City Government - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Good evening. Funfilled crowd of folks tonight. Welcome to the uh work session and special meeting um of City of Larmy. Sorry, let me just make sure my phone is off. um work session Tuesday, April 28th, 2026 at 6 PM. Um we will get this started tonight with public comment on non-aggenda items. Is there any public comment on non-aggenda items? None in the room, anything online? Okay, moving on. We have three work sessions tonight and so we will start one work session, take public comment, then close that and move on to the next. And the first work session that we have is the Nedlog property update and we have folks here who's introducing this. Am I just bringing up folks from the EPA or All right, whoever would like to come up and join us, we would love to have you.

Sure. Thank you. You'd think I'd be used to that by now. Um, my name is Craig Myers. I'm an onseene coordinator with EPA's response program out of Denver. Um, apologize for my voice. Hopefully it gets along okay with with your closed captioning. Um, there's going to be a few of us presenting different parts of this uh, as we go through it, different kind of work focuses that we have. We just wanted to give you an update of what we're planning to do at the former Nedlog property. Um, involves some kind of immediate cleanup. um some other assessment work that's been going to be going on. And um I guess we'll just launch into this maybe. Um first off for introductions, I introduced myself. I'm Craig Myers. Um we've also been working with the Department of Envir of Environmental Quality. Um PJ's here in the audience. If there's questions uh for the state after this, um he's here to answer those. We're also working with Ben Lucky and Sydney Martinez with the Department of Environmental Quality. And then Abby Hazento is here. Uh she'll be talking a little bit about our cleanup plans. Um and Justin Bler is here. He'll be talking about some of the assessment. And then um we have a community involvement person whose contact information will be up here as well. Um his name is Brent Campbell. He's not here tonight. um going to go through kind of the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies. Kind of real brief just kind of how we got here, operational history and that kind of stuff of the facility. Um a real brief of kind of previous assessments and and kind of what got us to today and then kind of our our cleanup actions that we have planned plus then the upcoming assessment work and we'll kind of take questions after that. Um, a lot of this started through

the state's DEEQ uh program. There was a voluntary cleanup program. Uh, conducted some sampling, some targeted removal of different wastes, um, industrial waste, um, different asbestous, um, parts of the of the the build materials, and then they'll ultimately end up taking over long-term oversight of the of the property. Um, EPA's role here, it's kind of three three pieces. initially was a a site assessment that goes through that that data feeds a lot of different EPA federal programs. Um and it's really EPA's first look kind of first cut of the assessment of the property. Um Brown Fields is a specific uh cleanup program that's meant for kind of lightly contaminated properties to bring things back into uh beneficial use for the community. Kind of rejuvenation of of of a lightly contaminated property. Um, the last little bit is the program that Abby and I work for. That's the response program. And we're we're really intended to be a program that addresses short-term, real, immediate, acute risks. And we're tended to be fairly surgical and narrow in scope to handle kind of the worst of the worst of a of any given problem. Um, and we're really in this case, we're focused on source removal, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Um, operationally this started operation in about 1940, you know, the 1940s. It was a, you know, wartime plant produced aluminum. Um, it went from there into producing aggregate for kind of the construction industry. And then most recently, late '7s into about 1990, they were working on different metals extractions. They were bringing mine mine wastes of various sources, smelter waste, waste ore, and that kind of things on the property to try to re reprocess them and to extract metals.

Um, that's really kind of why we're here talking tonight. Um, where we're talking about this is the Nedlog property. It is a couple miles south of here, uh, near the cement plant. Um, I'm sure most of you know where that's at. Um, timeline. I think this is Abby talked about it yet.

So Nedlog has quite a history of involvement with EPA and the state. Um initially how EPA began learning about this is that around the 80s uh it was noted that there were quite a few brick violations when the property was still um active. uh when it was still under Williams Strategic Metals and Nedlog Property, LC Holdings, all sorts of different names under underneath that. Um and then around 2001, those record violations kind of got on top of them and the company proclaimed bankruptcy and it sat vacant for a while. The property went into a trust and so then it sat there. Around 2011, EPA returned to the site and did a preliminary assessment of saying, okay, went through bankruptcy, we did a couple of closures, um, sorry, and what is still remaining at the property. So then between 2011 to about 2019, uh couple people who were entrusted with the property went through the voluntary remediation program um and did some flu dust removal. They emptied out some tanks that were still within the buildings on site. They did some asbestous abatement um and dealt with a couple of piles that were still at the site and a couple other various random things flushing out pipes and such like that. Obviously that did not address all of the contamination that remains at the site and it's a really long history and it's a lot of contamination widespread throughout the site. Um so then in about 2020 they ran out of funding and CO also halted work. they lost their contractor. And so Wyoming DEQ requested EPA Brownfields to take another look at this site and say, "Here's everything that's been done before. Where are we at now?"

So they conducted a phase one assessment and gave that report. And we decided that EPA had grounds for one more removal action that was to remove some um hazardous waste that was in containers on the site uh and secure anything that was uh immediately accessible to the public for people who maybe trespass on the site, which it's a very common site for trespassing. Um we also constructed some fencing around the property, put up some signage, and tried to secure as many like entrances as possible. Obviously, it's not a perfect solution. Um, but we did as much as we could to deter the public from trespassing on the site. And then that kind of brings us to now. We did a little bit more assessment in 2024. And we have information from about 2022 to 2024 indicating that there are arsenic levels super high in a certain portion of one of the buildings on the site. And there is still some remaining contamination of mercury in one of the other buildings which I'll kind of get into detail more later. Um and that's going to be the focus of our um removal action from the response section side. And then we also have another portion of this where site assessment will be um dealing with things kind of outside of the property boundary. Um is there a groundwater plume and has it impacted drinking water wells nearby? uh is the airborne dust from the contaminated soil getting offsite and migrating. Um that's kind of Justin's area of expertise. Um so that kind of brings us to the now. Okay. Um so I did mention this 2023 2024 assessment activities and this is what leads us to the point of we're going to do another removal action at the site as EPA. um the response section. We did some background air monitoring. We did

indoor mercury vapor monitoring and um we also did some asbestous sampling and some heavy metals uh parameter sampling and inside the buildings we also did some XRF sampling which XRF is X-ray fluoresence. It tells you um field screenings of heavy metals that are present in floor dust soil. Um, sometimes it can do water, but we were aiming for floor dust and soil primarily. We also did that chemical inventory and hazard categorization of those unknown chemicals. Those have since been disposed of offsite from the 2024 removal action. And then we also did some geotechnical and boundary surveys to identify any um target areas that would need further assessment for piles that were stored in the open field area on the site away from the building. Uh and just to define actually what the property boundary is. It's been a bit of a point of contention in the past. So yeah, like I said, that 2024 removal was really ideally to secure the site and dispose of any hazardous materials on site. Uh there were some containers. There were about 260 containers that we disposed of it and brought off site. Um and yeah, we did some fence in installation. We boarded up some windows and we moved some dirt piles uh in front of like the main entrances. There is still since we've been back at the site a couple times, there is still evidence of trespassing. So, it's not exactly secure. So, next steps, where are we at now with this project? Um, we are planning to do a site inspection uh in July, August, in August. Um, that'll that's something Justin can talk about a little

bit more. Uh the removal action is targeted to start May 11th. Uh and we're anticipating it to last about 6 to 7 weeks uh for us to complete uh our removal action on the arsenic contaminated areas of the building. Uh and then we did have a public meeting over the winter, this past winter, and if necessary, we will have another public meeting um if public interest is peaked and there is a request for it either from the city or the state or something interesting happens at the site, you know. So, I'll turn this over to Justin so we can talk about site inspection. Thank you, Abby. Uh, again, my name is Justin. I work in the site assessment program at EPA. And, uh, yeah, sorry, we just had a little bit of change of dates since I sent you the presentation, but uh, so they're doing a, um, removal action in the near future. So, I just wanted to make sure we pushed it out, our part of it, far enough out, not uh, as to not step on their toes. Um but basically uh what I'm looking at uh to re reiterate what Abby said was uh is basically you know we know there's contamination on the site but is it getting off site um and that's mainly through soil like uh dust or historically it could also be through a smoke stack uh missions which there was one there. Um and then also through groundwater and I know a lot of folks in that area don't um you know rely on city water. So there isn't uh you know many threats as as far as folks drinking the water, but we do know there are some drinking water wells that still exist there whether it's for irrigation or gardens and things. That's something that we're looking into. Um and we'll

