City Council - Regular Meeting

We did the show on the road.

Okay.

I would now like to call the September 1st Longmont City Council regular session to order. The live stream of this meeting can be viewed at the city's YouTube channel or longmontpublicmedia.org forward slash watch or on Comcast channels 8 or 880. Can we begin with a roll call, please?

Mayor Hildago Farring. Present. Diane Crist. Present. Alex Kalkhofer. Present. Jake Marcin? Here. Sean McCoy?

Present.

Matthew Popkin? Crystal Prieto? Mayor Acquorum is present.

Okay, great. Let's stand for the pledge.

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.

In accordance with council's rules of procedure, the rules for providing public comment are as follows. Only Longmont residents and employees of the city of Longmont may speak during first call public invited to be heard. You must provide your address at the sign up sheet before the meeting or I will not call your name. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. Anyone may speak on second reading or public hearing item and you are asked to add your name to the speaker list for the specific item before the meeting. Anyone may speak during final call public invited to be heard. Members of the audience shall refrain from disruptive, vulgar, or abusive language, applause, heckling, and other actions that interfere with the orderly function of council. Okay, and before we go on to the approval, we don't have approval of the minutes. We have quite a few things we can skip through, but let the record show Councilmember Popkin is present. And we are now on to agenda revision, submission of documents, and motions to direct the city manager to add agenda items to future agendas. Council Member Kalkhofer.

Thank you, Mayor. Now that the ballot is set, I'd like to move to reconsider Resolution 2026-52, the resolution urging Longmont electors to vote yes on the Boulder County Early Child Care and Education ballot issue, also known as Bright Star Boulder County, and bring it back to Council consideration for the September 8, 2026 regular session. Second.

Okay, so the motion has been made to reconsider Resolution 2026-52. The motion was made by Councilmember Kalkhofer and seconded by Councilmember Popkin. Do we have any discussion on this matter? Councilmember Marcin.

Thank you, Mayor. Just as a reminder, I will be recusing myself from any vote. Should Council vote to reconsider this item, I'll head on out, but I'll stay here until then.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Christ.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to clarify with the city clerk that both Councillor Popkin and Councillor Popkin were on the prevailing side of the issue.

Culcoffer and Popkin. You said Popkin twice. I don't get you both. Yeah.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I meant to say Councillor Culcoffer first and Councillor Popkin. Were both of them on the prevailing side of the? Okay.

Okay, Mayor Pro Tem.

I just want clarification, this is to definitely add it as support to, okay, just wanted to make sure.

Well, at first we have to reconsider, right? And then it'll be added to a future, to September 8th next week, okay. Okay, seeing no one else in the queue, let's go ahead and vote. Okay, and that carries five in favor, one opposed, and one recusing. And then also let the record show that Councilmember Prieto has arrived. And are there any other motions to add to future agendas? Okay, seeing none, does the city manager have a report? No report, Mayor. Okay, thanks. And we are now, no special. Oh, there you are. This is like this disembodied voice.

Point of clarification, did your motion say put it on next week? Okay.

I just read reconsider, but I think all the language, didn't it say? Yeah, it did.

Okay. No, that's fine. I thought it didn't have the September 8th, so then I would be like, oh, you just moved to reconsider. It's sitting there waiting for further action.

Okay. Thank you. So are we good to go? I think so. Thank you. Now, there are no reports or special reports and presentations, so we are now on to first call public invited to be heard. The first person on the list is Mark Spencer. Spencer? And you will have three minutes.

Mark, you're going to have to turn the mic. There you go. OK, thank you.

My name is Mark Spencer. I pastor Christ Church International, 527 Main Street, and my address in Longmont is 14431 Wheatland Drive. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I've been in the ministry now for 50 years. And in those early years, we had ministry teams that regularly were behind the Iron Curtain. And we saw the hopelessness of the people trapped in a godless system. We often worshiped with them in clandestine places. We saw the fear and the terror and the intimidation like a blanket over the nations. I remember seeing the fear in the eyes of a church organist. as he opened the door, and of course we couldn't announce ourselves because of the secret police, but I saw the fear in his eyes until he realized we'd come to minister to him. And the reason he was so fearful, that I remember, because he was an organist and would not yield to their demands, they broke all of his fingers. And that is such an impression in my mind still to this day. We saw how the government's parties thirst for control and determination to keep their people under their despotic control as informers would attempt to trick us into saying or teaching something the state could then use to arrest those who we were ministering to. We saw the stifling poverty because free enterprise had been squashed and the state had seized all means of production, while the government-run industries spewed pollution into the air and the water. We witnessed the bread lines where people were standing for hours in many cases for a loaf of bread or a quart of milk. We ate at tables where families give us their entire monthly meat ration. And the meat was often so bad and so it was hard to eat. But nevertheless, we ate it anyway with a smile and would say jinkuya or whatever the language was of saying thank you. You know, when the Romanian people overthrew the monstrous Ceausescu regime, the people were so hungry for God and for freedom that we had teams enter into Romanian army buses where we were invited to preach the gospel to them. Honorable councilmen and women, socialism and its accompanying ideology always comes with a smile. and lots of promises, but it always, always ends in the loss of liberty, the devaluing of human life and personal dignity, and stifling poverty as it ultimately makes people its serfs. I believe your intentions in serving the people of Longmont are good, but socialism in any form is foolishness. I believe if you ask the Lord, he would give you wisdom. You need to help the people of Longmont rise to their full potential. but it won't come through any means that will ultimately rob us of our liberties and our wealth. Thank you.

Thank you. And I apologize. I just looked up your address. So you are outside city limits. During our regular session meetings, we do, I went ahead and let you finish because I'm not going to interrupt.

I do pastor in town. I am a property owner.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. So we're going to have some more discussion on that. But I wanted to clarify, so I will not be calling people who live outside the city limits. And that was Meyer, slipped through. So Matt Eldred.

Good evening, Matt Elder. I live on Carter Lane in southeast Longmont. Good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for your service and your commitment to making Longmont a great place to live. I've seen each and every one of you represent our community at business ribbon cuttings throughout the Chamber of Commerce, grand openings for nonprofit organization projects like the TLC Learning Collaborative and the Aspen Center at the new Ascent at Hover Crossing. So well done on you for spending above and beyond your time on council. Thanks also for reconsidering the ballot initiative, and I want to encourage you to consider endorsing that, the Brighter Start Boulder County initiative that the commissioners have approved to be on the ballot in November. This is a ballot that will be packed with local, county, and state initiatives that one could argue any of them could be a priority to support. Likewise, one could argue that as a homeowner and as small business owners, we can't afford any of them. Ultimately, voters will decide what is important and how we want to support our community here in Longmont and Boulder County. For TLC Learning Center, the CCAP freeze that has been now two years and more in the making has really hampered our ability to serve our most vulnerable families. U.S. Council stepped up in 2025 and gave us $25,000 out of contingency funds to help relieve the CCAP freeze for eligible families in Longmont. Likewise, you gave the Early Childhood Council scholarship funds in 2025 through the human service funds to fund CCAP eligible families. However, the freeze continues and the wait list of eligible families continues to grow. So I'm asking that you endorse this Brighter Start Boulder County Initiative, which will eliminate the CCAP wait list and freeze, will provide funds for families just outside of that eligibility criteria, as well as fund and expand early childhood slots predominantly for children zero to age three, which is our most critical area of need in childcare. It'll also support the workforce in providing professional development opportunities and more. So I do understand the strains that this initially causes on small business owners, especially childcare providers. Our friends in Adams and Douglas counties have found ways to support this challenge, and I think there are opportunities to address these concerns. But without an initiative passing, there's really nothing to talk about there. So I hope you'll continue to weigh these as you will endorse the project hopefully in the coming weeks. So I'm asking you to endorse the Brighter Start Boulder County Early Childhood Initiative that is right in line with the city's core component of community vision. And thank you all for your support and for all you do for the city of Long Knot. Thank you.

Thank you. David Hodges.

David Hodges, Mayor and Council Members, it was good to see some of you at the Unity in the Community on Friday. I have to say that I did see Council Member Kolkoff walking by wet and I didn't get a chance to make him wet, so I was a little disappointed. But I do appreciate, like the last speaker saying, seeing you out in the community. As the Visible Government League, we handed out anti-surveillance stickers. And while this is anecdotal, I think my wife and I handed out probably 50 to 60 of them, and we did not have any pushback and a lot of support. No one said they were in favor of surveillance. And just as we are on the agenda having... to require voter approval to sell or convey open space land, believe that the community should be asked if they want to be surveilled. And then just finally, in terms of my proactive stance, I do want you to know that I'm in support of active and responsible policing, and I have signed up for a ride along. and I do owe you some data and information as well as still working on our FOIA request. Thank you.

Thank you. Devin Hedgley-Wells.

Good evening, Mayor and members of council. My name is Devon Edgeley-Wells, and I am here to ask you to support and endorse Brighter Start Boulder County and early childhood education ballot measure for November. As a working mother in Boulder County, I can tell you that it is difficult to find childcare that works for our household schedules and incomes. Considering going to one income household in order to take care of our son presented us with challenges of saving for the future. Saving for things like home improvements, a college fund, and retirement would take a lot longer if we didn't have two working parents. making the decision to be a two-income household was almost solidified based on the need not just for future saving, but to finance childcare. One-third of working parents have to limit their work hours because of high cost and availability of childcare. Colorado loses hundreds and millions of dollars a year because of workforce productivity challenges related to childcare. early childcare educators earn almost 30% less than K through eight teachers, which diminishes the appeal to work in early childcare education. There are lots of measures on our ballot that will impact Boulder County, but I would think we would prioritize investing in our future and our children. The children that we invest in now are our future workforce and crucial to the ongoing success of Boulder County and our community. Let's help make our childcare system more affordable and attainable for families while also supporting childcare providers. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Bob Colton.

Hi, my name is Bob Colts, and I'm at 526 Abbey Drive. And thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. And I'd just like to say that I'm not in favor of the ranked choice voting. It's a much more complicated system of voting, and voters have to vote for first, second, and third choices. And it also allows candidates with with lower uh percentages of the vote to rise up and actually take take the place of those that have the higher percentage of votes so overall i think that the present system is better than the rank choice voting thank you thank you um eric hozimpa

Good evening, mayor and council members. Eric was up at 1026 Pratt Street in Longmont. I'm also the CEO of the Longmont Community Foundation. And I'm here to personally invite you to our annual Celebrate Longmont event, Wednesday, September 9th, 5 to 7 PM at Summit Tacos. It's an informal gathering with about 160 nonprofits and community members. And it features Summit's great food, sweet cow ice cream, and no long speeches, I promise. The Longmont Community Foundation is proud to be our community's foundation. We provide grants to nonprofits and scholarships to students pursuing two-, four-year, and trade and vocational education. I won't have time to cover everything we do, so I'd encourage you to look up a few projects we host, Ben's Club with Public Safety, Sharing the Next Light with Longmont Power, the Esperanza Fund, the Front Range Community College Student Emergency Fund, And we just recently completed our Stronger Together nonprofit conference in July, which trained 130 nonprofit professionals. We also provide emergency funding when emergencies happen. We're proud to do that. We're also proud to be home to the Longmont Dolly Parton Imagination Library, RIP Dolly, a partnership with Longmont Rotary, Born to Read, and the Lyons Public Library. Today, nearly 1,000 children ages 0 to 5 are signed up to receive a free book every month. In 2017, we provided $876,000 in grants and scholarships between July and August. The same period this year, we have provided $2.7 million, thanks to the generosity of our community. I encourage you to learn more about your community foundation, and I hope to see you on September 9th. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Let's see, Lance Whitaker.

My name is Lance Whitaker, 1750 Collier Street. Again, Mayor and Council, thank you for having me. Sorry about last week, Mayor. I didn't mean to break the news to you.

Don't tell me you have another news to bring.

No, today is actually quite funny. It's National Forgiveness Day. I forgive you. Yeah, you're going to. You ready for this? It's also National Chicken Boy Day. And National No Rhyme or Reason Day. And burnt ants, which are always good. And Hotel Employees Day. And Acne Positivity Day. So there you go. Those are our national days. Today is also Boxcar Willie's birthday, Conway Tilly, and Lily Tomlin's birthday. In 1752, our Liberty Bell finally made it to Philadelphia. In 1922, a law in New York changed pool to billiards. Don't know the meaning of that one, but anyhow. And in 1995, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum opened up in Cleveland, Ohio. And that's all I got for you.

Thank you. Thank you. Kate Gardner? They are outside of city limits.

Hello. Mayor, right? I address you first. OK. I appreciate you having this last minute session today to deal with the resolution. I did my best to try to understand some of the implications of putting all these things on the ballot, and even though we know it's going to be a very full ballot, November 3rd, and I tried to look back at the different costs that were going to be needing to be computed to overall taxpayer increases. AND I JUST FOUND IT TO BE A LITTLE HARD, EVEN THOUGH I WAS PUTTING THE TIME IN AND AS A PROFESSIONAL FINANCIAL PERSON, I CAN, I THINK I'M IN A GOOD POSITION TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THESE THINGS. HOWEVER, IT WAS STILL So now we're going to add a lot more to the ballot, including, you know, whether someone is for or against something like rank choice voting. we it's still going to require we educate people that is going to cost funds and i and do we really need to do it right now on top of other important priorities whether it be brighter start or cocoa or um The safety first initiative at the unity in the community. I was next to the firefighters, so I got to get their pitch and it was actually very. Enlightening so it's a lot for voters to. prioritize. And I got a lot out of last week's conversation with regard to the prioritization that you are all trying to endeavor to do so that you can best spend currently committed resources and identify new things that should be also prioritized. And then when we add additional costs, I don't know how you guys keep track of it all. But it's very difficult, I think, for voters to sort it all out. So I just, you know, maybe it's good that we have this extra time today. I appreciate you making the time for this. But maybe it's also something that it, it, it. It's clear that it's a lot all at one time. And maybe we need to just consider that. Thank you. Thank you. Stephen Altshuler.

Steve Altschuler, 1555 Taylor Drive. If I remember right, in our constitution, it basically calls for one person, one vote. Back then it said one man, one vote, but we can adapt that to read one citizen per vote. It doesn't call for one person, three votes or four votes or five votes or six votes or however many people are running for a certain position. I said this a few weeks ago, but I'd like to repeat it so it sinks in a little bit more. 85% of jurisdictions that have tried ranked choice voting in the past, in the past 100 years, have repealed ranked choice voting. Because it hasn't worked out the way that they had hoped it would. It's cost a lot more than they thought it would and created a lot more delays. With ranked choice voting, basically winners lose and losers win. In Alaska, the number four vote getter, and I forget how long ago, this might have been 20 years ago, when Sarah Palin ran for governor. She was number one, she got 35% of the vote. the number four person got about 10%, but nobody had 50. So by the time they kept deleting and deleting and re-attributing the votes and deleting some more and redoing the votes, the number four person ended up winning. And only 10% of the people had wanted that person to begin with. So the fact that 85% of areas that have it have been trying to get rid of it should give you all a reason for pause and to look into this a lot more and not waste our time. If we don't know who wins for days or weeks afterwards, it opens up the doors to a lot of cheating and corruption. We all know that. So I think we should leave things the way they are, the way they were in our Constitution, and keep things simple. The other thing is, and I don't want to sound like an old stickler, but with the childcare, yes, being a parent can be a challenge. And if you have multiple kids, it can be very challenging. I've got a nephew in New Jersey that's about to have number eight and it's very challenging. And the wife stays at home and she takes in about three or four kids about two years old every day and watches them while she's watching her kids to have extra income. There are ways that people have always managed to do what needs to be done. without having government reach their hands in to other people's pockets and take money from other people to support another group. There's always a group that wants something special for themselves, and this is not the role of government to decide who gets how much of what. The role of government is to manage our cities and manage our states, not to keep their thumb on the scale and readjust things the way they want. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, seeing no one else on the list, I will now close public invited to be heard. We are now on to consent agenda and introduction by reading by title and reading by title of first reading ordinances. Elizabeth, can you read the consent agenda item?

