air quality. And I have to say, I cannot remember the last time I did not get an alert at 4.11 p.m. that today's air sucks and tomorrow's air is going to suck again, right? These are all huge things that everyone in Colorado right now is dealing with, and specifically Louisville, right? So I guess on that, and you all know I'm a zealous advocate for higher performance buildings, but I will just say that they are also easier and cheaper to do at scale, right? So while we have a goal of higher density building within the city and increasing our population, keep that in mind that these buildings scale really well and the performance is much easier to achieve with higher density building. So that's something that we could gift to future occupants and residents of this city. and actually look out for their health and comfort and energy bills. Thank you. Thanks, Kevin.

Next up is Dawn Parcher.

Don Parcher, Louisville resident, about 12 years now. I'm going to say some obvious things on behalf of my grandsons. Chris, he's heard this before. Owen is two, Jack is four. It just seemed the obvious. I mean, July was the hottest month on record in the United States. Just kind of obvious where things are going. As I've said before, I think we might be past the tipping point. So I feel like we need to do everything we can. So I ask you to do, in everything you do, not just a lens, but really take some action. Do what you can to reduce emissions and, of course, mitigate. So please do the right thing. And be a model for other communities that might have more latitude to do more than we can do in Louisville. Thank you.

Thank you, Don. I never tire of hearing about your grandkids. or anybody else's for that matter. It's partly why we're here on this topic. Why don't you go ahead and we can go through however you'd like to do it. I think we can take as many of these as we can. I'm conscious of time. I really appreciated the excellent presentation and really helpful foundational stuff for us to talk about. I think probably like to keep it, you know, try to get what we can done in about 40, maybe by 715, so we can get to other pieces of the...

of the of the night's agenda so let's get this to dump jump right in your first question perfect thank you so much so we wanted to know what you all see as kind of pure cities or miss municipalities that Lewisville looks at in terms of sustainability or just in terms of what they're doing in innovation and if you know of any cities are there any projects in particular from those cities that are reason that you kind of are like oh, I think they're similar to Louisville, or I think we would also have a similar success in Louisville.

I hate to dump this back on staff, but I think this staff really spend a lot of time studying other communities, and we often get information from them and sort of trust the communities that they're looking at to inform ours. I'm glad if there are council members who have an answer to that, it's fine, but I think staff may be more helpful.

Yeah, I like to our neighbors a lot of the time. So I like to look within Boulder County. I work very closely with Superior, Lafayette, working more with Boulder, Erie, to name a few, and Longmont every so often as well. I think for this question in particular, we have a lot of discussions in LSAB about where LSAB can pull examples from that might resonate well with council. So if there's any cities in particular, I think that council is like... We like to see this, I think like Superior is one that I've offered to the board before as a neighbor city that we like to kind of work well with or that we look to. So if there's anything else, but that's like what I've shared with the board and who I work with often.

Thank you. So I'm going to propose kind of a way to try to address a lot of these questions and being mindful. I think we told staff 7 o'clock is when we would start their portion. So I want to be mindful of their time tonight and that they're here to start at 7. I heard three main themes come from the presentation. And first, I'll echo the mayor's comments of It's clear you all collaborated together and thought a lot about what you were going to present tonight, and that was very much appreciated. I mean, the three things I heard, and someone speak up if I'm missing anything, is mitigation and the challenges with lack of funding. It's like conversations around long-term funding for mitigation. The second thing I heard, just like big umbrella topic, is water and drought planning. And then the third thing I heard is a desire to collaborate with the Building Code Board of Appeals. Those were the three main things. that I heard topics. Did I miss anything from y'all's perspective or do you think we can maybe try to funnel all these great questions within those umbrellas?

Yeah, that's a great synopsis. And I would just add to the funding for mitigation just we're really curious tonight to find out what the appetite of council is for moving forward with some of the things that are working in other communities and doing some kind of timeline planning on when might be good times to roll those out in our community. Because it's clear that A, we're not meeting our goals, and B, it needs to be, you know, back to Kevin's point, it needs to be a mixture of sticks and carrots. And so let's get strategic and thoughtful about rolling those two things out.

Mm-hmm. So I don't know what your thoughts are, Mr. Mayor, and the rest of council of having those three kind of bins. And then I think these naturally, I think, will come out as we converse about those three topics. Thoughts about that?

Yeah, no, personally, I think that's great. I don't know if the rest of council can. I appreciate the suggestion, and I'm mindful of the time, too. I think the question is we don't want to cut this conversation short if there's a lot that we're accomplishing. So should we start about that? Why don't we?

So one of the things, because that is sort of one of the big topics, is the funding. So thinking about which of these questions fit into that. So it's talking about the impact fees and kind of a path forward around that. And also just the appetite of council to think about going to the voters for a sustainable funding source. So I'd like to maybe open that up.

Yep. Councilmember Dickinson.

I probably shouldn't speak without a fully formed thought. However, one of the things I'm kind of thinking about is, you know, there's like, my experience, pretty much no resistance to these conversations. Like, we're a very environmentally forward-thinking community. I'm Louisville You know, we were talking about like are we a leader or are we you know, how do you define Louisville? We're kind of on the front edge of some sustainability efforts. I think as a community our voters lean very you know In in that direction whether it's open space parks and sustainability, so I don't think it's a hard conversation and we're not like boo Environment, right? I think this whole council and so but then you ask like is looking through the lens of environmental sustainability enough or do we need to be being more precise with how we're doing it. We have some good plans in place for sure. I think where I get a little bit negative, and this is not, again, we're a very small town and for instance, water, my understanding is that like residents use a very, very, very small percentage of the water in our country. It's agriculture and we're not an agriculture community, right? Like, so if you want to deal with water, you got to take on agriculture, which uses up way, way, way more water than we do, right? So residents, apparently something like 8% of the water in this direction. So if Louisville, a small town, cuts our residential use of outside water, we're not doing anything. To the world, right? And we're talking about the world, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything, right? So these conflicts of like, well, we should still do something. You can walk by my dead lawn and compliment me. We're all trying to do things ourselves, but what can we do that has a bigger impact? And so I struggle with these things, but when we think about sister cities and other things like partnering with Commerce City, what does a million dollars in Commerce City look like versus a million dollars in Louisville? What are we going to do here that's going to have an impact on the world with that million dollars versus what we could do if we donated a million dollars to Commerce City to fight environmental issues? There's so many moments where I feel like we're at the 97th percent or 98th percent of what can be done in a community, and there are other places that are at the 50 percent mark. And it would have such a bigger impact on the world if they moved. But we don't live there. We live here. So we're focused on here. So I just struggle with some of those things because I think we're doing some really great work and there's more we can do. And are we at a point of diminishing returns for the amount of money we'd have to invest to, say, upgrade all of our facilities, right? Versus letting our facilities upgrade as... So we have a lot of programs in place that are attempting to be great stewards of the environment. Can we go faster? Can we do more? I think those are good questions. And so to your points, Barbara, about the tax, Yeah, I mean, I think if we put a tax out there, a bond measure that said, hey, should we tax ourselves, a sustainability tax, it might pass in Louisville. And what do we do with those funds? And I just get a little concerned, like what, we're going to tax Louisville residents millions of dollars to do what in Louisville? The water I kind of spoke to, you know, it's a little bit, I just think it's a, putting restrictions on residents when that is a very, very, very, very small percentage of the water usage in our country. if that's where I want to put our effort, um, when people are voluntarily doing a lot and then the building code board of appeals collaboration, I think is a great topic. Um, because I do think that those should not be siloed. Like when we're talking, if we're, if we're asking to have a lens and then we're not putting those two bodies together to talk about how we're doing things that, that seems a little silly. So, um, I definitely think there should be more collaboration there. Um, what that yields, I don't exactly know. Again, we have pretty forward thinking and you know, codes. So, you know, you seem to have had a pretty big impact. I think our residents have. I think council has. I think you all have had a pretty big impact on the codes we currently have, although maybe not entirely aligned in any given moment on what we're doing. So it feels really negative. I think the takeaway I actually have is it's really positive. I think we're doing a great job in Louisville. And so I'm curious. what's going to move the needle or what's going to be a big enough impact that I get really excited about the next thing, the next thing that Louisville is going to do that keeps us on the front edge. But I've said enough. I don't have, obviously, very succinct answers to these questions, but it's a big, complicated thing, and I appreciate the work that you all do and your expertise. Yeah, Council Member Fahey.

Thank you. Yes, I also want to thank all of you for everything that you do on this board. It's one of the most critical core boards in the city, and I really want to emphasize that that's a core need in the city. It's just as important as water, as police, as anything that we provide for the city. It has to be cleaning the air and cleaning up our environment. getting rid of all of the carbon, getting rid of everything we can do. The ozone levels are starting to come down, but that's because of a worldwide effort. We're not involved anymore in the worldwide climate effort reduction. unfortunately. I think Louisville should do everything it can. We are not meeting our goals already. I would like to exceed our goals. Speaking of grandchildren, remember who was up here talking about, Don, I think, was talking about grandkids. I have grandkids too, and I want there to be a healthy world that they can live in when they're my age. And if we don't come down to carbon neutrality by 2050, which we are not on the line to do, it's going to be a almost irreversible situation and so i would like to do what ever we can to partner with excel to increase their carbon neutrality but then also get more people using electricity rather than gas definitely not call so that we're producing our own electricity. Why not put the solar panels on the roof of the rec center that we were asking for when we passed the expansion? That's my personal preference. So I would like to do as much as we can. I think partnering with the other boards is a wonderful idea because you can cooperate and see. And then our whole goal of having sustainability be citywide might be more achievable if sustainability is meeting with all of the boards and saying, well, if you do that, this is going to be the result. And we don't want that.

so i would like to just see you continue what you're doing expanding what you're doing and i thank you for what you're doing thanks yes um i think tiff teed it up to focus on the funding but we're covering all three so i'll do that as well but we can certainly circle back um if we want to talk about anything in greater detail so I'll just say first, my initial reaction to the request to meet with the Building Code Board of Appeals doesn't seem unreasonable. The content of those discussions and what the goals are, I'm not certain, but it seems like there's some overlap and synergy and collaboration is worth exploring there. As far as the topic of mitigation and long-term funding, I mean, we in this room have all seen the wedge analysis, where we want to go and where we are. And frankly, it's not great. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, right? We have really lofty goals and we are not even close to meeting those. I think what I took away from that was two things. Excel is going to continue to be a very, very important partner in us to try and meet those goals in some way. And two, as you all so elegantly highlighted in your presentation, funding. We can sit here all day long and talk about projects and what we want to do, but until there's actual dollars and cents to apply to those ideas, it's going to be hard to make things happen. So I'm certainly open to having conversations about how do we generate long-term funding for these initiatives. Whether it's a tax or an impact fee, I'm not certain, but I'm open to those discussions so that we can actually make progress on our goals. As far as the water planning goes in drought conditions, I hadn't thought about LSHAB, I'll just be honest, contributing to those conversations. I've been so focused on public works and the reservoirs and what the other municipalities are doing. I love the idea of some longer term strategy involving you all to help inform us, not just what are we going to do now, but to your point, Alex, of like, this is going to be a continual challenge that we need to get ahead of, so let's start planning now. So I love the idea of figuring out in what ways can your ideas and knowledge help us strategize a plan to be effective as far as water conditions go. So I'll pause there and pass it on to my fellow council members.

Other council members?

Council Member Caputo. I'll make two fairly brief comments for the moment. So one is about impact fees. So you might know the city is about or has just gotten started on doing an impact fee sort of update where we update what sort of categories we might charge impact fees for for new development and how much we charge in those categories. I would guess that it's not traditional to have an impact fee category for say sustainability or resilience. But I could see arguments for having both of those So I would hope that in our impact fee study when we explore what categories we should have that we explore those kinds of possibilities The other comments just wanted to pick up on something that councilmember Dickinson was saying about water You know water is heavily regulated, right? And so, you know, we have control over our water rights and that's kind of it So I don't know, I never really thought about sort of trying to help out sort of in the larger picture of water conservation beyond our own community. And sort of the only way I could imagine that is like, because we have pretty good water rights, if a neighbor, was running low on water, we could say gift them water or sell them water or something like that if we still had water available. But sort of that aside, I mostly think about it as what do we have to do as a community to protect the water that we do have, you know, if there is, you know, depending on what the drought conditions are like in the future. And so I feel like there is absolutely room for lots of community-based conservation efforts and to the extent that we need those depending on the conditions that we see in the future.

Other thoughts? Yes.