hopefully take some samples of those uh just to be safe. Um so this is just an image of of the sampling locations that we intend to um yeah where we intend to collect some samples. Um a bunch along uh the eastern side of the site and uh wind my my understanding is that wind generally in this area moves to the northeast. So um our sampling spread reflects that. So, um, basically taking some samples, uh, to the southwest is essentially, uh, what we're identifying or potentially identifying as a background area. What we would see is natural conditions, um, natural levels of arsenic and other metals uh, to bas basically be able to compare. Okay, this is what it's naturally in this area. And then if we see it on the site or down wind of the site at higher levels then we can basically connect the dots. Um so uh so this is just an example of of where we plan to sample uh when it comes to soil samples. And I guess just for for folks to get an idea of what that looks like uh it's pretty simple. uh using a tel. Um we we also use an XRF uh X-ray fluorescent gun uh or X-ray fluorescent fluorescent uh device um to essentially screen the soil um and get a sense of where they're higher higher levels of contaminants and then focus on those areas uh to to be conservative. Uh, so we use that and then essentially just take a tel, dig up some soil, mix it around, homogenize it is the word we use and um and then put those into sample jars and and uh send those to the lab. So uh yeah, I think that's it for this slide. Um and then the other thing I mentioned

was drinking water samples. Uh so these are uh on the left there are points that we intend on collecting uh samples of yeah domestic wells. Um as Abby mentioned we we know there's contamination both in soil and in groundwater on the site. Uh there were monitoring wells installed there uh a couple of years ago and we know that there's uh significant uh groundwater contamination there. Um, and so this is essentially an effort just to uh to see if that's migrated to any of these other wells off the site. Uh, so just as the the the picture on the right um indicates, it's basically just filling up uh bottles at at the tap and I'll be working with residents. Um I've already started to reach out to some folks uh about just notifying them and you know giving them some information asking for access. Um but we'll be uh the community involvement coordinator and I will be coming out uh in midMay May 13th and 14th uh to um go doortodoor to the folks that we'd like to collect samples at uh just because I haven't got in touch with all of them yet. And so, um, you know, we'll definitely be sure to work with them closely and make sure that we're, you know, we're only going to places where we're given access. So, um, that's our intention as far as that goes. And then I'll give it back to Abby for this part. Okay. Um, so this is kind of the big meat and potatoes of why we're here. Uh this is our anticipated removal action that will be occurring uh beginning May 11th and lasting for about 6 to 7 weeks. Um so what we do know is that there are accumulated volumes in the floor dust and on equipment remaining inside of

building B1. Um I wish I had a laser pointer that would point at it, but um B1 and then that red box there, that is where we've identified that arsenic concentrations are the highest. um 510,000 parts per million, which is about 50% concentrations in that processed dust uh in that northeast corner of that building. Um and so that's where we're targeting our removal action. And how this is going to work is um bit of a unique situation. So we'll go into that building and basically wash the building. It's going to be a water centric cleanup. Um, we're going to target the equipment that's remaining in there and remove any movable equipment outside of the building after it's been washed. Uh, and after it's been deemed clean, it can go off for recycling. If it's still dirty, then it will be disposed of as hazardous waste. Um, and then that wash water that washes off the walls, gets all the dust off of there, it's obviously going to be contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals. So, we'll be collecting all of that through a drain system and then uh using a sump pump to get it into a collection um frack tank basically. And then it'll go through a filtration system. So, we have uh filter bags that we'll be using and seeing if that is effective by doing pre-treatment sampling and post- treatment sampling, sending that off for lab analysis um and seeing how effective our treatment is. If our treatment isn't effective uh for one reason or another, then we will add some more elements to that treatment train, whether that be um chemical treatment or reverse osmosis treatment, any of the such. Um and then we do also have target cleanup levels that we've spoke about with the state and come to an agreement upon about what we're going to try and aim to get that water to in terms of cleanup levels. Um so then once that water is thoroughly cleaned and it's met the levels that the state and us have discussed then we do

have the intention of doing a land application within the property boundary of that water um not to service water be discharged to a ditch. It would just be discharged to a flat area of land so the first top 6 in of the soil um and that would kind of be the the bulk of the work. Um once that water starts coming back clean, we do some confirmation sampling with either activity based sampling, wipe sampling, um grid sampling or any type of um anything that we find ends up ends up working. Um that will kind of tell us that we've met our end point. And then another anticipated removal action that we are planning on attemp on doing, it doesn't have a start date yet. Uh it's in its very early stages. We still need some additional assess assessment. But what we do know in that other red box on that image there is building B5. Um historically there is a lot of mercury contamination in that building. Um we do have one sample there um from our LUMX which is our mercury vapor monitor that basically gave us a max concentration that the instrument can read at. So very high levels of mercury contamination in that building. We'll be doing some additional assessment in and around that building and in the soil around that building this summer to identify really what that extent of that mercury contamination is and then deciding how we're going to respond to that via a removal action. Um once we know more that about that there will be more information but in the meantime that's just we we plan additional assessment for that over the summer. Okay. Um, this is our contact information for Wyoming DEQ and US EPA. For public outreach, I would definitely say contact Brent Campbell. Um, for technical outreach, Justin, Craig, and myself are good outreach partners. Um,

and then PJ and Ben, they're the kind of identified project managers for this project through the DEEQ. So, um, there it is. And then these slides, do these slides get handed out afterwards? on top of electronic package. You guys got it. Cool. Okay. Um, so yeah, I guess now we're ready for questions. Great. Councelor Lockart. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Abigail. Um, and and your team, has anything else been in those properties since they closed? Has any other businesses occupied those since 01 or what have you? No. No. No. Can I follow up? Yeah. Since it's so close.

Oh, sorry to interrupt. Uh the sorry will you come forward for just a sorry so that people online can hear you. Um I was just going to say the cement plant did lease the property and they stored aggregate and a bunch of stuff there for a long time. Um but but no as no people as far as I know they just piled aggregate and stuff. Okay. How does this affect mountain cement since it's next to it and their employees uh being exposed possibly to these chemicals?

Yeah. So Justin's site assessment will definitely uh help answer those questions. Uh at this time we haven't done a whole lot of off-site sampling, so it's really hard to say at this point. Um so I'd say Justin's sample results will ultimately answer that question. I I'll just add that um I've been working closely with them. Uh I actually uh just met with them the other day and and we got a signed access agreement uh because their property wraps around uh to some of the areas that we wanted to sample. Um so we've been working closely with them. They came to the public meeting in December and they're really aware of what we're working on. So yeah, hopefully they'll Yep.

Add a little more. I'm sorry. Um and they are really aware. That's kind of what started this whole thing is um way back when DEEQ was in the Hler building and stuff. I mean this was probably way 2010 2011. They were actually considering buying that property and that's what kind of started everything when they were looking at the phase one and phase twos and then that's when kind of the past history and stuff popped up and then they saw the you know red flags and this stuff and they kind of just politely said well we'll wait till it's cleaned up or something later. Um but their their high-capacity wells that they have there is actually probably contributed to the migration of keeping stuff near the site um as far as the groundwater portion not going the direction that you would assume because they're pulling so much water that way and uh also with the constituents of just normal concrete and the base of you know makeup of that that I mean it's a good place really to put arsenic if it's going to end up somewhere be in the concrete. Thank you,

Councelor Shamoy. Thank you. Uh, just two quick questions. First of all, I is the property within the city limits. No, no, I didn't think so. Okay. The other question is you've talked about removal to an off-site location. Is that within this within the county, within the state? Where where's the loc or is there several locations?

Um that's undetermined at this point. We are it'll be a licensed facility. Um so for the the treatment water treatment waste, the solids that come out of that are almost certainly going to be hazardous waste. That'll probably go out of the state because there's no hazardous waste disposal facilities in the state of Wyoming. um other other solid waste there's a circle approval process that has to happen. Um so I think it's to be determined. We don't know yet. Um and all all of those kind of circle approval processes are things that the facility would opt into. It's a both through the state permitting processes and then um we call it off-site rule approval. They go through a series of checks to make sure this the facility is in compliance with a litany of of environmental laws both at the state and federal level. Um, if I had a crystal ball, it would be it's more than likely going to a facility in Colorado, but I don't know. Some of that's going to be discussions with the DEEQ. Um, and as we know more specifics about what that waist stream actually looks like, cuz right now we we we think we have an idea, but we won't really know until we go through the the washing process to to really know the chemical makeup and the physical makeup of the waist treat. So, I think it's the best thing I can say after that long longwinded answer is it's to be determined. I don't know if that answers your question, sir.

Councelor Bowling. Um, can you hear me? Yes. Yes.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. And, um, thank you all. Um, this is a really wonderful information. Not wonderful information. Sorry, wrong choice of words. But I am I am curious. Um the 260 odd containers removed during the spring of 2024, what were the contents of those for my own edification? And then the the second thing I wanted to ask um is there an ultimate plan um through EPA Brownfield perhaps with the property owner perhaps to the county for ultimately removal of these buildings and if that is the case does that present an additional environmental hazard?

