Council - Regular Meeting

order the city of Glenwood Springs City Council meeting. It is April 16th, 2026. It's regular meeting tonight. Good evening everyone. Um Ryan, would you please take a roll call? Mayor Dame here. Mayor Prom Zalinski, Councelor Townsley, Councelor Schmall, Councelor Wymer here, councelor Shakar here, councelor Smith, we have a quorum.

Thank you, Ryan. Any changes to the agenda tonight? I'm not Oh, is that how we're going to do it tonight? No wonder my wife loves

All right, I'm going to I'm going to give it a few seconds to see if we can fix this. Uh I'm not aware of any changes to the agenda, so we'll leave it alone. Uh any conflict of interest of counselors from tonight's agenda? Also see none citizens appearing before us tonight for items that are not on the agenda and that's also a no tonight. All right, that might be the first in quite a while. Uh council announcements. Who wants to go first? Council Townsley.

Uh a couple quick things. Uh the landfill vouchers are still available. Uh they they're good from I think April or they're they're available through April 1st to the 30th. You can get them. They're good out through July 31st, I believe, for taking stuff out to the to the dump. Um the tree the tree giveaway is this weekend, 8 uh April 18th from 10 to 2, I believe. Councelor Smith told me he'd called and there are still trees over there. So if people are interested in them, get them out there. You need to register for that. I believe before 8:00 tonight or 5 o'clock tomorrow night.

5 o'clock tomorrow night. There we go. And then also springtime river cleanup. We got the flyers on them here. That's coming up uh April 25th, 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at Two Rivers. Uh get on the city site and register for that. So those are the things I have.

Okay. Thank you, Council Wymer. Coach Miller Drive is going to be completely redone and upgraded this summer. Um, for everyone who feels like that is going to impact them, there is a community uh information session uh Monday night coming up 6 pm at the high school. Uh, in the meantime, if you have any questions, contact Ryan Gordon or myself. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Smith.

Thank you. The Transportation Commission met at its regular time on April 7th, just the other day or last week, uh with a delegation from the Downtown Development Authority in attendance uh to specifically discuss uh paid parking, managed parking, parking options for downtown area. Um it was a very thorough discussion. Um there was not agreement reached between the two commissions having initiated this conversation because transportation commission recommended that the city move on with paid parking. They decided to confer with each other. U settled on the the interim agreement to emphasize enforcement of existing parking regulations downtown. Um and the city manager offered helpful comments about how to get that done. So there was that was conversation kind of took a more creative turn because we had two commissions talking to each other. I thought it was fairly cool. Um the also the uh discussed at the transportation commission meeting itself uh was safety measures, protocols, policies for electric enhanced vehicles, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles uh on our trails. Uh in turn, the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority um held its first regional meeting uh that next Thursday two days later um and um our city transportation engineer attended that raft roundt and so I think we were well represented and that's going to all circle back with people learning from each other in the different towns and counties. Uh, also on April 9th, the Colorado River Water Conservation District had a state of the river

presentation over over at the downtown college or or at the above the library uh talking primarily about the absolutely dire condition on water supply this year. This um is the lowest statewide. This is the lowest uh snow pack ever recorded since 1880 something. uh it's it's pretty severe water supply overall and especially in terms of the Colorado River meeting its demands all the way down to Mexico. Uh so they were really pushing awareness of that. They also mentioned some of the things that they uh helped do. They have a grant program, the river district has a grant program for municipal uh projects which uh one of which went to pay for the auxiliary water supply pumping station over by Beltus Park. So the city of Clemens Springs can take water out of the Roaring Fork River in an emergency. Um as backup to our no name and and Grizzly Creek supplies. The um Colorado Communities or Climate Action Board will meet tomorrow morning in Carbondale. And for the first time ever, they're doing a remote meeting of their board even though they got statewide representation. Uh everybody here, everybody anywhere is welcome to that meeting tomorrow at the Carbondale Town Hall 9 o'clock uh Friday morning the 17th. Um for for us it might be of of interest because there likely will be CC4CA delegates from Basalt, Aspen, Pitkin, Eagle, Snow Mass, Gunnison, Carbondale. Uh just a little opportunity. Most of those are city council or town board members. So, kind of a a neat opportunity to interact if you want to go to Carbondale at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Uh, two events to announce from Garfield Clean Energy and

clean energy economy for the region. Uh, next week on April 23 is a is a um solar kind of a rooftop solar workshop uh intended for whoever is interested but primarily focused on public works planning and facility staff. So, we gotten the word out to our corresponding people in the city and that hopefully will be of interest. Also at the GCE's next board meeting May 15th, it that meeting will include a roundt of facility managers uh who are responsible for kind of making uh clean energy energy efficiency especially work. Uh so we'll be sure that Ethan knows about that and get him hopefully to attend. Uh, two things from Colorado Mountain College that I think are of interest to this this council and perhaps to anybody. April 24th at 2 PM at the Spring Valley campus is a sustainability workshop, kind of a hunk of the afternoon. Their whole sustainability major department uh is kind of providing a community update on what they do about water, energy, land, and other resources. And then a little bit closer to home here, uh, the Colorado Mountain College Civics Education Division is holding a civics's west slope workshop on April 28th uh, over here at the college at this version of the college at the Mortgage Commons. Um, I think I did not note the time. Uh, but more detail is at Colorado MTN, Colorado Mountain.edu/civics. It can tell you about the whole program. They're doing a whole year of citizen engagement in government, how civics

works and how people can be more engaged. So, it kind of I think relates to what we're doing. Uh, finally on my list, as councelor Wymer highlighted, there's projects going on this summer. Another one is at the 6 and 24 bicycle and pedestrian path. It is cranking. They're getting mainly utilities in so far. It's going to continue till July. The announcement part of this is bicyclists and pedestrians should steer clear. People are trying trying to wade through there. Um not safe, not a good idea. Get out of the habit. Use the sidewalk on Devo. uh use the um shared use path on West Midland and correspondingly uh drivers are kind of being impatient and fast in there. It's a dangerous spot. Drivers need to patiently slow down and pay attention to the workers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Potmpinski, please. So the tourism management board conducted some um stakeholder citizen workshops a couple weeks ago and they got the results were presented to us um at the meeting this month and you know it was pretty interesting. A couple of things that you know it just validated the focus that we've had on tourism and kind of the areas where energy has been put. But there were a couple of things that were highlighted that I thought were worth elevating. Um, one of them is just like this community looks for live music access and we don't have that. So, a lot of that is not going to necessarily come from the city. It's going to come from people within the city who see an opportunity. So, I encourage all of our residents out there who have a passion for live music and possibly a venue to um look for those opportunities because I think the patrons would come to your establishments. Um the other thing that I thought was interesting was um a lot of the tourist businesses have local access promotions and things during our off seasons, our shoulder seasons, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of community awareness. So, I encourage you all if you have a favorite um attraction, whether it's the Caverns or Iron Mountain, to check in with them and see if they have any kind of locals promotions, um offseason promotions, things like that. Um and then for all of our businesses out there, there's another uh Ken Murphy, who's our chair for the Colorado Tourism Office, also a local businessman, came and presented, and one of the things that he brought up was this uh digital passport that the Colorado Tourism Office does. is colorado.com backpassport and this gives visitors a place to go for resources and I popped in there and

it there were shockingly few um local businesses represented for restaurants under shopping under you know like retail any of our attractions. So, if you have a business in town, uh, go to that. It's free. It's put on by the Colorado Tourism Office, and I think it's a resource that we should utilize, especially, um, low snow is good for tourism in Glowman Springs, and our rivers are going to be a draw. So, I think that, um, if people in the community can seize that opportunity, it'd be great for everybody. Thank you. Any other announcements?

Okay, we'll see none. Thank you guys. Moving on to the consent agenda. It's a short one tonight and I'm entertaining a motion for the consent agenda. There was nothing. There's two items. Councelor Shacker. Uh I'd move I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you. A motion to approve. Any second? Mayor Prom Solinski. I'll second. And a second to approve consent agenda. Any discussion? We'll see none. I'll call for the question.

It it passes 70. Thank you, Ryan. And moving on to our first action andor presentation of tonight. And item seven is discussion of employee housing possibility at the residences on Grand. And I believe Steve Boyd Yep. He's going to take that one. I'm going to ask our uh director of HR and finance to come present this item. I'll kind of tee it up though. We have been talking to the residents on Grand about 15 units for workforce housing. I think we're about over the goal line with the discussions that we're having with them. So, we're looking tonight to see if you guys would like to give me the permission to sign that contract.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you. I Gustad, finance HR director. Uh, as we talked about a couple of meetings ago, um, we have the opportunity to rent, uh, residents on Grand 15 units. There has been a little bit of change in that. Um, it's been great working with these people. They've been awesome. You can tell they really want to be part of a a partner with the city to help this out. So, they have, we've made two concessions. We're going to just take 10 units to begin with. Instead of 15, they will try and rent out the other five units. Excuse me. And then so that would mean we would have lower to pay and then we would have the option to pick those up if for some reason we do get full and things keep going as those become empty. We would then have those options to pick them up first once they became empty.

They also agree to a 90-day out so that we can try this for 90 days. If we get nobody, we can get out with no penalty. So that that's a great option. Um we in your packet you had the init the uh marked up master lease and also the uh policy that we're trying to put into place. It's going to change as we go as we kind of see how to get it put together. Um so we'll update you the second meeting in May on how that's going and if it works. Um let's see what else. So um there'll be one two-bedroom unit, one onebedroom unit, and then the rest are all studios. So, and we will open this up to all full-time people to begin with. And with that, that's kind of just a summary of where we are. What we need tonight is just again like Steve said for you guys to approve him to sign the master lease and for us to go ahead um and commit those. We did have that $500,000 reserve that we would use to pay this in our affordable housing.

Questions? Thank you. Thanks for the update. Uh questions to Evette. Councilor Shaker. Start with you. I bet or Steve two questions. One would be remind us I think you did before. What is the impact if any on the use of these funds in this direction versus how they've been used prior? That would be one. And the second question would just be pretty simple. your your scoring system, your rating system. Do you have that broken down so it's less subjective with each category? Is it pretty lined out?

I'll take the first one. You can take the second one. So, we used to have what is called we participated in an e-hop program where that money had been given to a third party um to manage and people could apply as a down payment. So, we were only helping one or two individuals a year and it was usually the higher paid people that were participating in that program. There were a bunch of rule changes with taxes and a bunch of other things. So, we stopped that program. So, this money that we have in there was was a return of what has been paid into that. Thank you.

So, with respect to um uh prioritization, I don't think that's going to be a problem at least in the beginning. We do think that we want to prioritize public safety and prioritize u people that work outside that sometimes have to be on call. Beyond that, we're going to see how it goes. And it would be great to have to prioritize a little bit if we're using all of these. Um I think we're a ways away from that. We always want to keep a couple of them open, right? So we have the capacity if we have, you know, a lateral transfer or something from a police officer, but this is a pilot program. You know, we're going to see how it goes and we're going to work it out along the way. But I bet's right. They've been great to work with and I feel confident that they'll be good partners and we'll work out any camps.

Thank you, Councelor Smith. Thank you. Thank you. You um I should have remembered this from previous presentations. I think you just said that of the 10 you're going to start with, there's one onebedroom and one twobedroom and then therefore eight studios, motel rooms. Mhm. Um, does the optional five including any include any more bedroom types? No, those are all studios. They're all studios. So, they're really only two true apartments in the whole place. Okay. Thank you. Mhm.

Thank you. Any other questions? So, 90 days, we would pay for 90 days for 10 units and then if it goes well, we keep paying and if it not, then we're done and we move on. A and have you guys spread the news amongst how are you planning on distributing?

We'll just send this out to awful time. We had sent out a previous, you know, just asking if we'd have any interest and we had about a dozen people respond. There won't be that many because probably at least half of them want the bigger units. So we get those for two. So, we will then just send something out and give, you know, send out an application for anybody who's interested and go that route as soon as if you guys approve this. A and and if if the demand is low, let's just say, are we still and it would work for maybe, I don't know, four units or whatever, are we still required to keep the 10?

No. After 90 days, um we can walk. But but what if what if you get five and for those five it'd be a great solution but we only get five. So if I understand you right, what you're saying is if we rent five of them out and we get to that 90 days, what happens to the five that are rented? Correct. Yeah. So um or not rented. The ones that are rented or not rented. Yeah. I think we would have the choice at that point after 90 days. I think that we could sit down with them and kind of work out what we're going to do. If we think that this is a bust and we don't want to pick up any of those units, then you know, we'll have that discussion with them. But we wouldn't kick out anybody who's already in there. That's that's my point. Yeah. They would still

the changes to the master services master lease agreement account for that that any leases that are in place would continue to be those people would be able to stay through the term their term. So everybody is comfortable that so nobody lose housing after 90 days, right? And and we don't have to pay for empty units that we can. Okay. Excellent. Any other questions? Okay, we'll see none. Thank you. Anybody from the public? Okay. A to comment. I see nobody. Then we'll bring it back to us. We'll do a formal motion on this and we'll start with uh council shar. I would move that we um support the agree tenant the agreement we presented for one year with 90-day cancellation for the residences.

Thank you. We have a motion to approve item seven. Looking for a second. Mayor Pompi, I second. Any discussion? Keep going.

So, the way I was looking at this is um you know, we have basically an opportunity to kind of almost like Lisa's spare bedroom. You know, you want to have like a place where you can host and invite a guest, a consultant. Um, we can, you know, somebody who's going to be here for an extended period of time. Um, also I like the idea of being able to bring people in to help augment. Is there any does the city have a program? You know how like the hospital has like travel nurses? Would we have like a a shared law enforcement staff member or something like that? like does this give us the opportunity to do that with um fire or PD or something like that?

Yeah, I mean this is a tool that the hospital has used I mean in this very complex um successfully. We don't have a lot of the kinds of travelers I think that you're referring to, but that's not to say that we can't find some. I mean, if we could find some travelers in the police department, um we would be very interested in that. But you're right, we I think we have a lot of flexibility in these and we can rent them out or let somebody stay overnight or over a week or something and still have the capacity to uh you know rent it to somebody that we hire bring into town.

I see that as like the biggest benefit to this. I love, you know, being able to um recognize the needs of our existing staff, but I see this as like a real kind of valuable tool in the toolbox as we continue to kind of serve the needs of a small rural community with like bigger needs. I think this gives us one more opportunity to be able to do that. So, I'm excited. Thank you, Council Towns.

Uh I just two comments. One, I like the fact that we've gone from two years to one year. We've gone from 15 to 10. I think to me it's it makes a lot of sense to do this to find out if there really is a need. You know, the kind of the other my second comment is really doesn't have quite as much to do with with this going through, but it it makes me wonder since we put it out to Valley View, we put it out to Raft or we put it out to the school district and everybody said, "No, we don't have any need to share this with you if if possibly we're starting to get more balance in our, you know, supply and demand out there." And, you know, which I think is is probably a good thing that we've all been working towards. So, I think that's good. I think what you've done with it good sportfully.

Thank you, councelor Shak. Just real quickly, I support it um because it's a pilot. It's affordable with funds we already have reserved. And I'm look I look at the housing that it intersects with so much besides employee stability. It intersects with traffic. It intersects with our workforce specifically. It intersects with economic development and recruitment and retention. Um, so the intersection to me is worth every attempt we make. Thank you. Thank you. And councelor Schmoff.

Yeah, I think this is a good idea for now, but I think in the coming up evaluation, we need to take a hard look at whether or not it makes sense to go forward. It's a good pilot program though. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Any anybody else? Any councelor Smith? Are the operators at Freda's and 19th Street Niner gonna express appreciation for their new customers? No, I haven't heard anything yet. Okay. Any other comments?

See none. Great. At this point, uh the motion is to approve um item eight and I'll call for the question. Item seven. Sorry, it passes. 70. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thanks, Steve. Um, moving on. Item eight tonight, authority to sign formal withdrawal from special problem enforcement and response. That's the spear program we're part of. And Chief Daryus, please. Yeah, I asked Chief Daryus just to get up and make a couple of comments to clarify uh a little bit about our participation in this. Um, and then we'll give you guys the opportunity to decide whether you want to withdraw or not. Okay. Thank you, Steve.

