City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's five o'clock. Welcome to the City of Steamboat Springs City Council meeting number 2026-24, Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. It's 5 p.m. And Julie, would you do roll call, please?

Steve Muntean.

Here.

Gail Gary. Here. John Agosta.

Here.

Dave Barnes.

Here.

Michael Pacino.

Here.

Amy Dixon. Here. Here. And Brian Swintek.

Here. Wow. Hey. Shall we rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. OK. Welcome back, everyone. I hope you all have had either good vacations or fun things visits from grandchildren and all that good stuff so tonight we have a relatively full agenda and we will be taking public comment twice tonight we'll take public comment first on items that are not on the agenda for tonight and that will occur after the city manager report or at six p m and then we will also take public comment on each topic discussed as it as we go through it tonight so with that in mind why don't we go to city council reports and see who has some reports to provide tonight who would like to go first i'll start because i have some math not necessarily math but like conceptual math

So, Counselor Barnes and I were at the farmer's market, and we will give updates. But the one thing that was raised to me that I thought was very interesting, we had a few business owners come up and ask if we understand the natural gap in our sales tax reporting. And I... did not know what they were talking about. And so I realized after talking to them that, and I can only speak for myself, but maybe you feel the same way, that I conflate those sales tax dollars, the sales tax increase, I conflate that with more economic activity or more visitors coming to town. And that's actually inaccurate. And I'm going to use an example. So if a local business sells 100 meals last year for $10 each, this year, because the cost went up, let's say the meal costs $11, but it only sells 92 meals, that would actually show that it's flat. But really, the number of people coming is less. And so the whole point of this conversation was to highlight the fact that we may think things are better than they actually are, and that there could be, at least for me, like gaps in understanding what is the... seeing the sales tax in the context of the economic activity that's going on. Because if sales tax is growing slower than prices are increasing, it's actually not a good thing. And maybe we need to be taking some steps to encourage economic activity in town. So I just wanted to highlight that. It seems like from the shakes of the head that I was the only person who's never given that much thought to it. I always would see 1% up and be like, that's great. It's not down. But I just wanted to highlight that in case anybody else was like me. The other notes from the booth, from the... Council thing was one that really, I don't even need to look at my list. Somebody said we should be feeding the bears because they are hungry and we should be coming up with a way to feed the bears. We said that that's a CPW thing, but we appreciate you caring for the bears. There were conversations about a code enforcement issue on 7th and Oak that at that property there, there are people who are partying and using the restroom publicly and concerns about what that looks like. Asked for increased enforcement there. So I'll just use this dais to say that there was concerns about that. Worries about the, there are lots of conversations about the RTA, excitement, also concerns about Just how costs are increasing for individuals overall with the property tax revaluation and expected upcoming asks. And it doesn't – some people were definitely yes. I feel like it reflects the polling. Some people were definitely yes. Some people were definitely no. Some people had reservations but also understood the reason – the need for it. um there was another big discussion about kind of tight well it wasn't tied in not with the same groups but tied into that economic activity of looking to explore the nine up to nine percent str i have raised this in the past but i'm raising it again that as we see uh people fewer people visiting we should be flexing that down to encourage visitors to come and could this be affecting People choosing to come to Steamboat, if the cost isn't that much different from a more expensive place, would people be choosing there otherwise? I think those are big ones. Oh, people blowing the light at 13th and 40. That is a really big one, too, right at the library. That was raised as well. The crosswalks there, people actually almost getting hit by cars. I think that's about it.

Okay. Thank you, Councilman Tech. All right, who would like to go next? Councillor Dixon?

I'll go since we'll go down the line. So just an update from our August 4th council meeting. I think there might have been one or two. I think you were remote. So there might have been one or two missing. If you were not at the August 4th council meeting, I highly recommend you go back and review public comment. We had folks come in, talk about... the need for the city to have stronger code around tobacco prevention. And folks that were in the audience that came up and spoke, we had a student, we had someone from the school district, as well as someone from our local Routt County Public Health Department. And so at that meeting, as a reminder, for those of us that were here, there was a lot of enthusiasm on wanting to move quickly at looking at our ordinances, or maybe that's singular. And we decided that Councillor Garry and I would take the lead because we're working at the school district already. um and that we would bring back updates and so um counselor gary was out we agreed that i would still meet with the group so i met with the group last week um i met with uh colleen garrett connelly from route county public health roberta smith from uh grout county public health and roberta is actually our public health director for the county Thank you to the city. We had Officer Lisa Effling there, and she is our full-time school resource officer at the school district. Patty Oakland was also in attendance, and Patty is our civilian criminal investigator at the police department. And then we had Angie Teeter, and she is a substance abuse prevention coordinator at the school district. I say all those names and where they're from to highlight their expertise in this area. So this is really the group that we wanna be working with when we're looking at any type of changes to our ordinance around tobacco prevention. So the first meeting was really great. There are other communities that are doing a lot more work than we are. And we're looking at mountain towns. We looked at Summit, at Glenwood, and of course Denver's done a lot of work as well. And we're a little bit behind with our ordinance. And so we really need to update our code. So we started talking about what that would look like. We have a meeting tomorrow because we heard the urgency from council that we wanted to get something going. So we have a meeting tomorrow to talk more about it. My request tonight is when we are looking at our agendas coming up, I would like to get something on the agenda for us to review. And so I can tell the group, because they will be coming in and presenting on the findings and the work that we're doing. So I want to try to give them a heads up on what we're looking at. And just based on the scheduling, I think it's probably going to be October. You know, I don't know if we'll have enough to come back for our second meeting in September. And what I would like to request is that this is not a work session. that it actually comes back to a council meeting and that i work with either jen or dan because i know jen um is doing a lot of work around this as well and that we come back with the proposed ordinance And that would be something for you all to look at. And you can say yes, no, leave in, take out. It will all be based on data, science, all the good stuff, and what other communities are doing. So that's going to be my request when we talk about the agenda review. Okay. Okay. And then... I saw that discovery came back and or not came back sorry that route county planning department issued some corrections or needed more clarification, I assume that means we will get another opportunity to weigh in.

I don't know, but we can certainly inquire.

Could you please, and I guess my ask is, is that if we get a letter asking us if we want to weigh in, will you notify that to us immediately? Because I would like to bring it back to council. Last time it was awkward because of the timing. If folks don't want to do it, so be it. But I would like to have that conversation. I will be weighing in, and it's really difficult to have other council members let me know if they want to weigh in if we don't do it up here. So that's all I'm asking for. I was also at Farmer's Market with President Muntean a couple of weeks ago. Had a great time.

Standing room only.

Sure was. Lines and lines. Lots of just comments about like where bus stops are located, sidewalks ending and dropping off. And one thing I would love for us to talk about, not now, maybe during our conversation, retreats in December, there is a missed opportunity to get out information on really important issues that we're talking about. So the stormwater utility fee. there's a lot of confusion out there. Someone called it like an enterprise or something, and we're like, no, no, no, that's not what it is. So I think for next summer, we should really talk about, should we be having material that's really specific to important topics we're addressing? Even property tax. Someone asked us, what are we doing with all the boatloads of money we're getting from property tax? And we were like, talk to the county. So yeah, I would love to find a way for us to use that also. And I think... One last thing. Keep bears wild. I would love to invite them to a meeting and provide an update. The bear problem is really out of control this summer. And... They don't have enough food. I mean, it's really like it's heartbreaking And so I stopped and spoke to her at the farmers market and I would love to find the time to invite her to talk about the bear problem Okay

And we had a question on the report. I agree with you. We should definitely get it on agenda, the kratom and whatever that's being used for the tobacco, the products being sold. And so we know that that's an issue. And yeah, I would agree that we could do it. And normally we do a work session, but if we can draft something up in an ordinance and allow us a little wordsmithing opportunity, I think we can get this through pretty fast. We don't normally do a lot of that wordsmithing, but if there were some easy line items to delete and agree or not agree upon, that would probably be something that I would support for sure.

Great. Thanks for saying that. Because if it came to a work session, then we're talking three meetings. Yeah, yeah. Totally agree. And we will not be presenting anything that someone else has not already done. Yeah. someone meaning another city, town, community, all backed by, again, oh, science and data. So, yeah, thanks for saying that because I would really like to go that route.

We will come back to that at the end of public comment and address that. Thank you, Councillor Dixon. Councillor Gary, you want to go?

Yep.

I have two things. One, just following up on that, the meeting with the school board is on the night, the morning of the night. So I think that was another one of the follow-up items specific to the tobacco-free and flavored tobacco issue. So that is already scheduled and we'll kind of see where we are with that and bring them along and let them know the results of this conversation. The other thing I just wanted to do was take the opportunity to let everybody know that the annual update from the Climate Action Plan Collaborative Board is scheduled for next Wednesday, September 9th, from five to seven, which I know conflicts with the CML District 12 meeting in Oak Creek. So we'll probably have to do some juggling of that, but wanted to just make sure everybody knows that. So if you're interested in terms of what's happening with the climate action plan and specifically the implementation and some of the progress that has been made during the last year, this is one of the, requirements of the CAP board from an accountability perspective is to report out on that on an annual basis. So there will be presentations, typically each one of the working groups, so transportation, energy, waste, economy, will all be there and you'll have the opportunity to talk about some of the specific advancements that have been made in each one of those different areas. So that's the two things I had for now. Thank you.

Councilor Barnes?

Yes, Clara Sollers asked me to bring forth the 9-1-1 Never Forget Project. They're the folks that go out onto the lawn at Yampa Valley Bank and put up all the flags, so they're asking for volunteers. Four o'clock on Thursday, I believe, the 10th, The 9th, sorry. On the 10th. 4 o'clock on the 10th. And then high school kids come and take down. They have been putting up more and more flags every year. This year there will be over 10,000. So they could use the hand putting them up. And then high school kids will come in and take them down on the 14th. And then my other thing is we had a meeting with Overland Property Group. and Mission Rock and the Yemba Valley Housing Authority as a follow-up for our six months when we met with them before. The results were really impressive. I walked the properties with Elliot. I walked two of the properties with Elliot the following week or the previous week. They smelled good. They looked good. The hallways were clean. The garbage areas were clean. And the communication that was there was bilingual. The QR codes for reporting. A couple of the takeaways from the meeting were the fact that we are getting no correspondence from tenants. They are getting correspondence in there, so they know that that the tenants are bringing forth problems or complaints, but they're being handled on a level where they should be. So we're no longer having to get involved in that. And I will say the exterior of the properties look the best. And it made me feel proud as a city and as the housing authority to be able to address that issue for the folks that live there. And I think they're happy to come home to the place that they're in. So- um great thing and i think we set maybe another six month lookout um elliot's going to continue to do his walkthroughs on a monthly basis with this checklist so um they said they're in it for in it to win it so good thank you counselor agosta

Yeah, first thing up is RTA. As everyone has probably seen in the news, we have approved going to ballot this November requesting a half a cent to sales tax to fund the RTA. That's a big win for the community moving forward there. Some other highlights is we have, as everyone knows, we have an executive director search going out right now. As of last Monday, so, you know, so it's like seven days old, we had 16 applicants. And there was a number of, you know, applicants that, you know, came with impressive credentials. So that's good news. And I think we have another week of that being open. making some good progress there. The other thing we're working on is, you know, grant money, grant money in particular to find, you know, to help us purchase buses. There's a big grant out there right now with the Federal Transit. I think it's called 5339. That's the same, you know, we're going to try to chase that grant, the same grant that the city's chasing under Resolution 10 that we'll be discussing today. The one challenge we have with being a new RTA is a lot of these grant monies are tied to helping existing ridership. Well, we don't have existing ridership. So we're trying to partner with CDOT for that and seeing how we can progress there. So we are hopeful that we can capture it because that grant is something like a half billion dollars. So it's very significant to be able to tap into that. I think that's it on the RTA. I do have one just council comment, and that is I feel like we've had a lot of discussions this past week, a lot of activity around licensed readers. And so I know we have a work session next week, and I just wanted to make a couple of comments ahead of that work session. And, you know, but first of all, I want to do credit where credit's due. The police department held a town hall, they heard the community out, and then they changed course. That's not a small thing. I wanted to, you know, first of all, commend the police department for listening and adjusting to community needs. And now we hear the same with the county and the county sheriff. What I'm looking for, as we come into next week, is that we don't treat this as a closed file. I'm coming to this with two questions, and I have two questions I think we should be thinking about. Number one is, what data do we collect in the first place? And number two is, what governs it once it leaves our hands? We have some policies in place in the police department now, but we don't have those general policies within the city. This is unsettled law right now. The state took a run at it this last spring, and they couldn't get there. I understand the county is working on this as well, and I think this is something that we should be working together on. Because, you know, a resident in Hayden or, you know, someone going out to Stagecoach, you know, covered by someone else's cameras, someone else's, you know, policy, and that's not something that's going to get us there, you know, for us trying to solve alone as a city. This needs to be an entire valley community solution that we come up with. So I look forward to next week's discussion, but those are a couple of things I would like us to be thinking about. And that's all I have.

