City Council - Regular Meeting

Jeez, that's so loud. My apologies. Little heavy-handed apparently. Um, time is now 2 o'clock. I am going to open the city council study session for May 5th, 2026. May I please get a roll call? Councelor Koso here. Mayor Prom lawyer here. Mayor Woodruff here. Councelor Yazy here. Councelor Gonzalez present. Then may I please get a reading of the indigenous land acknowledgement.

This is a call to honor and respect indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. As residents and visitors of Durango, we are called upon to educate ourselves about the history and cultural heritage of the land we inhabit. The city of Durango is situated on the ancestral homelands and territories of the Nu, Ute, Hickoria, Apache, Apache, Pueblo of New Mexico, Hopicome, Hopi, and Da Navajo nations. The original stewards of this land were forcibly removed and exposed to countless atrocities by the United States government, including repeatedly broken treaties, forced assimilation, the tragic legacy of Indian boarding schools, and the loss of ancestral homelands. We recognize lasting generational trauma exists within native communities today. We affirm the continuing importance of ancestral sites to descendant communities as integral to the living cultural landscape. This acknowledgement only becomes meaningful when combined with accountable relationships and informed actions. May this serve as a step toward inclusion and reconciliation.

Thank you. That moves us on to agenda item number two. Number 2.1.

Uh yes, mayor and council. We have John Usher here to give a presentation. Uh this was in request to the uh to councelor Yazy's uh request about a police department city hall project and our project parking update. Uh I know as we've gone through some of our outreach or engagement efforts uh we have received some feedback regarding uh the in some groups of wanting to make sure that we're able to sell uh the current PD and uh city hall. So there are some parking options that uh they have been looking into and presenting to council. Great. Let me try that again. Mayor, members of the council, thanks for having me here today to discuss our current parking situation and options we have for the new city hall and police station uh as requested by the council. So, first we wanted to start with our the required number of parking spaces on the site, how many of those spaces were able to satisfy and additional due diligence we've used to validate those assumptions. So, we are looking at a required number of parking spaces for our current program at 161 spaces. This was developed by HDR with an in-depth analysis against the land use development code as adopted by the city of Durango. Um, as stated earlier, our current 30% design concept anticipates 78 spaces that we can fit on the site given the current grading constraints. And then we did reference two traffic impact studies. One was performed by SE as part of this project um using IT standards which is international transportation engineering standards. They had assumed 159 spaces without

going into the level of depth that HDR did. Uh that was also validated by PST engineering that did a traffic impact study as part of the master plan effort um in tandem with Reynolds Ash and Associates. So with that we have uh 83 spaces that we are looking to solve for to satisfy our code requirement of 161 spaces. So this table on the right is a summary of the different options we're going to go into detail that could satisfy those gap that gap. So the first option is really two parts. The first part would be leveraging the transit center which is currently owned by the city of Durango. This site has about 150 parking spaces. uh through detailed conversations with uh parking managers uh who have a good amount of traffic data on parking usage for that site. Uh they feel there's 64 spaces that are currently not utilized on the site that could be used for city staff at the city hall and police department. This would be an immediate solution. The one caveat is the land use development code does require parking within a/4 mile radius of the site. This falls just outside of that by 430 ft. So this would require a variance um in order to leverage this site for those 64 parking spaces. Uh we also feel this is on average about a six-minute walk from the site. So could potentially forward multimodal transit goals for the city. Now that still leaves 19 spaces that are

required to satisfy the total 161 space requirement. So another option leveraging again city- owned land would be to utilize parking spaces at the Mason Center. Again, this used to be Mason Elementary School, which was demolished in 2019, turned into a park with tennis courts, and we currently have 14 parking spaces available on that site. There's also the old gym structure, which is no longer able to be utilized as for its original intended purpose. So, that's now utilized as storage for the parks and recreation department. Um our team feels that could be demolished that is adjacent or in close proximity to the parking lot. We feel that could be redeveloped for an additional 14 parking spaces. The anticipated cost without going into too much due diligence is about $200,000. Um this is above and beyond what we're currently carrying in our budget to develop those additional 14 spaces for a total of 28 parking spaces at the Mason Center. So the combination of leveraging the existing transit center and Mason center it consists of option number one. Option number two is to leverage the existing city hall site and the existing police department site to be redeveloped for parking. Both of these sites fall within the quarter mile radius and HDR has done a quick analysis to determine we could fit 58 spaces here at the city hall site and 45 spaces at the police department site. This would come at additional costs beyond what we currently have in our budget. Uh the first cost is the loss of

the resale value. The city would still own these properties. So, we've included based on an analysis by HDR what those properties could sell for as uh potential loss revenue. We've also included the redevelopment costs and anticipated hazardous material mitigations. So, we feel the cost in addition to what we currently have in our budget would be about just under $4 million for the city hall site and just over $2.6 $6 million for the police department site. Between both of these sites, that would satisfy our requirement for an additional 83 spite spaces. Option number three is to enter it into shared agreements to satisfy the parking uh deficit. The first one would be to partner with other government agencies. This could be county, state level, uh, with CDOT or other agencies in order to have a shared cost agreement to develop additional parking that could also be utilized for city staff at city hall and the police department. The biggest constraint is there's uncertainty with this option and these agreements do take time to develop, materialize um and ultimately satisfy the infrastructure needed for parking. We do anticipate that this would stretch beyond the time that we would occupy the new city hall and police department. So we do anticipate a variance just to bridge that gap between when this option would be realized. Another option within this is to reach out to private partners. This could be a developer. Uh we've seen several municipalities enter into agreements with developers for

mixeduse projects that include parking arrangements. Um this helps shed the risk onto the development. Um shared some of the cost. Another option in pursuit of private entities is to lease parking spaces from existing parking lots. Uh we haven't shared any details of what that could be because we don't want to damage the city's uh negotiating position if they were to pursue those options. And then the last option is a city-led uh standalone structure. Again, we do see this as more of a significant cost um to have a a multi-story parking structure. Uh but the city would be more in control. That would reduce risk. We just see this as a a higher cost option than what we've previously presented. And then of course there's the last option is is to grant a variance that would negate satisfying the 161 parking spaces and to move forward with what we're able to satisfy on the existing site which is 78 parking spaces. So we've compiled again really the first three options. first being leveraging the transit center and Mason Center in combination for a total of 92 spaces. Um this would satisfy our parking requirement. We would be looking for a variance um that would allow us to exceed that 1/4 mile radius and there would be some work with demolishing the old gym structure and building parking at the mason structure. Again, this is leveraging city-owned land. We think this could be realized quickly and immediately at low cost to the city.

Option number two is redeveloping the existing city hall and police department buildings to be parking lots. This would satisfy our parking requirement with 103 spaces. This could be done in the project timeline that we are looking at. Um but this would come at a a higher cost to the city. And then the third option is to enter agreements either for leasing or to develop additional property to be used for parking. Uh again we feel the biggest constraint to this is the potential cost either recurring cost for lease payments or for the development and then the timeline of this. there's a lot of uncertainty and could extend past when we're looking at completing this project. Uh so while we're on this slide, I'd like to entertain questions.

And mine says, what did you do for yours? Mine says HDMI. face. Yeah. Back to home. Let's try that. Always go home. Go home. All right. Perfect. Sorry, John. We're figuring out the technology up here. Oh, no, no, no, no problem. All right. Uh, mayor put Tim Lawyer. Okay. Hi. Thank you for the presentation. Um, the 15% vacancy reduction. I'm assuming that's because when we move into the buildings, we're anticipating we're not going to be full capacity. Is that correct? Or what does that what does that mean? Um, yes. that that's anticipating you don't have 100% occupancy at any one point in time. This or

I'm sorry and this is in reference to the 161 parking space analysis. I'm I'm just assuming you can read my mind as to what I'm talking about. So yeah, the 161 spaces it says after 15% vacancy reduction. Um that's just because we're not going to be full capacity for the buildings in my understanding and I'll I'll defer to you uh Jamie if she wanted to verify but that this is built into the land use development code to come up with that requirement. That's not an exception our team is proposing that that's that's built into the land use development code that helps us arrive to our required parking number.

So any private if someone privately owned this building they would have this this 15% vacancy reduction. Yes, that does not account for any special treatment for our project team that any other developer um wouldn't receive.

Okay, great. Um we had and you might have to call other people up here. A few years ago, we had a study done on the Mason Center land that included looking at housing, looking at remodeling the Mason Center, included a bunch of things. I know that that like we all decided as a council and then the recommendations were no housing. It doesn't make sense there. Um was what was there any other recommendations for highest and best use outside of we wanted to keep it a public park and green space and the you know park for the children? Do you remember?

I don't remember with 100% accuracy but I generally would tend to agree that that's an accurate assumption. I just know mostly about the housing that that was an affordable housing or workforce housing uh use and that was not uh favored for with the council at the time. Do you think um it would be appropriate for someone on staff to find that presentation or that information and email it to us or Scott may know but we can definitely email it as well.

Yeah, you were here at least. So yes, this good afternoon, Scott Mlan, parks and recreation. Um that there was some analysis done on housing and council city decided that that was not an appropriate use there. Uh staff had also looked at opportunities for reusing that facility. We did meet um with FCI um who happens to be the same contractor we're working with now u to look at that give us just some general cost estimates on what it would be to to redevelop that building. It is a shell. There's no utilities, no service, anything to it. So, it was we looked at it, but uh the cost there was was significant to remodel that. And I think part of the interest of of parks and reconics amendment space in city hall was to not have to develop another facility like that for for admin. So, it puts us in the same facility as other admin staff within the city. Um and then saves save some money, keep her going into city hall with some admin staff for parks and rack as opposed to developing another building.

Okay. Thank you. And Mason Center currently is being used for storage for like lacrosse stuff or something, right? So, a lot of our youth sports equipment that doesn't get used year round, it goes in there and then checked out for for the season and then also for some of the special events, some of the bikes or trailers that are used or whatever uh for parades and such are stored in the facility. So, we would need to find an alternative place to to store Do we have an alternative place? at this point, but again, I think um just looking at it long term that on Third Avenue does not feel like the right place for a storage unit for

sure. Awesome. Thank you. Um and then I have no sorry, sorry. Thank you. Um I'll do one more question and then I can come back to my other questions if other counselors um give them a chance. Would this might be for you. with the parking area at Mason Center envision, if we're envisioning this, I know this is super preliminary, um, could it be used, it won't be a private parking area for our staff. It could be used for events at Buckley or other other things happening because I know there that that's a struggle sometimes with all the events at Buckley.