See if I can catch all of those pieces. Um Abby can correct me if I'm wrong on the containers. the 260 containers. There was a laboratory on site and so a lot of that is was leftover small containers of chemicals that were part of that laboratory operation. Um there were some things there were some mercury um I would have to go back through and look at specifics but it was a pretty wide ranging um variety of chemicals. It was all leftover stuff from the laboratory. Um the long-term cleanup plans, the the assessment that both Justin's doing and some of the additional assessment that Abby talked about is all going to feed into that. Um a lot of that is also to be determined once we have a much a more complete picture of the kind of current snapshot of the site and that is kind of up, you know, future discussions between, you know, EPA, different EPA programs and programs of the DEQ to to for that kind of long-term disposition. I feel like I missed the middle one you asked.

Oh, thank you very much. That is that's really helpful. It was just about um ultimately removing the buildings on site. Okay. Yeah, that that's the the biggest piece is you know once we have a more complete snapshot the the you know if EPA has a role in that or if that's strictly DEEQ or if there's some other programs that might be helpful of help in that situation but the first step is the the assessment. I think that's also to be determined.

Yeah. And I think just just adding uh to that, I mean um I think we intend to, you know, have a public meeting later this year and hopefully by that point we'll have, you know, I'll have data from the sampling event and and the removal folks will also have data and um results from from their action. So we should have a lot more information by the end of the year, I would suspect about kind of what the next steps look like. Councelor Dhorty,

I just wanted to say since it's outside the city and you didn't really have any obligation to us, I know this was just you were willing to share this information and I'm really grateful to both of your agencies and I know people like to demonize the EPA. But this is why we have an EPA because it's not stuff that any organization could take on otherwise. And it's really convenient when um companies can come somewhere, pollute it, and then just go bankrupt, and there's no responsibility. So, we need to have we need to have this ability to uh to restore things. Thank you.

And just kind of along those lines, so if I remember uh reading correctly, this property is now under the jurisdiction of the state. So, it's not really Is that correct? So technically this property is in a trust um under LC Holdings. Okay. And we do have a prim primary contact for the site who gives us access to the property. Um, but he's been working with DEQ for several years since about 2011 now uh under that voluntary remediation program using any of that funding that's left in that trust to do remediation to the extent that the trust money would allow him uh and to the to his ability. Um so yeah and then that that funding gets exhausted and then EPA gets involved after that. So

great thank you for that clarification. Oh sorry

one more thing I want to add. I think this is kind of relevant to a lot of the questions that have been asked. Um, if you guys have any other questions about maybe historical activities or that EPA has performed, we do have a response website response.gov um that has all of our properties, all all of our old product projects on it. Um, if you look up under um region 8 our region Nedlog property will be under there. It'll be under Nedlog property and then the Nedlog arsenic removal action will be on there as well. That'll detail the events that we we'll be doing this summer in May. Um just good helpful historical information. Thank you, city manager.

I'd like to echo the council's comments about thanking you for the work you're doing and coming in and seeing us. The one question that I have related is there any scenario between either organization where we will see these buildings removed from the landscape and taken off the prairie and remediated back to what it looked like.

I'm going to defer to DEEQ on that question. I would love to tell you yes, that would happen and it may. Um, but as you guys know, um, legislature hasn't really been handing out a lot of money to any of us. And same thing on the feds. EPA is getting cut left and right, too. So, I mean, they're scraping together just to get stuff to help us at this point, too. So, I mean, really, it's going to come down to the higherups eventually to put some more money together to be able to do that stuff because I mean, I'm sure to take down all those buildings and haul that stuff away would be millions of dollars and stuff. So, uh, right now we none of us, I think, have the money to do that, but yeah, in the future something surely could happen or, you know, funding could come together, but it's not feasible at this time.

All right. Anything else from council? Any public comment? And thank you all so much for that information. It was great public comment on this agenda item.

Oh, great. Thank you. Who is All right, Sue. Um, if you can turn on your camera and come in the room, we um welcome you to comment on this topic. mayor or vice mayor. Um Sue is showing that um there's been two declines to join as a panelist. Um although the hand is raised, I'm not sure. Um, Sue, I'm gonna try one more time to send you an invitation to become a panelist. If you could accept that. Um, it may be There we go. Great. And then Sue, are you able to turn on your camera? All right, Sue, we are not able to see or hear you. So, I'm going to give you just a minute more to Oh, your your microphone's off now. Can you get your camera on? Ah,

I believe it has started. There we go. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. Um, my only question was whether or not the cleanup remediation would be finished before Jubilee days since there will be a lot more traffic in that area at that time. Thank you for the question, Sue.

Jubilee Jubilee Days is uh the second week of July typically. Um activitywise, um six to seven weeks from May 11th will put us out at about late June, June 22ndish. Um it's not expected to go much longer. There may be some assessment activities happening, but not large construction activities, minor sampling activities. So the you probably wouldn't be real noticed you all in the in the area. The noticeable work should be complete by then. Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate everything you're doing. Other public comment.

Right. Thank you all so much for joining us, for taking the time to travel and be with us. Again, as councelor Odori said, um you know, this is just more of interest and we appreciate the work you're doing and recognize that as the city, we're just kind of watching and and cheering you on and thanking you for the work. So, thank you. Appreciate that. and we will close that session and we will next move on to our next work session. Oh, and before I do that, um I just want to note that the mayor is not here because she is ill tonight. So, sorry I didn't make a note of that at the beginning. Um and she wishes she could be here. Um so, second work session. We've closed that one and moving on to citywide parking task force development. Welcome, city manager.

Mayor, council, it's a pleasure to be here tonight to start to begin the work of what's coming up in fiscal year 28. Um as we identified this, one of the things that we had identified was to creation of a city of Larmy parking task force to evaluate and assess uh current parking conditions, any changes to regulations, enforcement and ideas that we should have around changing parking, the status of parking in our community. You know, as we all know, I could go um let's see if we can There we go. The success for any task force to is requires a well- definfined scope. Um an appropriate duration time and the proper composition of members of that task force. Um the well- definfined co uh scope I think maybe we've all been part of task force or committees that you're like hey why are we meeting what's happening? What are we actually working on? And for us it's extremely important to be able to look at the task force and define the scope. When we originally devised this and talked about it at a previous council meeting, we talked about a citywide parking task force and I don't oftentimes mean to recommend against something that we have recommended, but that's a big scope. Um, we've got a lot of parking issues. There's no doubt that there's a multitude of issues that we should look at from parking in the downtown to the UW residential interface, what to do with RVs or parking in front of public spaces, all the pieces and ordinance. It's just a very voluminous area to address and there's no doubt that they all need some address at a certain point. But as we embark on a first task force, it's important for us to think about the scope. The other thing to consider when you say citywide parking task force and although the airport is a large part of that, it's about 18 square miles of parking to think about when we're talking about all the effects that we're working on as we move through there. Um my recommendation for this group or for the establishment of a

resolution that you'll see in the future is that we look to focus on one area of the initial task force scope. Um we could look at downtown. We could look at the resident W residential interface. Now as you all know we have a new president coming into the University of Wyoming that starts in July. It might be best if we hold off on addressing that W interface parking task force until we get a new president in place and see what their take is and how we move through. Um, we could even address uh RV parking or some other residential parts of parking that we like. But my recommendation to you, and this is meant to be interactive, this is where we're going to get interactive, is to talk about the scope and see if this council is amendable to identifying just one specific scope or if you would like us to address two two specific scopes as we move through this task force. So, I'm going to stop there and look for some discussion. I don't think anybody would have anything to say. Councelor Lockheart.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, city manager Fezer. Um, you know, I had brought up some topics on parking. Um, I think downtown's perfect. You know, that's a huge huge issue I think we have. Um, that that people talk about quite often. Uh, UW, of course. Um, you know, I I do find that the RV parking on the street and the and the boats and the snowmobile trailers is become a nuisance, but I think right now we can put that aside and focus on one or two of these other I think are more important at this point in my opinion. Thank you, Councelor Lockhart. Anybody else have any comments? Councelor Freed.

Yeah. Um, thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, city manager. I you know I think I think downtown is is a crucial area. It's a driver economic driver for our community. It's sometimes the the first thing people from out of town see. So, I think um continuing to figure out the best way to manage that is is a priority for me and I think from what we hear um from a lot of our constituents and I and I would say being in Ward 2 um that that Udub interface is is a high priority and we constantly I constantly hear about um you know those parking issues and and I guess I'll say to that is maybe July is is a perfect timeline as as we start trying to tackle this thing and a new president coming in and I think we we have some bargaining chips and specifically from traffic safety commission. I think the university as they look at their plan and how they want to grow, you know, assuming the new president would would be on the same page. I mean, I think, you know, the city has a real opportunity to work with them and and as they want to, you know, manage their public transit system on like Bradley Street, I think we might have some um some ideas to help what we want to do and what we want to see for parking. So, I don't know if that timeline coincides with this task force, but I think those are what you've highlighted are great great areas.

Okay, Council Behill. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, I would agree with counselor Freed. I think, um, we would be wise to wait until the new administration starts. Um, a lot can change between now and then and then even after July, of course. So, um, yeah, I I think um, if I were a new president, I would appreciate the opportunity to kind of have a say um, and, you know, share any vision that I might have for that. I don't want to speak for him, but that's what I would want.