Okay, thank you. Councillor Pacino.

Airport Commission, just wanted to give you guys an update. I did follow up with the kind of some notes I got from Janet. I just wanted to make some points to the general public. But we, our LMD fund, we had maxed at $4.07 million. We only used $3.62 million. And the airline industry right now, Janet was stating, looks at last year's winter as kind of an anomaly. They're not making a lot of changes because of one bad winter year, which is really good. Across the board, airline flight in and out is gonna be about flat. But some of that's changed with JetBlue not staying as long and only coming during the spring break time and stuff like that. The big plus, I think, was United Airlines is getting a Houston daily seat, another daily flight every day. So that's going to add about 4,500 seats where we lost some in some other airlines. So across the board, it's about the same. But overall, it's doing very well. And of course, the LMD board, they were talking a little bit about the support that the new contract they have, the Steamboat Ski Resort Corporation and the LMD board with the LMD fund and allowing us to have some of the money for the chamber and feeling that's positive and see how that would work during the off season. So other than that, just kind of, that's about it.

Okay, thank you. A couple other things I'd like to add. Anything for you? The Business Improvement District. The three of us interviewed candidates, and we came back with seven who we are recommending, and they will be coming to council shortly for your approval. So that's exciting that we had seven very interested people who want to see a Business Improvement District. So that's good. ICS training. That is on 9-11. It is three hours from 9 to noon, and it's expected that we all will be there, right, Tom? Correct. So hopefully you have it on your schedules for 9-11. ICS. ICS training. Which stands for?

Incident Command Structure. It's basically emergency management training.

And we all should go through that. We, some of us, Tom Kelly, Councilor Barnes and myself went to CAST in Carbondale last week, and it's always good to network with other municipalities. So that was a good use of our time. And I wanted to mention that the farmer's market We have one slot left on 9-12 and two slots left on 9-26, and that is it. And maybe you already committed to one of those. So we're almost filled up. So let's fill those up this week. Sign up on the Genius. Sign up Genius so we have it all up. And we should be good to go with that. And we have also, when I say we, a group of city and Councilor Gary and myself have met with SSRC twice to discuss a strategic partnership or alliance that we've talked about before. Right now we're focusing on understanding SSRC's broader vision for the ski area and for their real estate that they own up there. And that understanding will help us in identifying potential sources of funds that can be used to support city mitigation efforts and other priorities, such as, and we have even talked about some of these, workforce housing, childcare, transit, and parking. And we're meeting on a two-week cadence, and we will continue to update Council accordingly as we move along. But we've just kind of started that process, and we'll keep you informed as things move forward on that process. Okay. The other thing I would mention about Mission Rock and OPG is there's an article in tomorrow's paper on it, and it's a positive article, and we appreciate the paper covering that. Okay, with that, let's talk a little bit about if we want to, when we go over agenda review, putting something on a future agenda regarding tobacco, vaping, and all of that. Is there support from council to move forward with that?

I'm not trying to be annoying, but is this going to take up a ton of staff time? Is this going to throw us off on our other goals? I'm just looking at our goals. Yeah.

No, I haven't asked staff. This is...

Okay.

This is their work. The police department staff that came, one's a school resource officer. So this is her work. Okay. Don't deliver on our goals. Yes.

Okay.

I'm actually going to hopefully present Jen and Dan with a draft ordinance that then they can have their eyes on.

Okay. I'm on board. Okay. So we'll work on that. The other thing is... Councillor Agosta, I would suggest you send your questions to Chief Beckett that you have before next week's work session. And so he's prepared for that. Okay. Anything else before we get to one other topic on council reports? And that would be Slate Creek over the keep bears piece. Yes. Do you want to have a work session? Is that what you're thinking for Or community report. Community report? That's right. Community report would be good. Everybody okay with a community report on bears? Okay. So we'll work both of those two things in the agenda. And would you like to talk about Slate Creek? Give us an update on that.

Certainly. We did meet, the Slate Creek Steering Committee met on August 12th, and we met to really talk about support for the roadmap that has been outlined with a goal of having the annexation vote in November of 2027. I think the agreement is that whatever moves forward will be much smaller and will be within the restraints of the kind of municipal services that are available as they've been outlined. At the end of the kind of meeting, or at the previous meeting, we had really discussed how we wanted to, what kind of support we needed. So we had talked about proceeding with community builders, Cascadia, as well as Civic Canopy, and talked a lot about having a developer advisory committee. We've also discussed kind of the alternative of putting this out for an RFP for a single developer. I would say that the group has not reached consensus on how to move forward. We will be meeting again on September 17th. So I would just again encourage anybody if you have questions or thoughts to take a look at what's in our packet, but it's missing some of the rainbow items that were provided to the August 12th meeting. So go online and get the rainbow items that have a lot of the background information from the August 12th meeting. And so that will give you kind of the background and the history and the framing of the conversation. Did I say that our next meeting is on the 17th from 1 to 2.30? And as I say, we'll continue on with that conversation. Okay.

Any questions? Okay. Good. Thank you. Let's move on then to agenda review. Our next meeting is scheduled for September 8th. And at that meeting, it's a work session, and we have two topics on there, as you can see, an update on the ALPR and the six-year capital improvement program. Any questions on that? And then on September 15th, We have our regular meeting and we have a chamber destination stewardship funding request will be in at that meeting, along with an update from Rebecca on the linkage fee program. You can also see we have a number of ordinances and we also have on there the second reading of an ordinance on noxious noxious weeds excuse me which we will uh be taking off there since we will be tabling that tonight we also have an ssra meeting on the 15th as well so we'll have to see if that makes sense would you be ready by then amy for councillor dixon on the Tobacco piece, or would you prefer to look at maybe the October 13th meeting? But that one, well, we can talk about it.

October 20th.

October 20th, we'd have to move it to. Yeah.

Would it be okay if I chatted with the group tomorrow and get back to everyone? Yeah. I mean, I would love to say yes to September 15th.

I think October 20th is pretty wide open.

Yeah, okay. Why don't I, should I just communicate that with who? President Mateen, Tom, Julie. Okay, okay. I'll confirm with the group tomorrow. Luckily, the work, we're not reinventing the wheel, so that might be possible.

Okay. And as far as the bear is concerned, is that something we need sooner versus later in terms of...

I don't know. I mean...

We can look at October 20th.

Yeah, why don't we do that? And I can reach out as well if I can give her a date. Should we say October? I know. Don't say that.

I mean, there's certainly lots of questions about when should I call CPW? Should I call CPW?

And plus the bears are going to be hopefully hibernating at some point. They're not. Why don't you see when they're available? Okay. Then we'll try to work it out. Okay, thanks. So that's September 15th. Any questions on that? After September 15th, of course, we have our October 6th budget meeting all day on October 6th. And then on October 13th, we are going to have executive session. At that point in time, we're going to do our personnel matters around the evaluation of our city manager and city attorney. You should be getting this evaluation forms from HR by the end of this week. So I don't know how long we'll have to fill them out, but I would assume a week or two or at least a couple weeks to fill them out. So we will be doing that and then having that session on October 13th. Any questions on any of those?

Is that the only agenda item for that meeting?

Right now it is. And we, we may be able to work something out for that. One of the things we wanted to avoid was you may recall last year and, or maybe even the year before, but at least last year, we ended up doing it in executive session at like 10 o'clock at night or something or nine o'clock at night. And so we're trying to do them right away at five o'clock and do them first thing. And while we're fresh and while everybody is, so I think, If push came to shove, we could add some stuff to that. But at the same token, I think we want to be fair and spend the amount of time on the evaluations that they deserve.

I totally agree. That means we're only going to really have one council meeting in the month of October then.

That's correct.

So that might be a problem. So I think if we could try to ballpark how much time we need, and if we could add any items after, that might be something we should look at.

Let's look and see what you come back with, and then we can figure it out. I think we have some flexibility there. But I do want to keep those evaluations as prime time, if you want. Okay. Anything else on agenda reviews?

I would just say one other thing. I have been planning to be out of town September 8th since June, which is a real bummer because now we have the flock camera discussion at that work session. I don't know. I mean, I will try to call him. I don't know if I'll be able to because I'm going to be on the East Coast. And so the timing, I have a meeting. So it's a bummer because I have some pretty strong opinions about this. I would concur with my fellow council person around. I'm glad our police department pivoted quickly, but I will probably be submitting comments ahead of time.

Okay.

I'll keep you posted if I can call him.

Okay. Thank you. And with that, then we'll turn it over to Tom for the city manager report.

Okay, thank you, President Muntean. And just a reminder for the community that the city manager report can be found on our website, steamboatsprings.net. Tonight's report is there as well as all the previous reports. And it is organized by our strategic plan outcome areas. So starting off with our outcome area of thriving community, an update on the Stockbridge Campus Housing Project. Cushing Terrell was selected as the overall development plan planning consultant earlier in the month. Their contract negotiations have just about been completed. And so we're glad to see them on board and moving forward. Property acquisition negotiations with CDOT have continued. The city and CDOT agreed to evaluation for the two parcels within the Stockbridge Planning Area. And CDOT is preparing a purchase agreement amendment while the final legal description of the property boundary is being refined. Closing on the CDOT parcels is still expected before the end of the year. And we will be having an ODP kickoff meeting later this week, followed by a visioning session with stakeholder groups in the third week of September. So that project continues to move forward. Just a little update that the tow house, which was a kind of a small capital project, but an important one from a historic resource standpoint. The tow house lean to enclosure project at the house and hill is complete. This improvement provides a small but meaningful increase in conditioned workspace for the ski operations crew, supporting daily operations and offering better protection from weather during the winter months. Full coordination with the Historic Preservation Commission helped ensure that project's successful completion. So thanks to the entire team, including facilities, for that successful project. Connected and engaged community. There's a lot of information on all the social media and website activity. The City Connection newsletter, which, as you know, is an online subscription newsletter that kind of gets pulled out from the city manager's report. It continues to expand its audience and engagement. The August 5th edition achieved a 58% open rate and 5% click rate with the second August edition distributed August 19th. So you can subscribe to that on the city's website and you can find a link to that and receive updates directly to your email box. Outreach supported the Leash Up Steamboat campaign with staff visiting trails and community events to share information, answer questions, and promote responsible dog ownership. Trail etiquette and e-bike safety messaging were also highlighted through pop-up events and a survey. So we'll continue to try to get the outreach on those two issues. Steamboat Springs Police Department School Resource Officer Lisa Eifling has begun her 26-27 school year with the school district, working with the new superintendent and other school staff to discuss school safety and programming. I mention that because that's just a really, really important program that we have, really important partnership, and glad she's perfect for that position and glad to see that continuing. Under healthy environment, the second video in the WaterWise series aired, sharing details from city and Mount Warner water representatives as they explain what stage two restrictions mean, why they remain necessary, and how everyone can do their part to conserve water, including mandatory water restrictions. So you can find that on our website as well. HVAC electrification update. So the building decarbonization efforts through HVAC electrification continue to advance across city facilities. Heat pump replacements are scheduled this fall with installation in this building, Centennial Hall, planned in this month, September, followed by the public workshop, the transit operations center, and the community center in October. These projects will replace aging equipment with high-efficiency heat pump systems, lowering emissions, and improving long-term building performance. So we continue on our decarbonization projects. path with those projects. Also an update, Main Street Steamboat now has the revocable license to manage the waste enclosure at 840 Yampa behind O'Neill's. This is for a 60-day trial period, just to understand what the program needs to continue past that time frame. The trash and recycling dumpsters and the used oil dumpster will all be moved in, have all been moved inside And Main Street will manage the billing of those dumpsters starting September 1st. So thanks to Lisa Popovich for that partnership. I'm glad to see that moving forward as well. The city and the Western Resiliency Center will be hosting the 2026 EV Ride and Drive event on Saturday, September 26th. This is the last farmer's market of the season. The event will be held at the west end of the rodeo parking lot with a variety of partners and vendors representing EVs and alternative modes of transportation. EV driving sign up will be available soon as well as details about the expanded scope of this year's event. So just wanted to make that announcement. Keep your eyes out for that information on that event. That's also a very popular event and coincides with that last farmer's market. So it's good synergy there. Under high-performing government, we just wanted to state that we recently did have a city-allocated affordable housing unit come available in Riverview, and we are happy to share that another city employee is able to take advantage of this affordable housing opportunity after going through the city's selection done by lottery and the application process through Gorman, which has AMI restrictions, and the employee will be moving in early this month. So glad to see that continuing. Steamboat Springs Learning continues to be a value-added internal training and development platform. I mentioned this previously in our city manager's report about this program that's sort of integrated with Workday. In the past two months since launching, employees have completed almost over 1,200 courses with another 140 more currently in progress. So very, very high utilization rate, much higher than we actually anticipated. So that's great to see. Finance is assisting municipal court to evaluate the financial requirements for two potential software solutions for a new court management application. This is a need that's been on the books for a while, and IT and finance will present upcoming demonstrations of the applications to determine viability. So thank you to both of those departments for looking at that and moving that forward. Under safe community, For the mountain fire station replacement, a feasibility site visit was completed with MWL public safety consultants, including interviews with fire department operations staff to evaluate long-term needs at the mountain fire station. The MWL team is conducting a comprehensive assessment of the site and facility, including traffic flow, service requirements, operational needs, and space requirements, And these findings will help guide next step recommendations for fire station planning and determine whether the existing site can support operational demands and program growth. So this is a really, really important long-term capital project for the city. The mountain fire station is woefully out of date, needs an update. So this is a really, really important first step. Many of you have seen all of the piles of debris up at Emerald. So that fuels project is complete. The piles have been constructed and are scheduled for burning in November. So we will certainly be doing a lot of outreach on that. The Bear Creek project, which is also a city open space over sort of in the Whistler area, saw 38 acres treated. Piles have been constructed and are scheduling for burning this winter. We're trying to do as much chipping as we can, but a lot of those piles will be burned once there's enough snow cover. But both of those are really important and successful wildfire risk mitigation projects to reduce that risk in key interface zones. So I'm glad to see that successful. under reliable and resilient infrastructure. Just a note, the city had received two federal grants and one state grant to upgrade the Steamboat Springs Airport lighting at Bob Adams Field. The project will include the replacement of runway lighting, addition of taxiway lighting, replacement of the PAPI, I don't know what that is, but it sounds good. And moving of the airport beacon will help ensure safe airport operations and adhere to the FAA CDOT grant assurances. So we got about a $600,000 from the FAA for the airport improvements program, 435,000 from FAA airport infrastructure grant, and over $320,000 for the CDOT divisions of aeronautics. So great to see those grants come in and help us with that important project. You have a copy of the city council goals as well as upcoming meetings and events. And I'm happy to answer any questions in my report. Thank you, Tom.

