Historic Preservation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

09/22/2025, and I call the Erie Historic Preservation Advisory Board meeting to order. Dink. Pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, one of God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Madam secretary, roll call, please.

Mike Turner? Here. Andrea Arendt? Here. Cesar Martinez or Jimenez? Sorry. He's

not here.

Cesar

Martinez. Apologies. Jimenez. And Lara Thomas? Hello. And Alex. If Wix. See? I messed everybody up

the date. You're adult concentration.

I know.

Who wants a new name?

I'll listen that one. They

changed my name on our email.

It's called. Was like, who's Laurel? I don't know. Oh, guess it's. That was so funny. I'm still trying to get Laurel off of my

Yeah. So funny.

Forum is achieved, and Harry Brennan, I recognize, is council member O'Connor. And Josh, what is your last name?

Campbell.

Campbell. Perfect. As soon as my computer wants to connect to the Wi Fi, I will back.

Thank you. As everybody had the opportunity to review the agenda?

Yes. Yes.

I'm moved to accept.

It has been moved to accept the agenda. Do I have a second? Cesar second.

You did my finger cut.

Deandrea has moved, and we accept the agenda as written. Cesar has seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

We gotta raise our hands for the video. Okay. The minutes. Has everyone had an opportunity to read the minutes?

Yes.

May I have a motion?

I can't motion because I left it.

I I'll move to accept.

Do I have a second? Caesar. Yeah. See, Andrea has moved that we accept the minutes as written. Caesar has seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Unanimous. Okay. Let me go into general business. Just to let you know, Josh, we do not have the capability to remote, So it has to be In person.

If if you wanna

I'm not

sure of anything. Okay.

Yeah.

So Here to talk.

There is nobody here, so we'll we'll move on. Biscuit day was I was there for a short period because I was cooking sausage, but there was a lot of people.

It was success.

And I and I really appreciate everybody who was there because everybody I see at this table was there, and I truly appreciate it. Rachel was there, but she was at her own historical booth. So thank you, everybody. And I hope we learned a lot.

Yeah. You know, I would I think on oh, no. There's a second.

Yeah. We have to go down that. I'll get there in a second.

I I just I had something related specifically to biscuit day, but I just am curious. When we are doing any sort of tabling or boothing or whatnot, I feel like we get questions on certain things pretty regularly. Yeah. And I don't know that all of us know the answers to those things. And so I'm wondering if we need to, like, come up with just some stock answers on a handful of things that seem to come up all the time. I know one that came up this go around a lot was, like, the the coal mines and, like, where

mine under my house.

Right. Exactly. And I think if we're able to say, like, you know, we could send them to that one website, but I did not know what it was off the top of my head. Harry, I know you've shown it to us before.

Yeah. That map I've shown you, I don't think it's

Is it public facing?

Not public facing. But

we probably

probably is a public version of that. I think what I showed you is not

On the big Boulder Valley map that I have, the the area that I put, areas like this big. So

Right. People would look at it and be like, where am I? And I'm like

So I would so I would have to, I think we should probably blow it up.

Yeah. I think if we had one specific to Erie. And it's The Erie Historical Society has a map of the entrances on their website.

Oh, nice. Okay. And you

can click on the pins.

To go there?

To go there, and

it gives you some basic information about the mines that that the years

It'll you what the mine is and the year it was done, but there's no information about it.

Because I think that might be a little bit of like, everything that we have hung up in our booth, I don't know what any of it is or couldn't even, like, tell you know, like, there's there's some imagery of things I'm like, you know, it's eerie.

That's I think we should have have those QR codes available.

That's on me, that's on me

a different.

On the QR code for the walking tour, I I do have gels that I thought we had asked to put them up, but if you know somebody that wants one, I do have gels. For the walking tour to go into businesses.

I don't know that I understand.

Jails? Yeah. QR codes. Oh. Oh. They stick to the window?

Oh, gels.

Yes.

Oh, gels. Yeah.

I'm checking a clean like, a clean. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I said gels. I guess you No.

No. You're totally fine. I just wasn't connecting connecting the dots. I think that would be helpful. I'm almost thinking if some of those photos or just any of it needs kind of like a like a museum, just like a little thing next to it that says, like, what people are looking at.

I can and we got six months before the next one. So I'll put annotations of what they are. Just a little Yeah.

Something. It's a good

it's a good key. Yeah.

Because the one picture that shows the the depot

Mhmm.

Right, it actually shows it this way showing from the e from the west to the east, but in actuality but because you had to cross the tracks to get to the depot. Okay? That's the way when UP built the first one, it was on the south side of the tracks, and and the dynamo was on the power station was on the north side. And what's enter and just so you guys know, that power station was Erie's Erie was the first town in Colorado to have its own power station.

Very cool. I mean, like, these are things yeah.

And that was, you know, way back when you know, right around when you were talking about turn of the century. And it was a dynamo, which is just a big generator, huge generator is what it was. But we had our own power supply. And when that picture you show the depot went across the street, that's what it shows. It shows the depot and the power station.

Yeah. Cool. Did you know did you know about Erie? Like, what is one of our QR codes? Yeah. Fun facts. Erie fun facts or something like that. That'd be a neat thing at our booth

to have.

Yeah. Adam

Andrew Swart, when I gave briefings, he always asked me for a fun fact.

Yeah. Something to come up with. Yeah. Full of fun.

Yeah. And so Yeah.

I just found that to be something that I know some of us younger folks, not by age, by time on the board, aren't as as privy to some of the things that we could be telling folks. And then there was one other thing

specific to biscuit day. I apologize.

Okay.

If it gets back to you, you

can throw it out there.

Yeah. The one guy one person recommended that we blow up that map because you really can't see it.