Yeah. And to be clear, we'll talk about timeline here in just a little bit. You know, there is that onboarding for a new president, right? Is what's immediately going to be on his plate, which is a lot. I've witnessed that just in the past four months that I've been on a new timeline, right? And so there is some question about that. I do I do understand um as I'm listening to you, I think what I'll do is I'll craft up the resolution where initially we're going to focus on the downtown. give that WW president some time to get his feet on the ground, see if he's ready or interested or having his staff get involved with us to address some of the UW interface. You know, not too long ago, we had actually had a meeting with UW and they had an interest in providing the enforcement in the UW interface. And at that time, we had a different makeup, a different composition of our law enforcement. There wasn't a real interest in that. But we may be able to find some way to combine those sources, those those energies, and not have that major impact on everybody. So, I'm probably going to, if I don't see any big head knobs, head nods or anything recommending against it, I'm going to focus on downtown and then move in to address the UW interface when it works with the president.

Councelor Dhy, I like that idea. And I also would really urge um our fellow counselors to look at the old because we have beaten this dead horse for a long time that our our staff has made more parking downtown, has made a lot of diagonal parking and and so we had a lot of public public meetings and so maybe I could ask the clerk to um try to consolidate those like when we've had those sessions so people know where to look cuz we're not very good at looking at the website like those those public meetings about parking downtown. I think it would be really helpful for the rest of council and myself to review those um to to hear those ideas again. And and I also know that um it some people are brave about coming before council and others are not so much because they have to live with their neighbors downtown that maybe aren't good um business neighbors about not taking up parking spaces. So it's it's not really fair to put those people on the spot. So if you could um review those before we dig too deep. Thanks,

Council Frerieded. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Councelor Dordy. That that made me think, too. And um when I was looking at this, you just kind of not trying to reinvent the wheel. And so, that's maybe just echoing your point is understanding kind of in the last decade plus two decades. Um city manager, if there's a way if that city clerk providing that information to us or like a couple slides of what we've tried, you know, from from staff's perspective, what was effective, what was not, where we heard feedback. I think that will be helpful to catch some of us up to speed who might not have, you know, been around for that long or or know all those things. Absolutely. Absolutely. Councelor Shamoy.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I uh I've made this suggestion more than once and I'll do it one more time for the future. Um, obviously the campus, the University of Wyoming is defined and they're very good at at selling parking permits, having parking garage, having outlying lots where they, you know, transport people in. They they have a plan to uh move students, staff, faculty, etc. However, the residential parking of the city of Laramie is impacted significantly by students, faculty, and staff that take all the spaces. The residential are hoping to use for themselves because they the faculty, staff, and students do not want to pay these parking passes. And so I've proposed in the past and it's never got much traction to have a donut three or four block donut which is for resident parking only and they get permits to park there but students faculty and staff cannot park there without you know having a residence within that donut. Now that would solve a lot of the problems for our residents and they every every now and then they come in and ask us for a solution. We have just never found a solution. And to me I would think you know the campus is defined. Maybe we need to have our residents defined with a three or four block donut that says this is for the city of Laramie residents. Anyway, that's something to think about in the future. If it's possible to do something to give them relief, that'd be great. If not, I guess we just continue on doing what we've been doing.

Thank you, counselor. Anyone else thoughts on this th this far?

Great. Thank you, councelor Shamway. So, a lot of times we talk about duration. I I know a lot of us have all served on committees or on task force where the the scope's too little and the duration's too long, the duration's too short or the scope's too too voluminous to try to get this done. I have to tell you that even just if we address just downtown, it's a voluminous scope. It's a lot to absorb. So I am proposing that my recommendation is that we establish a task force, we establish a resolution, we get this fired up and we begin with one meeting a month in September, October and November. In December, we report back to the city council with the findings, what we've heard, where we've had our impacts, what we've done, and then we do one meeting a month in January and February. We assess the findings, and we come back with recommendate recommended changes to the parking structure on the scope areas that we've talked about. Um, my whole intent is for this to line up with the fiscal year 28 budget. And that's what I'm that's what I'm intending. This is it's a big scope. And as councelor Shamway said, there's been lots of things recommended. We've implemented a lot of great things, but we really haven't quote unquote found that right solution that fits everybody or that everybody can tolerate. And that's the hope is that we take the time, we have the right scope, and we get there. So, this is where I'd be happy to hear about the duration from you folks.

Anyone? Yes. Perfect. Okay. Council Newman,

it's great like you're saying like I'm sure all of us have been on some sort of committee and task force and the scope of work is a year and we have three months to work on it or vice versa, right? And I think I think this would be whoever is on the task force if we got the information of here's what we've done in the past, right? Because I know since I've been on council, I think we've tried a few things. Um so if we can get people up to um up to where we are now and then give them, you know, the three months and then nothing's saying in January and February that we can't have two meetings if we need to, right?

So I kind of I I think this is a great idea. Okay. I love it when a plan comes together. It's done.

So then the final thing is all about the proper composition of the makeup. Um, and quite frankly, this is where you see a lot of task forces fail. You get too heavy on the organizational side or too light on the structure or whichever the piece is. You know, as I looked back at this, I think this uh uh composition requires at least two council members to be part of. Um, it really does and that provides some framework and some stability. Then you think about staff participation and parking really affects a lot of areas. We have engineering, we have community and economic development who's recently been working on a downtown plan that had heard about parking. Um, you've got the city manager's office, you've got the police department, you've got the effects of parking and changes that might affect fire service and things that go on. And so there's a large composition of what we need from staff participation. Then of course we have organizational participation. If you're talking about the interface with the University of Wyoming, you know, there's one big organization to interface with. But if you think about downtown, you know, we've got the DDA, the Larmy Main Street Alliance. We've got the Larmy Chamber Business Alliance as it affects businesses as we move through. And we need to think about who we want to invite to be from an organizational participation standpoint. And then finally, the community participation is vital. You have to have folks that are not only using but are affected that use that receive benefit from that, but people that are using that parking so that they can access the businesses they want. The other hard part is you're trying to make a nimble task force that can meet regularly and get done and have everybody attend these meetings. And so you got to be cautious about how large you get. When I look at this and when I first started envisioning this uh a couple weeks ago is I was up to 17 18 members. I don't know that we can do that. So we really have to be cautious about what we're doing. What I'm hoping for for you guys tonight is that you can identify, you know, if you think two council members is the right number. If you think uh the four people from staff

is the right number, what kind of organizational participation you would like to see and then what kind of community participation you would like to see as we move through? Great thoughts on this. Councelor Lockheart, I want to be on the committee. So So I'm on the task force, so sign me up for that. You knew I'd say yes to that. Um, I forgot to say thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I think four four staff people. I think you you hit the nail on the head with the organizational DDA, LCBA, LMSA, then community. I you know, I I think you know maybe a couple business downtown business owners. Then of course people that frequent down there. And I don't know how you would pick those, you know. So that that one would be the hardest I think out of them. We could ask people that own businesses downtown if they'd be interested and then kind of go from there.

Yeah, councelor. Thank you, councelor Lockhart. If I actually run the numbers, if we have two council members, four staff members, three organizational participants, and then four community participants, that's 13, which is maybe a manageable level for once a month meeting. You know, we've got the spaces to handle those. We can get out. We can actually tour. We can, you know, the once a month meetings might just be for the staff. Then we've got listening sessions from stakeholders and other folks that are going to have to come in and provide the response and so that more people have a chance to do that input as we move through. He'll freed.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um yeah, thanks city manager. This is a a pretty small task I guess to get underway. Um yeah, my just run the numbers. I thought four staff, four organization, four community, and two council people. That's 14. Maybe that's too many. um you know, but I think I think there's gonna no matter what, we're gonna we're gonna hear from a lot of people who aren't included in that in that group. So, um I know we've talked about survey death and maybe that's not the the correct way to catch the other folks information, but I guess I'm I'm also concerned with how we're going to, you know, choose different community participation or, you know, business owners downtown. And I don't know if there's a random way to do it, um where we can try to get an effective, you know, diverse population. Um, but yeah, I mean over 10 is usually what I would say is too much. Uh, 14 seems like a lot, but that feels like the the minimum for for those organizations that you're talking about.