Council Member Kern. So I'll pile on with the thanks. Volunteering in the community is really appreciated, and that kind of lends to one of my comments on how and what we do. We're talking about looking through a lens, but working together is a lot of times what we mean is that It may not be that LSAB is included in every conversation as a volunteer board, advisory board to the council, but our staff and the sustainability department is overseen by our deputy city manager. So she is involved in... probably 98% of the conversations that happen throughout the community. So a voice is absolutely heard. She really does represent, even if Hannah's not able to attend every single thing and have her fingerprints on it, it is. And it's important we hear for the community, and we've asked this to be a priority for the city staff. And I think we've seen this happening. Does it mean that it's perfect and there's more room for improvement? Sure. But I think we've made a great start, and I wanted to acknowledge the work you guys have done, but also that our staff does continue to do with sustainability, specifically the department, but throughout the city. Because everybody really is on the same page. We've asked them to be. We've let them know it's important to the people who live here. They've heard it. So I also really love partnering, because I'm much more about a carrot than a stick, and I think it's a lot more effective, and I think also it's more neighborly, and that's Louisville, right? We all enjoy hanging out, listening to some music, and having some good conversation, which our sustainability team, I saw them when I was on my way there this past Friday, they were having great conversation. with a lot of people in our community all about cold climate air source heat pumps because, again, it's partnering with a regional program. We don't have to use every dollar that comes into Louisville. There's $200 million that the EPA gave to Dr. Cogg. They won an amazing grant. solely being applied to decarbonization regionally. And the goal is to convert every home possible, specifically people who are lower income and might not be able to afford it on their own, to use a cold climate air source heat pump. Cleaner, quieter, more efficient energy. And there'll be more that rolls with that. So as we work together, there's also, you know, the Way to Go program, which is the bike to work. And everybody here gets really engaged and involved. And I think, as an advisory board, I like the idea of you giving us ideas that we can then also take to our regional partners. Like, I'm your representative on Dr. Cogg, for example, and I am very, very active in making sure that the Power Ahead program is used here within the city of Louisville, right? And I'm so excited about it, actually. Would love to see, like, more of us working together on those things, as well as the different programs that are done through the Regional Air Quality Council, like converting our food trucks to all-electric It's an amazing regional program that the city of Louisville doesn't have to use its taxpayer dollars for. It's state funded through this organization. And we have a lot of local vendors like Rush Coffee, 100% battery powered. And every year we can have more impact. And I'll tell you, I know I breathe better when I'm standing at a vendor that isn't running on gas. Personally working with Infinitus Pi to try to get them at our events and be all electric. And so I think, to me, that's a big part of it. And partnering with Xcel Energy and using our collective bargaining power to make sure that they hold up their end of the bargain and do as they've promised. to make sure that we can have as much renewable energy as possible and as practical. Because if Xcel Energy is our local supplier of electricity, if they become 100% dependent on renewable sources, well, that makes it a lot easier for all of us to breathe cleaner air, use the electricity, and I think it makes it more affordable. We have a lot of families here. We talk about equity a lot. When we ask people to convert their houses and their systems, add insulation for tens of thousands of dollars, add a new HVAC system for tens of thousands of dollars, drive a different kind of car for many tens of thousands of dollars, that just becomes daunting to the average family. Working together in ways that we can focus our energy to help them achieve some of these goals and just be excited as a community to encourage the people who can afford it to do it is what I like being able to do. And the mitigation efforts like today, the last several days, the smoke has been horrific. The Western United States is on fire. Most of you know I was directly impacted by the Marshall Fire and became far more active than I ever thought I would in making sure that every year we have to do something to prevent wildfires, whether that's here in Louisville, a neighboring community, Spokane, Washington, which my heart is breaking for the people there now, because we're breathing in those particulates. My eyes are burning. I am having a hard time breathing. And I don't even have any health issues. So I can't even imagine how scary this is for some other people. I love the idea of us doing more. We do more. We teach others how to do more. They find that it's a practical way that we can prevent wildfires. And I love the idea of sequestering the carbon in really good dirt. And I think a lot of you are right. It's a good learning thing. This is where I love you guys being out there and educating our community on these things. Good soil makes a huge difference. And we all think about it. I mean, I have clay soil that my house is on. I remember digging a hole to put my pine trees in 30 years ago when I moved here, and it took a pickaxe to try to dig a hole. That's how bad the dirt is. There was no carbon unless it was in the form of dinosaur bones being sequestered in that ground. I think in effort, we're a tree city. We lack trees, in my opinion. I would love to see us be more green. We've had some residents recently talk about green roofs and green spaces and getting rid of a lot of the concrete and the black tops on things that just reflect more heat. Let's figure out how we teach each other how to do it and work together on it. I think a lot of my neighbors don't even know how to do it, right? So education versus mandation can be really helpful and energizing. Lastly, on the water. Josh and I have been on the same page for a couple of years now. I'm all about encouraging this. I grew up, you put your toothbrush under the water and you turn the tap off while you're brushing your teeth. You don't leave it running. I think the energy and building codes that we have in place now require a lot of low water use implementation. You can't build anything new. You can't put in a new bathroom. You can't buy a toilet that isn't low water, and that is the responsible way for all of us to be living and sharing, because it is about sharing, right? A very limited, precious commodity. We're sharing it with each other. We're sharing it with the environment. We hear all the time about the leaks that are drying up, and that's impacting wildlife, birds, fish. So, yeah, whatever we can do to help reduce that. And again, a lot of it's education. And I think I was very disturbed by your idea that we're seeing leaking things and not fixing it quick enough. And if we can't get it right, how can we ask others to? So I'm on board with you on that one. Thanks.

Any others who haven't spoken? Just a moment. Go ahead.

Sure. I just want to also echo Judy's comments about education and getting the word out, but also educating yourselves because I know that you're looking into what's going on in the neighboring communities. What about other communities around the country or even around the world that have become carbon neutral? How did they do it? And if we could find out some places that have actually accomplished what we want to accomplish, and then you come back and tell us this is how they did it, then we can do it.

We already have that information. So Lafayette is all electric for new building. Boulder has a climate tax. Fort Collins has a climate tax. When you talk about these sustained funding sources, of course, Power Up Colorado, of course, Dr. Cogg, they're working regionally and there is money. And back to Judy's point about we need carrots and carrots need multiple streams of revenue. right? And so if we are going to do everything we can, then it's the sticks and the carrots, right? It's the electrification building codes. It's some kind of a sustainability tax. And we have communities right here in Boulder County that are successfully implementing them both. And then back to Caleb's point, I mean, it's an interesting discussion about Regional and worldwide implications of water and bad air right so in a perfect world Communities that have would be partnered with communities that that struggle more It would I mean, I love that idea. I don't know if Louisville residents would raise millions of dollars then give it away But I do love that idea but back to the research on local action if every community owns their the impact that they can make with their greenhouse gas emissions, with their water usage. And again, the regional impact is big, but local action, local building codes, local climate taxes that support this over time is where we're going to make the difference. And we're going to continue to get regional money. Power-up is going to be great. A lot of people are going to get heat pumps. But it's going to take multiple streams of funding over time, just like the water. It's going to take keeping an eye on drought over time. You know, these are not short-term solutions. These are long-term solutions, but they all need education, to your point. They all need funding, and they all need sustainable funding.

I appreciate the comments. I actually want to hear back from you all for minutes, and I'm cognizant of the time, but the manager and I had a discussion about before this meeting around the timing and how much time we take, and I don't want to unnecessarily constrict it. I want to be mindful of it. think just I don't want to say too much more I think we've said council members have said plenty of really good ideas around many of these things when we go back to funding and sustainable funding I think I think it's it's it's the you know, it's the thing we are all struggling with. We're struggling with it at the federal level. We're definitely struggling with it at the state level. We have a new, we'll have a new governor who I think takes a, you know, I think whatever governor is elected will take a, hopefully a different stand in terms of working with local communities. I think that's actually would happen regardless of who's elected because there's been a lot of antagonism between the state and local governments this last year in particular. And we need cooperation across governmental levels. One of the things that I think, Tiffany, you have said many times is the need to be working together with a whole variety of groups of people in your community and outside your community. And I think that's going to be ever more important. You talked about a climate tax. I mean, that would be interesting in Louisville. I'm not sure that would... I have no idea. I have no idea. I know that in... You know, we are coming up on our... big franchise agreement with... Well, there are ways, I think, of being able to, not franchise agreement, but there are ways, I think, that we can perhaps find some money in different places to help augment the programs that we already have. I think looking to Dr. Cogg would be delightful. And Judy's doing a great job there. Whether we're going to get sustainable funding, we talk about that for a lot of programs. And I wish I were more optimistic about it. But I know that for somebody like Hannah, Hannah spends a lot of money, or a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of time trying to find money. The OPW, what is it? OPM, other people's money. And that's something that's part of this too. So I really appreciate the ideas. Are there other, you know, do you have feedback for us on things that you didn't hear that you want to hear in the time that we have remaining?

Just to build quickly on what you were saying, Chris, about the franchise agreement. You know, there is room for leverage there for funding mechanisms. And that would have to be something that the council really wanted to work on and prepare for, for that franchise agreement and run the numbers. Because that... you know, that could be a really, that's working really well for Boulder. And it's something that, you know, going back to the data that Allison was sharing, citizens have an appetite for wanting to fund things that make a difference for their health, for the future for their grandkids and their kids. And these are the things that can make a difference. So using the franchise agreement as a leverage is a

is a really viable option if council has the appetite for that we're certainly thinking about that i don't want to see funding as a reason why we don't address water management and water policy because there are plenty of changes that can be made with little to no investment and that can come from again policy changes at the city level and also behavior change at the you know residential or consumer level And that really just comes down to, you know, creating that campaign or brand identity. You know, you've got the keep Louisville in the blue now, like what would it cost to get some yard signs to stick in a dead lawn to help advocate for the fact that non-functional turf in certain places serves no purpose. You know, having a well-watered Kentucky bluegrass lawn is a preference and a habit that we have created, you know, at a societal level and something that We're trying to overcome. It's a big gap. Xeriscaping is not easy. It's not necessarily cheap. It's something that could be more affordable or approachable with the correct mechanisms, and there obviously needs to be money to create those opportunities for folks to convert their lawns now. But there are plenty of actions, especially on the water end, that really need to start at grassroots. What can we do to educate folks about water use, about our water limitations, about our risks? Maybe Louisville isn't going to solve the worldwide water problem, maybe not even the Western problem itself, but I like the thought about protecting our community from risk. We do have a limited amount of water rights regardless of how wealthy that portfolio might look, you know, it is still limited and it's not something that can increase, especially as more people come. You know, it's something we need to consider managing as it becomes more scarce and it is becoming more scarce.

One final comment I didn't mention before was I think it's, I think it'd be a great idea for you to meet with BCBOA. I think that would be a really educational opportunity. Discussion but for the both both of the groups And they can you know you have plenty to talk with them about and they have plenty undoubtedly to talk

Mayor, so thank you for that feedback. One of the things I would like to address is in coordinating such a meeting, it's not currently on the work plan and just keeping in mind where community development's at with the tasks that they have on hand. I don't want to create false expectations that this meeting is going to happen within the next few weeks. recognizing that it seems to be, you know, agreeable in terms of having a joint meeting. I would want to work with Rob to make sure, Director Zaccaro, to make sure that, you know, what are the things that want to be covered in the joint meeting, that there's plenty of time to prep for that, what are the outcomes. and just figure out timing because that would take away from some of the other items that they're doing right now. And where does that fit in the priority of the items that they're working on?

Could comment about the principal generally because they've raised it not so much in a specific... Time but this is one of the things we have to think about is time budgets, too for staff to spend on different things and speaking of which we have a variety of directors waiting to chat about budget stuff Which I encourage you to stay for because some of what we're talking about, you know in terms of the capital improvement budget is directly relevant to the things you want and the things that are in tension with perhaps some of the things that you want. But I cannot say enough how appreciative we are of the work that you're doing and all of the time that you put in outside your meetings and so forth and the ideas that you're bringing to us because they're really important and they've got us thinking and acting too. So thank you. All right. Why don't we take a minute to rework our table in whatever way we need to. Why don't we take a break of four minutes here till 7.15.

Can we reconvene?

All right, so we're back on. Our next piece is budget between follow-up capital improvement plan and service level reductions, alignments and efficiencies. I want to sort of introduce this item by saying that we just had a conversation which many of you heard a little bit of when we were talking about funding. I think all of us know we're facing tight budgets. I think you know that We came out of our budget retreat on operations. I think it was a great retreat, a lot of really good discussion. One of the things that comes to mind for me in all of this is do we, when we're prioritizing capital projects, do we want to be all things all the time to all people at the same time? average of a mediocre level or do we want to Prioritize and decide to fund the things that are the most important to us and make decisions around whether we Need to let some things go, particularly in out years. And I know that council's thought about all this, and they're not easy choices to make. Staff has worked really hard on this CIP portion. And I really, really appreciate that, I want to say at the outset of all of this. And I know council has worked very hard in thinking about it. So with no further delay, I'm going I think the deputy city manager, is that next? Or Ryder, one of the two of you can arm wrestle.

Mayor, I am ready to go and get us going here. Good evening. Ryder Bailey, finance director with me this evening. I've got Mahir Mansurabadi and James Franks. Today you'll be receiving a budget retreat follow-up. It will focus on service level reductions, alignments, and efficiencies, as well as the capital discussion the mayor just alluded to. We are picking up where we left off on July 22nd. Today's agenda. At the budget retreat, we spent nearly all five hours allotted working through the budget process and work to date. We sought out and received your policy direction, as well as direction on new personnel and operating expansions. We briefly touched on service level reductions, alignments, and operational efficiencies, and then dug into... We briefly touched on those, so today is the next step in the budget development. We are returning for further and deeper discussion on those items. We'll begin with service level reductions, alignments and operational efficiencies, then dig into the capital program prioritization and long-term financial forecasts. Within the capital fund, so within the capital fund, while balanced through 2032, meaning we're projected to have a positive fund balance throughout the model, we're seeing some themes emerge. We'll discuss the existing program, impacts of rising technology and decarburization costs. We'll revisit our pavement program and seek some direction on the future of that program. Every project submitted for your consideration is in today's packet materials, broken out between CIP recommended, and contained within our financial modeling and also unfunded. Please note the summaries contained in your packet have been meticulously linked to individual project pages for ease of your review. Tonight you'll have an opportunity, not a requirement or obligation to, but an opportunity to ask questions about any capital project. You'll have an opportunity to ask any questions about the open space, rec, capital projects. Notably, these funds are structurally balanced in 27-28. The golf budget work continues to be underway with the next RAB subcommittee meeting tomorrow. In partnering with RAB and Coal Creek Golf Course Management, I believe we are making meaningful progress towards a sustainable pathway forward. As presented at the budget retreat, requested capital needs exceed what the utility fund can bear on a pay-as-you-go method. So without further capital refinement, staff will be exploring financing mechanisms.