Good evening, Joseph Darris, chief of public safety. So, I'm here to share a couple of remarks and give you provide you with some information, not to dissuade you or promote uh our participation in the spear task force, more to arm you with the information. So, as you may face questions and there have been a number of meetings where people have come in with comments, um many of those were a little bit off base. So, I just want to make sure you have the facts um which we can support um those facts. So, I'm also happy to share these comments in Spanish with you tonight, but I'm sure that we don't have any non-English speakers online, otherwise they wouldn't probably be here without a translator, but I'm certainly happy to to do that as well if need be. So, with that, I want to provide you and I'm going to refer to my notes. I'm going to provide you with some information and background and our community regarding our connection with the Spear task force. No disrespect whatsoever and I appreciate comments and feelings from some of the few residents who have come to our community regarding Spear and who commented in in our community forum regarding Spear and I absolutely support involvement in our democratic process. That said, as I just mentioned, many of those comments are not based or haven't been based in fact and are largely speculative. I come from a place of of fact and can uh provide demonstrable examples of of where we stand uh here today as a police department. Our city's been part of this task force, this county task force for longer than 30 years. Formerly known as Trident, and at that time it was largely a narcotics focused investigation and task force. Shortly after I arrived in Glennwood Springs just over six years ago, I saw a trend of drug laws being repealed or reclassified as misdemeanor crimes and the posture around those crimes had migrated to a different space. Previously, it had been felonies like uh Corporal France mentioned earlier about the the level of narcotics. Many times those were uh felonies and then they moved over to misdemeanor crimes. We had a dece a detective assigned to that task force. We were paying approximately $14,000 a year to be part of that task force and have that have that officer on the team.

Simultaneously, our department had staffing challenges. With the change in drug violation accountability, the fees we paid to be on the team, the staffing issues, I felt it was in our best interest to re to withdraw from the team. And at that time, you have to understand that was pre ICE uh buzzword or any kind of controversy surrounding immigration enforcement at that time. This is prior to a national shift in immigration policies or before a change in the in the current presidential administration. Since that time, we have not been present at any meetings, participated in any investigations or any activity with that team since we withdrew. That includes conference calls, board meetings, grant management, grant management, etc. Once we withdrew our our personnel from that team and we we no longer made those payments to the task force, uh former Lieutenant Bill Kimino was in charge of grant management because that was our commitment at the time. Once we were transitioning out of that, we moved all of the fiduciary uh business over to the task force exclusively. Shortly afterward, the focus of that team was redirected to focus on major crimes to include child trafficking, homicide, robbery, organized crime rings, and things of that nature. The team's mission mission had changed to general crimes task force and was renamed spear. As a 35-year public safety professional, I believe I have the experience and I am entrusted by you and our city manager to make the best public safety decisions for our community. I make these decisions every single day concerning the welfare and safety of our community. As I think you would agree, to date, we have been very effective and successful in many of those decisions, if not all. Those decisions are always based on the interests of our community and grounded in best practices, industry standards, and often with prevailing case law, endorsement from organizations like the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and probably the most accepted think tank in the United States for law enforcement engagement called the Police Executive Research Forum. There's not been one single event where any Glenwood Springs Police officer has been involved in any immigration enforcement or

provided assistance to anyone associated with immigration officials. That includes our time on the Trident task force and previous Trident and now currently Spear as a signatory on theou. We have access to the team as needed. There have been times when crimes have occurred in our uh community which have exceeded our capacity to thoroughly investigate those crimes and we've needed to call the spear team to assist us. I'll refer to those in just a moment. An example is the ability to use Spear task force members as they they maintain a crossd designation role with the United States Marshall's office. some of them, but not all those agents. For example, if a homicide occurs here in Glennwood Springs, the suspect flees to, say, another state, they have the ability and resources to track that suspect down out of state and apprehend that suspect and bring him back to justice here in Garfield County. In the last month, as I mentioned previously, we've had to call them out a few times. A domestic violence suspect at a hotel severely assaulted his partner and was holed up in his room, and he was armed with several firearms. We had one detective working that day. They came to assist us with the arrest and a search warrant of that suspect's vehicle. Another uh domestic violence suspect severely beat his partner. Both of these were women. When confronted, the suspect had essentially a portable narcotics manufacturing lab inside his hotel room over on Sixth Street. The amount of narcotics we seized was more than we had staffing to manage and follow up as a sources and clients in that trafficking operation. A while back, you may recall a Glenwood Springs police officer made a traffic stop on a vehicle and noted the signs of a courier vehicle. He was correct and we seized $500,000 in cash. Just as a side note, Steve was very quick to run downstairs to see how we could put that to good use here and some of our budget pressures. Uh but nonetheless, we seized $500,000 in cash. Again, we had Spear assist us in the processing and tracking of that vehicle and the funds. suspects were from Las Vegas area and collected the money in the Midwest US and were

traveling through Glenwood Springs. And lastly, we recently became aware of a male suspect. This this one's a little um unfortunate. I don't want to get into the details because they're they're sickening, but I'll tell you that this person was from Glenwood Springs. He was raping infant children and toddlers. Homeland Security Investigations, who has explicitly identified in the Spearou, investigated that crime um till its conclusion. Again, I appreciate some of the concerns mentioned about immigration enforcement, but that has never been our experience. They've been a valuable partner to our uh department and more broadly to our community. And I'm referring to Spear, not not the ICE team. I want to also reiterate that I embrace my role in taking policy direction from you all. So whether I agree with that policy direction or not is not my place. I execute that policy decision. I don't have a position here one way or the other. I'm just giving you information to make decisions and inform decision which I think is my responsibility. So whatever you vote, I'm good with that. I just want you to understand I don't have any heartburn one way or the other. Um, I think I provided you all with a document that looks like this and it talks about some of the more recent cases that Spear's been involved with. I just want to make sure that we're not aligned with immigration enforcement. We talk about HSI. That is an entirely different department than uh Immigration Customs Enforcement, much like the Capital Police are different from Secret Service. The argument could be made, well, they could they could give information to ICE. Well, we could do that today. We could have done it in 1985. We could have done it six years ago. That that has not changed. Um, I can't speculate on what the task force is doing. I'm told by the sheriff and by their commander that they have not ever uh had any investigations with Immigration Customs Enforcement, but I don't want to speak for them. I can only speak for what we've done and what we have not done. So, with that, if you have any questions about what I just relayed to you or any information in the the staff report, I'm happy to answer those.

All right. Thank you very much for this information. It's very helpful. Councilor Sher, we'll start with you. Couple things. Thank you, Chief, for being here. Yes, sir. It's been a touchy subject. Couple things I wanted to ask you to reiterate and a question if I heard you correctly. There have been no documented known violations by our force of state guidelines regarding police enforcement. Is that did I hear that correctly? There's been an even number of zero. Thank you. None whatsoever. Um, and I also hear in your opinion both Trident and Spear in the past have helped increase public safety in our city one way or another.

Absolutely. They're a force multiplier for resources that we don't necessarily have here for sure. So should we withdraw? You've already de facto withdrawn it sounds like from Spear. Should we dejury should we cancel the the memorandum is also my understanding or would ask you to reinforce it. We will still continue to provide and receive inter agency help as needed in the valley depending on the circumstances. Is that also correct?

100%. Since I since I graduated the police academy a few days ago, I've always committed to making sure that we provide any resource that we can to another public safety agency just like I'd expect them to do that for me. And I still stand by that today, notwithstanding immigration custom enforcement. That's outlawed by Colorado law. So I I've conformed to those laws even back where I came from, my previous jurisdiction. So yeah, the answer is we will help agencies as needed, but there are parameters around that defined and codified by state law. And there's no indication that you have at this point that past support we've received will not be withdrawn because of the withdrawal of theou.

I can tell you that I had a conversation with the sheriff earlier this week about that very topic and he told me that if if this council chooses to withdraw from that he will follow up with a letter indicating that they will not be providing uh any more support because we are not contribut contributors to that task force nor have we been for the last three or four years. But this is more of a formal a formal action that you would take and then he would respond with. And again, I don't want to speak for the sheriff. I'm just telling what he told me directly. And how would that action affect your force and multiplier and the ability to deal with public safety?

I'd like to think if it's a serious or violent crime, something pretty immediate like we had an officer involved shooting uh you know a year or so ago, they would respond to help us to secure that immediate scene. Um I don't want to speculate on how they would do like these hotel investigations. We have a great relationship with every agency in this county and I've done a lot of work to make sure we sustain that relationship. So, at this point it' be speculative again, but I I um I can only tell you what he said he would do. Um but again, immediately I think they would respond to give us help to make sure that we're safe for sure. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor Pro.

Please. So in my observation after living here, you know, for over the years, it appears that we have resources within Bloodwood Springs, but very often we call upon neighboring agencies, whether it's the county, whether it's the state, whether it's Carbondale. How is this relationship with Spear different than those relationships? Because Spear does they're not connected to calls for service necessarily. So we have something happen today. Carbondale may not be able to send us people because they only have two people working. Let's say for an example, they might not be able to respond to that. Or the state patrol, they only have one trooper, for example, covering three counties or something like that, right Carl? Uh something like that. So their resources may be thin. Whereas Spear has I don't know how many people they have on the team, let's say eight. They can dispatch those people pretty fluid pretty fluidly to come and give us assistance. that plus they have the technology that we don't have. They have the ability to conduct wiretap investigations or like I talked about cross designation with the US Marshall's office. They can go across state lines with those US Marshall deputies to go out and track people down. We don't have the jurisdictional authority to do that unless we were in some kind of fresh pursuit. There's a whole legal standard for that. But so for those reasons, if we had a very serious crime or someone was, you know, fleeing the area, we could use them for that as well. Without that, we would have to rely on maybe the FBI or the actual US Marshall's office. And again, they prioritize those those events. And as you can imagine, they're being asked to do a number of things around the country.

So, in your professional opinion, in terms of resources, like how valuable of a resource would this relationship be and how significant is the loss of that resource? I understand the optics and the political implications around these conversations. So I'm very aware of that and savvy and understand that as an opera at an operational level that's all I'm asking

we would just have to um consider u you know their ability to come in and follow up on these narcotics gate or this this that was in our community with these toddlers and and infants and things like we don't have the ability to do that. Not that it would just go by the wayside. we might have to tap into the district attorney's office and some of their investigators or collaborate as a region to deal with something, but they just wouldn't be read as readily available as we have had them um in the past. And it's it's not very frequent that we do that. These cases I just gave you examples of within a month we had two. You know, we might have one or two a month or maybe every couple of months. So, it's not very frequent. And in those events, um we haven't had any immigration ICE agents come to participate in any of those investigates where we've been involved in for sure. I want to provide you with some cover and information. Understand that if we were doing something that wasn't great, we're going to remove ourselves. And I identified that early on when I didn't think it was in our best interest to continue paying to be on a team that was really serving people in the western half of the county, not so much in Glenwood Springs. So, we removed ourselves from that. And here we are again having a similar convers. I didn't think it was very very beneficial. I let you vote and I wouldn't have wouldn't offer any comments, but I just want you to have the information why and how we've been interacting with them and what we have not been doing more importantly. Tough tough place to be and I get it. But

it is and you know like was would an agency like the CBI or something like that would would that be any more accessible in an instance that you did need a higher level of like a more interstate or you know cross borders cooperation. Um I don't know what their uh authority is cross border. Mr. Hanland might know about that. I'm not sure but they are another resource for sure. Wire taps and equipment and things like that. Absolutely. the immediiacy in their responses would be lacking for sure. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Small.

Yeah, from the from the packet, I wasn't clear that any recommendation was being made other than that staff would support our endorsement of pulling out of spear. But the only motivation for pulling out of a spear that I've seen is appearances or or alleged appearances of things that people don't necessarily support.

Well, I think they're uneducated about for sure. and and I I I find it difficult to support diminishing your abilities because of someone's uneducated opinion. So I think where we've been in recent media reports have really highlighted um an animous between a particular segment of our community and some of the things you've seen presented in the news the media um recently that has no relationship to us as you all read that we had we had no culpability in any of those communications. So I think there's a group of people who are upset about some of that stuff that's not Glennwood Springs Police Department. I can only speak to what we do. And so because of those feelings um and some potential that ICE was involved or whatever, that has zero to do with us. Not a single case. And and if we and I've said since the day I got here, if we make a mistake or one of our officers make that, it's on me to go out and own that mistake and remediate that mistake. But we don't have a single time that anyone can point to. And I've seen some media reports, social media thing about a lady who reported her child missing to the Glenwood Springs Police Department. Next thing you know, they were their child was abandoned and we took the person. We had if if that occurred and I don't know that it did, but let's assume that it did. Our department had nothing to do with that was we don't have the authority to take somebody away, hold them on at some kind of immigration violation or put them in the county jail. Absolutely not. And again, it's it's contraven contravenes Colorado law. Well, thank thank you for your comments. I hope I think we're on the same page.

Thank you, Councelor Towns. U two things. Um, Summer, you know, you brought up something I just want to clarify. You said that we' pulled out of that agreement, but I don't think we pulled out of that agreement. This, if I understand this correctly, you're correct. This is information that if we wanted to, we could. Absolutely. And you're just giving background information. So, I just use the word de facto because indicated that in practice, we have not been involved other than our Okay, that's correct. And that's we provided no money. We've provided no information. We have not provided an officer. That's what I was referring.

Okay, that's I just want to be clear as to where we were on all that. So, that's that's good. And then uh secondly, it's you know, one of the things we we live on I7, kind of a a pretty well-known corridor of of people that can do bad things and get into our city, get out of our city quickly. Is it is it your opinion that by not using every resource available to you that the the threat to public safety in Glenwood would be greater?

Oh, without question. I I referred to that $500,000 seizure that that I talked about. So, typically narcotics go east and money goes west. So, people are traversing I7, the interstate, taking their narcotics to the east, eastern seabboard or, you know, Cincinnati or wherever. That money is coming back out to the west coast right through our community. we able to stop them in in in an in interdiction um that particular day and they do a lot of interdiction work for a variety of reasons. So I do think and we've had a number of people uh prior to my tenure here who people have come to hide in Glennwood Springs thinking they're not going to be found from some other major metropolitan area for homicides. Uh they've been stopped in cars here. So we do have that element here which is again uh supports my position on the flock safety cameras but that's a different topic. But to your point that's exactly why um

these kinds of teams can work that. I mean, if you think about it, from the six 116 to the 114, that's I don't know, 2 miles, a mile and a half, whatever it might, we're not going to just jump on these guys and catch them within that one and a half mile span. That's our jurisdiction there. So, we need either state patrol or the task force to come and work those criminals as they're coming through our community. And would I also be making a correct assumption to know that we're we're kind of at a prime location if somebody wanted to that they could get into our town and they could get out of our town very quickly? Clearly. Yeah. I mean, the ease of access is is certainly there. and then the number of motel and hotels that we have here uh really provide that respit for them

and I would also assume but I would rather get a confirmation from you if anything ever did occur let's say we didn't pull out of this agreement or whether we did or didn't that if there ever was an occurrence where you know there was ICE type of a incident in town that like we've seen some across the nation or any that you would let us know about that immediately. Yeah, the city manager will tell you even as or recently as this afternoon when something significant takes place, I immediately have communicate even sometimes when I'm on my way to the event and to include Mr. Hanland. When we had the officer involved shooting, he was one of the first people I communicated with to make sure our city leadership and our legal council is involved early on to help us mitigate any kind of risk or a direction or somewhere that I might be missing, a blind spot that I might have. Hasn't come up yet, but that's exactly the reason why I let them know and then they communicate that to you however they feel is best.

Yeah. Thanks. appreciate your there there was one other one on there that I when I went through that list of crimes that had been, you know, solved or responded to of of some people who were trafficking weapons as far as weapons and drugs and you know that that's a pretty significant thing to to not have in our community anymore. So, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Smith. Thank you, Magie. Yes, sir. Um you mentioned that you had visited with the sheriff about this possible change. Yes sir.

Um and if I followed that right got the message that um if we withdraw from the agreement then then the level of of cooperation interaction assistance would would reduce. That's correct. Yes sir. Um, how is it that that kind of reduction didn't happen when you stopped paying your dues? Because we What's the difference between then and this?

Yes, sir. I think the answer to that is because we were signitories on theou. Now, we would not be and so we're not agreeing to the terms and the language of that. If if you chose to pull us out, we would not be partying to that. we would not agree to the terms or the language or whatever issue you would have which are inclusive in thatou.

And in that very Thank you. In that very regard, the kind of the punchline paragraph in the staff memorandum for this item says that um someone from the city, I assume you took to the task force with some suggested changes to bring the agreement in compliance with state law and that those changes were rejected. Can can you tell us more about that those changes and that interaction?

Yes, sir. So, in that conversation, I suggested to the sheriff that we make modifications to the language because there were some specific concerns about some of the terms being used in there. And as I review the document in there, it doesn't talk about immigration customs enforcement. It talks about Homeland Security investigations. Those are two entirely different things. They all fall under Department of Homeland Security. Their focus is on two different things. Could one cross the other and share information? Absolutely. But to my point where I could call tomorrow and share information with any other law enforcement agency. So to your point about the language, I suggested that we make some modifications to the language inside the MOU itself as it stands today and that was uh found to be unfavorable. Um another local community suggested that as well and they were also rejected and so that was kind of our position. Let's bring this forward and see where we can go with this and that um that was not supported.