Yes. Uh, during the business hours, it would have to be restrictly for uh, our use um, just so that we could make sure that we're meeting our parking requirement. But outside of that, uh, in the evenings, holidays, events that, uh, the city offices aren't in operation, just similar to all of our other public parking, it could be open for anyone. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. And then the, um, variance that we would be requiring for the transit center, um, it's 430 ft more than a/4 mile, which is like a third of a quarter mile or a quarter of a quarter mile or something like that if I'm doing math right in my head. Am I about right? Yep. Um are we talking about as like changing our code? So it so we're not we're building within um what we're expecting everyone else to build within. Would we change the code or are we talking about a variance just for us? I'm not sure that we've gone for those discussions that far. Okay.

Uh I think just kind of as we looked at uh this portion I mean there's two options still work. We could ask for ourselves for a variance or we could change uh the land use development code but we haven't really I don't think had too much in detail discussion of which route to go through. Yeah, I know it's preliminary. Just wanted to see if we had talked about that. And then for from the transit center to the new city hall, could we have like transit systems put in place so we could help employees that don't want to walk that far or can't walk that far? Yes, that would be something we could look into for sure. Th those are my starting questions and then I might

so the concern and just to go to a variance is not a change of the law it's a variance from the law. So the concern you would has if the city grants itself a variance and it sets a precedence for granting that variance to other businesses in similar situations. So when you start talking about providing transportation outside of the variance you might obligate yourself to do that for other business which is fine. It's just that's the precedence you're setting. How often do we grant variances for other businesses? often or more depending on like for parking or just in general.

I mean parking. Let's talk about parking. I mean I know I remember the Animus Brewing Company one. We had a variance there but that was years ago. Uh Jamie Lopka Community Development. Um we rarely have variances. I've seen two since I've been here and one was denied. Um and we did have one for a parking variance but it was a very unique circumstance for us to do that. Okay. Thank you Jamie. What was the parking modifications that we made for the central business district for change of use or not for change? I c can you remind me?

Yeah, we had it in place for central b uh business, but we expanded it to midtown that would basically say if you had a change of use to uh a use that was allowed by right. So, if a restaurant was allowed by right and it changed to a restaurant, you're not required to provide any additional parking than what is already there. Okay. But if you they go to a limited use, a special use or anything like that, you would then have to provide parking. Great. Thank you, Councelor Kosa. You just want to keep rolling?

Yep. Um there's there's the the Crossroads Mall at below um in the small shopping district. This seems to me to be unused parking that is much more convenient um and and not requiring variances that are with transportation um applicable to other variances etc etc. So have the discussion there. I I understand that we don't want to broach a topic too early because prices may go up and etc. But I I just don't know how we don't have this discussion to include the private parking that might be available for us to start counting as parking towards this project. Any comment on that or any any research that's been done for along those lines?

Yeah, we we've compiled a list of potential parking spaces and and property owners. Um had varying levels of conversations with some. We're not at a point where we could commit to saying where we are able to leverage any parking spaces through a shared use lease agreement or purchase agreement at this point. I think we'd be looking for a council directive. If you wanted to pursue those options further um but we do see still a lot of uncertainty um if we were to proceed those that route in order to satisfy the full 83 spaces. And John, fair to say that you're looking for counsel not at a study session because we don't make decisions here, but at at a a soon to be a council session that we start eliminating some of the the the various options so that you can start getting into more detail on some of the ones that we might prefer.

That's mine. Yeah, I think on this part is we're just satisfying the request from the council portion of it. I think when we're ready to have a recommendation, we would bring that as staff to council. Like we would recommend going proceeding with option one for this project or option two uh and getting that at a later council meeting. Okay. Um have we had any polling of the staff to find out if they're interested in walking 7 minutes in the middle of January to work? We have not done any polling.

Okay. Um, the county has a a parking lot at the old Schlutoter building just behind the old post office. This is a property that has made the most sense to me, at least over the long term. The development of that could be of benefit both to the county and and the city since the convenience is there. Um, we've got an alley access for an underground piece and a, you know, a top access as well. So, are there are there any initial hesitations to try and pursue something with a parking garage at that spot? That probably be one for me. Uh, there's no hesitations to partnering with them. Um, I think that's something that uh we've always been open for. I know it was a conversation that had happened uh previously with the previous county manager. I've had those conversations. We've I've expressed that the city still has interest in finding uh a possible way to partner if that happens. I think though with the time frame in which we're looking to get this uh as well as having funding for any type of potential construction from the city side uh we would be very limited uh if not maybe quite impossible for us to meet all of those to get it done by the time the building is ready to be opened.

Very possible to do something where we've got the option to use the transit center for temporary to bridge us to something that is a better solution down the line. Yes. I don't know if uh because of the land use development code, I'm not sure we could call it temporary, but in our minds we could say that's temporary until when that gets built, then we could definitely then move it on over. Seems like it puts guard rails around perpetually having a transportation component and going a little outside of what we're requiring everybody else to deal with.

Absolutely. I think that there's some parts with this uh as well that we've talked about internally that I've discussed uh just with staff about providing um possible incentives for employees not to bring a car. Uh however the part is with the land use development code we still have to provide those parking spots even though if we don't have uh employees doing that. So, uh, it's a give and take, but absolutely. So, and the, um, the potential revenue from the sale of the old city hall and old PD spaces was or was not part of the construction costs and the estimates for construction on the on the

included that uh, when we first started the very beginning of our preliminary and we still have it in there if we were to sell. It is included as part of the project construction. Yes, sir. 4.3 correct? Okay. Okay. Thank you, councelor Gonzalez. Uh, thank you. So, can you remind me, was the underground parking eliminated for cost or was there a fatal flaw in the design? Uh, that was primarily driven by cost again that was subject to the risk category 4 structural requirements of those to be used for police department parking. Um so then sorry can you repeat that

again part of what was yes primarily due to cost again then subject to risk category 4 structural requirements if used for police department functions. What does that mean? Um the parking garage structure that was originally planned included parking for the police department underground and that was subject to risk category 4 structural requirements which added cost as opposed to a standalone parking structure uh that was used for uh civilian purposes.

Okay. So, just so I understand, a police department parking structure requires more reinforcements than if it were a city-owned parking structure. That's correct.

Okay. And there's no potential to not put the police cars there and still use and still make a parking structure and just not park that that is and I think we would show that as a city-led structure as part of this option three to help finance a parking structure either on the city hall PD site or or elsewhere. Um, and so when you referenced number three, let me get to number three. Option option three. Would that would that give us all the spaces that were required?

Um, that could without um discussing costs. Um, yes. I I think the city could develop a parking structure that satisfies um the required parking spaces. We just don't have any of those costs currently in the project budget. Okay. And that still means that the other two structures that are currently being considered for parking are sold.

Yes. Yeah, we could look at So option three as a standalone option would still consider the sale of the existing city hall and police department site and then pursuing a standalone structure financed separately or or financed by the city is how we see that. Okay. The other option is partnering with other government agencies to help finance a parking structure.

Okay. Um, and I know that perhaps should we in the short term decide to use those two facilities for parking, it's easy enough to use them for something else in the future. I think it's one of the I don't know, I guess you could say positive sides of a parking lot is that it can easily be built upon and something else can be put there. I mean, I think that's the only positive thing I see about a surface level parking lot. It can be pretty easily sold and a structure built on it. Yes.

Yeah. I think that's a fair statement.

Uh okay. Um I think that's that's all I have for the moment. I know that um I guess what gives me some pause is like quite a large variance in the number of spaces required. Um, I don't know. Somehow seeing it here, the way that it's been presented, um, gives me a lot of pause. I mean, I know we've talked all along that there's a not sufficient parking in the site. you know, the way that it's being presented. Um, parking seems to be really like the issue in Durango and in cities all over the country is like what do we do with parking that's so expensive um to build and um not that valuable for a community uh in terms of asset value. So, um I'm I don't know. I hope we can come up with something that we can agree on. And I I feel like I don't love any of the options being presented, I guess, is what I'm like I feel sort of disappointed in our options that are presented now. Hopefully, as we continue on and really draw like get precise on some of the numbers, we can come up with something that is a little better. So, thank you.

Can I make sure that I want to make sure that my comment about the variance didn't cause confusion? Um the variance that I understand being contemplated has nothing to do with the number of parking spaces required. It's just the distance that it is from city hall. So it's an extra 400 ft that people would have to walk. That would be the variance. The actual number of parking spaces that the city is obligated to have. That's not correct me if I'm wrong Jose. We're not requesting a variance from the actual number of spaces required to support the building. Correct. There's the only variance that and I think kind of where this came from was if we could meet the parking requirements right now by utilizing the current PD and city hall as parking lots. We would not need a variance, we would be done. Uh however, there's been some interest and there's interest from I think what I've heard from some members in the community as well as the council of still wanting to sell these two lots. So if we wanted to sell these two lots, we still have the parking and able to meet the requirement. The variance just means is that it's outside of the quarter mile of where your parking should be. So the variance has nothing to do with regards to the parking spots. It has everything to do with the distance that that parking lot is from the building.

Um okay. I think that's uh that's an important distinction. So sorry if I caused confusion there. Yeah. And and I apologize if that was misrepresented on my side. Our our intention is absolutely to satisfy the parking requirements. We just wanted to highlight the discrepancy between the number of spaces on site as currently designed and then the options to satisfy the full parking requirements. Um I've got a couple of peace meal questions. Um and maybe I guess we'll start with the Mason Center. So there currently are 14 spots available. Is that counting every single spot or are there more spots currently available at the Mason Center? Uh that's currently counting every single spot.

Every single spot. So if we use that, then we leave no room for people using the tennis courts during daytime hours. Correct. We're anticipating Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. Okay. Um and then to demolish the existing structure, we could potentially get 28 spots. The the existing structure is the storage, this makeshift storage facility. Do we have other storage available in other city- owned assets that this could transition to or is this convenient because there's it's centrally located or How big is your office, Scott?

I think the answer for that one is we're still looking at facilities that are able to have that storage space. Uh we think we can solve for that the storage portion of it. That's not an issue for us. Uh the portion really is demolishing the building and turning it into uh a parking lot. Uh but as far as the storage space, we'll find a place to place the storage on it. We just also don't think it's the highest and best use I think as Scott said to have our storage unit on Third Avenue. Yeah. Is this current storage space? Is it historical or is there any sort of like is it was it part of the old Mason school? Like what what is the history of this facility? The gymnasium was part of the elementary school. Um, so it's a gymnasium.

The date. Yep. I don't remember the date that that was transferred or sold to the city. Um, the Yes, it is in bad shape. Totally. So, the rest of the school was demolished in 2019. Right. So, it would cost tenatively $200,000 to demolish that facility to put in 14 more spots. Correct, John? Based on our initial analysis, that's correct. to demolish and then repave an additional 14 spaces or just the demo.

That's just the hard cost we received from our um CMGC partner on this site. That's not assuming there's any hazardous materials um in the building. That would be additional cost, but yes, that is our preliminary estimate for the hard cost to demolish and pay 14 spaces. And that tw those 28 spots would then we would only create 14 more spots and then we'd use all of those spots just like we were before with no room 8 to 5 Monday through Friday for users of the outdoor recreck facilities. Correct.

That's our preliminary analysis just based on the footprint of that gym building. I think there's um further discussions to be had on whether we could squeeze in a few more parking spots um in that site to allow for greater flexibility there.

Okay. Thank you. Um and then the when we're looking at leveraging city hall and the current PD lots, the the 3.9 million and the 2.675, 675. So roughly 6.5 million. That's just to convert those into parking lots that are not included in our current expenditures for this project. Correct. That would be outside of the scope of what we're going to spend money on. Uh correct. Okay. Okay. Um and then maybe this next question is for Jamie if you don't mind. Jamie, there is current um currently in the LUDC there is an allowance if we put bike racks in that accounts for X amount of parking spots. Is that is that correct for for certain businesses or maybe in certain areas?

There are a certain number of bike bike parking spots required by for each use and then if you go above and beyond that there there can be a reduction. Is is there a limit on how much of a reduction that could be? I think it's 10%. 10%. So 10% of what? So we could potentially eliminate 16 spaces if we have enough bike parking. Is that what you're Is that Am I reading that right? Depends on which route we go. If we go straight up compliance with the LUDC, yes, we can do different reductions and pick and choose from that. If we went the route of doing say a parking study, we would be we would have to comply with the parking study and no additional reductions could come forward.

Okay. I think probably a lot. Marty, anybody is will be riding their bikes. What's that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was trying to figure out where some creative opportunities there could be, you know, to to try to pair some of this number down a little bit. Um, that's all that I have currently. Um, I will go on to councelor Koso. Just a couple of follow-ups. The uh council, I I don't know about anybody else, but the optics of building a parking lot on Third Avenue just doesn't sit well with me at all. So, the the the 14 spaces are

third or second half. Oh, third. The 14th Mason. Yeah. And and there's other considerations that I think you've draw you you've brought up as well on that. So, um, is there anything here for a phased approach that it provides us the ability to sell one of the old properties, city hall or PD, take the money from that sale, and start working our way towards a parking garage or or something that's a better option here. Um, I don't I believe that I've I I've verified with the attorney that anything that's built off of the the high school property is not part of the 61 million, not part of the bond. So, we can't take any of the bond money and build anything that's off of that property. I have that correct. That's correct. I believe that's my understanding.

Yeah, the bond language says that all that money has to be spent on a city hall and a PD on adjacent facilities adjacent facility. So, we can't use any of the 61 million to build anything that's off of that property. Um the the question then and I'm fishing here so I have no idea but is there any has there been any thought about trying to sell one piece of property at a time and tr to try and get the parking garage solved that way because the funding for the parking garage seems to be a huge hurdle obviously. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think I'll take that on that side. Uh we've talked about it but any sale of this project would go to the building. that's what we would need to continue to uh as we're making our adjustments to the design of the building. It's not additional money. Uh the sale of these properties had always been told to go into the building project and that's kind of what we'd be looking to use it for. Uh so even if we did sell one lot, we would look at still utilizing that funding to the project total project cost of the building. Is that part of the bond language or just something we've assumed we're going to do because that's how we've structured it so far? Two separate things. Uh if you look at kind of how we looked at how we were funding this through the presentations that we had done was we would do the bond and that we could also have additional money for construction by selling these two lots.

To change that would require going back to the voters. No, to change that would be going to the the council. I mean if the council didn't want to allocate that funding to the project. Okay. Uh we would just need to know and make adjustments to the building. Okay. Great. But technically on that note, oh, can I since I was next? Yeah. Yeah, please go ahead. Thank you. Um, we originally when we originally thought about selling these two pieces of property, we thought we were having a parking garage on that site and now we don't.

And so if it solves the problem of the parking garage, putting the money of one of the buildings or something towards another thing might make sense. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I just it if it helps the greater good. Yeah. I mean it it still goes to the part of the the budget is the budget, right? And so that's that part. And so what I Yeah. This isn't uh what I'm just trying to make sure they the way it's communicated, it's not free money. This money has already been allocated in a budget to go to this project. So if the council wanted to, absolutely, we could do that, but there would possibly be adjustments that needed to be made within the construction of the buildings.

Yes. Got I got that. Um question, the 64 spaces that are available at the transit center. Sorry, I have a few more questions that I forgot. Um is that like just an average of like spaces that are generally available? Is it these are always available 100% of the year? Do we know um the answer to that? Sorry, I was going to say do we qu how do we formula? Yeah. Yeah. So, we this was in detailed conversations with staff that oversees parking at the transit center. Um our understanding is they've got years of data that helped um assess the vacancy rate. Yeah.

Um so they again this is assuming 64 spaces on an average. I think we're you would see the most users of that parking lot is in July. Yeah. Is what we hear. So that I think that's when we would see maybe uh challenges the greatest challenges to the 64 spaces. But

so that's been a concern is that there's already concern in the summertime with parking generally in the downtown area. Now I'm a believer that every time I use the transit center in the summer, there's tons of spaces. So, I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I'm saying I didn't know if the number was at the very highest peak we have 64 spaces on or if it's just an average because if it's an average in the summer, it's going to be less um spaces available, which is going to cause some friction. Um, my point is along kind of a little bit of what Kip was kind of alluding to is this like concurrent idea of starting with something that makes sense in the short term, but then we have a vision and a plan for the long term. Now, you know, you talk about the Schlutoter floral um, parking space. If an old main sells, depending on what they need and who's there, there could be an opportunity for uh, you know, public private partnership or whoever buys it to do a parking garage with them behind there. There could be an opportunity for a parking garage at the transit center like we've talked about, which is already slated and ready to kind of go in. Um, I just am trying to think like if we're doing this, we should and we're going to do it in the short term, which I'm fine. Like I'm here for it. I I I would rather do that than hold these spaces hostage for it because I don't think that's highest and best use. I don't think option two in my mind is highest and best use at all. Mason Center parking I don't love turning more parking like area. However, the current parking area is a total disaster and a mess. And I think that if we did it smart, um, it could service Buckley Park and Mason Center better, um, and then utilize us for the short term potentially, and then there's a long-term gain. But then it just brings us back to the question, if we're going

to build a parking garage, we need to say like, we can't afford it on our own, so we're going to have to go with a partnership because if we can afford it on our own, why would we not just put it there? Does that make sense? Like where we're already planning.

Yes. I would say that uh I mean from my angle the best scenario is partnering with the county and building a parking garage right there. I mean that's absolutely the the perfect scenario. I think it works in a lot of different ways and I'm not trying to talk to the county and speak for them, but I do think they have needs and I think that's absolutely long-term. Bam. That's how it works. That's just going to take time for us to have the funding and them to have the funding and if that's a decision they want to do with that property. Uh, and then once that happens, I think all of this then begins to go away. So, kind of as I look at all of it, all of these are really temporary. They don't lock you into anything of like this will be our parking forever and ever. Uh, I think there's always those discussions that we can have to say no, our our intention is to do a parking garage at some point either here or there. Uh, and that's the long-term goal, but right now this is how we satisfy those needs.

And then anything with Mason Center, it's such a jewel. Like just like Buckley Park, like it's such a jewel of our community. like there will have to be crazy outreach and community engagement. Yes. If we're going to do anything different over in that area and like talking to, you know, how can we make it better, not just serve our needs.

Sure. Uh absolutely. I mean, and I think that for the council, this was kind of where uh a response to the the need for information for you all to see kind of where we're thinking. Uh but I think there's still every one of these options still has more to work on uh to get to a final part. That's why we're not providing you a recommendation yet. Uh but these study sessions do help us kind of gauge where maybe some concerns are or some thoughts are uh from the council. So before we come with a recommendation, we've kind of at least had a little bit of an opening dialogue with you all.

And then there was a comment made and I just want to make sure because I believe we did abatement at the Mason Center already. Correct. When we demoed, we demoed some and then that was already done. Correct. Because I heard someone made a comment about that and I feel like we did it already. Correct. There was asbestous abatement completed for the portions that were demoed. So the demo not gymnasium. We're going to need to look into that. Great. Thanks.

Uh my only last question was and maybe it's for you as a um so we're using potentially the sale of the current PD in city hall to offset the cost of the new PD in city hall. um when you say go to the building um you know is there an anticipated budget with that in terms of like how that offsets and then what happens if we don't sell one what do we give up in the the facility potentially?

Yeah. So all of those things are are here and I want to make sure that it it's clear that from the beginning uh from the very be very beginning of the presentation this was always the plan. We would sell these two plots and that money would go into the building. We have been having these conversations as we continue with 30 and 60% design as we're getting through it as to if we don't sell these, what then do we have to take away from the building. Uh but we're not complete with design yet. So we don't have I don't have that answer for you to say these are what would be taken away. Right now we are seeing a comfortability level of can we still find a way to sell these by using other parking areas to go through.

Okay. I wonder maybe to your point, Kip, I I don't necessarily want to see more parking on Third A, but you know, I did some quick math. You know, if we use 78 at the current or at the the on-site of the new PD city hall, we'll use 64 at um gosh, what is it? Um at the the transit center. Thank you. Um, and then if we have 14th Mason Center, that gives us 156 with potentially some bike racks to get us down to that number. What would you have any sort of conversation around if we double the parking at the Mason Center with that 28 and then keep 14 for potentially other people to use that facility or use the asset, then 14 would go strictly towards the the new PD city hall. So then that way we're getting us close. We're still providing parking for others to be able to use the the assets downtown. Um, so maybe that could potentially be an option, but do I love the idea of making a new parking spot? No. But I I'm trying to think of like how can we make this best work?