Correct. And one organization, which is one of our boards and commissions, I miss the traffic safety commission, right? Has a has a strong input on what we might be doing in these areas. So, there's more. So, I think it's important. One of the things that I would ask is I' I've got a relative feel for the number. I kind of felt where it was going. And I appreciate your guys' trust in the numbers that I put out there, but um what what I would be looking for council to do is also make recommendations of folks that they would like to see on these task force who from those organizations, what representatives so that we can start reaching out and get their buy in. Um as we move forward, just does anybody else have anything on composition? Yep, we have a couple. Okay, councelor Newman.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um I like the idea of an even number two. That's kind of what I wrote down was 14. Um I also said that I would be on it um if nobody else would. Uh just with youth council and everything ending, I kind of have some more free time. So um and then I think the organizational part of it, I think if we I I wouldn't want to just like pick one person from the organization, right? Um because I personally don't know a whole lot of some of those members. So I think inviting the organization to like hey like we need a liaison from you would probably be and just in my opinion the better um because maybe they they have somebody who is already working on this and we pick somebody who maybe doesn't want anything to do with it right um those those kinds of things so um those would those would be my recommendations councelor

bowling Thank you, Vice Mayor, and uh thank you, city manager. Um just wondering in terms of you know the considering that the meetings wouldn't start till September, October, November, you know if there's a way that we can push a opportunity for community participation or getting people um who are interested in that through our um summer events like farmers market um Fourth of July etc. So something to consider. Thanks. Thank you, councelor Bowling. Councelor Shamway.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think this ad hoc committee that's being proposed would be great because they will be the ones that that that um prepare the agenda, move the agenda, and also look at all the possible solutions. I think that there will be a large group of individuals that have interest, but much like we have city council meetings, they will be invited to participate with, you know, at appropriate time as public comment with to that committee so that there's not 50 voices, but there's only the 14 that go through the the discussion and then have input from them at the appropriate time.

I appreciate that. And I actually have a little bit different uh thought on the organizational participation because when I'm thinking of community participation, I'm thinking of businesses downtown, which will take a chunk, but we also have residents who are downtown. So I if we had to reduce the numbers, I would eliminate the organizational participation participation. Oh my gosh. Participation and um up the community participation. Um, I think that I and and maybe they would say differently, but I think having those direct voices who are most impacted downtown is that would be the change that I would make. But if it works with the numbers, having organizations there as well, it's great.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. As you think about it, you know, we've we've kind of talked about downtown almost specifically as a scope. as we move to another scope at the university, it's a different group of folks, right? You've got different residences, you've got different organizations, different businesses that are all in effect. And so that's one of the reasons that I've really tried to guide this to get there. Um, and I do apologize. I hope this doesn't feel like it's a slow process, but I'm a slow and Eddie. You know, if you're super steady, you get the worm, right? If you hurt you in there, the worm squirms away, right? So, that's kind of my process and the way I work. That brings one more question to my mind. Does it make sense if we're waiting for the new uh university president to kind of get his feet wet, get settled in to have one task force that is more focused on downtown. some of those community members or the organizational participation shifts when it goes to like maybe some of the same players, the council and the staff are consistent, but it shifts on those other two parts as the focus of the parking spaces or areas change.

Yeah. And if I could respond to that, Vice Mayor, the the concern I have about two task force is staff time. Right now, you're doubling the amount of time that staff's working on this. And I'll tell you that we're the staff top to bottom is stretched pretty thin right now. Um that's one of the reasons really my recommendation is that we scope and we work on downtown, get some success, get something implemented, then hit the university interface with a secondary task force and then we can start to talk about those other areas and hopefully this process leads to a few years of success as we move forward.

Great. Thank you. Oh, councelor Newman. Um I wasn't going to bring it up, but we've talked about it a couple times. So when we do the the UDub um neighborhood area, which um kind of like um councelor Freed, I get phone calls all the time. Um I think some of the community or organizational partnership with or participation with that needs to be some of the traveling nurses. Um because it seems like those I hear a lot just because of my wife. Um but trying to find some parking um just for those guys because sometimes you know they're parking 10 12 blocks away just to go see some people in those neighborhoods. Inviting some of those guys would be great in at least that area.

Absolutely. Other thoughts, questions? Councelor Bowling still has his hand raised. Councelor Bowling, do you still have do you have another question or is your hand still up from before? It was just up from before. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and my apologies. Oh, nope.

So, the the final part of this presentation was about the next steps. I think it's important that council does a formal resolution establishing the task force, the scope, the timeline, the composition. And so, over the next couple months, staff's work is going to be able to do that. Um, I would look for council through that resolution to identify the counselors. right now. Councelor Lockhart and councelor Newman have volunteered to be on the task force. Um happy to have that if that's the council wishes. We'll go through that at the resolution time. Um but that's what you'll see next is a resolution that establishes this and sets us up and gets us going so that we know that it meets the council goal that's going to be coming. Hopefully you'll be approving those next week and then we'll get moving from there. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. If anybody else is super jazzed about being on the task force, you can throw your name in the hat or drawstr. So,

council free. Thank you, Vice Mayor and city manager. Just want to say thanks for for the approach. I think you know parking is something that I've heard about as long as I've been in Laramie and so I do appreciate this like slow and steady and and being thoughtful and measured. I think is especially if as councilor Dhorty said earlier too, how many times that we've tried to address and made some really good improvements with some of the construction in one of our first meetings where you walked me around downtown and you know every parking space we can add in these projects and how we how we operate is is really incredible. So I think just going slow and being measured is is how we're going to make real progress at last. So I appreciate appreciate that approach. Thank you. Anyone else?

Great. Thank you so much for really focusing in on this and hopefully we can find a really successful um at least baby steps forward. Maybe it won't be like a giant all-encompassing but make some progress toward it. So, thank you very much. Um public comment on this agenda item. Come on up.

Welcome. And if you could state your name, that'd be great. Good evening. Good evening. Uh, vice mayor and honorable council. I wasn't going to say anything at all tonight, but listening to this discussion, one little point that Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Thank you. You know my voice, don't you?

Yeah. I'm Nancy Synindelar and I'm active with this. One thing the traffic safety commission has working with the engineer, we have made changes downtown that I don't think have directly been in so into city council minutes. So looking at those two when you're looking at the previous things that have been done. I just thought I'd throw that in there. Um and the other thing it's this is more from the 40,000 ft level. Uh looking at parking is finding using like the bus or non-motorized trans other ways of finding your getting downtown or without bringing your car with you to take it look at the higher level. not just worry about where we're putting the cars, but how are we getting people moving around and add that to your your task force. Thank you. You want me to sign in, N?

Anyone else for public comment on this item?

I was going to assign Director Webb to this task force so that we had one more year. Oh. Perfect. Come on up.

Welcome, Miss Martondelle. If you'll state your name. I'm Joan Martenddale and I own a business downtown and I'm really excited to have a task force to try to figure out downtown parking. I have worked downtown minus 10 years since 1978 and it is still the same. So I'm hoping we can come up with some kind of resolution and I appreciate all of your time, everybody who volunteers because personally it's really hard for me to do that. So I just want to let everyone know kudos to you. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else in the audience or online? Okay. Oh, we have Jamie Eolf on. Very good. Welcome Jamie. If you could turn on your camera and your microphone, we'd sure appreciate it. Oh, we we are thinking maybe you are here for the water presentation instead or do you have comment on the parking? Well, actually both, but um can I start with parking and then uh after the water presentation I'll come back on?

Perfect. Yes, that sounds great. Okay. Uh, so I had a recent injury and so I um I'm using a cane and having a lot of difficulty walking around and I now appreciate what handicap people have had to go through for so long. And my comment just has to do with um hoping that there can be more handicap access downtown. That's all. Thank you very much. Yeah, you're welcome. And thank you. Right. Anyone else online for this, Nancy?

Great. And last time in the audience. See, I knew if we waited long enough. Come on up. Became inspired.

There's a friend echoing in my head. Speak. Say something. Um, hi, I'm Brett Rson, W three. Uh, I'm from a big city, Seattle. Uh, parking is a nightmare there all the time. Uh, so I'm excited to see some sort of task force that is going to be addressing this. Uh, I mentioned before I'm a big advocate of access to things and I think downtown is something that should be accessible to the residents of Laramie. It's important for our livelihoods and enjoying the the city as it is. Um I to echo a sentiment that was mentioned earlier about uh different perspectives for how we get people downtown because including more parking spaces kind of maybe inherently means more traffic of cars. If the access for the cars to go there uh is there then there might be more traffic in that you know second street area, first street area. That could be I don't want to say an annoyance. It's just an something that would happen with the increase of parking spaces. Um, so if there's some part of the task force that looks at maybe improving bike ways to get downtown, improving transit infrastructure, things like that. I don't know that might be that sounds like it's out of the scope and I think I've seen um maybe some sort of ideas elsewhere, but I just wanted to bring that up um for my friend's sake and just for other people who enjoy walking around downtown and biking there and things like that. So, there's more ways to get people downtown than just increasing parking spaces. Uh, in the big city, I also do remember I feel like I was just there, just visited. Um, a lot of places will have like businessonly parking spaces. I don't see that a lot downtown. Maybe I'm not downtown enough, but maybe that's something that works well for bigger cities, like only, you know, uh, Cole Creek business employees can park at this spot or only Bonds Brewing people can park at this spot. But I I I don't know. Just that's my two cents. So, thank you.