Item number eight is resolution 2026 dash 56, a resolution of the Longmont city council calling a special municipal election to be held Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026 concerning an increase in city sales tax and property tax for public safety, as well as amendments to the city of Longmont home rule charter to require voter approval to sell or convey open space lands, provide for rank choice voting and realign the terms of council members.

Okay. Is there anyone who would like to pull an item? Since there's only one, you do not need to pull it to vote no on it. You would either accept it or not accept it. So if you are pulling this to make an amendment, put your name in the queue. Are you making an amendment?

Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to pull 9A, and I guess we'll just go straight to the motion.

i would move that so hold on let me just go through the process so rather than making a motion right now we have to just pull the item right so then now i have to finish reading that we need to go to our numbers yeah yeah so thank you so we've pulled that item um there are no other ordinances on there so we won't make a vote but I do wanted to articulate to the public that hold on okay thank you I do want to articulate that there are no ordinances on second reading or public hearings tonight so now we go back to items removed from consent agenda and go ahead councilmember

Thank you, Mayor. I do have a few comments. We have an interesting opportunity in delaying a vote on this resolution calling for a special election. We now know that FRPA will be putting another tax on the ballot.

Can you make your motion first? I certainly can. Then you can justify if it is seconded.

I move that we table our 2026-56 until next year's election cycle. And if I can have a second, then we can discuss.

Thank you. And you don't have to do that. It's useful. Yeah. Okay. So the item has been made by Council Member Christ to table Resolution 2026-56 until next year's election cycle. And it was seconded by Council Member Prieto. So go ahead. Thank you. Now you can justify. Now you have the floor.

Well, we now know that FRPR will be putting another tax on the ballot, as well as the Brighter Start initiative from the county, which asks for almost exactly the same tax increase as our public safety tax. And I doubt that all will pass. We have yet to prioritize the action plan, which matters because 2% of the unencumbered general fund sales tax is split between public improvement and public safety. So what we choose to do with capital improvements and our priorities affects public safety funding. We've been cautioned about staff capacity. and i consider three of these items to be wants not needs and that they're not necessarily needed this year for instance the rcv and staggering of council terms don't go into effect until 2029 and 2027 respectively and will require more staff capacity So it would be helpful to wait for more time. How we manage our priorities generally greatly impacts how much money we have for public safety right now. So we need to pick and choose what really matters to us most right now, especially since we all have priorities we'd like to add to our list of projects. Therefore, I would like to table this until next year's election cycle, also feel that we're We have a unique opportunity in that we did not bring forward this motion for a resolution for a special election earlier in the process. So it's almost a moment to reconsider what we're doing as a whole.

Thank you. Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a question for maybe Don or for Harold. Sorry, for Elle. Sorry. Or Harold. So this resolution is effectively a procedural requirement to get anything, to host officially from the city's perspective anything this November 3rd, correct? Correct. And there will be an election this November 3, regardless of whether we have put anything on the ballot, because there are various state and regional priorities that are already going to be on a ballot for Longmont residents. Correct. And if we didn't pass this resolution, we would still technically be obligated under state law to host an election, correct?

No. The county does it.

The county would run the whole thing. And so we're contributing to that because we are running other local things as well. Correct. But there is still going to be an election and people turning out to vote for something in Longmont. Whether it's a Longmont specific thing or not, people will still be getting ballots from Boulder County. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay. Let's go ahead and vote. Okay, and that, oh, did you, go ahead, Council Member Popkin.

Apologies, as a point of personal privilege there, I clicked the wrong button on this. Yes, if you could, I am an A on that, thank you. Okay. Apologies.

No, thanks, I've done that before too, so. Okay, so that fails one to six with Council Member Christ in support and myself, Council Member Popkin, Council Member Kalkhofer, Mayor Pro Tem McCoy, Council Member Marcin, and Council Member Prieto in opposition.

Okay, and we are now on to, oh.

Mayor, I'd like to make 9A. So hold on, let's. There you go. Go ahead.

Mayor, I'd like to move 9A, R-2026-56 as presented. OK. And the motion has been made to accept

Resolution 2026-56, it was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCoy, seconded by Council Member Marcin. Did I, did I do something?

We were about to vote on the budget. Oh, no, don't vote on the, yeah, we're good.

Okay, Council Member Marcin, did you?

Oh, no, I just was going to second Mayor Pro Tem's motion, thank you.

Okay, seeing no one else in the queue, let's go ahead and vote. And that motion carries 6 to 1 with Councilmember Christ in opposition. And we are now on to general business item A, presentation of the 2027 proposed budget and 2027 through 2031 capital improvement program.

You can come over here. So Mayor, Council, this year's a little bit different because the first actually, the charter requirement in presenting you with a balanced budget actually occurred today, so we were able to do it on the first versus August, so that's why it looks a little bit different this year. Based on that approach, one of the things that we're going to do is go into a little bit more detail on the budget to go through some of the challenges that we had this year and really start creating the baseline when we dig into more detailed budget presentations in the coming weeks. That's the wrong one. The title slide looks the same. And in this presentation, Teresa and I are both gonna tag team a few of these slides as we get started. So one of the things, obviously council just approved your goals, and so we haven't had a chance to really build that graphic, so this is the broader overview, but wanted to let you know that as we look at this budget, we were definitely paying attention to the goals that council was setting for us as we looked at our options and what we were trying to achieve financially. So to give you a high-level overview on this budget, it is balanced, which is required by charter. And we're maintaining service levels while addressing strategic priorities, utilizing our priority-based budgeting process. The 2027 proposed budget is $547.5 million, which is a 5.32% increase. This is for all funds. And you'll hear me say this a few times as we go through this process. So this is not just the general fund. This is every fund that we have in the city and this is the total budget. So that includes water, wastewater, electric, as we're moving through this and we have a more detailed slide for you. One of the challenges that we really had going into this process, and we'll dig into it in a little bit more detail, and it is in your memo that we will provide to you, is that revenues were a difficult process for us this year. A few things were happening. We had to, based on the performance of sales and use tax, we wanted to get an additional month's in terms of what that was going to look like, because we didn't want to make a snap judgment based on what we were seeing. It was not performing at the level we hoped. We actually had a good June, which changed our projections a little. The other challenge that we had, and you'll see it start showing itself on the property tax side, was really getting ahold of that number and what that meant for us. There are some contingencies in this budget process. So obviously council acted on an item previous, um, previous to this conversation on the public safety sales and use tax and property tax, um, that will be on the ballot. So one of the things that we're going to do this year is council normally approves a budget in October. We're not, we can actually do that in November. Um, So when we actually bring the budget ordinances to you, we will wait for the results of the public safety sales tax. That way, if it is passed by the voters, we can incorporate it into the budget at that point in November. So that's one of the contingency items that we're working on. Let's start with property tax. So we had a loss of 2 million due to a decrease in commercial and residential ratios. And you can see the chart to the right of this. And when I get through with the overview, Teresa will start going into details on the next two slides. And that's really linked to the percentage of residential versus commercial. So we all know that the state adjusted those ratios. And what that is fundamentally meaning is a loss of revenue for us. When we went into the project, This isn't a reassessment year. And so we know that it's going to be tight anyway in property tax when it's not a reassessment year. When we originally received the number from the county, it had where we were going to receive approximately an additional 750,000 of new revenue. So that's new construction that has occurred in the community. This was another challenge for us in terms of making sure we had a real number. That number that we received from the county earlier did not have the reductions in the ratios. So Teresa and the budget staff had to go in and make projections based on what they thought that was going to look like. Teresa, do you need to jump in?

Yeah, so I need to correct the first bullet. It wasn't a loss of two million. It was just one million. Sorry, that bullet is wrong. And I The preliminary data that we got from the county did include the assessment ratio. What was not included was 10% of the first 700,000 exemption for residential. And since our percentage of residential is very large in this town, that was the major impact.

So then on August 25th, the county has to provide us with a more detailed number and we balance the budget. Obviously at that point it was too late to adjust it, but we need to reduce at a minimum another 511,000. That's an additional reduction to property tax. The reason why we said 511 to 750,000 is that does not include any appeals. to property tax, so based on what we presented to you all, we're gonna have to make an additional reduction based on that number. There is a lasting impact to this, and so what that really means is if total growth across the state, not just Longmont, is greater than 5% in the residential category, the rate will be reduced from 6.8 to 6.7%. And again, that's something that came out of the state law. So while property tax has historically been one of our more secure revenue sources, what we've seen with the changes at the state level is that it has really brought in a level of uncertainty that has now reducing the revenue that we had from the previous year. Teresa, is there anything that you want to go over on this slide? No. Okay, we'll go to the next slide.

So what I wanted to show you in this slide is the history of the changes that the state has made. And really, that started in 2003 for 2023, sorry, for our 2024 budget and the assessment ratio changes. So the assessment ratios actually went up for commercial and vacant land. and down for residential. What was included though was a commercial exemption, so essentially the first 30,000 of valuation was exempted and the first 55,000 of valuation for residential was exempted. The assessment ratios between 2023 and 2024 for a 25 budget did not change. What the state did that year was put in place a different assessment ratio for school districts, for residential. So our numbers really did not change. And then in 2025, we saw a reduction in the assessment ratios pretty much across the board. And this is the year where if residential growth is is less than 5%, it was the 6.25% assessment ratio for residential. But if it would have been greater than 5%, it would have been a lesser assessment ratio. And we don't know that until very, very late in the process. In fact, it is the Colorado State Board of Equalization that determines that final assessment ratio for residential in late October and into early November. Because it's based on the growth in residential across the entire state. And so they are really not acting on that until all of the appeals have gone through the process. And they know what residential rates have really done for the year. It did not impact us that year. Partly, the reason it didn't impact us was because the reassessment was not very large that year. And then for this year, for 26 going into our 27 budget, we are seeing another reduction in assessment ratios. And they have put back into place the residential, the 10% on the first 700,000 of residential. Again, we won't know our residential assessment ratio until October, November timeline, but I really do not anticipate that it will be less than 6.8%. It's not a reassessment year. I do believe though going into next year, this could have an impact on our assessments next year for our 2028 budget because it is a reassessment year. So if those residential values grow by greater than 5% total statewide, we could see an assessment value drop from 6.8% to 6.7%. The other changes that we anticipate for our 28 budget will be minor. I think the state is really at least according to what the state has passed today this is the last of the adjustments there will be some final adjustments to vacant land it will go down to 25 percent assessment ratio but as you saw in the previous slide we have very very little vacant land in the city so that that really won't impact us. And then there is another ratcheting back for just commercial other. Most of our commercial is considered commercial enhanced. And we really have very little commercial other. So I don't think that we'll see much of an impact from that. So I think that covers what I wanted to talk about on this slide.

I think I will ask if there's any questions on the property tax at this point.

Okay, Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple quick clarifying questions. Teresa, first building on your last comment there, you said that we have very little vacant land in the city. There are 815 parcels, if I recall, on the previous slide that were listed. Are you referring to there's very little property tax collected from vacant land and assumed from that? Because 800 parcels doesn't seem like an insignificant number of vacant land.

If you look at this slide, the vacant land.

Can you put on your microphone, please? Thank you.

Yeah, sorry. So this slide kind of shows you that vacant land only makes up 0.77% of our total valuation in the city. So yeah, I projected that that Further reduction in 27 for 28 property tax is really going to be maybe around $20,000 loss. It won't be very significant. Sure.

So to clarify, the impact of the property tax assessment of our vacant land is very minimal. But we still have, I mean, 815 parcels is still a quarter of our commercial properties. So it's not entirely insignificant. What I wanted to ask on that is, And this relates to some of the broader conversations we're having on urban renewal that we're having with downtown zoning, redevelopment, all there. When we convert parcels into active land, there is a much more significant property tax value impact, correct? When we're not necessarily rezoning, when we're upping the valuation of that and the use. That is actually quite meaningful, correct?

Correct. Yep.

Thank you. I just have one question on the agricultural row here. I thought agriculture property was taxed under Colorado. Is there no tax that we collect and it's collected as a state? What is the situation for our agricultural land valuations?

The assessment ratio for agriculture?

I'm so I guess the percentage of total is it's a function of just how little it is and relative to the 26 billion dollars.

And if it is owned by the city open space agriculture, it's of course exempt.

Thank you.

All right, so I think the key takeaway from just looking at the property taxes and then Harold we had one more question.

Go ahead, Council Member Christ. Thank you, Mayor. If we look at the next slide, slide number six, but kind of in tandem, both of these. You say the first 55,000 of residential is exempted. but only the first 30,000 of commercial is exempted. So it seems like you're saying that we should support business development. I'm looking at the totals here in terms of values, and it seems like the commercial is maybe 1 sixth of the residential. Yeah, 18 million compared to 3 million and if a residential exceeds 5% there. their percentage actually drops 0.1, you say. So we're talking about vacant land, but do we have any data as to how many vacant commercial sites there are? Because it seems like if we could fill that, even with the 30K exempted, it seems like we could increase the sales tax revenue a little faster than just looking at residential.

That is data that we could get from the assessor's office. So yes, I could get some of that data. OK. That might be helpful.

And we have another chart that will dig a little bit deeper into property tax because generally when you look at cities, A, this is impacting all of us and this is actually what impacted the state's budget as well. So we're all going through it. Cities that actually had a higher percentage of commercial didn't necessarily see the same impact because residential is a big part of ours. It increases the impact.

and then we'll talk a little bit more detail about the type of residential because you have single family and then you have multi-family and that's a difference too yeah i see that just um you have single family and multi-family mentioned here and then when we're talking about urban renewal um to counselor popkins comments maybe we ought to consider the mix of how much is commercial versus residential in terms of not only how much sales tax we would gain, but how much property tax we would gain from that.

Yeah, I would say generally what's also behind this, and you'll hear me say this probably a lot during this budget process, is really a reduction in what I call organic growth in tax revenues, meaning is if your pie is only served so big, there's only so much growth that will occur in that and and we're actually starting to see that also in our sales tax collections as well so if you look historically at longmont there are always big pushes at times in terms of revenue when projects large housing projects are coming on and things like that we're not seeing that same level of organic growth coming in in terms of our revenue

Well, since we're talking pie, we need to assess how much crust we have and how much delicious filling we have.

Right.

Because the delicious filling would be more sales, more sales tax and more property tax, right? Okay, let's continue.

Okay.

So we started on property tax. Sales and use tax continues to be volatile and this will sound a lot like what I presented last year. One of the big impacts that we're seeing is really the impact of international and national economic headwinds. And so what we're really finding is when I look back when I started my career 27 years ago, I think somewhere in there, one of the things that was interesting is when you would see international and national events, it wouldn't necessarily impact the central U.S. as fast. as it impacts us now. And the markets are reacting immediately to this. And so one of the challenges that we've had in sales and use tax, and I would probably say more use tax in some ways is really the impact on still seeing uncertainty in terms of things like tariffs. I mean, if you watch the news, recently and the issues with Canada and things like that. What that really does is start moderate, start slowing down businesses in terms of the investments that they're gonna make in adding equipment and things like that because the uncertainty, they don't wanna take that risk. And then when you look at the international issues specifically related to the Middle East and you see increases in gas prices that we've been dealing with and that starts impacting disposable income of individuals which then ultimately we start seeing in our sales tax collection. Persistent inflation. we're going to talk about this from two different directions this direction is really the impact of inflation on discretionary spending so just like we talked about if it costs more to fill your tank up with gas then you're going to spend less money on other things that you would have spent in the past one of the things that we're definitely seeing it in the numbers today is in car sales That's the one category where we can really attribute that withdrawal and discretionary spending as we look at our reports. In terms of revenue, interest rates are still driving a lot of issues in terms of people pulling triggers on projects simply because the cost of money is just slowing it down. One of the things that we're starting to see, and this is a weird one where it becomes, for us, a bit of a headwind and a bit of a tailwind. So when we look at some of the construction projects that we're bidding, if we're issuing debt, the interest rates are not our friend. But we're also seeing a reduction in the cost of projects, which is clearly telling us that, especially on horizontal construction, that the market around us is slowing down. So businesses are actually getting really hungry, so they're more competitive on our projects. So it's a headwind and a tailwind to us when we're trying to move through some of these. We've had a few projects come in under our engineering estimates, which is giving us a clear indication that construction companies are slowing down and that impacts ultimately our use tax. Then you can see the volatility in the construction industry that I just talked about. So we'll go to the next slide and Teresa will give you a sense of what that looks like over time.

So this slide is showing you our sales tax revenue, the blue bars, and this is all five funds, so it's not just the general fund. And the orange bar, part of the graph is growth rate. And I think what I really wanted to point out is that since 2021, our growth in our sales tax collection has really declined over time. And I think that that is an indication of aging community really nearing build out. We don't have a whole lot of new development type projects going on that we were really seeing early on. Some of those spikes are some of those bigger commercial developments Um, we have, um, experienced a nice bounce back this year. Um, and, and do hope that that will continue. Um, but, um, you know, it does remain to be seen whether or not, um, the, the whole economic, um, you know, influences will have a, an impact and slow our growth rate down for this year. And then I think the next slide, same thing, only this is use tax. And you can definitely see much more volatility in our use tax. We are seeing and project to continue to see into 27 some pretty good increases in our use tax. So that is contributing to a pretty healthy projection for use tax in our 27 budget, both sales and use tax in our 27 budget.

So I think when we look at sales and use tax, I had this question come from a staff member and we'll start weaving it in. And they're like, well, if we're having this type of issue from a revenue perspective, why are we looking at things like first and main and the front range community college project? And that really is because when we see it, That is something that can bolster our sales and use tax collections as we're looking to the future because it's really capturing folks here because the more we can bring folks into our community, the more we're going to build our sales and use tax. That's really something that we have to be mindful of as we look to the future just because of what Teresa pointed out, that lack of organic growth. As we look to the future, I think redevelopment is going to be a key component of looking at additional revenue streams coming into our community based on the fact when you look at the percentage of vacant land. And so we've really got to be judicious and thoughtful in those redevelopment projects and really focus on, you know, how that's going to generate additional revenue just based on the world as we see it. We also had some additional budget budget challenges coming in. And so we're kind of talking about, um, some revenue issues. And at this point we'll start getting into the expense, um, related matters. So when we talk about marijuana revenue, um, there was a reduction from the state. So the council actually voted to, um, annex two enclaves that were in here. At the same time, the state reduced the amount of money that they were transferring to municipalities from the marijuana fund as they were trying to balance their issues. We are seeing growth in that, but we're not seeing the growth that we would have projected because of the loss of the state funds. That was another headwind coming into this. I'm going to flip inflation on its head right now. Persistent inflation is impact on providing services. I talked about how that is impacting our revenue stream. It's also impacting the cost of providing services to the community. And that shows itself in terms of compensation and compensation growth. That's what we've seen recently in the past years where we were in a pretty competitive environment. But when we just talk about the goods that we actually have to acquire, you know, for the most part, I will tell you that it costs us more per mile to maintain a street, a water line, a wastewater line today than it did three years ago. So when you have a situation where inflation is pressing you on the expense side, but it's also slowing the revenues coming in, that's not a great position to be in in terms of an organization and trying to manage it. As I stated before, and you'll be seeing these contracts coming forward with police and fire, as we move through collective bargaining, typically when we go into these sessions, the increases are fairly significant, and it's just, that's more a product of the market and the periods of time where we're in the collective bargaining agreement. So we had one that was three years, we've had a couple that are two years, so we know there's a catch up that's occurring. I will say that this is probably the most narrow the margin has been since I've been here as we've been going through the collective bargaining process, but it's also important to make sure that we're reflecting the market in terms of otherwise we have seen it where we will lose positions. Council may recall when we added the take-home car program, one of the things we were seeing is people were literally choosing other jurisdictions because they had a take-home car. We are in competition constantly for people as we're working on a daily basis. The other piece of this is that we're a lean organization. One of the things that you will find when you look at other municipalities, and I'll go to this slide next, is we're not the only one going through this issue. I believe Fort Collins had to cut 30 million mid-year. Boulder County is continuing to have to cut their budgets based on this. One of the challenges that we have is that we are a very lean organization in terms of how we operate. So when we get into a situation of making cuts, it's not that there's fat within the organization that we cut. We're actually having to cut services. because we do operate so lean. To give you an example of this, this is a chart that we put together that looks at many of the cities that we compare against. And you can see our population and you can see the FTEs that we actually have in place. if you look at everything on the left side of the chart those are things that we do here in longmont that other communities don't do so if you just take electric and broadband and make that reduction to our number and then make another comparison against those other cities we're pretty low in terms of the overall staffing count What's interesting is you're probably going, why is fire on this? Not every city provides fire services. A lot of cities actually use fire districts. So for example, Fort Collins, they have Poudre Valley Fire District. So the fire department is not embedded within the city of Fort Collins. So it really is hard to make an accurate comparison on FTE versus what cities are providing because I think we would be hard pressed to find many cities in Colorado, I would actually argue in the nation that actually do everything that we do. So when you look at our staffing numbers and you compare it and then you add what we're doing that others aren't, this really gives you an indication of how lean we try to operate in terms of managing budgets and providing services to the community. I will stop now to answer any questions.

Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. While we're on this slide, just a quick clarification. Do we have a version of this chart where it's a percent FTE of population? Because I think that really would highlight actually the point you're trying to make. Well, we do. And I'm trying to run the mental math in my head, and it's just not processing that fast.

It's confusing because then when you're trying to back out electric or broadband, so we need some more work on that to do that, to back it out.

Sure, even if you take the maximum, because the current chart right now, the 2026 column, that's showing with electric broadband and sanitation, right?

Correct. Everything in that, the 1,133 is inclusive.

So that is inclusive, and so even with that as a percentage.

We're middle of the road with all of that included. We're toward the bottom end of the scale when you start taking that out.

Anyway, if there's a follow-up to this or when you just send it out, that would be helpful to just see side by side. I can run it in Excel, too, if you just want to send it. Yeah, we have it. Thanks. The other question I had was for Teresa on the charts on sales and use tax and growth rate. Yes, either one of these. I just wanted to get clear, the growth rate is referring to the growth of what? Certainly not population.

Yes, that is year over year growth of total revenue.

growth of total revenue, thank you. Sales tax, in this case. Well, the blue columns are showing the sales tax year over year. Correct. The orange line is showing the growth rate of year over year total revenue.

Of year over year, on this one, total sales tax, and on the other, the next slide, total use tax. Year over year of total use tax collected, yes.

Percentage.

Year over year growth.

Percentage growth year over year.

Got it, thank you. I was just double checking my axes, thank you.

Council Member Christ. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for this presentation. I think we talked about it back on slide eight also, but Teresa, you made the comment about it's the result of an aging community, and I just want to clarify, you're not talking about the age of the constituents, but you're talking about the age of the commercial sites?

Sorry, yes. It is more the impact of a community that's nearing build-out.

Oh, okay. So you're talking actually about the amount of available land that we have or amount of residential development or amount of commercial development? See, I'm just trying to...

It is both, actually. Okay.

Yeah. And when you're talking about an aging community, are you saying that maybe our economy is a little bit tired? Is that what you're actually portraying?

I think I just meant a community that is well established. There isn't a whole lot of growth potential in land development.

Yeah, not a lot of fresh commercial as well as, I mean, I think we have a lot more new residential development, but I don't think we have a lot of new commercial development in town. I'd agree with you.

Actually, when we look at permits, the residential development is not where it was at one point in time here. We were seeing fairly significant swings in residential development. That's really the use tax component.

And trends in single-family residential development. What we're seeing now is more multifamily.

But we're still getting permits for that. We're just not getting as many commercial.

We're seeing it across the board. I think I would say that there's not as many residential permits coming across as well.

Okay. So that's what you mean by aging.

Yeah, I think a good example is really other communities that I've worked in that were more well established and larger at an earlier point in time. This is the kind of budget that we got used to dealing with because Longmont, when you put it in the framework of age of a community, it was relatively small. And then when we got into the 80s and 90s, we started seeing these large growth cycles. when you're in a community that's more established. So the one that I was in, they were 50 or 60,000 in the 1950s. The growth is not as steep a curve. And then you look at the environment around it. I think that's kind of what we're talking about. And we know that as the amount of land reduces, that's gonna continue to flatten.

Okay, thanks. Great, thank you. Continue.

So Theresa.

So in an earlier slide, we told you that our total budget is $547.5 million. And these 15 funds make up almost 95% of it. So we just wanted to give you a sense of what these 15 funds are. So over $517 million from just these 15 funds alone.

Sorry, I'm working two computers here. So when we go through our process in the budget process, we break it down into level one ongoing funds, level two ongoing funds, and then one-time funds. And so one of the things that we try to be really cognizant of is minimizing how we're using one-time funds and avoiding putting that into ongoing expenses. And that was just something that we learned as part as we were going through the budget reset. To simplify this a little bit, level 1 is really any expense that we already have within the budget that is really increasing because of cost increases, contractual cost increases, those types of things. It's really things that we're already doing that the cost is just going up. Level two ongoing is where we get into items that are requested that we're either enhancing existing services or providing new services, or we're seeing new positions, expanded hours, new equipment. And then one time is really for expenses that are either based on a term of a project that we're working on or one year expenses. So think vehicles, equipment, or projects, or think of some of the term positions that we've created where we know we need it, we just don't know that we need it in perpetuity. as we get into this budget year, um, in terms of the level two expenses and you saw the note, there were very few within the general fund. So when we look at the new FTE, you can see that they're, they're primarily in other funds. You do see in the general fund, the 10.41, nine of those general fund positions are actually, um, the nine firefighters that we talked to council about, um, that we were going to hire. And you're probably saying, well, why are we doing that? Well, One of the things that we realized in the process was there is a component within when you have shift personnel, predominantly in police and fire, where you have a relief factor. So if you were to open up a new fire station and you have to have three shifts of three, you actually have to hire four shifts to cover vacation and overtime expenses. Um, this year in the collective bargaining process, I will say it was a good process because we used, um, interest space and we actually got to talk, um, And it was in that process where we realized that we'd been trying to figure out what was happening with the overtime expenses. And what we found out is this actually goes back to the opening of fire station one. So when they opened fire station, I'm looking at you to make sure I think that's correct. When they opened fire station one, they ate down the relief factor. And so when you had that relief factor to cover the overtime expenses, it's something that's been pretty pervasive since that point. and we haven't been able to make ground on it. So in hiring those positions, what we were trying to do or what we want to do with those nine positions is actually get control of overtime expenses. So if you think about this, we're paying a firefighter to cover a shift because we have minimum shift requirements. So when you pay overtime, you're paying time and a half. If we can cover it with these positions, then we're saving that half time that we have been paying for in overtime. We're actually funding those positions with a reduction in overtime and some one-time funds as we transition it into next budget year. And then, Teresa, do you want to talk about the 1.4 position? It's parks.

Well, parks and sustainability.

Yeah. So the other one is parks and then a little bit of sustainability. And so why parks? One of the things that really was apparent to us in this budget process is that parks actually takes care of a lot of our right away. And so when we added the Kauffman street project, um, in the amount of areas that they have to deal with in terms of removing snow and those types of things, we were seeing, um, a really challenge in maintaining our parks at the level. The way we're actually funding that is less with general fund revenue. We're actually using conservation trust revenue to fund a position in parks that aligns with the use of those funds and then we're freeing the general fund component up to fund a parks position and then that position is also split with the transportation fund because of the transportation requirements that we have associated with a lot of the roads that we have to maintain. I'm seeing lights, so is this a good time?

Sure. I'm going to ask you, is this a good time to? Yep. Okay, didn't want to break your flow. Council Member Marstein. Thank you, Mayor.

I'll be quick. I just had a contingency pop into my mind when we talk about these specific FTE. I know we've already talked about the nine general fund positions in public safety. In terms of contingency planning that I'm sure has happened in the conversations about should the public safety tax not move forward, should voters choose not to move forward with that, would we be looking at any realignment of these new FTE towards public safety, anything like that, or we're not in that point in the conversation yet? I'm just curious how solid these numbers are and how contingent they are based on the decisions that were made.

We need to really keep it in for the relief factor simply because of the additional 0.5 expense that you get in the overtime. So we're also using this as a bit of a cost containment strategy on the overtime expense. Not a little. We are using it for that. Thank you.

Council Member Kalkhofer.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm having a hard time. These are FTEs, but they're fractions of employees. Can you help me figure out, like, I'm having a hard time. Full time, but fractions.

We see it in the district all the time.

So generally, we may, I'm trying to think of a person. Let's use me, for example, me or Becky. So when we look at my time, I allocate my time across all the funds. So not all of the cost of my position is absorbed within the general fund. and we do that through our ATF function. So I allocate my time to water, wastewater, next slide, sanitation, based on how I'm spending time. That's one way that you get this percentage piece. The other way that you get it is actually we can use the park's positions in maintaining the right-of-way where... they're doing parks work but they're also doing work to maintain what the street department would normally do and so in that case then the funds that are getting the benefit from that work contribute to it so that's why you're seeing these percentages um and it doesn't look right but it's a total body when it all is put together sure and how do we track the time is it just Mental note like I spent 50% of my time doing this job and the other 50% doing the other so it depends on it depends on the department So mine I look back at like so some of us look back on an annual basis in terms of where we spent time One way that we do it is through work orders and what they're doing Another is an estimate based on the type of work and then we tend to get where we're going to refine that I've literally had conversations today about maybe needing to refine some other positions. And we saw a bit of that. And we're going to adjust our budget process a little bit to rebalance. Gotcha. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor.

Sure. Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. Very quickly here. So when we talk about core services in terms of our priorities in our city council, goals, objectives, all of that, the visioning, when we talk about core services, that honestly seems like where we're putting positions here is really related to delivering solidly on most of those core services. I'm not sure all of them are represented on this slide here. But am I missing the... The core prioritization there. When we say core from the public standpoint and for council's understanding, we're talking about these expected services that we are all as taxpayers expecting to receive from the city. Absolutely. And then I was actually not expecting we'd necessarily be able to hire at 20. And I'm just curious, to be able to hire new positions, do you have a sense of how, even in a tight budget year, this compares to some of our peers in the region? I think I recall seeing articles like the city of Boulder is looking to cut a few or eliminate potential new hires, same with the county, maybe up to 50 positions.

Yeah, so I think I want to get through a couple of slides and then kind of dig into it because I think a lot of times when you're in a tough budget cycle, it's not uncommon to see government sort of do across the board cuts. which i don't think is good because then what you start doing is really degrading some of your core services where you need to keep the investment in so as we were moving through this process it really created the need for us to make tactical cuts in order to fund these positions so we did that at one point in this process we had close to an eight million dollar budget gap where the expenses 6.8 Numbers are running together now, but six point eight million dollar gap where the expenses that were coming in with level one request Were six point eight million over what we had in revenue. So we had to I brought my direct reports in and we spent hours upon hours with each other digging in to make tactical adjustments within the budget with two things in mind and One, I'm never a fan of balancing a budget on the backs of employees. And we did that a little bit, but we were trying to avoid it to the best of our ability and really trying to be clear-eyed on not impacting the services that we currently provide the community. Because there was a point in this. where it got so tough that we were looking at eliminating vacant positions that i was actually preparing myself to come in and tell you we need to make some service level adjustments based on what we were doing now we were able to weave through it we've got another 500 to 750 000 that hit us from the county. But I think it's really that same approach that we're trying to utilize. So we were scrubbing everything with those two components in mind of maintaining service levels and not doing it on the backs of employees. Because I will tell you, and I've believed this my entire career, 70% of our budget, if we just look at the general fund, 70% is people. I mean, we are intensely focused on people providing services. Without those people in the organization, we couldn't be a great organization. So we have to be mindful of that. So that was front and center from us as we were going through the process.

And so then this, first of all, thank you for all of that effort that is not seen in these types of meetings usually from you and many others. And then it seems like these enhancements here are boosting the areas where we think it's most necessary. And it's kind of a realignment of exactly who's doing what and delivering what, right?