Yeah. Well, it was at that property that the person across the from us came to talk to us about.

Thank you. And now I hope I have that piece of paper with me.

Know I have report.

It says here that we spent less than $3.50.

Yes. That was a, a $3.75. No. Not not far off. So, yeah, we got the, I guess, metal slayer axe, an Amazon order, I guess. So, yeah, we spent under $400 for sure on that. So we will have pretty 600, our last remaining budget for the year.

Yeah. One one thing is Laura brought some of her own display materials, and they were just great. So I'm thinking maybe by Arbor Day, we need to get some of those.

Very easy. I can pass along exactly what I have.

And Yeah. And, you know

He has these little stands and these little oh, they were just growing.

Yeah. Thank

you. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. Because she has these.

Oh, okay. She has a bunch of little Those are cool. Yeah. So photos or one

of them. So, yeah, she's got

a bunch of them here. And

so I thought they were great, and that's something that we should probably have.

Yeah. One probably Yeah.

I would like to

cheap. Right?

I feel like they come in a pack of, you

know, it's

not that many. Can get, like, 10 and not go overboard. But, yeah, I can I can pass those along so that we just

get what we need? Cool.

Yeah. That that Amazon order worked. Actually, even the Lowe's order was not bad. The lady tried to give me

trouble at the store. She's like

Did she?

Yeah. She's like, can I see your ID? And I was like, it's not gonna match. I'm getting $5 worth of sand. Can you please just bring this up to my car? I had the baby strapped to me. She's like

Yeah.

Stealing sand. Right. It's $5 for me.

Yeah. If

you have, Yeah.

I can transfer it to you tonight. It's in my car.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'll take it home and film. Perfect. Alright. Historic District, and John Campbell is here to help as well.

Yeah. I mean, we had a meeting earlier today. Cesar, myself, and the the town, there were,

you know,

six or eight of us. And, basically, we're just kind of discussing what next steps we need to do to be in step with what the town is doing. I think one of the biggest takeaways from that meeting, at least for me from a board standpoint, was just that I I think, similarly, that we're all kind of operating not knowing what what we need to do to be either in compliance or helpful with one another, where are where things bleed over into one department or this, that, the other. It's just kind of an overall feeling of, like, no one was doing anything wrong, but there were better ways to do things to make this more

Seamless? Productive? Productive, seamless,

in in I I don't know. I've talked way too much today. In in accordance with with how the town would like to see things to happen and run, I I think that is was was one of the big takeaways. I don't know if you have anything to kinda add to that.

Yeah. I'm happy to jump in there and kinda explain where, I I guess, the origination for this conversation came

from. My name is Josh Campbell.

I'm the senior strategic planner for the town. Just a fancy way of saying I do long range planning. The reason why this conversation kinda stemmed is right now, I'm actively doing community outreach with historical town residents. We're doing what is called a social capital exercise, where we are embedding ourselves into as many events happening with the Old Town, also hosting some of our own events to bring Old Town residents together. The reason we are doing this is over the last several years, we've been hearing from Old Town residents that they're feeling a little less heard, maybe excluded from conversations, not as well representative as the town continues to grow.

One of the things that we've noted from the town's perspective on that is, Old Town's unique. It's not represented by an HOA. There is not a voluntary association. There's not, from our perspective, a a body that kind of serves just this neighborhood in of itself. We feel like that's a potentially a disservice that residents are feeling this way. So if there's ways that the town can help support bringing community together, we wanna try to figure that out. So these exercises that I've been doing, which has been the farmer's market, we've done ice cream socials, we've done community coffee hours. We're supposed to actually have a neighborhood walk last Saturday. We rescheduled for biscuit day. Pushed that back a couple weeks.

It's an opportunity for myself, our elected officials to come out, engage conversation with the community. It also provides an opportunity for them to get to know their neighbors. That's one thing we're we're hearing is the amount of social capital that exists in Old Town is a little bit more limited in terms of, you know, how well people know each other. The point of this outreach is not to go with predetermined ideas, projects, concepts to put in front of the residents and just ask them to give their input on. Actually, the whole point of it is actually to let them lead the conversation.

So I have, at these events, take a hands off approach and just let them start the conversation, see what they wanna focus in on, they have concerns about, and we can kinda just understand each other a little bit more through that. Sometimes historic preservation items do come up. Sometimes they don't. I'm not pushing one way or another. It's just truly just having that conversation.

The goal with this is the end of this year, early next year, that I will go to council with a list of options and next steps to what we could do as the town to help facilitate a a stronger community in with an Old Town. What we suspect, and this is potentially just one of the options, is that doing an Old Town neighborhood plan would be one of our next steps. That is a comprehensive detailed plan that focuses geographically just on Old Town. It can cover anything housing, transportation, economic developments, social capital and programming, historic preservation, especially because we're calling it a capital h, historic Old Town plan. Again, that's just hypothetical.

That that would be the next step. Through that, the result of it would be a policy and action guided document that would be adopted by the town to forward steps for specifically Old Town. With there being the the potential and most likely likelihood of a historic preservation chapter and policies and action steps, we wanna make sure that the items that are put forth in that are items that, one, are supported by the town departments, are supported by you all as a historic preservation board, and can also be programs that can be supported through grants and other avenues. We suspect that historic preservation will be a key part of Old Town. I mean, if you talk to people, they talk about identity.

They talk about this as natural differences from the rest of Old Town. Now how do we preserve that is a whole of the conversation. We have a long list of tools that we have the benefit of focusing in on historic preservation items. And that's really where this conversation stemmed from, knowing that HPAB has been working on one of the many different tools, being historic districts, and trying to have conversations with the community, specifically Old Town, and seeing what they feel like. A plan of sorts most likely wouldn't, assuming that's the direction council provides, would not be happening until spring of next year.