Great. Thank you. Okay, last chance. All right, we will close public comment on this agenda item. Thanks everyone for the input and thank you city manager for um pulling that all together and giving us a direction forward. Um last work session um water planning where we are what's unknown and what's ahead and it looks like a couple of y'all are going to be presenting maybe to us but starting with director web. Welcome

mayor council. Good evening. I'm going to do the bulk of the presenting but I brought lots of backup. It's just the right button right hand.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. So, uh, the Laramie water availability plan, we've we've been hearing in the community, uh, people are worried about water availability this this summer and and rightly so. We've had, uh, as you know, high temperatures, not much moisture. Uh, we were hoping that the the moisture we got the last few days would pull us out of it, but not even close. So, here we are. Um the water availability plan is really an internal operational plan that gives our operators our water operators the ability to uh pivot during operations and provide potable water in the most efficient way. Uh the plan is a working document that's currently being updated um based on our water availab availability predictions for this year. Uh the plan talks to protecting a shared resource and that and that protection and conservation ensures a reliable water source um now and into the future. Um we're safeguarding the Casper aquifer and the Laramie River wershed and reducing non-essential demand during shortage conditions.

No, you're right. I'll just point it at you. Uh the purpose or goal of the plan is to reduce water demand when we have low water supply due to drought. Um and identifies some some triggers during drought or supply shortfall and and what our responses will be. Uh and we'll get into that a little bit. There we go. There we go. So, uh, determining a a water shortfall, um, we don't just use one data point or or we don't just look at the river and say, "Oh, there's not much water there." There's there's a lot of factors that go into play. Um, we develop monthly forecasts of supply. Uh, we compare supply against historic demand. We look at weather patterns, adequacy of supply over the projected dry period. Um and then we implement drought response actions as as necessary. Both surface water and groundwater sources are assessed together to produce the most efficient supply and outlet possible. So I think everybody knows our our critical season is May 1st to October 1st. Um we're approximately 250% demand increase in water production during that time period. That's of course when we have the uh the the high the highest demand and the lowest supply. Uh so that's when we're really watching things closely. Uh drought mitigating factors. Um just some some basic information here. Consecutive dry years reduce aquafer recharge and diminish surface water flows in the Laramie River. Um it it's always interesting to me that the drought can cause flooding flooding issues because the the ground is so dry that it doesn't necessarily absorb the

water and and can cause uh contaminants to to travel into the water supply uh through that runoff. Um some of the other factors that we have in water availability sometimes is wildfires. A few years ago when we had the fires up in the mountain, uh that next spring runoff, we had a lot of issues out at the plant with treating that water because of of of the ash and the materials in the water and and that caused a higher demand on the on the well fields. This chart was kind of interesting to me. The the the the darker line um represents the 2016 to 2025 river flows. Um so you can see there that through like February and March um everything's frozen on the mountain, right? That's that's our storage. It's being stored in the freezer, if you will. Um this year the lighter line there shows that um that the freezer broke down in February and that water started coming off off the hill. Um this only goes through April 15th. That's when we that's when we pulled the data from. Um but is what you see is on that lighter line now that's actually coming back down already. Um and so the flows on the river are are starting to uh decrease already. Um which isn't great. This I just wanted to note this status from a stream gauge that's located upstream of the water treatment plant. So it's not the one here in town. Um that's not what we monitor. We we we monitor above the water treatment plant so we know what's at the water treatment plant. The flow coming into the water treatment plant is much different than it is here in town because there's a lot of diversions between here and there. Um just showing temperature trends. Uh 2026,

you can see there uh 38% warmer than last year. Um for across every month was warmer. And then we we've got 2002 in there because that was the last time that we really had an issue with with water supply in the river and and we had some pretty serious drought conditions then. Uh we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go on. Um, as far as uh precipitation, uh, 2026, 2025, 2022 up there, you can see that we're well below average this year. Um, I think every that's common knowledge and we're actually uh even lower than we were in 2002 when we had um those other issues. So, this was pulled on April 15th. uh the Medicine Bow Range and South Larammy range was at 25 25% of the snow water equivalent. Um we looked at that data this morning and it's at 13% today or this morning. So when when the river can't be utilized um drought or lack of viable river water, flooding, wildfire, debris, contamination events. So, it's not just drought. Our water availability plan literally addresses all water availability issues. There there could be a plethora of reasons why we can't pull water from the river. Um, and we've got to pull from uh using the wells. Um, so our our overarching uh goal tonight is to is to let folks know that they don't need to panic this year. Uh, but conservation really matters. Um, we will have adequate water

supply this year. We're not going to run out of water. Uh, if the river goes dry, um, we we have wells to pump from. We have well fields. But conservation is key because if if we have this same weather pattern over the next few years and we're pulling that additional water from the aquifer, it's going to be hard for it to to recharge, to come back, to bounce back for us. Um, so really going to be concentrating on conservation this year, but we don't we we really don't want people to panic there. There's going to be water, but there will be conservation efforts in place. Um, we've I'm going to go on because I think I cover some of this in the next few slides. Um, some of the stuff we've we've actually done over the past couple decades to improve our uh our water uh capacity and distribution efforts are um uh uh some big projects. We put in the new raw water intake. Um that is up river of the Pioneer Canal. Um so if the river has water, the plant has water. Uh that intake uh we lowered the level of the intake to where I mean we'll be sucking mud out of there. Previously, we were we were above I want to say we were 2 feet over the two feet over and so if the water was 2 feet, it was flowing by the intake. Uh the lower intake now we can capture every drop of water in there. Um and and that improved our hydraulic grade line because it's upstream. Uh, another big project we did was the eastside tank project, 1 million gallons uh, of additional capacity in the system. Uh, multiple pump station improvements, new PRV stations have been added and standby power supplies.

Couple other projects, I'm sorry, I'm looking at it on here because it's easier for me to see too. Uh the wet well project at the water treatment plant added 1887,000 gallons of CA capacity in the clear well at the water treatment plant. Um South Larammy water project increased distribution system capacity south of I80 additional PRV stations installed. And then uh you're probably all familiar with the 1 milliongalon zone 3 uh north tank project that we completed last year. So just a a quick high level overview on water production and and and water rights. Um again we're saying supplies available. Uh if you look back at 2002 um when we had restrictions in place um in August uh the water treatment plant was not operating but we were supplying 310 we've supplied 310 million gallons of water uh to the community that that month um through our well fields uh last year 17 you can see 170 million gallons of that came from the plant. So, we have the ability to pivot and and do what we need to do there. Um, our peak high demand 13.5 million gallons a day last year. Um, our groundwater rights are 22.3 million gallons a day. Uh, surface water rights are 9.2. So, if the water in the river dries up, that 9.2 may go away, but we've still got the 22.3 million gallons and water rights in the well fields. Um, I I'm not going to get super in-depth on this. I know just a couple weeks ago you all had uh you all had a a pretty good work session on the whale monitoring fields and went through all that. We picked a few data points and um you know, I mean, is is what we're seeing is that the the water levels are are

declining in the aquifer over the last few years. And that's and and that can be variable, but that's where we're at right now. Um what we've started doing is some public out outreach. Um kind of a a slow start. We're going to start ramping up though. Um we're working with Owen in the city manager's office. You may have seen this on Facebook a couple weeks ago. And um our utility folks are are working with Owen to get more and more outreach out there. So, the outreach is really for targeting non-essential water users. Um, you know, talking about that outdoor irrigation, um, hours a day, you know, the the time of day, you know, don't have your sprinkler system going at noon, you know, um, kind of basic stuff. We're we're we've been talking with uh parks and parks and w quite a bit about their irrigation. They're a big user in the summer. Um in the ne next few weeks, we'll be talking with some of the other uh large users in town. Um another non-essential water use is uh obviously, you know, washing your car. Maybe don't wash it every week. Maybe once a month is enough. Um don't wash down your sidewalks, use a broom, that kind of stuff. Um, and then our community partnerships, just working with everybody in the community, uh, to bring that water use down this summer is really going to be big. Um, and again, we're going to be we're going to be meeting with those large those large water users. Um, just a couple of things on on community outreach. Uh, let the grass grow longer. Uh Todd actually mentioned me to me the other day that uh air rating saves saves a lot of water. I didn't realize that. Um but water at

optimal times, skip the hose on hard surfaces, use a broom, delay your sprinkler start up until maybe wait till June this year. Um fix leaks if you got them and adjust after rainfall. You don't need your sprinkler system running the day after it rains. Um I wanted to talk real quick the next few slides uh really talk a lot about uh Laramie Municipal Code. Uh Laramie Municipal Code Title 13 does talk about water use restrictions. Um the overall authority is to the city manager. Um this is uh through it's operational, right? And so we've got to have the ability to um work with the city manager sometimes on a moment's notice to to put actions in place. There's not necessarily uh time for us to come to send to council sometimes and and make those decisions. So uh the city manager through ordinance is is ultimately the decision maker on water restrictions. Um the Lair Municipal Code talks to the geographical scope of the restrictions and and really the gist of it is anybody connected to our water system um is subject to those restrictions. So um our water districts um and even if there's properties outside of the city or yeah outside of the city in the county area that are connected and we have some of those, they are subject to the water restrictions. So, anybody uh connected to our system um this speaks more, this isn't necessarily in their municipal code. This is more toward the water availability plan. This is pretty standard across the US, which you see

the different stages. Um I think uh a lot of uh Colorado down the front range right now is in stage two. Um stage one's voluntary. That's that's kind of where we're at right now is is this voluntary. We're putting out some public awareness stuff. Um stage two uh really starts to limit that non-essential outdoor use. Um you know that it may be that you you're not allowed to water your car or, you know, wash your car in the driveway or something. Uh stage three um is is a near complete outdoor band. That's when your irrigation stuff would really get crimped down. And then stage four is, you know what, if you're not drinking it or putting out a fire or flushing your toilet or taking a shower, don't use it, right? Um, we don't anticipate stage three or stage four this year. We we hope we don't get out of stage one this year. Um, we we we are predicting that we may hit stage two. Uh, but stage three, stage four, uh, we're we're sure hoping we don't have to get there. So, Becca Lairman Missile Code uh how the restrictions take effect. Restrictions adopted by the city manager become legally effective upon publication in the newspaper. Um I think this ordinance was probably written before we had all the social media and everything. So, I am sure the city manager will disseminate uh those restrictions by social media and other means possible. Uh Larian Municipal Code also uh has some enforcement and fees built in. You can see there $20 for the first violation, 50 for the second, so on and so forth. We sure hope we don't have to deal with that. Um and then beyond fines, um we can discontinue service. So, I mean, if we

had somebody that just, you know, was terrible and didn't want to listen and was just watering all the time, um, we have the we have the ability to discontinue their service through, um, through ordinance and that usually gets folks attention and then they'll start working with us. But again, uh, not anticipating that we'll have to deal with that. And then anything anything anybody's doing that threat threatens the fire flow obviously uh we would step in there um and and and shut that down to ensure fire th fire flow. Um there's also misdemeanor charge that gets built in um for for super egregious issues. Um Larry Municipal Code talks about unoccupied property. So, if we had an unoccupied property and uh that maybe they had an automatic sprinkler system that was running for 3 hours a day in the middle of the day, um a gives us the ability to to turn the water off on that unoccupied property if we can't reasonably uh get a hold of those folks. So the key takeaways really for the um for the for the Laram municipal code municipal code part is the city manager sets the rules. Um those those rules that he sets are he's going to get recommendations from from the utilities folks from through public works. They're the eyes and the ears that are out there every day monitoring this stuff, looking at it a and having to adjust uh the treatment and and distribution operations. So, we'll be giving the city manager recommendations um and ultimately he sets those rules and then the publication starts the clock. Um the wide geo geographical outreach again is anybody connected to

the system and then uh the consequences that we that we discussed overall again is is what we want people to know is that there's going to be water coming out of your faucets all year this year, right? But we got to be real real cautious. Uh we want to make sure that we're conserving what we can and uh being good stewards of the aquifer. With that, I'll take questions if you got them. Councilor Odory,

um, when you were comparing the couple years, I I remembered that our water use has really gone down even though population has increased the because I guess because appliances are more efficient, we have fewer leaks. Um, so that's right that our water use as a town has gone down.

Yeah, vice mayor through your our consumption has really gone down. um over the years and I think part of it is what you said more efficient appliances. Um, I think a big part of it is, um, you know, we had a long time there where we were doing a lot of rehab projects and we were we were fixing old water lines that were leaking and cracked and and we were we had a lot of water water loss and um, I think that's a huge part of it also. And I think just generally um, people want to conserve water, right? And I think that's I think over the past couple decades that's become pro prominent. So I I think it's I think it's multi- multiffactored.

Can I follow up? Um thank you. U the the smart meters that you've in you've installed or are installing. Um I I I think that's another great opportunity to save so water isn't wasted. And so people should know that those new meters that are going in can catch it in real time if you have a leak of, you know, thousand gallons a day, you know, that's just a toilet running. So I think that'll really help. And I was wondering if our our parks have like the smart sprinklers or if the university does where it's actually measuring the soil moisture before putting out more water on the

mayor you we made director Bourke come tonight so maybe he can speak to their what they're doing over there. Uh honorable vice mayor through you. U we we have been installing new control uh mechanisms for our irrigation system. Um that was actually a large project that we started last year switching that over if you recall. Um that is ongoing. It's it's a large system. Um whether we've got the functional the full functionality throughout the system to be measuring the moisture and things like that. Um not yet. But we are fully prepared as we have had uh done in the as we've done in the past to uh as as director uh uh web has has talked about, you know, looking at um being smart on where we're watering, making sure that all of our uh sprinkler heads are pointing at grass and vegetation, not sidewalks and concrete, things like that. um and and making sure that uh we we absolutely can reduce uh in certain areas some of our water consumption as uh as the city manager uh whatever he determines uh is the right course of action. But um we do have great technology as far as timing uh and setting them up where we're watering in the in the best times which obviously is uh in the you know nighttime overnight uh time early early morning um things like that. So, we we we have some of the technology, not all of it everywhere. Um, but we are continuing with that uh improvement project and and are prepared to to look at our water consumption reductions throughout our system. If and if you had any other questions, I could stay up here or let Director Webb get back.

Councelor Shamway.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I uh when I hear that our peak consumption rate is 13 and a half million gallons in a day, I think we could use we probably could go through a billion gallons of water a year in the city of Laramie and my question is this. If we relied completely upon the Casper aquifer, what is the capacity of the Casper? Is it two billion, three billion? What is the capacity of that? And what is the recharge level? Is the recharge level at a place that's so many feet where we can monitor that and say once we drop down to a certain level that's when we go to level two, level three, and level four. It's

J vice mayor through you.

So that's a really good question, right? because I could pull up about just off the top of my head 20 different well levels and give you 25 years of data and they all will show some differences through there on a aquifer decline what that looks like in my opinion um like we showed in the presentation hun number one is I think is a really good representation of the aquafer simplified, right? If you want a really good look, there's 45 years at least of studies. There's 25 years of data points that we've the city has taken every 15 minutes, right? So from a production standpoint, the draw down on the production wells in my opinion is the best trigger because that's whatffect affects, excuse me, I got something stuck in there. That's what affects the ability for the city to put water in your faucet. So, and that depends on where the pump is in the well, how deep, and that is different for all of the different uh well fields. So, it was a very vague answer to a very complex question. It was about a 500page uh report, the CAP, the 2023 one that digs into this quite a bit. Not really. It deals more with uh the geology of it, right? But then there's there's a Wellfield study on the Spurs. There's Wellfield studies on the Popes. There's Wellfield studies on the soldier. We could talk a long time about that.

Council Freed, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thanks, Jay. While we have you up here, I guess I I came up with another question based on um councelor Shamway's questions. And I know we have some water experts on the cast for here too, but um I guess we could go in into a lot of detail and and looking at the different numbers of wells, but maybe to councelor Shamway's question about like in this management structure that we have through public works and you know all these factors from weather to historical use to to flow rates, you know, is there like a I guess what I'm taking his question to be and hearing you talk about it. Is there a safeguard to where we know if we're seeing low levels in the aquifer based on use and consumption that now we're we're outpacing the recharge rate I guess you know and is that something that we can monitor? Do we have that information to say oh man we're pulling so much but our recharge rate has only been this for for the last 5 years we need to really jump up our our restrictions because it seems like we're outpacing the recharge.

Absolutely. And the so so not only will there be aquafer levels taken into place with the plan that director web has talked about, it won't only be aquafer levels, right? Because the effect on the river, but then there's also, as director web mentioned, there are other reasons of why we may have to rely on the wells or why we may have to rely more on um surface water operational, right? if if we have a failure at the water plant or we have a failure at a whale wh well field we're under regulations on how we can produce that water. So there are multiple different reasons and right now I cannot give you an exact level of where we meet because that's what we're working on. So that's we're updating those numbers. We're looking at everything and I would also add so there is a lot of data just on the river and on the aquifer separately right to do the flows that you saw that seems like a simple graph that's every five minute flows in the river for 75 years. So taking those making them averages also cuts down some of the peaks right because there's a dal you'll see in one day river shoots up shoots down right so this this presentation I and this data I think it's important to keep in mind this is a very simplified version of everything that's happening in the background right because we have to take into account not only water availability the water rights, what's some of our agreements for well fields, what's some of the diversions at the ranch, right? Stuff like that. Other diversions along the river, we have to take that all into account. And on some well fields, we

have agreements that say like uh spur well monitoring 12, monitoring well 12, 8, 7, 10, and 11. There's an agreement that says if draw down reaches this point you can only produce this many million gallons a day. So there are there are many safeguards in place not only through the city through the state. So again no answer but lots of work. No that was a great answer. That was a great answer. Thank you. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Great. Other questions by council or uh actually questions or comments? We come back to comments though maybe after the public has had a chance if that works for you all. Thank you, Council Freed.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um and Director Webb, I guess this is a question. I know in your um I didn't have questions before today and then you started talking and I always get them. So, I know that's why you're leaving. Um but you know the east side tank project um the wet well project the north tank project those are all millions or hundreds of thousands to millions of gallons that we've now like captured in our system that we store and kind of as part of this adaptive management process of water and and how we move it. That's like that's water that we have available to use and and put in the system when it's needed or am I getting that right?

Yeah. I mean, mayor, vice mayor thruu, uh, yeah, it's just it's part of our system, right? But it it we use that water every day. I mean, the the water's coming in and going out of those of those facilities every day, but it is additional storage capacity that we have within the system. Thanks, Councelor Shamway.

U Director Web, just a quick question. I know we have senior water rights on the Laramie River. Do we have senior water rights on the Casper aquifer? And if we do, can we uh supersede the um decision by the state legislature which gives University of Wyoming uh access at the same rate that we have access to the water? Director, what? I'm going to see if Jay wants to come back up.

You did the hard part.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. So, the answer to your question about senior water rights for the wells, no. But groundwater is regulated differently than surface water. So essentially groundwater is from a legal state perspective is always under regulation. So for example on the Larame River if there's a miracle and it starts flowing at 5,000 CFS right just out of the world going down through there instead of the 9.23 million gallons a day we could pull we could pull 20. It's called free river. So you can just pull as much as you want if the water is available. Right? When it goes into regulation, you are cut back down to whatever your water rate is. Ground water you are given so a rate gallons per minute but also a volumetric cap. So you can only pull this volume out. What happens in groundwater is interference. So interference claims and those are extremely complicated. So again, lots of words, but no,

other questions. I I do have one and and I think you're good, Jay. Don't worry. I don't think this one actually impacts you. Um and I I believe we have uh director Webb I think you had talked about you've already started discussions with the university to think about how is this correct or those are planned to think about how we could think about being conservative together?

Yeah, Mayor, we we're planning on uh meeting with um our large water users um in within the next few weeks. Um, you know, you got to think about, you know, there's the school district and there's there's quite a few of them, not not just the university. Um, but we'll we'll be setting up meetings with them in the next few weeks to start talking about conservation efforts. Great. Thank you. And thank you for reminding me that there's more than one Yep. You bet. Big water user. Any other questions from council? Reed,

I came up with one one last one for tonight. Um, I was just curious about does the city have do we have any other major agricultural users on city water? I know we have our ranches and and those uses, but do we have other big agricultural draws in the city besides our ranches?

Um, Vice Mayor, I can't think of any other large agricultural users that are that are on the city system. Um um I just can't I just can't think of any. And to follow up with that, we are not hanging right now, right? Hay hay production. We're not doing hay production right now. And here comes Ben.

Uh mayor, uh yes, we are diverting water on the ranch to irrigate. Okay. describe the water rights on the ranch from the water treatment plant.

Uh, sure. Yeah. Um, so the the water rights on the ranch are separate from it's it's a different allocation of water. They're but they are under the same priority date. Um the good thing with the water treatment plant is that it's upstream of um all the really bigger diversions on the on the system. Um essentially for the ranch if there's if there's water left for us will take up to our righted amount. If it's not there it's not there. So,

and have there been any thoughts of reducing our production out there for this summer um to conserve some more water? So, mayor um if we make a call on the river and it's as I understand and and Jay, you can correct me if I'm wrong. If we make a call on the river to supply water to the water treatment plant, it it's the same call. It's the same date call. If we make that call in the river, we're required to take that water. We can't make a call and then let it pass by us. And can you explain what a call is? I don't I'm not sure.

They are call is just exercising our water, right? Um you know, it's first and first and right, first and and use. So, um we have the number one party water right on the Big Larmy River. So essentially when we make a call it cuts off other users with a later priority date but in theory we could reduce we wouldn't have to make that call for the hang or could reduce our production of hay.

Mayor uh it likely wouldn't happen. Um the ranch is the ranch's water's about 30 32 cfs. Um between the border and the ranch the dowin intake there's probably 300 cfs of water rights I think on the whole system there's I don't even know it it's bigger than that but we're a pretty small number. Pioneer Pioneer Canal has over 200 CFS. Even if we didn't make that call, the water would never make it to to us. Got it. Thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. Appreciate it. Yep, it does. Councelor Shamway.

Well, briefly, uh you mentioned the Pioneer Canal. Obviously, most of the agricultural use is off the Pioneer Canal. Uh I think that it's important for us to continue to use the water on the uh Monolith Ranch at the capacity that we're because we have to show beneficial use in order to keep our senior rights there. If it drops below a certain level, we lose the rights that we have. If if we're saying, you know, we only use half of what we used historically, then that's what they're going to limit us to. So we have to be be very cautious that we don't reduce the amount of water going to the Monolith Ranch because that's water we use in the future for the city use

councelor bowling.

Uh thank you mayor. Um actually I I had a question but it was it was already answered but I I would just offer a comment in thinking about you know the council goals of like ongoing communication and community engagement um especially around the conservation efforts that will be kind of needed um all albeit perhaps not enforced that that director web lays out kind of at the beginning of the presentation. There's all sorts of really wonderful and fun STEM activities for students, for kids, for parents and families alike that are about conservation efforts like teaching kids how to be drip detectives and things like that. Um that maybe the council can be thinking about throughout our summer engagement activities again through farmers market through um freedom as a birthday etc. So just throwing that out there.

Thank you councelor bowling. Other questions from council? Looking at you, Freed. Okay. Um, all right. We'll move to public comment on this agenda item. Public comment. Welcome. You'll state your name for the record, please.

Chris Smoody. Um, honorable vice mayor and council members, I just wanted to address some of the questions that that that you had. I I mean, I've been monkeying around the Casper aquifer for 35 years, so it's um a fairly deep um knowledge that I've got in my head. Um realize that where your well fields are the 700 ft of the Casper aquifer is at that at those locations is completely saturated. You have 700 ft of sandstone that has water in it. Think of the aquifer as a reservoir. It's not a surface water supply that either the water is in the channel or it's not. It's a enormous vertical and lateral reservoir that contains an enormous amount of water. So when you think about recharge, when you think about the water supply, you you have a longterm viewpoint to it. It's not about what's going to happen this year in that as as director Webb said, don't panic. It's it's highly likely that the the river will go dry this summer like it did in 2002 in July. And um so you pump the aquifer as you need it and through the years the recharge will happen and you can respond uh in accordance to your monitoring and so forth. So you just don't need to get too wrapped up in what's happening right now this summer. the water is there and the wells are there. Um 2002 is a great

historical marker for you folks to look at what is likely to happen this summer. the the 2015 master plan has four technical memos in it and there are sections that describe what happened in in 2002 and with the river going dry in July and relying entirely on the groundwater system which you're likely to be doing this this summer. So the utility and you know all all the you can look at those tech memos and pick out that information say what happened in 2002 what would we expect and what happened was that the three month in 2002 the 3month production from the well fields was between 10 and 10.5 million gallons per day. And this goes to to Councilman um Shamway's question. So assuming that Michael Idol was was running that that groundwater resource to meet demands in 2002, the city was able to coax about 10 to 10.5 MGD out of the Soldier, the Pope, the Turner, and the Spur Wellfield. So that's probably a pretty good indication of what you have to meet that 13.5 MGD that was was talked about. And then you have storage. And there's a lot of details in in that mix as to whether the groundwater over a three-year period can meet all of the the summertime demands. So I I just suggest that that if anyone that's interested go back to those tech memos look at what happened in 2002 feel comfortable that

the aquifer is there to be used and that the infrastructure that the the the amount of water that you pull out of the aquifer is more limited by the design of your wells than it is the aquifer. the aquifer is not the limiting factor as to how much water the city can produce to meet demands. So, you know, there's there's improvements that can be made on the infrastructure. So, anyways, I'll leave it at that. I think I think I answered your question, Mr. Councilman Sham Shamway, with respect to demands of 13.5 and demonstrated ability of 10 and a half. So, we have a little shortfall, but maybe maybe there isn't. Maybe if storage takes care of it or something like that.

Thank you. Okay. Very much. And I am the worst timekeeper ever. So, uh I will try to pay attention. But that was very good information. So, we really appreciate it. Uh um let's see. We've got Chris. Come on forward first if you will and then we'll move to you. Marv, welcome.

Chris Stratton, 1569 North Sixth Street. One big thing that I have uh is literally I noticed that there's the statement that you guys are able to look at uh sprinklers and all of that coming onto the street. I hope that that is something that can be addressed with the University of Wyoming because you know last year pretty much every night if you wanted to wash your car all that you had to do is go drive by the uh golf course little bit slower than normal and you know you can have your car washed for free. Um, so and in general it rains they're flooding their grasses and I understand that they're not connected to the city system completely, but I would hope that you guys have jurisdiction to mandate some changes in that aspect. Thank you.

Thank you. