Board of County Commissioners Work Sessions - Regular Meeting

Welcome to work session. It's July 28th, 2026 at 12 o'clock. Our first item up for discussion today is overview and update from Cloud City Conservation Center regarding the sustainability contract work plan as part of the climate action plan. This will be led by Emily Olsen, C4 director, and Bryce Ulrich, our water and natural resources director.

We, I believe, sent in a presentation that we should have.

I liked the Lorax edition.

You got it.

We got the presentation.

You got the presentation.

It's my favorite quote. It's a good one. It's a good one.

Sorry, this is taking a sweet time to pull things up.

Oh, you're doing great, Candice. You're doing great.

This should be the least stressful thing on the plate right now. This is messy.

Do you see all your teams? We're in them. Go to BOCC.

I did, and then I went to work sessions.

Oh. And it's good. No, thank you. Is it a post? You see where it says post underneath it? Work session at the very top. Ah. Shared? Yeah.

There you go.

Thank goodness. Just click on it first, because then it'll open up another thing. Don't you open it in the app, right? Well, I mean, you have to click on a link in that PDF. Just look at it. It's just, it's not the presentation.

Yeah, now click on that.

OK. And we can tell you .

Or I could do it.

I'm a teenager, right? And hopefully, you have better lessons than I am having. perfect well thank you all so much sorry izzy you just gotta make sure it's shared because andy's online can you let candace hear you i don't know i don't think i'm happy you're doing great candace first thing there we go

Oh my God. Make it tiny. Make it tiny. Yeah.

And then I'm just going to make it big. Yes, there we go. Good job everybody. Well, thank you all so much for being here. And I just want to say thank you to everyone who worked on the Willow Fire response because, yeah, you guys, it's just such a stressful time. And we really appreciate all the work that you all did as local government for that. So huge shout out to you guys. Thank you, Jessie. Andy's got his hand raised. Can we just see what's up in case you can't see something? Andy, can you see us or hear us?

Yeah, I can. I was trying to do a thumbs up and must have raised my hand. My bad. I can see the screen share.

I'm not being crushed.

That's nice of you to say, I do think.

Yeah, and also thanks for adopting the Climate Action Plan so that we can really get started on it. We're really here to discuss with you all some of the priorities that have arisen from all of the different interviews we did with the different department heads as well as all of these different community partners to understand, you know, what do people in this community actually want to see happen? And then from those interviews, we created the five year implementation plan. And so we want to discuss that plan with you today. The plan is really what came out of all these interviews. And we really want this presentation to be more of a conversation between you guys. And so feel free to stop us, ask questions. We want this to feel interactive. And Andy, just speak up if you have a question, because we can't see you up there.

Will do, thank you.

Okay, awesome. Okay, I'm going to go to the next slide, see if this works. Yes, okay, so we wanted to start by asking everyone in the room to think about this question. What is one thing about Lake County that you want to protect for future generations? And we wanted all three commissioners to also share your response to this question. So take a sec to think about it and then we want you guys to share.

What's the question?

What is one thing about Lake County that you want to protect for future generations? Okay, also, would you like to start? Sure.

Our winters, as well as we can. We'd like to protect our winters. And our infrastructure.

Love it. Awesome. How about you, Matt?

One thing I want to protect for future generations.

It's a hard question.

Preparation opportunities.

Awesome. How about you, Andy? What is your answer to this question?

I want to protect what I found here that gave me a real big sense of purpose in life was the ability to live somewhere where I could play and work and raise a family and that is not within easy grasp of everyone all the time but anything we can do to keep those doors open for more people uh is will feel like uh time and effort well spent oh i love that well thank you all for sharing uh this came up a lot during our interviews with all the different department heads

And so our five year implementation plan is really based off the idea behind this question, how can we protect this county for future generations, whether it's winter recreational assets, a place to live and work and play, this is really where. where we have been guided to go through all of these different interviews as part of this plan. So I want y'all to keep this question in mind as we go through the presentation here. Oh my god, this mouse is so hard.

Maybe just the button on the keyboard?

Just like the arrow on the keyboard? Turn it to correct direction.

All right, so we've had a bunch of deliverables since we saw you last, but I think two of the main ones were stakeholder reviews, where we interviewed all of the folks on the screen here and more, and the five-year implementation plan, which we'll get to in a few slides. But on the screen, we interviewed All of the Commissioners individually the county managers team as a group and a number of the director of the department directors. And then over on the right, we see some non county groups that we had interviews with and we got quite a bunch of. Interesting feedback from everyone and we took all that feedback and tried to make it into basically a prioritization. So if you go to the next slide, these are the five priorities that stood out. So in no particular order, waste management infrastructure, wildfire resiliency and forest health, buildings and energy efficiency, water protection and conservation, and education and outreach. And these kind of line up with some of the The climate action plan focus areas, the waste management and infrastructure lines up with the food systems and waste focus areas from the climate action plan. The wildfire resiliency, obviously things have changed since we did this interview, so that's the obvious big thing in the room. Before this past month, it was already a big focus, so we only expect that to be bigger. Then buildings and energy efficiency lined up straight with one of the cap focus areas. Water protection and conservation also lined up directly. And then education and outreach in the Climate Action Plan was more of an individual strategy. within each of the focus areas or action item even, but we wanted to highlight it here because we felt like the feedback we were getting from a lot of folks was that education is a really important piece of it. So yeah, these are, I guess they are ordered, but they're all important and we do feel with after the recent events that wildfire goes probably goes to number one. So if you go on to the next slide, I think Emily's next.