A neighborhood plan, if it runs as efficiently as possible, you can speed run it in sixteen months, or it can take all the way up to twenty four months. So that's one of the reasons why we wanted to just sit back, have a conversation, understand what HPAB is doing, where you are in the process of doing the historic district conversation, because that is a potential tool that could be an actionable item and supported through adopted plans. But we also wanted to make sure that we're thinking about what other tools we have as assets, especially as there would be a part of town staff work plan in terms of implementation. So that's why we wanted to come back come together, have a conversation. I wanted to meet with you all, let you all know that what I'm doing.

And if you have questions on it, this will be a great opportunity. One thing I also forgot to mention earlier is that, you know, while what I'm doing right now is not topic specific, it's still important that I'm engaging with all the different groups. But if we were to move on to a neighborhood plan, I would actually be leaning very heavily on you all to be a part of the TAC, which would be a technical advisory committee with it being historic old town, having your professional expertise in reviewing all documentation and being a part of that routine process and planning procedures is crucial. So while, again, I don't know if that will be the direction council ends up deciding based off the list we provide, I do wanna let you all know that ahead of time. So that's something you're keeping in mind because if we do go that direction, I will be reaching out in the future to really get you involved.

That was a very long winded way of saying what I'm doing, but that's more or less why the conversations are are happening. And we just wanna make sure we're we're working together because we don't wanna duplicate any efforts. Because a lot of the education outreach that you're doing for the Stork district, I will more than likely end up

be doing again next year as we talk about policies and action steps that would go into a document itself. It was as I stated earlier, with my understanding when I read that email that miss put out that the planning department was putting a stop to it. And that was what I was reading. And subsequent to that, I was told that not necessarily, but they may go in a different direction. I'm just concerned that planning is gonna put historic district on the back burner and let it go by.

And it's one of the things it's one of the tools that we have for preservation. And that's the only reason that we're thinking about doing it is because as the town looks for economic areas with puts history on the back burner.

So I I can say we're not trying to put history on the backburner. And historic preservation, there's other tools such as design standards that accomplish the same exact potential outcome without putting the burden of expectations on a a household. And, also, if you do design standards, doesn't necessarily require buy in from the community. I mean, you obviously want to do education and support and awareness for that. But say if the district were not to get to that 51% threshold, at that point in time, that tool is null and void.

So what other tools do we have to kind of filter in and support still preserving? So at this point in time, we just wanna be cautious on putting all our eggs in one basket and only looking at one tool when there's a variety of other instances out there, especially if we look at local other municipalities around. I think it's Lewisville has some individual grant programs that help support preservation as long as you're preserving a certain percentage of the household or characteristics. Again, that's not a district, but it's still going towards the preserving what the character nature of the community is.

One of the things we're trying to do is get people landmarked.

Mhmm. And that's a great tool as well.

Once you're landmarked, then you can submit to the state historic fund for up to $5,000, but the work has to be done, of course, historically.

Yep.

And my only concern about design standards is that it covers the whole area as a whole and doesn't separate homes that are 50 years or older. Like you put vinyl or aluminum on your house, that disqualifies it as a historical building. So those are things that we can introduce.

I mean, we're Old Town's unique and that it has these OTR zoning and John is, like, on the other one.

Oh, yeah.

Downtown zoning district. So those have ability to add in more design characteristics for protections of that issue. So even if we were to go and design standards, and I know I'm specifically focusing in on that one tool, that's only one we don't even know if that would make sense. There's pretty where I was going with that. But there there are options there.

So I just wanted to make it aware that, you know, as as a planning department, as long range, it's our responsibility to be looking at the vast number of tools that we can bring to the table. So that's not to say historic district is null and void. That's not something to say we're discouraging you from going that route. It's just we wanna make sure that we're we're prioritizing looking at every option, doing case study analysis, and making recommendations of what are potential tools. And that's to say historic district is truly a potential tool that could be here. We just wanna make sure that all the tools are being discussed if one of them were to not be able to move forward. So that'll be part of what my responsibility would be in terms of looking forward.

I mean, I do think it's worth noting with Lewisville, they did apply for a historic district in '86 and 2013, and they didn't they weren't approved. Now I haven't seen all of the, you know, the application and what, you know, went into that or or what, issues made it not feasible. I've seen one of them. And so, you know, I think it is just worth noting that if something doesn't work, yeah, you're gonna start to look for all the other ways you can start to preserve. And and they have something we don't have.

Right? They have a a museum, which, you know, is something that people stop into and enjoy all the time. So I think it the the thing that I feel concerned about or or or am curious about is I don't know as a board where our our efforts begin and end. I think that's where I get confused because I I did feel after I kind of reflected on today's meeting that I was like, well, what it sounds like is or at least what I understood is that we report to town council. That has always been my understanding is that we are we are kind of the liaison directly to town council.

But it sounded like to me, it's like any and everything we need to do needs to go through communications, needs to go through planning department. This and and I just was not aware of that. And if that is the protocol that needs to happen, I just feel like there needs to be a whole lot more outlined of what what our purpose here even is.

That's not in our charter. Yeah. And that's that's Like, you know, when she said that in the email, like, you can't do anything without approval from the town. Well, our approval comes as an advisory board to the town council. We work directly for the council. We don't work for the town. Understandable. And and so well, as a town per se So by saying that we cannot communicate with anybody without town approval, that is really putting a spear in the ground and stopping us from doing anything.

