City Council - Special Meeting

This is Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, and we're convening on our work session. We want to go to, I guess we want to go directly into our executive session with municipal judge Beth Padilla on her contract. So if we would all retire into the room.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. I move that council go into executive session. PURSUANT TO CRS SECTIONS 246, 402, 4I AND 246, 402, 4E FOR THE PURPOSE OF DISCUSSING A PERSONNEL MATTER AND FOR THE PURPOSE OF DETERMINING POSITIONS RELATIVE TO THE MATTERS THAT MAY BE SUBJECT TO NEGOTIATIONS, DEVELOPING STRATEGY FOR NEGOTIATIONS or negotiators all concerning the municipal judge Beth Padilla's professional service contract. Ms. Padilla has not requested that this executive session occur in an open meeting.

I second.

Osborne?

Yes.

West? Yes. Lewis? Yes. Swope? Yes. Wolfe? Yes. Sproul?

Yes.

It is still August 25th, 2026, and the time is 6.50 p.m. The executive session has been concluded and council has reconvened into open session. Those persons participating in the executive session were myself, Mayor Dennis Perot, Mayor Pro Tem Bill Lewis, and council members Kathleen Swope, Carly Wolfe, Clarissa Osborne, and Claire West. City Manager Drew Sanders and Municipal Judge Beth Padilla were present for portions of the executive session. No adoption of any proposed policy, position, resolution, rule, regulation, or formal action occurred during the executive session. If any member of the council or a member of the public believes that the subject matter of the executive session was not statutorily authorized and that the discussions that occurred in executive session strayed from the announced subject matter, please speak up now. Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

We can't adjourn the executive session. I'm sorry. I apologize. That was prepared for the executive sessions that occur at the end of the regular meeting.

We don't need a motion, do we? No, you still have agenda items to move on to.

Thank you.

All right. Let's move on to item B on our work session. Agenda, it's our airport advisory committee and our youth application is Grant Wright. Is Grant, Grant if you'll come up and stand at that podium there, there should be a button for a green light to come on. And if it doesn't, somebody's gonna jump up there and help you real quick. Is it on? Test that mic and see if it works. Just talking to it, yeah.

testing.

What we're going to do. We prepared about 5 questions for you we're going to go down the line. Real easy to answer. We begin that could you tell us what

My name is Grant Wright. I go to Dolores High School. I'm going to be a senior this year. I swim for Durango Swim Club, and that's about it.

Great. Okay, we'll start down.

Thank you for coming tonight, Grant. What motivates you to serve on the Airport Advisory Committee, and what perspective do you bring as a young person that adult members might not have?

So coming from perspective, I'm going to get that one first. Since I'm a youth, I can give an almost uneducated, kind of unfamiliar with an airport view, which a kind of more educated, maybe 30-year pilot or someone who has been very active in aviation might not think of. So I can ask the basic questions like, what does this actually do? And just ask the basic questions. And then, sorry, what was your first question?

What motivates you to be on this board?

So I would like to be, I would like to go to college for something in aviation. So this would be a great foot in the door and just kind of seeing how an airport operates and what needs to be done to develop an airport.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you.

GRANT, THANKS FOR BEING HERE. APPRECIATE IT. What do you think are the biggest opportunities and challenges facing Cortez Municipal Airport over the next five to 10 years, especially as it relates to your generation?

So I know that the airport has been having issues with funding, specifically that essential for air services funds from the state have been being cut since aviation is a very expensive matter. And then some challenges it faces from a general's perspective, kind of more professionally, that I know that the airport has been trying to expand a lot. So that would be expanding the terminals, runways, taxiways, and then getting more economy there. I don't know what the word is, but... just kind of getting more money. So something that we could do there is getting jets in. You could get jets and kind of commercial airliners in by expanding the airport. And something that needs to happen there is we're going to need a fire department on the airport somewhere, which will require funding. And I think that's a challenge, but an opportunity for improvement of the matter. Thank you very much. Are you nervous? No. You're doing a great job.

Have you had any experience with aviation, whether through school programs, family flying, or planes, or researching airports? And how do you think the experience will help you contribute to the committee discussions?