Anyone have questions or comments for Tom? Yes, Councilor Gary.

I have a question about the home-based deed restriction program and the comment regarding the use of Workday. Is that just, is that for tracking staff's work on kind of the administrative piece or is there more?

Um, I might have Kim actually come down and talk to that. Cause I think that's really an important integration and she can explain the detail to that. So perfect.

Great question. Kim Weber, finance director. So it is, there's a lot of steps that have to be done with that. It sounds like an easy project when we approve it, but to make sure that we are properly wiring the funds to the right place, it's really just a workflow that we set up to say, The city manager approves it and instead of just emailing documents back and forth and wire information and who called the title company, we set up a workflow to track to make sure we are dotting our I's and crossing our T's and Tom approves it and Rebecca approves it and I approve it and then our accountant does the wire and then we properly recorded in our financial statements. So it's not tracking staff time, it's tracking to make sure we have the proper approvals in place before we wire those funds. Great.

Thank you. Thanks for that clarification. And then a comment, if that's okay? Mm-hmm. Wanted to just call out the information here under healthy environment about the extended producer responsibility program, which was the result of legislation passed in 2022 that basically shifts the cost of recycling to the actual producers, so the producers of the plastic paper and glass, so think, you know, Dannon, Amazon, So it basically shifts the cost of recycling to the providers, and so it becomes recycling at no cost to residential individuals. So again, we're close in terms of the rollout, hoping that it will roll out third quarter, fourth quarter, in terms of in some parts of the state it's rolled out, but here... There's negotiations that are happening between the haulers and the CAA, who's the actual program administrator. So I would just encourage everybody to watch your bills from TwinEnviro Apex. They are doing some information in terms of how that's going to roll out, making sure that you do opt in. And also... making sure you know that I think following the city's Instagram, there's been some fun videos as well about what does this mean? I mean, in the bottom line is it's no cost recycling, but it's also going to be consistent across the state. So no matter where you go, whether you're in Denver, you know, telluride steamboat, you know what you it's going to be, you know, you know that you can recycle plastics one through seven, or, you know, the glass or various different things like that. So there's a lot of additional benefits.

Is that going to be automatic, or do we have to opt in like you're saying?

I think you need to opt in, or maybe it's more opt out. So I'll follow up on that.

What used to be free for recycling, now we get charged for it, so we'd like to see that bill go down. But if it's not automatic, we should kind of definitely get in front of that. Right.

Right.

So hopefully you have seen some of the messaging on the Apex bills.

Other comments? Councilor Agosta?

Yeah, quick comment or a quick question. Can you clarify the Whistler Park comment? You have outreach around Whistler Park purchase provided information about the city's investment in community assets and future recreational opportunities. What does that mean?

I think it was just highlighting some of the outreach we did on that. I think we did a press release on the city's decision to use accommodations tax and sort of the timing and next steps. So it was just highlighting some of the outreach we did on that.

Okay.

Anyone else?

Okay. Thanks again, Tom. So we'll move on to general public comment. City council will make no decision or take action except to direct the city manager. Those addressing city council are requested to identify themselves by name and address and all comments shall not exceed three minutes. So is there anybody in attendance here who would like to make a public comment? Come on down. And just state your name and address, please. Excellent.

Lower that, too. Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Hughes. My address is 1660 Mid-Valley Drive at the Cottonwoods. And I'm here as a Steamboat for All storytelling ambassador. So I moved to Steamboat in 2019 to become a ski instructor for one season. After 6 and 1 half years, I am obviously still here. I fell in love with the community then and COVID convinced me to stay and to start eventually using my college degree. I found my first career with benefits and a salary working at a local nonprofit as an environmental education coordinator. I got to teach our local students about wildlife, our river system, local plants, and I got them involved in nature. After leaving the ski resort, I had to move away from the employee housing at the ponds that I was living in. I put my name in a Yampa Valley Housing Authority lottery, and I won a rental unit at Alpenglow Village. It was great, and unlike many of my friends, I was actually able to save some money since 50% or more of my income wasn't just going towards rent. Around this time, I also met my friend Jillian. She was an ASL interpreter for the schools, and we quickly became best friends. We went to concerts together, we would ski together all the time, and she became a huge part of why I love Steamboat so much. Throughout the years, I progressed in my career as a nonprofit professional, and I became the director of development at Better Tomorrow, which is a human services nonprofit here in town. I absolutely love my job, and I love what I do. But eventually, Alpenglow informed me that at the end of my lease, I'd either have to move or transition to market rate rent, which I absolutely could not afford. I was stuck in this weird in-between space where I now made too much money to qualify for housing assistance, but not enough to afford market rate rent. And I know of a lot of others who've experienced the same. We're called the missing middle. After more than five years of building my life here in this town, I was scared I'd have to leave my jobs, my friends, and the place that I called home. Then the Cottonwoods Condo Complex announced its lottery. I entered, sincerely doubting I could be selected for affordable housing twice, but I was. And some well-meaning people warned me that, you know, deed-restricted home would be a bad investment. But to me, I was really investing in a community I love and in the chance to remain a part of it. homeownership can really represent more than a financial return. So today, I'm a homeowner here in Steamboat, which is something I never thought I'd be able to say. My move also opened up my Alpenglow apartment for someone else to begin building stability and economic mobility. Just as I was celebrating, Jillian told me that she was moving to the Front Range because she couldn't afford to live here anymore. I was devastated. On paper, we are very much the same. The difference is that my name was selected in a lottery twice. I want people like me and Jillian who work here, volunteer here, and build our lives here to be able to have stable housing. I was lucky, but luck should not be the pathway to a life here in Steamboat. I'm just asking that affordable housing remain at the top of your list and that you listen to folks like me here in the community.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you, Laura, for your story. We really appreciate that. Okay, who else in the audience would like to make public comment? Come on down. Bye-bye.

My name's Lila Krulski, and I live at 1255 Meadowood Court. And I'm here to say a very, very big thank you. There are two things I'd like to talk about that this council has done that have really affected our neighborhood and community. Stone Lane has stayed a quiet neighborhood street. What I have seen happen in the last year is an explosion of traffic. And I say that tongue in cheek because the traffic has been pedestrians. people walking their dogs, people riding bicycles, kids on striders, and even an electric wheelchair this summer. By Stone Lane remaining the quiet neighborhood street that it is, you've created a pedestrian highway, maybe even interstate. And it's just been wonderful to see The second thing I would like to thank you for is for funding the Whistler Park. It is definitely part of our community and I know a lot of the traffic on Stone Lane is probably headed to Whistler Park. But again, I really, really appreciate what this council has done for the neighborhood and community I live in. It's made it, it's always been a wonderful place and it has continued to be just a wonderful place to live. And I want to say thank you again and again for that. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you.

Well, thank you. And we're very glad that we were able to do both of those things. Come on down, Tom.

Thanks, Steve, and the rest of you. Didn't bring my readers, sorry. So I'm Tom Gangle, and I live at 307 Locust Court. In this room, I'm typically known as Catherine Parsons' husband. But I actually am a human being on my own. I'm the regional director for Health Solutions West, actually formerly Mind Springs Health. Health Solutions West is proud member of the Route County Human Resource Coalition. I'm here representing both today. First, I would like to thank the council for your decades-long support of the HRC and our work together to strengthen the health and well-being of our communities. Members of our group will be joining public comment over the next few months to give you a glimpse of the services that we all provide. Health Solutions West is the community mental health center in Steamboat and Route County. We are the safety net behavioral health provider. We provide a comprehensive continuum of mental health, behavioral health, substance abuse recovery services designed to be accessible regardless of a client's ability to pay. Health Solutions West offers outpatient therapy and counseling for individuals, couples, groups, and families addressing conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and severe mental illnesses or substance use disorders. Care is delivered in person as well as via secure telehealth. Regardless of age or severity of the illness, we will treat anyone who seeks out our services. Our staff includes therapists, psychiatrists and prescribing nurses, certified and adult, children and adolescent and geriatric care. Case managers and peers are also on our staff. Health Solutions West is the mobile crisis responder for the entire county, available 24-7, 365. Our team is dispatched via the National Mental Health Hotline of 988. As you know, suicides are high in our mountainous area counties. Over the years, the people our mobile crisis team has contacted have not completed suicide the vast majority of the time. I've been here for 26 years and we've only lost a couple people that have actually reached out for crisis services. We have contracts to be on campus at CMC and Steamboat Ski Resort Corporation. Health Solutions West also provides prevention and resiliency programs such as mental health first aid, managing upset or agitated customers, or mental health basics for any community partner or someone who would like to have those courses and many others available to them. One new service that we are most proud of is our open access service. If you walk in or call our offices between 8 a.m. and 3.30 p.m., we'll see you that day. And that's been a big change for the way things have gone in this county and several other counties that we are actually working in. But we'll see people the day they want to be seen, which makes a big difference. If you have depression, it's really hard to hear your appointments next week or two weeks away. So we're doing a very nice job of doing that. We're very proud of how that's working. We're also the training ground for new therapists. Over 30 of the active private practice therapists in this community were trained at HSW or Health Solutions West. Over the years, funding from Human Resource Council has helped Health Solutions West provide in-school services, hire crisis providers, and provide indigent care for those most in need. Again, I would like to thank the council for the support for the Health Solutions West and for the other members of the coalition. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and serving on the council. Thank you.

Thank you, Tom, and thank you for what your organization does for our community. You bet. Okay. Is there anybody else in the room who would like to make a public comment tonight? I'm not sure if Mark's coming down or just standing there. Okay. All right. No one else in the room. Let's check online. Is there anybody online who'd like to make a public comment? Please raise your hand. Okay, seeing none, we will close public comment. And I do want to make Laura's story, which talks about Alpenglow and the Cottonwoods, which are both very important success stories in town. And just so you know, Laura, even though you left, we are not taking our foot off the gas around affordable housing. In fact, I think We put more energy on affordable housing every chance we get. So there's a lot of work going on there, be it around Stockbridge, other infill opportunities, Lake Creek, the home base program and everything else. So we are not going to stop working in that area. So, yes.

I'll just add because I think Laura made a really poignant comment that we hear all the time about home ownership as part of the affordable housing program. And we hear many times that, you know, home ownership that you shouldn't go into affordable home ownership. There's no investment. And she said, it's not necessarily an investment decision. It's investing in the community. And I think that's a really important point. And I appreciated that comment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, yes, did you have?

Do you mind if I just wanted to go back to Councilor Pacino's question? Yes. Is now a good time? Yes. Okay, I just looked up the email and wanted to follow up regarding communication from Apex, and it is an opt-out. So hopefully you have seen either on your bills or your emails that if anybody wanted to opt out, they can, but otherwise you are automatically enrolled in recycling, free recycling. So thanks, thanks.