Um appreciate you making that effort. Um, sorry you got rebuffed. Um, that rebuff to me. Um, we're doing questions. Sorry. I'll say what I think of that rebuff when the time comes. Thank you. And council, is that same that same sentence that got my attention, Chief. So, if the way that this report reads here is that you tried to get the agreement, you tried to bring the agreement into compliance with state law. those efforts became exhausted. Does that imply that something is out of compliance with state law?

No. And so let me take exception with that and that might be a mis we might have misplaced some of the language there. They are in compliance with state law when you look at the code and what exactly is in that im that that agreement. Okay. The implications from many in the communities and some of the sentiment generally speaking is that they're violating the law. They being the sheriff's office or the spear task force because they are cooperating with immigration customs and enforcement. Okay,

that's specul speculation. I can't say whether they are or not. I have not seen where they violated Colorado law. I don't know unless Mr. Handle has a different legal opinion about the language on there that they're violating the law. We are law enforcement officers. We all take an oath to support the Constitution, defend these laws as written to include Municipal Code of Glenwood Springs. So I I take exception to the suggestion that we've been out of compliance and going against state law for however many years. That that's not at all my experience. Nor have I allowed that or will I permit that to be the case in our department. You have a

Yeah. No, I I was just going to add I think that um I I think the the language as written because it doesn't acknowledge nowhere in the MAU does it acknowledge Colorado state law regarding cooperation with federal authorities around immigration issues. um creates the appearance and also creates I guess the possibility that there could be information sharing that would violate state statute and I think you know the chief um has been fantastic in describing how that has never occurred with the city of Glenwood Springs and I think our suggested changes were simply to acknowledge that because you know with the state law the way it is when you when you're mixing uh federal agencies gencies and state. I think our feeling is it's important that we just acknowledge that there are limitations to what we can do from the state level. Um and you know HSI is a great example of a agency that became the pre-minent especially human trafficking investigatory body. Um there has been a lot of reassignment of that their purpose and use um over the last year or so. Um, so I can see where people are concerned about that and our suggestion was simply that let's acknowledge what the limitations of state law are asou not that theou itself on its face means that there was a violation of state law but it certainly you know creates both that appearance and that possibility um to be used that way. Not that we ever have, not that we ever will. Um so that was why we were suggesting some revisions to the language of the chief was you know suggesting some revisions just to acknowledge the state of state law.

So it was not about bringing anything into compliance. It was about acknowledgment.

Yeah. It wasn't about bringing it into compliance. It was about making it clear what the boundaries were as state agencies operating in Colorado in conjunction with federal agencies and what that level of interaction and sharing could be because I can see how a lay person could read this um and say it says you will share information back and forth, you'll deputize, you'll do all these things and that sounds like full cooperation with the federal government in any way. I mean, our guys know that they have to comply with state law. So, that's not occurring for our team whatsoever, but we can see in the language of that agreement where it creates a question in people's minds. Our suggestion was let's eliminate that question in people's minds.

And and the name of spear is special problem enforcement and response. I understand the desire for these cute, you know, names that that resonate and make sense. You've talked a lot about drugs. Is there anything else that would fall under that umbrella of special problem aside narcotics? Yeah.

Yes. Um like I mentioned homi homicides, violent crime, robbery, uh kidnapping, human trafficking, organized crime, uh related uh I wouldn't say conglomerates, but organizations, drug trafficking organizations. Drugs are still part of that, but there it is more of a major crimes. Uh burglary, burglary crews that are established and set up in Glennwood Springs. A few years back, we had a uh southern Hispanic criminal street gang established in Glennwood Springs over off of Highway 6 and they were trafficking in wanted felons and firearms, selling firearms out of there. They're doing a number of burglaries on our community. Well, that takes up a lot of resources to investigate something that large and it really exceeds the capacity of our department to investigate. So for something like that, we would call in spear so they could work work that investigation however they chose is being as appropriate. Okay.

Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor Prom Solinski. So, I think we've well established the value of that relationship, but I'm curious um since the language does create, I guess, maybe the potential for should any member of Spear, some of the sworn officers of Spear do something that does violate state statute. With us being signatures on theou, does that expose us to any liability, guilt by association, anything like that?

I would defer to Mr. Hanland for that. Um, I I would say it probably doesn't expose us to liability, but I think it it exposes us to a risk in the reputation of our department. And I got to tell you, like I mean that's one of the hardest things in this is that the chief and his department worked really hard, do the right thing. Like in all of the corors that we've seen, all the investigations, all the things that you've seen in the media, there's never been an accusation that Glenwood PD actually did anything wrong. And so, you know, from my a little bit personal standpoint, I want to make sure that there's not a reputational hit to this department as a result of the language in that agreement.

Yeah. I mean, obviously that is very much my concern as well. And so now I'm sitting up here weighing, you know, the benefit to the organization and and public safety of our community versus the potential hit to reputation. And you know, I mean, it's a very uncomfy position for me to be in as just a lay person. I have zero expertise in this field. And so, you know, when I see the staff recommendation, is that your staff? Like, I'm just curious who that recommendation came from. I think that came from me. Yeah.

And that but that's come through discussions, right? Exactly. Exactly. And so that's like I I'm just trying to get a sense for um how detrimental a change of relationship could potentially be to the community versus the optics, you know, like where are we at with like the reality of the situation versus

I'd like to think I have confidence in those decisions when we need them. We call them when it's appropriate. like some of the examples I gave you, you know, their conduct and behavior is outside the limits of the law or outside of that that's on them entirely and I can't speak to them. They'd have to account for that where our department's concerned. I think I'd like to think I've done a pretty good job about seeing a problem little visionary to see it coming three years ago before HS ICE was a problem, but you know what we're contributing and what our benefit was as a community. And so those public safety decisions I was talking about, we make them every day. And at the time, I thought it was beneficial to sign thatou. And at the time I had the authority to do that in the best interest of our community safety and we do those so often I can't bring every one of those to you now became a much bigger deal and so we're here today. So I don't want to make things difficult and this conversation's gone on a while and I didn't come here with these comments to make it difficult on you. I just want to arm you with information to make an informed decision and whatever that decision is I'm happy to execute. U you know and I don't think it'll damage my relationship with the sheriff professionally whatsoever or any of these other communities we have around us. Thank you, Council Shacker.

Uh, this would be one more question that'd be for the chief and Carl. I'm looking at theou agreement section 109. It talks about and I'm wondering and again I'm a lay person and the public is definitely lay people. How does this end? We I understand that chief and his officers to a certain degree have no control over no total control over what other cooperating officers might do either in the heat of the moment or an enforcement act or anything. 109 help me. I'm I'm looking at says unless I'm reading it wrong. Any task force officer that's involved in a cooperative event in a local jurisdiction is subject to the local jurisdiction's rules. Which to me means at least to my lay person says look if you're a if you're a spear cooperating agency helping Glenwood Springs and Glennwood Springs does not allow any violations of state law. That's the umbrella that controls your behavior. Am I am I reading that wrong, Carl? I

I mean, I think you're reading it generally correctly. I think that I mean, I think one of you know, one of the struggles with anou like this is the difference between language and operational reality, right? Um, by and large, everybody who's going to be operating in the city of Glenwood Springs are officers that are certified through our state state programs. they're going to be operating underneath the same set of rules and laws that we all do, right? Um so, so in that regard, everybody should be on the same page and operating in the same in the same way. I think this is a great example though of where it's very difficult. This is a very lengthy. It's got a lot of um a lot of broad language in it in places. Um and that's where I think that it's creating the discomfort in the community. Um and there again like I said I mean chief operationally um has made you know great decisions. Our our guys have made great decisions. Um so yeah I mean I I think that's where and I think the language that is probably more problematic for people are when kind of the expansive language around cooperation and shared databases and things like that which which have not come to pass. Um and so this is much broader than what the operational realities are. Um and I think probably in a perfect world uh it would be a little more narrowly focused um to how operations on the ground actually occur um than than it is. But yeah,

thank you Mayor Paninsky. Sorry, one more question. Um, I apologize if this is in the in theou and I didn't see it, but uh what are the other I mean is Carbondale part of Spear? They are not. They were at one time, but they have not been for several years. And they've pulled out. So, um, all the other, uh, cooperating communities would be to the west of us. Is that correct? Yes.

Thank you. Can I can I qualify that please? Or signitories. There are communities in our western region here that do not have officers on that task force. They can't afford it. They can't afford the fees and whatever that might be, but they have been signitories on it or attend the meetings or or what have you. We've just not been one of those. Yeah. And I'm I'm not sure that is I think Carbondale may be a signatory but not a participating member. Yes, sir. So, I think everybody um who not all the signatures are filled in on this. I believe there is a copy the sheriff's office has that has all of the signatures on it. Um, but I think there are a number of agencies that are in a similar position to what ours is that they don't pay to have officers on the task force but are signitories to thisou

and that may change. Yeah, I was going to say I I do know it's at least a discussion in in Carbondale around this as well. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions? See none. I just so I heard a lot of things um tonight, a lot of answers, a lot of good questions and I just want to confirm ju just because the homeland security is mentioned in thisou that does not mean we're violating state statute. It does not. It certainly creates an opportunity. you could argue and certainly um

I I think sometimes I worry a little bit and you know something we've talked about is um the feds can be the feds um whether before or now they always have can be a little heavy-handed. Could they lean on us, you know, and point to this as to why we needed to cooperate with them? I think we would always, you know, rely back to state law and just say we can't. Um, but there again, it's one of the reasons why we've talked about in a perfect world, I would love to see some language in here that acknowledges the limitations of state, Colorado state agencies um and departments with the level of cooperation they can have and on the types of subjects they can have with the federal agencies that are also signators.

Okay. And and and at this point, we're not aware that the feds have asked certain things. We are not aware and I I don't want to speak out of turn for chief. We're not aware that we have ever been asked and that gets down to I mean you can talk about how we deal with like records requests. Oh. Yeah.

So we've received records requests from immigration ICE because they've had a in this particular case they had a target or somebody of interest in the Texas area, state of Texas. They wanted to find out some background information about that that we retained. He had previously been in Glenwood Springs and had some kind of contact with law enforcement and we declined that request. Uh again, it it's in contravention to Colorado State Law. So, we referred them back to the KOA process like we would anybody any one of you asked about that person, we'd refer you to the KOA. And on that particular event, I I had conferred with our legal team to make sure I was not out of bounds there and I was right. So, whenever that comes in with anything to do with them, we refer them to whatever the proper channel may be, but we've not supplied them with information or any other activity outside of what the Colorado statute provides. So this this kind of opens a completely different avenue. I mean any of these records can be obtained through Kora.

Well um some of them are subject to KORA, some of them are subject to the um Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act CC JR. Um there are parameters around what we can disclose to anybody and we treat a request from a federal agency on immigrate you know exactly like we would a request from a person off the street who filled out the form right like same thing doesn't mean that they get I mean there are limitations on what they can get access to. Okay. Okay. All right. Well thank you um thank you for all your information and thanks for everybody chiming in. Um, anybody from the public here that would like to speak up?

Let me just thank you all for giving me the opportunity to at least explain kind of where we're at and understand the context of what's been going on. Um, I I do appreciate that and and your patience with this whole messy uh situation that we found ourselves in over the last couple months, but thank you all. Thank you for being here. Yes, sir.

Thank you. Uh, I see none. We'll close the public portion. I'll bring it back to council. Item eight tonight. Um, when we should take an action. So, councelor Smith. Thank you. Um I move uh the city council authorize appropriate city staff to find to sign formal withdrawal from the special problem enforcement and response task force also known as spear. Glad to explain my thoughts behind that when the time comes. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion to withdraw. Can I get a second? Okay. Are you sure?

Yeah. All right. Council Shack, I will second. Part of our process is to get things out there for discussion. This will get it out for discussion. Okay. Sounds good. Uh motion a second to withdraw. And I assume Councelor Smith, you want to go first? I can go whatever order you like. Let's go.

Um this is an appropriate action uh for a string of reasons. Um, but one of the reasons among those reasons is not anything reflecting on the Glenwood Springs Police Department. Nothing about this conversation, nothing about this motion in particular for which I'll take responsibility implies or fears or worries about misbehavior by the police department in any fashion, including in relation to city law regarding immigration cooperation. Uh this is this is an exemplary department and it's specifically because of that and the history and the reputation that accompanies that that good behavior that it's important that we not taint that image reputation or or impression to anyone by association with others who may not be up to such standards. Um, the fact that what seemed like reasonable, the second reason is what seemed the fact that what seemed like reasonable suggestions to amend the agreement to make it more acceptable to that high standard of behavior were rebuffed is first suspect to me on the part of those doing the rebuffing that maybe something is a foot. And whether it is or not, whether we have facts or not, that impression uh is strengthened by that by that reluctance to cooperate. In the current climate, I think based in facts that we've seen from other communities and particularly larger cities, the the barrier between homeland security and immigrations and customs enforcement is a very thin

barrier if not a civ. I have no confidence that information shared in the best of intentions with Homeland Security will not end up in ICE. uh just because of the way these agencies have been operating and the way that their leadership have been speaking in public in the last year or so. Um it's important to keep a distance from that behavior again in order to affirm our good behavior, our police department's good behavior, and to affirm uh the public's confidence, this this community's confidence in that behavior. um whatever other agencies elsewhere might think about it, our citizens confidence in that behavior is to is to be upheld. That atmosphere may change. That relationship between say homeland security and ICE may change. The behavior of ICE may change. that would present possibly an opportunity for this city council to rejoin. It may be that the that the the spear task force would agree to some changes of clarification in the in the agreement. Um and that might be an opportunity to rejoin. This can be undone if circumstances improve. Circumstances right now are bad. This is a good agreement from which to withdraw in honor of the police department and in support and in response to concerns from our citizens. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Prom Solinski. Yeah, I you know I'm very aware of how valuable cooperation is and collaboration with all the agencies in our community and surrounding communities and you know the force multiplier that you mentioned like I think that that is pretty critical to safety of our community. The only reason I would support this is is to protect the reputation and the integrity of our local department. And it I'm I'm very concerned with the fact that to councelor Smith's point, it was a very reasonable request to just modify the language to make it more clear the intent and the guidelines and the barriers. you know, the line that will not be crossed and the fact that that wasn't honored. It just doesn't sit well and I'm struggling with that because um I hate to limit resources of our local law enforcement and I know how valuable that is. But I also hate to expose really really good people doing really good work to unnecessary I guess risk and judgment and so I'm struggling with that.

Thank you. Any other comments?

Council Towns couple things. You know, one of one of the things that we're all acutely aware of up here is the fact that our police department is is fairly understaffed. You know, we we've talked time and time again about the fact we can't hire people. We've tried to hire people. We the people are not there. They can't afford to live here. And I'm sure Carbondale is under the same gun. So, Newcastle, all the towns, the people that are are signitories towards this. So if if we're doing something just for the appearance of doing it, is that really a benefit to our citizens when there's been no indication whatsoever? And I agree with Councelor Smith that I wouldn't trust the current federal agencies further than I could throw them. you know, when we're talking about drugs, guns, fentanyl showing up in our schools, uh, trafficking, domestic abuse, abuse of minors, then I think we're, you know, to go, let's do something that's, you know, going to protect a reputation or do this. I'm more interested in making sure that the the citizens of Glenwood are not subject to, you know, some of these things that are that are out there. I mean, those these are concrete things that are happening day in day out. There's been no indication that I can see that we've taken part in any sort of ICE information sharing. Um I do trust the people that we've got on staff and so to to get rid of something that's a tool when we're totally understaffed to start with just does not make sense to me.

Thank you, Council Shack. this like our nation is kind of tearing at all of us. Um I have several concerns before I make a decision. One is we always wrestle with who are we hearing from in public meetings. So we've had a loud outcry by a relatively proportionately small number of people. I don't know if that represents local sentiment. I know national sentiment is a whole different issue. Yeah,

I don't know. So, one of the dilemmas of being up here, it is very hard to tell sentiment. Number two, we're as as mayor prom mentioned, we are we are charged with a huge issue of providing as much public safety umbrella as we can. That overrides a lot of things that are going on in other communities that aren't here. That's a tough one because at least I'm hearing from the chief that there is a chance, a possible probability, maybe a high one, that our ability for public safety will be diminished by some factor not to be known. Um, I am concerned also with the fact that other agencies involved with this have less than a stellar reputation than our force by action, by deed, by word. And I'm also concerned that I'm hearing an issue that sounds a little bit like quid proquo if you will. you with even though you've withdrawn in practice the symbolic issue of ending the MOA will end cooperation that's existed even though you haven't participated that bothers me which is also related to other reputations. So, it makes it hard for me to make that decision. And should should I not support the motion? Should we should we continue with the MOA? I'm not sure how we would express it, but I would expect that our chief of public safety as well as our city manager would inform us immediately

and recommend withdrawal from the MOA should they be aware of any state law violation by the Spear Task Force andor any finally adjudicated legal action. against the head of the spear that I believe might be pending. Those are some of my concerns. I I I'm still dizzy, if you will, but those are some of the things I wanted to comment on. Okay. Thank you. Being dizzy, councelor Small,

should this motion fail, I'll provide another one. Um, I I I can't support the existing motion. I'm I'm not aware of any substantiated claims of our police department violating any state laws. And I I feel it's uh a waste of time to be fretting over unsubstantiated allegations of potential violations. And I think it's a waste of time and I'll call it lawyers irrational exuberance that adding a statement into a statement about following state laws that are already being followed is going to have any effect on anything except making somebody feel good about the statement being there. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tims.