Yeah. I'll get to this, but this is probably a good point to say this. We've never, so as we've gone through it and we talk about kind of what we've been faced with as a community, and I'm just going to talk about the time period that I was here. One of the things when I got here, actually Teresa was on one of the interview panels and when we were talking about budget reset, we spent some time talking about needing to zero base budget. We have not had that opportunity. And to answer the question, why haven't we had the opportunity? Well, a year and a half later, we had the 2013 flood. We had to completely retool our capital expenditures and our operation expenditures in order for recovery. We're technically still in recovery on certain projects. We then start having the economic conditions hit us, and then we have COVID hit us. and then out of COVID we have crazy inflationary pressures, and we're finally at the point to do it. So the punchline to this as we go into next year's budget process, we're starting it in January, and we're zero-based budgeting in terms of all the expenditures because if you think about what we said in terms of revenues, we're going to have to really dig in and find capacity and not impact service levels but not do it in a budget period where we're rushed. because of the challenges and so much to a lot of staff chagrin starting January it's going to be about twice a month budget meetings thank you because we have to prepare for the future thank you Yes. I'm literally hitting two buttons. One of the things that we talked about in positions and what we were looking at is positions move from ongoing to one time. Again, you're seeing the percentages, but what we were really finding in some of these things is we had positions that were utilizing ongoing funding, but at this point, I couldn't say with clarity. that we need those positions in perpetuity because as we talked about, there's a point where the work's not going to be there. And so just to kind of give you an example, we know that over the next five years, redevelopment's going to be a big deal and we have to do it to generate revenue. I can't tell you that that level of work is going to continue beyond that five years. based on the areas that we have to develop so we went through a fairly focused conversation in terms of is the work really there in perpetuity or is it over a period of time when we could clearly answer that question we moved it out of ongoing into one time to help balance the budget they're still employed we're just saying that we don't know that we're going to continue to need that Now, you're probably asking, well, how do you deal with it when the term comes up? We actually deal with that through attrition and other positions to make sure that someone doesn't lose their job. So we're managing that real time as we get to the end of a term position. I'm not going to spend a lot of capital on capital projects because Jen and Becky are going to come up and really run you through the details on this process. But you can get a sense in terms of the capital projects that we have moving forward. They're going to say this and I'm going to say it. What you're not seeing is probably what the obvious is in terms of first and main. It's because it's in this budget cycle. So it's not showing in the 27 budget because we'll do a rollover out of 26 into 27 once it's funded. So that's why you're not seeing it. There are a few things that we want to talk about, and I'm going to let Teresa take this and really go through it. But we maintain, before we get into that, we're really maintaining the general fund reserve. We're at 19.4%. If you remember, as we were finishing out last year, we were talking about the fact that sales and use tax wasn't performing well. I think we projected that we were going to need two and a half million dollars of fund balance. We really tightened up expenditures. We had a tactical hiring freeze and we only needed a million. So we didn't pull that down as 1.5 million. So we didn't pull back. This is balanced. We're looking at the enterprise fund cost recovery. So our rates are aligned with our operational requirements. Capital replacement is there. I want to spend some time on compensation. So I said we didn't want to balance it on the backs of employees. When we were going through compensation, we really ran into a brick wall. And what I mean by that was we look at market pay rates. And so when we go into the compensation process, we look at where people are related to market, we catch them up, and then we adjust the ranges to assume what the market movement is going to be. And that's how we set compensation. This was probably the most difficult conversation that we had because we knew we couldn't adjust the ranges and also give a market increase to those that were behind market. What we ended up deciding to do, and this was really looking at what benefited the organization as a whole. What we ended up deciding on that is we didn't want to move off of 101 to 100 because we continue vacillating on that, so we wanted to hold there. We actually decided in this budget proposal not to do the market adjustments for those that are behind market, but keep them at the 2026 market. but move the midpoint 3 percent in terms of adjusting the existing markets 3 percent. Does that mean everyone's going to get a raise? No, it doesn't. That happens every year. Does it mean that the majority of folks in the organization will get something? Yes, it does. And so that's how we approached it. And then obviously looking at recreation and their cost recovery at 80% in the budget process. They've done a great job recently in doing this. We're not getting into the level of detail, but I wanted to give you a sense of the challenges that we were really encountering in order to balance that budget. We'll talk about some things that we're doing and some exceptional work by members of this organization that actually have been doing things that put us in the position to make operational adjustments. and not have to dig deeper in what we were looking at. One example that I'll give you tonight is Matt McKenzie, who's managing our fleet. Matt, based on what he's been doing on auctions, depreciation in fleet has been killing us because of the increased cost in vehicles. Matt actually is outperforming his number on auctions. We were expecting a $1.2 million increase in the general fund. We were able to knock that $1.2 million off as an increase to bridge the $6 million because of what they're doing. The other thing that Matt and Sandy have been, Sandy's been evaluating it now with Matt is we've been looking at a lot of cities that don't have fleet funds actually have to lease their vehicles because it's cheaper than acquiring them. We're fortunate that we have a fleet fund. What we started realizing in this is we started learning a few things. One, if Enterprise Rental Car is in the business of leasing cars to cities because it's cheaper, there's a model in there where they're making money. We ended up actually finding out that most of these companies make more money on reselling their cars than they actually do on the lease rates. Because we have a fund, we're actually going to retool it and start working to mimic that internally so that we can offset those costs in the future. That's just one example of somebody making a $1.2 million difference in a $6.8 million gap and now starting to look at doing something in a different way that is really a tailwind in the future cost. So we'll work through that in more detail, but I really wanted to talk about that because those were moments where it made our lives easier and it wasn't work that we did, but it's the people that are in the trenches that are doing it on a daily basis. So there's a few policy questions that we have for you today. Um, one of the things, and these are part of solutions, um, in terms of balancing the budget. So I'm going to ask Teresa and in this case, Molly to come forward and, and go over this, um, the question on the affordable housing policy. We have done this in the past when there is a decision point that we need to get a sense on from council early on in the process. so that we can know will this work or will it not work because we'll have to adjust the budget. But Molly, why don't you go ahead and talk about this one and I'll jump in with you as needed.

Sure. Mayor and members of council, thanks for hearing this proposal tonight. So we have set a 20% cap for administrative expenses on the affordable and attainable housing funds for Going back to the beginning of the affordable housing fund back in the 90s that 20% model was mirrored based on the federal programs that the HCI group was primarily administering at the time CDBG and home and it we kind of knew in the last few years that if Revenues and expenses went up together then that made sense But if revenues hold flat and expenses go up then at some point we would hit a threshold where we're crossing over that 20% In the last five years, we've gone from an affordable housing fund with a $1 million general fund transfer from council each year to adding on our marijuana tax revenues, adding on the fee and lieu revenues from inclusionary housing, and then we have the attainable housing fund came into being, and then just in the last year or two, we started bringing in Prop 123 funds and Boulder County affordable attainable housing tax funds. Something really important is those last two sources is our biggest bump in revenues and those do not come with Administrative costs as an eligible expense. We we cannot pay for staff out of those sources. So we're taking on greater funding programs with all of those sources and making sure that we deliver great programs at your council direction and So the request tonight would be to no longer follow the 20% administrative cap that we have for some time, but to hold our costs within our means. And any future major capacity expansion requests through a staff member, et cetera, would come through this budget process anyway.

so part of the challenge when we look at the county funding is their time requirements so they want us to spend the funds within a certain amount of time so we have more money some of the money that we have we have to spend it in a shorter duration of time which means we need more people and in this case when the general fund is tapped you don't necessarily have the revenues to put the people in place to actually perform the projects And so we have, in this case, we were evaluating in from a standpoint of needing bodies and the amount of revenue that's now coming into this fund. So I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Do we have any questions from Council, Council Member Prieto?

So if I'm hearing correctly, this would allow potential hiring of new positions within this department, or would it open up additional funding?

It gives us options to consider.

If need be, like if we found that we did need additional support in X areas.

Yeah, and in one case, when we look at what we're doing in the redevelopment world, what we're seeing is, and we talked to council housing as a component of redevelopment, and so those two are starting to align, which lets us push money into that to get the work done instead of parsing it out based on that. So it lets us do stuff internally, but it also gives us the ability over time to add the positions we need to spend the money.

okay and then just second clarification um and so basically what i'm hearing also is um because we have these other revenue streams coming in and these opportunities it's you're not really finding it necessary for that 20 percent

So the cap is only on the two local sources, the two city sources. So with all of those other funding streams, if we remove the cap, it's not like we are pulling back on the money that we put out to benefit the community. We still have that and more coming through. Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Marcy.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a question and then Molly's answer kind of puzzles me, not puzzles me, a little bit. If you're feeling like the cap is Why request to remove the cap fundamentally if you're feeling like it's not restraining you currently? So it is. Okay.

There are things in 2027 or even coming up that we would not be able to do unless we do that.

Say more about that if you can, what the practical reality is.

So we have a vacancy in our housing investment manager position and the benchmark for that position to attract a competitive applicant has been made and it is showing that a slight increase is necessary. We cannot do that without the cap removal. So we would be bringing out the position at a less than competitive rate. That's the first example. And going forward, even with our existing staff at the existing levels that we have, because of cost increases that have not matched up with revenue increases, we would be projecting to go over that 20% in the 2027 budget without changing anything.

How do caps like this compare in other municipalities? Are there similar 20% caps as far as we know or are we not aware?

No, it's not comparable to anywhere else. It was really modeled off of the federal programs that the HCI division was built off of back in the 90s. And we just kept it because it worked okay. But there is nothing comparable out there.

I think the other thing on this is something that Molly said on this, on this piece is, um, she said, if we didn't have enough money, we have to control expenses. We actually have more money coming in. Um, when you look at fee and Lou and you look at the additional funding from the County, that's directly earmarked. And so we have more money coming in, but they do not allow you to have administrative expenses out of that funding source. And so, um, Now you have money to do something with that you don't have the ability to pull administrative expenses out of, and you need to have the people to then spend the money. So there's different pressures coming in.

Sure, and I appreciate that. I guess fundamentally the request, just so I'm fully understanding and then I need to digest a little bit, is essentially remove the cap, add to allow for more spending in admin, which fundamentally could theoretically. I understand staff's intention is that this not happen, but theoretically could mean that there's fewer dollars, even if it's a small amount of fewer dollars available for projects in the Affordable Housing Fund.

Ultimately, that's council's decision in the budget process. Okay. So it's not unregulated.

Sure. Operationally, though, what comes to council, if this cap is gone, could propose that, theoretically. And then council can review that as part of the budget process. Okay. Thank you.

and then um i'll call you just a minute would you want a formal vote or just a thumbs up consensus i think we need you know we'd like to see if council's okay with this because if you're not okay with it then okay to the point we're going to probably not i was going to let him talk yeah yeah and this is high level we can find out later but it will adjust some of the things that we did

okay so ideally you'd like for us to make a decision tonight if you're not formal but if if you don't have any heartburn over it okay say i don't have heartburn we can continue i need more information but okay um council member call cover thanks for that hey mayor um molly i appreciate everything that you and your staff do and i know your staff are running thin so appreciate all the work um why lift the restriction and not just change the percentage

Because I think we would have to readjust and revisit that percentage every year. And if you consider other city funds outside of the general fund, we're the only ones that have a cap on administrative expenses. Typically, all of the requests for additional budget items end up being analyzed during the budget process. And so this would be treating this fund more like others. I will say that for 2027, before When we were working with the 20% cap and trying to make it work, we looked at all of our expenses and reduced our discretionary spending by 30%, just trying to get under there. And that we held. So there was efforts made to try and squeeze under it. But just with staffing alone, it is proposed to go over.

Sure. Aren't we reviewing this every year anyway, this million dollars?

Correct, correct, but it doesn't come through as like a general fund request necessarily, but it is reviewed, you will see our budget laid out with our discretionary spending every year just like you always would.

So typically we've been absorbing it within the general fund?

Sure, and I trust that you all do the best you can to keep administrative costs down. In other organizations outside of our city, we see that administrative costs go up, and then the dollars that actually go towards that program, towards those people, is what gets affected. And it makes me nervous. And again, you all do a great work. I know you guys need more support. So this is not towards you all. But it makes me nervous that we don't have some kind of guardrails to make sure that we keep our personnel expensive, the supportive services expensive. How can you help me get over that?

So we have been over the cap for some time. And to support that, there has been an ongoing general fund contribution of $206,543. knowing that that cap doesn't support what we have done. And so something that we are doing along with this request is removing that additional $200,000 just to help cover that as a special transfer. It would just be the Affordable Housing Fund covering its own costs at this time. So that's kind of something we tried to make sure that if that was to accommodate the overage in this cap in history, that is no longer makes sense if this goes forward.

And is there other places, thank you for that, are there other places with our other hats that we can help ensure that we can at least check the costs from going up, the administrative costs? Certainly, certainly. All right, great, I'm good.

Council Member Christ.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you all for the presentation. I'm wondering, Molly, if you have a sense of how much staff is needed to manage a certain number of dollars, and if that could be a guardrail of sorts, saying, you know, we know it's gonna take X amount to handle the projects at so many million, and then adjust it for inflation, it would make a little more sense to the council in whether we were keeping a handle on expenses.

So I would say that currently with the programs that we have in play right now, the staff that we have is adequate. We have somebody managing our federal programs, somebody on homeownership programs, our rehab programs. It is paced out well with the staff that we have. The one thing that we have talked about is the affordable housing fund contributing to this redevelopment reorganization. So that's the only added capacity that we're looking right now, but it's really more redistribution of capacity. And so I would say I don't know if I have an exact number of the right number of people for the size of the program. What I do know is our staff that we have are managing our programs effectively right now. And I don't expect to request a capacity increase in 2027 certainly and beyond for a bit.

Yeah, and we couldn't do it without coming to council and asking for that in the budget process. That's not something that we can do. So you're still functionally capping it through the budget process. I think to your question.

Yeah, I think the problem is the percentage. Because percentages don't always work in certain environments. So when you're saying 20%, maybe that's not appropriate if you're trying to expand. Do you see what I'm saying?

I think how I'm thinking about it is a little bit more of a redistribution where we have the staff that we have and we cover that with local funds because we cannot use these other outside sources. So now we're going to focus, we're still going to put out more money to the community than we've ever been able to before, but we're going to focus it in those sources and then have to absorb our costs in our local sources. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And I think your question on projects, the answer is it depends on the project. Because I think when we look at the four cell piece of it. That actually probably is taking more bandwidth. Because you have down payment assistance programs, you have the pre-qualifications you have to go through. So that's capacity that Katie Silvas and some of the other group, it's eating capacity just because of the volume of work. So that's a little bit different in terms of not all projects are equal. And so it looks different based on what you're trying to do. The other thing, an example on the Ascent project that we're finding is with income averaging, that's also taking a little bit more bandwidth simply because you can fill the affordable units, but filling the income averaging units become more difficult to the point where we're looking at changing the model. So every project has its own personality. and really takes its own amount of work so it's hard for us to say that it'll be this because you could design it let's just say theoretically if you did one with for sale housing and multi-family housing that's going to take more bandwidth which is what we're thinking about on 180 emory just because now you've combined completely two different concepts so it's hard to say

Well, you piqued my curiosity when you say we need to rework the model with the higher AMI units that are hard to fill because I think that's a good identification of a problem area.

Yeah, okay. I'm in favor of it. Thank you. And then council, the second time for this, yeah, for affordable housing. I don't know if you picked up on it. I'm breaking it up into sections. So it's not too time for the whole conversation. Yeah. So. Okay. Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Wessing. I just wanted to confirm a couple of things based on the discussion already with my fellow council members, kind of a rapid fire around here. So the cap that we were talking about is locally imposed, correct? Correct. As in we've set the cap for ourselves. Yeah. And this is the only fund in the entire city and our adjacent utilities and stuff that we have a cap like this, correct? Are you able?

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Correct. Or as far, to the best of your knowledge.

Well, it's both attainable and affordable, so it exists in both of those areas.

Right, in the housing arena, not in other enterprise funds, etc.

Thank you. And the 20% is an arbitrary number?

Yes. It was based on something that came out of the federal programs that we were using.

And have there been increasing reporting requirements for state or federal grants that we've received in the past few years? Yes. Oh, yeah. And are we increasing the time we're spending trying to manage this? Yes. OK. That's what I thought. But I wanted to confirm that directly from you all. This is not actually like caps on administrative funding, just for everyone's understanding, is a persistent problem in a lot of different sectors, actually, in the nonprofit space and philanthropy space, too. So I'm not surprised to hear this challenge. I'm a little surprised to know that this is the only fund that we actually have this for. You could look at the Stanford Social Innovation Review, where they say caps on indirect costs are a misguided invention. You could look at Government Executive Magazine, which says reducing administrative burden, aka death by 1,000 10-minute tasks. I think that if this is the only fund we have in the city, we're demonstrating clearly that we are managing all of the other funds and all of the other, what, 540-something million dollars without needing a cap. My suggestion would be that we propose to eliminate the cap here and just continue to hold our staff accountable for a responsible balanced budget. So I will make a motion to remove the cap.

So, oh, I have one more. I have one more person. Could you hold on for just a second? Thank you. Council Member Marstein.

You mentioned we're, thank you, Mayor. Molly, you mentioned we're over the cap currently. Do you have that percentage number? Like if the cap is 20, what are we at?

It is with 2027 numbers, not today, because we've held to that for 2026 policy. But with 2027 numbers and no changes in benchmark or spending, we're at 24%.

OK, that's helpful. Look, I'm doing a cursory search here. You are the expert in this space on administrative caps and housing policy. Tell me why I'm wrong. I'm seeing 5% caps under Prop 123 initially proposed in admin spending. I'm seeing 10% caps. I understand the general principle that caps agree or don't agree. I disagree a little bit with Council Member Popkin on the premise that why this specific fund would have an administrative cap that we would want to cover with general fund dollars if necessary because of the specific way that the dollars in this fund are employed. I agree with you. I think it's amazing that our affordable housing fund is significantly more flush for cash than it was 10 years ago. I think that's a testament to your work, a testament to the work of previous councils. I am concerned that by removing a cap for this fund specifically because of the purpose of the fund and the reason that it exists. We don't know how long this fund is going to be in this position that it's in. I think the fund has a direct impact on high needs populations in our community. Folks on this council have served on HHSAB. the work that that fund does in the community every single day, I think sets it apart from funds like, you know, sanitation, water, et cetera. So I will, I think it needs to be protected in that way, and that is not a criticism of staff. I understand completely that this is probably a burden, and I get that. I think this is a burden that, for me, I want to see these dollars for affordable housing fund projects protected, and I would personally rather see us continue to subsidize with general fund dollars and leave these AHF dollars alone. I'm one of seven. We'll see where it goes, but I'd be opposed to that motion of the state.

Okay. Council Member Popkin, would you like to make your motion now?

I would. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the discussion from my fellow council members. I think this gives us more flexibility. I don't think it takes away accountability. And my understanding of funds is we still can't take money from the affordable housing fund to use it in other areas, correct?

Correct.

That's under our charter's fund management principles, right? Yep. So I think this gives us flexibility to adapt to different situations, including this one. And as we have learned through multiple, from our other hat with Longmont Housing Authority, through council managing, there's the act of creating affordable opportunities for housing. There's also the ongoing maintenance and responsibility of managing that. So with that, I will motion to lift the cap on this specific fund.

Second.

So the motion has been made to lift the 20% administrative cap, and it was seconded by Mayor Pro Tem. Did you want to do a verbal vote or? OK. There it is. Yeah, Mayor Pro Tem. it's still no it says it's waiting oh but his is waiting mine is waiting i'm going to peek over to council member chris so that motion carried oh there it is carries six to one with council member marcy in opposition that is too tiny for my eyes to make it bigger okay

All right, another one again, I'm wanting to get up. Thanks, Teresa. I'm going to ask Becky and Teresa to explain this one. New people see new things. And so Becky, this was something that we came across that does help with our financial challenges, but we also realized this was the only fund that we process it this way. So Becky, do you want to talk about it?

absolutely mayor council members your utility services pay what's called a franchise fee into the general fund for the privilege of using our right-of-way to provide those services and that's really similar to what other providers of utility services or cable services those kinds of things would pay to a city you know to to be located in our uh utility areas So in the other funds that pay these franchise fees including water wastewater The the franchise fee is assessed based on the budgeted revenue from that fund if we had historically made those payments out of the electric utility based on the actual revenue collected and While usually that's pretty close, we're pretty good at forecasting revenue, we did still kind of hold back some of the projected franchise fee revenue from what the general fund's own revenue projection was for that. So by changing this to align with the other two enterprise funds that pay this, we make it more predictable on both sides. So the general fund knows exactly what it's gonna receive once we complete the revenue forecasting process in the utilities, and each of the utilities knows exactly what they will pay. So we think that this is well aligned with the other funds and really helps us have more certainty on both ends of this equation.

Council member Popkin. Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mary. The other end. Thank you, Becky. So what happens if, at the end, the projected is significantly wrong? Is there a credit back?

Not with this change. There would not be.

OK. And normally, how close are you? Or not you, but? Plus or minus 5%. OK, cool. Thanks.

Okay. Do we have any other questions? Go ahead and continue.

No, this is another one. Just get council's take on it. What do you think of this feedback for us?

Okay. Do we have any comments?

Go ahead, Council Member Christ. I think this is a good observation, Becky, and appreciate you pointing this out. I think this is also a way to be very consistent in what the electric utility will put into the general fund, which would be helpful long term.

Council Member Popkin.

I think this largely makes sense. It seems like the goal is advanced planning and clarity, just in terms of how you're getting the percentage for this. My question comes from, what if there are successive years of projected gross revenue being higher than the actual, where it starts to kind of go back to back?

Mayor, Councilmember Popkin, I think, you know, hopefully we're adjusting our forecasting methodology to accommodate, like, consistent underperformance in revenue, which is, I think, kind of what you're asking.

Yeah, like, what if we're projecting we're going to win the lottery two years back-to-back, which would be a projected gross revenue substantially more than the annuals? Obviously, I'm joking about that, but if we project, say, 5% off revenue,

2027 and 2028 and 2029 does that start to add up in terms of the implications on yeah if there are successive years where we've where we've over forecast that that would start to add up as far as you know an additional expense where we don't necessarily have the revenue generation to cover it I'll say in practice that we have not seen that kind of consistent over forecasting

You'd have to rebalance in that if you started seeing it. Yeah.

OK. And then just to make sure I'm understanding this, since it's just being thrown up in front of me for the first time here. So the percentage, is that of the projected gross city-wide budget or just at LPC's piece of this?

Just at LPC's.

Just LPC's. Okay, so this is a narrower subset of what we're projecting for based on operating costs, capital expenditures, and I guess, sorry, of the revenue collected, and we generally know where our revenue sources are.

It's electric rates. Yes. Yes. So...

That is a fixed percentage each year that we can, but for a little bit of change in customers, basically that is where our revenue is fairly statically coming from. This isn't like a sales use tax factor. Got it, thank you. I don't have any issues with this.

Is there anyone that has issues with this? No, okay. Okay, perfect, that would be great.

Council Member Christ. So I move that we change the franchise fee policy for the electric utility to 8.64% of the budget year's projected gross revenue.

Okay, so the motion has been made. Waiting for my screen, whoops. So the motion was made by Council Member Christ to change the franchise fee 8.64% to change the language to the budget year's projected gross in place of the actual annual revenues. And that was seconded by Council Member Popkin. I'm in favor. And so that carries unanimously.

And I forgot, you're just giving us direction to include this in the budget. You'll have to approve this as part of the overall budget. So this is just directional. The last one, and this may take some more time, but this is one that has been coming up into conversations. And we felt like, and again, you don't need to tell us today, but we are gonna need to figure this out in the budget process is this question on the administrative transfer fee of 50% to the general fund. Really it is just asking the question, do you wanna leave it at 50% or do you want it to be the full administrative transfer fee? I figured this one was going to be more time consuming. So if you want to think about it, you can think about it, but this is something that's going to come up in the budget process.

Okay, great. Um, council member Marcy.

Thank you, Mary. I was, I was going to request, um, five before we dive into this. Cause I think this is a consequential conversation that I want at least five minutes to read the full text of the policy. So take our five minute break.

Okay.

So we can go ahead and continue. People can make their way back to their seats. Thank you. And does it go back to you Harold or?

So on this one, um, this is one where we actually budgeted at the 50%. That's where it's been again, want to reiterate, like on the previous items with council, if you need time to think about this, that's fine. This was just one, this one was a little bit different in that we wanted to highlight it early on in the process. So you can start thinking about how you want to proceed with this or give us some direction on this.

Okay. And when do you need to know by? Because I know we have the vision session. End of September. End of September.

Well, no, so first part of October, actually, based on the timing. Okay.

Perfect.

Let me go through our schedule here with you because I think that will help answer the question of when. Normally, we bring our ordinances to you all to adopt the budget in October. What we are proposing because of the November ballot question for public safety is to delay the budget adoption until November. So until after we know whether or not that initiative passes. If it does pass, we will then bring back the changes to implement that ahead of you all adopting the budget for this year, for 27. So I think you have time. So I would say by mid October ish. Okay.

Okay. I mean, I feel like for me personally, I would like to have the discussion on, you know, what are, what are our priorities going to be for the airport? Where do we want to, you know, kind of, is it necessary? Is it not?

Yeah, this is one just like the others. It's up to council. What do you want to do? It was just, we wanted to highlight some of these things that were going to be significant decision points in the process.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Marcin.

Thank you, Mayor. Just for a reminder, because I don't have it in front of me, can somebody remind me what the actual raw number of the administrative transfer fee to the Enterprise Fund was, either in this budget, if you've got it, or last year? And really the point there being basically how reliant on the transfer fee is the Enterprise Fund for the airport.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Sandra Cifuentes, Budget Manager. So as it stands today, we're proposing $150,000, give or take a few dollars, for the administrative transfer fee, and that's with the 50% waiver. So the full 100% would be roughly about $300,000 for 2027. OK. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I was in agreement with you, Mayor. I think that we want to make sure that we have this conversation at all levels here. And to be fair, to figure out where we are with the airport and to also take a deeper dive into looking at it from an enterprise fund. And I think that's a... good policy and practice. So I would be in favor of taking a more timely approach on this.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm looking at my favorite airport financial spreadsheet here, and I guess I have a question on this. Where is, and this is the one at least that was proposed, I guess shared in mid-July, or for the July 28th meeting, and maybe there were a couple tweaks after that, but I don't see the administrative transfer fee listed in that, and so I'm wondering, is that buried somewhere here? Where is that being factored in I see, nope, that's a state grant. Where is that being factored into this budget projection?

That would be under the operating and maintenance total, under expenses.

That's where it would be included. Under the five-year fund statement, operating and maintenance, row 20, we're looking at. So it has like a 782,802 for 2026. Part of that, you're saying, not all of it, but part of that is the ATF. Yes. Got it. Okay. Before we go into our work session, could we get a breakdown with that separately as a separate line so we can see that? And then per some of the email discussion we've had, could we also have the capital expenses and the grants that are projected out so we can see that whole literally spread in the sheet?

Yeah, we can definitely break it out in more detail so you guys have more.

I think they're actually planning on that as part of the... You're planning on presenting some of that as part of the visioning, right? That's part of the packet that's going to you ahead of the visioning.

Yes, as part of the packet, I think that the greater look of all of the things that we've talked about in rates and charges, including landing fees, and what that policy might look like that supports what those dollars would go toward, that is not something that we're planning for either the 26th or the 29th. But it is something that we're working toward. But we will have something that is in your packet related to the visioning session that's happening on a Saturday. I don't intend for it to look like 12 different types of performers that kind of run different scenarios.

Yeah, I know this is not like an airport resource planning exercise here. I guess what I would be curious is if this is, I'm glad that was a funny joke for you, Becky. I guess at least having the ATF broken down here would be great, and also understanding what are the, like what we had discussed via email, which is not all the REIT scenarios, but what are the capital, grants that we were planning for and what are the capital expenditures that we were expecting, because right now that's not included in that as well. And I think that's just going to be useful for us as we work through that visioning session and broader rates discussion.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thanks. So I'm not going to go over this line by line, but you can see what the month of September will look like in terms of all of the different aspects of the budget that we're going to cover. You can tell that the regular meetings were a little bit lighter in terms of what we're going to go over simply because trying to manage council time. But you'll get this slide and this will give you a sense of what we're going to go over each meeting. And that is the 40,000 foot overview of the budget.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. We did it. We are now on to final call. Oh, no.

You've got CIP.

Oh, we're not done. Oh, my gosh. I just saw the thank you. I'm like, you're dangling that.

I was excited to hear.

CIP, yeah. The long one. Isn't this the long one?

The clicker's not working. I wanted nine.

fast 15 minutes ago you have two times

All right, well, we'll go ahead and get started. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Sandra Cifuentes, Budget Manager. Today, as part of our 2027 proposed budget presentations, we are going to be reviewing our 2027 to 2031 proposed capital improvement program. I'm going to give you all a quick overview of the financials, and then we have Jen and Becky here tonight that will be talking about some of the projects. We also have some staff in the audience that are here to help with any questions that may come up. So first off, what is a CAP? We often use this acronym to talk about our capital improvement program, which is a capital improvement plan. It's a five-year document we put together on an annual basis that includes city infrastructure needs for the next five years. In order for a project to qualify and be included in the CAP, it needs to meet two very basic criteria. The first is that it needs to have a life expectancy of five years or more, and the second is that it has to have a minimum cost of $10,000 or more. If it doesn't meet this criteria, we still include it in the operating budget, but we call it an operating capital expense. for the CIP if the project is considered to be funded in 27 we also include that in the adopted budget but we call it out as a capital improvement program the out years are simply a way for us to plan for those future infrastructure needs and like I mentioned earlier we do look at this document on an annual basis and this is just to ensure we have the most up-to-date information including any new projects changes in scope or project costs So here's a look at CAP costs over time. So this chart gives you 2021 to 2031. This is a 10-year span. The first five years to the left, these are actuals. So for 2021 through 2025, this is how much we've actually spent and incurred in that given year. then you see a large spike in 2026. this is not how much we plan to spend at the end of the year but rather how much we have available to spend the vast majority of this amount is made up of carryover dollars and carryover as you know is previously approved budgets that haven't been fully spent from last year or prior years Some projects that are included on here are like TRP 131, the First and Main Street Transit Station, as well as the Montgomery Tank Project. So all of these are included in this amount, not in 27, and we will be carrying those over, obviously, because it takes several years to complete the projects. Then the five years to the right, 27 through 31, this is how much we're proposing to fund for those five years. And as you can see, the annual amount aligns more closely to how much we're spending on a yearly basis. Here's another look at that CAP cost over time, but this layers in categories. Just so you can see where some of this funding is sitting. Again, first five years to the left are actuals. 26 is a revised budget, and 27 through 31 is what we're proposing in new funding. So for 2026, what makes up that large amount of a revised budget? So of the $274 million, 66% of that is carryover, which translates to about $181 million. This also includes appropriations that we've brought to you since January. And then the other 34%, or $93.2 million, this is how much was adopted during last year's 2026 to 2030 CIP process. The table to the left, this just shows you the project categories with most of the funding available to them. The water projects at 85.5 million, transportation at 80, and parks, recreation, and open space at 50. So it's now September. How much of this have we spent? Through the end of August, we've spent a total of 58% and have about 42% of funding available to us. The bar graph down below just shows you how much is available to spend by category and how much has been spent and or encumbered through the end of August. How this translates to dollars, of the 200 some million dollars that we have, we've spent about 159 million and we have about 115 million available to us to spend. The categories that have the amounts listed make up the four major category types with most of the available funding. So here's the list of the top 10 budgeted projects that make up some of these amounts. Some I've mentioned, TRP 131. The amount in orange is how much we have available to spend through the end of August. You also have Railroad Quiet Zones. That's another big project. We have about 8.4 available. And then Water 191, that's the Montgomery tank replacement. We've contracted a lot of the funding, but it will be carried over into 2027. So for 2027, what new funding are we proposing? We're proposing to fund a total of $95 million. The list to the left gives you the project category with the largest being listed first. And the chart on the right just shows you the total percentage by category. For the five-year plan, we're proposing to fund 316.5 million. That's a large amount. Same three major categories. We have electric at 78.2 million, water at 69.9 million, transportation at 62.6, and the chart to the right is the percentage of total by category. Here's a look at that five year and what you're seeing here is a decline. So for the last, I'm gonna say four or five years, we have really tried to focus on the existing projects that we're working on rather than adding new projects. So this is just reflective of that change where we're trying to focus on what we have at hand before we take on new projects. And this is that same information, but it layers in categories by year. Do you guys have any questions on the financials? Do you have any?

OK. Councilmember Kalkhofer.

Thank you, Mayor. Can you go back to the slide that has electricity, water? So we know what the water and transportation is. What makes up the $78 million for electric? What are some of those projects, just out of curiosity?

We will talk a little bit about the electric project so.

Councilmember Marcy thank you just a process questions and some new I'm sure we'll get a high level look at some of these projects will we when we go through what we will we receive in materials are packing in the future a line by line breakdown basically expenditure by expenditure in the sea IP and so with

in the packet not here obviously but correct so we actually did finalize the proposed cap document and it will be posted online this will show you all funded 2027 projects for 27 as well as for the five-year plan so this will give you cost information project descriptions etc great that's helpful as i kind of evaluate what's in there what's not in there that the community is asking about those kind of things thanks go ahead okay i'll pass it on to jen

There we go. Good evening. Jen Newton, assistant city manager for external services. And I'm going to talk a little bit about kind of the project categories and how we think about this, what we're looking at for 2027. And then I'm going to hand it off to Becky to talk about some of the specific items in the enterprise funds. So there are three categories that cover projects within the CIP. Asset management or asset maintenance, enhancement to existing infrastructure and new infrastructure. So Becky was kind enough to do an analysis both for the one year look and the five year look. So asset management is 55 to 65% of the CIP. The enhancement to existing infrastructure component is about 25 to 35%. And that includes things that are driven by regulations. So ADA is an example of something that is both an enhancement but also might be driven by regulation. And then new infrastructure is 10%, and primarily that's paid for by development. So there was a slide earlier that mentioned the electric aid to construction, which is new electric or fiber lines that serve new buildings, and that is an example of what would be in that new infrastructure category that's paid for essentially by that development. I did want to just mention that, and I think Sandra talked about this a little bit, but this plan is a financial multi-year capital plan that addresses the continuing investment that's necessary to properly maintain its capital assets. And it's essential to the future for our financial health. And there are a few components of the way that we look at that in terms of drivers. So one of the components there is the condition of the assets that we have. There's additional growth. and regulation and innovation, those are the ways in which we identify and prioritize the projects. So for example, some of the things that are guided by regulation would be, I gave the example of ADA, environmental regulations is another component of that. And then in innovation, some of that's driven by value work that we're doing in terms of sustainability, but also technological advancement that requires an investment to operate more efficiently. So that also is a benefit to the ROI. So you've seen this slide earlier tonight, but these are your council goals. So obviously this is part of what we look at when we're looking at what are we proposing to be funded in the CIP. And I'm gonna talk briefly about what's in the Public Improvement Fund. It's not an exhaustive list. There is a list of all of that that will be available online and maybe is already available online. So the Public Improvement Fund is essentially a component of sales tax. The two cents of sales tax, some of that goes to the general fund itself, 85% of that goes to the general fund itself, and 15% of sales and 15% of use tax goes into the public improvement fund for capital. And the Public Improvement Fund is supporting a number of assets. So that looks like facilities that we have. There's 30 plus facilities that have HVAC and boilers and electrical, plumbing, flooring, and all sorts of components. There's about 800,000 square feet of varied use building spaces, and that includes buildings like the library or the museum, fire stations. We also have parks and nature areas that are supported by the Public Improvement Fund. And then other facilities like the six pool facilities that we have, the ice pavilion and other specialized recreation. So in terms of that, there's a time horizon for this portfolio, and we aren't looking, as we've mentioned previously, in a singular year, changes that we might make to any of these particular project funds or project types. They might appear minor, but they would compound over time. So an example is, maintenance on the civic center complex and where we had a lack of maintenance for these facilities and then we had to have a major debt issuance for millions of dollars to maintain the existing assets that we have. So if you start getting behind, you have that big investment that you have to make when you have something that's a major emergency where you need to direct those funds, you can get behind on other things. So we'll talk a little bit about public buildings and facilities. I'm right on the edge here. So we have the facility maintenance division is managing a lot of these facilities that I just mentioned, those 30 plus facilities. And they're looking at life cycle maintenance for the facilities and all those components that I just mentioned. and looking at preventative maintenance and looking at doing assessments of these buildings to make sure that we're not missing something and they also support special projects so in terms of council priority it's really reliable and equitable core services that we're delivering So I'm gonna just talk about a couple of these. One, which is roof improvements. There's almost $1.7 million that's identified in the 2027 CIP for roof improvements, and 1.3 million approximately for boiler replacements, and then 2.4 million essentially for HVAC replacements. And so what that looks like is these are being evaluated on a life cycle. So it's based on, for example, in this, the type of roof. So some buildings have multiple roof types. So we're looking at repairs that extend the life of systems and the asset maintenance cycle is based on specific service life for roofing type. So there's a five year look to assess needs for the short term horizon. And we do have a 30 year master plan. So there are three building locations in 2027, which would have new roofing and then also repairs additionally. HVAC replacement is on a different life cycle. So HVAC can last approximately 10 to 15 years, depending on the type of equipment and the routine maintenance that we do. When we replace those systems, we are looking at energy conservation and looking at kind of the longevity of those systems. There are six locations for 2027, and obviously efficiency is considered as part of those replacements. We also have a large expenditure here in both. There's two funds here. One that is public improvement fund, which is about $2.3 million. Other enterprise funds are about $90,000 for boiler replacements. It's six buildings. Again, it's that same kind of thing, looking at how long boilers last and making those lifecycle replacements as we need to.

this is one area where um we're seeing the impacts of inflation in both sides that when you look at the cost of the equipment if you've seen the growth in that and then you're pressured by the the revenue this really gives us challenges um as we're looking at this replacement and you know there's i know if you talk to the facilities group they would say this is um you know really exciting work this isn't the work that most people would think about But it's essential for us to do that, and the consequences are significant if we don't stay on top of it.

I'll move on to the parks kind of CIP component. I think that you know what our parks department and recreation and open space folks do, but they are looking at renewing aging parks and recreation assets and infrastructure, and they're planning for the future as well. And obviously this advances the priority that you have related to reliable and equitable core services as well. I also think, I didn't add that kind of place making component that you have for your priorities because in 2027, the bulk of the work is really on asset maintenance and so certainly over the five year look there are other kind of components here but really in 2027 it's managing the assets that we have. And here's a slide just saying just that, that there are significant community investment that we have in the parks that we have and our responsibility is to make sure that we're not having catastrophic loss by not maintaining something. So we're investing proactively in existing park infrastructure and assets to make sure that they're safe for the public who wants to use them and that they're functional and that they're accessible. So we do that, the strategy that we're using is really data-driven prioritization of looking at life cycle, looking also at total park health, and then also looking at what risks are there related to the public. So the life cycle of an asset is generally a guidebook, and using Total Park Health, which is an assessment that we have done, we actually had some interns who helped us with that this year, and there's a whole map of looking at the parks that we have related to the actual condition of the asset and the current state and so it's a we're able to kind of adjust we could say we think that this asset needs to be replaced in year 20 but when we look at it we think maybe there's a few more years that could be eked out of that asset if we have some repairs so that's the kind of work that this allows us to do So as I mentioned earlier, the 2027 CIP related to this is really focused on addressing known deficiencies in existing parks and making sure that they're safe and accessible. And then also as we're replacing things, making sure that they can be more efficient. So an example of that is the irrigation systems across the whole park system. That includes components such as irrigation controllers and raw water pumps and irrigation clocks, that better allows us to manage the water use that we have in a particular park when we have those updated systems. Parks ADA is mostly related to concrete flat work that's related to paths and access in our parks. And then Clark Centennial Community Park is the big one here. We have an RFP that's set to go out. And once that's awarded, the assessment would start. We anticipate the assessment itself will take about four to six months, so that work is happening this year. um and then phase one design documents would be completed in the first half of 2027 with the construction that's following it that really is about electrical that's original panels that are no longer serviceable as the parts are no longer available and drainage over time that's degraded and that's requiring rework to increase the use of useful life of the park So I did mention 2028 briefly, and I know I think this may be the only 28 side that we have. There are things that we're looking for moving away from that reactive repair to proactive renewal. So there's park pedestrian bridge replacements. identified in 2028 and then park renewals, I will say that this is renewal park assets that would fall into category of safety or park asset protection. So these would be scaled down from what you might think of as a total park renewal. And so that's essentially what I wanted to highlight here is that we're really focused on the short term for asset maintenance. And we do, as I mentioned, have a data-driven roadmap that's looking at maintaining the park system and all of those components that makes up our great parks. And so the question isn't whether our existing parks assets will need investment. It's that we're looking at these proactively based on data and lifecycle so that they don't fail and then we have to pay more to address them reactively. And I'm going to hand it off to Becky, unless you have any questions for me.

I took it over.

Council Member Popkin.

Yeah, I do have a couple questions here for you, Jen, and these might actually plug into Becky at some point, too. When we talk about, first of all, I appreciate the framing here around community resilience, especially considering that many of us have been talking about that either from an economic and financial sense, from a social and human services sense, from an environmental sense. What I'm particularly curious about here is the intersection of the use of some of these funds. And we had a conversation about realigning waste rates a few weeks ago. That's kind of separate, but the principle of how do we achieve more with the funding that we have I think maybe is where Becky wants to take this in a bit. And so I won't belabor this too much, but I wanted to ask two questions. Jen, when we're talking about some of the facilities that needed kind of roof overhauls, I think there was part of that slide that was speaking to maybe looking for different materials that increase the longevity so we don't have to be replacing from more susceptible roofing materials if there's hail, heat, other types of fire risks that could impact the buildings. Have we looked at certain state, like are we looking at a state like DOLA or the Energy Mineral Impact Fund from a grant standpoint to cover some of those public improvements to the extent that those are relevant?

I'm not aware that we have been doing that necessarily related to these funds but I will look to Jeff Cedar who might be able to answer a little bit more specifically. I think we certainly do look for grant dollars when we're looking at new construction for sure and looking at what could be funded by some of those state programs related to efficiency as we're building a new asset. I don't know if we have done that for any existing asset maintenance and I'll look to Jeff if he can answer that question.

Cool, thanks. And then while Jeff's walking down, can we go to the slide that had the different breakdown on parks of use of shelter, drainage, scoreboard, whatever it was? Yes, this one. I'll ask this question, and then we can answer in whatever order so that people have time to think. I look at the first place my eyes go to is on shelter. And this comes from a place of helping cities use solar panels to cover parking lots so that they provide shade and cover parking and still generate energy. Have we, I know we've been deploying some small scale community solar projects at the Ascended Hover Crossing, our waste, I think, recycling center is it? Or no, not the recycling, it's the RNG facility or whatever. Waste services. Yeah, waste services, thank you. If we're spending $10 million on shelter, have we considered where they're, and again, I know that it depends on how you connect the electric load in, but have we considered leveraging that funding to achieve multiple purposes at once. Shelter is one example of that, but I think about like storm water management and drainage, if we're redoing a field, are we able to redo the field with the drainage and irrigation kind of at the same time and thinking about what types of grasses and other types of plants would serve multiple purposes here. Those are just two of many examples here when we're thinking about this, but I just wanted to plant that seed, pardon the pun on the field there, and then maybe we can go to Jeff and then come back.

Mayor, Council, Jeff Seager. I'm the facilities manager. To answer your question directly related to the opportunities of grant funding, we've had some that didn't pan out. I don't remember what the reasons were for through some of our sustainability efforts. What I've been basing replacements on is the longevity of the replacement, the material we're using, trying to get a 30-year life out of it. There's a lot less... material that would last less, but I'm basing those kinds of replacements on that kind of life cycle for their future. Did that answer your question? Partially.

I mean, I take your word and staff here that we are very much trying to think strategically about what we're replacing. What I'm curious about is I believe the state has some funding that can be used for these purposes.

I'm not aware of that.

So I'm happy to take a look at that more closely. We don't have to get bogged into grant details right now. But I think we've even used the Energy Mineral Impact Fund assistance before a few years ago for the RNG facility. So I'm curious if we've looked at that for some of these other replacements that increase our resilience from an environmental standpoint and structural standpoint, while also buttressing our capital spend in different ways or allowing us to shift costs.

Yeah, I think I would say when we look at it, we're looking at it holistically in terms of what are the funding opportunities and what projects are we taking through to get those funding opportunities. So when we were really focused on the RNG facility, we didn't want to cannibalize ourself. Sure. And so I think we're looking across the portfolio to see what's going in where and what has the highest opportunity of success. So we're evaluating that. Frankly, a lot of our energy has been put on looking at those opportunities as it relates to First and Main. Sure. To kind of layer those in. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks, John.

And I probably should let Becky speak to this, but I think that's the same kind of thing that we're thinking about. We are looking at solar installation for First and Main and also for the Front Range Community Campus. I think that we have limited ability to kind of continue to draw from those sources as we're looking at maybe some of the additional one offs as we've been deploying some of the existing funding that's available for these kind of larger scale projects. We can continue and will continue to look at are there opportunities for us to use other both national and state grants that are related to solar and to other kind of efficiency works and lighting, those kinds of things. So I think we can continue to look at it. I think that sometimes we have an amount of capacity that we're able to deploy or that we're able to get those dollars for. And we've been really focused on the first and main. Yeah, of course.

I'm not actually going to dispute that in any way. really poke at here is when we do have like I'm not trying to like rob one project to pay for another what I'm trying to say is when we know we want to spend 10 million dollars on a shelter just to use as an example have we thought about that when we want no we want to spend what was it 18 something million probably that's wrong I think um oh there we go um Yeah, 14 million on drainage and a field replacement. Are we doing that holistically with both of those in mind so that we can spend those dollars more effectively when they're already earmarked, not pull from another project?

We certainly can do that as part of when we develop the RFP or the best value approach that we're doing for park renewal or new parks creation. I think that that's something that we can absolutely look at. Sometimes it depends, but you can have, the vendor can be part of kind of managing either those grants that come in, or making sure that we're deploying the best most efficient kind of use of You know for example lighting that we're using the most efficient lighting in the project and we can certainly when we're doing that go after funds I will say that like if you're looking at Shelters, for example, it's not always that we're replacing a shelter sometimes if the shelter is in good shape relatively reasonable repair that maybe we're replacing the concrete that's underneath that shelter. So I think this is a mix of components.

And I don't presume to know the nuances of all of this. I'm just looking for some synergies of application where some communities have gotten creative about how they I mean, hell, you could even look at a playground creating shelter in some way, too, if we're spending $58 million on playgrounds where it serves multiple purposes. I don't want to belabor this, but I think that level of synergistic thinking will be helpful as we try to think about community resilience in multiple ways.

And I would love to point out, just today I think we had a press release about some cooling amenities that have opened in parks. And I think that that's really a testament to sort of how we are weaving in those sustainability aspects as we're thinking about what's happening within our facilities kind of broadly. And like not to get too inside baseball, but this has to do with some, you know, improvements that we made within our own project management processes to make sure that we're involving stakeholders who are going to say, hey, have you thought about low impact design? You know, before things are too far down the road to really incorporate those things. So I think we're seeing that.

I would say yes, we think about it, and we've restructured the process where when people are proposing capital projects, we actually review it as a leadership team, and we're evaluating it for connection across the organization, making sure that they're touching base with all the appropriate departments, and then to the question of then how do we look at it? We then dive in and look at the other funds and look at the health of the other funds, what the expenses are, And is there capacity? And then tactically look at the projects and put an ROI lens on it to really say, if we're going to do this, where do we utilize the resources to have the most significant impact? So the answer is yes. And there is a series of processes that we go through.