And I I I do wanna say that's not what that email is intended, and it wasn't meant as a lack of better words, a stop work order. It was just more of a case of let's pause. Let's make sure we're in alignment because the conversations that were being had were two different conversations. And the reasonings and purposes were not matching up, but we wanted to just be in realignment with that. And to to follow-up on the other point of not having clear direction on kinda what roles and expectations are, that was a topic that did come up in the discussion that we had today. And we're our our we're working with our clerk's office because it's I will say it's not just the historic advisory board. It's all of our boards need some

Guidance.

Guidance. That's a good word. And so that is something our our clerk's office is aware of and are working on next steps. So I don't wanna speak on them in terms of a timeline of that, but that is something we're aware of because we're running into that kind

of feedback.

We communicate with the town via the town clerk. Mhmm. And if that doesn't get passed on, you know, there's

Yep. Definitely some procedures internally.

We're supposed to report to the town clerk, and that's what we do. Yep. And if it doesn't get published from that and that on, then.

Yep. Like I said, there's there's internal processing that even outside of just this, the historic preservation advisory board that we are aware of, and we're again, we're we're we're trying to get that because we wanna make it sure it's a smooth process throughout. It's not we don't want there to be siloed.

Your your responsibility. That's not No.

I I just wanna make it aware that we we we do recognize that. And when I say we, I'm saying the town, not necessarily just the planning department like myself. And that's again, we're not trying to discourage you from doing anything. We just wanna make sure that, you know, as efforts are moving forward in similar paths, that we're at least stopping and acknowledging the conversations, and if there's education piece and that needs to happen, how can we collectively work together? And that's one of the big things we're we're just trying to work on with these conversations.

Yeah. I appreciate you being here to kinda quell some of the bad feelings. So like I said, I was everybody here knows I was very upset. Mhmm. Okay?

Thank you. Yep.

No worries. And if you wanna learn more about what generally we're doing with the social capital exercise, if you go to engageeerie. Or eerieco.us and look up historic old town, there is a web page on that. We are moving on to our final invite invitation event. And then through that, I will actually be going into one on one stakeholder interviews over the next couple months.

We're gonna give the community an hour or two per person just to sit down and have a conversation with me one on one. We know it's easy to have conversations at events, but it's kinda difficult to really truly get down to the nitty gritty and the emotional aspects and things like that. So that will be the final or the secondary phase of this fall and winter. So you won't really see me out and about at events because I'll be doing one on one interviews with individuals. So, the findings of all that will then be presented to counsel most likely early next year. Knew you had you had a question.

I I just wanted to speak to the you called it a social capital exercise. Like, I I just know I've lived in Erie for twenty two plus years, and I know there's some very proud Old Town residents that do not want to be put into a strategic plan, and they're very proud of their lack of HOA type regulations. And they also need to be heard too. So I I didn't know how that works into what you're

It is I will say we are trying this phase of this exercise is we are trying every avenue we can possibly think of in terms of reach now. We recognize there are individuals that wanna have zero involvement with me, especially as seen as a government employee or a planner. Some people just wanna be hands off. And I I wanna respect that, but I also wanna say if you wanna have an opportunity to share your voice, I'd love to

get purchased property in Old Town because there was no HOA.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So Yeah. Well, I don't

wanna be told what to do with your property.

So I I I wanna say that's not the intent of the social capital exercise or even with a strategic plan. It's not to tell anyone what they can and can't do. It's just more of if there's ways or programming that we can bring that's available to them, if they want to be a part of it, that is what is able to be a quick response with the strategic plan. So this social capital exercise really has no intention of building any sort of HOA. It's not necessarily even a voluntary associate network association we're trying to bring or anything along the lines of that.

What we are recognizing or seeing in this outreach effort is there's pockets of very strong community in Old Town, but then they don't even know each other, and they're in the same neighborhood. So how can we potentially connect them with each other? It is. And one of the things we've been hearing is that they want a stronger sense of community, but to be existing on in of their own self, not to be an organisation of the town or to be an organisation of an HOA, but how can they better know their neighbours if they want to come together and do a block party that they can formulate and do themselves. So there

are a lot

of people that don't wanna talk to me, and I appreciate I understand that, and I get it. I don't see

government providing I mean, it does provide some community in, like, events and things. Mhmm. Like, in my experience, my personal experience, true community does not come from a government. Just means my So that's experience.

I I agree with that. And my background is in neighborhood planning. And so I've been doing this for several years, but a lot of times, it needs that first initial step to connect people to where then the town just walks away. We let them facilitate from there on out, but if we can provide the opportunity for that initial conversation, it helps helps us in the long run as a town, especially, you know, if we're communicating projects out to the community, if we have a spokesperson that we can just go to, and they can disseminate information out that way. It's typically a lot easier. Old Town doesn't necessarily have that. I'm also learning our newsletters aren't necessarily as effective. Our social media isn't necessarily as effective. So of the

of the delivery. Yep.

And so we we actually walked and did door hangers at every single household in Old Town area to invite them out to these events. That was over 500 homes. And we did see quite a bit of foot traffic from that, but some people also didn't acknowledge that. So, again, we we don't know yet really what the outcome of this will be. We have suspicions.

Mhmm. And we may even learn that, you know, there's just more of a focus of historic preservation, and it may be a case of do we focus on updating the historic preservation master plan instead of doing a bigger plan that focuses on many different things. Or, you know, is it economic development? We just need to focus on Briggs, then that's the case. So we there there's many different avenues it could go to.

I don't know which way it's gonna go, and but based off the findings, I'll make all my recommendations to council, and then we can have a discussion and go from there. And if if it ends up being a case of we're gonna take a hands off approach right now, then that's perfectly fine. We just wanna at least do our due diligence of how can we make sure the community doesn't feel like they're not being represented or heard as compared to the rest of the community.

Go down to Main And High Street.

Had a lot of conversations. Yep. Yeah. And I'm

sure I'm sure you got chased off a property.