There you go, yeah. Okay, it is time for our community reports, city council discussion topics. And we have two on the agenda for tonight. We have them both on the agenda for 30 minutes each. So what we request is that you spend maybe 15 minutes on your presentation, which will leave us 15 minutes to ask some Q&A. And up first tonight is our Rowe County Economic Development Partnership annual update from John.

Nice to see you. Good to see you, council. Good evening. Thanks for the time here. Let me see if I can share my screen. I got it all set. Tab. There. Light show.

Oh, my. That worked. Bud light. Wow.

Awesome. Cool. I'm John Bristol, the executive director of the Rowe County Economic Development Partnership. Appreciate the time. It's always good to pop in and provide a quarterly update and then this annual update as well. So thanks for doing that, giving me some time. Talk about why we do economic development, what it looks like, and what we've done this year, and then also what it'll look like for this next year. So... First question, I know you've all seen this before. What is economic development? Let's make sure we're getting on the same page. What is economic development? Response.

You can go to the next slide.

All right. We got it. No, this is, before I go to that, it's really about the next generation. It is the next generation, the economy, the quality of life that we hand off to the next generation. We can think of communities around the state, around the country, where there isn't necessarily the leadership to focus on economic diversification, right? And so then what happens? And so that's where we need to be thinking about economic development. International Economic Development Council defines it as this, I'll keep it short and say, you know, it's about aligning our activities, programs, policies, for focusing on quality of life and economic wellbeing, and that's creating jobs and business, and ultimately that's a tax base, right, for our taxing entities. And I bold all of those, the A, the P, L, and E there, just as Apple to kind of remember it for myself and others, which is helpful. But like I said, it's really aligning, getting all the signals, all of our strategic partners, and everybody else on the same page for economic development because there's so much when it comes to the economy, and if we want to try and influence in some way, it takes a lot. It takes everybody being on the same page. And there's one key area where we can actually have an impact, and that is the key leverage point here, and that is primary employers and primary businesses Jobs, what is that those are the businesses that are bringing new dollars into a community they're exporting their goods and services in exchange for new dollars to come in that then are recirculating within the Community right and so focusing on primary employers. is really the leverage point for economic development if you want to make a difference when it comes to diversification, right? And so that really is our focus in trying to ensure that everybody's on the same page, that that is... the best way for economic development to be the most efficient, have the highest ROI. There's all sorts of other areas you can focus on, but that is one of the key points. And so that's focusing on business retention and expansion with primary employers, expanding new businesses that are primary employers, and that ultimately here we're talking about more diverse and stable tax base. Additionally, you always have to look at what is the industry mix? What's the portfolio look like? And this is what we look like here in Route County. The dark blue lines are the number of jobs in these different industry sectors. And then the blue hash marks are the national averages. So you can see where we are at with accommodation and food service, more than double national average. Retail typically follows the number of rooftops and the population. There are these circles there, though, that are yellow. Those are areas of opportunity for us. So when we're thinking about diversification, that's where we can put a little bit more energy, a little bit more focus, and that's manufacturing or professional scientific services or management of companies and enterprises. Those are a couple key areas to keep in mind. So again, this is kind of when you're thinking like an investment portfolio, right? Where are there opportunities and where are you over-invested or under and what's coming up? So all of that, there's a long background here. We've talked about it before, but everybody came together now five years ago to stand up the Routt County Economic Development Partnership. And it's a public-private partnership. We've got five public partners and five private, as well as additional folks that have jumped on board, which is great. and this is what it's looked like over the last five years. We've added partners, we've added contributors and donors, and we've got a team of three, and that's good, and we're putting on the miles, and we've got five program areas, so plugging away on everything, and these are the program areas that we focus on, these five, and let me catch up on my notes here, because I totally jumped ahead. So first and foremost, it's our Yemph Valley Entrepreneurship Center and Business Retention and Expansion. So I'm going to focus on those two mostly. The Yemph Valley Entrepreneurship Center, we've got the business incubator. That is ongoing business financial assistance, looking at business plans. This year to date, we've done 57 counseling sessions with new startups or small businesses. Last year, we added in youth entrepreneurship with a partnership with 4-H. We did that again this year, which was really fun. I think they were at the farmer's market and certainly appreciate Main Street for providing space for them and Lisa Popovich. We also have the High Country Accelerator Program, which is relatively new over the last two years. At the end of the year, we'll have 16 new startups that have gone through that. We do two cohorts, one in the spring and one in the fall. Very grateful to the City of Steamboat Springs for helping us with the DOLA grant on this, and Ginger and others, so it's been incredibly helpful. then also we have our mentor network. And so this idea here is really tapping into the wealth of knowledge that exists in this community, retirees, business professionals that want to give back and want to give back to new businesses, startups and others and provide some counseling and some mentorship. And so that is an organized network that we have to do that, which has been really fun and exciting to watch grow. Second is our business retention and expansion program, right? This is investing in and focusing on the businesses that are already here. They're up and running and let's talk to them. Let's go deep. Let's figure out what's going on. beyond kind of the surface level issues and move on to what else exists there. We shoot for 80 BRE visits a year. Last year we did 77. That encompassed 426 jobs that were within all of those companies. There's some examples of some of them. Identifying needs and what resources are available. Those are some examples. Enterprise zone tax credits. There's lots of tax credits out there and it is so confusing to figure out which one's what. And if we can serve it up on a silver platter and say, hey, look at this one, sign up for this one, that saves the business some money. Succession planning, that is one that we're doing workshop continually every year when we're thinking about the baby boomers. And as folks are looking to sell their businesses and transition out of it, we've started to do succession planning regularly. workshop every single year and it's it's been good to see the number of folks that are showing up to it this last one that we did it was in July and I think we had about 25 people there so it was good and then lastly our business retention expansion study and report which really informs the direction our programs or reassures the direction we're going with it and The other two programs is Key Industries and Business Relocation. Key Industries really is focusing on, right, when we looked at that chart, where are some of those areas of emerging opportunity? And that is, it makes sense, that's our outdoor industries, those brands that are producing products either here or elsewhere, or they're headquartered here developing them. And then Business Relocation. We don't go out and sell Steamboat Springs to relocate a business here. What would happen if a business wanted to relocate 25 or 50 people here? We know what some of the challenges are. But we do want to talk to anybody that's interested and have a conversation, make sure they understand the operating environment and some of the challenges and opportunities. But I always tell folks when they ask me, they say, hey, we should do more business attraction. I said, I did that when I worked at the state of Colorado, Office of Economic Development. It's an expensive fishing expedition. And actually, we have the tourism and hospitality industry, which brings a lot of people through town. That's kind of the first date for business relocation. So you kind of think of it that way. I'll skip that last one just to save time so we can have some conversation. My work plan is very detailed. You can dive into it as you would like, but essentially it is the same as we've been doing the last several years. That is an important part about economic development and economic development programming is that consistency year after year after year. And then last final piece here, this is just the revenue side of the budget that's in your packet. The highlight the last three or the last two years and then looking ahead next year, recognize the revenue situation as well as the challenging budget situation. And so we are not going to ask for an increase, stay the same, flat, 0%. And so that'll be three years in a row. And that is the same with all of our public partners. A little background here. The public partners is that it's an equitable formula is how we structured it. And so it's based off a size general fund, assessed property valuations, and population. So it's a formula structure there on that one. Yeah, I wanted to scoot through this so we can have conversation on whatever anybody wants to talk about. But thank you so much for the time and really appreciate it. And Tom serves on the board of directors and both Brian and Steve on the Economic Development Council. Thank you for the time on that over the years. Well, thank you, John.

Okay, questions for John.

I'll ask one since I haven't had the pleasure to sit in on any of the meetings this year. When you're out on your kind of business retention and expansion visits, what are you hearing as the kind of major obstacles from local businesses regarding either obviously retaining their employees and or the ability to expand their business?

Yeah, and it depends on if it's a first interaction with a company or if it's one that's a longer-term relationship that happened. Usually, if it's just kind of initial first year, people are a little bit cagey, don't want to share too much information, they'll say. You know, it's housing, it's childcare, it's insurance costs, right? We know that. We've got partners that are working on that. You all are working on that and others across the community. But when we go deeper, especially with primary business, we still continue to hear about tariffs. And thankfully, just a couple of weeks ago, folks were happy that they were getting back some of those expenses from the federal government. And it was much smoother than they anticipated. But certainly we're forced retention for various reasons, be it housing, be it childcare, be it elder care. It's just the cost of living. We here in Route County, average annual wage for labor income is $58,000 a year. State of Colorado, it's 73. In the state of Kentucky, it's 58. We have Kentucky wages on Colorado prices when it comes to average annual wage, labor income, not investment or rental income. And so that makes it extremely challenging. So that's the pressure that folks are seeing along with inflation and gas prices, all of that stuff that starts to filter through a business. Thank you.

Other questions? I'm interested in the, I mean, we're adding a lot of lower wage jobs. And at the same time, we look at like the Stockman, which will add 140 jobs or so over the next three or four years. We've had those two Marriott hotels, which have added a number of jobs. We have another one going on in the west side of town. Where are all these workers coming from? And of course, it's hard to predict, but where are they going to live? And I guess I'm just concerned that haven't we reached the point where it's going to be very difficult to keep workers because there's going to be a shortage. Do we have any idea about the supply demand for these low wage or lower wage jobs, I should say?

Right, and so when we're thinking about the bigger picture of diversification, when we look at this, do we want to be pushing more lower wage, those below the $58,000, or do we want those above? And so that's one question. Two, though, those that are not, to your point, where do they come from? It creates a transit problem, right? We have to look at the larger labor shed of this valley, of not just Steamboat Springs, but Hayden, Oak Creek, Yampa, Craig, further, even over the pass. And that labor shed then starts to create this transportation problem as we have 3,000 people coming into town and leaving. with the housing problem. And I think that's where, that's the big question.

Where do they come from? But are we in kind of diminishing returns here if we don't watch ourselves, that we're just going to run out?

Yeah, I think that you ultimately, especially if we're talking about service industry, that you start to scrape the bottom of the barrel and you run out. You don't have enough folks to fill the positions. You see that job openings. It should, as we're thinking about it, it should increase wages, but you've got all of these other expenses that are happening within the business.

Where do you cut? How do you do it? And the other question, which isn't really related to this, although it may be contradictory in some way, is that do we see any incentives or ways to incentivize small businesses to relocate here?

There are three key programs in the state. Locally, we don't have incentives, right? City of Steamboat Springs doesn't. Rowe County doesn't. Some of the other communities don't have an incentive. That being where, for example, some communities may offer... Reduction in development fees or something else in exchange for locating. Or even direct cash offering. We don't do that here. So what we rely on for entrepreneurship, it's the Rural Jumpstart Program. That's a program that we got into, and if a company is able to get into it, they need to create five jobs. They can get a $20,000 to $40,000 grant, and that's it. Over a five-year time span. There is another program through the Office of Economic Development, but it's the relocation of a business, and it is 25 jobs. In my time here, there's only been one business that has even come close to that. And what that is, is it's 50% of the FICA business. for that business, for those 25 employees is what it is. And so it would be a cash grant. And so when you see some of the larger incentives that happen with the state of Colorado through the Office of Economic Development, that's what they are. The larger companies, the 200 employees, 300 that relocate to Colorado, it's 50% of the FICA for however many jobs that they're bringing to Colorado. Buying large land on the front range. Thank you.

Can I follow up on that? Just to ask a quick question in terms of do any of our peer communities have any programs like that? I mean, I'm certainly familiar with obviously things that are happening on the front range in terms of having different sorts of programs to try to incent businesses to move in. But again, are there any of our peer communities and or to the extent that you've had any conversations, if there was anything that the city could do to bring in higher wage businesses?

Our peer communities don't. Really, a lot of the mountain communities rely on the quality of life to attract people and businesses. There are some communities that may offer not directly through government, but they may have a revolving loan fund that can offset some costs. That is one way. Some other creative incentives that might help a business get started. As well as, you know, there's... One of the key incentives really is when you look at communities is some of the demographics. And interestingly, Routt County, the education level here is on par with Boston, Washington, D.C., Boulder. And so you have a very talented, educated workforce if a business wants to start here or relocate here. And so there's these other incentives, other motives that exist out there versus having direct government intervention to influence the relocation. So, yeah. Thank you.

Consular Acosta.

I know you want to say out of politics, but certainly there's at times ballot initiatives come up that you could look at and say, this will help or this will hurt our economic development. So do you ever make statements regarding the impacts of economic development, you know?

We're a 501c3 nonprofit organization, so we don't get into lobbying or the politics, but we certainly share the information we have and try and help folks understand the lay of the land and what it looks like so they can make their own decisions. But to say, vote for this, vote for that, no.