Yeah, so we wanted to share some cross-cutting themes that came out of these stakeholder interviews. So these are not necessarily priorities, but these were things that were brought up to us over and over again. So one, I think this really The first one resonates with what you all just shared, but the importance of protecting natural resources and community character. We really want to protect this place that we live. With what Richard just ended on, the need for public education campaigns, that was a really, I think that's kind of how education continued to rise to the top, was like, oh, when I have conversations with my friends and neighbors, we don't really know what's going on. How can we find out where all of these resources are in one place? How can we find out how this impacts our community? So that kept coming up again and again. And I think that's a good segue into the desire for practical, locally relevant solutions. We heard over and over again from both county staff and stakeholders, we know we don't have $10 million to invest in solutions here. that we can actually enact as a community and I think education is kind of some low-hanging fruit that is not necessarily a huge cost but is something we could invest in and it could make a really big difference I think for example in the last week I don't know if you've all seen all of the photos on Facebook of the trash cans being tipped over by bears there is an eight-foot bear living in my neighbor's yard right now And I think that that's something that's come out of this fire of, oh, we're realizing we live in the woods. And what can we do to educate our community on how to protect the bears, make sure they don't get into trouble, get into trash. We don't want this to be a place where bears, their lives come to an end. So I think there is this desire in our community for, hey, let's implement solutions that are easy wins, that don't take a ton of resources, maybe just take a little bit more coordination. And so that's something with the five-year implementation plan we really took into mind. I don't think there's anything we've suggested in there that is a huge lift on our taxpayers. We really tried to be like, okay, if this is a huge lift, are there grants out there that could fund it? How can we make this achievable for our community? And then also the preference for near-term, once again, achievable projects over long-term aspirational goals. I think we heard over and over again just we really want to see something come out of this that we can implement and move forward as quickly as possible. And we just, I think that's how we approach our work at C4, and it's how we've approached this contract with you all, and how we approach implementing the CAP. I think the CAP is a wonderful, document there are definitely some things in there that are long-term aspirational and so we're really trying to focus our efforts on what can we get done with the county in you know the next year we have together with our contract without asking you all to invest a huge amount of staff time or dollars in addition to what you're already investing for the next slide So I guess that's a great segue into the capacity and funding constraints. This came up over and over again. I think your staff and community partners just really wanted us to be aware of, hey, it's not that we don't want some of these things to happen, but it's that we really need added capacity to make them happen. And so that's really how we've been looking at our role. How can we partner with directors and county staff to help them achieve the things they already want to do. I think a lot of what was in the Climate Action Plan are things that stakeholders want to see happen. There's just this capacity piece of who has the time and the resources, and that's really what our role is, is how can you come in and help your team implement these projects and priorities in a way that they can carry it forward once this contract ends. and really build capacity for a short period of time, but set you up for success in the future.

And I want to give two examples of this. Number one, Public Works in the landfill asked us to help them write a grant for C3 to get that weigh scale. So we did that, we submitted it, and now C3 is asking us to attend the board meeting for that grant, which is really good news. So hopefully, hopefully we get that. But again, just an example of like, they might not have the time to fully write that grant. We have the knowledge and some expertise and ability to do so. Um, yeah. And so this, this funding is really giving our county more time to work on projects that people really want to see happen and maybe don't have the time to do. Um, another example is tourism also asked us to work on a trash campaign. putting up signage around, what do I do with my waste in Lake County? What is the yellow bag system? Where do I get those? How do I recycle? What can be recycled? So we've been working on them with that. And they were able to print out a bunch of laminated flyers, which we're hopefully going to hang up around town. So very excited about that. So just an example there. So before we go on to the next slide, I just want to pause here and see what is coming up for you three as commissioners. Any questions so far or things you want to talk about?

Can you remind me what C3 is?

C3, the Circular Colorado Community Grant. And they are hopefully going to get us funding to get that weigh scale installed at the landfill, which would bring in more funding for our landfill.

circular Colorado communities. And where are they from?

They're in Denver, in the Front Range, yeah.

They're part of CDPHE and they're funded through, I forget the name of it, but there's now a tax in Colorado on companies that produce recyclable goods. So if you're creating single-use water bottles, if you're using a large amount of cardboard boxes, that is where that funding comes from. And our county has previously, so the program was renamed to C3, it was previously named RREO, which was Recycling Enterprise Opportunities, and I forget the second R. But our county had previously received funding for the drop sites, the mattress recycling program, and other aspects of our recycling program. So it's a funder the county has worked with, and being, so their board is meeting on August 13th And the fact that this application is being presented means that staff are recommending to their board that they fund this project, which is really exciting because both the county and C4 have applied several times. And I think we worked really hard to advocate to C3 about the needs in rural communities and how they're different than the Front Range. And I think this is a sign that they're really listening and they really want to work with rural communities.

really pushing us to aspire to where the front range is currently c3 came out and visited and i thought that was really beneficial because they denied our first request for a scale not recognizing that we don't have one and when they came out i think they were wildly surprised to find out we don't have one at all we were like looking for an upgrade and so i thought that was pretty cool that they were able to come out and actually see like where Not Denver, we're not looking for a second scale, we just don't have one. They were able to recognize we're not the same.

When might it find out?

We should know on August 13th. They make the decision with it during the board meeting. It will be a long contracting process after that, but we should know whether or not it was awarded that day.

Cool.

The ones who brought up the recycling broker?

Yeah.

Yeah, so fingers crossed.

And his quote was, I've never been to a landfill that didn't have a scale before.

Yeah.

So, okay, we got this.

So if Andy wants to chime in here.

Yeah, Andy.

Yeah, one of the things I just noticed recently with the issues plaguing the community was that folks were sharing their own homemade hack for how to make their trash cans bear resistant. And it was as simple in some cases as just a couple hitch pins put through a little hole drilled in the lid to the body of the trash can. I'm curious if that's something we could maybe find a fairly commercial solution to and make available to the public for free. Like, hey, you drill two little holes in the corners of the lid and put these pins in there and it'll make the trash a lot harder for a bear to get into. You had mentioned the bears and what are low costs, low hanging fruit types of solutions to some of the problems we see locally, and that kind of popped into my head.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that, Andy. I think we can definitely look into if there's a resource the county could share in the near term. And then in the long term, there is significant funding through Colorado Parks and Wildlife. to help communities reduce human and bear interactions that we could look into. I think all of our surrounding counties require bear-proof trash receptacles, and it may be time that we consider that, but I think if we were to suggest that, we would make sure there was funding available to help reduce any cost associated.

My overall impression is that it's great. You all are so plugged into what the community already does that finding those simple solutions is like you're at the right, you're in the right position to be able to do that. So that's my overall impression so far.

Yeah, so diving more specifically into each bucket. So the C3 we just talked about, We scale we also what came up is establishing an annual hazardous police collection event day, a lot of people really want that a lot of people have said. they're dumping electronics, you know in the woods or don't want to pay for it, and so, how do we, how do we get that started. Another project is developing we say version services and infrastructure for twin lakes, which we also. help partner with them on a grant application for that. And then again, the what do I do with my trash campaign, where we're making the signage with the tourism panel as well.

Wildfire resiliency and forest health. Again, these interviews were done before June 28th. So one of the things that came out of, our impression when we talked to a lot of people was that There are a lot of people doing a lot of things for wildfire mitigation in Lake County in the Arkansas Basin. And I'm not sure the, I guess I'm a little curious. I think we're all a little bit curious to understand exactly what the county wants their role to be. And I'm not suggesting that it should be any different than it is today. I'm much more, you know, I want to be very clear that we're not the expert here and you don't need another set of hands wading into something that's already working well. But I think what we have to consider here is is it working well for those of you that are more in the know? than we are and, you know, if there's improvements to the coordination. Because I went to the last Forest Health Council meeting down in Salida. Was that the right thing? There's two different Forest Health Council events.

There's a Lake County Forest Health Council.

Okay.

And then there's a... The last meeting, I think they combined it into one, though. It was a joint.