All right. Maya, can you please go to the next slide? So before I get into the transitional budget year conversation, I want to thank council, and I also want to thank staff, the department heads. There has been a lot of work that's gone into this entire budget package. As we get into the conversation about the capital improvement program, this is very much in flux. We recognize that there are a lot of projects that have not had activity. There are projects that have been put forward by staff, projects that have been put forward based upon input from the community. But there's also a lot to be determined. Early next year, we're going to have a workshop on public financing projects. So as we're looking at CIP, some of these things may be going through a different process as we look at how to fund those projects in the future. The other things that are laying the groundwork for a transitional budget year, recognizing that revenues are flattening, expenses are increasing, we have to look at additional ways to either reduce costs, or increase revenues. And so part of that is the service level reduction conversation. The other part of it is, you know, potential to evaluate several fees to help with cost recovery, impacts of the PROS long-term plan, impacts of the cultural services strategic plan looking at cost allocations and then as part of this two-year process we also want to review the multitude of KPIs that are in the budget and move towards some that are, move towards meaningful KPIs. In regards to the CIP, I want council to feel comfortable to be able to ask questions, to be able to say, I don't understand this project or why are we spending this money now without fear or concern about staff taking it as an insult. We are all here to answer the questions and we want to make sure that whatever we put forward is supported by council. The last note that I want to make is, You know, in working here for the last 16 months, I have seen staff put, you know, 100% effort into delivering projects, but it's at the expense of quality sometimes. It's at the expense of timeliness sometimes. And what I'm hearing consistently from not only department heads, but staff in general, is we really need to balance the workload with our capabilities. And that includes financial capabilities, that includes the time resources that we have, And it also includes balancing expectations of the community. And so that's what we're looking forward as we move forward with the CIP is how can we accomplish those things and do them well and not overload staff with, you know, a single person should not be managing 20 projects at any given time. And in some situations, that's what's happening. And you're seeing the results of that. And so we really want to take a step back and reevaluate and make sure that we are approaching projects strategically, methodically, and in such a way that we can deliver quality within time and within budget. So with that, Ryder, you can, I don't know if you want to cover these next two things, but I know Sam is going to cover the short-term, or the, not the short-term, the service level reductions.

I think you can take it from there if you like.

Sure, so Director Bailey and I are gonna split these service level reductions and thank you to the full group of department heads who all provided these. You also have a number of department heads here who can answer questions as we go through. So I'm gonna go through each slide and then we'll pause for questions. If council's ready, we'll make decisions on some of these tonight as well. So just highlighting the few that we talked about during the last meeting. So these are the items we talked about during the budget retreat. We also talked about reducing our pilot event sponsorship program, though retaining that sponsorship for Turkey Trot. So that is something that we'll also be doing. So last meeting, the budget retreat, we reduced our commercial sustainability rebates, we reduced our sustainable neighborhood network, and we reduced our community event sponsorship program. Next slide. All right, so getting into some of the new programs, one of the things we're recommending is eliminating dog licenses. While this might be a little bit of a low dollar amount, this is a program that operates at a net loss. And fun fact, this is an ordinance from 1892 originally. We think that there are other ways that we can achieve the safety items here, and so we'd recommend an ordinance change to eliminate this program if council's amenable. We could cease printing utility billing inserts. This is about an $18,000 save. The information in these inserts is duplicated in other information channels already. We have some funding that we could put to additional mailings if that were needed, though we already do multiple mailings. And as people transition to electronic utility bills, This information is not always as up to date. And if you're in that third cycle, you might be getting some outdated information in your utility bill at times. You'll see a couple for boards and commissions and I'll just highlight I went ahead and stole a board and commission item from another slide so that we could just talk about it together. So in case you're following along, that's why it looks a little different. But we could merge some of our boards and commissions. We have a significant number of boards and commissions here. There's a board or commission that could be a hearing officer. There are board and commissions in overlapping areas that could be merged. We have a board and commission conversation coming up regarding handbook in September where we could have follow-up conversations on this. We could reduce the number of board and commission meetings. So sometimes boards and commissions, I think, feel compelled to meet monthly because that's the schedule. And we can talk about setting some expectations for what is material enough for a meeting and maybe an offer that they don't have to meet every month and there's not something material to be discussing. We could reduce or consolidate our communications channels. So we have a lot of channels and newsletters as a city. We have 28 different communication topics, 12 newsletters, and 14 channels. And think of a channel as a social media account. We have opportunities here to reduce and streamline. And this could be a reallocation of staff effort to areas where we need to look at more communication or different communication styles. And then I also want to highlight a pilot program called Atlas out of the IT department. This is something we've already implemented. And what this program is doing is building GIS capabilities in-house that would cost a significant amount of money to do externally or hire someone to do. So we have significant projects going on already in that pilot program. And another item out of IT is that we could extend replacements for public-facing computers. So these are the library computers that are on a replacement schedule. IT could look at those computers on a case-by-case basis and replace as needed, extending that out and saving the city a little bit of cost. So that is our first group. We're happy to answer some questions here if you'd like.

Council members? Yeah, Council Member Dickens.

clarification first you're saying Alice is not something you would cut Atlas as an example something that would save us money because we would stop spending money on a different thing that's correct yeah I think you know what one thing I want to be careful of is that so in the previous side with the $30,000 $10,000 and $10,000 you know, those are potentially, you know, highly noticeable losses for the community that total 50K, which, you know, in some other categories is a rounding error. I like to apologize for saying that. I know that that can be frustrating, but when we have big numbers like 3.6 million, like was that 3.6 million or is that 3.6? five five million because if it is there's fifty k you know you know i'm saying like literally that's within other numbers that we round and so i don't want to generally speaking i would like to avoid cutting one thousand dollar programs that people are going to notice i think in the example of the dog licenses That's not something that people are gonna complain that we don't have. But there are things like in the library, there was a language service that's like $4,000 It's $4,000. I mean, so what are we actually accomplishing in a multimillion-dollar budget by cutting a $4,000 thing that people interact with and use and will notice when it's gone? I won't. I don't use it. Maybe no one does. If no one does, fine, get rid of it. If that's the reason no one's using it, but I'm reticent to cut things that... We won't really feel so again the printing I if we're going to get rid of the $18,000 worth of printing utility building inserts is because it's not a good way to communicate anymore. I'm on board if it's a way to save money, but it's a really good way to communicate that makes no sense to me. Why would we? Why would we cut an $18,000 expense if it's useful so? Staff time is another, I don't want to talk multiple times, so I'll just say staff time is another interesting one because there are a lot of these things like, let's say it's just no money. And of course it does in different ways and resources that we're gaining their bandwidth to do other things. But the same sort of like, okay, we're doing a budget here. And if we do, you know, a board meeting every two months instead of every month, how does that help the budget? Like, It's complicated, like, well, that staff member might have more time to do something else than we can have fewer staff. So trying to draw those connections, because to say we're only gonna have half as many board meetings or fewer boards to save money and then we can't point to the savings anywhere, like we can't draw those two lines and connect those dots is a little harder for the community. Like, yeah, we had to save money, so we're doing fewer meetings. I don't see the, help me connect those dots. So those are my comments on the first two slides.

If I could address that last item. So this is not only reductions in terms of funding going to the capacity issue. We're trying to build some capacity because we have staff that have too much on their plate. So some of these items are, yes, they're budget savings, but some of them are also to try to level the workload and to create a little bit of capacity.

I appreciate that.

Yes, Mayor Pro Tem, then... Councilmember Fahey, then Councilmember Cooperman.

So, I mean, thank you, Councilmember Dickinson. I think for me, so I'm going to go a few steps back to when we had our budget retreat. And one of our asks coming out of that was exactly this. There is, you know, long-term planning that has to occur with service reductions. The city manager, I think, has told us in the past how we need to begin to have this conversation so that the community is prepared when we have those bigger dollar item service level cuts. right so from my perspective that's coming this is almost setting the table getting us used to having these uncomfortable conversations around service level reductions these are not going to move the financial needle these will start to move the needle as far as staff capacity goes and so I I think these are I appreciate you all coming to the table today and with these ideas. I think it's a great start. And the ones that you have up here seem reasonable to me on the surface. I don't know the details, but yeah, someone's going to go look for that language service thing and they're not going to be happy. And we need to start being comfortable with making those sorts of service level reductions, whether it's that or something else. We just have to do it as a council. That's where we're at. So I see this just as a start, not moving the needle. And for a start, I think we did the 50K at the last meeting. We all agreed on that. And so we're going to move forward from there and start having these conversations. So my brain's in a little bit different. I'm not quite where you're at, but my brain's in a different space today with the conversation.

Yeah, I'm agreeing with all of these cuts, unfortunately. And then I know it's going to have an impact on the public because they're going to wonder why they can't meet monthly or whatever. I am a little concerned, was the reason for the sustainability cuts Because of the bag tax reduction income?

So a number of those sustainability cuts were reduced because we were going to lose a grant that we've been receiving from the county. So we've lost $40,000 in funding and adjusted to reduce their budget by $40,000 as well. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Council Member Cooperman and Council Member Huffman. On the next slide, I'll just make a few comments first. I mean, I'm perfectly open to discussions about the boards and commissions, what kind of changes we might want to make there. In terms of the communications, both the utility building and other billing and other things, On the one hand, I feel like in the last year or so, we've had some really great improvements in communications to the community, and I wouldn't want to sacrifice that. So if it works to consolidate or reduce or whatever, but in a way that doesn't sacrifice I think the much better job that we've been doing, that's fine with me. So I would just say, I mean, generally, I tend to agree with Councilmember Dickinson. These are kind of small things. Like, if they are serving a useful purpose, I think we should try not to eliminate them. And yes, you know, like, looking ahead, we might have to make some harder decisions, but...

I don't know, yeah. Yeah, I really like actually all of these. I think they're great recommendations and would welcome more if you can find them. Keep looking for efficiencies and savings. We need everything we can get. I don't know that council needs to weigh in on each one, but where you can find them and think they make sense, I'll take all of them we can get. Councilmember Kern great.

Thanks. So a couple of things I I think you made a comment Josh about if they serve a purpose, don't eliminate them. I think that's probably where everybody starts, to be honest. I don't think that anybody goes, nope, this is the most important thing we do, so knock it off the list. I think if it's high on the list, they're just like, we need new servers somewhere. But no, that's the most important thing, so we won't do it. Instead, it's like, nope, we need to make sure that the water treatment facility stays safe, so everything else is going to have to be sacrificed for that, because that is the highest priority. So I think that I just don't want anybody who's listening or any of us to think that our staff doesn't already do that. So I also wanted to thank the Mayor Pro Tem for her comments. I just, I guess, setting the stage for this. This is really hard as a council. And I think as a community, it's an incredibly wealthy community. People pay what feels like a lot in taxes, property tax, sales tax, and other taxes. And then to say, you can't have everything that you want. So I just thank you for working with that. And we need to own some of it. I would agree. I think my two concerns with the comms piece is just to make sure that the people who do rely on something every single month coming to them, like in the utility bill, and they rely on paper, they're not tech savvy necessarily, that group of people, that we still are able to reach them with important information. That's telling people you need to absolutely read the lantern because we're adding another page of important notices every quarter or however that is. I'm also on board for the conversations, I agree, with boards and commissions. My only concern is... That regular engagement from community members with leadership in the community is, I think, a way for all of you to kind of check the temperature of what's happening. And if we reduce it too much, my worry is that we miss something in where the community is and we can't react fast enough. So that's the only thing I'd like for us to kind of keep in mind when we look at doing that. Thanks.

Just a couple of things. One question, a pretty mundane question, but the RV dump pay-per-use, what does, and I hate using the word elimination, but are we eliminating that? And what's the proposal for that?

Mayor, if you're all okay with me proceeding to the next slide, I'll take on and answer your question.

Okay.

So y'all let me then hold on for just, Oh, were we sticking on?

Okay. Great. I thought we were sort of considering many of these at once, but are you going on to?

My plan was to go to the next slide, if you all are comfortable with that. Please do. Here we go. So not asking for direction on this one. This is just a recent win that resulted in the work of multiple departments. So something I just wanted to highlight that this very successful initiative, the RV dump pay-per-use, continues to be highly utilized by residents. And we recently celebrated our 2,000th use. This is over a 12-month period. Moving to the utility credit card fees, this proposal would shift the credit card fee to the customer when paying their bill online. This has increasingly become the norm in the industry, and when compared to the ACH debit or e-check fee, which we've recently negotiated down to $1 per transaction, is a lot more expensive for the city to bear. For example, $150 water bill costs us about $4. That's a four to one ratio credit card to the e-check. So staff is recommending that we retain that free option for residents to ensure that we continue to have a high utilization of online options, including auto pay, but shifting that credit card charge should someone choose to pay by credit card onto the customer or resident. Tax software. This is another one. Okay. This is a major initiative that our staff has been working on for over a year and once live, we are very excited about a free filing option for our local businesses. This software will automate many manual processes, increasing tax compliance through automation. This will free up staff time for audits and other high value work. Since the restoration of the audit program, initially supported by the Finance Committee in late 2023, that sales tax team of Jess, Hope, Melissa, and Travis have delivered over $5.5 million in audit revenues the city would have not otherwise collected. And we're also finding increased compliance by auditees, resulting in increased ongoing revenues from them as well. In the future, once the software is implemented this December, we will be exploring the elimination of paper returns and or a paper return fee that will direct folks to online filing and allow us to maximize that investment. Capital budgeting software. Our current capital budgeting process is very onerous. With hundreds of Excel files remitted, tabulated, this process is prone to error and makes version control extremely difficult. Staff is exploring a proven affordable option to better allow departments to request, route, rank, trout, and report on capital projects. Early exploration suggests hundreds, if not over 1,000 hours of citywide staff time to be saved with minimal initial investment. Pivoting to HR, you did see these at the budget retreats. I'll touch on them just very briefly. NeoGov Perform to allow for online performance reviews. NeoGov Policy Management will allow us to consistently and accessibly draft and share policies citywide. And the Compensation and Policy Practice Review. Again, those HR initiatives were supported by counsel at the budget retreat. So I'll pause on this slide and welcome any feedback you have before we keep marching down to the others.

It's just the tax automation piece of this. It's the nature of the small town and the small business owners in the town. I just wanted to make sure that one of the things that we're considering is if we do have any small business owners who still do file the old paper school way, that we either have a means for them to come in and work with somebody, that they can file it here in the building, It just, there's some really small, and I also think a lot of people where English is a second language or it's a minority operation, maybe it's just a food truck, they're not maybe as capable or have the resources to do this. And I just want to make sure that they're not being left out and penalized because they're not capable of performing this action. Thanks.

Council Members. Are we all comfortable with the ones here? Thumbs up? Okay, good.

Okay, moving on to our next slide. So we are proposing a few reductions here. First one is from police, and that would be a reduction in community engagement, such as the number of community conversations held each year or presentations. That would free up some staff time. We have already made a reduction. We've eliminated the employee golf discount for non-golf employees. With all the fiscal emphasis on the fund, staff are exploring many avenues towards improving this fiscal outlook, and this has been implemented already. For PROS, we will have a follow-up conversation on reductions in projects. So the scope of that is to be determined because we'll be having follow-up. We are proposing that we could limit the number and scope of code amendments. So each year, we do a number of code amendments. Historically, Louisville has had a tendency to go above and beyond state-required amendments or take on new items. Especially with development code coming on, we could limit that number. We could reduce the number of business beat roundtables. per year. Right now we do six per year. We could go down to quarterly or twice per year. So any questions on these ones? And then we'd like to know if there's general support before we move on.

I have a question. I'm not sure I quite follow the limit, the number and scope of code amendments. I mean, I understand that we're doing a heavy lift on community development. I mean, that's... But...

Yeah, I don't, is that just? Yeah, so I think the genesis of this is kind of out of work plan scope code amendments is more, so we do a work plan and we try to plan around that. So I think there's been a few things that, that have popped up. We've also had a lot of state mandated code amendments that city council doesn't have anything to do with that have put some burden on staff that takes us away from other important projects. So I think it's really just trying to focus special projects that rise up through the year, just being cognizant of those, and if they're not related to work plan or on a work plan, just asking, can this wait until we have a work plan discussion, or is it something that really needs to be initiated to meet the City Council's goals that year?

Yeah, I guess my comment on that and sort of institutionally not inclined to somehow as a budgetary matter limit the province of the council to pass code amendments.

I don't think that's where you're headed. I don't think that's the intent of this. It's just with limited staff time and resources within the context of this conversation that There's a lot of things that we found we're getting distracted from doing what we think is the core work of council and the core work of your work plan. So it's just being cognizant of, and I guess it's also maybe a little beyond code amendments because sometimes they're not code amendments, but they're policy discussion follow-ups or things that that arise and it doesn't mean we shouldn't do those it's just being cognizant and weighing those against other priorities because we're always going to do it if we're asked to do it i think it's really hard to understand what then starts to fall or get delayed because of that so i think it's more of just being cognizant of that

The point is really well taken and we should be thinking as a council. That gets me to thinking the other side of it, which is we don't want our arms tied, but the other side of it is we should be really careful about how many things we stack on because every single one of them has a dollar or time factor. It's more work for the city attorney and it's more work for of the rest of you. And we need to be holding ourselves accountable for that. But I think I take your point. I was just interested in kind of what you meant about that one. I mean, other, yes, council member.

Can I ask a different question? Just want to stick with that. Please. So, Chief, this is going to be for the PD changes that you're suggesting or saying maybe you guys could focus on. I will take my own advice of I'm assuming it's because you're either finding there's not the return on investment and that your officers can be used in other places. I was just thinking of how incredibly impactful your policy your officers have been communicating with kids around the e-bike issues. And I'm really hoping that that's not something that we're looking at reducing or like the night out event, which, and I'm sorry I didn't stop by, I drove by, was very busy. And I just was curious to see what you were thinking of where you're not seeing the return on the time investment versus where you are.

Yeah, I don't think it's a return on investment question. I think that we highly value those engagements. We think they're very important. But when we look at service levels and what we can provide from a capacity standpoint, I have one person who plans all of these events. And if you look at the events that we cover throughout the summer from May to August, there's about 27 events that are occurring in the city. And what we've run into is we can experience burnout in our staff as they cover these off-duty, plus they're working their normal shifts. And so a lot of it's capacity. And when we analyze this, you know we said what are the things that we absolutely must do and what are things that are very nice to be able to do but maybe we just don't have the ability to do them so then that would be reflected in potentially reducing the number of you know community events that we host throughout the year we take great pride in those events but we have to kind of you know triage a little bit and say okay which events Should we do? Can we do? And which events may we have to pull back on a little bit? So I think that's kind of where the conversation came about. But it's not a return on investment because there is a significant benefit to these events. But it's not sustainable to have one person managing, planning. And I mean, Scott Moore is the person that does this. And he has other job functions. But a lot of the responsibility for these events fall on him. And I think it becomes a capacity thing.

So you were talking about how heavily utilized it is, especially in the summer months. Is there any looking at changing maybe some of these events into the less busy times of the year when maybe you do have more officers available or capacity?

Yeah, I mean, we certainly can look at our calendar. And I think, again, part of what this looks at is trying to staff these events, street fairs and concerts in the park and things like that. In years past, we had a lot of difficulty in staffing it with our officers. And so we had to do a lot of contracting with Boulder County Sheriff's Office, Lafayette Police Department. This year, our staff made a concerted effort to staff every one of those events with Louisville officers, and we were able to achieve that. But it does wear and it does strain just them as an individual. So, again, looking at this, it's not saying that we're absolutely going to cut back, but we have to really take a deep dive in saying what is it that we have to provide and what are things that are very nice to provide that maybe we just can't do on a consistent basis.

Can I make a request that the e-bike education be a must-do instead of a nice-to-do?

Again, yes, and that component has to be evaluated just like everything else. I mean, you know, there are important topics, a lot of important topics, and we have to decide, like, how can we best push out the messaging. So, yes, having, you know, being able to go to different physical education classes in the schools and doing a lot of those school events that we were able to do, again, it takes staffing. Sometimes those are special duties. Sometimes we have to pull people on an overtime schedule. just to be able to do those types of things. So it's really just evaluating all of the asks on our department and deciding like which ones can we do and which ones unfortunately we may not have to, or may not be able to participate in.

And did some of the budget cuts or the, I think there were a couple of employee ads that you did not put into the request. Had those been part of the budget request, would that have maybe facilitated the ability of your department to do more of these events?

Yes, when I put in the position request, a lot of it was centered on adding capacity for community engagement, so creating kind of a community liaison officer that could help support the planning and actually putting on these events, positions for a traffic safety dedicated team, I guess, for lack of a better term. to be able to take outside of patrol and have people focused on this important work. Without those positions, I have to rely on current staffing and I have to do these as special assignments or again, not do them. I mean, that's kind of the reality of where it's at.

I appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure that we all heard that that's what's happening because we can't or we're choosing not to add those police officers. When we talk about some of the events and we talk about the e-bike stuff, I just want to make sure that we all know that this was the choice that we made. We were talking about that and where that is going to rise up in our level of priority in working with the police department.

I think it's more than that. With respect, I mean, I think even if we had additional officers, we would want them doing potentially other things. The things that the chief pointed out, I don't think it's necessarily a matter of we get more officers, we put them to work on these community engagement pieces. I think it may be, gee, we just don't think this community engagement piece is really got the oomph that we need. I mean, you know, I think it's, in other words, I think it's a right sizing is always a good thing for any director to be doing in their budget. Part of this is that part of this is just reacting to the need to cut generally. But I guess I want to make sure to disentangle not giving positions with affirmative decision that we're not going to do engagement because of that. Um, anyway, um, other thoughts. Yes.

Yeah. I just want to make two comments. Um, that as council member Kern was speaking, popped into my head. So the first is, you know, the reduction in projects and the reductions in pavement program, I think council member Dickinson, like that is when those discussions happen, those are big dollar numbers. They're going to move the needle big time, right? And then Councilmember Kearns, the conversation you just had with Chief reminded me of some conversations we've had in the past as Council of concerns regarding a trend that has been observed where the up and to the right of the number of staff we're hiring seems to be steeper than the population, right? And I think the conversation you just had so nicely daylights why that is occurring because our community has so many expectations above and beyond the core responsibilities that folks are hired for and so I think I so much appreciate the conversation we're having tonight regarding service level reductions not only on its impact on the budget but on the people as well. So I just want us to continue to keep that in mind that we had concerns about that trend and we're trying to address it tonight in this conversation as well. So I'll just leave it at that.

You know, I guess first of all, I just want to, I think you all know I was, um, having a rough sick day at the budget meeting. So I'm sorry that I missed that. And I know that part of that means like I wasn't part of the conversation. That's why I think in six, seven years, the first time I've ever missed a budget meeting. And so I think one thing that I'm just sort of noticing is, you know, my, I guess a little confusion. Like I feel like there's a bucket of, this isn't really a needed thing and we feel okay cutting this thing. regardless of the savings, it might save us money, it might save us a little, it might save us a lot, but it's not important enough for us to continue. And that might be for a lot of different reasons. Then there's one that's like, we really can't afford this, this is really expensive, and we should think about cutting this because it's really expensive. And we can save a lot of money cutting this. And you would expect that to be a big number, not a $4,000 number. Then there's a third bucket which is we just don't have the staff capacity. This might cost us 50K, and when we stop doing it, we'll end up saving 50K, but that's actually not why we're cutting the program. It's that we can't, we don't have the time with our staff. And so to kind of your point, if we gave you an extra million dollars to hire staff, then we could afford to do that project. but we can't afford that staff, right? So there might be some connections there. So just want to make sure like everything kind of from my brain, it falls in one of those three buckets and each one of those is acceptable, right? It's like, listen, the reason we're getting rid of that is we just, the block party. I mean, it can't cost us very much money. But it's bandwidth, right? And so it's not that we're getting rid of it because no one wants it. It's not that we're getting rid of it because it's a huge budget saver. We're getting rid of it because we don't have the capacity to do it, is my guess. Am I getting that one right? Okay, so that for me just feels like a different bucket, right? It's like, I get that we're having the conversation during the budget conversation, but it's not really a dollar sign decision I'm making, right? So I'm like, oh, no, keep it, because it's free, or almost free. But the staff bandwidth makes it difficult. So I think just going through this, I'm trying to see it through that lens, or those three lenses. And so I think the one I'm looking at right now is this elimination of employee golf discount. And, you know, I had a brief conversation with Diane about this, but it's like we can't save much money there because employees get a discount on weekdays and no weekends. So I can't imagine there are too many employees getting the discount at the golf course. So I don't know what we're saving, but it is a bit of a slap in the face that you don't get a discount. That's not why we're doing it. We're doing it for an entirely different reason. That has nothing to do with the budget. We're getting rid of or got rid of the resident discount. So if you're going to get rid of the resident discount, you better get rid of the employee discount. But I'm getting presented in a budget meeting that we're going to save some money by eliminating the employee golf discount. I don't think that's a budget conversation. I think that's a politics conversation about perception of fairness and what have you. And the fact that I disagree entirely on all of that, that residents should get a discount on the golf course and employees should too, even on the weekend, I missed that meeting. And we can't rehash every single thing I missed. So I'm okay being like, yeah, this one's even already implemented. It's done. But I don't think it really belongs in this conversation because I don't think it's a budget decision to eliminate employee golf discount. So that's where I'm struggling is I just think there are things in here that I get it, but I also don't get it. And I'll never miss another budget meeting.

Go ahead, councilman. Yeah, I mean, I sort of agree, sort of disagree. I think we don't need to go through all of these in great detail. I think we can say yes to what are common sense, practical things we need to do. It's really easy to add programs. It's really hard to get rid of them. We were just asked for a bunch of new programs in our last meeting. And every year, this council has added new programs and new staff. And if we want to stop the bleeding, we have to start looking at you know, taking things away little by little, or right-sizing, I like right-sizing better. Anyway, I say yes to all of them.

And I am very conscious that we have a lot of ground cover, and I want to get through these to do it. These are very important. You've done a lot of work on these. I'm in favor of all of these. How about others? Can we do a thumbs up? on this page?

Can I say I'm not in favor, but I agree that they have to happen?

You're agreeing. That's a thumbs up. Nobody's saying that if we had an infinite amount of money, we would say that we want everything, but we don't. Is that OK? We all good with that? Or let's go to the next page.