So yes, I have had a few experiences with the airport, just whether flying in or out of it. I'm also a member of the EAA chapter, Experimental Aircraft Association chapter in Cortez, which has allowed me to take a few flights with some of the very weathered pilots and learn a little bit there. Along with I took an aerospace class through Adams State over the course of the last school year, which kind of provided me the basic fundamentals of airports and how airports work and the management of it. then I think that could help improve the airport because before it allowed a new perspective on what's kind of going on, a more unbiased, unfamiliar with an airport perspective on how it can improve.

Thank you.

Good evening. Thanks for coming. Serving on committee means helping think about long-term plans for the airport. Can you describe a time you worked on a school project, club activity, or team effort that took a long time to finish and how you kept yourself on track?

I had a project with two other students on, it was a while ago, it was for English class on creating a presentation on, it was something like that. It was based on how the, I don't remember what it was, but it required a lot of teamwork and a lot of effort from everyone. So it allowed us to kind of communicate with each other and kind of the first big experiences of communicating with each other and how to do that on a professional manner. But yeah.

Thanks for applying. I think it's important to have our youth involved with these. Is there a specific project or issue at the airport you're especially interested in working on during your term, and why does it matter to you?

So I think one of the bigger ones coming from a youth is the outreach program. We have a lot of great events happening at the airport. There was a kind of fly-in rally at the airport a few years ago. Maybe that was last year. And I remember that it was a good event, but I think the outreach could have improved to get kind of more people there and then connect the people and the community to the airport a lot more, which would be great to kind of You know, you can go to the event, but you may not get anything from it or it may not help you advance your career in any way. So if you could get that and maybe talk to a few pilots, talk to the airport director, kind of see how things work and kind of seeing where you can go from there.

Wasn't so hard. All done. Thank you very much. We will make a decision during council. As far as I know, you're the only applicant that we have. You look very strong at this point, so thank you very much for doing it, and we appreciate it.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Mayor and council members.

Moving on to item number C, it's the 7th Street property update presented by Jason Armstrong, Deputy Director of Community and Economic Development and City Planner.