No. Not that bad, but definitely had some conversations.

So Yeah. Old town old time residents down there. They don't wanna talk to anybody.

Yep. I definitely I definitely wanna respect that.

Yeah. When I take pictures of houses, when I'm doing it for for, surveying, you know, architect are you taking a picture of?

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, something I just just wanna communicate that also, that I I wanted to make sure was iterated during our meeting earlier today was that, you know, we're a resource. And I think what I also kind of heard and felt throughout that was, like, if there's this big conversation happening with Old Town in relation to everything, Why are we just now doing this? And I'm not blaming you know, I think we were all kinda feeling like, wow. This could have been something that we really could have worked in conjunction with each other and been a little better prepared to have these conversations because I think I I wanted to to really communicate. We're a resource in relation to that because of the the knowledge and and the relationships and the people that

resource to the community. Right.

Yeah. And so and so the there there would be a different approach potentially from having HPAB, communicate as opposed coming from the town because we are meant to be the liaison for all for all parties. So it it does make me a little nervous. I think handing I say this with not I don't know. Don't take this as seriously, but, like, handing everything over to an extent that I know that the approach we have would be somewhat different than the approach the town would have based upon just as much as it would be like sustainability is going board or tree board.

They're gonna do everything they can advocate for sustainability in tree board. And, you know, the historic preservation advisory board's gonna do everything it can do to advocate for for history. And it would be naive to say that the town just doesn't have other interests other than just history, but it it just can't be. So we're here to be the ones that say, history, history, history. Remember, remember, remember.

So I think that's where it's just feeling like we we wanna we want to be a part of this process, and we don't but we don't wanna be seen as at least I don't. I'm speaking now for myself. I don't want us to be seen as a mouthpiece for the town. I want us to be seen as people who are advocating for the community and historic preservation. Preservation. So I'm not saying anything is happening at this point in different than that, but I I I do worry about the slippery slope of us just saying, okay. I guess this is what we do now. Because, like I said, we we're we're single focused.

And I just don't want it to come across that we're adversarial.

No. That either.

Yeah. And Yeah. You're good.

But, yeah, like, I it's great that we're working together. Just don't forget history.

So the like I said, it's a big focus. I mean, our our intent is if it I mean, every branding thing that we're doing now is capital h, historic Old Town, because we recognize the history of Old Town is what made Erie what it is today. Mhmm. And we don't want that to be lost. And that's the focus of these conversations is I wanna hear the stories that no one else is hearing. So history is definitely a big focus. We wanted to continue that way. And we just wanna make sure that, you know, anything we're doing, we're working in conjunction together, but also recognizing what your roles and responsibilities are as, you know, the liaisons to the community.

Can you explain what you mean by capital h historical? Like, is that actually a slogan or you're just saying I'm I'm saying historical.

Yeah. I'm I'm saying capital h because there's you know, I could say say it's historic because it's the oldest part of our community, but I'm trying to address it as, you know, there is history here. We want to preserve that. We're not just saying it's the oldest neighbourhood, and that's why we're called the historic. So we wanna make sure that there is a focus of historic preservation in the past within any of the items that we're doing moving forward. So once we get to those

economics development and all

of it. I mean, if that goes into doing a neighborhood plan, there would be focuses of that. But right now, there is no conversations on whether it's historic preservation or sustainability or economic development. There's none of that conversation being presented to the community. It's truly what keeps you in Old Town, why you like it here, what are your concerns? And do you have any stories that you wanna share? How well do you feel connected with your neighbor? It's again, we're not trying to go in and give the conversation for them to tell us the answers back. We want it to be their conversation, their their focus.

Thank you. Are you here for the COA? Yes. Oh, alright. Okay. We had the I'm gonna ask, do you wanna move him forward, or do you wanna because we had it at the end.

Okay.

And I don't want you to have to sit here for the whole meeting. Okay. Right. So

I move we amend the agenda to include mister

Do I have a second?

COA.

D. K. Bischoff. I'm the facilities project manager here with the town. Okay.

Okay. You're so so

Thank you. What's that?

I spell your passing.

B I s c h o f f. Like

the cookies.

Yeah. I you know, as many times as I I I've been over there. I know who you are, but you know who I am because I was there to see Dennis all the time. So but

I missed your name, though.

Your

name? DJ Bischoff.

DJ, lovely to meet you.

Did you go

up like this?

Well, thanks for coming. Do I have a second on the motion? Second. Okay. Deandre has motioned and sees her second in that we move the COA discussion up to now on the agenda. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. You're on. Yeah. I didn't want you to sit here for the whole meeting. So Nice.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because I didn't know that there was gonna be somebody here. You know, the the tower in and of itself in recent and past COAs just trying to get to remember the nightmare, it was just trying to get a Wi Fi on it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. And it was prior to that was going on just as I came on board in 2020. So and that was a nightmare trying to get because they wanted to put a Wi Fi thing on the tower.

Okay.

And the board absolutely want it to change, yeah, anything now. And I'll let you explain the COA, but I don't if I wish I had the opportunity to seen the community on this one, some people that some people don't even know the tower's there. Some people do. Old town residents do. It's not used today. I know it's not. Basically, all it is is a warning system. That's all it is.

Can you tell us what a COA is? Certificate of

Appropriateness. Appropriate.

Yeah. And so any beyond sort of minor repairs, any alterations to I I guess, any noninternal alterations. So in internal to the building, like internal renovations are not subject to it, but any official Eastern. Locally landmark building, anything external on the site has to go through the certificate of production process.

Yeah, mister Bishop. Just so you know, Deandre and myself have been here for a long time.

Oh, great.