Okay, thank you, Council. One more page of these. So there's a theme here. We've already heard it talked on a little bit tonight, but special events. This is a cross-departmental item. Special events are taking a lot of capacity for staff. So we're seeing increases in the number of special events. And I'm talking about outside special events, partnership special events that we support people on, city-run special events, the whole gamut. There's quite a lot of cross-departmental support from permits, trail closures, support staffing. There are some cities who limit the number of special events and types of special events because of these issues. This certainly has come up with Public Works in the significant amount of traffic control and street closures. There's a lot of strain on staff for that. And it's come up as well that we charge the same amount we pay officers when we charge for special duty pay. which is on actually our cost for officers because there's compensation beyond their pay rate. So we could adjust that to balance our costs there. Now for those first two, I know we're going to be having another special event conversations and council can choose to follow up on that during that conversation. You're welcome to provide feedback on the third one tonight if you'd like to. A couple of these we've talked about already, and Director Cummings has made it from the open house so she can answer questions, but we would recommend eliminating the block party event. The fire department is no longer interested in this event, which is currently subsidized through sponsorship. Elimination would allow staff to focus resources and funding on other priorities. We can eliminate the data axle. This is a business set of tools. We've done marketing through DBA, through Chamber, and it's just underutilized. And then in 2028, we could eliminate mango languages. This is another underutilized item that there's a free solution for.

Any questions about those? Looks like one councilman is already ready to vote yes. Are we thumbs up on this one?

Yes. Just wanted to understand slightly better. Do we currently charge people for doing traffic control at special events?

Yes. There may be some events that... I see the clerk shaking her head. Can you help me, Jenny?

It's my understanding, Kurt... that there's a lot that goes into dropping barricades, a lot of staff time helping event organizers with traffic control plans, staffing events when they're really not supposed to be staffing events. So there is a lot of time that we don't get compensated for.

That's helpful. I mean, we want to have special events in the city, but on the other hand, we also want the people who are putting on those events to, I think, you know, pay what is appropriate for our staff time. So, you know, I'm fine with that, sort of with that little bit of a caveat.

Ann, I would pick up on one piece on the special events, and maybe I'll mention one opportunity that's going to be, that's potentially in our lap is some of you know or may know about a bike race, a professional bike race that's been down in Littleton. It's a huge deal. They have decided they don't want that. It's an extraordinarily wonderful opportunity for Louisville. If that is something that people are interested in, it's a The thing we had a couple of weeks ago is great. This is way bigger than that. And would really, I mean, this is one where we might be in competition with some other folks, and it would be really nice to have. I don't know that that's inconsistent with what we're talking about here. We're picking and choosing, but maybe we're not. I mean, maybe, you know, I guess what I would say is, It'd be interesting to know a little bit more about How we're doing that is, I mean, are we doing moratoria on specific kinds of events, numbers of events? I don't know.

Sure, Mayor. I think that'd be a follow-up conversation. So we are planning to bring a follow-up conversation about special events in general. And I think as we consider adding something large like that that I'm familiar with, having been from that organization, we'd really need to think about what the trade-offs are and what comes off the plate to accommodate something like that. So it's really about adjusting what those priorities are versus adding. We don't have that capacity anymore.

Agreed. So with that in mind, and those things in mind, and your caveat in mind, are we thumbs up on that one? Right. Caleb? Are you thumbs up on that one?

Caleb?

He's studying for a second.

I moved off of that one, so it was really difficult for me to understand exactly what... assessing special events and maybe doing some quality, like, you know, one less? I don't know how to thumbs up a potential maybe reduction of, or...

So for tonight, I'd say you're thumbs upping to a follow-up conversation on special events.

Anything else on that one? Can we... We're good.

Thank you, everyone, for your time and feedback. Thank you for all the department heads that brought us those alignments, reductions, and efficiencies. So pivoting now to our capital improvement plan development and prioritization. So initial capital requests exceeded over 400 million and 200 individual projects. Staff are collaborating to align the CIP plan within available resources. Maintaining our city assets, information technology, and other critical infrastructure is being prioritized. Grant funding, when and if available, is being used to best leverage our local funding. Bond issuance opportunities will be explored to fund large and long-term liabilities. We've seen this in the utility funds and potentially for major vehicle purchases. And some themes came out of this. We're noticing within Capital Things, you know, revisiting our current CIP program, technology, DCARB, and pavement. The city currently has over 80 million and 180 projects at various stages of completion. Staff is currently developing a mid-year capital program update. CMO and city staff will evaluate each project for continuation into future years. Staff will be considering existing capacity, realistic bandwidth, with an emphasis on quality over quantity. Maybe before we move on for that slide, that report will be presented to the Finance Committee in September. Technology. Here's another thing that's coming out of our capital budgeting. Recent software and hardware technology costs growth is becoming a strain on city financial resources. AI investment is driving up our hardware costs. With many software programs cloud-based, staff is also seeing significant increases in SaaS. Some notable investments included within our CIP are as follows. Server replacements. 2.5 million spread over two years, 2027 and 2030. Eleven necessary software programs estimated to cost $775,000 in 2027, increasing to $855,000 in 2028. This is being split across the general, capital, and utility funds. And some of those programs are listed there. Tax administration software, I spoke to this earlier, is $225,000 annually funded out of the capital fund. The anticipated utility billing software, $100,000 across utility funds. ANNUALLY. THE ERP SYSTEM UPGRADE IS ESTIMATED TO BE $430,000 BEGINNING IN 2029 AND POLICE BODY AND DASH CAMERAS AND TASER VR APPROACHING $400,000 ANNUALLY IN THE CAPITAL FUND. SO YOU CAN SEE SOME PRETTY BIG COSTS THERE LANDING IN THE CAPITAL FUND AND GROWING GREATER THAN WE'VE SEEN IN RECENT YEARS. SO I'LL PAUSE HERE IF THERE'S ANY QUESTIONS OR I WILL CONTINUE DOWN THE CAPITAL THEMES.

Just to clarify, what is ERP again?

That is our enterprise resource system. It's the backbone of our financials. It's how we run all of our general ledger, our payroll, and much more.

Yeah, it's how we do, you know, how we pay our vendors, how we kind of do all of our workflows for financing and budgeting in the city.

Okay.

And what is VR? on the last bullet point?

I believe it's virtual reality. Oh, here, let's pass to someone who knows the answer.

Video recording.

Video recording.

No, so for the police body and dash camera bullet, the VR is virtual reality trainer. It does scenario-based training for officers. So it's a component that's part of the TASER program, so it's actually a bundled package with the TASER. Thank you.

One more question about the police body cabinet. This is interesting just from a meeting that I had earlier today. How much of that cost is as a result of unfunded mandates by the state?

I would say probably about 75% of that cost is the body camera. That's what's mandated. The dash camera component is a tool that we could potentially integrate with that system. We're evaluating as to whether or not we want to incorporate the fleet part of it, but the body camera component is a mandate.

Thank you.

Just something to think about as a public policy matter and to feel... the pain that all communities are facing with what goes on from the state without being funded. Anyway, thanks.

Okay, continue on to the next slide, decarbonization. We received nearly 27 million in requests. These are unfunded projects across multiple city facilities, including police, the rec center, city services, library, Austin Neoff, and the arts center. While some grant funding is available, the city would be responsible for the lion's share, 21 million of those capital costs. Staff has recently engaged with AECOM for phase one electrical load analysis, which is the first step for design and implementation. This is a required step to provide the technical direction of the city's DCARP plan. In the meantime, as units come to end of life, a cost analysis will be performed to evaluate the replacement on a like-for-like basis versus upgrading to a more efficient version. Building energy efficiency projects will continue to be funded and prioritized and as well as EV chargers to be prioritized. These are largely grant funded.

I was hoping someone could expand upon the second to last bullet point.

Do you want to take this one, Kurt? This is generally building efficiency. This is some of what facilities is working through, lighting and timers.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be like envelope sealing, any of the things that Ryder just said. We've done a lot of their lighting and stuff already. That was like early phases, like 10 years ago. So most of it, I think, is going to be building envelope sealing, entryway type things. These buildings are old, so they leak a lot of air, and that's a big problem. Yeah, and then like for like, we're also looking at the challenge when we go to the hybrid or the electric systems versus the natural gas systems is weight. And so there's an indirect component of the roof structures being able to handle the new units. And so it's a big problem on the rec center. In fact, the DCAR plan had a lot of fine print about these estimates don't include roof analysis. So we're also... doing roof analysis to figure out what are structural improvements. And so there might be some trade-offs around some of these decisions. Those are the things we're working through right now to really true up what makes sense to do and what may not, or what we can afford and what we cannot.

That's helpful. And then the, well, so in the first bullet point, I mean, That $27 million number, I think, includes a lot of things, but, you know, is that above and beyond like for like? Well, I mean, there are multiple different kinds of projects in there, but... That is...

a very high level number right now.

Sure.

So we'll probably go after low hanging fruit, Art Center, Austin Niehoff, maybe City Hall. The library is definitely in the sweet spot. The water plants and wastewater plant. Then when we go over to the rec center, we'll have to look at the structural on that and decide how we can approach that. Also, I don't know, you guys are also discussing like maybe long-term rec center has other capacity improvements. So then do you take the old half of the rec center and upgrade all the HVAC units or is that part of a bigger conversation because of the community growing? And so like as we evolve as a community, we're adapting your project to, Again, does this make sense? So that's kind of your pecking order right now. Police station has a lot of electrification already, so it's not going to take them much to finish it off. So right now, I'm looking at numbers right now around 15 million per initial phases. That doesn't include rec center. So rec center is the big question mark right now.

Okay. Yeah, I'll make one comment. You know, on the Well, maybe it's two comments. I would, you know, my preference would be that absolutely everywhere we can we get rid of natural gas when that equipment comes to its end of life. And if it costs a little bit more, I think we need to find out how to pay for that extra cost. And so I don't know how that exactly fits into the unfunded projects, but I want to see funded the projects that do that within the timeline of the current CIP.

Yeah, does this include this year plus the requests or the requests off this year still in your math? This is just $27,000. All right, so you have money encumbered this year, a lot of money encumbered that we're working on right now. We've been taking credit for that, and then we fully loaded the CIP. So the unfunded CIP doesn't really take all the money off the table. You still have $4 to $6 million funded this year. So we're going to continue to work through design. We'll work with riders' office, city manager's office. We'll figure out what makes sense. We'll be bringing those things to you. You can decide if 2x to do this or 10x or 100x is worth it to get rid of natural gas. So you'll be able to make those decisions probably in the next six months. We're going to start making decisions depending on where it makes sense. So you have a lot of decisions coming up. It's taking a lot of time. you have to back trace through everything. It's not just like, hey, let's swap out the AC unit. It's like, we have to trace back the size of the wires in the building to the electrical gear, figure out if the electrical gear is big enough. Like, is your backpack big enough to hold all the widgets? And you gotta trace that back to the transformer. Does the transformer need upgraded? If so, yes. Oh, by the way, this thing's got a generator. Now we need to double the size of the generator so the building actually still runs. So it's like, it's not as simple as just saying, hey, electrify that HVAC unit. And so we're running through all those dominoes. So when we give you an answer, we can go execute. And there's not like another 5 million bearing of like, oh, guess what we found that we didn't tell you about. So that's where we're at. It's difficult.

Okay, we'll continue on to the next slide, pavement. The pavement program is a significant component of the city's capital fund at over five million annually. Our current PCI, or pavement condition index, is at 73 slash 74. The city does conduct an independent scan on its roads every three years. Previous council direction was to achieve a network average of 75 with no street fallen below 35. Staff believes that the city can maintain for a time the current PCI by spending approximately $3 million annually, but in some years additional funding may be needed to do harsher windows or arterial needs. So here's a council decision point. To direct staff to reduce the paving program, direct it towards another capital project currently unfunded, front and center phase two.

And this is just, again, to be real clear for. What period of time are we doing this?

Two years? We'll do a survey next year. We'll get another audit on our score and then run for like two to four years, depending on winter. Right now, winter's hurting water, but it's helping roads. So that's a good thing. And if we stay in this trend, then that'll help. If we start to feel like we see degradation, then we can start to think about shifting back. But honestly, we have invested a lot in the pavement system. The majority of the neighborhoods are in really good shape. When you renew a neighborhood road, that road renews for 20 to 30 years. So you just upgraded a bunch of stuff in the last 10 years. We're really just watching the arterials, which will get you guys antsy. But if an arterial has a bad winter and it blows up, we're going to capture it the next year. We'll take some flack. But we can run things to the edge, capture them when they fail, and then allow you to do other large projects and not be held hostage to paving. It just takes strategy.

Yes, Council Member Cooperman. What does phase two of front and center consist of?

Well, your pavilion's $7 million, and no one's made that cheaper through the process. We've added more on. We're trying to hold that number for you. So your pavilion's $7, and then your main street lights and planting and crosswalk improvements are the other $7. So we're approaching the $14 million mark. And then we're discussing whether we can – I don't know. You want to –

Yeah, I'll add in. I'm hesitant to call it phase two. What I would propose is that we up front all of the front and center project at one time. We're never going to get it cheaper than we are today. And we also know that that project's severely underfunded based upon the current scope. There's not a way to reduce the scope. significantly that's gonna get it within budget. And so the proposal would be, it'd probably result in three to four years of this reduction in payment money to put towards that project to make it whole. Another option would be as we comb through the CIP and we unfund some projects that might free up some capital that we could put towards that project. But as we're nearing the 60% design and we are narrowing down on what this project is gonna cost, we're going to need to definitively know the amount of money that's available to know what we can move forward with in regards to the 90% design and then the 100% design. And so we're getting to a point that we need that decision of is council willing to invest more or do we need to stay within the current budget? If we're staying within the current budget, we are slashing this project considerably.

Well said. One other thing we're exploring, nothing to definitive, and this opens another can of worms, but before the city was going to introduce cash flow, then that was all LRC. And it was like a now thing versus a phase thing. So if we can figure out to do it all once, it's great. We'll figure that out. But also cash flow-wise, if we spread it out a little bit as a second option, right now we're going to borrow $20 million to have 10 to pay 10 in interest. And so Ryder's going to be modeling whether is there a way that we time everything where we don't take a bond and we're borrowing from Citi to get it done, but then cash flow from LRC we're just paying ourselves back versus a bank. So we're trying to do a little bit of... arbitrage there, I guess, on interest. But again, 60 days away from understanding more on cost.

Council Member Reffner. I would just say I do have a preference on this one, which is I think we all discussed previously. deferring the Main Street portion of front and center and I would be comfortable doing this to ensure we do the best possible job on Front Street But but not try and stretch it all the way to cover the Main Street improvements as well Yes, I really want to hear from councilmember Dickinson Well, I'm sort of both worlds I think the

huge impact on the community will be redoing that pavilion. I think Main Street is obviously the one that's actually traveled on more per day and is sort of like that's the that's going to be the real show every day as people come by and like, wow, this downtown is remarkable. So I was kind of a late adopter to the Main Street portion. I'm like, yeah, if we can do that, it's great. So I'm kind of in agreement with you. But sort of like anything, when you start seeing the design and the look, you're like, wow, that's really cool. So I think we've always said like, that'll be stage two, you know, do the Front Street first, Main Street second. And I think the point is you could do it for, four, five, six million in 27, or? 7, 8, 9 million and 29. So if we're going to do it, it's probably more cost-effective to do it all in a faster time period. So I don't actually feel super strong about it. I think we're all looking at the same stuff. I think it would be very, very cool for our Main Street to be enhanced for the first time in a long time, and we've got some good news about some of our –

properties may be, you know, getting some action on Main Street.

So I think it's good timing and I would support it. And especially if there's a way to be creative about, again, we have so much, so many dollars that are sitting in an account. If there's a way to use those dollars, obviously, legally and appropriately to decrease our interest, that would be awesome. yeah i mean i knew you were i knew you were but uh point being it's hard like it's not you can't just right there are all these things we talk about you can't you can't just give capital funds to our general fund like i know you i realize you're going through all the right steps to make sure that that's an appropriate thing to do and that we can source that money and pay that money back and save ourselves some interest i think that would be great so i'm in support of it generally but I can understand your thought on doing one and then the next. That's kind of what we've been thinking is the only thing we can do, if I'm being honest. From an LRC perspective, we know we can't do it all. So we're doing Front Street, and if the City Council wants to do Main Street, have at it. But the LRC can't. It's impossible. So I think that's the question. You're right. There are two steps, and does City Council want to join in at the same time or not?

The question here is, if I'm understanding it, is reducing the paving problem in order to do this, which we do agree, at least in part, I think, to do that. It's a question of how many years we do that to get where we want to be, to get to finishing... Front Street is two years' worth of paving reductions?

Front Street's probably going to be 12 days from now. Front Street with the pavilion.

He was saying how many years of paving reduction, like, oh, how many years?

I mean, you have front street with dollars. Right. And it depends how many chunks each chunk on Main Street costs. So maybe two to three, maybe two to three.

Again, I think we're trying to explore this conversation.

We're trying to explore the conversation with you from a budget sensitivity standpoint and give you options. And then we have to bring chunks back to you so you're not speculating. And then you can decide again where the value is to stretch it or go all in. And I think we're getting close to that. We're just not there tonight. Go ahead.

Didn't part of what we had approved was a much more, like to Dietrich's point, like it was a much more reduced version of what we're going to do to Main Street, right? Where there was like a big idea to do everything, lights and all this other stuff. Yeah. And it got scaled back to do some. And that's in this budget still?

Not, no. Main Street lighting is really not in the LRC budget right now. LRC budget is maxed out on the pavilion and front street. So anything Main Street has to be city council, or the city, sorry. So, like, just if I gave you imaginary chunks to think about, imagine you threw lighting at every intersection from south down to Elm at this point. That's about $800,000 just for the intersections. And then you'll probably add another million to fill in the middle of the blocks with lighting. And then you start getting into another one or two million chunks as you start doing landscaping and concrete. It starts to amp up and... how expensive it gets. And so the team's working to break those into like, I guess, selection packages that you guys can look at and choose from. So yes, we are showing everything from scaled back to all buy-in.

Okay, so I thought there was, so you're saying that there's nothing now. Like I thought that we had a very scaled back, like putting a couple of benches and doing some plantings at the intersections as part of the initial front and center project.

We could, in the initial front and center, do some things with some minor things, yeah. I'm trying to remember. Everyone has a different definition of scaled back, so I'm just trying to...

So I know we did agree to this. I have to say, though, with new creative ways to fund it internally, to save some money, this might be worth looking at what our options are to do it sooner and reduce a little bit of the paving if it's not going to be too much of it, if we feel assured that it's not going to be too much of a pinch for the community.

I just want to preface, we haven't had this conversation with LRC, so we will be having this conversation with LRC too.

Just to, again, I'm not following this. It may be, I'm not, I'm just not getting it. But the council decision point, what is the council decision point tonight? Direct staff to reduce the paving program. which I think we've talked about doing, and direct it to front and center. We're talking about a two-year budget here, right? Right. We're talking about doing that for two years, which would save a certain amount of money each year, correct?

I have proposed consistently I think we can skip up to three years. but you'll renew your budget into seeking like change that decision point. But three years would generate 6 million. So today we have 7 million that's gets six and seven gets you to 13. The project's estimated at 14. You guys are good at finding a million if you really want something. So like we just, that's why we have to continue to develop this conversation. Sorry, maybe I've been here too long.

I've watched stranger things happen. City Manager, did you have something you wanted to add to that? You don't understand it either?

I'm just shocked that you're good at finding a million because if we could do that, problem solved.

Not so much finding it. I would say this as a proposal. I think we should reduce the paving program, if only because the forecast we have right now has us spending the capital fund down to a pretty low level in the out years. And then let's take a look at those options for phase two. I have yet to be persuaded that the extensive concrete work is worth it. But if there are, I think to Council Member Kern's point,

uh smaller pieces that give more bang for the buck i'm certainly happy to talk about those when we see them i like that proposal and i think it's something and would love lrc input and you know i know you are the master at being able to predict the rising costs, if anybody is, the rising costs in building projects, and that's part of what we're dealing with here. But I'm very much in favor of that with that suggestion. How about the rest of council? Are we good thumbs up with that?

Thank you.

What I'm hearing is pullback. Josh, did you have a comment? Did you have a caveat you wanted to add?

Go ahead. No, I'm fine with Councilmember Heffner's suggestion. I just wanted to add one thing. You know, I feel like money that we've traditionally put towards paving Some of what we have historically put there should have gone towards pedestrian and bicycling improvements. And so there are a couple of things on the unfunded list that I would like to see funded. And there's one thing in particular that's not on the list at all that I would like to see funded. So I would be interested in maybe taking some of that money from the paving program and putting it towards certain pedestrian and bicycle improvements in the short term.

All right, just a quick thumbs up. Is there support for what Councilmember Cooperman just suggested?

I mean, it's part of looking at that. It's hard to be like yes to it, but definitely yes to looking at what he's talking about. I don't know the dollar amount or the project or anything. That's okay. Others?

Sorry, I didn't take it as you looking for us to vote on it. I thought you were like planning the seed of you're going to make these asks when we talk about capital projects. Or were you? Yeah.

I can be more specific now.

I mean, I don't know. I just want to like, did you want us to sit here and vote and say yes? Or you're just saying, hey guys, heads up. I'm going to bring this up in 10 minutes.

Yeah, I mean, the reason I'm doing that is this is directing staff to reduce paving program to provide the money from the center, which is what we're kind of, if the discussion is we're going to leave that money up in the air for potential other things, that's something we can talk about. I would vote against that. I want it to go to front and center. I think that's the discussion. But that's...

Sorry, that wasn't my proposal. Pardon me? That was not my proposal.

Go ahead.

Yeah, right.

To do... Let's reduce the paving program as proposed, but forbear on redirecting it to front and center until we have all the information. Right.

I misunderstood.

Yeah, I think it was to look at less some of the different options for it for front and center. Maybe there are some that are effective and less expensive.

Okay. No, I get it. It's why it can be hard. It's like with more conversation, like I'm voting yes, and then I'm going to argue strongly that we spend it in that direction. But yeah, reduce the paving, and then I guess we'll have a conversation later about how we spend that money because we're not in consensus today. I would absolutely put the $6 million towards the front and center Main Street project. Absolutely. The first part is to have the $6 million, which Dietrich just was suggesting we get that $6 million, and he is not clearly on Team Caleb to spend it that way, right? But that's a conversation for a different day, unless you want to try to get to five votes that we do know how we want to spend it today.

The only thing I'm trying to get clarity on is we've all agreed. To reduce the paving program?

Yes.

All right. I think there are two questions. There's do we direct all of that savings to front and center or not? There's if not, what other things are we going to direct it to? And I just wanted to make sure that in some ways, we're not really saying, I think we're really saying the first, that direct staff to reduce the paving program, but it seems a bit up in the air about what the money is going to be applied to. Is that, I mean, are we comfortable with that? Yes. Okay. All right.

I have one question, and that is the reduction in paving doesn't include not repaving the fire-damaged neighborhoods that haven't been already repaved.

That's a good clarification. The fire-damaged neighborhoods are prioritized for repaving where they require to be repaved. There are some sections that the streets may still be in good condition, and it may not be worth that investment, but the City Council can make that choice.

Okay. Thank you.

So just to put a cap on this, the direction it sounds like we're all in agreement on is reducing the paving program and the way we spend that to be determined. We'll do it on some other capital programs, maybe front and center, maybe not, or maybe not. Fair enough? Are we thumbs up on that?

All right. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. I will reduce the paving budget by $2 million in 27 and 28, and we can have further discussion.

Okay. Let me ask a question. It's doing a time check. It's 8.38. We usually have taken a break at 8. We took a break, you know, before 7.15. So I guess... It might be good to at least give people a bathroom break here maybe until 845 and then reconvene. how long we can stomach a conversation about CIP for the rest of the year. We're not going to cover everything, but I'm interested in what Deb's phone has to say. I'm interested in what you all, I'd be happy to keep the conversation going, but I certainly wouldn't want to go past 10.

Yes. I would be interested in hearing from the finance director and city manager on what would be helpful in terms of our discussion on CIP. There's obviously a lot of items, and if we go through each item, we will not make it out of here during this day. And so what's the most helpful thing we can do as you continue to try and sort of shape this and refine it?

Thank you for that question. I've got five forecasts for you all to review. We have hundreds of projects that are contained within these forecasts and that documentation is presented at the budget retreat and now today for you all to review. I'm not seeking action on individual projects. This is really an opportunity for you all to ask questions for the directors on any specific project, funded or unfunded. So I'd still like to provide you all that opportunity, but I will not be stopping and seeking direction on each chart, seeking out reductions or amounts to be shifted between these programs through the next forecasts. So I can commit to moving relatively quickly, setting the context of where we are. It's really an opportunity for you all to ask questions to the directors and get a comfort on where we are on the CIP plan today.

Is that helpful? Yeah. I ask my fellow council members. Comfortable with that?

Yeah. Right. I would just say, I mean... I'm nervous about doing it that way just because I think there could be a lot of, I could have a lot of questions. I'm happy to do them in writing instead. But I just, I don't want to bog down if we're not, if we're not making decisions or giving guidance. And this is just Q&A. I want to make sure we're using everyone's, we have a lot of people here and I want to make sure we're using their time wisely.

I am likewise concerned because I have a number of questions about specific programs. I don't think I need to be asking those necessarily with all of you all present. I think it is a pretty good suggestion, I think, to have... You know, it's useful for all of us to know what questions are being asked and get the answers of that so that, you know, we're all kind of getting good information shared. And I'm mindful also the public is very interested in this, too, so how to proceed. You had indicated you've got some... Did you say forecasts? What were you... You said you had five... Yes, Mayor. Why don't you cover that, and then let's come back to this issue. I want you to be able to cover the piece that is useful for us to understand. Sure.

I think one thing that's... I would like to hear from council, with all of the department heads here, the appetite to reduce the CIP further. in terms of our ability. I would really like to give Adam and his team the opportunity to evaluate these projects and give us a realistic outlook of what can be accomplished within the next two years of this budget. I would like to give Kurt the opportunity to go through and look at his utility projects as well as the other projects and what can his team accomplish within that two-year period. We've put forward projects based upon you know, a variety of priorities and needs. And we want council to be able to weigh in on that. But I also, you know, want to take another cut at this to be able to present to council and say from a realistic workload standpoint that we think this is what could be accomplished within the next two years. And then also taking input like from Councilmember Cooperman in terms of what are the specific projects that you would like to see move up into the funded list. and be able to understand that so when these directors are evaluating their team's workload, they can take that input into account as well. So this is probably a third or fourth cut at the CIP, but it requires more of not only looking ahead for the next two years, but then also looking at what's currently funded and what we're not going to accomplish in this year and how does that also play into the CIP for the next two years. So with that, if you don't mind, I would like to give, you know, the directors an opportunity to provide some feedback to council right now because this is their chance to state, you know, how the CIP is impacting them.

Fair enough.

Okay, maybe before, thank you City Manager, maybe before we get to Adam, because a lot of Adam's work lands in the first few forecasts, let's go to, maybe before we go to it, we go back just one second, hang on this slide just for a second. This is a total of 12 funds, $140 million in projects, largely within the capital and utility funds. So there's five forecasts, five funds we'll be talking about. The next slide. Here's the capital fund forecast as presented today. I did mention that it remains solvent throughout the model. We have gotten some feedback to make some adjustments to the payment plan in 27 and 28. We have alluded to this. We've touched on this a few times. You see that red bar in 2026 at $52.6 million. We will be evaluating all those projects that are currently budgeted. High level in the capital fund. GENERATES ROUGHLY $9 MILLION ANNUALLY FROM THE ONE CENT OF THE THREE CENT SALES TAX. THAT'S THE PRIMARY FUNDER OF THE CAPITAL FUND. WITHIN THIS FUND, LARGELY PAVEMENT, TECHNOLOGY, AND PARKS PROJECTS. SO WITH THAT, I'LL PROBABLY GO TO THE NEXT.

CAN I INTERJECT FOR A MOMENT HERE? SO ON THIS FORECAST, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT MAKES ME NERVOUS IS LOOKING AT WHETHER THE FUND BALANCE IS GOING THE DIRECTION. It takes a very, very small incident to eat up that fund balance. And so part of trying to go through these projects and either unfund current projects or reduce the CIP looking forward is my comfort level would be to build up that fund balance a little bit so that we have some reserves within capital so that if something does occur, we have the ability to absorb it. And, you know, at the current, in 2026, you can see just this massive projection of expenditures. I expect that to be dropped down quite a bit. But with that, you know, we also need to look at building up that fund balance. And right now we're oversubscribing in CIP, which is projected in this. And so ultimately I would like to see us reduce the projects to be able to build that up.

So we'll move along the capital fund. The next three slides are funded projects in this model. Some things we've already touched on, technology, pavement. Parks projects largely fall in this fund now. So perhaps I could pass over to Adam. We could talk about some of the projects that are landing in the capital fund. These are the parks projects. Maybe you'd like to highlight?

Sure. I think where I would start before we highlight specific projects, as an overarching kind of theme we touched on at the retreat as well, just some statistics. We mentioned this department has an incredibly high demand for service and growth. variety of projects. So based on carry-forwards and some other items, we're currently balancing 64 capital projects in process with one project manager who's overseeing exclusively 30 of those. The others either aren't started or are falling to operational staff to oversee the contracts. and the completion of quality product. With that being said, for 2027, we're projected to add about another 30 and about another 10 onto Brian's plate. And so we had touched briefly about some staffing requests that could potentially help with that logjam in a variety of ways, getting things off of operating staff's plates or helping Brian with bigger projects. If those staffing requests aren't moving forward, the conversations with the city manager and with the finance director have been to really focus on getting our currently funded projects completed. You'll see a number of projects have been pushed to out years for parks. We do still have some that have been in the queue for quite a while. that have been projected in the CIP to hit in 2027. We have some that have been requested from the city council to be added, things like the stick and puck that are currently slated for 2028. So that would be in this particular budget. So it's really just to city manager Langley's point about capacity for the department and kind of what we'd like to see new moving forward. We are to the point also where we have a lot of aging infrastructure. So you'll see a lot of the rec fund is to fund a lot of replacements, large-scale maintenance projects at Memory Square Pool, the Rec Center, those kind of things. So those things are also to be kept in mind. I doubt, while I have the mic here, that what's not shown in your models or on your sheets is some of the feedback that we receive that we anticipate implementing. As a component of this CIP, things like starting in 2028, going to every other year with the playground replacement hit to the CTF or Conservation Trust Fund. Other ways of kind of delaying and deferring maintenance Golf, a great example as we work through what the revenue projections are going to be, updating the CIP to be critical safety related, only has to happen type of CIPs in this model as we move forward if the golf fund is going to be asked to cover all those costs. Those aren't reflected in what you have before you tonight, and we'll certainly take the feedback if you want to reiterate it, but I'll just reinforce that I've heard that. I know that Director Bailey has heard that as well, and we'll make those adjustments moving forward. So that's kind of where we're at right now at a capacity level and upcoming projects. So that's why you also saw in the service level reduction as a whole. We're here to save money and put money to the bottom or defer as you would like to see fit. There's a number of planning projects also in here that could potentially be deferred or reduced in cost to Council Member Heffner's point at the last meeting. Things like our integrated weed management plan. It's in the same year right now as the open space planning documents. So that's too big of a load for open space. So we would defer one or both of those to an out year, reduce the amount of cost or scope of those projects. There's a few different projects like that as well. So happy to answer any questions, but that's kind of where we're sitting as a department.

Council Member Dickinson. I appreciate all that. I think it's interesting because it's like one of the service level reductions is kind of like, no, we're still going to replace all the parks. it's just going to take longer. And then our staff isn't so overwhelmed, and the money stretches, and the parks get older than maybe we had wanted them to get. And that's the service level. It's like, man, it's been a long time since they've replaced anything at this park. Yeah, because we have a lot of parks, and we were doing them really quickly, and now we're doing them slowly. So it's a really good example of, like, you may not notice tomorrow, but if we stick with this plan 10 years from now, you might be kind of annoyed at our oldest park. But that's a 10-year problem, and we're still going to be replacing parks every year, or every other year. So I think it's a really good example of, yeah, trying to, nothing against birds, but kill two birds with one stone of, like, lowering the load on your people and lowering the amount of money you're spending. I think there's probably a lot of examples of that throughout, so I appreciate that.

Great, thanks. I just, I know I brought this up with the budget retreat. I just wanted to make sure that we're still slated to have fees conversation related to some of the, like the fees doing a better job of covering a lot of these costs.

I second that. My only question, I think I support most of the things you covered and I don't want to reiterate them. Do you have a sense of when we'll start to see those?

The current projects that are in progress?

The stuff that you're pulling out of the CIP?

Oh, I would think it would go with city manager's comment about the cuts. It would be the next cut to the CIP.

Great. I mean, I'm supportive of the, especially getting some of the planning documents out, slowing down on playgrounds. All of the things you listed I think are worth considering to the extent you think you can do them.

Other comments?

Yeah, so I'm gonna frame what I see is the Challenge here. We're trying to begin to solve for so when we look at the forecasting Where we are headed as far as this fund puts us in a precarious position should there be some sort of event we could just Wipe that out pretty quickly. So an ideal scenario would be using the next number of years to begin to build that up and we can achieve that by eliminating or deferring projects and I think you that's that's the problem basically and we're trying to solve for and I think the suggestions that you made are doing both and You're saying some of them we need to push them out or stagger the projects because that will allow us to build up that fund and others maybe we just don't do right now. I think the ones that you proposed make sense to me and I'm aligned with Council Member Heffner of seeing what those are and then kind of assessing is there more opportunity as well to stagger, defer or eliminate

those projects I only had one question about an unfunded project and it's the skate park that's on here I just wanted to make sure that we are just not compromising safety it is pretty heavily used by kids

Correct. It would be new fun things. Certainly any kind of safety-related improvements probably wouldn't rise to the level of capital. But if they would, we'd certainly bring it back in some form or fashion for an amendment. Great. Thanks.

Judy, what item were you talking about?

So under the rec fund, it's one of the unfunded lineups. It's on the unfunded lineups, last one, the skate park improvements and resurfacing.

Right.

I just wanted to make sure that that resurfacing wasn't just the maintenance needed to keep it safe because it is pretty heavily used. This is the skate park, like where the kids, the police station. Oh, right. No, I'm... Yeah, you weren't... Yeah, right. You were thinking the rink instead of the bike.

I just didn't want to reopen a... No, no, this is like the bike. We're all good. I'm good. I'm good about that. No, nothing further. Just trying to avoid bloodshed here. That's all. Other comments?

Okay. Thank you for that feedback. Council Member Curran did jump ahead of us a little bit. I'm going to go now to the Open Space Fund. Briefly on this one, funds structurally balanced in 27-28. The only adjustment we made since the budget retreat end of July was we modeled the acquisition set-aside up to $2 million from $5 million, and that does make the forecast look a little bit more rosy. So you go to the next slide. You can see throughout the model, we maintain our 15% operating reserve, and we build up that acquisition reserve by 2030 at $2 million. And the next slide is the capital projects contained within the modeling. I don't believe we have any unfunded in this fund.

So to be clear, if we were to use some of those acquisition funds, while it wouldn't immediately drain the green one, it would mean the next year we need to start filling the purple one again. So then it would potentially drain our general fund. So if we actually spend money on acquisitions, then this could become a problem again.

When we put a cap at $2 million, that did not create any new money. So yes, if it were to be expended, we would start setting aside the approximate 10% of sales tax revenue. It could potentially hinder future acquisition if you set it at a lower amount. Other questions, comments?

Council Member Cooper. And does the modeling... capture any potential acquisitions or just assumes that we don't make any? The modeling does not have any acquisitions right now.

Okay. Okay. Can you wander back for just a second? This is just a question. Open space signage is a pretty big item in there, and it looks like over three years it's, you know, $200,000-plus. Is that, I guess I don't want to pick at this too much, but is that, have you sort of value engineered that as much as you can?

We'll find out. But yeah, I think that big number is especially prevalent with most of our interpretive signage throughout trailheads. Every single property that we have has some level of dilapidated entry and exit signage. And so it's mostly for the large scale interpretive signs like the Harpers of the world. And we would certainly... try to be fiscally responsible with that estimate, but this is just based on some current pricing and inventory. Thanks.

Okay, thank you. Moving on from the open space fund into the golf fund. I would say that finance and Coal Creek Golf Course staff are continue to refine many line items in the fund. The current operating gaps for this fund are 60,000 in 2027 and 20,000 in 2028. We did, at your direction, remove one capital project, the clubhouse design, since the retreat. There's still $1.6 million in capital in the model, and we are moving towards covering our operating expenses, but have not yet landed on a pathway in which capital is covered by the fund. Staff continues to engage RAB, and we'll meet with the subcommittee tomorrow to review a number of fee rate changes in financial models. This is not the city manager's recommended budget. With the refinements at the line item account level, this chart does look better than what was presented at the budget retreat. You'll note in 27 and 28, the operating structural gaps have narrowed. However, much of this deficit is driven by capital investments. A reminder that this model assumes 5% increases. I'll show one more. This is one of the many models that we've presented, prepared by finance for RAP's consideration. Same assumptions on the previous slide, but with larger green fee increases in 27 and 28. Again, collaboration is underway, and there's still more work to be done in this fund. I mentioned the capital investment. Here are the projects in the capital fund today. There also are a number of unfunded projects as well.

Councilman Raffiner. Would say and on this one, I don't want to go into the particular projects, but I think we need to look at Deferring any non-essential capital projects to get the fund balance positive in the current years Yeah, I agree others The other I agree with that too can somewhere to consider you good I

So I mean, I imagine we're going to have, I think this is fine when it comes to like the $5 or the $16 of that conversation that is never going to come back to us. So that's going to be a RAB conversation in a finance committee or is that going to come back to council or like what will be the final way we're determining which path we go there?

I think Councilmember Dickinson, thanks for the question. Yes, so we are working closely with RAB as we were directed to. We will go through a subcommittee to RAB meetings, through finance committee, and then ultimately to council. Part of the challenge is we're running these things concurrently, budget projections based off fee and modeling, and then fee adoption is done a city manager fee adoption is done the same day as our budget adoption. So these all are running concurrently, but we are running through the subcommittee, the RAB, finance committee, and then ultimately November 2nd for the adjustments.

Okay. Yeah. So the only thing that I would say is from a simple math thing, if you increase all of the fees by $5, right, you get a certain increase in income, right? Fine. If you increase the fees for outside of Louisville residents by $10 and residents by $0, you get more revenue and a resident discount.

Deputy Director, do you want to speak to some of the modeling you've been working on? You've been deep. Okay. Sure.

There is a model that includes a resident discount that would capture some more revenue from outside residents, but still provide a benefit to residents of the community.

Yeah. And I would just add that Rab has been asked to provide that to you in a formalized memo. So you'll certainly get access to their recommendations before November 2nd.

Okay, I will continue on to the next fund, the recreation fund, structurally balanced in 27-28. No changes made since the budget retreat. As presented today, the renewal and replacement target does fall short in years 29 and beyond. We are continuing to closely monitor that. We have consolidated certain equipment under the rec center and equipment replacement program. We have not changed the numbers. We just consolidated them for simplicity. And I want to also add, you know, I didn't touch on this earlier, but we're constantly We're finding our projections. We spent a lot of time on golf. We're kind of pivoting towards the rec fund now with more data available since we did initial projections in May and very similar to the in-depth analysis line by line we're doing with golf. That revenue refinement is underway. The next chart that you'll see is being refreshed, which will be a little bit more positive light. So I have this today, but by our next meeting, August 20th, I expect it to look a little bit differently. So we're really putting our energy in there. And, you know, this is an evolving process. We're constantly putting our energy in as new data comes in or we're refreshing along the way. So the rec fund, next slide, a handful, a slide full of capital projects. And as Councilmember Kern alluded to, we have one unfunded project on the next slide.

Questions? Just have a comment. It's nice that this came after golf, which is as we look at the rec center fees It'll be important that we don't get ourselves into the situation We've gotten ourselves into with golf where we let the fees lag so far behind the costs That were then faced with these massive hikes that create a shock for everyone and I'm sure we'll do that I

My question generally is just looking at the hits to the fund or just the number of projects. There's a lot of projects and were a lot of, yeah, CIP projects that hit in 2027 under this proposal. I guess... Have you done all you can to... to make sure that some of these can't be deferred, that they all need to happen in 27?

Yeah, I think that's a fair question, similar to Mayor Pro Tem's point about evaluating all of the projects, especially the smaller kind of new things. The high dollar ones on here, specifically the boiler and the main line at Memory Square, are well overdue, and we run the risk of some pretty serious issues if we don't repair those. But the other items on there, as we go through this next kind of round of review, can certainly be considered.