I I didn't quite understand. Are you talking about that as a temporary solution and then those parking spaces at Mason turned back into community use? Yeah, if if if that would be the temporary use, I I I would the only thing that I I would say is that I would I warn against the use of the word temporary just because the PD was temporarily used for 62 years. So, I really want to make sure that whatever we're doing, there's a vision and an expectation that we are going to continue to to yeah to to plot forward and and in and finding the permanent solution. Um, and so yeah, I would I anticipate that would go back to public use and we would, you know, that the only reason I say that there's 14 spots available. I dropped my kid off for D.VO, You know, during the summer for for DVO summer camps all week and that parking lot for that 30 minutes with kids dropping off gets chaotic and full and kids riding their bikes and if all of a sudden that spot is all those spots are full and we're dropping kids off, they're have to find either find an ancillary place to do that or it's just going to be too congested to and it might become unsafe. I I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like whatever we can do to eventually find some sort of wiggle room wherever we can. I'm just gonna caution everybody to not commit to positions.

No, no. I'm just trying to talk about ideas, you know, of No, it's been great so far, but that one seems like it might be soliciting a commitment from one of your

No, no, no. I I apologize if that was coming across that way. I was just trying to figure out creative use of these facilities that we have to try to create or try to get to the number that we need. Um, any other questions or comments from council? Go. Well, thank you, John. Um, you presented exactly what I was intending that um, we look at the parking situation since we hit a little roadblock. And I do appreciate all the work you have completed to give us all these options. And then there's also other ideas here that um, can fuel our conversation. But thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. All right. Thank you very much, John. Appreciate your time. Thank you all.

All right, moving on to section three, staff presentations. Good afternoon, mayor and city council. I'm Bob Bremer, assistant city manager, and today's presentation is an executive summary with the long with the the topic of Durango Fire Service consolidation history and potential future considerations by the council. Uh, this presentation aligns primarily with our strategic plan of safety and quality of life. And first, I'm going to give an overall history of the Durango Fire Protection District and how it came to be and how we entered into a contract with them um several years ago. So fire service collaboration in Durango area began in 1996 when the city of Durango Animus Fire Protection District and Hermosa Cliff Fire Protection District initiated formal studies to evaluate the most effective and sustainable model for delivering emergency services. These analysis consistently demonstrated that unified system would improve response capabilities, increase operational efficiency, and reduce long-term costs. This work led to the formation of the Durango Fire Rescue Authority or DFRA which began operations in January 1st of 2002, marking the first major step in consolidation. This agreement was unanimously approved by all participating agencies. At the same time, Mercy Hospital integrated its ambulance service into DFRA and enhancing prehosp medical care across the region. From the outset, the regional leadership identified a single governmental entity as the most sustainable long-term solution. In 2006, voters approved a creation of Durango Fire Protection District or DFPD as is currently known. However, the necessary funding mech funding mechanism, a mill levy, was not approved.

A second attempt in 2011 also failed primarily due to the concerns from city residents and businesses that about transitioning from a sales tax supported model to a new property tax. In response, stakeholders developed a revised approach. In 2012, the city of Durango was excluded from the district boundaries but entered into a long-term service agreement funded through the general sales tax fund. This allowed the remaining district voters to consider a mill levy mill levy independently of the district. In thou in November of 2013, this strategy succeeded and district voters approved the mill levy and city voters approved a 15-year service agreement. On January 1st, 2014, DFPD officially began operations as a single provider of fire and emergency services, completing an 18-year transition from concept to full operational cons uh consolidation. The legacy districts were then formally dissolved shortly thereafter. So currently um the district residents pay an approximately 12.65 mills for fire services while city residents contribute approximately 8.537 mills from collected sales tax uh and from property tax and another 3.7521 mil equivalent from the general fund sales tax in subsidy. Inclusion of the district would require an additional 3.7521 mills from the city residents, creating parody while eliminating the need for a city subsidy, freeing up about $3 million in the general fund to be allocated for other programs like police, transit or housing, for example. In 2005, uh the city procured the services of Matrix Consulting Group to evaluate the services rendered by the city from the contract with the Durango Fire Protection District. evaluate the options and continue service for from past exp for past the expiration date of the service agreement which expires on

December 31st, 2028. The full scope of the valuation include is also included in your packet and the recommendations by Matrix Consulting included these three options right here. One is a contract renewal. Um that does have an estimated increase to the city's contribution to either $15 million or $18 million annually. And that depends on the methodology that's adopted at the time for the new contract. One would be a service rendered uh model. The other would be based off of population. And why is why is this important is because the amount of service demand within the city limits in 2004 um is the numbers I have. So, if you look at the total calls for service that the district has in 2024, they had 6,469 calls for service with 4,722 occurring within the city limits and 1,747 outside of the city limits. And if we go with a population-based contract, the city accounts for about 60.6% of the district's population and consumes about 67.8% of the overall call volume for the fire district at this time. Uh second option is the creation of a municipal fire department with initial startup cost of about $86 million to purchase the infrastructure equipment and hiring of personnel with an annual operating cost of about $1 million annually or annexation into the fire district which will require a uh vote for the city residents. And that's really the topic for today. So also included your packet in much greater detail are the specifications of each one of the elections that I've outlined here. This is just a general overview um of what the details of each one of these elections are and the dates that we'd be required to either notify the county clerk um for upcoming elections within the time period of the contract that we currently have. If the council decides um to move forward with the future election to consider a ballot question to annex into the district, the structure will be determined at a later

date. Um, also for the council to consider are several key lessons that we have learned over past election attempts and previous efforts. It's a fully unified governance in the funding were hindered by an unclear communication um with the voters particularly regarding how city general fund revenues would be reallocated under the district funding model. Um, this uncertainty with the voters contributed significantly to voter resistance. And other considerations are any future effort to include the city within DFPD boundaries will depend on two critical factors. One is clear financial communication. We as a city must articulate how the general fund resources would be repurposed in a way that benefits our residents. And two, the demonstration of the value of inclusion. And there's multiple areas in this, but some of the highlighted ones are inclusion provides governance and participation on the fire board um to include voting rights and board representation and aligns the funding equity across all of the different service recipients within the district itself. At this point, I'm here to answer any further questions that you may have. Councor Bob, that was a blizzard of numbers. Thank you for that. So, um I was uh thinking that we I would have the pleasure of grilling uh Chief Black on this one. So, some of these questions I just may need to get answers from him on. Um the report was great. Um I appreciate that. Um but I have some questions on salary increases over the last couple of years. I think that's a his question, correct? And as well as

understanding is uh they model their salary structure based off of what ours is. They actually use the same consultant. Um but they try to create that so there's not parity between our two different agencies. So I'm sorry. Does that answer if I should ask him about the budget in there's 25 25% salary increase from 2022 to 2025. Is that a question for him? The compensation studies that they did. Okay.

I don't have specific details on how that how that occurred, but I know they use the same consultant as we did and their goal was to align with um our police department because of the the relationship with the with the the structure. So is I worry that I'm going down a rabbit hole here, but is there a worry that 25% increases every three years is what we'd be looking at if we go as far as like which Well, I guess the real question is is is like what model we want to go with. Yeah. Okay. Do we want to include in the district? Do we want to try to continue to potentially buy a fire department or are we going to, you know, extend our contract at some level?

Yeah. Um so you know those are really the future considerations of the council to decide on which structure it's going to go to. But if uh if we do decide to go down a um the road of districtricting and going into the district, that's what today's conversation is about is which we'd have to move to a new business item obviously for a council decision, but then to decide which election option is going to be um the result of that because right now the uh the consultant is recommending that we try to annex into the in into the district itself.

Establishing our own fire district, municipal fire department is insane to me. So, I I I don't know if we can just start dropping that out of all the mix of this, but it does seem to clutter what we're talking about from my perspective at least. So, I'll throw that out there. Um, the Okay, so I think I'm going to avoid some of the financial questions because I think I can I can ask those of commander uh um Chief Black. What are the costs to the commercial businesses for the proposed move into the the the district then? So, I believe the commercial districts would be paying the vast majority of this cost. I don't have a specific breakdown on what that is. Finance would have to help me break that down. But obviously the businesses I think they pay I'll say upwards of 29 mills or so um compared to the residential mill which is much low less than that.

Yeah. So so getting those numbers would be very interesting for for my perspective. Um, I think some discussion on ways that we blunt the tax impact on our commercial businesses that would happen with a move into the district because we've just freed up some general funds. How how do we discount other costs to those commercial businesses to help blunt the tax increase that would happen to them? I think there's some element there that I would love to have some discussion on too. I don't know about the rest of council. That's just one one counselor. Um, and then is there an election timeline um, preference or suggestion that you've got related to the fact that if it passes, no problem. If it doesn't pass, we need time to have plan B on whatever we're going to do. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. Uh, and so I think the April uh, 27 bout would probably be the best um, speaking with everybody involved to include the county clerk um, and our finance or our clerk as well. So, it just seems less clutter. It's not November, it's in the spring. Um, you know, I talked to Tiffany yesterday. She believed that, you know, the the the spring elections on an odd year are probably the best option for us as as a municipality. Is there is there merit in having a option B if it doesn't pass under an election discussion as we go along? Or do you think if it didn't pass in the April election, we'd have enough time to figure out what option B is?

Well, I think that would be the the, you know, the the decision by council. We went out in April of 27 and if say we fail then we have two more shots at an election if we want to try to revamp the language for a ballot and or move into a modified contract. But we know that the allocated costs of that are going to be much more extreme and we're going to have to find that money somewhere. Okay. Thanks. That's what I was looking for. Thank you, Councelor Gonzalez. Thank you. So, I'm a little confused. So perhaps um you can get me some clarity. So either way the voters have to approve something in November.

No, only if we go to inclusion into the district through annexation. That would be the only way. If we decide to do our own fire department, if we decide to go with a contract, those would be issues that the the council would have to decide on. And those would be the negotiations we would have to work into with the district to either purchase a department at an extreme amount of cost, which as as you can see is is very high, or a modified contract, which would extend the services. But again, those costs would escalate based off of our service usage and our population as compared to uh the rest of the district. So, I think those would be some of the considerations to look into. And given um I don't know I you you do show a timeline here. So we then as a council would just decide we want to go ahead and continue under the same um uh program process that we've been using. we could just continue to do that with a vote of this council before November.

Uh well, so the the the contract expires December 31st of 2028. So if we're going to enter into a new contract, we would need direction from the council to pursue with those negotiations at that time before 28. Okay. Okay. So um and then the other question um I wanted to ask is there um like community satisfaction surveys? Do people feel like the current system is serving them well as far as the contract with the city and not being included in the district or no just their satisfaction of the services they provide? Uh that would have to be a question for Chief Black um since they're an outside agency and we contract to them. Okay. So we don't have that. we wouldn't conduct that survey or information or anything.

Yeah. But I'm sure Chief Black could probably answer the question for you. Okay. Um and uh you know I guess um I understand you know trying to bring or create a city-owned department would be quite an arduous process. Um what happens to the existing facilities? Do we have to buy them? Do we buy equipment from them or what would that look like?