all right can you guys see my presentation yep there it is okay good evening council and mayor tonight i'm bringing you an update on the park village on 7th workforce housing project a lot of what i'll discuss tonight is based on questions we've received about the project from city partners and the broader community if you guys have questions along the way don't hesitate to jump in and just ask all right so um i wanted to lead off this evening by talking about the project being based on data so what i've what i'm showing you right now is a it's kind of a high level summary of the initial market study that evergreen did just to determine if they even thought the project was feasible The thing that I wanted to point out, I've highlighted there, this project is gonna serve area median income of 40 to 80%. Currently, we don't have any 70 and 80% AMI level for rental properties. And those are the types of workforce that are working for a school district, a police department, So it's definitely important that the community understands those documents set goals for specific types of housing over a five-year period the housing action plan offers a priority framework that's being addressed by this project so a priority one level we need supportive housing greater than 30% with rentals up to eight to sixty percent AMI and for sale units up to 80 of area area median income and then priority level two uh covering the 60 to 140 percent ami which is that middle that missing middle range so uh overall the project spanning 40 to 80 percent would likely have rents ranging from roughly 650 dollars to $1300 per month and that there is some variability there based on the the income levels and the household size. So next up earlier this month The city completed the process of amending the 7th Street property. It was an existing minor subdivision and So we followed a plat amendment process basically splitting the property in half as you can see and Just as a reminder, plot amendments are processed administratively and the city filed the same procedures as the rest of the community would if they were doing a similar application process. So here is a very preliminary site design. Evergreen's been working on the major site plan requirements for its submittal, but now it's kind of in a waiting game to hear back from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, CHAFA, about the success of their tax credit application. They submitted that application on August 3rd, and we expect to know whether or not they get awarded those tax credits sometime in early November. As a side note, we were provided with the list of all 29 tax credit applications that were submitted in this round. And ours was the only one that was projected to serve a county that had a population under 180,000. And CHFA definitely has guidelines around serving rural areas, so this does play in our favor. We were talking to the developer rep today, and it's usually a 25% chance with your first try with these tax credits. um this doesn't necessarily push us up to like it's a sure thing but closer to 50 50 on this round so if they're successful in their tax credit application in this round they'll be looking to start going through the process of getting entitlements probably in the first quarter of 2027. So and just to remind the community that might be watching, which didn't do that, they are going to have to do two things through public hearings. First, they're going to have to go to planning and zoning for the major site plan and the conditional use permit. And then they're going to have to come to you guys for a decision on both of those things. So the community will have an opportunity to weigh in on those public hearings. Here, I just wanted to show you the renderings. These are the building elevations. It's a little hard to see, but these are going to be two-story condo-style buildings. I just thought you guys might want to see those elevations. Here's some exterior precedent images. So these are some images that the developer provided us. This is what their builds typically look like. right so um the purchase and sales agreement is something that has occurred since the last time that we spoke in detail about the mou so when you guys agreed to sign the memorandum of understanding with the developer you allowed for in your motion the city manager to sign the purchase and sales agreement So that was, Manager Sanders signed that on July 10th. So I put some highlights in here about what that purchase and sales agreement accomplishes. One of the things that I wanted to point out is that the purchase price that's inside that PSA, it's the greater amount of $100 the properties appraised value as a restricted affordable housing development there's there's a clause in there that allows for dual appraisal process meaning the city can opt to get their own appraisal done after the developer is done with theirs we're kind of working through that process right now with evergreen and we'll be bringing more information to you guys in the next month or so I wanted to talk a little bit about our community outreach efforts. So we've been seeking community feedback on this project with the developer the last few months. Some of you guys were there on June 30th when we had approximately 25 community members attend a community engagement session over at the Cortez Rec Center. Additionally, staff have presented information to large employers seeking letters of support for their tax credit application, and those large employers are there in bullet number two. We've also worked really closely with Montezuma County to carry forward approximately 3.2 million in private activity bonds that are dedicated specifically to this project and i wanted to take a moment and thank the staff at the county and the county commissioners for really being supportive through that process and helping us add that to the developers capital stack I want to let you guys know that the project landing page is live on the Community and Economic Development Department website, and you can just click on the housing button, and there's a 7th Street landing page there you can take a look at. And then staff will continue to make presentations in the community as requests come in. I just did one a couple weeks ago at the request of the Four Corners Board of Realtors, and we're happy to do that with community partners if groups want to have more information. And kind of on that community engagement note, invite all you guys in the community at large to come over to the Rec Center this Thursday at 5 p.m. We're going to do another community engagement session. The developer is going to do a quick presentation to kick things off, and then we'll open up the evening for questions, and people will be able to walk around to different stations and take a look at the... at the site renderings that we have available. And that's the end of my presentation. Just wanted to keep it brief tonight, but if you guys have any questions right now, I'm happy to try to answer those.

Jason do you remember I think it was that last? Council meeting maybe the one prior to that we had a gentleman Speak about 7th Street, and he was talking about how he has rental properties Yes issue was with you know that the taxes or lack of so I I would assume that individual, there's a high chance of him being there on Thursday night. So how will you address that?

You'd have to, can you refresh me exactly what he was saying about that? I've heard different things from different property owners.

I think his issue was he's paying taxes and here we're constructing a building and and they're going to be tax exempted as far as property tax goes.

Yeah. Well that is part of the way that affordable housing projects get financed typically they're going to have to set up a an agreement with the housing authority of Montezuma County in order to receive that property tax abatement. You know, I think that these projects are very difficult to pencil out, even if you're trying to develop like market rate rentals. And so this is just one of the strategies that lends itself to be to them being able to make it financially feasible.

Yeah, I was I was going to say the first slide that you put up there, I think that's the one to use that's going to address it. The market study that you know how how we have 0 yet 70 in 80 80% and that's you know the group we're looking at.

Yeah, yeah, I think we definitely need to start leading with with data on this project.

I believe he indicated that he thought the market was already saturated with housing in the range of what his housing was and he said it's difficult to rent it for an amount that will cover expenses and he was wondering why we were building more quote unquote affordable housing. So I think probably explaining what the definitions of affordable housing are and emphasizing the data that you just pointed out about zero in that certain price range would be helpful because, you know, certainly based on his research, he had a different opinion of what was available on the market today.

Yeah, and fortunately today when we met with the developer, he's definitely prepared to talk about that exact thing. So, yeah.

Thank you, Jason, appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. I went to the last meeting, I just wandered the room and just listened to people and it was amazing. They talked about the park. Didn't talk much about the building, so. They did.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we're gonna go on to item number D, which is ordinance number 1371, series 2026. This is discussion only. It's a draft ordinance approving revisions on two chapter 15, article 11 of the Cortez City Code regarding the annual licensure process for mobile food vendors operating in the city of Cortez. Our presenter is Helen West, community and economic development specialist.

Hello, Mayor and Council.

There it is.

All right, I am here tonight to provide an overview of the work staff has been conducting to improve the city's mobile food vending licensure process. So tonight we will go over what a mobile food vendor is, the current requirements for mobile food vendors in the city of Cortez, why a licensure program is recommended, and how the discussion started, and finally, a potential adoption plan and outline. Same as Mr. Armstrong, if you have questions, just ask. So what is a mobile food vendor? As defined in city code, this is quote, a retail food establishment that is not intended to be permanent and is a motorized wheeled vehicle or trailer attached to a motor vehicle designed and equipped to serve food and beverages operating in either a static or transitory location and serving the public during the hours of operation authorized by this article. The sale and distribution of frozen milk, frozen dairy or ice confection products, candy, gum or other confection products shall be permitted for mobile food vendors. More commonly, these mobile food vendors are referred to as food trucks. However, this definition also provides for the possibility that a stationary mobile food vendor like you think of the snow cones at the farmer's market that is selling goods that arrives and departs in a motorized vehicle or perhaps a food apparatus pulled by a bike of some kind could be considered a mobile food vendor. Just that of course would be up to our attorney and staff to decide to make that interpretation but just describing these options. And I'm sorry it's ringing, I don't really know what to do. Maybe I'm talking too loud. Anyways, temporary buildings for the purpose of mobile food vending are not allowed in the city of Cortez. Um, this, the definitions on the screen were adopted by council in March of 2017 and now are found in city code chapter 14, article nine. Currently, mobile food vendors that operate in the City of Cortez must have the following. So, an annual inspection by the Montezuma County Health Department. This is actually required for all mobile food vendors throughout the county to comply with the City of Cortez. In addition to this, they must have a City of Cortez sales tax license, and if they are cooking food in the vehicle, must have an annual inspection from our Cortez fire inspector. There are also pretty specific rules on hours of operation, locations of vending and other stipulations as set forth in ordinance number 1220 series 2017. The picture on the right hand side is of our central business district often referred to as the CBD. If you are a mobile food vendor you are not permitted to operate in the CBD unless part of a city approved special event or have a conditional use permit which I believe would need to go to city council before being approved. So, complications of our current process. Why do we need a license? The licensure process, I'm gonna try something else. I'm sorry, that's like, is it ringing for you guys? Okay, to me there's like this echo, it's really weird. Thank you, sorry, council. Anyways, this licensure proposal process has been more than a year of work with collaboration between multiple city departments, including my department, community economic development, parks and recreation, police department, the clerk's office, and city attorney. It began as a request from Parks and Recreation and the Police Department after the 4th of July celebrations in 2025 when mobile food vendors were blatantly and excessively breaking rules and not following directions from city staff. I've heard mobile food ice cream vendors from different states, not our newest one, were the problem. There is currently no way to reprimand a vendor for bad behavior other than very extreme legal actions. Establishing a mobile food vendor license program could establish a way for cities to revoke a license in some of these egregious behaviors. There is also concern from other local businesses that many of the mobile food vendors operating in the city, especially those coming from outside of the state or the county, do not comply with all city rules or regulations. Creating a licensure program and mandating, as it says in the current code, to conspicuously display the license at all times during operation will mitigate or should mitigate this fear from businesses and consumers. As I said before, it is very difficult right now for code enforcement and law enforcement, city staff, and consumers to determine if a mobile food vendor is in compliance with city regulations. Right now, as it stands, they would need to come up with three types of documentation. Montezuma County health inspection the inspection from the Cortez fire code and some kind of proof of sales tax So those are three different documents currently needed to prove that a mobile food vendor is operating in compliance with city rules That's very hard to conspicuously display at all times And then finally, right now, mobile food vendors are often confused. In addition to mobile food vendors, our festival organizers are confused about who and what is needed to be in compliance with the city of Cortez. They have to show all these documentations every time they want to vend at a festival, whether it's city or one of our partner organizations. This has also complicated the process for our Parks and Rec staff. Again, they have to see all of those documentations. Hopefully a licensure program would be an annual program, annual license, and then they just hand that license to Parks and Rec staff to prove their eligibility for a festival. So there are four main reasons why a licensure program will help fix the issues we are having. Number one, it creates a faster way for law enforcement code enforcement and consumers to verify that an individual mobile food vendors compliance with city regulations is in good standing. Second, um, it creates a, uh, progressive disciplinary action plan for bringing vendors into compliance if they are, um, not following our rules and regulations. Um, and that, you know, revoking someone's license is much easier than putting a lien on their food truck, for instance. And that's, I mean, our attorney can tell us more, but we don't have a lot of repercussions at this moment. Um, it also, a licensure program would create a streamlined way for city event management and other partners to easily verify a mobile food vendors compliance with city regulations. And finally. It creates a touch point for our vendors to understand the rules and regulations in the city and for me or our other staff to be able to communicate to them about incentive programs and tax credits that they might be eligible for that they often find out about two or three years into their business. So just a brief note on why we are I am advocating for a mobile food vending license opposed to a transient vendor license We do have a transient vendor license in the city Or our code says that we do Technically a mobile food vendor is I'm not gonna read I was going to read this but I know we're short on time So I'll let you and I'll My notes in this are not spell checked, but I will make sure that they are a little better and send to our city manager to send to you all so you can read this on your own time. Basically, a mobile food vendor is a transient vendor, but a transient vendor isn't always a mobile food vendor. A transient vendor, could it be anyone from a door-to-door salesman? We don't require permits, but a Girl Scout could be a transient vendor, right? So a mobile food vending license is pretty specific, which is why we're suggesting a licensure program specifically for mobile food vendors. I will also note every other municipality in our surrounding area, aside from Toyock, has a mobile food vending licensure program, and I believe Toyock actually created one last year. I know we don't need to be like everybody else, but just so you all know, all of our mobile food vendors are already needing to get a license from Mancos, Dolores, Durango, Farmington, wherever they choose to go. Okay, so this would be the process for a mobile food vendor. We would have an annual mobile food vendor license valid from the date of approval through December 31st of that year. They would need to, in addition with the license, and I believe you have a draft of the license in your packet, they would need to approve a current City of Cortez sales tax license that was annual inspections that are required also a certificate of good standing or certificate of fact of trade name from the state of colorado just showing that they're in good standing with the state and then an application fee which would be determined in the 2027 fee schedule so if adopted this program we are not suggesting have an application fee until that new fee schedule is adopted. Part of the reason is it's September. Festivals are over. A free permit might be a way for people to practice this new licensure program before actually coming into having to pay for it next year. So this is the potential plan, ordinance 1371, 2026, which you have in front of you as a draft form would be go for first reading on September 8th with second reading on September 22nd. If adopted by council, we have a full public outreach plan and mobile food vendor outreach plan to help people understand the new regulations. And we would begin pretty much immediately that licensure process for mobile food vendors with that application fee beginning in 2027. Staff is recommending the fee be set at $50. That's kind of an in-between of a lot of other local jurisdictions. It covers a little bit of administrative fees for the city, but of course we would be open to council recommendations.

Can I interrupt you for just a second? I understand you want to inform us, and this is fantastic information. I really, really love it. Why is this not an agenda item? Why is it a work session item? Because we can't make any decisions.

We wanted, so originally it actually was on the agenda, but we wanted to pull it back so in case you guys have questions, if council had questions or recommendations, you could provide that feedback before coming as an agenda item.

I see. The only thing is, everything that you presented today, we're going to hear again. And it would have been nice to hear it just one time in an agenda rather than a work session because we can't make any decisions. Apologize certainly discuss it, but we can't make any decisions and we are really running low on time. Are you yes?

We are okay Well, that is that is it so unless you have any recommendations or questions Of course, you can provide them to our city manager our clerk our attorney, but otherwise I'll let you guys have a small break Good good information.

Thank you very much. Really appreciate it It's an agenda item and you're gonna have to go through all of this because Please to hear about absolutely on the second reading though okay we're going to go to item number e which is cancel general discussion does anybody on council have anything they want to discuss okay we'll go on uh to item fa which is the minutes from monzo mckinney board of commissioners meetings on july 28 august 4th and august 11 2026 which we all have I think we can adjourn for the next work session. Do we need a motion for that? Okay, let's adjourn until 730. We're going to have a five-minute break.