Great. Thank you for that. Continue.

Oh, it's me.

So just to start off, we wanted to give you a sense of sort of the scale of the assets that we are maintaining and that we are safeguarding throughout our capital planning processes. So our 125-year-old electric utility started with a single hydroelectric plant still operating up in Lyons. And the asset valuation that you see here, that $163 million, represents the investments that our community has already made within this system. And for the finance nerds among us, that's the book value. So that's what we actually paid for each of those assets. It's not what it would cost us to replace this. Because a lot of these assets were installed a long, long time ago, and you cannot put up a poll for the same amount today that you were able to put it up 30 years ago, or even five. So when we think about what would it take to replace all of these assets and to keep them functional over the long term. It's a big investment and it only gets bigger as we go and update those things. So just an overview, I mentioned obviously the hydro plant, all of our other sort of generation and transmission resources. are with our Platte River Power Authority partners. So we don't reflect the PRPA resources on our balance sheet, but those are a big, important player in the service that we provide. So that comes into our substations, and then we distribute that to our customers through our distribution system of overhead and underground lines. and then meter that usage. So just a couple notes here about some of the ways that we do that. Obviously, we're always trying to balance between maintaining the reliability of the system, making sure that it's affordable for people, and that we're advancing those sustainability goals. both in terms of environmental sustainability as well as the economic sustainability of the utility on an overall basis. Knowing that we have that variety of different assets that we are responsible for maintaining, some of those are reaching end of life and so we've made some some changes within our operations this year and coming into the next year to address some of that aging infrastructure. You will probably see us make some additional adjustments. So last year we added a new crew that is really focusing on proactive maintenance. And it's going to take some time before we see that kind of really affect our overall reliability numbers and reduce the number of outages, but that is the effect that we expect to see. So that's not really capital, but just kind of talking about overall system maintenance. So this is essentially just to point out we are really focused on assessing the condition of some of those older assets and making sure that they are up to date and functioning as well as they can. IN ADDITION, THIS PROJECT IS ABOUT HOW ARE WE UPDATING THE GRID. SO THIS IS FOR NEXT YEAR IS A $1.7 MILLION INVESTMENT IN REALLY CAPITALIZING ON THAT INNOVATION PILLAR THAT WE TALKED ABOUT IN THE CAPITAL PLANNING AREA. where we're taking advantage of new technologies that then also have, in the case of the wildfire mitigation piece here, that have a real safety improvement for folks. We also will be updating our outage management system over the next year to improve our communication and response times for folks as we are, when we do have service disruptions. So our primary asset management project within the electric utility is this one, the LE102. And throughout the five-year period, it's about a $20 million investment. And that starts to get to your question, Council Member Kalka, for about

what's that overall, $78 million, right?

So 20 million of it is really responding to and proactively maintaining those parts of the distribution system that we kind of listed out in there. THAT'S A REALLY BIG PIECE. ANOTHER $20 MILLION PIECE OF THAT 80 IS WHAT WE CALL AID TO CONSTRUCTION. SO THAT'S THAT NEW INFRASTRUCTURE THAT IS FULLY REIMBURSED BY DEVELOPMENT. FULLY HALF OF OUR CIP INVESTMENT IS BETWEEN THOSE TWO PROJECTS. MAINTAINING THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE HAVE AND HELPING DEVELOPMENT GET SERVICE TO NEW BUILDINGS. IN ADDITION, WE TALKED ABOUT THE ELECTRIC GRID MODERNIZATION WORK THAT WE'RE DOING. And this is another area where we're capitalizing on that innovation piece, where we are adding distributed energy resources. So Council Member Popkin, to your point, the primary investment that we're making in 2027 is solar-covered parking on top of the first and main garage, which is a great example of how we are looking at these things from this systems view. Because from a strictly electric utility standpoint, we could probably generate more solar in a different application, but this gives us other benefits and allows us to sort of showcase that project in that really prominent downtown location. So we're excited about that. We're also making some other investments or, you know, in partnership with PRPA in some distributed energy resources that they're going to help us get closer to that 100% renewable goal. So I didn't kind of stack up that whole $80 million, but does that give you kind of the flavor that you were looking for? Okay.

And then Council Member Kalkhofer, if you wanted to respond, go ahead.

Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, Becky. Can you go back to the slide? I'm having a hard time with the underground cables. This one? What do we have? Yeah, one more forward. What do we have over ground?

So we have overhead lines. Old Town. Yeah, Old Town. So where you see poles with lines on them, that's overhead. You don't see the underground ones.

Right. But how many miles of overhead cables do we have?

Okay, 80% of our system is underground, about 20% is overhead.

And is there plans to continue to put those underground as well?

Yeah, so we do have a CIP identified for underground conversion. So we sort of do this opportunistically as we're doing redevelopment projects or as we're doing other work in that area. It's typically cost prohibitive to go in and just underground everything, but we're chipping away at it piece by piece.

Gotcha. Thank you. So another example that I'm going to take you, I'm going to go granular on this. So we had a conversation as part of our CIP about generators and replacing generators to power the building. And we started shifting the conversation to bring in Becky's group and say, look, from a sustainability perspective, Do we really need a generator or does it make more sense to look at a battery as part of a distributed energy resource? And so we started a completely different conversation of we need to reframe how we're looking at these types of resources. So we're bringing in that resiliency. But when we don't need it, they can also use it to manage a grid. So there's that's an example of the questions that have been asked. Do we do it yet? And we catch it and we bring it together.

All right. I'm going to move on to our sewer. And then before we go on to sewer, Council Member Popkin.

Yeah, thank you. Harold, I appreciate you mentioning that, because I was about to ask kind of how we're using the batteries versus generators, because generators are just backup. And a battery can be served multiple purposes when you don't need a backup. So that's awesome to hear. Building on the undergrounding, did I hear correctly it was 80% undergrounded now? No. I recall last December we were closer to 70, 72. Has there been a noticeable uptick in the last eight months since that, or are we still kind of catching up on different construction projects that were underway?

I think it's a combination of things. So mayors, members of city council, Daryl Hahn from LPC. As Becky mentioned, we do have opportunistic situations where we will underground things that are overhead, and we've converted them to underground projects. And also everything new that goes in is all underground. And so if you kind of look at the numerator and the denominator, right, we just have more assets and everything that's new is going in underground. Great. So it might be 78% and maybe it was 72% before, but it's around 80%.

I appreciate that. That's exciting. One of the frequent things I get asked by residents is when they're hearing news about utilities and wildfire and stuff like that, those risks, they're usually surprised to learn how much we actually do have undergrounded and how much that is important from an environmental resilience standpoint. I was going to ask, do we have... I know not all of our infrastructure can be undergrounded physically, at least from what I have seen. But do we have a sense of how much more of our infrastructure from an electric standpoint and maybe from a Wi-Fi standpoint we can realistically underground?

So the majority of the assets that we have can be undergrounded. I think the substations, those would be difficult to underground. And transmission lines. They can be done. There are some transmission lines that are underground. Platte River does underground. It's exceptionally expensive.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And do we have a sense of how much it would cost to get us to about 90% undergrounded?

It depends on the location of the assets that you're trying to underground. The rule of thumb used to be about a million dollars per mile, but I think it's a lot more than that now just because of the location of the assets. If you're undergrounding something that's brand new, it's going to be a lot less expensive, but taking existing assets and undergrounding them would be pretty expensive. Thank you.

OK, now on to sewer.

Great. So when we think about our sanitary sewers and how we are managing the water that is used in our homes and businesses and then discarded, so we have our collection system that is taking that water in, manholes that are used to access that underground system, and then we have our treatment facilities where that wastewater is treated and then released back into the environment. So on an overall basis the you know, the high level kind of value of our existing assets is around 240 million dollars the primary Asset there is is our treatment facility But there's there's some other things in there certainly a lot of a lot of miles of sewer lines and access points so, you know in thinking about our earlier conversation about you know, we take into account then the age of the assets as well as the asset condition and so with these underground assets we have a consistent program of of assessing the condition through through camera inspection so that's that's true of both our sanitary and our storm sewer systems uh so as we plan for uh for replacement we're we're taking a look at what those things really look like underground uh to make some of those uh some of those decisions because this is this is what they look like here's Here's a little picture from one of those underground cameras where you can see the inside of some of those pipes gets pretty interesting. And again, kind of talking about that innovation pillar of planning, we've been able over the past several years to primarily leverage cured in place lining, CIPP, cured in place pipe to realign existing pipes Sewer lines that we don't have to dig up the entire street and replace the whole The whole line sometimes we do have to do a full replacement, you know, depending on on what's going on in there But we we try as much as we can to avoid disrupting, you know the neighborhood with that kind of open trench replacement So that saves us money. It saves us time. It really saves the community the the hassle of doing some of those things So that's a that's a win on several fronts Let's see what else our other really major project in this area is the addition of what we call digester number four at the wastewater treatment plant and And so we've been talking about this project for a while. And this is one of the rare ones where it really hits sort of all of those pieces that we talked about as far as drivers of capital planning. There's some capacity that would be added here that would help us manage the additional wastewater generated by greater population. So we would be able to increase the overall capacity of the plant. It would help us by being able to take down one of the digesters and service it, so it would help us manage the assets that we have at the plant. So by being able to test certain process improvements, we can better meet regulatory requirements and kind of bring in some of those innovative ideas. So this is gonna be a great project from that perspective. So next year we are funding the design for this, and we will likely be looking to bond fund this improvement, because this is gonna be the major improvement that we make to meet the regulatory requirements of our next permit. So more information to come on that. Along similar lines here, another project that we have within the sewer utility is the both expansion and renewal of the water quality lab. What's funded in 2027 is renewal of the existing HVAC system but we're doing that with an eye toward potential building expansion because there are additional testing requirements that are associated with those regulatory things that are coming in in that next permit cycle all right any questions before we move to water

Doesn't look like it.

All right. So similar picture to the other one. We have to treat our raw water that we receive from our various source water places and then distribute that throughout the community using our distribution pipes and sometimes store it in storage tanks. We've been doing a lot of work on our storage systems, obviously, over the past several years. So here's another breakdown of what are all of the assets in the water system. Now, the water system is one where that book value of the assets, that nearly $700 million that you see there, does not really describe the value of the system that we have for our community. The book value of our water rights portfolio is only about $100 million within that 680 there. If you tried to build a water rights portfolio like that today, first of all, you couldn't. Second, it would cost you a billion dollars. So that's the single most valuable asset that we have as a community. Really important that we safeguard that, that we have that available to our community. I don't think I had anything else there. So our primary asset management project for our water distribution system is this WTR. Right now, we are very focused on replacing the 60 remaining miles of cast iron pipe within the system, some of which can be over 100 years old. We're replacing that at a rate of two to three miles per year, and as you can see, the cost for that is quite expensive. So this is when we are having to dig that all the way up and replace that with newer and longer, long-lasting materials. Although, hey, 100 years, I think we did really well here.

Because I do talk to all new councils about this. When we look at these projects and we talk about the consequences of not maintaining it, I've been scarred for life by the fact of I had been a city manager I think for nine months and got into a situation where we started seeing problems with the water system. We went to the council and said, we've dodged two bullets, the third one is going to hit us between the eyes and it actually did. And so two weeks before Christmas, we lost water to 75% of our community. What caused it? Well, it was the aging pipes that leaked, but the real cause was the 20, 30 years lack of maintenance in terms of the valves and the fact that the valves were breaking and then it basically drained the system. So what happened in that case is when you run into those situations, you're looking at massive rate increases to re... do the system very quickly once you understand that. And so I say that in this section because in all of these projects, that is a consequences of lack of investment. And it's not that we enjoy coming and saying, here's what we need to do. But the cost impacts are unimaginable if you don't do it and you don't stay up with it on an annual basis.

And to I think Teresa's earlier point about the community being a mature community, part of that means that many of these really large investments in infrastructure that we have made have reached the end of their life cycle. And so we are making generational investments in renewing just the systems that we have in place today. The next project that we wanted to highlight here is one of those generational investments. We have a really wonderful and fully featured implementation of what's known as a SCADA system, which is Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, and there will be a quiz. So we were pretty early adopters of SCADA and really make extensive use of those systems, actually not only in the water system, like we also have SCADA that helps us run our electric and wastewater utilities. But this is one where a lot of those pieces that we had put in place 20 years ago are at the end of life and so we are needing to make significant investments to update that. This has really excellent return on this investment because this helps us understand what's happening within the system and automate a lot of the processes needed to run all of those utilities. So really important investment that we're making right now.

And then finally.

We also wanted to highlight some rehabilitation that we're doing within our raw water transmission infrastructure. So you may know that our water comes from the mountains. And so there are some large transmission lines that are up there that are in very difficult to access locations and are maybe precariously hung on the side of those mountains. Possibly and so we're we're really looking at and helping get water You know to and from our primary reservoir up at button rock by making these improvements All right Move into transportation This one's a little trickier. You probably interact with these assets on a daily basis. We have many, many miles, 365 miles of roadway that we maintain. And then a lot of the signals and things that help our community understand how to interact with our transportation system and how to use it safely. The value of those assets as it sits today is just over half a billion dollars. but really enables so much more economic activity on a daily basis. Our primary asset management project within this system is the asphalt pavement management program that we lovingly call TRP1. So we have all these miles of asphalt roads. So rough numbers, we have 350 centerline miles of asphalt pavement. Typically, that has between a 20 and 30 year life cycle, but for easy math, we say that it's 35, right? Then in order to kind of be renewing that asphalt pavement on a sustainable cycle, we should be doing about 10 miles a year. um the funding that we have available allows us to do about five so we we do have some concerns about um the the condition of the pavement throughout the community and that's something that we also gather data on on a on a periodic basis so we are actually in the process right now of gathering information for the pavement condition index which will help us do that asset assessment and figure out where are the areas that need the most help. So kind of using those data-based approaches that are a combination of what people observe and report to us as well as that comprehensive data collection is what helps us manage the life cycle of these roads. And we know that the funding that has been available for that program, it does not meet the need. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a later meeting, but I just wanted to lay that out there. TRP 11 is our transportation system management project. And within this project, we have a lot of the safety improvements, new signals often, things coming into the system associated with places where we've identified needed improvements and neighborhood traffic mitigation. So we will see this increase over the next few years as we identify projects related to Vision Zero. And we have one major bridge rehabilitation that we're going to be undertaking starting in 2027, which is of the South Pratt Parkway bridge over the railroad. We replaced the South Pratt Parkway bridge over the river around the time of the flood to allow for greater passage of water. So that's what we're doing. doing on South Pratt. I see some questions.

Yes, before we go on to the next item, Council Member Marci.

Very quick, thank you, Becky, and thank you, Mayor. I was thinking about HB 261318, which in the street fund context is the bill that we discussed earlier in the year when we were doing the legislative roundup related to school zones and street costs. I'm curious about, from a street fund and budget implementation perspective, when an effective date on a bill like that is August 12th, we had discussed, and I'm using that maybe as an example of how, I'm curious about how in that specific example, changes at the state level, what I think Sandy described at that time as an unfunded mandate gets passed on to us in this process, and if we factor that in, or if it's just too early to have a full understanding of the impact of a bill like that. in navigating the system. That bill specifically was the one that was coming to mind as I was seeing all those flashing traffic schools on sites.

Mayor LeGault-Ferring, Council Member Morrison, Jim Angstead, Director of Engineering Services. Staff has been coordinating through Dr. Cogg with several surrounding communities to kind of measure those impacts, kind of evaluate what that's gonna, how best to meet the the requirements of that legislation and the impacts to the surrounding community we are still evaluating it so really don't have an answer for you to what it what it might cost or what it's going to take that will be forthcoming either later this year or early next year thank you Councilmember Popkin

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Becky, Jim, Harold, everyone involved with many of these projects. Jim, maybe a question for you before you completely get comfortable there. I'm going to start with the South Prep Bridge. I heard a little preview of this during our Transportation Advisory Board meeting. I was just curious, as we think about the first and main project, And we think about the connectivity. So going a little bit further south, you have the Boston Avenue connection going over to Price Road in Boston. That's, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, is that going to start construction in Q1? Or is that?