Okay. So... I don't think that, I don't think we at C4 are the experts here at all. And we just see that there are a lot of people doing a lot of things. And anything, any capacity we can add through this, we'd love to, but we recognize that we don't want to be in the way and we want to help as best we can.

Can I offer something there?

Yeah, I'd love your feedback.

You know, last, the meeting that you went to, That was it. We were like, oh. But the person who ran that, Cindy Williams, she's the director for Envision, which used to be under Chapie County government. It's now a separate nonprofit. And she has been trying to apply for a regional partnership initiative, an RPI. your CPW that would help to kind of combine asks across our region for wildlife mitigation or wildfire mitigation and wildlife habitat management. And one of the And we saw it at Lacoste a couple months ago, this request from Adam, will somebody be the voice of Lake County in these RPIs to advocate for our wildlife and wildfire needs with our partners, but represent us as a county? And we just submitted the RPI two weeks ago. with Chafee County and Park County. And in that we requested, Lake County specifically requested some capacity. Like I think $75,000 or $80,000 over, I'll have to look. I think $75,000 over three years.

Over three years.

It's like $25,000 to $30,000 every year to try to stand up some of that coordination because you're correct, it's not, It is happening, but there's not like this concerted effort from us as a county. So I just want to offer that if we get that RPI, hopefully we'll be building in some capacity to do that work.

What is the county's vision of what successful, you know, success would look like?

we don't know who would do it yet too. So like, that's the first thing was like, we got to get the ask in. It'd be great if we had a plan first and like the partner lined up or the, or the staff member lined up first, but, um, it came really quickly to apply for this RPI. So we just tried to make sure that the ask was there so that then if we were awarded it, we could figure out where the capacity will be built. Will it be in a partner?

the county works with or will it be within a department that's already in the county we don't know yet i think it's pretty likely it would be a partner doing the work to get that level of expertise and equipment would be wildly cost prohibitive but right now what we do and it would be great to see that you could do more because i don't know what is going to happen with i know sam kaylin is living our way right now we provide a grant match in dollars and so we take our title free funds from um srs thank you yes um from srs and we use that money as a grant match to to then provide that match for i think artwick to do all of the mitigation work for us and they also um this year helped us with our wildfire action plan which identifies like where wildfire mitigation is needed and what is like the highest priority in terms of like danger that we can mitigate and that's what we do now but it would be great to support them more if they can continue to do that work or if it's more work than they can take on if we can find another partner who actually has the expertise and the staff and the equipment to do that work Because one in-house staff person would not be a team of people with the ability to do wildfire mitigation. It's a huge process.

And it's the coordination. The capacity that we have asked for is the coordination, not the actual mitigation. And it's not just wildfire management. It's also the... requesting money or organizing the Forest Service to get funding for the work of Half Moon. Right now that capacity isn't built into our staff. So that's what we're asking for from this RPI. And a lot of it, like Harmony is doing a huge amount of work in that field right now where she's the one convening people talking about wildfire, camping, rec, wildlife management. That's not actually her job is to speak for the needs of the county.

And she has a new role as well.

And she has a new role, totally. And her role might lose funding from her other partner. So we just need some more reliable funding for the capacity to do that. To do the coordination.

One other thing I want to stick in here is that In the climate action plan, wildfire comes in in two places. One is in the environment and natural resources focus area. And that's more wildfire mitigation focused on kind of what we've been talking about here, where it's large mitigation efforts on public lands. And the other place it comes in is the building code, where it's more about wildfire mitigation 100 feet from a structure. And so I think it's maybe important especially if this capacity grant comes through, is that those, in a way, are kind of parallel paths. And as you know, we have a wildfire building code as of the first of the month.

Enforced as of the first of the month. And so education around that. I've been informally telling people at a new construction or major renovation, but don't you think it's a good idea? You know, something like that.

So, don't want to lose sight of the building side of a lot of that renovation stuff. So, let's go to the next slide. Oh, you go.

Just one more thing. Part of it is also finding the funding to continue that capacity building, right? I'd say that The example of this like wildfires and forest health is that, yes, it could be mitigation, but it could also be about moving people from where they have been to where they should be or finding recreational assets in places that are less dangerous or whatever it is. Like, I agree, but even in the next RPI, like we'd want to know from the whole community, like what should we be focusing on? What should we be getting? Thanks.

And I want to add one thing. When we talked to Ann Schneider, she said, yes, we need your help. We need extra capacity to educate residents on the new wildfire resiliency code. That's something we can do in this contract. Dan Daly said, hey, I really need help. creating a page for residents with all these wildfire mitigation resources. Like what does home hardening mean? What does the defensible space mean? Like where can you find the tools to do that? I know Arbeck has done a lot of that work and he asked for help. Like how do we put this in one centralized page on the county website that's really easy for homeowners to access? So again, that's something that we we could have the capacity to work on. And we kind of already have started compiling all these different resources there for that, so. Cool.

Buildings and energy. Buildings and energy came up a lot of different ways. So one thing is the Mountain Energy Project, which is the kind of construction on natural gas. going into the county. And C4 is already working on that and getting information out about that. And so coordination with that. A lot of the, you know, in the past, so, well, let me step back. So kind of the subcategories of buildings and energy are like, you know, residential, and then commercial, industrial, and then municipal. On the municipal side, we have had some great conversations with Josh and Stuart about energy usage and some ways we can help there. So we're definitely gonna work on that more. And then, yeah, the whole energy efficiency side, just getting as much information out there. We already do energy audits at C4. but we're looking to expand that and we're looking to, we're always looking to expand opportunities for incentives for improvements, because once the energy audit is done, the incentives really tend to drive people doing insulation projects or other types of energy efficiency improvements. And yeah, let me stop there. Any questions from any of the three of you Building some energy? We could probably go to the next one then. Water will be pretty quick too. Water came up as a very important priority as well. Water protection and conservation is how it's written in the Climate Action Plan. We recognize that, much like wildfire, we recognize that we are not the experts on that. Fortunately, we have Bryce on our team. So we heavily on rice for some goals around water protection. But the two main things that came up in the water area was riparian buffers and then septic and wastewater. So septic and wastewater is a big can of worms in this county. And whatever capacity we can add there, we recognize that the county has a septic systems expert in Torsten. and Bryce is the water and natural resources director, so we're just here to add capacity whenever we can there.

And then last is the education and outreach piece, which encompasses all of the above. So we want to establish a community working group for sustainability called the Environmental Action Coalition. We already got some interest when we did our public presentation. We have about nine people that are really excited, including some high school students, which is awesome. Um, yeah, so engaging youth and adults and hopefully building a county hosted climate resource of online.

So I'm just going to add, I'll let you take it in a second, but the five-year implementation plan is really what we meant as our working, living document. In some ways, the climate action plan is a published, fixed document that you all, we talked a little bit about that last time, that's a little harder to edit once you've approved it. So the five-year implementation plan is really intended to be a living document.

Did this resonate with you?

I think that's why we're here today.

As we move these things forward, we want to make sure that we are representing the county's priorities and where you would like to see our time and energy invested. So this is slightly different than the climate action plan. It does not include every action that was listed in that plan. I think there are, if you read through the full five-year implementation document, there are other items in there that we identified, oh, there's already a group moving this forward. For example, C4 is already doing home energy audits. The county doesn't need to pop up a duplicative program. If it was something that was really important to you, there are opportunities to support that, but that's also an area where you're gonna have wins in the climate action plan if you do nothing. because it's already being done. So these were really the areas that came up as priorities in these conversations and also where the county has the opportunity to have the biggest wins because there's not as much being done or if there are things being done there really is a need for some more coordination and collaboration.

Yeah, this seems reasonable to me.

When I look at the Five year cap implementation plan framework. Year one action matrix. Can you just help me understand the difference between like, the year one Xs within the different tabs. So like you've got year one, year two, through year five. There are some things that have an X during year one, but are not on the year one action matrix. Can you just help me understand the difference between the two?

It should be if it's not going into the year one action matrix and my formula broke and I don't exit. But anything that has an X in year one should pull over the year one action matrix. Okay, awesome.

That made a lot more sense. Because it seemed like some of these things were reworked on, but they weren't on it.

Yeah, and the idea of this five-year plan that we can edit is that the climate action plan developed by the Brendel group wasn't necessarily tailored directly to this community. And there were certain strategies and actions in there that we heard again and again in interviews. maybe this isn't really a priority right now. And maybe we got to include this actually. And so this five year implementation document is a way to be way more specific and highly action oriented into what is this community looking for right now? What are the exact strategies and wins we can start working on right away? So hopefully it's helpful for you guys. Like even after the contract with C4 ends, Like if Bryce hires that person to work for him, they can continue to use that document for the next five years, which is awesome. Yeah, that's true.

So much of this is like year one and year two. It's a living document. Yeah, it's cool. And so much of this you've already started on, especially I feel like with the food systems and waste.

We're doing a lot with waste right now because that's a huge, huge priority, I think. And also a huge opportunity to save this community money in the long term and all that good stuff. But what other questions are coming up for you guys? And Andy too, if you have money.

I have a question, but you know the cardboard recycling bin in the fire station? The hole is about that big.

Yeah. That's because they want you to flatten it because it's easier for them to consolidate it into this basically cube that they then ship to Denver to be recycled.

I understand that part of it. The width is what I'm talking about down here at the ball field. It's much wider. That will barely get like a 12 pack carton. I got lots of those.

I've never actually done that. So the next step with C3 after we hear from them on this grant is they also want the county to apply for their STEPS technical assistance program, which is where we would come up and work with a technical assistance advisor that the state pays for to come up with a long term plan. for waste and waste diversion in this community. And we've already identified the drop sites as something that needs to be revamped. And that came up with the visit when they came to see the landfill. And we decided that because of the turnaround for that grant, we didn't wanna come up with a proposed solution in 30 days. It was really, we wanna sit down and say, this is what the drop sites need to look like. exactly things like that, making sure that the size of the hole that you are putting the recyclable item through is the right size, those sorts of things. So those likely will get revamped in the next year. I think we're just really trying to focus on like, what is the highest priority need? And our hope is that if we are awarded the grant for the scale, that will really help shift the income as a landfill. And that way, when the county is applying for any future grants, we can really show how we will be able to sustain these programs in the long term without needing to come to the commissioners for contribution to the budget. Cool.

I just want to add at the end that we presented a five-minute version of this to the Colorado Energy Office last week. There were a total of nine groups that are working under this grant. Um, and it was well received. Um, the hiring of the, of someone in the garage was very well received. I think you'll continue a lot of this work after. Our portion after this contract period is done and, um, yeah, some of the other group, you know, some of the other groups were. Way ahead because they've been under contract since 2024, but, uh, another one had their kickoff meeting the day before. city of butler had paused and then started and had a pickup meeting last monday so um seemed to be good positive feedback and it was it was neat to see how a lot of the stuff we're doing matches real close with a lot of stuff so these other kinds really nice yeah like literally communities all over colorado are

They had some really cool projects. One community is putting solar panels on their reservoir to prevent water evaporation and algae blooms, and then they're making energy for their community through floating solar, which I've never even heard of before.

That's lovely. Pretty cool. That is really exciting.

We've talked about that too.

Yeah, we've got a lot of lakes.

I think it was Larimer County, Pueblo County, City of Pueblo, Routt County, Garfield County. There was some others I'll never apply. It was a good mix of areas within the state, Pueblo County.

This is my favorite quote from the Lorax, unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not. So bringing it full circle to how do we want to make this place better for future generations, we really hope that the sustainability contract can work towards that goal for you all. Yay!

I'm impressed already. And I think, you know, just another plug and reminder of, you know, as you're getting into, I think we're scheduled to come back, before you get into budget season officially, but if there are areas where you're like, how are we going to make this happen, or we're not sure where this lives, or you feel like the sustainability contractor should be a part of conversations you're having, please invite us to the table. I feel like we have identified these priorities. There are even more areas within the Climate Action Plan, We work for you all. So if you feel like, hey, this is something we really want to tackle, but we don't have a staff member or department that is where it lives right now, call us. I feel like everything can be connected to sustainability and resiliency. And we are here to help you for the next year to really start to move these things forward. So we don't want to insert ourselves into conversations where you don't want us. but we are happy to support you wherever we can.

Cool. Thank you.

Thank you. And we've got to use their funding that they have available to them, right?

Yeah.

C4's CEO said that they might not extend this contract, and so that gives us some more capacity to really, like, give these guys the go-ahead to do some bigger projects. Cool. We have that budget available to us, but maybe no ability to use it beyond office to them.

What do you mean C4 CEO?

Sorry, C4, I just spoke, CEO of the Colorado Energy Office.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was always my intention to like, hey, can we push this out and maybe go through the end of 2027? Yeah. And at our last meeting earlier this month, they said probably not. Maybe it's a possibility, probably not. So I feel like C4 is in a good position, especially with the five-year plan up and running to tackle some of your stuff.

Okay, what would that look like? Can you give me a little more?

It would be like what they're talking about, like identifying the things that you really think they could plug in on right away, that technical assistance for student grants.

So like we've put a lot of time and energy I think into the landfill so far. That's probably been one of our highest areas where we've spent time. I think the education piece is an area where there's a lot of opportunity for just How do we bring resources into one place that are easy for community members to find? I think there's so many groups across our county that are doing amazing work, but asking our community members to know that like, oh, they need to go to RWIC's website to get these resources. I mean, you have done a great job with getting resources out there around the wildfire, but how do we continue that beyond just the need right now? I think that's an area where we could put in at least what we're waiting to hear from RPI and figure out a path forward. We can attend those meetings, we can help bring those resources into one place. I think there's a lot of interest from community members to understand what is the county doing, what areas can they tap into and learn more. Cool.