Oh, okay. And even Melanie's been here for a long time, but everybody else is fairly new. Okay. So they probably never even seen the tower. So but I'll let you do your presentations. And so I'm I'm just glad you're not doing March at town hall. That was my concern. So yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So here is yeah.

You have it up there. Yeah. So the the towers on the right, that's the existing tower behind the main property there. And what we're gonna be doing is basically some renovations on the building itself, some exterior renovations, and then also the tower came up as a question. That's why we're here today.

It being on a town property and with a town facility, of course, there's liability wrapped up with that tower as well. So we didn't know if it really had any historic. We obviously know that it's been there, and there was some historic aspect to it, but don't know how actually old this specific tower is. You can you can kinda tell in the photo there's some old wires that are kinda dangling from the top of it. But so that's basically the gist of the the COA is just asking if it's appropriate to to take that down and demo it.

It could the liability is one of them. It would need to be upkept, you know, and and things like that. So we also haven't had anyone kinda look at structurally to see, make sure it is safe. But if it's something that deemed that it is gonna have to stay or be there, then we'd wanna, of course, look at that. But, otherwise, yeah, we could potentially regain a few parking spots there in the back, taking it down. So that's kind of the the

The is the main focus on removing it just for space? Or and I understand liability if it falls over. We're liable for it. But in that point, that notwithstanding, is the issue just parking space right now? Is that's what we're trying to get as parking space and omit the tower?

It's not necessarily just for parking space. Yeah. But the liability is you know, it's standing is the liability. Right? Once it's down, it's no longer really a liability. But but yeah. So that's kind of the question of

of if if it should remain in the town. Where did the recommendation for the removal come from?

Well, I think it was just internal to the town. And, I don't know that that the recommendation is just where I think we're kinda asking it here tonight.

This is the first we've heard proceed.

Okay.

Yeah. So when when he sent the COA out when when Harry sent the COA out, it's first I'd heard about it. That so and I'm saying some people my my predecessor, and as he's not around, he's still here, the tower was a big issue for him. And so but one person shouldn't stop anything, and I'm only one voice on the board. So

The siren is not in use anymore?

No. No. It comes out of the Grand View fire station now because we don't have the fire station.

That's right.

Yeah. We don't have the fire station. The town hall used to the part that goes this way on the town hall used to be a fire station.

So the main reason to take it down would be the hazard it presents. Is that what you're saying? That it's a bit of a eyesore and there's wires hanging down. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. It's a bit of an eyesore. And yeah. The the the wires that are hanging down from it are from the old electric siren. So they're they're decommissioned. Obviously, they're not hooked up to anything. But and I I don't know the the exact age of that siren. I'm assuming that those wires are coming out

of the siren, you know, so

it it would be an electric siren.

So My understanding, it's thirties, forties. Okay. It's by looking at the wire, it's kind of that vintage.

Mhmm. Yeah. It is much older. Yeah.

Constructed in nineteen thirties.

That I know. That's for the building.

That's the bill

That's this building.

Well, the building itself is I was concerned that you're gonna take your jail racks out. Oh, no. No. Yeah. Because it was it was original town hall. It was a fire station. It was a jail. And the sheriff's office, it

This was the original building

Yeah.

Right here. And then that was torn down nineteen thirty ish. So this building on the left here, which is the current building, the existing building.

And then, yeah, I think it was added on too in '39 to then make it, I think, the police station, I think, in

'39 maybe. Yeah. Because it is landmark.

Yeah. Absolutely.

But not the tower, I assume.

Yeah. The tower

I mean, is the tower not considered part of the property of the building?

I I think it is the landmarking ordinance or resolution, I guess, was not specific about whether it did or did not include it. So I think it generally, it's just the address. Yeah. I I think it is

this point. We we consider it a separate entity at this point. I I know outside of just having it there because it's part of old town, it serves no purpose.

Right. Right.

Right? And because siren doesn't work, and it's just cold it's just rusty.

Mhmm. So is the sorry.

Is the shed that's in that photo, is that who does that belong to? The town or the

Yes. Yeah. So the property is owned by the town, and then the Chamber of Commerce uses it. So they actually use that shed. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah. They have a lot of they use it

for storage. They have a lot of stuff in there.

And because currently, that building is chamber of commerce, and there's one other organization that uses it, but I don't remember.

Yeah. It's the property.

Because when the resolution was done, it was done for 235 Wells. Okay. Okay. And so that's where it comes. 2235 Wells. The tower doesn't have a separate address. It's just as a space. Right. So I didn't mean to interrupt your presentation.

That's okay. Yeah. Property property is town owned. Since this is another, like, town hall, another resource that the town owns, but we we own sort of a u shaped property.

Yeah.

Around this So

yeah. Yeah. It goes around the Wolfgang's place. A lot.

Yeah. And then so 625 Pierce is where our sustainability department is. And then they use this garage, and you can see that's the little shed. Where's the No. It's the food bank.

It's not the food bank. At the 635.

635 for those who don't know. That's the food pantry.

How large is the siren? Like, physical size? What's that? How large is the siren? Physical size?

Well, I haven't been up there yet. Yeah. And that's why I also don't know the actual age. You know? And I was thinking about maybe getting extension ladder. You can see there are some rungs to get up there, but I didn't I didn't feel even safe enough doing that. But but, yeah, I would say it's probably maybe two and a half feet by four feet.

About gallon barrels kinda size?

Yeah. Probably. Yeah. May maybe a little shorter than that, but yeah. Okay. Right around there. Yeah. And then there's the the flanges that kinda come out, so it's

probably a little bit wider than that.

I remember it was only supposed to cover an area that was old gas.

Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

So it didn't have to be brought

a new siren.

Yeah. Yeah.

It works

just fine.

They've been testing it a lot.

You set up a potential option. Idea. A potential option could be to if if the tower were to be taken down, the siren could still be saved.