Moving on to the last forecast I have for you this evening, the consolidated utility funds. We have not made changes since the budget retreat. Notable impacts of potential future development and the drought, a potential drought. Fee adjusted methodology seeking smoothing, consistency, and predictability in revenues while remaining competitive. Change in accounting methodology, practice in planning or budgeting, how we approach tap fees. Bonding, as we touched on earlier, likely needed to smooth out large capital projects such as the raw water integration project, solid residual, and the Sid Copeland admin building. City Manager Langley alluded to a public financing session for utilities and some other certain vehicles that are exclusively utility. Preliminary capital investments, 27 to 32, nearly $70 million. Here's the chart that we did not make any changes from the last time, and with that, we have a few tables of projects, but I'll turn it over to Director Cowler.

Yeah, so just to address, we have a lot going on in the background from our last conversation with the Finance Committee, so we are working scenarios. We've worked scenarios, so we will be looking at that borrowing and packaging some of these projects. So that'll generally be the admin building, the residual solids handling, and the raw water integration projects. And so those projects will probably slow delivery a little bit so the financing mechanism can catch up with them. And then we'll deliver off the financing. That's going to change the cash flow on the graph and bring things back into a normal range and also spread out costs so that we bring our projected rating pieces In addition, we also are pushing off some water line loops and some water line projects that were just kind of resiliency, but not like critical resiliency for like looping water portions of the water system. And so we're looking at delaying those with some update sheets for finance that we've been working on to get down. I think those are the biggest things. Our biggest issues for project delivery right now are where is Red Tail going to time? They're a huge impact on us for plant expansion, for the wastewater plant. We didn't anticipate they'd actually be done by now, but that just hasn't played out. So we're really kind of in limbo as we work with them as a partner to get them to get that project to construction. And then we're also really vulnerable to our start syndrome that we have here. We have quite a few projects over time that we've started. We've made decisions. We're in the 11th hour on some sort of delivery. And then we stop it. We want to revisit it. And we start it again. And sometimes we're 11th hour on the second round. And so it's like we're here to serve you and the public, ultimately. But the stop start kills us. We're only staffed and designed to execute generally one churn on a project load. And if we started getting into two or three laps on multiple projects, that really sets us back. So those are the things we're doing and balancing in the areas where things impact us and you can help us out.

I want to just touch base on that because I hear you on the issue of the start-stop. and reconsideration and all that kind of stuff. That is, I think, as a council matter, we have within our control to deal with some of that. I mean, the start-stop that has to do with learning something right in the middle and having to start, we can't do much about that. But I think we need to discipline ourselves better on council. I acknowledge that, that we don't reopen things constantly that we have decided so that you can execute, which is the function of the executive branch of our government. So I hear that and I think hopefully the rest of council agrees with me on that. We really need to be Mindful because all of that stuff costs money time energy staff You know staff patients Thank you, can we go back to the forecast I

So my question is for both Director Cower and the City Manager. You know, when we were looking at a previous forecast, the City Manager expressed concerns about the projection putting us at risk if there's a big event. I understand that it looks like these projections, you know, go up and to the right eventually, but there could be a few years of concern of risk. Were you describing that you think that will be solved based on all the adjustments that you're proposing making?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. And if we have a high risk year, like there's several projects that are routine replacement type projects, like a water line replacement, where we could absolutely cut that off if needed. Like you don't want to, but if you have to, we can. So we're very comfortable with the utility funds where we're at. The higher risk stuff is general fund. Like South Street and Front Street, they're based off other people's grants, other people's monies or bonding scenarios. And so, you know, those risks are on those timelines.

Okay. Okay. So we don't need to de-risk this through discussion about further eliminating projects or service level because you feel like next time you come and present to us, 28, 29 will be... de-risked in a sense.

When we have the workshop in early next year where we talk about public financing options, if we were to bond or get low interest loans for some of these projects, that will reduce the large capital expenditures. And then you would just have debt service payments that you're paying over a period of time. We're also looking at doing that potentially lease purchase financing for some of the larger like vehicle purchases to smooth that out over time and so it wouldn't look like this I would say though that when you look at the number of projects Public Works Utilities is suffers the same as process in terms of there's more projects than there are people to perform them and so that's where you know Kurt has the has the unfortunate responsibility of going through the CIP and figuring out what can they deliver and then what needs to be deferred because it's, you know, this is very packed. And to his point about Red Tail Ridge, once we get into, it's not only the leading up to the design, which we have our design kickoff meeting tomorrow for the digester improvements. It's not only the design, but then when it goes to construction, there's a lot of work related to construction. And then also the further build out of Redtail Ridge, and that's taking a large portion of his engineering staff. And so trying to build that in, as well as other private development projects that they need to review and coordinate, plus these city capital projects, it's just too much. And so we really need to go through and right-size these programs.

Okay, that's really helpful. So the conversation around the utility fund is less about the dollars and cents and more about capacity from a staff perspective to manage those projects.

Correct. Timing.

Got it. Okay. Well, I look forward to the tough decisions you're going to make to help us understand the timing.

It sounds like riveting, doesn't it? Yeah.

Council Member Hefner. Yeah, thanks. I just have a couple questions. One is when we've been looking at utility rates, I know we've talked about water and wastewater decarb and that being a substantial driver of rate increases. What's your current thinking on keeping those in the CIP?

We did some pretty thorough analysis just on solar. And we feel we recommend that solar was backloaded in the CIP like 29 and 30. And so that'll be pulling out because it's just our money is better spent for Excel utility scale. And so we put our money there. And then for just like HVAC transition from natural gas to electric, that's going to be like $500,000 or less, and that still shows value to do. So that's kind of where that stands in the current process.

So what's left in the roughly $2 million that's in there across the full period?

Let me look at the table. Probably... I'm thinking we're at a million or less, probably 500,000 or less.

I count about two across water and wastewater.

I'm catching up. We're moving so fast, some of these tables have aged. So some of that's already come out. Stuff's starting to come out. Great. Yeah, it's like we snapshot in March and then we continue to work and we're not. You're looking at March data.

Okay. And then my second question is just on the, um, additional offices, the, um, nine new offices and 12 new workstations at Sid Copeland. Correct. Is that, that's still current?

That is current. Uh, and that is a high estimate. We're hoping to bring that down and that will be bonded.

Okay. Do you have a sense? Like, can we get it from five to two? I mean, what do you say? Bring it down.

Um, I don't know yet. No, I don't have a sense.

Okay. We're still in that five range. The thought in my head is the amount of money we were talking about to pick up all of the Pearl Izumi building compared to $5 million for 10 or 12 offices.

Right.

And just making sure we're putting the offices where they're most needed and in a good value per person. workspace. And I'm not saying they're not. I just want to make sure we are.

Anywhere we expand an older building comes with some premium to do that, and so the water plant is one of those types of buildings. It's falling per square foot and similar costs that we had projected when we were looking at the Pearl Azumi building of a buy versus build. Okay. This is our water staff, and they're just kind of a hub of all things water and where we make the water, and so that's not like a staff group that you're going to – want to spread out like we want them there so their lab is there you know a lot of a lot of the major uh water sources are coming in so what i'm hearing is uh we can get you more detail on the project and just kind of how it breaks out and why we made our considerations and then the council can decide if there's value at that level thank you yeah questions

OK. Let's bring this home. So you've heard from us July 2 with the budget retreat preview. The budget retreat spent a lot of time this evening. We've made a tremendous amount of progress. I want to thank all of you for your feedback and input and all the work of the directors. Future budget meetings, we'll have a retreat. I'm sorry, we'll have a recap. Next week, not another retreat, but a recap with Finance Committee. We are slated for Tuesday, September 1st for the City Manager's preliminary budget presentation. Between September and October, we've carved out time if we need to do any special sessions on budget development. The third Tuesday in October will be the City Manager's final budget with adoptions dated for November 2nd. So again, tremendous amount of work to date, but we still have some more work and hard decisions to come.

I appreciate that, and I appreciate all of the work that you've done, all of the comments that you've made and questions that you've answered tonight. There's information that you all need to process and work on, and I think to the point earlier that there may be questions about specific issues Projects that council members may want to be asking you all about My only question is and this is sort of a staff question Maybe a city manager question and also to counsel whether we need Whether we're in good shape Or whether we need a little bit, you know a follow-up to this meeting In order to make sure that both your analyses come to us, our input and questions have been answered and we're kind of good to move forward. I don't know whether the city manager, do you have a thought on that or finance director?

I think if you have additional questions or comments on the CIP, if you could send them our direction so that we can gather those. I'm still interested in hearing from Council Member Cooperman the projects you would like to move from the defunded list to the funded list. Looking ahead to the September 1st council agenda, the deadline for the draft for staff is next Wednesday, the 19th. for that. And so I don't see a tremendous amount of progress happening between now and September 1st. With that in mind, you know, we may need to do an additional discussion between September 1st and October 20th, which would be the final budget presentation. And so we can look at the agenda forecast to figure out where we can fit that additional discussion in.

Okay. What I'm Looking to is whether there'll be an opportunity to make adjustments on CIP based on what you all are working on and based on questions that we have. And what I'm hearing is that ain't going to happen before September 1st. If we need that kind of follow-up, we'll do it sometime between September 1st and October 20th. Fair enough. Are there questions from staff that we have not provided answers to that you need tonight? Yes.

Yeah, we try to provide a complete list, but I heard we missed a project. I'm just curious what we missed so we can get a sheet filled out.

The one that I feel is missed, I've mentioned to the city manager, but there are a lot of facilities in the city that do not have bicycle parking whatsoever, several parks and so forth. And I would like to see us put bicycle parking at all those places. The one unfunded project, I think it was unfunded last time I looked, is some sidewalk work by the intersection of South Boulder and Main that I would really like to see done in the next two years if possible.

Sidewalk work we were building into the next year or two just in the concrete program automatically. It's been a heavily requested area. The sidewalk work in question is the... The north side of the intersection along the railroad where it's unsafe and the railroad gates actually go over the sidewalk sometimes. So we're just gonna broaden, make that a safe space.

Okay. There's one thing listed there that I wasn't sure if it included that or not or so. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Kirk.

Actually, I'm just curious. So the bike parking, is this just those simple little metal racks that people can just latch to? I mean, they shouldn't be that expensive, right?

$20,000 each.

Yeah, $20,000.

With installs and stuff.

Let's see how cheap we can make that, given it's just something to lock a bike to. We're not talking about a complicated system where it has to go in and be protected like it is at the RTD bus stop, right?

ADAM SPARKS.

ADAM SPARKS.

I would note that they do have a certain level of commercial level security. And there is some installation cost. And you're also probably, as Mr. Cooperman is aware, you're talking anywhere from 10 to 30 you know parks that probably could use that upgrade so in the totality it could be pretty expensive but we can certainly price it out to kurt's point and get it into a sheet that can be evaluated in the overall cip because there's non-parks as well correct like non-park locations that are city owned that are an issue mostly i'm thinking about parks i'd have to off the top of my head i can't think about i can't think of a like a building or something that doesn't have parking but

And you're not talking about trailheads where somebody might take a bike and want to leave it because they're going to walk. No, not so much. It's like a park where they're going with a bike and they're going to be there with it anyway. Instead of using a kickstand, we'll spend $30,000 so they can lock a bike in. I'm just curious to know the scale of the importance of something like this. in each of the locations. Like, I'm thinking if it's a place like the rec center, we have to secure it for safety reasons. But I think we want to look at the full, like, really what we're doing when we're spending that kind of money when we're eliminating programs at a library for children to use. I just want to make sure that, like, you know, the same kid is not just tossing their bike on the ground anyway because they're jumping on a playground center. And it doesn't matter whether there's a bike lock there or not. So I just thought I would throw that out there so that we understand the scope of this, Adam, and really the necessity for each location. Thanks.

So we'll do a bike parking master plan, or plan, guidance plan. No, to simplify this conversation, I would just, anyone that has an idea where something should be or upgraded, take a screenshot, put a red dot on it, send it to me. We'll pull it together. Keep it simple.

And when all the bike racks have electric charging for all the e-bikes, they'll be more expensive. Level five.

Betty is still smiling. That's a good... That's one of the metrics. Mayor Pro Tem is not happy. Are there any other comments for the sake of the order? All right. We've got one other item on the agenda. Thank you all. And thanks for, I mean, thanks for taking this evening, because it's time away from your families, to spend with all of the colleagues that you know and love. And us. I'm not going to say whether you love us or not.

You don't have to love us.

Just love one another. All right. Let's go to upcoming agenda items and identification of new ones. I think this is handed off to the city manager.

so i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because i feel like we've talked about this forecast quite a bit lately if there's anything you would like to add please let us know i will note there's a lot of items under the last page of the to be scheduled that we're still working to fit into the forecast And then we are having additional items that are being added outside of what we see in this forecast. But if you feel like we're missing anything right now, please let us know and we can discuss. One item we will be adding on here is Polk Dahlia striping. terms of that configuration so we know that that's going to be coming up and then and that will probably be the september 1st meeting that we talk about that for the september in the september meeting we're trying to get the trestle strategy final presentation on the housing strategic framework to do that presentation and so this continues to be in flux

Flux is the word of the night. Any other ads, questions? Yes, Council Member Fahey.

I am wondering if we're going to have a presentation discussion from the police chief about e-bikes.

That is currently scheduled for October 27th. Wow, you know. Okay, then.

All right.

Wonderful. Okay.

Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Kooperman. Actually, a follow-up to that question. I'm just wondering how we are or why we're scheduling it all the way at the end of October, if it could possibly be any sooner or if we feel like there's, I don't know.

So looking at the advanced agenda, we picked a date that would fall after the model traffic code is presented so that we can separate the two matters. So the model traffic code will come before you first, and then we'll take the e-bike updates at its own special time in October. Thank you.

Further, do we have a motion?

Move to adjourn.

All in favor?

Aye.