If we decide to buy if we decided to create our own Durango Fire Department, we would have to buy their stations. The the consulting group identified, I think, three stations within the city to be able to provide the level service that they currently experience. We'd have to buy all the fire trucks. We'd have to buy all the equipment that's associated to that. Um, and then we would have to hire the personnel from the fire department, plus provide them benefits, you know, all the other things go along with it. And that's what that $86 million price tag is is taking into consideration. Okay. Um Okay. I think that's all I have. Thank you, Councelor Le.

Yeah. Um I did um want to say we two years ago we had a huge study session with the fire department um and us where we were like sat there for like two hours and I think a lot of the salary questions and the survey questions they they had all that presented. We were there for hours, I feel like. And so I'm sure if you reached out to Randy, he would send the maybe the presentation there. They had a full presentation with like a lot of that because there was a lot of I asked a lot of questions about salary stuff too um during that one. So just wanted to throw that out there. Um, two, I agree with councelor Koso like this talk of us continuing to start our own fire department is like but I will say that we had a counselor previously that insisted that we looked at that option. Um, and so I think that like saying that we have and you know I think that I agree it's it does muddy the waters.

They said it was going to be $5 million too. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I just wanted to say that okay, we listened and we heard and now we're moving on because that doesn't seem to be like a viable option for the city obviously um financially. Um I want I think one of the biggest things is um we have a potential of four elections that we could go after this mill levy for. Not that we would ever do four obviously. Um I think it's important that we have a communication plan to un to ensure that voters understand the whole it's a big topic right we used to have the fire department in the city and then we didn't and we don't have a vote on the board and this is how we can change it. It's going to be the last presentation we gave it was a phased approach to the mill levy. Correct. That we would not it's not like we're just going to like put the whole charge at them. Correct.

That's correct. Yes. That was like a tier like that would need to be communicated. That was a recommendation that came from Matrix as well. I mean, there's there's a lot of ways to skin this cat. Um, if we do go forth and we do want to if the council does provide us direction to go forth with an election in order to get into the district, there's lots of structural mechanisms that we can do. We just haven't had that conversation yet of what that could be. Um, so again, that would have to be something we'd have to come back on and that would be in the ballot language specifically. So, we would have to come up with what that ballot language is, that structure, um, so on so forth once to get the voter approval to get within the annexation of the district. The last time we had a conversation about this, it was a study session or was it in a council meeting?

Uh, study session. We've had kind of two conversations about this. This are the um parts of what's out there for this council that are going to be major financial decisions that need to be made. Uh, this is one and then you still had like transit and you had housing and then we have our water and sewer infrastructure. So, the this one is just one that the clock is ticking. there's nothing that any of us can do at the end of December 31 of 2028. Our contract's out. Uh so we've got to make some sort of decision. This isn't one right now where we're asking you for, but it's just kind of just like, hey, here's a

a little bit of a reminder. This is still here. Uh, and we probably looks like maybe the April 27 is something that we can not asking for y'all to concur or anything on that, but uh, more of a reasonable date for us to maybe look at a first try and maybe begin to start kind of building something for staff to keep bringing back updates of what that might look like. I thought it was a council meeting. We made a decision, so I was confused, but clearly not. I made that up in my head. No, no decision made. And then if we decide, like councelor Gonzalez was talking about, if we decide we're not going to go to election, we're going to just renew the contract, the contract will go up. Correct. It's anticipated. Yes. Um conversations I've had. Yes.

Yeah. He made it very clear, I think, in one meeting sometime that we've had that that that the current $9 million is not the rate that it would be. Do you have that on a slide? I thought you did. Um so I've got a breakdown on it. And so if we Yeah, because right now we're paying about $9 million. Yeah. Um that's going to go up, you know, because the assessed values, you know, so it's going to go up to probably $11 million. Okay. Um and then, you know, with the And then if we do a modified contract, that's the slide I referenced earlier, that would be the $15 to $18 million. So um these are kind of the options that are out there right now.

All right. Thank you. Um, like councelor Koso, I would I would like to know the decision if whatever decision we make and what the commercial property impact, but like I also want to know what the homeowner impact is, you know, for, you know, average and then kind of what that means for for folks in our community um, in terms of what they're going to have to pay out on a six-month and yearly basis. Um, and then say we get the worst case scenario, we go to ballot November 2028, it doesn't pass. Do we leave ourselves enough room to get a contract signed, the ink is dried, and something in place before December 31st?

If we're waiting till 28, it's going to be tight. Um, hopefully we'll have done the work previous to that as kind of a plan B would be my suggestion on that one. That's why I'm suggesting probably the April 27th for about that way it gives us more time um to work through their board, the council um through our attorneys to come up with something that may be reasonable on that area. Uh but right now if we do go into the annexation, the per capita cost per resident is actually less than it would be if we continue to go with a modified contract with the results of of the con consultant that uh provided those numbers to us.

Okay, great. Thanks so much, Bob. Any other questions or comments? Excellent. Thank you. Just a side question. Do we have this planned to be kind of coming back in front of us every 3 months, every six months? Get Chief Black in here. I I just would love a idea of cadence.

Sure. Uh do we have anything formalized? No. This is kind of just a friendly reminder for the council that this is this is here. I think uh one of the parts of it just trying to see if we've missed the November 26 portion of it. I don't think anyone's itching to go that fast. So, I think we'll look at the April uh and then present to a plan for council of here's how we could see April working and here's how maybe we have a joint meeting with DFPD and have another presentation and kind of start being able to plan that out. Thank you. And we'd have to make notification to the county by December 11th, I believe, if we're going to do an April initiative. Great. Thanks, M. All right, moving on to 3.2 with parking.

Good afternoon, mayor, city councilors. Thank you for having us. I'm Tracy Shonder, parking operations manager,

and I'm Hunter Yol, lead customer service specialist. and we are fall under reliable infrastructure and community and connectivity and we're here to give an update on some of our current programs and parking division goals and first up is our peak demand meter pricing tis the season we are now in that that window uh which started on May 1st and will end on October 31st since 2020 we've been doing audits on a weekly basis to assess the compliance of the meter this count also gives us a basis on occupancy during our busiest time of day, which is our lunch hour. Since our adoption of the comprehensive parking management plan in 2022, we needed to address increasing the rates at the meter to redistribute parking to underutilized areas. We received council approval to increase the hourly rate of 25 cents annually based on occupancy over 80%. 80% is our baseline for justifying an increase by block. We are capped on our increase of $150 an hour. Uh based on what we are seeing, this rate of $150 an hour isn't a big enough impact uh to redistribute that occupancy at other blocks. And this map gives you our current hourly rates as they are right now. Um and as you can see the sections in blue are $150 hourly rate and then uh our lowest rate is 50 cents an hour. Some locations have never changed um or received an increase. And I will pass it off to Hunter to give an update on our data collection. Um so our vacancy rate data collection is data dating back to 2013. The collection times of the data were historically at 9:00 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. This year for 2026,

we've changed the collection times to include a later 4:30 p.m. time frame. The goal is with that 4:30 p.m. data collection time frame, we can start to collect data for the evenings and get a clearer picture of what both downtown and the neighborhoods look like. This year, we are changing the percentage categories and reporting for the VRDC map to better for better clarity on what the parking situation is looking like. Um, so we're going to change the percentage categories on the map. The new changes will show more accurate and detailed data and is in better alignment with our parking management plan. The major change is coming from defining capacity at 85% rather than 90%. So this shows our March 2025 VRDC map and compares the old versus new percentages. On the left we have the old and on the right we have the new measurements moving forward. The numbers used for the data are the same, but we believe the new reporting portrays a much more accurate visualization of the parking situation in Durango. The old percentage categories measured available parking spaces and they would define capacity at anything greater than 90%. Close to capacity was 11% to 25%. And easy to find available parking in the green was defined as anywhere from 26% to 100% available. So for BRDC in 2026, we're starting by defining what we seek to capture. We're going to change the term available to occupied. We think this is more useful in understanding where people are parking. Next, we've redefined our percentage categories in alignment with the parking management plan, which defines effective capacity at anything greater than 85% occupied. We've then added another bucket to capture those areas that are close to and approaching effective capacity, which we're highlighting in orange. We think the addition of this allows us to better track trends and be proactive in understanding the parking situation. I think it's important to note that the

lower boundary of our orange distinction, so anywhere from 70 to 74% occupied would have been green on the previous maps. Next, we have yellow effectively showing that half to 69% occupied range. And anything under half occupied is green, meaning you can find parking no problem. And here's Tracy to talk about our mobile payment. Thank you. Uh we partnered with Park Mobile last year and we just hit our one-year anniversary on March 31st with our mobile payment integration. Uh the payment option is available at all metered locations as well as the transit center for $5 a day. Um the visual graph shows an annual income from payments at the meter versus payments annually income for 2025 comparing apples to apples um from April to December. Uh the use of mobile payments has been pretty steady with almost 11% usage uh with locals and visitors versus payment at the meter. We heard often from locals that they prefer this uh payment method option as it's more convenient, easy to use, and they have less stress of not having to rush back and finding a ticket on their window. Um at this time it is it's a big hit with the locals. and I'll kick it back over to Hunter.

Um, so next we wanted to talk a little bit about how parking defines success as a department. This is some of our behind-the-scenes work that doesn't necessarily get seen, but demonstrates why understanding these areas leads to decisions that are strategic and align with our trails to excellence initiative. So, we're currently in the process of creating a PowerBI parking dashboard that utilizes all of our data tracking and can help us portray and to find success within the department. Here are some KPIs that we currently track as well as areas we're seeking to track. Um, so here's an example of that process. So by understanding the utilization and demand KPI, we can start to track trends through our occupancy rate data. This helps us identify underused and over congested areas. By being able to identify trends within the data, we can shift to proactive decision-m rather than being reactionary. So defining success within this goal would be to disperse parking throughout the central business district and manage that 85% occupancy occupancy rate as capacity. And then here's Tracy to talk about our permit program.

Thank you. So we have a new pilot program, downtown employee parking permit program. Uh over the years we've been hearing from locals that we needed to offer more affordable parking options for downtown workers. Without the support of city council and approval to subsidize the program with lodgers tax, this program would not have been as successful. Uh the main attraction is the lower cost to locals, additional locations than other than the lots and passes are transferable between the employees. In 2025, we had 98 unique businesses who participated in the program from May to December with 1392 monthly permits purchased. And 2026 kicked off with many of the same businesses from the previous year with a program amounting to 100 unique businesses with 2100 monthly permits purchased so far this year. A 33% increase from 2025 in just 4 months. This program has been the most attractive and popular permit option of the offer others we offer. It It's definitely a home run with the locals. And just an update on our wayfinding signage plan.