That would yeah. Either way, I

have that kinda built into my scope of work and just for the town either way because, yeah, the siren's definitely pretty cool. I honestly don't think that the the tower itself is historical in, you know, in its vintage or when it was is the siren. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The issue that we have, unfortunately, as you know, is Old Town well, Erie in in of its own, except the Wise Homestead, has no museum. Right. Yeah. We do not have a place to put it.

Hey, Mike. Right. So the town put out a request for people to donate historic artifacts to go into the new town hall.

Yeah.

That might be a little big. Yeah. Well,

that's why a minor

take possession of coffee table out. They don't want

That's why the miner's tavern sign is still up. Oh, okay. Because we just don't have

any place to put it. Oh, okay. Yeah. They're at the town is asking for artifacts. They won't they don't want loans. I was gonna loan them some trade tokens that I have. Yeah. So this might be a way to get that signed

Yeah.

Down here. And then, yeah, we're talking about moving the depot from the Hobbs property over to Linear Park. You probably don't know where their depot is. The old train depot is on 3140 County Road. Okay. SDO Depot. Oh, right. Okay. So Yeah. So you probably didn't know know that, but they're selling their property, so we gotta do something with it.

Okay. Gotcha.

Do you need a motion, or do we what are you asking?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we need a motion to either from the time we get it. Okay? We have forty five days to enact.

Alright? Or fine. We can

in decline. We cannot ask for more study. Oh, okay. We can ask for more study Okay. Or we can deny it, or we can approve it. Right? And, yes, it is moved. This is unofficial. Does anybody have any discussion?

It and yeah. Sorry. Point of clarification. This this is actually the same kind of application we just have went through with the Schofield Barn. I know Luke had a lot a lot of material to go over. This is more expensive. A little more expensive. Yeah. Yeah. This one's sort of more straightforward. It's either, like, remove or don't remove the tower, I guess. We we are DJ has been working on a proposal to do some, I guess, refresh some repair Mhmm. On next year, and that will be a separate sort of thing with.

Yeah. That will be another COA.

Yeah. I actually just put that in this morning.

As long as it's not stucco.

Okay. Yeah. We can have that okay. Yeah.

Because stucco is not historical.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. 06:35 when they redid that one, they stuccoed it. Yes. It's stuccoed. Yeah. That makes it nonhistoric. So

Right. Okay. There's stucco already on the side.

Yeah. Yeah. That whole side is stucco. Yeah.

And Right.

Yeah. And so that that was actually a question. I don't

know if today is the appropriate discussion. But sod would remain. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So so this the COA or the the one I did this morning or this afternoon, we're basically talking about updating the windows and doors.

Mhmm.

And then and then there the stucco is quite damaged, and it's about at least four feet up that whole wall, almost where that shadow line is, is is almost kinda where the stucco damages everything there and down. Mhmm. So what we were talking about doing is basically having having the the bottom portion removed and then a new surface applied and then blended in.

But the facade is gonna remain.

Front of the building? Absolutely. Yeah. No. We're not touching that. Other than the yeah. The doors and windows. But, yeah, we would

I just don't would just request don't put in vinyl. K. Yeah. It's a historic building, so I would recommend stay with wood.

Gotcha. Okay.

Or composite Okay. That looks like wood.

Gotcha. Okay.

Okay. That's Window sage. It's too hard to get some of the original materials.

So Right.

Yeah. Yeah. The National Park Service does authorize alternative materials. Gotcha.

I I would be in favor of approving your request as long as we do

Yeah. That's right. Keep the siren for Mhmm.

Historical purposes to be displayed somewhere somewhere When

did we receive the mic here? Oh, what? No.

What else has said anything different?

We receive the Do I? Yeah.

Well, technically, TJ applied for it back in June, and we came through the old system that now doesn't actually email it to anybody. So

That's that. Was a little while.

Yeah. Fourteen to eight. So we're way back to four to five days. Sarah, did you come in there?

Yeah. We just got it. Yeah. I don't know what happened. It's okay. Yeah. No problem. Happened internally to the town, but we just got it this week.

Yeah. We need to update our website website so that

it Oh.

It's easy to track it.

But so anybody if if there's no more discussion, then I need a motion to approve or deny. Sorry.

So what wasn't clear to

me is this hour is an extension of the original landmark property. Maybe, maybe not. By removing it,

would we get in trouble for

altering any No. Because it was specifically stated.

If it was No.

Because because we're talking about the building.

Even even if it is this the certificate of appropriateness application is is the the very prompt process that you go through to make make sure that we're we're thinking through implications to the the landmark or whether it's gonna have a detrimental impact on the the landmark. But it's this is just a local locally landmark, so it's not, like, a state historic It's

not on the national or anything?

Got it.

They can be locally amended.

Yeah. Yeah.

Better. Or, like, say you've had a a house that was renovated. Mhmm. You would apply for the COA, and we would that and make sure that the material is kept to historic and make sure everything was correct.

Okay. It hasn't been used for twenty plus years now. That's a good question.

Yeah. That

was Like yeah. So so it's one of those things. If you don't understand,

you have to have. So yeah.

So this is not gonna affect the the building as a historic landmark. Okay. Okay. If they were gonna destroy that building, then I'd be up and armed about it. So and I'm sure most of the town probably would.

So We don't know when the tower is from, though, like, it was built. Is that what I understand?

We're we're thinking thirties, forties.

So the same time as, like, the the new facade of

the of

the building?

Mhmm. And that might be older. We're just thinking that it's around the same time as that building was constructed?

The it it is hard to tell, but so this and I guess their service doesn't necessarily help. But but this this the original building, you can see it's actually super hard to see, but there is a different tower. Mhmm. It has sort of, like, a cross. It looks like it's wood. Yeah.