You know, as I sit here and contemplate this, you know, when you look at the crimes that have been resolved through this cooperation, we are addressing our most vulnerable population. And I think that that's something that we need to be aware of in that the decisions we make, we're making them from a position of pretty significant privilege. And it feels good to do the things that make a political statement, but what could be the potential ramifications of that? And I'm I just am acutely aware of the weight of the decisions that I make up here and how they could unfairly impact others.

Thank you. Any other comments? Councelor Wymer, if I may just question, one more question for Chief. Reading through theou, it talks about the task force officers. Yes, sir. Right. Who are these people literally? Are are they are they being borrowed from local agencies and for a shift or whatnot they're wearing the cap of spear? Is that you know or who who are they? So just like when we had our detective on there, he would have been a task force officer. So he's a Glenwood officer. We're called the parent agency. Yeah. And now he's assigned to that task force for three, four years or into perpetuity. Okay. So currently

city of rifle has an officer a few I don't know what they have but they have somebody attached to that team. Y the sheriff's office carries the bulk of the personnel on that team. I don't know what that number is but it's sizable. Okay. Um and then so it's the sheriff's office rifle and that's it. U and then whatever HSI I don't know what they contribute to that team. So these are these are sh some of the sheriff's deputies that have been lent lent out to spear or they're permanently assigned. I'm sorry to interrupt you. These are permanent permanent assignments. Yes, sir. Okay.

Unless they get promoted or something, they come back to the to the road and then the sheriff would reassign another person in their place. But it's a permanent assignment. It's not ancillary or this week you're in and next week he's in. It's a permanent assignment.

And those and those task force officers, they still they still live in this community. they or or have they been relocated? You know what I'm I'm trying to understand who who these people are. This very scary spear, this very scary front that we put sometimes on on some of these conversations. Who are these I don't need names. Yeah, we I don't need that that deep, but like who are these people when you call Spear? Who's showing up to help it? It's largely the sheriff's department and maybe not one or two officers that are assigned from the city of Rifle to that task force.

Um I don't know where they live. I'm going to presume that they're local, you know, in Garfield County somewhere. Are these DEA feds that have been assigned to the area or other federal agents that have been assigned to the area?

Uh not that I'm aware of. when we were part of that team and I was participating in those meetings, they had the supervising agent from DEA as the DEA representative to that task force. Okay? So, he would come in and share information or help us with wire taps or funding or whatever. HSI I've been to only a few meetings when they've had a representative there and they were there to talk about this child sexual assault case I talked about. those kinds of things I did not see and although I don't know that they weren't there um anybody that was um immigration customs enforcement there were some people table I wouldn't recognize but largely it is it is run through the sheriff's department and staffed by a lot of people from the sheriff's office and one or two other local police departments who is the spear task force commander

currently that is Sergeant Jesse Burus from the sheriff's office previously just recently that changed and pre previously for many years it was Sergeant Mike Tyler from the rifle police department and who does the commander report to

the to the board of directors and you're on the board of directors if you're one of the people who are contributing to that task force either in funding or personnel. So at the time I was on that board because we had an officer attached to that and we were paying money to be there. Chief Funston from Rifle was on that board and Sheriff Lou Valerio. Now several other chiefs would come to meetings but they weren't part of that board of directors because they weren't contributing anything um in the in the form of financially or personnel. And then what is the I feel like I'm a lawyer just I'm on a little bit of a roll here. Who does who does the bo is there a connection between the board and any federal agency as far as reporting responsibilities um funding like how how does that work?

I think my short answer is no. If I understand your question properly, funding they're they are funded through a thing called Haida, HIDA, which is the U organization that funds large or large task forces, uh, criminal investigations, high-intensity drug trafficking area is what that stands for. Yeah. Um, that comes through Department of Justice. So, we got grant funding and I don't know what I don't recall what that number was, but let's just say $100,000 a year. So, that provides money to lease vehicles, cell phones, um, buy money for informance. We have to pay them for information. Yeah, a lot of different things. So, in that way, there was some financial through the federal government there.

Um, as I mentioned previously with through DEA or maybe another organization, if we had a large organization that exceeded our capability or capacity to fund that, we could go to DEA and say, "Hey, we're going to go buy a 100 pounds of whatever we need a million dollars." They're the the bigger agency that could fund that. So, in that way, federal government could be involved or FBI. But FBI was never really part of that. I just know that DEA was at that table. these spear officers, do they have access to technology or databases that they would not have otherwise? I don't know if I can answer that um one way or the other because I don't know to the guys that are the agents that are assigned to that are cross-d designated as US marshals.

They may, but I I don't know. I've never heard that they do, but I don't know what what they do or how they do it. So the so the the the operational the operating model of Spear is that Garfield County at one point applied for DOJ grant funding that allows for the operation of this task force. The task force is designated through a board of directors that is largely composed of the signature signitories. Right on this memorandum of understanding, we appoint we reassign local officers to be permanently part of this task force reporting to the task force commander who is a sheriff's sergeant. Right. Yes.

Um funding for equipment, vehicles, etc. is granted from the Department of Justice, right? And they and they are they serve as a rover on the baseball field. They go to where they need to go to be able to help out where they need to help out. Exactly. Correct. And I would add that we supplemented or the contributing agency would supplement that funding through that $14,000 that I talked about. So we would contribute that 14 grand as part of their overall operating expense. Why is there an HSI signature on thisou?

Because I think I mentioned that they were part of like DEA was part of that overall contributing a contributing agency. So DEA was I mentioned DEA was there. The state patrol uh had a representative there. you'll notice they declined to sign the uhou for I I I can't speculate. Um so there's a number of people that were there who are are still there um who are like HSI or DEA and I don't know if DEA is still part of that or not. Okay. We've been away I've been away from that for several years now. So I don't know exactly where they are up to date.

Okay. So there HSI is a contributing agency to this to thisou. What specifically does that allow them to do or have access to?

Well, I'll point to this uh again I call them a cretton. This suspect that was involved in these child trafficking, child sexual assaults, those kinds of things. is they're largely involved in pornographic uh in you know investigations across computers across state lines those kind of they have a far broader reach and authority than anybody locally would have and we wouldn't have had access to that individual if had it not been for them because we just don't have it's called an IAC internet crimes against children we don't have access to that those are nodes throughout the country that they work with to identify some of these people chief thank you your answers have solidified my position on this and I will not be in support of the motion. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Shack.

Sorry it's taking so long. Two more questions. One, please, for Chief and one for Steve. I don't like put you on the spot, but I will. Um, if this motion carried and the intent of Sheriff Ferio was not to not to supply Spear support for Glennwood Springs, if that's what I understood. In your opinion, I already heard a diminishment of overall public safety. Are our sworn officers in any greater risk? I would suggest probably not only from but I will say only from the unknown. You know, if we get a a barricade, we had as you recall a couple years ago over on Riverview Street, somebody shooting at our officers. So, I mean, I can't predict that, but generally speaking, I don't know what I don't know. And I'd say probably not, but that day when that dark day comes, and I tell our officers all the time, the devil will visit you at some point in your career. We need to be able to deal with that problem. And I think the sheriff in spirit is absolutely poised and has demonstrated his willingness to come and help us for sure. It's just the day-to-day activities and things that may not necessarily be there when we call them because they got other things to do and for the reasons we already explained.

Thank you. One more question, please, Steve. Um, this is unusual. Maybe we're talking about semantics, but it says staff is supportive of withdrawing from spear due to the optics. Is that different or how does that differ from staff recommends withdrawal which is normally not the language I understand but this is kind of an unusual situation. It doesn't. Okay. So I could substitute supportive and say staff recommends withdrawal from theou. Yes. and staff is boom. That recommendation comes from me. Thank you.

I will add though uh it's my understanding anyway that um your chief of public safety and your attorney both agree with that. Yes, we that that decision is made in collaboration. Steve's the final say on those things. So, we've had those conversations. That that helps immensely. Thank you very much. Councelor Tanzy, I thought I had two questions, but now I've got three. Do you, and this is it's not a silly question because we see it out there. Are are you aware, Chief, of anybody on the task force that operates anywhere anyhow that is masked?

No, I've never seen that. But again, we've never worked around these ICE agents that you see on TV. So I I don't know. But I've not I've not seen that here. None of none of nothing you've ever seen would would lend you to believe that we've got people out there wearing masks that are enforcing. No, sir.

Um the the second question I've got is if if we were participating under a fairly small amount of money and that allowed you to be on a board of directors where you would see and hear a lot more, is that something that we should revisit if we do not pull out of this agreement? You know, I made a business decision because I thought we were contributing quite a bit in the way of staff, a person, an officer, and the money. And I didn't see the return because most of those crimes that they're focused on don't occur in Glenwood Springs. I wanted to be poised to be able to use that team, utilize them when we needed to. When we needed to ring that bell, I needed them to come. And if that cost us 14,000 plus salary and benefits, I was good with that. But since the laws have changed and everything has really kind of evolved to a place where we are right now, I just thought it was the in the best interest of our community to reassign that officer back here to our community, focus on community, uh focus, you know, focus on crimes here locally. Did I answer your question?

I guess, but I'm I'm like if there's, you know, one of the questions that you'd have on something like this is is we're part of something that's maybe a little outside of our control. Is it better to be in a position where you know it's happening even at a small cost? If we were going to contribute in the way that we had been, I would certainly want to have a presence on that board so we could have some influence about what what was going on. So is there a difference between the small amount of money that you were contributing versus contributing a staff member that we probably don't have available from a staffing standpoint? Yeah, the money necessarily wasn't the issue because of the amount of money. It was the staff person, particularly now the staffing challenges that we've had over the years. Um, I could use him. he's better utilized back here in our community more locally.

Okay. And then my third question that just came up as I think I understood this was that the three of you had gotten together and think that we should withdraw from this agreement. My question is why? What purpose does that serve other than optics? I think that the two reasons we got into this agreement were number one, there's information that flows through here, and number two, there are cases where we would need to hand this off to somebody like Spear. I don't think that the information that we get through this is enough to make a difference. I think that we will still get cooperation from our local agents. You guys have all sat up here and said how much you don't trust HSI, you don't trust ICE. People in this uh agreement can be doing bad things. things in this agreement uh could be illegal if we did them, which were not, which is the point that we're trying to make here. So, I feel like we don't think the juice is worth the squeeze on this one.

Did I hear from the other two people who were involved in that decision? I'd concur. Yes, sir.

Yeah, I think I mean I kind of talked about it. I I think you know words matter in agreements like this. Um, and I think, you know, um, something we talked about was that if the agreement were reformed to make it more in line with what state law requires, um, that that would be a significant change and would be important and potentially address some of the information sharing paragraphs in here that cause a lot of discomfort because they do open up possibilities. I think the last one u for me is that because part of this funding comes from DOJ and I know what the requirements of DOJ are on their grant funding now which is an absolute cooperation on integration services that because of all of those reasons it's incredibly important to protect our team uh by a different set of language in the agreement. Um, so that's why we were all on I mean for me why I was on the same page along with these guys on that the the risks exceed the benefits and it's not a big leap um other than a political one to reform this agreement and I think there are a number of other communities that are in the same position we are about wanting to see some change. I would make finish comment then. You know that's that's a little different I think than the information that I thought I was hearing originally when we have chief of public safety, our city attorney and our city manager all going, you know, we're fairly well informed. We all three are recommending that we pull out of this at this point. That that gives me a whole different feel for what we're talking about here. I personally anything we can do to make our city safer I'm in favor of. I'm also not in favor of doing something that goes against people who know a whole lot more about this than I do. So if that is the case then I would support it.

Thank you. Council Schmall, was council advised or involved in the original signing theou on the spear agreement on the spear member uhou.

I think that it lived for about 30 years and so what you see before you what I signed was an addendum to what had been previously existing for so many years that the climate had changed in that period of time. So, no, they typically aren't involved in those kinds of things. Many times I sign things like this all the time to the point I'd be knocking on your door every day or Steve's door or the city attorney's door. And so, for a long time, I've been entrusted to make decisions and I think they've worked out very well for us. In this particular case, things change. Now, here we are having this lengthy conversation about a decision I made. So, moving forward, you know, understand I couldn't see what I didn't know was going to be in front of us certainly three years ago. So, now here we are. And so, uh, the answer the short answer to your question is no. And that's not typically what what would happen. And so I guess I'm I'm questioning why council needs to endorse or or promote one way or the other whether we continue in this

because ultimately you are the responsible policymaking body and this is one of those issues that is of great import to your community and frankly it's a decision that should be made by you guys as the elected officials for this committee. Any more comments? Okay, I'll I'll give my two cents and it's not much, but um we heard everything tonight from your end, from our end. Um and it all made sense until it didn't and then it made sense again. and and and I think I think the the the pinnacle to all of this is you three guys being in agreeing in in agreement with each other going yeah we're ready to move on um points by councelor Smith the climate may change absolutely and maybe if the climate change we can join it again or we can hope for a different spear or a new name a new fancy name um as has been pointed it out. I I believe in collaboration. I believe in in working together. I believe in pulling your resources, especially where we are nowadays with everybody fighting to hire police officers. That's tough. Um and and and I do hope that even though we make it out of this that you will still call upon help and help will show up. Um you you said hopefully they will.

I I believe they will. I have the kind of relationship with our partners that will support that. Absolutely. As more of a formality and and I just might end with this. I just want to make sure you guys understood like I prefaced this conversation with I wanted to give you information, right? And understand where we've been because we've been attacked and we haven't been really able to defend ourselves. And a lot of times information was coming from people who live outside of our community and had opinions about what's going on. And it was not factual and it was speculative. That was that was the purpose behind me sharing this with you.

Well Well and and I thank you for that. But but also I think what was really helpful is hearing that we tried to alter it and adjust it and and and make it more palatable for everybody um with what's going on outside of our four walls here and and that was denied or or rebuffed or whatever whatever word you used. And so um well anyway I I I think I think I'm at I'm at the point to make a decision. So with that I will call for the question. Mr. Mayor, can I just add one thing real quickly? Um, if I thought that we were increasing the risk of our officers getting hurt, I would never make this recommendation.

I don't care if Lou Valerio writes a letter or not. I believe that Chief Daryus has enough relationship with enough law enforcement agencies in this area that we will take care of business when we need to take care of business. I think that is to his great credit. And if we didn't have that relationship, then I absolutely would not support anything that would put our officers at more risk or our citizens and the entire city of Glenwood Springs. Now, I get it. I understand. So, thank you for all that. Thank you for all your time and information. And I will call for the question. Oh, just a reminder, the motion is to withdraw and so is the second. So, I'll call for the question. Yes, councelor Townsley. Yes, Mayor Prom Zalinski. Yes, Mayor Dame. Yes, Councelor Wymer. No, Councelor Schmall. Yes, Councelor Smith. Yes, Councelor Shakar. It passes 61.

Thank you, Ryan. Again, thank you all of you for being here and explaining all this. This was not easy. Very helpful to hear everything though. And hopefully we did the right thing. Please keep us informed of what's going on out there. So, okay, keep on trucking. Number nine, ordinance 26, 20268, an ordinance of city of Glenwood Springs amending the uh Glenwood Springs Municipal Code regarding the regulation and permitting of exterior lighting and signage. Planning file CDA 000272026.

Okay. Emry Ellington, Community Development Department. I'll be sharing the screen.

Okay. So, tonight uh this item is a code amendment and it deals with lighting and signage. Uh so it's a code text amendment and so it has gone to planning and zoning commission for recommendation at their March meeting. Uh and then just a little background mo this started uh planning and zoning commission had a joint session with you all in November and lighting was one of the topics and illumination that came up. And so in in January uh staff we had a a work session with planning and zoning commission talking about you know our sign code and then also our lighting standards. And then planning and zoning commission gave some director to staff to come back with some suggested changes and then also compare how our ordinances stack up against some neighboring communities. And so then we took that back to planning and zoning commission in March and then what is on the docket tonight is a reflection of what came from that conversation. And so really after looking at our um again these are two sections of code exterior lighting and signs. And after looking at that, uh, staff identified three specific changes, um, in code, uh, that we could add. And then we also looked at four different communities, Breenidge, uh, here in Colorado and Nucla, and then also Moab, and then Flagstaff. And the reason those were picked as um, comparison communities were because uh, they're dark sky communities. And what that is is Dark Sky is a international organization that promotes um lighting standards uh to reduce light pollution. So it's really similar like Tree City USA. It's a you volunteer you to join. You do have to pay. Uh but the idea is that they encourage certain things and then cities can adopt model ordinances uh to achieve those those goals. So here's just some nighttime photos of those couple of those places including Glenwood. I see. Okay. And then just again so a variety of communities. You have nuclear on one

end uh of size and then also Flagstaff is pretty sizable community almost 100,000 people. Um so just a variety of communities. Glenwood's about in the middle although we are the densest community of of the comparison communities. Um like I talked about Dark Sky International. So those communities are dark sky communities. And so they have different uh classifications that you can you can obtain uh through their program. Uh and then a lot of times communities whether they're an official dark sky community or not uh they'll use the principles for outdoor lighting. So the idea is that it's useful uh it's targeted lowle controlled which would be like timers and then warm colored. And so that refers to a temperature of a light which is one of the code changes we're looking at. And so any light source whether you're inside or outside uh can be considered anything from warm to cold. And how that's measured is uh Kelvin. Um, so 2,000 Kelvin would be considered a warm light. 10,000 Kelvin would be considered a cold light. And why that's important to light pollution is when light is on that bluer end of the spectrum, the way your eyes see it is it's brighter and then it also scatters a little more, contributes a little more to light glow. And so Dark Sky International, and you'll see this reflected in the comparison community standards, they recommend 3,000 or less. Currently, City Glennwood Springs, we don't regulate color temperature of lights at all. Uh it's not in our code. And so the recommendation on this is to add it where all fixtures, outdoor fixtures would need to be 3,000 Kelvin or less. And the way that's reviewed is anytime you have a fixture lighting spec, it's listed. A lot of times lighting fixtures you can pick. It'll be like here we have this light bulb. You can have it at 3,000 Kelvin, 4,000, 5,000, and you order it. Um so that's how that works. So that's the first uh recommended change. And then the second item is gas station canopy lighting. And so we were talking a lot about public

safety tonight. You know, it's important that you see where you are. And then there you can also have excessive lighting beyond what you need to feel safe. And so gas stations and communities can sometimes be a source of excessive lighting. Uh and so you can't regulate light if you can't measure it. And the way you measure light u mostly is you using lumens and foot candles. The rest of the world uses what's called lux and has to do with meters. Basically your source is measured in lumens and that measures how bright a light is. And then foot candles is measuring that degree of illumination. So this image I think illustrates it pretty well. And so the way you measure it is for gas station canopies. And this is what a lighting plan looks like. So you have here would be your lighting source and then these are all the foot candle values. So you can see as you get farther away from this light source those values go down. And so the way this is regulated in Glenwood we have a minimum of five foot candles for safety and then a maximum of 25 uh comparison communities uh have different you know between 15 and 20. I would like to point out Flagstaff is a little different. That's because they the way they measure lighting is across the entire property and not per fixture. But in general um recommendation is basically between 15 and 25 uh from Dark Sky International. And so just in interest of finding you know maybe small ways we can reduce light uh staff is recommending just to reduce that to 20. And when this would get reviewed is let's say a gas station comes in for remodeling and they're going to do new lighting on their canopy. They'd have to provide a lighting plan. we would review that make sure that underneath the canopy all the values like you see here would be less than 20. So that's the second recommendation and here would be the language. And then the third one so this is in sign code but it still does relate to illumination and lighting is an illuminated signage curfew. And so you can have an

illuminated sign in Glenwood and whether that's internal like these ones where the lighting source is inside the light or external where you have like an exterior light shining down on a sign, you can have those. Um, and then currently the way it's regulated is if you are within 300 ft of a zone a residential zoning district, you have to turn that sign off by 10 p.m. or one hour later than business. And so that's what we have on the books right now. And then a lot of other communities, they actually do it across the board. So citywide, uh, again, in a lot of times it's tied to if you close your business. So if you're a bar that's open until 3:00 a.m., you can shut your sign off at 4:00 a.m. If you're a hotel that you're basically open all the time, you'd have it on all the time. But if you're, you know, a retail shop that closes at 6, you'd have to shut off your light at 7. So that's the way it works. And again, we already have it here in Glenwood. So everywhere in yellow is within 300 ft of a residential zoning district. So all of those signs need to be turned off by 10. And so if this would be changed and we were to make it across the board, it would be all the areas that aren't yellow that would then be subject to that. Uh and then another important thing uh which again so this is the language as is being considered tonight uh planning and zoning commission did include in their recommendation that all illuminated signs in Glennwood Springs comply with this rule by January 1st 2022 excuse me 32 um so they have five years uh where initially the staff recommendation would be that would have just been for new signs going forward so that is a little bit different um that is what is before you tonight um so again if you have a limit eliminated sign in Glenwood by January 1st, 2032, you'd have to start turning it off, which if you didn't maybe install your sign originally with a switch or a timer, that would be something you'd have to do. Um, so that's the third recommendation, and I'll just go through the criteria for text amendments to code. Um, so there's five of them. Main point is that it's consistent with

comprehensive plan, uh, city policies, and doesn't conflict with code and responds to, um, community concerns and needs. And so the first one is it's consistent with comprehensive plan goals. Uh we call out specifically reducing light pollution. Uh establishing a dark sky ordinance. And then also it shows up in the energy and climate action plan for energy efficiency. If a lights's off, it's not using electricity. So using it wisely when it's needed. And so that's number one. Um doesn't conflict with code. Uh we already regulate signage and lighting. Um, so that's already there as necessary to address a demonstrated community need. And so these are really small steps um to decrease light pollution. I mean, it's really uh reducing it. You know, you have a lot of different sources across lots of different places. Uh these are kind of small steps that we could take um to reduce that amount. Um number four, necessary to respond to changes in conditions or policy. Uh color temperature was left out of the original ordinance. And then again, it's kind of um as the community has grown, it's become more of a concern. So these are just efforts to address that. And then five, just consistent with general purpose and intent of the code. These are modifications to existing regulations. Um you know, we already have these in code. So the options for tonight, uh one would be to recommend, excuse me, approve, uh the items, um with findings and conditions. If you have additional conditions, um you can certainly add those. uh second would be to deny the code amendment and then the third would be to continue. So again,

thank you. Thank you for all the info and lighting. Um any questions to answer under the under this revised code, would Ryan have to change out his lights on six plaza again? um under the current we we would have to look at what the color temperature on those lighting fixtures was. So the idea is that yeah going forward and that would includes um you know street lighting uh park lighting we'd try to observe that color temperature limit. So before I'm prepared to act on this I'd like to know the answer to that question. Well yes um

I mean as that's replaced because this is right now it's not it's not effective. We don't regulate color temperature at all. You could have any color temperature bulb you want, but you regulate the amount of light that's produced.

Correct. Yeah. But that's that's not what's subject to these code. So I'll go back. So color temperature is not how bright something is. It's how bright your eye perceives it to be. But you could have the same lumen output for all three of these lights. could be exactly the same, but it's going to look different. So, as far as how this code amendment relates to the lighting on Sixth Street, as those are replaced, it would observe the color temperature.

By 2032, it definitely would require replacement. So the 2032 would only be for illuminated science. This would be affected immediate. That's what I was trying to think. Only for illuminated science. The 2032. Correct. It's only partially controlling light pollution which is the goal to begin with. Right.

Correct. Yeah. I mean these are really limited. We kind of looked at code um and without a specific directive. you know, this was kind of things that we identified is, well, these are small fixes that could improve it. I mean, if this is a conversation that we'd like to continue, maybe we add more could certainly do that. So, that's yeah, and then planning and zoning commission added the 2032 cutoff for the eliminated science. So, again, a lot of this is kind of a starting point conversation. So I I'm asking for a clarifying. So this says exterior lighting and signage. So would this include lighting in a parking lot?

Uh correct. So any going forward lighting would have to be 3,00 Kelvin or less going forward. So, I'm thinking of particularly there's a there's a a business in West Glenn that like caught my attention. I don't know how long it's been that way, but it's like their exterior lighting seems far brighter than our local ordinance. And so, how quickly do they have five years? So, again, the the 2032 is for the science. So, that's so we if we vote this in tonight, then somebody would be contacting them in a reasonable period of time and asking them to uh revise their lighting

bus signage. Yeah. So So not the parking lot. The like the parking lot signage as those lights these are these are lights. These are This is Yeah. So any lighting other than signage? Yes. as it would be replaced naturally over time when it is replaced it would need to be replaced at the lower color temperature temperature which wouldn't necessarily be lower lumens or less light fixtures right just color that's exactly that's so

I guess what I'm wondering is yeah that's what I was needing clarification on is how quickly we could see areas like that evolve because I was looking at that going there's a color temperature in there that's much more appealing than what I'm seeing so that would just like over the natural life. It wouldn't be anything that would happen quickly. Correct. And that's that's all I needed. That's all I need. That's all I needed. Nope. Thank you. I just was looking clarification on that. Thank you, Councelor Smith. Thank you. I turned you off, too. Let's do this again. I don't know what's going on. There you go. Green is green.

Thank you again. um kind of an auxiliary to councelor Zillinsk's question about net effect or or eventual effect of the lighting portion of this change and it actually as she posed it the effect of the whole lighting ordinance with or without changes. What exactly? My understanding of the history that 17 18 years ago we got our first lighting ordinance. It had a 10-year compliance due date for all lighting along about nine and a half years enough complaints came in that that grand or that roll back requirement was dropped by city council. what now is the threshold that existing lighting must come into compliance. Uh so generally new development and then um so you know green field sites like for example the hotel in west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west in Glennwood Meadows that would be all that lighting gets reviewed to code um and then also if you have a red redevelopment project that meets specific thresholds you do have to bring non-conforming things up to compliance but those are very specific thresholds

so not just we're going to replace our light bulbs this year but other redevelopment permitted activities would kick in this ordinance for existing businesses or existing rights as they make changes. Yes. If it triggers if if it they meet the threshold that they have to bring non-conforming things up to compliance then yes, but it would take a to see a communitywide effect the way the lighting standards are now. It would take a while.

Well, I understand it's take a while because it's taking 17 years and we're not there yet. Um the but that again that threshold can you give me a couple of examples of what a threshold would be that would that would bring the lighting into question for an existing operation a structural addition more than 500 square feet uh building elevation changes involving 50% more of the exterior walls. Um so again substantial additions kind of the the familiar sounding re redesign redevelopment things

um understanding that um it's possible to to um follow the principles of the dark sky international or whatever other standards might be out there without necessarily paying a fee without necessarily joining up, you can still follow their guidelines. How close are we to those guidelines with this ordinance, especially as it would be amended?

I would say this uh it brings us a little closer. Uh like color temperature is one thing where you see that in a dark sky model ordinance. A lot of the stuff that we do is very similar. Um even some of the stuff that's baked into like our sign code, um it lines up in a lot of ways. we're probably not to the level of that. Like if we were to apply for it, we probably would have to make additional changes. But these, especially the color temperature one does bring us a little closer in that direction.

And again, not advocating that that we necessarily get a membership card, but that we we make have the effects. um why not go wholehearted now and and bring in whatever all the changes that we necessary to get to those uh now publicly evolved standards

I think um directive partly and then also uh the community buyin uh because there are things that you know if you're a business you've had this signage you've had you know certain lighting on your property for a long time and you have to maybe remove that, alter it. Uh so you'll see so like town of Breenidge, they went down that path and had an initial amortization program that was supposed to end in 2022 and then in 2020 they bumped that out even further. Uh so it takes a lot of work. I mean you have to do a lot of audits of properties, figure out what lighting you have, not just on, you know, private property but public property. What does, you know, to Commissioner Small's point, what what does the city do for lighting? Um, so it's a it's a large lift uh for that official designation

and and that's that's very helpful and I understand that apologize I'm not real clear with my question knowing it's a big lift. Why not get all the weight on the lift that you can why not get in all the standard on on the code itself not on the implementation or the or the retroactive requirement. Why not put in all of the the international standards at once and so that as the evolution starts to happen, it's there.

I think that could be something that staff could consider. Uh if there was, you know, maybe again I think these are starting points if if the directive is to pursue that we could come back with additional code amendments. I I just want to say the changes that we propose do bring us to that level that other communities are adhering to um that that are recognized as dark sky communities. Um the issue of the designation um is a whole it's it's a whole another animal. Um it's certification by that group. There's cost involved with that. Um, and really, you know, we're trying to have or be armored with the the regulations that are needed to apply this to future changes and to um redevelopments in the future. Those will be dark sky compliant based on the regulations that we already have and are proposing.

Thank you both. That's and and I just want to I just want to be clear um nothing that we're proposing tonight is going to make us magically be a a dark sky community. um this and and we're not responsible for this per se. It would be a coordinated city effort. Um it's going to be a lot of outreach and education and buyin from the community. Folks taking their own steps to replace non-compliant lighting. Um folks creating a value for this in the community, spreading that information. It's not something we can codify. Nice. Nicely done. Thank you. Thank you. Um, councelor Small

Emory, the the uh dark sky comparison town photograph with the photos that you had there was was kind of instructive to me. Uh, primarily because of the view looking south through downtown Glennwood. If you turned that, if that view was taken 90 degrees to the west, I think it would be a a lot different outcome.

And so I guess I just if you look from that perspective, I'm not sure we need to do a whole lot more. It looks pretty good, right? Except just maybe right around the foreground there. But I think if you look 90 degrees to the west, it's going to be a different picture. So I guess my point is that it's it's a long a long journey and we we should pursue it. I agree. Okay. Thank you, Council Towns.

U just real quick question. Is there anything in here that would be, you know, there's been some issues or people have talked about it over the last few years, the cross that they light up on the on the mountain up there? There's nothing in here that would preclude them from continuing to do what they do or somebody could use that as ammunition to get rid of that. No, it's not in our jurisdiction. Oh, it's not? Okay, cool. And even if it were, it could be considered holiday lighting. That's fair. Thanks.

Any other questions? Okay, I'll see none. Thank you. Thank you, Emry. Uh um anybody from the public have any input on the lighting? We'll see none. We'll move on. Bring it back to council. Entertaining a motion in item 9, ordinance 202608. Mayor Prom Sinski. I move to approve ordinance 2026-08, an ordinance of the city of Columbia Springs, Colorado, amending our municipal code regarding the regulation of permitting of exterior lighting and signage based on

based on the staff report and the recommendation from planning and zoning and the finding defines. Thank you. I didn't have to say planning file CDA la. Good enough. Thank you. Motion to approve. Councelor Smith. Second. And a second. All of that is great. Yeah. Any more discussion? Councelor Smith. It is ever so appropriate that we get to consider this tonight as we are exactly midway in International Dark Sky Week. April 13 through 20

and of course you would know that. So that's fantastic. That is awesome. Okay. Any more discussion? It's also appropriate because as staff mentioned this goal of dark sky, however we gradually or or

technically define it, uh is mentioned in the comp plan is mentioned in the city council's own vision statement and um and it meets the criteria that planning and zoning carefully screened it with. So it's a just marvelous idea. I I think this helps bring the code itself into continuity with into into fulfillment of the five principles that are used generally for describing a dark sky community. Use light only if it's needed. Direct it where it's needed. have it no brighter than necessary only when needed and using warmer colors. We've explicitly done some changes that combined with what's already there do those things. This is this is a a rock and roll success. Urge approval. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more discussion? See none, I'll call for the question. It passes 70. Thank you, Ryan. Moving on to item 10 on the agenda, ordinance 202607, an ordinance of the city of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, reszoning seven parcels totaling 20.84 acres from Glenwood Springs Mall PUD to mixeduse M1 district. So, we we just a little thing, we did uh we did talk about the zoning. When was that? In October last year. So, this is the ordinance to follow. This is the ordinance to follow. We just it got missed on just getting it in and up to date. So

yeah, I thought Yeah, I know. I was say the same thing when when we were asked for an ordinance. I'm like, didn't we already do that? So you guys have already made the decision on this. This is the paperwork that goes with that decision, right? So Jim, please make a motion. Well, can't we do that? Yeah, you can do that. Council W. I move to approve ordinance number seven series 2026 ordinance city Glennwood Springs Colorado resoning seven parcels totaling 20.84 acres from Glenwood Springs Mall planned unit development to mixeduse corridor M1 district and might ask for public comment after a second. I can do that. Um we have a motion to approve out of nowhere. Very nice. Thank you. Uh councelor Shaker

second the motion and a second. um to approve this. Uh anybody from the public? We'll see none. No comments on that. So, I'll bring it back to us. Any discussion? I'll see none. I'll call for the question. Jim Hardle. Jim killed it. 70. Done. Stand up.

Thank you, Jim, anyway, for being here. All right. Excellent. Uh uh item 11, ordinance 202609, an ordinance city Glennwood Springs, Colorado, amending the Glenwood Springs Municipal Code regarding the regulation and permitting of landscaping, screening, and fencing. Planning file CDA 00026-2026. Jim's still here. That must be your file as well. That's mine. Okay. Thank you. I'm just seeing what I can do to expand this a little bit more. Were you hoping to follow that first act?

I'm waiting for a motion. So, yeah, this side. Oh, that's not it. Pretty good. Don't hack it up. You're doing so good. Not bad.

It gets much better than that with this. Here we go. Maybe. Okay. Thanks for being here this evening. Jim Marcastle, Community Development. Uh in front of you this evening is ordinance uh pertaining to redline changes for uh municipal code 70450 landscape landscaping screening and fencing. uh in front of you this evening tonight uh under this code uh just to be aware your role uh is to consider the recommendation of the planning and zoning commission which met on March 24th. They recommended approval with one recommendation uh concerning addressing tree separations uh spacing distances. You'll see those noted in yellow throughout this presentation with the original red lines which they saw. There are three sets of rationale for the changes. Uh one of those is uh staff initiated changes that cleans up misspellings, errors, clarifications, breakdowns of of full paragraphs which uh have led to uh confusion. So cleaning those up is I'll um discuss as we move along. The second is Senate Bill 2405. uh that uh its secondary name was prohibit landscape practices for water conservation. At the state level, it was uh created and and passed in 24 uh as a a way of addressing impacts of climate change and increased water demands limiting specific uses of water intensive grass. Prohibit non-functional turf and artificial artificial turf and invasive species plant species for new and redevelopment projects. This does not pertain to uh existing development

as we saw within the uh lighting code a moment ago. Uh as those come forward and and do what they do. Um you would find there's a confusion there because that that redevelopment would apply to them. But uh for existing developments, there's nothing that we can do or would do to uh encourage them to do anything different other than the initiatives. And you're looking a little confused. So maybe So yeah, we have we have citywide initiatives with turf buyback and uh water

uh schedules and and plants that are drought tolerant. Yes. So uh we encourage those, but uh p this doesn't apply to private residential lots. Uh the third item is the Colorado wildfire resiliency code uh brought forward uh last year by the wildfire resiliency code board. Uh it is a a new code applies to new construction exterior alterations and additions within the wildfire wildland urban interface. Uh the code's purpose is to establish regulations for safeguarding life and property limiting that exposure to wild fire wildland fires spreading to and from structures. uh and its adoption is focusing on critical response to increasing wildlife wildfire risk as we've seen in the news in the last couple of years uh with the added intention of helping communities maintain insurability of homes. There are 11 groups and I'll go through them fairly quickly. At the top there you'll see in blue uh which initiative applies. This one is all staff initiated. It's cleaning up the exemptions, making clear what we've always uh worked for and thought the code approved to begin with in terms of exemptions. However, still adhering to wild uh water efficiency, landscape standards, for example, streetscape requirements and such. If you have any questions along the way, sure.

Just clean it up. Give me the microphone. Sorry. Thank you. Since you're cleaning it up under 2A, do you want that to be exempt? Ex accept or exempt? Uh, uses shall be exempt. I should be exempt.

Gotcha. Thank you. Uh, group number two is a a fallout from the Senate Bill Five. It identifies the idea that although artificial uh trees, shrubs, turf, and plants should not be used to satisfy any of the requirements of the section, artificial turf could be used to satisfi satisfy the section if it were a functional uh use similar to functional turf. Is it going to be used for a relevant activity type? Uh activity appropriate dimensions. uh the frequency of the use is considered and the presence of facilities or other recreational amenities around it would support it. Although it is um and this was brought to our attention by a group that helped us review our our code, it's something that should be allowed at this point or considered as it uh encourages zero water for this particular use. Uh the second one down below uh E also is Senate Bill 5 initiated or uh supported. Uh it identifies plants to be used in all planting uh scenarios uh to be used from Garfield uh sorry uh city of of Glenwood Springs Parks and Recreate Recreation Department landscape plant species guides. There are several of them out there and they they all have drought tolerant a mix of drought tolerant repairarian species um and those are are to be utilized. The uh Garfield County vegetation management department has a current noxious weed list and that identifies things like Siberian and Chinese el, Russian olive and tamarisk which should which shall not be planted. Group number three is a combination of

all three initiatives. Uh mulch, we just broke it out into uh two sections. Uh but then we identified from the wildfire resiliency code uh a section that indicated that organic mulch shall not be utilized within 5t of a structure uh nor other other plantings. Uh plant selection grouping was clear cleaned up with a number of items there. Uh item I identify drought tolerant as drought tolerant is used on those plant species guides and not water efficiency. And then hydro zones uh section A, B, C and D was broken out for clarity and identification of u designations within those hydro zones to be using the landscape guides. Number four is all based on the wildfire resiliency code. Those four sections identified uh plants not to be uh placed within that 5 ft of the building. Whoop, excuse me. Uh and then number four was indicating the shrub locations need to be 10 foot uh greater away from uh or greater away from adjacent tree uh branches. uh the suggestion from the planning and zoning commission was to also identify distances of uh planted trees and full growth of those trees. So that's that's where these two sections uh two and three are coming from which which which indicates that that should be that distance should be considered upon planting based on the maturity and expectation and growth of the plant and also for pruning. Uh this section is clarifying the idea that that separation

for trees in the streetscape should not include the 30-foot based uh on center for location of planting for those trees and refers back to the one uh the section that I just talked about and maintaining those separations for trees. Uh, this one clarifies what should be used for amenities that would be in in designing other amenities in the downtown area uh using the the Glennwood Springs downtown streetscape manual uh for refuge container enclosures. And did I mention that that uh this one was a staff initiated as well as this one? refuge containers uh should have and we have been acting uh for the for the last several years uh in concert of uh requiring vegetation around those to help screen when they are in certain locations viewed from the public right away. Uh and those those plantings shall be of a sufficient mature height to offer an an opaque uh permanent year- round screening that does not really indicate what it is. Uh this group eight, this is staff initiated. Also the screening group on the right as you see there, that's that's ground um mechanical units. I put that in there to help break apart what it is we don't have pictures for. And that is uh roof mounted equipment which we don't we have always screened and used a variety of of movements to help maintain that they are not visible uh from the general public in residential and rightaway areas. This section just clearly identifies exterior side um mounted mechanical and utility equipment. So that's now including those uh air conditioning units, um conduits,

any other kind of mechanical equipment that that is located on the side of a building. If that becomes difficult to to screen, then it could be moved up to the top or brought down to the base. But if you have a multi- um level building, you might find that you you have to put those uh amenities on the side. This one is a wildfire resiliency code addition. Uh, all fencing within 8t of a structure shall be constructed with non-combustible or ignition resistant materials. That would just be within that 8 ft. And then as the fence continues on, then they could move back to uh materials that are allowed by code that are seen up above. Uh this section just clearly identifies the vegetation that we're talking about be uh located within the recession to help break up that that wall. And that is what the retaining uh wall design uh cutout is for. That's a misspelling that's corrected. The five criteria for text code amendment are listed right here, but I I also have them broken down on the next several pages. Uh the first one indicates that uh the proposal for code amendment in front of you this evening is consistent with the comprehensive plan that's the first section up above and it does uh go to quite a a length to foster and protect vibrant diverse safe and well-connected uh neighborhoods. It secondarily supports public utilities and services and how we apply some of those. Uh the second section down below, energy and climate action plan, the ECAP, uh is a municipalbased initiative as you know, but what it is that we're we're proposing within these uh code changes tonight do support the ECAP. Uh it does not conflict with other provisions of the code. uh it it is necessary to address a demonstrated community need and those needs are a

list of seven based on the purpose that is stated in the code for landscaping screening and fencing. Uh it's necessary to respond to substantial changes as we talked about. One is a state bill, one is a code brought about and approved at the state level and the other one are needed changes and that translate on our level and that that translates to it being consistent with the general purposes and intent of the code with the modifications the ECAP uh our Senate bill and Colorado wildfire resiliency code outside of uh what we've talked about previously public notice uh none has been uh received on it. It was noticed correctly for uh the previous meeting in front of the PNZ. Those dates for this meeting are not on there. Uh this evening you are acting on a recommendation from the planning zoning commission which is an approval. uh this evening. You can approve, approve with conditions, deny or continue the hearing based on specific information that will help you come to a a decision. Uh for that action one code item, staff does recommend approval. Uh and therefore, as outlined with the suggestion motion motion as follows, yellowed making sure that you were clear that it it does have the items that were suggested by PNZ and applied suggested findings. as we've already talked and talked about and an alternative motion to deny is there for you. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions that you have.

All right. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for the information. Any questions? We'll see none. Great. Thank you. Um, anybody from the public? Also see none. Bring it back to council and entertaining a motion. And I was just going to say the ordinance that's in the packet I believe covers all of the changes recommended by the planning commission as well.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Um item 11, ordinance 20269. Uh, I recommend approval of ordinance 20 2609, ordinance of city of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, amending the Glenwood Springs Municipal Code regarding the regulation and permitting of landscaping screening and fencing planning file CDA 00026-2026.

Based on the findings based on the findings. Okay. Thank you. Excellent. and LA. We have a motion to approve and Mayor Pen I second and a second. Any more discussion? Councelor Smith just an wording Nick I think this what's read what's here and what councelor Johnson just read was that we're moving to recommend approval. Aren't we moving to actually approve? Yeah. Yes. If I said it wrong then you were just reading what was there. I understood as you would want to approve. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Any more discussion? See none, I'll call for the question.

It passes 70. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you, Jim, for being here. And I've been asked to do a quick recess for a restroom break. So, we'll be back in five minutes.

still still April 16th. Uh I don't know what time it is. Yeah, 8:44 this time. We're doing item 12, rightway and grading permit code changes. Ryan Gordon, please. Uh good evening. Ryan Gordon, city engineer. Just a a real quick um clarification. So, this is some upgrades um revisions to the actual permit. So, it's not the code in the code provision, but some of the the that was my mistake in the title of that agenda item. Okay.

We did have a work session about this several weeks ago and this is kind of update to that and kind of run through this on some of the items that we want. So, um in engineering, we have a couple different permits. We have a grading permit. Generally speaking, that grading permit um allows the city staff to review grading on all pieces of property to make sure the grading doesn't affect the adjacent properties. Um we require a grading permit if you're if you're grading more than 200 square feet and along with anything a construction management plan just kind of talking about how you're managing erosion and drainage and material storage. Um just to note, anything larger than one acre um by law requires a state storm water permit. So this does not apply to to those larger projects. Um again, we have a rightaway permit. So this permit uh allows the city to understand, control, and then administer any work that occurs within the city's right of way. Um we require a rightaway permit if there's obstructions or work that occurs within rightway. So that includes um you know, construction activities and whatnot. What this doesn't cover and what we don't require is is let's say very short-term usages of the rightaway. A delivery vehicle for instance or a landscaping company who has a trailer and then goes and mows a lawn. That does not require a right of way permit. Um with a rightaway permit, we ask for a traffic control plan. Um again, so we can manage how traffic is going to be functioning on a city uh city street or city road. So why are we doing what are we doing this? a few a few requirements um or a few things that we want to update. Um generally speaking, we want to simplify how the fees are calculated. This is more pertinent to the rightway um the the rightaway permit. Currently, the rightaway permit has a calculation on the the amount of square footage of asphalt you're disturbing or linear footage of curb and gutter and whatnot. Um we're kind of going away with that in a much simpler process and I'll I'll go into that. Um the the main thing is we're updating the fees to kind of reflect current times. um meaning that

how much time and effort it takes staff to administer these fees. So right now um say for grading permits for instance u they're generally kind of um that doesn't really reflect the length of time it takes in effort for a larger project to review and administer. Right? So we're trying to to correct some of those deficiencies. Um on the rightway fees we are looking to increase how much it costs essentially to rent our right of way. Right? So think of a construction project that is taking up many parking spots. We are trying to make it such that they have a little more skin in the game so to speak. Um we currently only so the currently the fees have uh a couple hours in there for inspection in the right of way. There's nothing in there that that that talks about reinspection. So, what we see and know what's happening quite a bit is is a contractor comes out and does something, doesn't do it quite right, and then we have to come back a time or two. Um, again, it takes time for the city staff to do those revisits. So, we want to make sure that we are capturing uh effectively that extra time that city staff is coming out to reinspect projects. Um, we provided a better mechanism to enforce non-compliance. Right now, there are some items in there on red tagging and some whatever else, but we actually have dollar amounts and some more enforcement mechanisms in case people aren't following the rules. Uh, our currently our permits don't have expiration dates. Um, we have a sunset provision. So, now they will expire requiring people to come back and get new ones if their project goes on for many many years. So, I'm going to go through really some very very simple cost examples of before and after to get a sense of of kind of what we're doing. So grading permits, they're based on a square footage of land disturbed, moved around, right? So um smaller projects, you can look on the screen, say a,000 square feet. Right now it's 170 bucks. The new one is a is a h

100red bucks, right? So what we're trying to do again is shift the burden if you're doing more grading as opposed to simple projects at your home. Medium projects, let's say 5,000 square feet, it's about the same, 290 up to 300 bucks. So larger projects is kind of where it goes up, right? So again, a 20,000 foot effort right now in the in the permit cost you 650. That's going to cost you 1,500 bucks um moving forward. Again, the reason why those larger projects do require a little more time and effort on on staff to administer and go out and check and make sure things are going correctly. Um so the penalties I mentioned before. So, right now, uh, if you don't have a a a a a permit, there's a $0 penalty there. We do we do check on folks and make them come up to up to compliance. Um, what we're doing now is we're saying it's $150 per day. Again, we're really trying to encourage and force people to really uh, you know, follow the rules so we can, you know, m make sure things are going correctly. um failure to comply with our construction management plan, the CNP. Um same thing about 100 100 bucks per day and and we're we've we've I think we've done a good job at staff level of working with with the homeowner contractors, right, of of of right size for the project. So the CMP plan doesn't have to be something that you hire a contractor or an engineer to do. We just ask you to put some thought and effort to it. But again, we want to see this so we know you're actually thinking about how your project is being managed. Oh, so that's kind of that's kind of where we are with with the grading permit. Uh looking on to the rightway permit. So again, currently for obstruction only, right? So this is blocking a parking spot. Um you know, using using the right of way. Um right now it's a flat $50 fee period. So, what we're asking is in if you're in the the GI in the downtown

area, it's going to cost you $250 per month per parking space. Again, we've seen instances in the past where if you're downtown, you pay $50. You can basically take as much space as you want for as long as you want. Um, we we we think there should be more of requirement to kind of pay for your space. Um, we do have in the rightway permit and in the code um that you can't store things like rolloff dumpsters and construction materials. So, this would be for parking spaces or whatever whatever else. Uh, outside of the GD, we're just simply saying, "Hey, 50 bucks per space per month, recognizing that you're on a a neighborhood street. It's not quite as um uh uh uh obtrusive, so to speak, right? But again, we are trying to encourage people to stay out of the out of the city roads in the rightway when they're doing doing their construction projects. Boring permits are about the same. That's if you're going in there doing a a conduit bore. So that's that's basically the same. We've adjusted it slightly. Um so penalties if you you operate without a without a permit currently. The first time you do it, you get red tagged and there's a warning and you get up you get a talking to by the engineering department. What we're saying now is if you don't come in and get a permit, uh it's going to cost you 250 bucks per day. We want you to fix that right away. Um again, if we go back to the current one there, there it it it elevates, right? So the second time it's a red tag and then $50, the third one is a red tag and a $500 fee. What we're trying to do is encourage uh doing the correct thing to start with as opposed to having to go over and over and over again and have these conversations. Um, in the current one, not having a traffic control plan doesn't carry any sort of penalty. Um, we will, again, on on on the new one, we want to have a $250 penalty per day. Um, again, this is really, you know, public safety, you know, getting people moved around, right? So, we want to make sure that you come in and and really are thinking about your project. Um, again,

one of the things, so in and, you know, we want to have these these roads open um by 7 p.m. if you have a road shutdown. So, currently there's there's no fee at all. um if if you don't follow that, what we want to do is is, you know, again, get the contractor to to get things open. So, we're going to charge you a h 100red bucks per hour um if you're not getting wrapped up by by 7:00 p.m. at the end of the day. So, the other thing I mentioned is an inspection fee. So, our current one includes um one two-hour inspection per discipline. So, in engineering, um that's the engineering um inspector who goes out and make sure that you're following the rules on how you build your curb and gutter and your sidewalk and your asphalt. Also, on both the water, wastewater, and electrical um staff is those folks to inspect for those disciplines. Um the current one does not have an additional cost or a fee for reinspection. As I mentioned, we seem to having some issues with many many times going back essentially city staff being the QAQC person or the person making sure you're doing the right work correctly. Um so now we're going to have some reinspection fees if if we have to come out there again. So again, the engineering inspector, if we come out again, 65 bucks per hour. Um city engineer assistance engineer needing to go out there for 75. water and wastewater superintendent $75 an hour and the electric superintendent 110 it's supposed to be 110 per hour. So that's generally what we want to do is to bring this I'm going to say back into let let's say current time so to speak. Um I think one thing I want to mention that is in our code but it wasn't on my slides is our our intention here isn't just to find people to to to the ears. we will be working with with folks if they're coming in and they make a mistake. We're not simply going to be just charging them, you know, you know, over and over again, right? We we definitely want compliance. Um, and so we definitely

have some leniency of, hey, everybody makes mistakes, some oversightes. If one of us is redoing our our lawn and doesn't realize we need a grading permit, it's not something we're going to come down with the hammer. This is really a way of of again getting people sort of to to comply with our current standards. So with that, I'll open it up for discussion. Thank you, Ryan. And we'll start with council.

So Ryan, if somebody is found to be in violation of a grading permit of a thousand square feet or so on a Thursday afternoon, and they're subject to a $250 non-compliant fee for not having the permit. and they came in Friday to get the permit. They probably couldn't get it until Monday. So, what is their fine going to be? $750 or $250 or

So, so I I would say we have the discretion in in the department per our chapter one of engineering standards of having some leniency or let let's say you know some some some logic. So depending on on on what's going on, if it's a first-time offender, if it's a first-time someone of like, "Hey man, I just didn't think about it," we would certainly wave those fees, right? But this is a a repeat offender or whatnot, then we would impose those fees. So So if that came in on Thursday, if we found out Thursday afternoon, um you know, we wouldn't be charging for a Saturday and Sunday. It's just working days. Um and a lot of it too is to get them to come into compliance. So if they've came into compliance, again, we have the discretion to to wave those fees. Because the building department guys think their only authority is the more severe penalty or the more severe interpretation of what's written is what they told us there. They have no they have no flexibility only more stringent requirements. we we do we do have some abilities to to be a little more lenient in the engineering code on on on some of these items that are written in there and and it's kind of set at the discretion of the city engineer. So again, we will look on a case- by case basis and really determine um if if we really need to to to address it or if it's something that's relatively simple to correct.

The building department wouldn't be involved in any of this then only the engineering department. So BU building department's in community development, not engineering. And and again, so so we as engineering are not looking at what goes on with the building. We're looking at what's going on with with site drainage or site grading and site drainage and then what works in what happens in the actual right of way. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Council Townsley. So, this brought up an interesting thing that I thought of two weeks ago, and I when when they go in to put that building in on Second Street, the one that just got approved that it's going to have three floors of residences above the 8th Street. 8th Street. Yeah. 200 Eth Street.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When that goes in, what's what's the take? I mean, what's going to happen and how are we going to monitor that so that they don't come around? There's going to be a huge number of people working on that. That's almost a zero lot line building. What What's going to happen? We we know are they going to just say, "Okay, it's 250 bucks a month to take up every spot in downtown Glenwood and we built that into our piece or how are we going to keep them from, you know, the workers have to have their trucks there? How are they going to stage that? How are we going to keep our whole downtown from just being sure basically buried by that project?"

Yeah, that's that's that that's a good question. So, I think first off, my my response would be is is is having discussions with that contractor, that owner prior to their project going up. And we've started to have those discussions on like how are they going to do this? Are they going to have a crane? Where is the crane going to be? What's their plan for obstructing or keeping, let's say, the alleyway open, keeping the sidewalks open? Right? So, we're going to try to be proactively in working with these projects that have larger disturbances or larger um impacts to downtown. So, our goal is is is is not to allow them or not to have them take up every parking spot and and whatnot. Um, I see where you're going and and I guess this permit probably doesn't really address say a massive um impact like that and that's maybe something we're going to have to to to look at. But again, what my response would be is is our goal is to have these conversations with developers and contractors as they're coming in with building permits and looking to get the rightaway permits to make sure that we don't have to we don't have that large of an impact. I will say with that individual project so far, we've had discussions on, you know, where are your guys coming in and parking? Are you car pooling, van pooling, are they parking um in downtown areas of the neighborhoods? You know, material delivery, that kind of stuff. So, we're trying to work proactively such that we don't have to get to that point.

Okay. I just it it seems like that's one that could get out of hand really quickly. So, hopefully, you know, if you need to adjust anything now, it'd be easier to adjust it before they started than after. Agreed. I have no expertise in that other than it just seems to me like that's going to be a cluster for a long time.

And I and I will say council towns on on the right of way permit and how they they present it, right? we have the opportunity to say if they say hey look we want 20 parking spots we can turn around and say that is a great request we're not giving you any of them right so there is that opportunity but you know and so approving what they submit is is part of the process so if they ask for again I'm outlandish request we want the whole block of 8th street to be ours for construction we are not going to allow that to happen so again it's kind of what we approve and and and what they're asking for and that That's kind of how that's going to balance out.

Thank you, Mayor Prom Solinski. So, on the grading permit, you said something about, you know, doing a lawn project. So, I'm going to use myself as an example. I have like a desire to take out some flower beds, take out some of my lawn, and I want to put in some mulch and some hardscaping and some things like that. I'm not really doing a ton. Like I'm probably digging down. I don't have irrigation in my front yard. Does that require like that to me is just like gardening. Like I shouldn't have to get a permit for that, right? But it might be my whole front yard.

Yep. So the engineering standards requires that if you're disturbing 200 square feet or more that you come and talk to us and get a permit. Got it.

So that's a base fee of $125. Really? And so and so really the point of the grading permit and why we ask this is um under you know you know state of Colorado law you cannot negatively affect your neighbor and this has happened before of where someone makes these minor changes and all of a sudden your runoff goes onto your neighbor and then has some sort of impact. Right? So this this allows us the opportunity of again, you know, for these smaller projects of of really just a quick snapshot of saying, "Hey, look, we see what you're doing. It's not a big deal. You know, you didn't create a giant, you know, concrete slle that went into your neighbor's, you know, basement window type stuff, right? So it's a way of us to really making sure that um um we're not creating problems outside of what's going on in existing issues. And this would be appropriate for both the the front yard and the rear yard.

Yeah. And and again, we're not going around and jumping over fences and looking what everybody's doing. So, this is kind of to make sure again that neighbors are playing playing fairly. So, it's um kind of like an honor system because honestly, you're not going to see what's going on in somebody's backyard, but maybe I know what's going in my neighbor's backyard. And so, then Yeah. So again, it's kind of a mechanism too that if if you see your neighbor doing something you might know a lease agent. Yeah. Right. I'm just trying to understand kind of the um so so it's it overall the grading permit is a mechanism to protect you from your neighbors or vice versa. Right. So

if you're changing the the grade of things, not if you're just going in there and like just redoing a planting or laying side where your grass had died. That's correct. Okay. I I was confused when you said something about lawn. That's where you lost me. Disturbing disturbing ground of 200 square feet or more. But it's like the surface of the ground, not like changing the grade. Like that's that's what I that's what I'm trying to understand. But but but again it is a mechanism to again to protect again if if your neighbor is doing something and at the end of the project it is causing a problem for you. We can go back and say hey did you pull a grading permit to show us that you're not causing a problem got it

to your neighbors. And if they are then we can go back and and and say hey look you should have pulled a grading permit there is a problem. most likely going to come into effect when there's a problem as like a mitigation tool rather than

on on these on these small scale ones. That's that's again why we wanted to to to make these smaller type projects a really lowcost entry point because again we want you know and again it's kind of a a a thing of hey can you city can you kind of look over my shoulder is this going to be a problem and and and it and it kind of sounds a little bit silly but we have had issues um even since I've been here the last couple three years where you've done something someone has done something on their lot line yeah thinking hey look this is just a a nothing burger and all of a sudden there is something that causes drainage or something else to, you know, to affect your neighbors.

It makes sense. And then how would how are most residents of Glenwood Springs going to become aware of these requirements? So these these have been on the books for a long time and I had no clue. Um that's what I'm saying. Like I'm like I garden regularly. I you know what I'm like I'm just curious how it to me it doesn't seem common that you would be pulling a permit for that type of work. So I'm just curious how one would when code enforcement has nothing better to do and they see you're digging in your yard. Yeah,

that that is one mechanism on how h how to do that and then it's it's it's yeah just kind of being personally responsible and again on these like I said lots of times too someone will come in and be like hey someone told me I had to get a grading permit. I'm super sorry. It's not like you've been doing this for five days so all of a sudden five five times 250 cut us a check for a thousand bucks right now. It's like, "Hey, we get it. Let's just clean this up and make sure we're we're all on the same page." Got it. All right. Cool. Thank you. So So just a quick followup before we go to Council Shack. Does this require a drawing? No, it it it does not. It what what it does require is a construction management plan and and so or a thousand square feet.

So a a drawing you can come in on a piece of paper on the back of the napkin, sketch it up and say, "This is what we're doing." Again, a a drawing can say, "Hey, look, if we're changing the grade from this to this, right? That that drawing will will tell us what you're doing." And and again, that that drawing will will help us if you're storing if you're doing, let's say, 1,000 square feet and you are pouring new concrete. We want to make sure that you are planning correctly for your your material storage, right? That you're not going to be dumping a bunch of materials into the storm drain that gets eventually to the river. So again, it's it's a way of having the applicant put just a little bit of thought, and we're not asking for an engineer drawing from a stamped engineer or anything like that, but it's like, hey, I'm I'm I'm doing this over here. And if it's a a planter bed, we wouldn't be asking you to do anything. But again, if you are removing lawn, putting in a concrete patio, we want to see kind of what you're doing to see the impacts.

Okay? But it mainly if the grading changes if if you just replace something and put a new thing there, same grade, you don't have to do a thing again. Yeah, we read every one of these and it's a case by case basis. So if you come in and say, "Hey, look, I am taking out my yard yard, a thousand square feet of yard, putting in flowers." Okay, that seems pretty straightforward. So we would say, "Wonderful. Thank you very much. Here's your permit. Go and Oh, it still requires a permit." Correct. Okay. Right. 200 200 10 by 20. Okay. All right. Council shack. Thank you.

So I appreciate Ryan the the direction or the intent to say hey smaller residential we'll keep the prices down. I'm thinking of a personal example if I was reading correctly about boring and the rightway. So had a had a waterline replacement. You might have been aware of it. I know. And the the the amount of space under the rightway, okay, to the curb stop basically, not the not our lawn was, let's say, for argument sake, 10 ft, which would have cost $5. I'm reading this, it would automatically cost $500 no matter how much of the rightway is being bored under. Is that correct?

Yeah, that that that would that would be correct, right? again. So, so before the way the right of way permit was was calculated was on a quantity based on the amount of material you're removing from the rightway and then putting it back. And so our opinion is, you know, this is not necessarily boring, but let's say you replaced, but I'm sorry, I'm just talking specifically about boring that involves no surface displacement whatsoever.

Be be aware that that the boring includes some additional information. Right? If you're going to bore, you're going to have to tell us, are there other obstructions in the way? Is there a gas line? Is there other water lines? Is there a sewer line? So, you're going to have to locate that material. So, while the boring fee for the permit may be minor, there is a lot more that goes into it to ensure that you're not going to disturb other elements within the right of way. But the boring fee goes up to $500 no matter what. If I read it correctly, as opposed to That is correct. Yeah. It would have been less than $10. Well, before let me see what was the before.

Fine. I'm good. That's all right. I just wanted to make sure I understood it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, Council Smith? Thank you, Ryan. In describing the rideway permit fees, um you described that as connected to parking spa, at least connected in part to parking spaces lost during the project. Where does that money go? And is that destination for the money something that enhances parking somewhere else?

It's a good question on where that goes. I And and Steve, do you know where that go? I I should uh I I should know that. I don't know where I I think it goes back into our is it the general fund for engineering fees? Yes, engineering is in the general fund. Correct. So, so Council Smith, what what that does is it doesn't enhance parking elsewhere. What it does is it encourages a project to not take up right to way unless they have to. So, it's a disincentive or or efficiency

in correct. And again, we've seen projects in the downtown core that with $50 have consumed a section of right of way for the better part of a year or more. that that disincentive seems to make probably enough sense on its own. It would be elegant if the money went into say the fund to maintain the downtown parking garage or something related. But

and and I will say as an example, you you look up to places like, you know, city of Aspen, I think they charge um I think it's I think it's $500 per month per parking space. So, not to say that we're comparing to Aspen, but again, we're trying to encourage people to think uh uh more thoughtfully how their project is executed and what impact it has on the right of way. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? All right, we'll see none. Thank you, Ryan. Don't go too far, I have a feeling. Um, anybody from the public like to comment on this item? See none. Closed public portion. I'll bring it back to council for an action. Um item 12, right ofway and grading permit fee changes, not code changes, feed changes. Council Wymer. So Ryan, what I what I would what I'm thinking about asking or proposing here is to respectfully send you back to do some more work on this. um that that I think changing or or or highlighting the the fees on these things is bringing to attention at least at least for me and I think some others some some libertarian urges to live and let live on some of these things. So, a 200 square f foot sawed to dirt garden as the example that we've been using tonight should never even bother you. and and and I'm I want you to to disagree with me if if if you think you know I'm just speaking ignorantly here, but um I I think there's room in here for some language that if we're if we're changing from non to permeable, for instance, right, or we're we're adjusting slope or we're we're doing some of those other things that you are rightly concerned about, I'm all for it. But if I'm, and again, the example we've been using, but I think it's a good highlight. If I'm just going from sod to a flower bed and

it's and it's 300 300 square feet in my backyard, um, I think it I think it should not require even in hindsight, you know, did you get did you get a permit for that? you're looking at 125 bucks. You're looking at you know this is something I want to do tomorrow and you know because it's going to be nice weather and now you know you it's just not how it's not in the nature the spirit of I think it's not in keeping of the spirit of some of the things that we're trying to not worry about and and others that we are trying to worry about. Is

that making any sense? I I I I see. Hang on. Hang on a second. This This was a motion to continue. I still need a second. I've not I've not made a motion yet. Oh, you haven't? No, I I'm I've tossed this out as kind of where clarification. It's a bit It's a bit of a clarif that that is I guess my and thank you for that because so then my question would be Ryan is there is there root is there language is there room in this where you think you could if this were to go forward, make us happy with some of these issues but still satisfy your engineering mandate.

I I I I think there probably are councelor Wymer again where where again the mechanism why this is in here is to ensure that one property isn't negatively affecting another. And I and so I think we everyone supports that. We can probably figure that out. I I will say things like the turf removal program, right, which you go from sod to landscaping, right, does kind of accomplish that. And does that's if I want to submit to the to the program. That That's right. If I just want to pull sod out and I don't care about the two bucks per square foot or whatever it is, again, that never hits your radar.

So, yeah, I can I can go back and and and and see if maybe we can define better what is under that category. Can I draw a line between what's copathetic and what needs to come to to your desk because it it it's not just about square footage. I think it's about how we are affecting you know permeability you know you know my neighbors on a Saturday are not going to be out there changing the grade of their front yard. you know,

there are and I guess my counter to that would be a disturbing of a if you ripped up your lawn and left it dirt. Not saying that's what you're doing, but as an example, there is a storm water erosion issue that needs to be addressed. Okay. Again, if if you're just leaving it bare, um there's very likely going to be runoff from a major storm that is going to create a problem. I think that's a great that's a great point

and and so that that is again one of the reasons why we would look at that. We'd come back and if if you submitted that permit and said, "Hey, look, I got 500 square feet. I'm going from grass to dirt." We'd come back and say, "I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do." And the reason would be because what happens when you have runoff and then you have a bunch of dirt that gets in the storm drain system.

On one hand, I think I should totally be allowed to go from from grass to dirt. It's my yard. I should be able to do whatever I want with it. But if there is in all honesty, right, but if there's guidelines, you know, you need to put up a barrier, you need to, you know, because you're just going to be a big dirt patch out there again. And again, it it may be trying to like um please me please some of my irrational thinking here. I feel very rational in what I'm asking. Um so, so again, I'm asking, do you think there's room in the language? Sounds like maybe there is. Um I also don't want to blow this. This doesn't need to be a 45m minute work. Like I'm not asking for You know what I mean? And I could be the only one up here feeling this way as well. Um, but I've already taken up that's why you should make a motion rationale.

Yeah. I mean, I I just spipp I think there could be a way of of writing into whether it's the permit or the standards of um realized erosion or whatever erosion potential could there could be another layer there of of of something. So, I I I see where you're coming from. Um, I'm going to give that some thought to see how we can weave that in there. So, I propose inappropriate. I propose I move um that we uh we we we respectfully send Ryan back to his to his uh his drawing board to to uh to to continue this to another another discussion time another time. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion to continue this item.

Sure. Oh yeah, Mayor Roinski, is it possible to approve the right of way fees and then revisit the grading permit revisions? I would say yes. Okay. So I would say too actually. Yeah. So hang on. Let's see what council Wymer. So, amend amended motion to to accept uh all of the portions that Ryan's presented related to right away. Let's let's let's do two actions. Let's do one for the rightway and then but not in one motion.

How else do we separate it? It's one thing. I have to separate it. But I know but we got you have a motion standing to continue this entire item to to So amending my motion, Mr. Mayor, respectfully, I'm sorry, it's 9 It's 9:20. I know. Um, uh, I move to, uh, accept, uh, uh, the recommendations from Ryan Gordon related to rightway materials, the the his permitting and fees and such, and to continue the discussion.

One Okay. Yeah. You're the mayor. What should I do, sir? Keep going. Okay. Like, honestly, what I I if it was me, I'd prefer to split it up and have a clean one on right ofway moving forward as approval if that's what you want to do. And the second one, we do a continuance on the second part, which is the grading. I don't know how to do that in two motions. You just you do you do them in two motions. My first motion would be to approve the right of way and then and then vote on this and then do the second. I move to continue uh recommendations as presented related to rightaway fees and right away. I said approve. No, you said

good lord. I'm so sorry. I move to approve the recommendations as presented as they relate to the rightway fees and etc. Excellent. That's a motion to approve. We took it apart. Everybody understands. Now I need the second for that motion. Uh, councelor Small, I'm looking for I'll second. Thank you. So, just clear we

we we took it apart because I think we see some value in some of this. Then we have a motion to approve the right ofway fee structure. Any discussion? Council Towns. So since we're since we are kind of looking at redoing some of this, is there any value at all going back to my issue of that that building that's going to go up on 8th Street of saying, you know, okay, $250 for a parking spot for a month if you have one spot or you've taken this up because again, if you know, when you mentioned that you've seen contractors take up a spot for an entire year, if we have a contractor that's taking up more than X number of spots, it's say it's four or it's whatever whatever that is. We up that fee to a larger amount to really put some teeth in to where they don't take over our downtown parking.

Well, you really I mean the motion stands you need to appeal to I'm asking if that would value to him as a way to control.

Okay. Yeah, I think that um if I could make his suggestion just to kind of navigate through this um I think there's probably some value in taking a look at that. I think we have a little time to take another um bite of the apple because fees are a resolution set um kind of you know one motion kind of setting process. I think um so I think maybe moving forward with what we have and taking a hard look at how we do um kind of right away and and project permitting when they're on a larger scale that I don't think we can do on the fly tonight. Yeah. So I I it seems like the continuence of both is probably appropriate at this time

is where I'm hearing from you guys. Only if he made the motion to approve and it's been second. So I think bring back that one. You can come back with it. All right. I got you. We can fail the motion. Right. We can do that too. So any more discussion on the first part of the rightway approval motion? If I see none, I'll call for the question.

No. Councelor Townsley. Yes, Mayor Prom Zlinsky. Yes, Mayor Dame. Yes, Councelor Wymer. Well, I can see it. You might be making it up. I was gonna say we're like, I don't know. I saw it first. Anyway, no. Councelor Townsley. Yes, Mayor Prom Zalinsky. Yes, Mayor Dame. Yes, councelor Wymer. No, Councelor Schmall. Yes, Councelor Smith. Yes, councelor Shaker. It passes 52. Thank you, Ryan. And just a quick clarification to Carl, if we want to revisit councelor Poundsley's suggestion, we can come back at the next one and say, "Hey, look, we want to look at impact

and and I'm thinking that we may want to tweak the engineering standards a little bit to address specific um nothing more projectbased process rather than just a the rightway permit only. So council tends I agree with your your sentiment. So we'll take a look at that. That's

excellent. Everybody gets what they want. Perfect. So second part grading permit fee changes entertaining a motion. Councelor Wymer. So, I move to continue to a later date with uh Ryan's recommendations as they relate to grading uh the fees and the square footages and the the needs for permits and those sorts of thing. Um as we as we talked about 10 minutes ago. Thank you. We have a motion to continue. Councelor Small,

a second and a second. Any discussion on the continuence? See none. Call for the question.

It passes 70. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Can you rework that? If you're working area microphone, the stream is not straight. Will you microphoneing on the curve, Steve? Microphone, please. Oh, but we all want to hear it. I know. I know. All right. Tell us the joke. I was trying hard to force grading grading on the curve into the conversation. Didn't work. Okay.

Council, what you got? So, as you go back through this, consider what things might be like when the exceedingly amicable and rational Ryan Gordon is no longer evaluating what you're writing. Because because eventually that's going to happen. Sure. And we're going to have someone who is more like a building official who knows nothing more than the more stringent requirement and has no latitude other than the more stringent requirement.

It's nice it's nice to think of our of our nice warm rational community but it's going to change and the rules are still going to be there. And so someone who sits on a unusual 4 acre piece of property who wants to put in a 3,000 square foot patio that has no chance of affecting any of his neighbors with it versus someone who lives on a 100 a 50 by 100 lot in downtown Glenwood who wants to do a thousand square foot patio are going to be completely different impacts and potential damages. and one size is not going to fit all.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to item 13, ordinance 2026. Thank you, Council. Then thank you, Ryan. An ordinance of the city of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, amending the 2026 appropriation ordinance to reflect carryovers from the 2025 budget. Reallocation of funds and expenditures approved after submission of the 2026 budget. Evette, please. Good evening again, Mayor and Council. Um, this is just our normal uh quarterly supplemental for anything that's come up during the quarter, things you have talked about and approved, and it's just a cleanup for the budget. Sounds good. Thank you. Any questions? Councelor Wymer,

would like to make a motion, Mr. Mayor? Please. Uh, I move to approve ordinance 2026-10, ordinance city Glennwood Springs, Colorado, amending 2026 appropriation ordinance to reflect carryovers of the 2025 budget reallocation of funds and expenditures approved after submission of the 2026 budget as presented. Thank you. Motion to approve. I second and a second by Mayor Prom Solinski. Any um discussion? See none, I'll call for the question. It passes unanimously. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you all. That was good. Council comments. Councelor Townsley.

Nope. Councelor Small. Okay. All right. Um, there you go. And let me see. You're on. I guess I I'll have to phrase this as a comment versus a question. Is is it possible at all to that sounds like a question there's no question mark at the end. What would it take to get a few more permits out for people? You know, we had those 100 permits out for people to get trash picked up. What would it take to increase that number or get some extras out there?

Look at different looks on the DAS right now. From a staff perspective, it won't be I don't know that it's a huge deal staff perspective. That's what you guys Yes. Remind remind us what the the landfill vouchers for your uh No, it's it's the curbside pickup. The people that didn't have trucks. Remember last year that was our concession? You turn on your mics so people can hear the curbside pickup. Who wants to explain what it is? Aaron?

Certainly. Um, so last year there was conversation because we don't have the spring cleanup and yet

providing people with a a voucher to go bring their items to the landfill wasn't a great solution because some people don't have the means to do that. And so there was the concession was to issue a certain number of I guess permits or vouchers or um I guess vouchers for for that pickup to occur. And last year I think the number that we issued didn't even get fulfilled but it sounds like this year there's a an a need in excess of what we did last year.

Correct. Yeah. And so the way I'd answer that is that we talked about this and we were full this year. Um we got good at it this year. So that helps, right? I don't want to give an answer right now because I haven't talked to Matt about it and I'd like to do that because there might be things that he knows that I don't. Uh but we've had that conversation and we think that we should not fill all of them up so nobody else can. So yeah, I can come back to you and we can work on that. Awesome. You're talking about for the next time. You're not talking about doing it next week or something, right?

I think that I think that there is a unmet need right now that we should consider whether it's encouraging them to reach out directly to public works so that something could be coordinated or something like that. Like I I'm not I think that what we're looking for is hopefully maybe a solution for today that councelor Townsley can go back to. I haven't been approached to anybody but he says he's been approached by several people. So, it might not be another hundred, but it might be another 10 or 15. Okay. Yeah, on that one, I appreciate the question. And on that one, I do need to talk to Matt because we've got equipment and assets and stuff that may be tied up. I I don't know, but I will look into it. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Thank you for the clarification. Uh, councelor Small, uh, question. Maybe Trent knows the answer to this about it's it seems like we've got is it four separate restaurant type buildings that seem like they've been forever under construction and not opening. One out uh across from McDonald's, the the doughnut shop, the beer beer spa, and it seems like there's one other one. You're thinking to the sandwich shop and what? The milk and goat sandwich shop.

Yeah. Is is it just incompetence or are they What's going on with you? Can you tell us? Yes, it it's not due to a delay by our department. Um generally it's just been delays with either equipment that some of those folks are requesting u materials or other issues with the business getting going. But it's not it's not that they're waiting on inspections or liquor permits. They all have liquor permits. V various reasons. And it takes a long time to get the liquor permit. Is that part of the

It takes a a little bit of time, but they've all gone through it. They all have them.

Okay. And and my other uh comment was that I had uh interaction with our broadband uh community service recently and and they were absolutely great absolutely great to deal with. But I I ended up with a couple of questions. I they explained to me that I was paying for a service internet service that my router was incapable of fulfilling. It's the router that was recommended to me when I when I bought the service from Community Broadband, but they came in and and said, "Oh, you're you're paying for way more giga speed, I think he said, than what your router can accommodate. So, I'm going to leave this router with you, and it'll do the speed that you're paying for, but I can't sell you this router. you either have to buy another one or I'm going to charge you $10 a month rent for this one. And I wanted to ask that seems stupid. Why don't you just sell me the router? I don't want to rent a router. I want to own the router. Why can't you sell it to me?

Um, that's a hard one. I do the same thing. I pay 10 bucks a month. And I can't really explain why either, but I'll look into it. There there is a reason a month I ought to just roll over and say yeah 10 bucks but no that's not I don't want to don't want to rent a router something to look at. Okay Mayor Pro Tim Sinsky. Oh no where are you here?

So I want to talk a minute about uh the three mile project the um landscaping and the things that we've done. Uh it was brought up last meeting that it's taken a pretty heavy hit and and that new landscaping is a good portion of it might not survive. And so, um, Jacob did use his Placer AI to kind of track the activity around that area and it is mainly coming from the Glowwood Park neighborhood and Park West neighborhood and like you know the adjacent neighborhood. So, I am making a plea to my friends and neighbors in my neck of the woods to be um sensitive to that area and stay on the designated paths. Don't trod in areas where um landscaping has been done, where protective mats been down. Don't cut fencing. Don't, you know, kind of cut across barriers or to access areas. and just, you know, please be respectful of that investment so that we don't have to go back and and either fix it and spend more money or go without a nice amenity.

Thank you, Councelor Smith.

Thank you. On January 15th, a lead education officer for the county health department came and talked to us about sugary drinks uh and their health hazards particularly for growing young people recommending uh ways to discourage their distribution and their overconumption. Uh at that time we talked some about the one place where that might be relevant to the city and that's at the rec center. Uh I was over there for a class this morning and the pop machines are gone. I have not yet determined whether they've just been moved to a little bit more out of the way place instead of right next to the daycare center or if they're actually gone, but I'll let you know. um at the uh Colorado River Water Conservation District um state of the river presentation where we heard about dire situations on snowpack and water supplies. The director of the district put out a public call or citizens voluntarily or municipalities more regulatory to water lawns only one day per week. I know that Glenwood Springs generally has some watering restrictions or at least even odd recommendations related primarily to maintaining water pressure. I wonder if we ought to at least look into this request from the river district and see if it's something city wants to play ball on. Um, and finally, I was really proud of us during the discussion about the spear contract. It the dynamics of that discussion were open, were listening, were changing mine, my changed my mind. I changed my mind again. Um, and it was

really fun to see that kind of really interactive informing of each other. So, thank you. Thank you, Cath checked.

A few observations and kudos. Um, there is a new bathroom in place, not quite functional yet if you haven't noticed on North Landing. Long promised and delivered on time. Um, we have some really nice new fencing along our river trail um near where the proposed uh gardens are. Brand new fencing. Really nice. I also want to give kudos. Um there was a joint there was an event with the chamber last night was it or two nights ago the um uh Latino business uh enterprising forum. It wasn't as well attended as last year, but extremely well organized. Um, we had broadband staff there representing well. We had community development representing us very well. Um, we had uh and and the keynote and organizer was Giovana Kennedy who's on one of our commissions. Um, Glattis was there as well. It was just a really well done, appreciated event. So, I just wanted to mention that. Um, that's all.

Okay. Thank you. Excellent. Council Rhymer. No, thank you. Nothing. Okay. Thank you. Just real quick. Um, it's more to put a bug in you here. Strawberry days is around the corner. I think it's June 19th, 20th somewhere there. And we are scheduled to serve beer, believe it or not. I signed this up. So, I I hope that I can get the same crew as last year and then some. Uh, we're going to need about 10 10 to 12 people. Uh, last year we did it. We had some counselors there, some some former counselors. city attorney was there and um Ryan and some city staff. So, uh let me know who can make it. Um text me, whatever. I just need to get a group together two days. No, I think it's just Saturday. Just Saturday.

Yeah, Saturday. Two hour shift from what? And it's usually how to not break my fingernail. Do I use polish or Well, there is can pop openers opener you can use. There's openers you can use, but June 20th, but June June 20th, I think. Yeah. And last year, I think we we made over $500 in tips that went to the Strawberry Day Foundation, which was great. So, I hope we can repeat this. So, I think it goes to different Yeah, I think it goes to different things. That's all I wanted to I'm in May. Like I said, yep, bug in your ear. So, anyway, um, city manager Steve Boyd, what do you got?

Thank you. Um, three Mile, uh, I went down there with parks uh earlier in the week and you're right. I mean, you know, it we picked a bad year to be having a bad year uh with really low uh water levels. We've got all this vegetation and and landscaping that we put in that we're really struggling with. There's a lot of salinity in that water. I mean, I think there's more than certainly more than I ever realized. So, that that's a little bit of a challenge. Uh yes, the neighborhood uses the park mostly. I don't know though that any of the vandalism that we've had is necessarily from the neighborhood. there are people that come and and go all the time from there. So, we're going to turn irrigation on uh pretty soon. We're going to have to, you know, leave that irrigation down there for a couple of years. Um we're working with RFOV on the trail cross, the creek crossing over there. So, we're going to try to improve that a little bit. Uh we're going to repair fencing. We're going to install some new fencing on the east side that directs people towards the rivers. Um trees, we're not going to replace trees this year. Um, we're going to put in more salt tolerant uh stuff when it's appropriate. Um, let's see, noxious weed mitigation uh on further sort of definition of the walking path that go through there. So, those are the steps that we're going to take, you know, right now. Um, it was a bad year to have a bad year. I mean, it was just a little bit of a perfect storm. So, um, that's one thing. Fab grants. We got fab grants in. We have 60 grants for $615,000. Um, and two years ago, I pulled that up here, we had um 39 grants for $220,000. That we awarded $220,000. We were probably asked for a little bit more than that. Um, so that continues to grow for us. We had CCCCCMA

um at Hotel Colorado this week. Um, they do a fantastic job. It was really good. Um, I had a lot of comments. I mean, I had a lot of comments about how good it looks over there, especially from people that have been coming here for years to the Hotel Colorado because it's always here and they're noticing Sixth Street and they said North Landing looks fantastic and how clean the city is and whatever you guys are doing is working. So, that was pretty cool. The other thing that happens at CCCMA every year is there's a I was going to say a lot. There's there's quite a bit there's some complaining um from people about their city councils, right? I mean, they don't treat my staff well. They, you know, go behind my back. They, you know, what there's a lot of stuff and I always come out of there feeling lucky that you guys are so pro staff and I'm kind of the envy of that one in a lot of the sessions that we have. So, thank you. I know I say that a lot, but thank you for for all of your support. Um, we've got an extra week. I think this year we have March May 7th, right? So, that's good. Sarah is out next week, so take it easy on me. Um, let's see. I learned today that FMLD awarded us $250,000 for the 19th Street project that we're doing.

Nice. So, when you see those guys, tell them thank you. That was pretty cool. Nice. Uh, I think that's it for me. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Uh, Carl Hanley, city attorney. I don't really have anything tonight. Um, I did want to say the um CCCMA in town is always pretty cool. Um, I always try to stop by and say hi to everybody. We did a uh client dinner uh um city county Yeah. Colorado City County Managers Association. It's awesome.

So, yeah. No, so um we did my firm did a a dinner for um our clients and and a few others last night. Um kind of a lot of the same thing. I heard a lot of the same comments about downtown um you know ped bridges like just all of the amenities that the the community has for the size the community is and and how they look and what it's like. Um so it was a lot of fun to see the crosspollination with all those folks um last night. So anyway, that was about it. I was there. We ran the bill up on him. Of course you did. Thank you. Any correspondence? No, sir. Not tonight. Uh, Mayor Pro Tim Solinski social event.

Um, yeah, I think we're going to reconvene at Teio as always. Excellent. And I'm entertaining a motion to adjourn. So moved. We have a motion. A second and a second. Let's please use the vote buttons. Call for the question. It's