Yes, you um and this is our newest project. Thank you, city council. We received the funding and approval to put out an RFP for a wayfinding signage plan. And we are excited about this project and we think that our community will greatly benefit uh with updated signage and can greatly reduce congest congestion and confusion downtown. Our parking layout and signage is currently difficult to navigate for both first time first-time users uh visitors and longtime residents. Public parking locations are not clearly identified resulting in driver frustration, inefficient circulating, and spill over into the neighborhoods. We want to achieve a wellthoughtout and executable plan. And here is kind of a timeline of what this plan is. Uh we are currently in the decision process of selecting a consultant um and selecting a project team for this project. Uh we're looking to have a kickoff meeting in June with public engagement in the fall and an estimate of about eight months from start to finish. The final product will be a bid ready with bid ready with phased implementation plan and a couple of sample products to choose from. And that concludes our presentation for today. Um everything that we presented on is in alignment with our parking management plan. Um, and with that, I'll give it up with questions if anybody has any.

Thanks very much. Uh, councelor Koso, Tracy, thanks. Appreciate you guys, uh, giving the presentation. So, um, it seems like the$150 the increase hasn't necessarily changed behavior. So, any indication that $2 is going to make a difference, $ 250, or do you feel like there's not not a necessarily a price sensitivity to getting people to move to lower used spaces? I think there's definitely a cost associated with that. What that price point is, we haven't hit that capacity yet. Okay. So, if $150 hasn't worked to try and move something, we're probably going to have to talk about moving it up. Correct.

$2, something along those lines. Okay. Um, is there a discount for using the mobile versus the coins? And is there a uh is it much easier for your department to deal with the mobile? I think that's a yes, but rather than collecting coins. But um is is there any discount or have we ever talked about uh there is no additional discount with mobile payment? It is actually a 40% co 40 cent um charge to the user. Okay. So it is a convenience fee. No matter if I put in for an hour or two hours, I I'm also paying 40 cents on top of that. That goes to the app developer or whatever. Correct. Okay. Okay. Um, is it better for you to have mobile use or coins? Absolutely. Mobile is uh mobile's way better no matter what. Okay, great.

Yes. Um, revenue loss for employee parking program. Has there has there been any kind of computation of has that benefit far outweighed what the cost is to to budget? We have not seen a decrease in revenue so far, but I don't have the hard numbers at this moment. So, it's been a win-win so far. Absolutely. Okay, good. And then last, um, any, uh, thoughts around before after measurements for the wayfinding? Would love to in some way, shape, or form feel like we we've implemented brand new wayinding for hundreds of thousands of dollars and we actually had some measurements to sit there and say it improved things. Absolutely. Yeah, we that would be our measurement of success, okay,

is seeing a change in impact and that is part of our uh request with the consultants as well is helping us how to measure before and then gauge success after. Great. Thank you very much. Uh, Mayor Pton Lawyer.

Yeah. Um, couple questions or thoughts. First, the employee downtown parking program. I've heard nothing but amazing things about it. Thank you guys so much for doing that. Um, I love the increased numbers. So, that's great. And then the app uh, mobile parking. Have you noticed that more locals are using it? Has that 11% increase keeps increasing or has it just been 11% across the board since we started it? Well, we are in our first year, so we don't have a huge baseline, but it is um it's kind of fluctuated with the season. Um but we haven't seen a a spike at all. We started at about 9 8% use.

Have we done some like press releases to locals about it? Like I know the first time I used it, I was trying to like get it all together. This was a while ago and it took me forever and then I got irritated and so I just put my credit card on the machine and then once I like sat down and like uploaded my information and put my license plate in. Like it is the best thing ever. Like it gives you like a notice like you have 10 minutes left. I'm like add do you want to add 50 cents? Yes, please. Like it's like the best thing. I don't have to run out. I love it. But in that moment when I was rushing I couldn't download it. Does that make sense? Like have you reached out to locals?

Yes it does. Um, you know, we we did not do anything other than um put any uh information out on our website. Um, we do branding on every single meter though. We should we should release some information, Tom. We did work with BID. Talking in between you. Sorry. We did work with BID when we uh rolled out the program um who worked with local businesses as well. Cool. Um, last summer, I think it was, maybe it was two summers ago, I don't even know now. We did free parking on like the narrow gauge and some of the underutilized stuff. Are we doing that again this year? No.

No, we did not do that this year. Um, but the employee permit program was kind of in place at that. Yeah. Okay, perfect. And then I remember when we got the parking plan, whatever it's called, comprehensive study out, there was like seven quick wins, right, that we could like or six or I don't remember the exact number of it. And I remember the neighborhood parking program which did not stick. That's okay. We tried. But then the meter, the app was one of them. The wayfinding signage which we're sounds like we're doing now. Um which is great. Um is there anything else on there that we're implementing that we've done that's working or not?

Um there are some other options we're looking into. Um but there are some restrictions within our um contracts at the moment. All right. Thank you. Great. Any other questions or comments by council? All right. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. On to 3.3, Miss Lapco.

All right. Good afternoon. Jamie Lapco from Community Development. uh wanted to kind of give you an introduction to our comprehensive plan. Um knowing that it's imminent where we're going to be uh rewriting our comprehensive plan and coming before you again. So wanted to kind of give you an update on what is a comprehensive plan and um how we utilize that. Um so our comprehensive plan is design support uh and complement our strategic plan. So it does um complement all the elements of our our goal plan. Um and so what is a comprehensive plan? Word cloud is kind of all of the ideas people throw out there of what a comprehensive plan is going to cover, but it really is it's a long range plan for the city. Um, it's supposed to capture our vision, but of it's supposed to be of where we want to be at some point in the future. It's it's meant to identify our growth of where we want to go. Um, so the term comprehensive suggests it's supposed to be all-incclusive, analyzing, evaluating future growth. Um, sometimes referred to as a master plan or a general plan. and in other communities. Um it lays the groundwork for our land use and development code um and supports uh coordinated and sustainable uh decision-m um so it's considered an advisory document uh rather than strictly binding regulations like our land use code is. So its purpose um its principal purpose is to guide uh the achievement of goals and aspirations. Um it's supposed to be a blueprint of our future development, our preservation of the community and some of the key purposes um are guiding development. It's um meant to be a roadmap for orderly growth. Um ensuring that new development aligns with our community's vision. Uh a legal basis for our zoning. Um it does serve as a foundation for our zoning, our subdivision, our land use, uh regulations, community visioning. It's going to incorporate extensive public interest input um to help us set those long-term goals for community's growth.

um infrastructure and funding. It can be used to support um capital uh improvements as well as grant applications and then regulatory compliance. Um there are some uh things that will come down from the state that we are required to include in this. So relationship to the strategic plan um the comprehensive plan is long-term. It's going to look out 10 20 plus years. It's wide ranging um looking at all the community systems that will include and touch on housing and land use and transportation infrastructure long-term growth establishes big picture vision vision and policy direction for our growth. Whereas a strategic plan is a shorter term usually 1 to five years. It's going to focus on more specific targets or things that are priorities that have and has clear action or direction behind it. So from our strategic plan um it says it outlines objectives influencing our budget process guiding implementation of city services set priorities that align with the organizational strategy motivate energy resources and well-being strengthen operations ensure organization is working to achieve goals mission vision and values to best serve the Durango community. So they're going to kind of work in complimentary uh in conjunction with one another. So, let's look at the requirements. Um, the state of Colorado Department of Local Affairs does require municipalities with a population of 2,000 or more to have a general comprehensive plan for land use. So, this slide is going to show you both what's required and recommended from the state. Um, the top row, your future lean induced three- mile plan, water supply, strategic growth, and housing are required things that we have to cover. The communitydriven engagement, hazard mitigation, water quality and action plan are things that are recommended to be included. So within each of our elements or chapters of the comprehensive plan, we'll have goals, objectives, and policies. So we'll have a goal of what is trying to be achieved.

Um objective of how um these issues can be addressed to achieve the desired results and then our policies of the spe more specific steps of how we get in to address those issues. Um but in addition to that we will have maps in there. That's where our future land use map is. Um and that is where we look at um our densities of how much we want to have in our growth. And so as part of um this we do look at growth scenarios of where do we want to go? How would this impact our infrastructure? And so that'll be part of the process when we uh look at updating our future land use and three-mile plan. And the three-mile plan is a requirement that we look at three miles outside the existing boundary of the city um and also include that in our land use map in case we want to annex those areas. So our current plan was stopped in 2017 um contains all the elements that are listed on the slide um as well as our three mile plan and future land use map. Um, and so staff uses this as a a guide um when reviewing and development proposals within the city as well as in our joint planning area. So comprehensive plans are supposed to be reviewed every 5 years and updated or rewritten about every 10. So we're coming up on 10 years. So at this point we are looking at doing a uh a full update or rewrite of our comprehensive plan. So we have conducted an RFP and we actually selected a consultant yesterday. Um so we will be moving forward with that. Um, and it will include, we've given them a lot of topics to include within that. Um, there won't be all of these chapters. We will combine them in certain areas, but I wanted to give you an idea of all the things that we're going to try to touch on and bring together within the comprehensive plan. So, this is the phases that we are looking at. Um, it kind of lays out the proposed process and timeline that we're looking at. Um, we will have a kickoff with the, uh, consultant in the near future. We'll give them some background, our other plans. They'll begin reviewing

that uh in the process and then the community engagement plan will be one of the big first steps that we do with them looking at what initiatives we want to have and uh where we want to have those within the timeline. But phase two of that is going to be running the growth scenarios of where we want to go. Um and then we do have a state requirement for a water supply and smart growth. Those are new things that are required. those are not currently within our code and technically those are required by the end of 2026. Uh so our initial intent was bring forward the strategic uh the smart the smart growth and the water supply by the end of 26 and then round out into 27 for the full plan. Um we have recently found out that we can work with the state and the consultants to be able to still do it in one full initiative and the state will allow us to roll into 27 as long as we're working on those elements to make it a more cohesive process. So I would envision us probably doing the one full process instead of coming to you by the end of 20 to 26 with two elements and then coming back to you with a full plan on 27. Um so that's the intent of where we are uh with a with a plan. Community engagement wise um we have a lot of opportunities for this um with public workshops. Um we are planning to do a lot on the front end um to inform people to get ideas of where they want things to head to make sure we're including that in their growth scenarios. Um we do have um the engaged Durango website. It will have its own dedicated page for that. We'll have online engagement opportunities. We'll post um documents on there for people to be able to review where we are in the process. um we'll be out at the farmers market and other pop-up events um social media open houses and of course community development commission and council. Um the process for the actual formal adoption is a um going to the community development commission for a a study session but then also having a public hearing and then it's adopted by resolution at council. So it's a a shorter process for the actual adoption

but we will have many many opportunities for the public to be involved before it gets to this point. Then lastly, wanted to just give you an idea how is the comprehensive plan used. Um, it guides how we grow our services, our systems, and um, it doesn't spell out every every detail. Instead, it's going to try and connect with some of our other plans um, like our parks and recreation plan, our multimodal plan. We'll try to connect some of those plans together um, and offer guidance uh, for particular parts of the city. Um and so it will be used in several of these areas for like development and land use. That's what the planning and comdev uses on a regular basis. We look at our future land use map. We look um a lot of our applications will ask us for compliance with comprehensive plan or compatibility with a comprehensive plan. So that's where we're going to look at making sure we have goals and objectives and policies that we feel like will support those applications. Um it's used in decision-making. So when we bring an application to a community development commission or council, we will have that guidance from the comprehensive plan for that community engagement. Again, this is a living document similar to our land use code that if we need to make a change to it, it's something we can amend. And then lastly, planning and zoning. Um it's going to um give us guidance for our land and development code. Um in most instances, once somebody rewrites a comprehensive plan, it typically land use amendments do follow that. Um, and so that is all I have for the comprehensive plan.

Thank you very much, Jamie. Uh, councelor Koso. Thanks, Jamie. I appreciate it. So, comprehensive plans in the 10 years, I I I've always had a little bit of a trouble with them just because we've got staff turnover and the community can change so much within those 10 years. Um, do we look at success or failures from the last comprehensive plan and make that part of the presentation back to council? what we thought we were going to do 10 years ago and what actually happened.

Not necessarily fully in that manner. We will start with the existing comprehensive plan before we just throw it out and start over. And we will look at that to see, okay, if we accomplish some things, great. We'll take those off of the plate and we'll look at some of the other things to evaluate. Do we still want to go down that path? Do we is this still relevant? Um, so that'll be our starting point, but it's not usually the intent to bring it forward. Say, okay, we were successful in these areas and not in these, so we brought them forward. That's um typically I we will just bring forward a new plan to you based on the the input that we receive from the public. Is was there a review at 5 years? I know you weren't here, but do you know if there was a review done at 5 years of the comp plan and and was anything modified at that point? I am not aware of that.

I don't know about the rest of the council, but it'd be interesting to the exercise would be interesting just to see some kind of synopsis of what was intended with the plan 10 years ago and what actually was achieved on it. I'm I'm not I'm not sure what I'm asking for exactly, but there's just an element here. What I would love to see, do we need to institute something that gets a little bit more regular? If it's every two or three years, we're looking at the comp plan to make sure that we're trying to achieve these things, or are we putting everybody through a massive exercise and then it goes on a shelf and just doesn't get, you know, touched every 10 years. So,

typically what you'll see is is more a future land use map amendment where somebody's land use is not compatible with what they want to do. that's that'll be an amendment we bring forward. But I can tell you as part of the scope of work we've asked for from the consultant is a matrix at the end that um is something that will be heavily utilized to say okay here's a list of all of the things that we wanted to accomplish. Here's a timeline for those and we will be able to continue to track those. Um and the consultant will work with us for five strategies that okay a year down the road we were supposed to accomplish these things and if we didn't okay now where can we step in and hopefully get to those. So I think we'll have a better tracking mechanisms with the new plan. I I don't know. Is that of interest to the rest of council at all? I mean, is is there any merit in going back to the past or just start with a new comp plan and go forward? I mean personally I wouldn't mind seeing kind of where we were and but I I don't want to make a huge fulllength study session on it but I mean it would would it be interesting to see where we were 10 years ago and what those plans were and then how do we take some of those nuggets of information of what we planned on versus what we actually accomplished and then apply that to the next round I think could be beneficial but again I don't

maybe a top five things that were successful give us a 15inute hot shot on where it was but Y you know of where we were, what we did and then what are the takeaways as we institute this new one. looking is any overlap between the KPI strategic plan indicator you know how we have that made dashboard now is there any overlap I know there are different plans obviously but is there any overlap there that we could use to help with this information because I think it is good I mean I think it's good to know like when we throw something out there and say this is our goal like how much are we changing and there could be good reason for change right things change

yeah you look at Durango Mesa Yeah. Yeah. That something just wasn't there. Pickle ball courts. I mean, stuff that has just kind of popped up that's been totally it has something has to give when you do those things. And so it's not a bad thing. I just it's interesting. It it seems to me like there would be some merit in knowing what we did what we had said 10 years ago work on that might elevate a little bit from my thinking just as one counselor that we haven't been working on this for 10 years. it is still considered something of a priority and maybe we we'd look at it a little differently in regards to budgeting priorities etc. Don't know be good to know the genesis of why that was important 10 years ago you know um and why it was such a priority at the time.

Sorry Jamie that's a little vague broad thing there. you deserve better than that. But um but if we could maybe take a um I think that that covered my questions. Thank you. Okay, Council Yi. Um thank you for that broad overview of what um you're intending to do. I was curious. Okay, so you're just having the community engagement during the summer. Is it possible to do like more community engagement in the fall because a lot of families are gone on vacation during the summer?

Um we will um initially start things uh probably in Juneish but probably won't kick it up until probably August time frame. So probably the the bulk of the large engagement will be done fall and then again in the spring. Counselor Lawyer. Yeah. Speaking of 10 years ago, we didn't have like a housing or economic development division or whatever we have it's called. That's Thank you. Thank you. Prosperity Division. Um, how will this integrate into housing and economic development? Will this be like a new part of it? Because obviously it wasn't in our last comprehensive plan, right?

We did touch on economic development and a lot of the the art related items. Um, we will work with the creative district to continue to have that relationship there. Um and Prosperity will be a large partner in developing the plan. Okay. Yeah, things like that they've changed. So, okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh Councelor Gonzalez. Oh, okay. Um so, thank you. Um I know that these comprehensive PR plans are a requirement. Um and who requires them? the state of Colorado does. The Department of Local Affairs

is it um because it's required. There's no funding associated with it. You don't get a gold star. There's no reason. I mean, other than we are required to have a comprehensive plan, it almost like doesn't matter what's in it.

Comprehensive plans are used to delineate the land use and the growth patterns within the city. It doesn't dig down in those specifics of what kind of use you want here or what kind of um where do we want things in certain areas. It it looks at it from a broad perspective of okay what does it look like now and if we grow in this area in industrial or in commercial or number of residential what is the impact of our infrastructure and things like that to make sure that we're planning adequately for the future when we have applications come forward. So the comprehensive plan is really the the umbrella for our our development of our community and it's the land use is what what is going to start the driving force behind that. And some other states you're required to have a comprehensive plan in order to even have a zoning ordinance. Um so that's really what the premise came from uh in comprehensive plans. So um I I know some people really love the comprehensive planning process. It's it's um like you can be very technical. Um and and yet most communities actually don't go back and check the results. Is that fair or do we know? Um I know that some of my colleagues are asking like are there really any metrics associated with it? We're not asking for metrics here, right? doesn't matter what the metric if if we failed at every single one of them. We would still make the same plan. The comprehensive plan is is aspirational and and depending on how much we put in there, sometimes we put too much. You can't you're not going to get to all of it. Um but there are a lot of things in there that um we want to make sure we're looking towards those and that we're using those as a guide when we're approving developments. But yes, there are some plans that sit and collect dust and they're used only for planning applications and they're not tracked very well. But we're trying to create a mechanism to where we can track that and ensure that we're putting something in place that is

useful to the community. And so when you selected the consultant, what what did like how did you determine what consultant to use given that there were no metrics in place? Um we created a very lengthy scope of work of the expectations of what we wanted to have within the plan. Um and the amount of community engagement, the role the city would play within that and um initially um had 10 submittals we reviewed and and chose the top three to to bring in and do a more intense evaluation of meeting the state requirements for the strate growth and the u water supply elements. how they would handle the engagement part of it and what they would offer and bring to the table for that, how they would fold sustainability into different things. And so we used that as a guide as well and also creating um an ongoing ongoing implementation strategy for us, not something that's just going to sit and staff would have to go 5 years later to try to figure out, okay, what did we do? We're trying to make sure we create a an ability for us to monitor it on a regular basis to be able to ensure we're having success with the plan. Okay. Um Okay. Well, I I just I um I'm always reluctant with these because it's a ton of community work. It's a ton of community engagement. They're often very long. So, whomever is committed to participating in the plan like really has to be committed. Um I mean I don't know if if you have you mentioned there were certain stakeholder groups you know sometimes there are like a almost its own committee that's set up to review the plan um but that actually it it's really just to meet a requirement. So I I I just want to hope that you know we are um

hopefully getting sufficient metrics. I think you know that I'm concerned that you said we actually don't go back and check um what was done before. We're just you know we've got to do this plan because it's a requirement by the state and if we don't we don't get I don't know what the the I mean we don't get funding we don't get right but you know there and so anyway that's why I just hope that because it is so much work it's very labor intensive. How much was the consultant? uh we had a budget of up to $150,000.

So I know that these plans are very expensive often $150,000 for a consultant that really like it's just a compliance issue that we have to do because we're required to do it by the state. So um I mean I I I know that it has to be done and so you know that that's that. But having been involved in a couple of them before, they never really benefited the community. So hopefully we can do something different. Yes, ma'am. Councelor Chris

Jamie, just one last question. Do you know if the the comprehensive plans are they aspirational goals within the the comprehensive plan? Are they conservative goals? Are they just a mix of in between depending on the department? Is there any guide like that? No, there's no guidance. I mean, it can be whatever we want it to be. Um, and it it's they're usually actionoriented. They're not meant to be prescriptive. It's not going to say the city shall do this. It's going to say to consider doing this or evaluate doing this. Okay.

Um it's more looking at giving us opportunities to grow and to improve in areas that maybe we're not so certain of or maybe we want to evaluate something with ADUs. We want to create a new system for ADUs that would create the mechanism to support that but not require it. Okay, great. Thank you. That's it.

Jamie, thank you for giving us the breakdown on all of this. Um, forgive my ignorance, but are there any sort of grant mechanisms tied to comprehensive plans or since this is required by the state, do you know if there are potential better opportunities for grants if if we have like a better or more robust comprehensive plan or is that pretty nebulous? At times, yes, they can be used mostly for probably um capital and infrastructure related projects. Um but if we wanted to um like our housing action plan, if we created support mechanisms within our comprehensive plan, um there are a lot of times it's looked on more positively if you have those support mechanisms in place.

Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks so much. Any other questions or comments from council? Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate it, Jamie. All right. Moving on to number four, proposed new agenda items for discussion. Since is it like is it just open for us to talk about or is it since there's nothing there we move on?

Okay, great. Shirley, you have your hand up still. Do you there for a study session? Councelor Kos, you one more time.

Um, yeah, just general discussion. I think uh at some point uh it's been a while for a couple study sessions. The council just wanted an ability to throw agenda items out and discuss amongst yourselves without uh placing them on an agenda quite yet. This would be just a general discussion. Can't commit, can't give direction.

Great. So, um, council, after considerable community push back, former mayors and council members objections to it, and an editorial in Durango Herald condemning it, is any councilor interested in discussing the vote for mayor prom that took place on April 21st? I guess I will look to legal. I mean, if we pass something in the majority, do we bring it back for reconsideration? So what's the question? Well, I mean

I mean certainly you guys have avenues where you can have general discussions about things that happened. The technical rule for a motion that passed is that for it to be reconsidered, it needs to be done at that meeting. Arguably there's some jurisdictions that do within 24 hours of the meeting, but that has passed. um you could technically bring a motion to reconsider or to resend the vote, but that takes a super majority. So those are the the parameters under Robert's rules to either undo something right after it happened or reconsider something right after it happened or to resend something that happened at your last meeting.

Thank you. Councelor Gonzalez. Um, well, I definitely am concerned about that issue. I think it should be discussed again. I feel like I asked you, Mark, very specifically if an item could be brought up again. Um, and it seems like you said we could. So, I'm I guess I'm surprised by your answer.

So, I did in anticipation of this being asked, I went and looked at Robert Schwles again. We did have a general discussion about your council rules on whether or not the when someone's in the minority on a losing vote if they can bring it back. That doesn't apply to general provisions. Um but that would be a a legislative matter. Like if you wanted to bring up a new item that impacted an old item, it could do that. So, this gets very specific as to a specific vote that happened as opposed to a legislative item that passed. And I don't know if I'm getting too technical or confusing, but I understand how what I told you seemed confusing. Um, because generally you guys do not have a rule that let's say that you decided to open up ADUs. If you wanted to come back a week later and change that, you could specifically as to the vote that occurred in a specific discussion about it. That's what what I just cited is what Robert's rule said. So there is a distinction there. It's not a super bright line distinction. And I think I've told anyone that asked, you know, this is your council and a majority is going to get anything on the table to resend a vote to say that it was done improperly or in violation of tradition. That's going to take a super majority according to Robert's rules.

Okay. Um, mayor, I think I still have the floor. Um so um I believe that what happened um is also um a reflection of a charter that's very outdated. Um I believe that we need an opportunity to review the charter. I was going to suggest this in our new business, but if it's appropriate here, and I do think it is, seems like a study session is appropriate to review the charter given that it is um hasn't been updated since 1993 and there are some some language in there that I would think needs to be updated, just language. um and that it's going to take a very long time to for us to review the charter. It's something that involves a lot of community input. Usually there's a third party um that goes and reviews and creates a whole committee and a commission um that is established by the council. So um I look forward to doing that. I think it's a really important issue, especially all the discussion about voting rights um that has been in the national news. I think this is an opportunity to update a charter that um at a minimum is outdated. I think um on the far end could be considered um illegal. So, or maybe not anymore after what happened at the Supreme Court. But I think we need an opportunity to review the charter and I know that it's going to be quite a um long process and look forward to having that discussion with the council and with the community.

Council Yazi.

Oh, thank you. Okay. So, you're saying review the charter or you're saying review the vote on the election or both? My question, your question is review the vote on the election. Correct.

All righty. I think that would be a bad idea because council made a decision. I made a nomination based upon um my experience with working um the issues with um you in particular. And I just still feel like the best option forward for this council is to continue with both our mayor and our mayor prom to lead us through these issues with, you know, continuing working on the city hall PD with the contractor, going ahead and looking at the flock issues, going ahead and deal with the whole immigration issue and basically um giving giving confidence to our employees that they're not going to feel like they're being um attacked all the time. You know, they really feel strongly that um when you approach them, they're afraid. I mean, you know, people want to know why I didn't say these things that evening. And it's like, well, you know, I didn't want to get down and dirty. I mean, I've got a list here. you know, given the fact that, you know, I had the Herald ask me, "Why didn't I talk to you?" Okay, you know what? You're an adult. You're a male. You should be able to monitor your behavior.

Yeah, that we're going to keep this above the belt. Please. Okay.

See, that's why I don't want to say anything. But no, I think the vote was good and we should not revisit it. I council, I guess I just take the moment to say um that there's been intimations, accusations, um and yet no proof. Um broad statements that have said that employees are afraid of me. Um there's 400 employees. A you don't know all the employees. B uh I challenge anybody to come forward with somebody who has felt that fear and and and is justified in it. um the the the tone that has been set, the intimations that I can't lead, that I I I am aggressive with employees, these are all narratives that have been invented um and and have no basis in in fact. So, um I'm disappointed in the vote and the way that it went. Uh the surprise factor, the fact that nobody's had a conversation with me about any of these issues. Um, so,

um, I guess the only thing I'll say is that I'm looking forward to our special retreat tomorrow to hopefully talk through some of these into more detail. And whatever the path forward out of that is hopefully a foundation that we can all build upon. Um, I can only speak for myself of what my my aspirations are for for that meeting. Um, I'm hoping that we can all come from a place of respect and and care about the community. Um, even though we disagree on on things on the DAS that that we're going to go into that meeting with the intention of building a more cohesive council um, rooted in respect for one another. Um, I guess that's the only thing that I I really have to say. um at this moment until we get past that. Any other questions or comments or new agenda items? Great. Um on to number five, grant approval update from Mr. Crosby. Thank you, Mayor Woodruff. Um, I appreciate uh everyone's flexibility with the virtual presentation today. I'm going to do a quick screen share. All right. Um, I'm here today to prevent present a quick grant approval update. Um, we tend to tie this to uh innovative housing and economic development. Um before you today is going to be one grant that you're quite familiar with, the Renew Grant. We'll have two grants on tonight's regular meeting agenda for the Renew Grant. And then I do want to take uh one extra minute um describing the Durango impact and resiliency grant.

This is the first time you're seeing this grant in 2026. Um it is uh a slightly retoled um grant program that combines um two uh environmental sustainability and resiliency grant programs together. Um and we we really do that did that intentionally as visit Durango rolled into the city and we were able to uh we think deliver a more impactful grant program. So uh a quick overview of the Durango impact and resiliency grant. Um, this funds communitydriven projects that are really focused on advancing the city's sustainability goals as well as our destination management plans. So again, combining um that really uh deep well of institutional knowledge from um the city's sustainability programs and combining that with the destination management u uh subject matter expertise that visit Durango has brought to the city and really been able to enhance the way that we're we're able to invest these dollars into community. Um these programs uh they they tend to uh represent a spectrum of what environmental sustainability and resilience looks like in our community. Um we feel like we have a good ballot of first round uh 2026 Dango impact and resiliency grant programs to really represent that spectrum before you tonight. Um general program guidelines uh the average award falls between that five and $10,000 range. And then we do uh illuminate the pathway for uh grant applicants to apply for over $10,000. We tend to um uh require a bit more when it comes to metrics and project and program deliverables. when it comes to those those larger dollar awards. Um folks uh

from the private business community, the nonprofit community, um general community organizations are welcome to apply for these uh grant funds. Um and again, we we uh we've been able to uh kind of combine forces with visit Durango. So we do we do have kind of a joint funding source for this grant program. a portion about $50,000 comes from uh lodgers tax funding and then about $35,000 comes from our retail carry out bag fee. So, I just wanted to try to give you a maybe a a slightly more in-depth uh overview of the Durango impact and resiliency grant knowing that you're already quite familiar with the Renew Grant. Didn't want to spend time um refreshing you on that. So, on tonight's regular meeting agenda, um, for the impact and resiliency grant, you'll see seven projects recommended for funding. Um, we're recommending just over $81,000 worth uh, of funding. It in all likelihood, we will only have one round of this grant program for 2026. Um, we'll see uh how uh other projects and programs come in potentially under budget and might offer a round two a little later in 26, but for now um we'll we'll we'll plan on just the single grant round for 2026. Um and then for the renew grant, you'll see two projects on the docket for approval. Um, combined both of these projects are just over $7,000 and that leaves the fund with about $15,000 worth of funding um with a uh a few grants already in the pipeline for uh June's meeting. So, it's looking like the Renew Grant funds will be exhausted by the end of 2026. Um, which is great to see such uh an appetite from the business community and interest in the Renew Grant program in 2026. Um, that wraps it up um for our our grant approval summary. Happy to answer any questions that folks might have.

Thank you, Tommy. Uh, councelor Kissup. Oh, Tommy, this is the grant for the old fort out at Hesperis. Is that correct? Correct. Um, I I guess I don't understand. We're outside the city limits significantly there. is the group that we're serving with this grant is is it happening within the city limits and we're so we're we're working with um residents or is this out at whole old fort and this is something that's more applicable to county.

Great great question. So, um, for this project specifically, um, we're we're really leaning into the agro tourism, um, side of this project, knowing that within city limits, there aren't necessarily a lot of agro tourism opportunities. Um, we're working with the old Fort team um for for their project. They're going to need to provide um a supplement to their application that explains the direct ties to um the sustainability of Dango's tourism economy. Um that'll be, you know, data and narrative on farmers, students, customers, and other old fort programs and how those are directly tying into city of Durango's tourism efforts. Um they're going to be promoting the programming and events to visitors through um reasonable channels including coordination with visit Durango. And then they'll be allowing visit Durango specifically to photograph and highlight their project and programs to be used for visit of Dur visit Durango agro tourism marketing purposes um with understanding that there will be coordination on any culturally significant or sensitive aspects of old fort programming. So this this was definitely a unique one and I appreciate you you highlighting it. Um but we were using this as an opportunity to bolster Visit Durango's agro tourism um um resources and marketing tools.

Yeah, big fan of us um promoting local agriculture for sure. So um we'll kind of wait and see how this one goes. So thanks. Absolutely. Great. Any other questions or comments from council? All right. If there's nothing else further, we are adjourned.