Are you talking about the at-grade crossing?

Yeah, the at-grade crossing.

Yeah, we're working to finalize the property acquisition on that. So the schedule's been delayed. So we're looking to try to get it out to bid later this year. And more than likely first quarter of 2027 is to get started on it.

Thank you. So that's the south side of this. And then when we look at the west side of First and Main connecting basically into other parts of our community, the bridge is actually a key divider. And I'm wondering if when we are thinking about the rehabilitation project, are there ways to better think about the design as it serves some of the connectivity to the west from our community, both from some of the existing properties that are there, as well as kind of the future uses and connectivity from Price, is that Price at that point? Yeah, Price Road over to the west side of First and Main.

I'm not sure I fully understand the question.

So the South Prep Bridge is a key divider there between basically the Price Road side of our downtown and where the first and main kind of broader redevelopment vision is. the railroad tracks and the bridge basically bisect or cut off certain parts. So as we're thinking about redoing parts of the bridge or rehabilitating parts of the bridge, are some of the maybe underside pieces of this being considered in terms of how it would foster future connectivity there? If this is something we should take offline, I'm happy to sit down.

I would say we take offline. But I don't know that there's, based on the existing developments out there, that there's any reasonable way I mean, the obvious connection is Boston to get to the west. But we can certainly take it offline.

Yeah, let's take that offline, thank you.

Look at a couple maps and figure something out.

Cool, we'll do that, thank you. Second question, when we think about, actually I'll just skip to my third question. We talk about how so much of our transportation funding is going into the asphalt rehab program. I know that covers a lot of things in this. I'm curious, one of the things when we think about the impacts of heat, and we're coming off of some historic months of heat in the Denver metro area in general, urban heat island effect is a key contributor to kind of the overall community heat index. And that means hotter summers result in more heat trapped in our community that indirectly impacts or directly impacts in some cases people's energy bills, the amount of AC they need to use, and just the overall comfort and safety outside. And so I'm wondering, as we're thinking about repaving some of our roads, to what extent are we layering in opportunities for cooler pavement designs and technology? I know it may not make sense everywhere, but we're starting to pave a lot. Well, not starting to. We're continuing to repave a lot.

I'd say that we have been evaluating advances in materials that are available that can address some of those things. And again, with most things, it's a balance between what's going to be the most durable and economical and sustainable choice that we can make there. So we're constantly looking at how that applies to both kind of the traditional asphalt materials that we have as well as what may be coming that has some of those features that you're talking about. Jim, I don't know if you have any kind of additional.

I've got nothing. The only thing I would possibly add is one of the most impactful ways to reduce heat reduction is a tree cover. So we are, on most of our projects, pay streets an example. We're not going to do a lot of landscaping, but we are going to be putting in more street trees. that hopefully will eventually be able to provide a little bit of relief for some of the heat coming off of asphalt roads.

Yeah. And that's, I think, another highlight about how we're kind of using that systems thinking approach here because... On the one hand, we don't necessarily want to make large investments in irrigation systems in the center of roads and things like that, which, you know, both from a cost and potentially like a water use standpoint. But we know that there are those benefits from, you know, from trees being adjacent to streets. So that's something where we're weighing the costs and benefits as we design and implement these things.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks.

Continue. Great. All right, and then finally, let's talk about our storm drainage system.

I've heard you say finally a couple of times. Okay. Is it really final? Is it really final? Is it final, final?

It's the final, final, final. Okay, so the storm drainage utility is one of our younger utilities, having been formed in the 1980s. AND HAS AN APPROXIMATE ASSET VALUE OF $150 MILLION. PRIMARILY THAT IS COMPOSED OF THE STORM SEWER AND UNDER DRAIN SYSTEMS UNDERNEATH OUR INFRASTRUCTURE. SO THOSE ARE A LOT OF THE the enhancements that we are making. Something that's sort of taken a lot of the attention in our storm drainage area for the last 13 years is the Resilient St. Vrain Project that helps us protect people and property and infrastructure from future flood risks. And so we have we have completed everything, you know starting from the the yellow Area on the right there, which is where we we began this flood recovery and resilience work up through that bright pink More on the left side there And what we will be undertaking in 27 to 28 is what we're calling the Hover Reach of this project, which will really complete the cycle here of the enhancements that we're making. All of the work that we have accomplished through the resilience ain't brain project and taking property out of the floodplain by you know allowing the the Creek to to channel In that that you know wider subsection that you've seen many times is what has made a lot of the redevelopment work that we're doing downtown possible, so that's just another example of you know, how how all these systems work together and to improve the economic future and the assets that are available to our community. So next year, we're in design and permitting. There is a pretty large grant component of that last chunk of the Resilient Sane Frame project, as there has been throughout this project. In fact, we recently got the news that one of the primary funding components of some of that, especially the work that was central in the city, was the FEMA assistance that we received post-flood and we got word that our project was closed out and we received kind of the final or we will receive the final payment associated with that. So many years later, it was really excellent work by all involved to make sure that all of that work was eligible for the funding that was that was there and really helped bring those different resources together to make a really great project. And then, so aside from the Resilient St. Vrain work that we expect to complete, actually, sorry, one more thing about Resilient St. Vrain. So there's a big grant component to this, and the local match for the project will be provided by voter-approved storm drainage bonds. So we had that election some years ago, and now are going to be at a point where we will need to sell the bonds to complete this project. And so the DRN021 Storm Drainage Rehabilitation Project is the primary asset management project associated with the storm drainage utility. So this is the project that we use to repair primarily existing storm sewer systems. And here are some of these specific things that we're doing. As you may know, storm sewer systems, when they reach their end of life, when we have failures within the system, those have significant impacts to our transportation infrastructure. So that's really something where we think a lot about the consequence of failure of these different assets and what's gonna happen if something goes wrong. So a lot of the items that are here, like the 9th Avenue storm sewer, the improvements around the Old Dry Creek, those kinds of things are really to avoid those potential impacts to other infrastructure, primarily the streets. so We do have some Construction dollars coming in here because we're mostly gonna see those things be excuse me be constructed in 2028 so this is another one where where we expect to see sort of an acceleration of of the asset management activity in this utility in the coming years as we identify some of those hotspots, both through that camera inspection program and other information that we're using to model that system. That is what I have for you. What are your other questions?

So I don't see anyone in the queue, so we are good.

I think you've already seen the calendar of future meetings and we will certainly be back with additional information on kind of the overall picture of health within the utilities, but hopefully this was a good introduction to what's happening with the capital expenditures that we plan to make.

You'll see all of this start connecting into the operating budgets as we present.

Thank you. So we are now on to, do you have a question on this? Okay, Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick clarifying question on the process here. Is there any chance, so one, really appreciate the detailed presentation tonight and thanks for all the prep that went into that. Is there any chance we can get that in advance for any of these going forward? I know it's probably building the ship as we're sailing it, but

Absolutely. Now, one of the things for council in this is when we get into budget, so because we're going every week, the packets come late, and we'll start doing that as we're moving through the process. So this was the overview piece, and now you'll start getting it early. Oh, and the presentations will be included in that? No, not necessarily, because we're working those real time.

That's fair. That's what I wanted to just understand. But there'll be some information shared in advance? Thank you.

Okay, great.

Something that has helped me in the past is when you add that link, and I see you guys still do that to the budget on the website, and I just go through that big, the proposed document. So no, it wasn't, I just saw, it was not, the CIP is in there now. And there was something else I was looking at. It was a letter.

The fund statement. Fund statement, yes. And then the budget message is now in there.

Yeah, yeah, so I saw that. The line item budget will be added probably in a couple of weeks. Okay. And then that'll be uploaded to the website. Yeah. To the website, yeah. So always kind of check on that, because I did see it today, so I had a chance to go through that before the meeting. So we are now on final call public invited to be heard, unless there's another presentation. I'm going to start the, we had two folks sign up. Peg Cage, is she still here? Okay, Jill Watson, is she still here? So if they have left, now go ahead, come on down. And you have three minutes, please state your name.

Hi, I'm Matthew Wellborn, I'm at South Main Station. I thought the presentations were really insightful tonight and I'm really encouraged as a resident that there's so much effort being taken around capital expenditures. I think. in light of both the last 10, 20 years of events, and then also current and future climate-related events, that if anything, the capital expenditures could be probably doubled or tripled, just to make sure that we are you know, as prepared as we can be as a community for just the severity and variability of future weather events and things like that. But I am, yeah, but I am very encouraged and grateful as a resident to just see that we're not just ignoring problems, but we're both solving them and preventing future ones. So thank you, city staff and council.

Uh-huh, thank you. Do we have anyone else? Okay, seeing none, I will now close public invited to be heard. And we are now on to Mayor and Council comments. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. Earlier tonight, we had some people try to do what I see as a civics teacher as trying to create a boogeyman. And that really, really is not the appropriate thing. We have all kinds of services here, as we saw tonight, that are democratic, socialistic activities and services that help all Americans. And I really don't think it's good when we start trying to say that socialism or these sort of things that we give as services are bad things because socialism is not the light beer or the diet Pepsi of communism. And I really resent that. We've got schools and libraries and hospitals and sewer systems, as we saw here, and water treatment and all these things. And it's not the boogeyman. Maybe there's this sort of sense out there that some groups out there or some political parties are trying to make it into something, but it's not. It's not a boogeyman. It's what everybody in this room here with the city staff is here working every day trying to make sure that the community is served. And so I really resent that.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Kalkhofer?

Thank you, Mayor. Last Friday was jam-packed. Drove down to Pueblo and saw the board meeting for COCO, and then I also got to ride on a proposed train, which was amazing. That was the hybrid, right? It was the hybrid electric train. train from Siemens, which was amazing, and I could just picture myself taking the train down to Pueblo to the state fair because I would never drive to Pueblo because that is two and a half hours away, three hours with traffic, and it was horrible. But the facility was amazing. Colorado is amazing that we have the Department of Transportation. test track for all rail projects, which was really cool to see. And then hightailed it back up to Longwood with former mayor Joan Peck with me, carpooling, yay. And then we went to Unity in the Community, separately, and that was an amazing event, and kudos to all of the staff and Chamber that put that on. And if you missed dunking me in the dunk tank, then hopefully next year. But the kids had a blast dunking, city staff, fellow council members, and myself. So kudos to the community for coming together and having such a beautiful event.

Thank you. Council Member Marcin.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll be quick with this. I just wanted to make sure my council teammates had gotten their tickets to the third annual Sunset Soiree coming up, which is the museum's primary fundraiser annually, and the Museum Advisory Board and Eric and the whole team over there Working really hard on it. Back to the Future themed this year. So expect DeLorean and Doc Brown and some other fun things. So tickets available on the website. The museum, I just wanted to shout them out because I haven't had the chance to talk with them. They're doing amazing work right now as they prepare for a full reopening coming up. The temporary history exhibit coming along really well. The children's exhibit, if you've not had the chance to get a hard hat tour. They're actually done with hard hats because they have their certificate of occupancy now. But if you've not had the chance to see what's about to open, they're really making the museum a cultural center. And I hope that my council teammates will be at the Sunset Soiree on Friday, September 11th, 6 to 9 PM. Tickets are available online, and I hope to see you there.

That reminds me, we do have our tickets. I just need to let my husband know that he's going to be coming. He's coming. He's coming.

Council Member Prieto. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank staff for their presentations tonight. Very digestible. I didn't know what to expect coming into this meeting tonight, and sometimes I look at those line item budget sheets that get sent to us, and I'm like... Oh my God, Sandra. Like, I don't know how you guys do it day in and day out. So thank you for making it digestible. And Becky, thank you. I think you're like the best presenter because you're like quirky and funny and you just, you make it fun. So I don't know how you make a budget fun, but you do. I do want to report out on cruise night. This past Saturday we had a successful cruise night and something that I was most excited about was so many youth that I saw show up this cruise night compared to previous ones. I saw them walking up and down the streets, riding their scooters, their bikes, and that was really encouraging to see because I know that our youth had expressed in our council retreat that they wanted third spaces. And so to see youth come out and engage with community and be safe in community because a lot of families are out there with their children. So we're all watching out for each other and each other's children. So that was just really encouraging to see and just seeing community come together and the diverse community that I saw on Saturday was also very encouraging. So I just wanted to report on that. And yeah, that's it for me. Thank you.

Council Member Popkin.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, staff, for the really thorough presentations tonight. I'm excited to dig into the next ones. And I had an old budget professor who said, the budget is a reflection of priorities. If it's not in the budget, it's not a priority. So I always kind of apply that lens when we're looking at this, and I'm sure you guys are as well. But I just encourage us to keep that in mind as we look at the $547 million that we are managing here. Secondly, I mentioned this two months ago, but just kind of reporting out as my role on Planning and Zoning Commission Liaison, there will be, I expect, multiple other applications coming forward in the next few months and different types of things. We looked at two annexation-related items last week as a preview. If you have never been through that, or even if you have and you want a refresher on the process and the rules or the kind of decisions that we'll have in front of us, please don't hesitate to ask. Happy to grab a cup of coffee with you and just kind of make sure you understand kind of where those processes are headed and kind of how that unfolds if that is unfamiliar. And then lastly, on Sunday, I had the fourth of five working group meetings with my ward two focus group on the mixed use innovation redevelopment zone. Again, these are cumulative workshops. It's the same residents that I invited from the beginning to partake in this and we're building on topics. I wanted to thank So I just wanted to thank them for participating. I also wanted to note that there are a couple county residents that I have invited into this as part of our broader conversation on how do we include county representation of people who live in the county but are affected by things that happen in Longmont. One is a property owner or landlord in Longmont but doesn't live physically here, lives in the county. And two others live in a county enclave in Ward 2. Well, technically within the boundaries of Ward 2 but not technically in Ward 2. So I just want to note that we've been wrestling with some really interesting questions, I think, on planning, development, zoning, what do we want to incentivize, types of housing, all of that. So if you have questions about kind of where that's going, feel free to reach out to me as well. I do intend, Mayor, to provide a little bit of a report out from that group to council at some point. We'll have our last working group meeting the first weekend of October. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. You know, I was at Unity in the Community, and I had an opportunity to speak with Scott Cook from the Chamber. And he had commented, and I wanted to share this with you all because I think it's a compliment to all of us, how much that our – our perspective and our engagement in the community is not going unnoticed. And folks are very appreciative. I think they mentioned it at their last, I think it was the Chamber's board meeting, but they had a meeting earlier that week and they had commented about, you know, they're very appreciative that we're present, that we have prioritized small business. And so I wanted to let you all know that Yeah, no, I appreciate everybody's engagement and going out there in the community, and it's been good, and so it's not unnoticed. And with that, at the Metro Mayor's Caucus, we had an opportunity to have somebody from the Denver, it was their chamber, who came out and spoke to us about just the state of affairs with business as far as all the constraints we're hearing from supply chain, the interest rate, all the outside factors at the national and international level that are really impacting businesses and communities capacity to support just development, economic development in their communities. So we are working as mayors to strategize around that piece too. And then we had the Hotel Longmont grand opening and that was a lot of fun. I was really sore after dancing. That's some muscles I have not used in a long time. But it was so great to hear from folks outside of the state who were like, you guys are phenomenal and just the connection, easy to work with. So they gave a lot of kudos and shout outs to our city staff. So thank you. Yeah. So we appreciate you. Council Member, that's all I have. But Council Member Chris, go ahead.

I just want to say thank you, Mayor, for the Mayor's group focusing on business. I think it's really important at this juncture in our development after COVID. So thank you.

Yeah. As we look for new ways to bring in investment and instead of raising taxes, what could we do to offset that? And it's going to be through economic development. So thank you. Thank you. So city manager remarks.

No comments, Mayor, Council.

City attorney remarks.

No comments, Mayor.

No, you want to bring us to 11? Okay. So, no. So do I have a motion to adjourn? Okay, and so we have a motion and second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay, that's everybody. We're adjourned.