Very good.

Thank you.

thank you all so much thanks for coming you guys thank you for the help at the dump thank you thank you the landfill yeah okay next on the agenda is if we're ready is the overview and discussion regarding the lake County Disaster Relief Fund Committee. This will be led by Candace Brines, our County Manager, and Gloria Perez, Lake County Community Fund Board of Directors President.

Can you all come just a little closer so Andy can hear you? Sorry, he's on the Zoom. Okay.

These chairs are a little hot especially in the back room.

And I think we have Brescia as well joining us virtually from the fountain. Sorry, when it updated, this is so different from how my work's like. Yeah. You're doing good. So we, just for everyone's information, we've approved this fund agreement last week on the commissioner's meeting. And so what we were hoping to get together to do today was to work on the establishment of the Lake County Disaster Relief Fund Committee. so that the committee could start to work together to make some decisions about where to allocate some of the funding that's been received to the disaster relief fund. And the reason that we came to this agreement is we felt that two employees for Lake County government shouldn't really just be the people making the decision about all of these funds. We feel that we've got a lot of people in our community who probably recognize needs we don't. We also recognize that while we can have input from staff, and it says we can have an advisory liaison to help with some of those decisions where information is needed, we really wanted to have a bigger group responsible for making those decisions and really wanted for our EOCC members who've been elected by the public to represent them, to have some input on who they felt would be good members of this group in conjunction with the Lake County Community Fund. And so in the agreement that we've come to, the five voting members should be two Lake County community members appointed by the VOCC. who are not currently elected officials or employees, and then one member appointed by your board, and then one member representing a local nonprofit or community-based organization active in disaster recovery, jointly agreed upon, and then one large Lake County resident that's also jointly agreed upon. And so I asked to have this work session today so we could start to have some conversations about who those members, could be, or if we don't feel that we could say who they could be today, if there's a process we wanna come up with today to poll people for interest or something of that nature, just wanted to give a little bit of guidance and let us have an open conversation about how we can compose this group so that we can start to make some decisions with those funds that have been received. And I'll let you guys hear, give us an update on, you know, the breadth of those funds. I just don't know where it's at at this point. I know we had talked earlier. And then just facilitate just a conversation between both boards to talk about how we can get to this group so we can start to make some decisions. Thanks.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you guys want me to just kind of share where it's at? And Angel, who is our director, is not here today. He's on vacation, so the last report that we have may be what you have already as well. So my understanding from the last report from Angel is that the fund was giving out about, I wanna say about 65,000 with still some donations pending, like a large donation that we are expecting from Freeport Foundation and I think El Pamar Foundation. And then I know there's been other initiatives. Like I know the barbecue festival is being considered as a way to bring additional funding. And so I do think that it's still getting promoted by our neighboring communities as well as businesses and stuff. So I think there's still quite a few efforts. And so yeah, as far as where the fund sits, that's where it sits. We really appreciate this structure that is getting recommended and having input from having the creation of a committee. I know Greg and myself, were part of a committee during COVID response, as well, you know, with other nonprofits. And I truly agree, Candace, that I think that, you know, having a diverse committee and with representation of those that, you know, can weigh in onto what the community needs are. I think this process makes us feel really good, you know, being able to report to to donors, to people that, you know, have, again, put together efforts of, you know, supporting and us, you know, as part of the board, stewarding these funds. Anybody else would add? Greg?

No, right now. I just wanted to mention, too, that we were really, really pleased and somewhat surprised at the amount of funds that were raised and it was primarily through the Office of Emergency Management where they put that on the website and made the announcements at those community meetings and it was really a pleasing effort because so many people wanted to contribute something. They wanted to do something to help out. So I think this is another one of those efforts where the community is coming together and And it's really a positive thing. I'm really pleased. Awesome.

How are you considering selecting your representatives?

So for the community fund member, we would appoint Angel, who is our executive director. And then our suggestion for the local nonprofit or community-based representation would be someone from the Stronger Future Alliance, because we know that that's a collaborative effort already that has quite a few of the nonprofit organizations. And so I think we would go to them and ask them to appoint a member. And we have a couple of folks you know that we have thought about for a lake county resident but they haven't said yes, so as well, if you guys have any thoughts, I think that I have a couple of folks that said. You know that I reached out to and said hey we're going to be discussing this with the county, would you consider it and they said maybe. So I think like within the next couple of days, they can let us know, but as well if you guys have any thoughts of an at large member.

So I wondered if we could come up with maybe a first, second and third option for an at large member that everyone agrees on. or maybe a list of fives, and then we could go in order of whatever you all decide, and ask if those people would be willing, so then you kind of have your next person down the line, and then your staff is happy, as long as we can get a contact, happy to run down that list of people.

Quite a few of the folks that we likely would name, that's why I went through the line of who doesn't represent an organization, quite a few folks are attached to somebody that would be within the nonprofit sector already. So I thought of people that are not connected to an organization, so they can be that person. So one person we had in mind was Susan Fishman. And she is one that said, give me 24 hours. Is she on the board of St. George? I think she volunteers, but I don't think she's on the board. She's not on the board? Yeah, she volunteers at a lot of stuff. And I think she knows the community really well. I think she's a great representative of both the Latinx community as well as the main community and has been here a long time. And I think that's important to have knowledge of the wide community. For sure. And then the other person that we had in mind, Angel and myself, is Christina Reveles, who is similar, right? She's been here a long time. I think she knows the community really well. And she's not attached to an organization. But as well, she hasn't said yes to this. Those were kind of the two members that Angel and I had identified.

Destiny Goodnitch reached out. OK. And she said she would love to be part of the committee. I think that's also a great start, if somebody that's already willing. Right. Yeah. She's a representative of the business community. She was the first AmeriCorps member to start. She started the Main Street program. She was the first employee.

She was our first Main Street employee. Right.

So first anyway, I think destiny would be awesome. She wants to do it business and she's connected to Main Street, but isn't working for Main Street anymore.

That's great.

Andy, did you want to say something?

Andy, did you mean to raise your hand?

Oh, sorry. I thought I unmuted. My bad. Okay, now I'm unmuted. I always felt like as far as people have their finger on the pulse of what's happening with the community, and especially in the business community, are people who own food and beverage businesses. So if there's anybody in that realm that maybe a name pops up in someone's head, I don't know. It seems like people in restaurants really have a pretty good understanding of what's happening with the struggles and the hardships facing local businesses. It might be a chance there.

Andy, it makes me wonder, if this disaster relief fund is aimed at businesses, It's not clear to me that that's the track we're on.

I mean, there's a separate fund hosted by the community fund for businesses.

Correct. Well, actually, by the Lifetime Legacy Foundation.

Yeah, but isn't it under the community fund?

Only as a fiscal-sponsored fund. We're not running that fund. So that's all. It's just a thought. There are different directions different funds can go. I think of this one as being aimed at people who need help.

I can agree, but I also think that's where it's important to ask what is the actual impact of the disaster. So I do think having someone that understands businesses who are having to lay off people who now are going to have a need because they may not have a job. And I think we want to be conscientious to capture that because when we talk about needs related to this disaster there were no structures lost there aren't people other than a very few that were evacuated who were out of their homes and so I think it's really important to recognize needs that are related to this disaster not just needs that already existed before this disaster started because I think that would be outside of alignment with what the funds were given for. So I do think it would be important to understand from the business community if they lost revenues because business was down. I mean, it was a ghost town on Fourth of July weekend, which is hard to see when it's one of the busiest weekends. They now have staff who may no longer be staff in the next month or two who are going to have a need because of that. And so I think that's where I want to make sure we're not just finding needs that already existed and taking money that was donated by people for disaster relief when, yes, you know, and that's where I think OEM public health are going to be able to give some inspiration to us about people who are coming in because of loss of revenue. But I also think the thought of a business person or someone who's connected when we had, and Josh, maybe you can pitch in, when we had a business community meeting, around 70 people showed up and there was real true concern there with what are we gonna do in the next two months when we really recognize the breadth of I can't employ someone if I'm gonna go under as a business. I don't know, Josh, do you have any thoughts? Put you on the spot.

No worries. Yeah, I mean, I think the important thing is to recognize the existence of the, you know, the two funds. So if there is someone from the business community that can help, like, have an awareness of what the sort of economic development funds are being, is being used for in terms of business support, just to ensure that we're kind of spreading the breadth of the resources that were donated and are available. I do think that there's some value in that. Yeah.

Well then maybe it's worth asking Norm or Nancy from the Chamber of Commerce to be one of the representatives or for them to see who has capacity to do it because also everybody in the food and beverage is going to be working harder than ever and they often don't have time to attend these kind of volunteer positions.

I also think that everyone that sits on the committee can take a role in ensuring that they learn about the needs as well. Because we understand that there's only going to be this one person. That's a community member. But we also know that the rest of the committee members probably have interaction through their organizations and can reach out to their networks come prepared to the meetings, you know, and hopefully someone, you know, can take some of those tasks to, like, hey, you know, can somebody go talk to Tamara and ask about the EDC's fund and, you know, learn about that so that everyone, you know, can be sure to inform the community.

I mean, we have two positions to appoint as well. Yeah. So we're kind of talking about three positions. One that we have to agree on and then two that we have to agree on. Right.

Yeah.

I mean, I really think that Destiny has already some amazing ideas. She is on Main Street, represents the business community. So I would definitely want, I personally would definitely want Destiny on there. She's bringing great energy already. But then I also think that we should ask Chamber of Commerce if there's anybody who has similar energy and momentum and would want to

have them give us. So do we want to use that as one of ours? I don't know. What do you think?

Can we appoint Swokie without the authority?

I think you have to ask if he has bandwidth to do that.

I don't know. I'd like to see somebody outside the normal circles. Somebody who's outside the normal non-profit government. Somebody like an outsider. from a fresh perspective and without an agenda or preference. So I'd like to see the funds distributed based upon who was really affected. Like Candace said, the funds were donated for people that were affected by the emergency. There wasn't that many, so the few people that were were my dad and his neighbors down by the fish hatchery. I don't think most of those people, well, I don't know. So that's my two sentences. I'd like to see somebody outside of the normal circles.

I do think, and I don't know if Grecia is on, but I want to share, you know, because we've been having this conversation as well within our board. I think there's definitely, you know, needs that were created that maybe, like, we don't think we're, like, you know, directly or immediately, like having heard one of our board members and how her family was affected by like an underlying health condition, so asthma, and as soon as, you know, there was tons of smoke in our town, that prevented her from keeping her job. in the time being because her asthma got so bad that she had to go to the ER and she provides daycare for a child. She works in a restaurant and so the severe asthma with the component of smoke made it so bad that she had to stop working to take care of her health. And so that helped me understand that yes like there's probably means that we're not thinking of and that's why you know, having a committee is great and having people that know and. Again, have had these interactions because that's honestly not something I would have thought of because I wasn't in you know, even in a previous evac zone my family's healthy. You know, so we could all, you know, continue our normal activities, even with smoke around us, even if, you know, we were somewhat close. You know, we continued working, right? So that's my family. But when I heard Grecia's story of her family, you know, that's a whole different situation. And that's why, you know, we want to ensure, like, yeah, you might not immediately think, well, if this person wasn't evacuated, how did it affect them? But again, Gracia shared with us that, yeah, her sister has a health condition that prevents her from going to work. Or even potentially going back, or did she get terminated because she now couldn't work for several weeks? So that creates those underlying needs. And I think that's very important to ensure that. that the committee is bringing and servicing these needs. Absolutely.

As Gloria knows, the most difficult task of the original Unmet Needs Committee was to determine whether the need was real. And one of our conversations was, we don't want people gaming the fund. So they spent a lot of time trying to figure out if the ask was a legitimate ask.

So I'll offer two things that for that very reason that you just shared, I thought about before we lost all of our resources, states have kindly helped us with. So I worked with, we had a community partnership liaison that came in and worked with us. I got a lot of the resources that other communities use to rank needs and vet needs. And then a lot of communities actually hire a contractor who actually goes and makes sure that the need is like a real need. I forgot what the title of those contractors is, but I spoke with both NOAA and also our partnership liaison about what the process is to find a contractor, it can be someone in the community, and think it would behoove us to actually try to hire someone who can do that work of, is this a real need? And I also inquired about any grant funding that they might have. So we may be able to actually use some sort of grant funding. And so once we figure out the composition of the committee, that's where I'd like maybe that first meeting I'll share those resources. share any helpful things with other communities who have done this in an organized fashion, who have had much larger disasters, where you really do have to get into the nitty gritty of exactly what is the need. So I do want to offer that when the committee gets together, I'm not a voting member, but I'll bring all of those resources to the table. I'll probably bring Dan, our OEM, with me as he also is a recipient of those. I likely will end up designating him as the non-voting person, but want to make sure that the committee feels supported and that we've helped them get a start on that process. So I did ask for a lot of those resources before having the thought of we put a committee together so that it takes that. but we're in such a small community that someone wouldn't be connected to the people in the group, no matter who is on this committee would be shocking. And so that was the suggestion from our partners is if you can find someone that could be that person that's the need, I think could be really beneficial. So do you wanna offer that and the other resources we received, we'll share all of those out with the committee so that they can be utilized by the group.

That's great. And like Greg said, we have been through the COVID response and that was a big part of the work that was done and thankfully we have that to go back to and we have members that again, we lived and created that process during COVID. and spent quite a bit of time working on something like this because it's real, right? Like, remember when we had a discussion during COVID that, you know, as you start to inquire about needs, you know, it's, you know, you open up a lot of stuff, right? And that's why I was saying that we definitely want to rely on the community and, you know, what they are learning because like I said, you know, my story is very different in this little fire than Somebody else that's on my board and their family. But, you know, again, to go back a little bit to COVID response, I remember that we had this conversation of, you know, like you start asking people for needs. And, of course, people that have, you know, experienced challenge and, you know, poverty over years and stuff like that, you know, it's natural that somebody might say, you know, like, I need a new stove. example um right and it wasn't like you know there's the result that out of this emergency and that's what we're trying to sort out right is that yes now we can't you know like go buy folks you know a new stove or a new fridge or you know if it wasn't the result of something like this but um but all that to say that you know again we we have i would say a lot of expertise now that was built from and similar funds.

I like the idea of somebody from Stronger Futures being on it because then, because they're like a multi-point access coalition, they can also help build in some of that process so that as needs are being uncovered and teased out, the basic need that was already there doesn't get lost and it gets connected. I like that a lot.

Yeah, and that becomes very true. yeah but yeah as you know again just our initial kind of what we have heard you know from folks again is some of these you know like underlying you know health conditions that became worse with um you know with smoke um and stuff like that um you know people having to relocate even you know even if every or the evacuation order was maybe only one day you know people may have had to evacuate you know days or weeks because of an underlying health condition that became worse or you know folks that didn't know that they were going to be right back into their home so when they got evacuated they paid up front for a hotel room

So how many folks do you have written down, Candace?

So I have for B that it will be Angel. I have for C that we are going to ask stronger teachers to

Select someone. I think I need a little bit of clarity on A and D. So we get two that are your selections, and I have had five people suggested at this point. So I don't know if some of the five are that A, or if all five go under D. It would be helpful for me to know. So I've got Destiny, Kristina, Susan, Norm are a representative from the business community. So I don't know which of those five are people that are the three of you suggesting to, or if all of those five I just listed are the one that we jointly are going to want. Does that make sense?

What do you think, Matt? Who would you want to pick for two?

Are we going to do an outreach or something, or are we just going to fix it?

I think if you guys suggest a few names, we can reach out to them and just make sure they're okay with being on it. We can send out a form and be like, if you're interested, put your name in. And I can see that that also could maybe take a lot of time. And I know that we are trying to start to make some decisions in the near future. Or try to at least get the committee together to figure out what are the criteria, get organized, and then start to vet the requests that we receive. And I think the requests we receive could be more of like a form. Yeah.

I think it would be a get to chaotic to try and recruit someone from the whole community. I definitely think it's with the brainstorming that we can I think since Destiny... Land on someone.

Sorry, Gloria. No, go ahead. Destiny sounds fine to me. She reached out. Yeah. I hate to throw someone's name in the hat that doesn't want to be in the hat.

Okay.

So for A, like, can she be one of ours since she reached out to us? Mm-hmm.

And like I said, for a silver D, I can circle to Susan and Christina and see if one of them, and see if any, if that's okay with them, agrees.

I like that a lot. And then, so, would our second one be that we ask Norm or someone with the business community if they could recommend someone from their group? That's what I would recommend.

Ask who?

Norm from the chamber. From the chamber, if he could maybe work with his group. Maybe, Norm and Tamara, can you guys suggest someone that you can, that would want to do it? Yeah. I think that's great, because then it's not us just all picking, it's us saying, Yeah, pay groups that are leading, where could we also get input from the partner community?

So obviously not Norm or Tamara.

Yeah. Could they suggest someone?

Yeah.

Who has time to do it. So that's D. That's A.

That's our second A.

That's our second A?

Yeah.

Okay.

And Gracie is going to reach out, or sorry, Gloria is going to reach out to Susan and Christina.

What about someone from the Republican committee? Don't they have a group, the Republicans, that little group? Sorry, everyone's heart rate just jumped.

No, why would we ask them versus the Dems?

Because they're outside of the normal groups. For D? For A or D? I would say I'm not opposed to

you know any of that i would say like the most important thing to me for d is someone that you know knows our community well that you know has been here um a significant amount of time to know and someone that can represent uh latinx coming in you know the immigrant community as well as a large community because i do feel strongly that if we choose someone that isn't familiar with the, you know, needs of the Latinx community, that they will, you know, get lost. And, you know, someone that can be a voice, right? Which I do, you know, at the same time, like, I feel that Stronger Future Alliance, again, they, you know, will know the needs. And Angel, of course, is from the Latinx community as well. But I think that, you know, knowing both communities, right, I think that, like, you know, when evacuation of Lake Fork happened versus, like, another, you know, zone, it's different, you know, different dynamics, even if everyone's a member of our community.

Yeah. It occurs to me, and I was informed by an earlier conversation, that some of the impact could be drank. someone got evacuated and they need to help cover some of those costs. I don't know. Nobody lost a home. I'll digress a little bit and say, you know, during the pandemic, we were focused on keeping people in their home. It was a very different, you know, relationship. And so we were paying rent or mortgages and the C4 was backing utilities. And so it's kind of cooperative. That's not what this is going to be. It doesn't appear in any way, shape or form. But there may be indirect, like we talked about the business community and people who have been laid off from their jobs. So in that sense, those people could need also direct support to stay, you know, in their home.

I think that's what I was trying to say is there's likely some people who don't work out of town. They work in town because they work for a business.

Well, in a lot of those underlying conditions. also get exacerbated during a crisis. So it's not like we're going to be able to tease them out exactly, but yeah.

So what do people think about my idea of inviting a Republican, specifically from the Republican Party? I know they're trying to organize a force. I'm not a Republican, by the way. You're just trying to think of something. I understand the heat I'm getting here, the vibes I'm getting here.

I only know one person, personally, and that's Benny Benson.

Yeah, Benny.

Who's a Republican, and other than that, I don't have a clue.

You've got Jack Saunders. Oh, okay. You've got Paul Mueller. He's a really great guy. That's what I mean by someone from outside the community, not to diminish your thoughts on that. on the community that is going to get represented heavily in this committee.

But if you're going to go reach out to the Republican caucus, you really need to do the same thing to the Dunes. So it is bipartisan or nonpartisan.

Again, I'm not opposed to a political party or anything. I would say let's not recruit with you know, kind of that in mind, right, whether they represent Democratic or Republican, more than, again, do they know who lives in our community, that they can, you know, represent this voice, and again, and have a, because when I think about, you know, everything that has been happening, again, through, you know, through this fire, right, is I, you know, that's kind of what my immediate thought is, like, what, the different people that live in the different zones have had to go through. And like Candace was saying, our business community. And that's what I think of it. And that's why I was saying, I think that this large member should have a decent understanding of what's Turquoise Lake Estates versus Lakewood. And that's what I would

I understand what you're saying. I threw it out there for conversation. I'm not attached to it or anything, but I wanted to hear what you guys thought about that. I think it's interesting.

I think for other efforts, I think... I think we created it like that by being... It makes it a little uncomfortable in terms of us going out there and saying, hey, we want someone from the Republican Party, or we want someone... from the Democratic Party. I think we're interested in, we want someone that knows our community.

I understand that. There's plenty of Republicans that know our community. In fact, there's Republicans that have sat in these seats.

But that's why I would say, well, let's just, if we land on someone, well, let's recruit them based on that. On their political affiliation. Yeah, not because of their political affiliation.

Could I ask if we're going to be asking, I think you said Susan and Christina, Could we maybe rather than someone based on their political affiliation, could we think about the fact that Twin Lakes actually was a recipient of the bulk of the smoke and, you know, on the other side of it, and it was quite smoky. It was actually way worse. could we maybe think about throwing a third person to reach out to, so when you reach out to them, a third person maybe from that community who largely doesn't get as engaged as someone that's in town.

Just like Misty. Kelly Sweetie. Isn't she tired?

That's true for some of our folks. She's been retired for 20 years and she still stays involved. I think she's retired.

Retired? I think she's tired. She might be that too. She's retired and retired. That's what some of the folks that we have reached out to, you know, oh, I've been trying to step out of committees or things like that. So that is a challenge and that's why it's good to have a few.

Misty. Misty Kirtan. Kirtan. She lives in Balltown. She started the Twin Lakes Business Alliance. She... I think she's a Republican. Yeah, I got you, Matt.

But we said we're not recruiting based on political affiliation. No, no, no.

I'm just offering. I'm offering in case it's going.

We're not going to ask their political affiliation.

No, no. And I don't know. I'm totally... I don't know, actually. But anyway, she was on the tourism panel. Like, she is incredibly engaged, definitely wants, builds community all the time. It's... She lives in the Vita House.

Because of those three, you know, would one of you three want to fill that last one?

Yeah, let's just see who's available. Yeah. How about that? And then choose based on who's available.

What kind of time commitment is there going to be?

Yeah, Candace, and I forgot on this part, who is, are we going to ask the committee to like facilitate themselves, so to designate a facilitator or are you guys thinking about providing that? I think that would be the first thing.

Yeah, that first organizing committee meeting will be really important to establish the priorities of the meeting schedule. But the committee expires in December, so a lot of stuff needs to happen.

And I would say that definitely from my experience on boards and committees,

There does need to be someone that can create the agenda, can send out the meeting invite.

And also how to put out the RFP to people in need.

Once that process gets created.

Do we feel like we could get the group put together and maybe decide some of those things in that first meeting? Because maybe we decide, you know, I'm going to offer this look at you so you can slap me if it's not allowed. Don't say that. Can we put something on, like if we have to put out an RFP, we have been at, are we allowed to put it out on there for them or only for government?

Put it out, yeah, it's a community.

Okay. Communication. So maybe that would be helpful if we do decide we want, maybe the facilitator and the person who looks into the needs could be one and the same. And I can talk with Noah and Dan about if there's a grant funding available for that. And I can try to do that. It'll probably be by the end of this week to get that piece all dialed. But maybe we can say our first meeting, we get all of these people together. So maybe the goal is to meet by the second week in

august because that would give the people we're asking for a donated member to us yeah i like that yeah that sounds good and i think that um yeah letting them know that it is once a week it's good to start um you know some committees definitely um the need is to be very active in the beginning and then they themselves can decide like, okay, we're no longer meaning to meet us.

Adam has missed his contact. Great.

And can you share your destinies with me? Yes. Would you all be okay if I go ahead and create a meeting invite? I can work with Angel to hold space just as we're trying to get people on board. And if the people get on board, that time doesn't work for them, we can look for another time. But at least that way it doesn't fall off of the radar of things to make sure we do in that second week.

Yeah. Okay, yeah, that works. And Angel's out until the 6th, but

um we do have someone that is checking his email okay and so forth okay thank you so much yeah thank you guys and i will try to get with dan this week um and get the resources that were shared um the liaisons before they left they kind of left us a framework for ranking needs, and different types of needs, and left that with us before they headed out, which I asked them to do, so I'll make sure we maybe compile all that.

Anything that helps to create a process.

Just really quick, I'd just like to check if Grecia is on virtual, so if she has anything.

Grecia, are you connected? Can you see? You can probably see it.

Yeah, if you click the start button, we should be able to see them. Yeah, that's right. Close us out.

Maybe not.

No, no, Grayson.

No worries. Jim, Frank, anything that we would be missing from LCC for September?

No, not at all. I just thought this is part of the process. And I don't know what the process is going to be like. And I understand it's going to be different from what we do. One of the things that Noah and I did, we'd get on the phone with landlords, and we would negotiate a three-month lease agreement with the landlords to keep someone in their apartment and pay them 70% every single landlord took it.

Nice.

Without fail. Of course, Noah was going to go back in. If they threw someone out of their apartment, they had nobody to move back into their apartment during the pandemic. So it was a good deal for them, and it made the money stretch a little bit. That's nice. Just a thought.

And, of course, it was, you know, again, COVID lasted, you know, quite a while. A year and a half.

Yeah, it was a long time.

But, you know, again, some of those processes that we can look back at, I think that is very valuable.

Thanks, you all, so much.

Yeah. Good discussion. Important discussion.

Important discussion. And this really, too, does help us to, you know, continue to promote the Disaster Relief Fund and ensure that we have The information that we need, again, to store the funds and answer questions if donors have questions. And at this time, I know Angel has been working hard on sending out thank yous to donors. And us staying in connection with donors is very helpful as well and being able to, again, share the process that it can be transparent and that people know what's going on. It fosters the continued spirit of

Before we go, Andy, did you catch all that? Would you like to say anything before we wrap it up?

Yeah, I like the idea of for just us three coming up with a name. I agree with Elsa and you guys that Destiny was an early name that jumped out right away. It reached out to all three of us. Did you guys hear me? It's a little hard.

You're breaking up.

It's not great reception here. But I'll be in touch. I think we have names we can come up with.

He has some names.

Sounds like you have some names. We'll catch you about every other word.

I'll start emailing with you guys and we'll coordinate.

Okay. Sounds good.

Where is he? Whatever it is, it looks pretty enticing. Michigan? The Upper Peninsula? Yeah. Traverse City?

He's got a cabin on the beach.

Oh, geez. Higher. Way up there.

Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Gloria. Thank you, Jim.

Thank you. This concludes our work session today, folks. It's 1.45.

Take a chair.

Thank you.

Thanks, Andy.