It was probably wood. Yeah.

Yeah. Looks like there's a sort of a diamond. I don't know the correct

And so it was re re it was replaced before.

Yeah. Yep. And there was no electricity, obviously, when first place. Yeah. So it's definitely a new siren.

Yeah. Right there. Yeah. Possibly could be Okay.

Should you approve the COA with or amend the COA, I would say, to keep the siren and donate it to the town. Tear down the tower, but the siren goes to the town. Okay. So we can conditionally approve the COA with that stipulation if that's what

we want.

And I don't think DJ would have a problem with that.

I believe I did put in there, at least when I originally found it, that we'd be keeping the siren. Mhmm. So that that might be in there.

It's Yeah. The siren will

be moved

for that safe. If there's a needle.

If there's a needle.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. It's already in the COA. To approve the COA.

I second that. The stipulation.

Donating the siren.

Okay.

Or it it already belongs to the town, I guess.

Alright. There's a motion before the board by Deandra, seconded by Melanie that we approve the COA with the stipulation that the siren be saved. All in favor? All opposed or unanimous?

Except for Laura. You're opposed?

I well, I just feel like we don't know what it is, and we're just getting rid

of something that we don't know. I if Like, the historical like, when it was

We just don't know anything about it. So I feel like we're just making personally, we're just making a decision to to take it down because it's not serving a purpose now, but there are other things in this town that are not serving any purpose.

That we would maybe have a different discussion about because we just Five

yeas and one nay. And Yeah. Motion passes. So and if from you as your your position, I'm gonna ask a question completely off the mark. Does the town have any experience with moving buildings?

Quick. I have yeah. Well, please get that answer first.

Yeah. I can ask. Yeah. That, don't know. But whole like, a whole building?

Yeah. Because that building was built in a 30. Feels

really small, like

doesn't have a Not this building.

It probably doesn't have a real foundation.

Okay.

Okay. And if it does, it's You've got some thirties. Okay.

Right. Right. Okay.

But there's three structures. There's the there's the depot itself. There's an outbuilding, and then there's an outhouse. Outhouse is in pretty sad condition. Imagine? Yeah. But it's right next to the tracks. Right? Is where it is in linear Park, you know where that is. Yeah. So we're talking about just lifting it and moving it.

Oh, I

see. Okay.

Yeah. We're not going anywhere. We're just craning it across the tracks. So but So that's the but the stabilization I know. Right. Is right. So Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if the town has ever done it or applied to have it done or something because I have no idea how much it's gonna cost.

Right. Right. Okay. I I

had someone at Biscuit Day where this came up. Yeah. And he said he would be willing to look into seeing he has a connection to a contractor who would go out and look at it and at least give us an estimate. Oh, okay. A starting place Yeah. Just because I said, like, we don't even know we have no we don't know what we're even looking at, Steven. Yeah.

We should do it

because because, you know, building the 30.

Know what

We don't know what kind of

foundation is. Right. Yep. Because most of the miners homes that are on Pierce and High And Main have no foundation. They just built it. Right. You know? And then put wood down to cover the dirt, but there's no foundation. It's amazing that most of them are still standing.

No tornadoes here.

So but yeah. So but thanks. I just wanted to ask that question. It's worth they haven't sold it yet, probably because what they're asking for it. But Right.

Okay.

Yeah. I've heard 8,000,000. So two and a half acres. Wow. Yeah.

Oh, right. For the property. The whole property.

I knew

that. It's a

big property.

That's too that's

Yeah. So it's two and a half acres. So it's a triangle, basically.

Okay. They can find the other triangle.

Seen the building right across from County Line Lumber.

Yeah. I think I know what you're talking about.

Yep. Yeah.

That The Owl House itself in the back there.

Yeah. That is supposed to be cream and green, supposedly. Okay. But that's the old train depot. Okay. Yeah. It was gonna be torn down, and grandpa Hobbs bought it and moved it. So it wouldn't be torn down. So that's how it ended up there. Okay. Hey. Thanks. We need to know?

I don't think so. Okay.

Yeah. I'm sorry. That's okay.

Yeah. That's

not Yeah.

You wait for the building.

I can certainly I'll ask around, though, if Yeah. I the company that, you know, we we talked to to move it, but, you know, you'd still need someone to shore it all up and get it Yeah. Into a crane.

Because if you tried to pick it up, like, I work with the I'm the account representative on the World War one pillars out on that board, and they tried to move the north one. And when they picked it up, it just fell apart because there's no foundation. K. Now they have to move it, so it's gonna have to be taken down piece by piece because there's no foundation.

And

a hundred year motor motor, you know what's gonna happen. Lift it up. Should

In front Right.

I did

not do that.

Okay. Well Thank you, DJ.

Okay.

You're very welcome. Thank you, Bob. Yeah. Nice meeting you all.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for your time.

Yeah. Say hi to say hi to Chad for me.

I will do. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I got to know him pretty well.

Okay.

Yeah. Because when I see Dennis. Okay. Yeah. I haven't been over there a year or so.

So K. It's been a

little while. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. Alright. Thank you.

Thank you again. Appreciate it.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Back on topic, planning report. Thanks.

Don't have anything new on planning report. Okay. Thanks. Yep.

There's really nothing on social media? Nope. No? Alex, have you had a chance to do anything with tax credit?

I still don't know what it is.

Good answer. What I what I mean You do. I gave you the email address to to Lindsey Flewelling.

Okay.

She's our CLG coordinator, and she's basically certified local government. And then she can put you in touch with the right person. Okay. No? Okay.

So not quite sure. Okay. Sounds

No. We have no idea.

Okay. Got it.

So you know as much as we do. Alright.