Yeah, I was expecting that answer. How do we measure success? I mean, we're pushing, I mean, you know, a certain amount of our funds, you know, to support. So there's Rock County and other, you know, so but how should we be measuring that?

That's a great question. And that's always a little bit of a challenge with economic development. Oftentimes, folks will turn directly to job numbers or capital investment, right? At the end of the day, say in an election cycle, people will say, oh, it's about the economy, stupid. You know, it's about jobs and the economy and that's it. But there is so much more to economic development than that. There is the entrepreneur, the new startup that discovers that, hey, their idea actually doesn't pencil out and they shouldn't put their life savings on the line for it. And how do you account for that? walking somebody through that thought process of a business plan and then put that number of, hey, one person said, no, we're not putting our life savings on the line. So there's some components to that. But what you saw in my slides there are those numbers of the folks that have received counseling. that have gone through the High Country Accelerator, that have received business retention expansion visits, also have numbers on the tax credits that have been provided because of those business retention expansion visits. I'd love to share those. And so those are some of the, those are, it's kind of a constellation, it is a constellation of all of these different points that we start to put together for success.

So let me ask the question in a different way. How are we doing? And why?

We are doing good because we are going the right direction. In Northwest Colorado, we haven't had an organization and a partnership like this that's doing economic development the right way. Oftentimes economic development says, hey, let's focus on the attraction of a company. And I've seen neighbors that have said, that's the goal. That's what we want to do. It doesn't happen. Then they stopped doing economic development completely altogether. And you want to have a balance of everything. And that's where we've put together the right pieces through this partnership to have that incremental, incremental growth and structure to provide that support to the community.

And last question I have is, where does the chamber play in with the economy?

Sure. So when I first left the Office of Economic Development and came here to Steamboat, and I worked at the chamber as their economic development director, and that was a position funded by the city, the county, and the chamber at the time. and quickly it became apparent that this structure doesn't work, we need to do much better if we are serving countywide and all of the communities to get everybody in line. That then was part of what brought together this partnership as everybody saw it. The Chamber, they invest, they're a contributor annually to RCEP, and that's, we stay close and have continual conversation about what are they doing, what are we doing, They're a membership organization, advocacy organization as a 501c6 versus us as an economic development organization. But having that, staying on the same page and knowing who's doing what, going what direction is really important. Yeah.

Okay, Councillor Barnes.

Just a quick question. So we talked about sort of incentives. Are there any barriers that you see or that you are aware of that are preventing businesses from coming or high-paying jobs?

Yeah, I... Certainly real estate costs. That is a challenge as folks run out of space and are looking to expand. And I think that is something Hayden has been very smart in developing a business park. And there's actually a company that was in Steamboat that's relocated there because they were able to expand and have the right footprint that worked for them. So that is a key piece. Certainly it's... Salary and benefits here is more expensive than elsewhere. And so those are key barriers, those costs.

Thanks.

Okay, any other questions for John?

I have two pretty basic questions. The first one is around private equity. And so are you seeing any shift for outside funding or private equity ownership in the businesses you work with? And is that changing your role supporting equity?

I don't have an answer to that one.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I'm going to be totally frank on that.

No worries.

And if you have, I would love to hear it and be able to learn more and go talk to someone. Yeah. Because it's part of what we do.

Just curious, Mike, coming from the healthcare field, I'm seeing private equity get more involved in ownership of healthcare, hospitals, which from a personal, professional opinion is not good. But when we're talking a different sector around, well, no, because you probably can work possibly with some healthcare companies too coming in. I don't know. But anyway, that's where my mind was going, private equity. Just wondering if we're seeing that. Last question. I don't know if you covered it. Why is a drop pretty significant for your grant revenue for your 2027 budget?

Sure. So we received a three-year ready rural economic development initiative grant from Department of Local Affairs. And then we were able to expand that to a third year. That will fade away. And with that, that's where we... Our goal was to do a single cohort for our high country accelerator a year. We were able to figure out a way to do two of them a year. And so this next year, we'll probably have to drop back down to one, unless there's other grants that we're able to find or miraculously we have... You know, additional donors and funders that want to come in and support our sponsors are certainly open and welcome, welcome that. But for now, being very conservative, that's what it is.

OK, thanks.

OK, any other questions?

Sorry, I have one more. One more slide back to slide three. That's where the mix of industries that we want in route Connie. What's the significance of this yellow circle ones and why are those highlighted. Sure. So there's like healthcare which is way off. That's not so gold.

Right. So when we think about two points here. One, we think about primary businesses, those that are exporting their goods and service and bringing new dollars in, and then it's recirculating. So number one, it's that. And then number two, where we're below the average, right? And so those three, we're certainly below the average, national average. for concentration of that industry sector? And then three, which ones pay above average annual wages? So north of that 58,000 that I was referencing. Then another fourth one would really be which ones make sense, what aligns with our assets. The management of companies and enterprises, that's where you would see some of our outdoor gear companies and gear brands. They may not manufacture here some of them, but it's management of a company and enterprise. Manufacturing, it's pretty self-evident. Yeah.

on that one.

But yeah, that's why those three. And this was a process that we worked through with the Economic Development Council. And we're currently undertaking a study that we got a grant for from the state of Colorado to reassess this with additional data. So if anybody gets a call, that's right. Okay.

Sorry. Now the last question. Uh-huh. How are you now using this in terms of those three fields? What are you doing?

Sure. So that's where in our programs, entrepreneurship, business retention, expansion, and then key industry, we're emerging industry. Those industries to really focus in on and put extra effort and energy towards, that's where... we have taken the extra effort and time to put together some trade groups, right? So think back in the day, there was a lodging association, a restaurant association, they still exist. Well, we're working with the outdoor gear brands and companies where it's owners coming together, talking to each other, peer exchange. They know each other, they see each other on chairlift or a soccer game or somewhere else, but they don't talk business. And so we create that space where they're able to do that. And you start to see the shortcuts. And a new entrepreneur comes in and is learning from them as well. And we prioritize that. And so that as well as our food and beverage manufacturers as well fit into that.

Okay. Any other questions for John? Well, thank you, John. We appreciate the work you do and the work your organization does to help us retain and expand businesses in this community. Thank you.

Appreciate the time and see you later.

Okay. Our second report tonight is 2026 community mental health update. And that is Tracy and Brittany. So if you want to come on down and, Good evening.

Hi. Thanks for having us. Hi. Thanks for having us.

I'm just going to kind of set the stage here while Brittany gets everything rolling. So I'm Tracy Hyatt. I am VP of Philanthropy at the Yampa Valley Community Foundation. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to come share with you tonight. So about a year ago, the Community Foundation engaged with the Cats Amsterdam Foundation and became a part of the CAF, K-A-F, Cats Amsterdam Foundation Network, which is a series of 12 mountain resort communities. Brittany will go over the locations of those scattered around the West that are similar to Steamboat. So really fueled by ski industry and tourism. And their focus is on improving mental health in those communities. And so the first project that we undertook with them and Brittany and the foundation have collaborated significantly on this. The first project was a community and a provider behavioral and mental health And so tonight you're gonna see the results, the data that came out of that survey. The health partnership has been collecting data for quite a long time in the community through the community health needs assessment and mental health landscape study and so we took the data or Brittany actually took the data from the calf survey and the other data that's been collected and started to identify some themes and out of those themes started to think about the work that's been done there's been a lot of work that's been done really excellent work in our community and one thing we've learned through our calf network is that we're pretty pretty well along already on the way and on the right track to making some good inroads in mental health. And we have a lot of resources already, but there are still gaps. And so where are the gaps? What are the highest priority gaps? What's some of the low-hanging fruit that we can really work to move and make progress and move the needle on in the next one year, three year, five year. So we're going to take the data that we have from the survey. And we also are hearing from the mental health providers and other stakeholders. And we're moving forward on a strategic plan to create a vision and move from data to action to keep this work moving forward. So just wanted to update you on what we've learned and where we're going.

Thanks, Tracy.

Thanks all for having me. I'm Brittany Wilburn. I'm the executive director at the Health Partnership, and our mission is to compassionately connect individuals to health and well-being resources. And in the interest of time, happy to answer questions about our organization, but want to dive into the data. So like Tracy said, we are the second newest member to the CAF, the Cats Amsterdam Foundation Network, one of 12. So we're gonna take some time tonight to review the data. And last winter, we asked our community two questions. How are you doing? And can you get the help you need when you need it? And like Tracy just shared, there were two surveys that went out into the field. One was for our community and the other was for providers. And we heard from 976 residents across our community. 87% live here year-round. 59% of those that filled out the survey came through outreach. It wasn't a random survey. 47% are between the ages of 18 and 44. 52% were men and 47% were women, which is unusual because when you surveys into the field, it's usually women who have a higher response rate. 90% were white, 7% were Hispanic or Latino, 11% were below the federal poverty level, and 79% work, including those that are self-employed. When we look at who filled out the behavioral health survey, the provider survey, we had 72 providers. 54% were licensed clinicians, 59% work alone, and 5% offer services in Spanish. The majority of those were women. And as we go through the data, the data includes individuals from Route County and also individuals from Moffett County, but only with the Craig zip code because we know that so many Craig residents commute into our community every day. And we only had two providers from Craig who filled out the survey. So just as Tracy shared as well, we put forth the community health needs assessment every three year on behalf of our community health partners. So hospitals, Northwest Colorado Health, and public health. And for the last three cycles, behavioral health has risen to the top as a key priority. And there's been really good work that's been done over the past year I don't know, six, seven years, but five years because I've been with the Health Partnership now for five years. Some of those highlights include a 24-hour crisis support, formation of a crisis response team. Most recently, as you know, Chief Beckett, actually not Chief Beckett, but... A sheriff's office launched the mental health response team, which has been pretty successful and is looking to expand to the city. And then a lot of work in the prevention, outreach, and navigation space. So... The Health Partnership has launched a Piensa Lo Bien campaign, which increases awareness around substance use disorder, drinking, and drinking and driving within our Latinx community. We expanded services to our LGBTQI plus community by bringing a provider up from the front range. And we are in the process of launching the Hope Initiative, which is a project to sort of go upstream to work with individuals who are struggling but who are not yet in crisis. So what did we learn from the survey? We learned a lot about substance use disorder and, again, mental health struggles. 5.5 people, individuals who struggle with their mental health reported 5.5 poor mental health days, which is an increase of one day compared to the national average. Our loneliness averages track right with national data and our substance use disorder rates are through the roof compared to national averages. And substance use disorder has dramatically impacted many people's lives. When we look at the data, there are four big themes that sort of rose to the top, and that's around hidden struggles, party culture, the need for intensive outpatient services in our community, and just highlighting the trusted community resources. So when we look at some of the hidden struggles, what we know are that that includes things like poor mental health days, loneliness, and what is weighing on people. And I'm going to just, so when we talk about loneliness, because I think there's sometimes questions around like, well, what does loneliness mean? And it includes people who are lacking companion, or like when you're lacking companionship and feeling left out and are feeling isolated, right? So what we know about our community is that those ages 18 to 39 experience greater or more poor mental health days, as well as the LGBT plus community and our Hispanic communities. And our very low income, our Hispanic and our LGBTQI plus communities are more lonely. So I'm going to continue to share. When we look at what people say is stressing them out, it's housing, which was reported by individuals as well as by providers. And interestingly, people, the folks who filled out the survey reported that they couldn't actually identify what was a life stressor or a challenge. But when we talked to providers, what they identified was family stress in addition to housing and substance use disorder. Prevention is under-resourced, which I think for those of us that work in this community, we know. And when we talk about prevention, what we mean are things that support people's overall sense of connection and belonging, not necessarily requiring a therapist, but that could be like a clean and sober, like an event that brings people together, yoga, hiking, any number of things, but doesn't necessarily involve a provider. And we're going to look at party culture. Alcohol is very prevalent in our social lives. 78.6% reported that it was really important to their social lives. 51% reported that it has impacted their lives. And when we look at current drinking, there's a majority of individuals across our community that drink. And just for context, Current drinking is having at least one drink a month. Heavy drinking is having more than two drinks per day on average for men and more than one drink on average for women. Binge drinking is five or more drinks on a single occasion. That's four for women. And excessive drinking includes those that report binge drinking or heavy drinking. What we know about those that are drinking excessively is that it's primarily men, individuals ages 18 to 39, and our Hispanic community. So, interestingly, over the past four surveys that we've done, the CAF survey and the two previous Chinas, the need for intensive outpatient, which is... It's the sort of the gap between therapy and inpatient. And it includes like intensive therapy four or five times a week for two to three hours a day. And it really provides support for individuals to stabilize within their communities and get the support they need to thrive, to be back out in the community in meaningful ways. When we look at trusted community resources, 83.5% know that local behavioral health resources exist, and only 15% would know what to do in an actual crisis. So just a little bit of attention there. And 90% of our residents would say they would ask for help if they needed it, which I think is really amazing because in some communities that isn't always true. There were two tensions in the survey that we identified. One was that we are a caring community, yet people have a really hard time talking about mental health. And so if we look across Craig and Route County, 60% said that their community was sympathetic towards mental health, and only 48% said it was easy to talk about mental health. And those numbers drop pretty significantly if we look at Craig, as you can see. We trust our neighbors, yet loneliness is real. So 87.8% of people in our community trust the people that surround us, yet 30.4% are lonely. And so if we think about, we trust our neighbors, right? But we feel lonely. And so where and how do we start to think about what we can do about that? And actually I want to point out too, that our Hannah, this is highest trust is higher in our communities, but it's loneliness again, is really concentrated within our low income Hispanic and LGBTQ plus communities. And then when we look at the need for mental health services, when the need is there, not everybody could get the services that they needed. And what we know is the biggest barrier is the cost. So it's cost and it's insurance. So REPS does an incredible job of offsetting or providing free therapy sessions for anybody that needs them. And there's this really interesting tension that is not, cost is the barrier, but when we actually dig a little bit deeper, there's a lot more going on. So it's like I want to see somebody that's not in my network or I want to see somebody that speaks Spanish because I'm a Spanish-speaking individual and only five people in my community speak Spanish and I can't see them when they're available because I'm working two jobs or they're just, there are a lot of challenges. So it's another opportunity. So what do we do with this data? As Tracy shared, we shared this out with our community two weeks ago now. Gosh, time is such a blur. And asked them to brainstorm some solutions. So the key areas that we felt like we could move the needle on were around affordability. resource awareness and navigation, broadening the spectrum of care, community wellness and prevention, and party culture. And so some of the ideas that rose to the top, we had everybody dot vote at the end of the session on the ideas that came up. And when we look at affordability, one of the things was organized coordination for providers around insurance and improved EAPs around resource awareness and navigation. Steve knows this because he's on my board. But there's a real need for a building that really brings all the nonprofits together that specifically work in this space so that we're reducing barriers for people to access care. And then continuing to provide education to you all about where we're at, what we're doing, and the steps we're taking to move this forward. We look at broadening the spectrum of care. Again, a wellness center as a hub, practical support such as transportation, which is also in the works. RTA is coming. A shelter providing behavioral health care. We know that there's this challenging place for people that are either in transition or, you know, Steamboat does have a few individuals that are unhoused. And how do we How do we create opportunities for transitional housing to get these people stabilized and then back out into the community? When we look at community wellness and prevention, free mental health services for students and staff in schools and parent caregiver trainings and classes. And finally, when we look at party culture, a Booze Less campaign, which is in the works and UC Health is hosting a Two conversations with an author who's written a lot about drinking less, I think on October 13th and 14th. So we're going to do some work in that space. Sober days, overnight parking near drinking hubs, lived experience coaching for coaches, and then a multi-use sober venue space. So with 48 seconds to go. What questions, comments do you have for me about the data and about where we're headed? And like Tracy shared, our hope and next step is to continue to gather ideas from community members. I'm a deep believer in nothing about me without me. So the folks that are our LGBTQI2S plus community, our underserved communities and our Latinx communities, how do we continue to center their voices and the solutions that we create? Or how do we implement the solutions that they identify so that we can continue to move the needle in this space?

Okay, thank you, Brittany. You're welcome. What questions or thoughts do we have for Brittany?

I just have a quick one. Is there any context of social media involved in these studies or in these numbers?

The youth survey does ask questions about social media and there were no questions specifically around social media and adults. I do know that if we look, like when we look at the data from like 2022 to 2024 for the youth survey, like there has been a substantial increase in, or like there's been a decline in the number of poor mental health days and youth having trusted adults. So there's been a positive shift for youth over the last few years. So...

How do we quantify the impact of the results of this study? I mean, what does it mean as you walk through the community? Let's say we addressed all this in a very successful manner. What would the real difference be in the community?

I think that we would see, so if we, if there's, for me, there's so many goals, right? One is that we reduce the crises that are happening. And so we would see fewer mental health holds at the, like in the hospital, we would see fewer mental health holds by the crisis response team. I think we would see people getting connected to resources further upstream so that they're not resulting in crises. I think more people would be we would see like the loneliness levels decrease. So we'd go from 5.5 days to like less than three days. And I found out, I did some research earlier this week on like, why is it three days that we're looking at around like poor mental health days? And it's because at that point, those days start to, have an overall increase in depression. And so when we look at like those, like when, if you're, if someone is experiencing more than three days and they're more likely to start to go down the trajectory of depression. So I think, I think we, I think that's that, like those are some of the things that we would be looking at. Yeah.

And I would also say we're gonna be conducting this survey every two years. And so we'll be able to compare apples to apples. So we're taking the data and we are identifying some opportunities to implement new programs and we're applying for some funding and hopefully we see those numbers shift and other communities that have been doing this year over year have actually seen those shifts. So the percentage of loneliness go down, heavy drinking usage go down. We're actually one of the highest percentage of alcohol impacted communities in the entire CAF network. I think we actually might be the highest. And some others were at our numbers when they started and then they've implemented programs and really seen a shift. So that's an area where we're gonna spend some energy and some money over the next year or two.

It seems to me that if you, and this loneliness factor is an interesting thing, but over time, the more years that go by that you have that in your life, it must accelerate in different ways negatively, I would think.

Yeah, I mean, when I first read that, the very high trust in your community, but also a very high loneliness factor, to me, that was the paradise paradox. I don't know if you've seen that film, but that you live in a community where we all trust each other and we have this great community and we know that we live in an amazing place, yet we, one out of three people still feels lonely. And so, you know, is that somebody saying, well, it must be me. And then, you know, that results in a higher suicide rate. And so the Hope Initiative is a good effort to try to get ahead of some of that because that will be a great resource for people who are lonely just to call and talk to someone and have a friendly ear who can let them know that they're not alone.

I'm also really excited about that. the strategic plan because I think that there will be, like not only will the data show in two years potential shifts, but we also get to, I mean, ideally all of the organizations that are participating in the strategic plan will be able to report back on like what are they doing and what are the shifts that they're seeing in the data that they're tracking.

Can you share what the HOPE initiative is for those who don't understand?

The HOPE initiative came out of a community group, and it stands for Helping Others Through Peer Engagement. And so it's a peer volunteer warm line where folks who are struggling or people who have people in their lives that are struggling can call to get connected to resources or just to talk to somebody about what they're experiencing. And we're hoping to launch it in early to mid-October. So we'll start with some contracted hours, but then we'll expand.

I'm curious that your report has the alcohol in there, but since they approved marijuana, where's that being surveyed or at least looking at? That seems to be a huge aspect in this community.

That's a really interesting point. Do we, I haven't, Heather hasn't.

Does it lead to loneliness? Does it lead to people getting out there? I mean, it seems like that would be not just categorized as substance abuse because I look at substance abuse as, you know, meth and hardcore drug.

Yeah.

But marijuana seems to be such a common thing like alcohol.

Yep.

And yet alcohol. we need to start keeping some data on that.

Yeah.

There's a lot to be learned there. The focus has been on alcohol because, oh, sorry.

Microphone.

There's a lot to be learned there. And I agree with you that it's not captured in the data. And Brittany would know much better than me. But alcohol has been a focus because it is incredibly impactful to our communities, to our health care system. When you talk to people at UC Health, the emergency department, I mean, multiple police, yeah, all of our first responders. So it impacts this community on a much deeper and far reaching level than people are aware of. So that's why that has been the focus. And I'm not sure the data around marijuana usage and the impacts to the entire system of a community, whether those are as drastic or we just don't have the information, I'm not sure.

Yeah, so I think, and I am also, I wonder, because what was identified in the community health needs assessment in 2025 was the drug was of most concern in Route County was alcohol. And the drugs of concern in Moffitt County were like meth and narcotics. So, but it makes me, that makes me really curious because I do think that we're starting to see a lot of marijuana-induced concerns and issues at a health level right now. So it's a good question for Heather from the CAF, the Cats Answering Foundation, to include more of that information in the next survey.

Yeah, I was part, I joined you at the 988 session. And my understanding is for those in need, they can now call 988 and they get directly linked into the HOPE resource.

So 988 won't directly link them to HOPE. HOPE will have its own line. I think 988 is like their focus is crisis. So if somebody calls the HOPE line, Dana, the Hope Initiative project manager, is like developing all of these algorithms right now. Like if this, then this, if this, then this. And so if somebody calls and they're in crisis, we will call the back line to Health Solutions West, who was here earlier, to make sure that the folks get connected immediately. Or we'll call 988. So they work independently of each other right now. with the hope of maybe someday they would know, like 988 would know, like, oh, you're in this community, you need to, let's connect you to the HOPE initiative.

We're getting there. We're getting there. We're getting there.

We're getting there, yeah.

I saw something interesting here.

Yeah.

Under party culture, one of your initiatives, you know, that has something there saying overnight parking near drinking hubs. Now that doesn't, so let me finish, let me finish. So I don't see that as helping party culture, but I see that, I'm wondering, will that help us in other areas because we have higher drunk driving, statistically way higher than other mountain communities. And how many of those would not be drinking and driving if they knew that they could just park and leave their car there and take an Uber home?

Right? It's interesting. And there were more than one dots. I think that one probably had like three or four dots. In order to make it onto this list, they had to have three, at least three dots. So, yeah.

Hmm. I have a question. Thanks for all this information. It's really important to be talking about it. So thank you for being here. Is all this work happening through the Behavior Health Coalition?

That's a really great question. So we, the health partnership serves as a neutral convener. And so over the years, we have brought organizations and individuals together around critical issues. And so we have sort of served as the convener and facilitator of a lot of work in the behavioral health space. And I think as a member of the Cats Amsterdam Foundation, now we have access to funding. We have access to learning from our partners across our other communities about different projects that they've implemented that have been successful. Like the Booze Less Campaign, Summit County and Truckee both implemented a program that has reduced drinking rates. So that's really great. So I think there are community efforts happening And we are the convener and coordinator in a lot of spaces. And then the commission or the coalition, I'm sure, is volunteers, folks that are... Yeah, it's a lot of community partners and organizations and then individuals who are concerned about behavioral health and mental health.

Which I love that. And I wonder at what point does the conversation move towards... Because I'm looking at... the feedback and your five points. And number three, the broadening the spectrum of care and this wellness center hub. And so I think about when I work in healthcare and really important healthcare issues where we've got providers and advocates and All of it. How are we bringing everyone together so it's not so fragmented? And I say fragmented, not in a negative way. Everyone wants to help. So what about Summit County? Don't they have like that? Building hope. Are you talking about that model?

So we partner really closely with them. And we did prior to becoming a member of the Cats Amsterdam Foundation Network. And they're, they, they don't act like their space is actually, I mean, at least the space that I visited, I think they've recently moved, but it's, it's pretty small and it's more like online. They do a lot of things. They do a lot of events. They do, you know, they've got a provider network, but it's not housed in one location. And I feel so strongly that, before I was in this work, I worked at a federally qualified health center. And what we knew was that if you bring services to people, they will participate in those services. But if you make somebody go down, like even in the same building, if you make them walk to another office, they're just, it's gonna, it creates another barrier they're not gonna go. And so the, you know, my dream right now is like, how do we, what are the models that we can learn from across the country? in Canada that we could potentially replicate here because people are doing it. It's just finding out where it's being done and where it's being done well. So the model that we create is sustainable and supportive to our community.

Yeah, and my last is more of a comment, because I totally agree with everything you said. I'm like, yes, yes. And that we have to make it, the lens of this work is all about the person needing to access care. And having one place for them to go is how it has to happen because trying to find, do I call reps? Do I call?

Right. And what we want is like, if you call reps, they're going to put you in, they're going to direct you to the same place that if somebody calls the health partnership, like they're going to direct you to where you need to go and, or there's going to be some significant handholding that happens so that you're not walking that alone.

Yeah.

Thank you. Okay. Any other questions?

Yeah, I have one and sorry if this is offensive, but what is the health partnership?

What a great question. Yeah, so we are a 501c3. We're a nonprofit. And like I shared, we connect individuals to resources. And so we have a number of different programs. We have a care coordination program. So we receive Medicaid dollars to work primarily with Medicaid members to get them connected to resources. That could be they need a primary care provider, they need a behavioral health provider, or their roof is caving in, they're getting evicted, and the care coordinators work to get them resources, work really closely with the Women's Giving Circle at the Community Foundation to pay for car fixes, rent. It's amazing the magic they can make to support our community. And we cover Route Moffitt and Rio Blanco counties. And then we have a substance use disorder recovery program So we have peers, so individuals who have been, have walked through their own substance use disorder and are now on the other side of it. And so work with individuals who are still actively using to individuals who are curious about treatment or who just need some support in maintaining their recovery. through one-on-one peer coaching, through sober events, so bowling, hiking, arts and crafts, like all the things, coffee. And then they do fentanyl and naloxone trainings. We host a really big peer conference in Glenwood Springs, and over 280 people came in July. It was really fantastic. And then we get folks signed up on the health exchange for health insurance. And then we do a lot of work like in the systems level change work in the behavioral health space. So doing our cost of poverty experience, if you have not participated in that, highly recommend it. It's a four hour poverty simulation where you spend four hours, actually, it's really two hours, as a person in poverty. And it really helps increase understanding of the systems that prevent people from being able to thrive. And then convening organizations around critical, important issues. So that's who we are and what we do. Thanks for asking. Thanks.

And they will be celebrating their 10th anniversary on October 10th.

That's right. 10-10. Happy birthday. Turning 10 on 10-10.

One last question. Go ahead.

Are you guys facing big budgetary concerns this year, cutbacks for the state?

So far, we're doing okay. I think with changes to Medicaid, so there were some federal changes to Medicaid that require individuals to re-up every six months and then prove that they're either working, volunteering, or looking for work. And so that is yet to be, that is where we could potentially experience some significant cuts. And we, those rules and regulations don't go into effect until January of 2027. So we won't have a sense of what that will look like until mid-2027. And we're working with the state to get lists to be able to call folks and get them in the process of starting their re-enrollments sooner than later. Thanks.

Okay. Any other questions? Thank you so much, Brittany and Tracy, for that report. And we have a lot of other pages I know we can look at in that report. Thank you so much.

Okay, good.

Well, I think we're at break time, but we will ask for public comment if there is any. Any public comment? Anybody in the room want to make a public comment? Anybody online? We will close public comment and take a 10-minute break.

Thank you.

medical hold on. Stop.

Okay, we're ready. We got everybody. Who are we missing? John, where is Gail? No.

I don't want any news from me. No news.

All right, we're going to move on to the consent calendar. And items on the consent calendar may be reviewed and commented upon same manner as other agenda items. Any member of council or the public may request withdrawal of any item from the consent calendar for further discussion at any time prior to approval. If items are not removed and left on the consent calendar, they may be approved with a single motion. So I will read through the items on the consent calendar, then we'll come back and ask which items would you like to pull from the consent calendar. Starting with item number 6, first reading of an ordinance vacating a 10-foot portion of a 15-foot public utility easement located in Lot 2, Collin-Kark Subdivision, filing number 4, PL 202-60183. Number seven is the first reading of an ordinance rezoning lots 1-45 and 60-140 of the Glenn subdivision to remove the entry corridor overlay zone district PL202-60165. Number eight is the first reading of an ordinance vacating a water and sewer line easement and a fire hydrant easement located on lots one and two, Steamboat Villa, subdivision PL20260178. Item number nine is a resolution supporting a grant application to the Bureau of Reclamation and Water Smart. Water Smart Enhancing Water Resources Projects Program for the Yampa River Walton Creek Confluence Restoration Project. Item 10 is a resolution supporting grant applications to the FTA bus and bus facilities 5339B and low or no emissions 5339C programs for the purchase of hybrid diesel electric buses for the transit fleet. Item 11 is a resolution approving the City of Steamboat Springs Emergency Operations Plan Item number 12 is the first reading of an ordinance amending the municipal code to designate certain noxious weeds as a public nuisance and to authorize municipal court action to enforce noxious weed regulations. Number 13 is the first reading of an ordinance, seven supplemental budget appropriation ordinance of 2026. As we go back and say which ones we want to pull, we will pull number 12. And we will talk about a motion to table that and we'll talk about that. But we will definitely want to pull number 12. Which other items would you anyone like to pull?

11.

Okay, hold on. 11. Yes. Eight. Got it. 13. Please. Please. Okay, so I'm hearing poll number eight, 11. We'll pull number 12 and number 13. Is that correct? Okay, is there anybody in the audience who'd like to pull any other item? Or is there anyone online who'd like to pull an item? If so, please raise your hand. Okay, seeing none, then I will ask for a motion to approve the items we will leave on the consent calendar, which are numbers six, seven, nine, and 10.

So moved.

Okay, we have a motion from Councilor Gary, a second from Councilor Pacino. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 7-0. That brings us to number eight, which is the first reading of an ordinance vacating in water and sewer line easement and fire hydrant easement located on lots one and two, Steamboat Villa subdivision.

Bob. Yes, good evening. My name is Bob Keenan with the City Planning Department. And this item here tonight before you is an easement vacation of a water and sewer line easement and fire hydrant easement. The issue here is not that it's an unneeded easement. It's just that the easement is not located directly over the waterline and the fire hydrant. So one of those things where I think the easement was platted and when the waterline went in, they didn't survey it well. And so it's outside of the easement. And I can just easiest to show on a, let me just share my screen here.

Thanks Bob.

No problem. And so this easement will be rededicated. They're currently going through a platting process to combine the two lots over there. And the easement ordinance has been written so it doesn't take effect until that plat is recorded. So we will always have either this easement or the realigned easement over the water and sewer line. So as you can see here, this is the water and sewer line easement. mouse is hovering over the the extensive that that that boundary for whatever reason, I couldn't get that to highlight but that runs the other boundary runs for like right around here. And you can see I've highlighted the water line easement. And it is well outside of the easement. So it's not not even in a public utility easement right now or water and sewer line easement. So that is the basis for the request.

Okay. Questions for Bob?

Yeah, Bob, will you pan out a little bit and show the lots?

Yeah.

I was having a hard time. Lot one is on the top right, I believe. But if you could, yeah.

Yeah, you know, I can even share the GIS overhead if that's even more helpful to orient you to where we are at. Is that what you're looking for?

Yes, please. Okay.

So this is kind of over by, uh, uh, freshies. And, uh, is it, um, I actually can't remember what's in this, um, little shopping plaza here.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You hold the rest. That's what I mean. Yeah. Um, anyways, um, and then this is, um, uh, ski town apartments that was, uh,

uh previously a hotel there yeah so it's on the boundary of these two properties here i can i'm just going to zoom out for you that's not helpful though uh yeah emerald park yeah so lot two currently in is includes the ski town apartment and then the lot right behind um the

shopping area or the okay so yeah these these two um basically that final plot is proposing to basically draw this line

here and remove this line so this will all be one lot and then this would be all one lot got it yeah okay thank you that's super helpful and i couldn't yeah and now i found the um the number uh the easement the 488 point I couldn't find it, but thanks for pointing it out because I saw it. My other question, when we talk about the CDC, the applicant said there's public benefit. And so when I was looking through this, I was like, oh, they want to redevelop it. But how do we square that? How is there a public benefit with this?

Right. And I think you were referring to the applicant's narrative. Good question. And it says, in conclusion, the proposed easement vacation promotes the public interest by removing unnecessary and inefficient easement configurations. I couldn't find anywhere else where it mentioned any public benefit. There isn't a requirement for public benefit for an easement vacation. Basically, you know, do we need the easement or not, and then when they're not needed, they just go back to the property owner.

Okay. So maybe I was looking at the wrong part of the CDC, and now, of course, like, oh, easement vacation. Ah, you're right. Public interest, not benefit. Okay. What is the public interest here, then?

I would concur with the applicant is the public interest is to make sure our easements are aligned with our utilities and not having unnecessary easements throughout our community.

Okay.

Okay. Thanks, Bob.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Okay. Other questions for Bob? Anyone? Okay. Well, we'll open it up to public comment then. Is there any public comment? Anyone in the room? Anyone online? Please raise your hand. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to council for discussion or a motion.

Move to approve agenda item eight. Second.

Okay, we have a motion by Councillor Pacino, second by Councillor Barnes. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, Bob.

Thanks, Bob.

Okay, we'll move on to item number 11, a resolution adopting the City of Steamboat Springs Emergency Operations Plan.

I pulled this really for kind of public education and awareness that the plan exists.

Good reason. So Chuck, maybe you want to give us a kind of overview for the public.

Yes. Chuck Sarasoli, Fire Chief. Happy to give you an overview. I do have a handful of slides, not very many. I can run through if you'd prefer. Okay. Let's see, make sure I can navigate. I don't do this often enough to be super handy at it. You fireman, you. All right. So we're here tonight to request an adoption of the new City of Steamboat Springs Emergency Operation Plan. Really, the purpose of the plan is to create a framework that guides how the city prepares for, responds to, and recovers from emergencies and disasters. It aligns with a couple of our new categories in the strategic plan. So why it matters. Emergencies obviously occur with little or no warning, as it seems glaringly obvious these days when you watch the news at all. Large incidents can overwhelm our resources, city resources, and may require kind of quick reaction for multi-jurisdictional support. And then the EOP itself will help ensure that All of us know our roles and responsibilities. We work under a unified command system. We are efficient with our resource management. We've discussed and have pre-planned things like continuity of government and emergency spending. And then obviously we hope to be able to recover faster as well. This plan itself identifies certain hazards. It's important to identify hazards so we can pre-plan for those hazards, but also having a plan for different hazards allows us opportunities for funding potential if those emergencies do happen, if we've pre-planned ahead of time. We identify critical facilities, which helps us not have to think about them when our adrenaline's up and trying to cover our bases at the last minute when emergencies happen. It addresses access and functional needs. The plan itself outlines the emergency declaration process and then, as I mentioned, emergency spending process. So the concept here is that the plan and the team can be initiated really at any level. Typically an emergency will start with one or two resources that go to an event and then start realizing it can either escalate very quickly and they're going to need help or they just take care of the event. Having the incident command structure in place allows us to activate the incident response team, as it's called in the plan, which brings together members of the leadership team as well as yourselves to start talking about the incident, what's going to be needed, making sure we're following our policies and procedures and that we have the public interest in mind. If the incident starts to exceed our capacity, there's obviously processes in place, and one is to reach out to our partners at the county where they have their Office of Emergency Management, and they have an EOP. This is designed to coordinate and work well with the EOP that the county has designed. In fact, I work closely with Mo quite often, and we're going to see him next week. And so then they would maybe potentially stand up an emergency operation center and that is a succession to get to state and federal funding and partnerships the ICS structure is designed to be Flexible so it creates a unified structure so that we all know our lines of communication who were talking to who were who was talking to us and telling us what to do so that chain of command it keeps Control manageable, so you try to make sure you don't have too many people that you're trying to answer to. Standardizes roles and then keeps a system for accountability and resource tracking, which can become overwhelming very quickly in a large incident. This is just a quick overview of what the response team looks like. This is a very typical chart of an incident command structure starting out. And then there are layers and layers and layers that you can add on to each of those general staff positions, which we don't anticipate. This isn't designed to be a Type 1 team that has 200 members to it, but the idea is that we start putting these positions in place so that as we need, as the incident escalates and we need to pass it on, we can pass on a very clean and efficient document so they can jump right in and take control. It talks about emergency spending. We've talked about this last time, and so the plan contemplates having the city manager through his spending authority, his or her spending authority would have $10,000 per single purchase, $100,000 for an incident, and then anything after that would come to council for appropriation. ensures essential government functions continue during and after. So continuity of government, it spells out what would happen if council couldn't convene, whether it's to move forward with an emergency declaration or an emergency resolution or whatever it might be. It talks about delegation of emergency powers. tracking records, our facilities, and obviously communication, how we're gonna communicate to ourselves and the public. The communication and plan maintenance, so there's public alerting is one side of the algorithm for evacuations and whatever, information we need to get out immediately. And then of course there's working with our communication department and the counties to make sure information gets to the public in a unified, controlled manner. And we don't have five different sources trying to say different things and everybody's on the same page for that. It's recommended that we review this plan every three years and update it with exercises, incidents, and changes as we see fit. And that's what we're starting off with right away.

Thanks, Chuck. Any questions for Chuck?

No, I didn't have any questions. I'm just looking forward to the meeting later on this month.

Yes, and I heard you remind everybody earlier this evening, but September 11th, I was just meeting with Mo. I think it's going to be a great meeting for all of us, really. Yeah.

Good. Yeah. Thank you, Chuck. You bet. And we'll open it up for public comment. Is there anyone?

I just have one quick question, sorry. Go for it. How often are you all doing tabletop exercise, if they're still called that, I don't know, but tabletop exercises within the city or your department?

So in the first responder world, we do them all the time. In fact, it was just a functional exercise at the airport that we participated in. And then we kind of run those scenarios all the time. As leadership team, we're just starting to get into it. We've done, I think, I mean, we started off one just kind of walking through an incident, talking about all the different aspects of it. We actually will do another one on Thursday where we actually start talking doing kind of tabletop into a little bit of functional, like let's pull up the forms, let's start filling out some things, let's see what it takes to get an IAP complete. The theory here is that we're kind of quick into the incident and we're not creating 60 page incident action plans, but we do want to be following that pattern and have incident action plans so we know what we're looking for in the next 12, 24, 36 hours.

Yeah, thank you. What's a tabletop exercise?

So a tabletop would be let's all sit down and say we have a hazardous material spill right in front of Safeway that's threatening to get into our water, Fish Creek, and then we sit down and we kind of walk through just not a functional exercise where we're actually rolling apparatus and setting up command centers, but we're kind of walking through it and say, well, we do this, and then we do this, and then we do this.

Great. Thanks.

Mm-hmm. Okay, yes, Tom. I just want to give kudos where kudos is due, and that's to Chief Sarasola. He's really taken the bull by the horns with this. You know, it's been on the list for a while, but he's really taken the step in developing this emergency operations plan, getting leadership team trained, setting up the tabletops. holding us all accountable. You know, this is one of those things that you kind of roll your eyes like, oh my God, one more thing to do until we actually have an emergency and then we're prepared. And so I just appreciate it and just wanted to say thank you. Thank you.

I would say this is extremely important.

When I first got on council, it was 2019 and four months later we locked down because of covid and that you know my role as a leader and that was like what did i sign up for you know and so i think this is extremely important for not only the leadership team of the city but the city council at that time so it's definitely something that will constantly be brought up so thank you for spearheading this and thanks tom for giving him the kudos

And we have a great opportunity with Mo and his department at the Office of Emergency Management. We're going to be the focus of the fall exercise for the county is kind of validating this plan. And we're going to come away with a lot of lessons learned and we'll keep updating it. So it'll be fun. It's fun for me anyway.

He's gonna say, oh.

Will there be any sort of changeover if the fire inclusionary happens?

Not necessarily. Fire's role will typically be incident command. So this training that the leadership team is doing is gonna maintain even if the fire department ended up in the district. And I still see us working in close coordination regardless.

Okay. Okay, anyone else? Well, thank you, Chuck. We'll open it up to public comment. Anyone in the room or anyone online, please raise your hand. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to Council for a motion to adopt the City of Steamboat Springs Emergency Operations Plan. So moved.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion. Councillor Geary, seconded by Councillor Dixon. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Number 12. an ordinance amending the municipal code to designate certain noxious weeds as a public nuisance and to authorize municipal court action to enforce noxious weed regulations. And we want to table this. And I think, Jen, it might make sense if you just give a little clarity to why we want to do that.

Sure. So we received some comments from the public, which were, you know, some of them I think we could answer by just doing some explaining in the packet and explaining it a little bit more. Some, I think, are points of clarification that we can actually integrate some more language into the ordinance itself so that it's more clear how it's implemented and some other suggestions. So the plan is to tweak this thing a little bit, and I'm talking to the planning department. I'm also going to get Dan's feedback when he's back to sort of piece out exactly what he was thinking of how some of these mechanisms would work, and then bring it back to you with a clearer package for the October meeting.

Okay. And so do we need to specifically say what October meeting it will be brought up?

Yes, you should table to a date certain.

Any other questions to Jen regarding this? Okay. Any dates suggested?

That's up to you all.

Let me open up the public comment and then we'll come back. Anybody in the room or online have public comment, please raise your hand or come on down. Seeing none, we'll close public comment, bring it back to council. And what date were you suggesting?

October 13th.

October 13th? Does that give you enough time? That's the...

It has to be the 20th unless we're going to add to the 13th.

The 13th is when we have scheduled for the executive sessions for the reviews. Yeah, let's stay away from that if we can.

So October 20th. October 20th, does that work, Jen?

That works, thank you.

Okay, so would somebody like to make a motion here to table item 12?

until october 20th where we will see a revised ordinance i will make that motion to um table or postpone item number 12 to our october 20th meeting second

Okay. Motion by Councilor Gary, second by Councilor Pacino. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. We'll go on to number 13, 7 Supplemental Budget Appropriation Ordinance of 2026. Kim, thank you. Always asking for money.

Always asking for money, yep. Kim Weber, Finance Director. Do you just want me to go over what's in the appropriation?

Please.

Okay. So this is a supplemental budget appropriation for a total of $672,659 in expenditures. It includes a grant from Belonging Colorado to cover some conference expenses. You'll recall that you approved a contribution agreement for the fire inclusion process with the district, and our portion is $125,000. We have $40,000 budgeted, so we are asking to appropriate an additional $85,000. with the expense coming from the fire EMS fund. So you'll also see a transfer from that. Within the capital projects fund, we are asking for $29,690 from reserves. This was for this skate park replacement completion of the project. This was budgeted in 2025 with our software conversion, with our staff turnover. We missed this one, so we need to appropriate that. The propagation house at the Botanic Park is budgeted for 264,400. After all the final pricing came back, it's a total of $471,370. So we're asking to appropriate the difference with the Botanic Park Society funding that at 100%. So we have the offsetting revenue for that. We have an ordinance that we collect 5% of gross revenue on commercial tubing operations and river operations. We have restricted revenue for that that has to be used for enhancement projects. So we're asking to use about $75,000 of that to look at designing some seahole improvements. And then we have a grant program for a police trailer barricades. It's an enclosed trailer that has barricades for special events, for traffic control, pedestrian control. And so that is fully funded. We would be appropriating the grant revenue and the expense revenue. And that covers all of them. However, if you approve this budget ordinance, I'll need you to actually change the amounts. We accidentally put the net amounts in the ordinance versus the expense amounts. So we'll need to change the amounts for the general fund, capital fund and fire EMS fund. If you consider approving this supplemental.

How far off?

A lot, 482,000. We netted out the revenue. And so general fund, it shows zero. It should be 89,000. It should be the total expenses. Capital projects fund, it shows the net amount of 104. It should be 498,659. And then the fire EMS fund is correct.

Whoops.

Yes, sorry about that.

Okay, questions for Kim.

I'm just curious, what is the mechanics of this? Like when you get our approval, do you then book a journal entry and are the funds kept in separate bank accounts? You then transfer funds between accounts?

No, they're kept in all the same bank accounts. But we have that bank account in different funds. And we do a budget journal entry. It's a little different than a regular journal entry, but we do a budget journal entry that then we have to show the money coming from one fund to another and then after that we actually have to do a journal entry to make it happen so when we move funds from fire ems fund to the general fund we have to increase the budget and then we have to move the money and it moves um so the balance sheet will show how much money is sitting in the fire ems but it doesn't truly change bank accounts yeah

And you wait until we approve to do that? Absolutely.

Interesting. There are a couple of times that I do take a chance, like with the fire district inclusion. Since you guys have approved the contribution agreement, I did say go ahead and enter into that contract. But if for some reason city council doesn't approve the contribution or the budget, we'll be scrambling. But I do that very rarely. All right.

Thanks. Other questions for Kim?

I have a quick question, Kim. On the river commercial operating fee, you said we collect 5%. It's showing right now a $75,000 expenditure, but technically we have funds that we collect that offsets that. Yep. Okay.

But they sit in a reserve account. So that is money that we collect every year. We've collected zero this year because of the river being closed. But we have that sitting in a reserve account. But in order for us to spend any money at all, whether it's a contribution or it's sitting in a reserve account, we have to show that as an expense. So we have to come to you guys and say, can we spend that money? Because it wasn't in the original budget.

Got it. Thank you. Anyone else?

And I would just say, just to be clear, so what you have in terms of with the ordinance needs to be 89,000 or the 498,659. Yeah, so if you look at attachment one. Yeah, no, it reflects. The middle column. Right.

Yeah, so it needs to be for the general fund, 89,000. For the capital projects fund, 498,659. Right. 85,000 for fire EMS for a total of 672,659. Because we don't appropriate revenues. We put them in our financial system and show them, but we don't actually appropriate them. We only appropriate expenses.

Okay.

Just wanted to be clear on the numbers. Yes, thank you. And it'll be corrected for second reading.

All right, Gail, you got to read those numbers and let's hear it.

I will.

I wrote them down.

Okay, let's open it up to any public comment. Anyone in the room? Anyone online? Please raise your hand. Seeing none, we'll close public comment, bring it back to council for a motion on a change of numbers, probably.

I can do that if there's no discussion.

Doesn't appear to be.

Okay, all right, so I would move approval of agenda item 13 with the corrected numbers in the ordinance. General fund $89,000, capital projects fund $498,659. EMS stays the same at $85,000, so we have a total expenditure of $672,659.

Correct. Okay, we have a motion from Councillor Geary. Second. Second by Councillor Swintek. Any further discussion? Okay, then I'll call the vote. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Okay, we're moving on to public hearings, motions, resolutions, and ordinances. We have two second readings tonight. The first one is the Sixth Supplemental Budget Appropriation Ordinance of 2026. Does any... One would like a presentation from Kim on this. I see smiles but I don't know what that means.

It was just in regards to a Okay.

Kim, would you like to run through it quickly? Boris?

So the sixth supplemental has appropriation for $53,075 in the general fund. Both are grants. one from the Circular Action Alliance for recycling education and one from the State Historical Fund for Riverside and Fairview surveys. We have in the capital project fund, we're asking for 98,500 in addition to the 100,000 you have already budgeted for the stormwater utility implementation plan. Uh, we added a robust communication plan to that, which increased the cost. Uh, we have additional carry over that was budgeted in 2025 for the U S 40 downhill drive. And then, um, we have the runway light project. We need to appropriate additional funds, but because of savings on additional projects, CDOT and FAA have allocated additional grant revenue and it actually decreases the contribution from the city. So for a total of 347.01 in appropriations.

Okay, thank you. Any questions? Okay, hearing none, I'll open it up to public comment. Anybody in the room or online, please raise your hand if you have a public comment. Seeing none, close public comment and bring it back to council for a motion on the six supplemental budget appropriation ordinance of 2026.

Move to approve agenda item 14, second reading of six supplemental budget.

Motion from Councillor Pacino.

Second.

Second by Councillor Geary. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Item 15, second reading of an ordinance of the City of Steamboat Springs amending section 12-511, seven of the Steamboat Springs Retail Marijuana Code pertaining to the local sourcing of marijuana by licensed retail marijuana stores. Do we have questions for Jen around this one?

I have a very brief presentation if you'd like to see that as well.

Someone like to? Okay. Let's hear your presentation, Jen.

She only has one slide.

One slide? That is brief.

Amazing. It was composed by Dan Foote.

That was way out of town.

Let me see if I can share my screen here. OK, that's the first slide. So this is the second reading of the local sourcing requirement. The ordinance that you have before you is simply a date change. Right now, the local sourcing requirement is scheduled to run out on January 1, 2027. That's in a few short months. This would extend that by five years. You guys can choose a different date or extend it indefinitely. The geographic scope remains unchanged. We did have that in the first reading as a possibility of expanding it from Steamboat to Route County, but we have learned that that would not help the local retailer Tumbleweed. That's their official position is that that would not help them to find a place to grow. As you're aware from the pack materials that was raised quite a bit by them, that they could not find a place to lease. The 50% requirement, if you remember from your packet, we went from 70% to 50%, and that stays the same. So all we're looking at is a date change. I did want to note for you, your finance director forwarded to me this afternoon some information that the state of Colorado actually passed a bill in the 2026 legislative session that got rid of the 10% of the state wholesale tax going to local. So Dan had drafted a fiscal impact section that said that there's a couple tens of thousands of dollars that goes to the city every year from this excise. We're not gonna be receiving that as of, I believe it was July, Kim. So I think Kim's numbers were, it was about $100,000 last year and we received 30,000 so far this year. And so small fiscal note there. And then the last slide, questions.

Okay, questions for Jen.

So maybe just following up on that last point regarding the fiscal impact. So you're saying the state discontinued an excise tax that was distributed to local jurisdictions?

They are still collecting the tax. They are simply not giving it to us anymore or any local jurisdiction. They're keeping it and reallocating it to education and other state priorities. Okay.

Wow, exactly. Okay. All right. What did education ever do for me?

Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll open up public comment. Anybody in the room or online, please raise your hand if you are online. Seeing none, we'll close public comment. Bring it back for a motion or discussion.

Move to approve the second reading of the ordinance regarding the marijuana local source requirement. Second.

Motion by Councilor Pacino, second by Councilor Barnes. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. And then Item J, City Attorney Report. Do we have any, Jen?

Nothing to report here.

Okay, thank you. And then we also have old business. We have approval of minutes, regular minutes from July 21, August 4, August 11, and our work session also on August 11. Is there any revisions, questions regarding any of those minutes? If not, I'll ask for a motion to approve those. So moved. Got a motion from Councillor Swintek.

Second.

second by counselor barnes all those in favor say aye aye opposed do we have any other business to discuss tonight nope three hours to say that julie um predicted this meeting would last for three hours and she was off by a minute well you need to keep talking for a minute okay to go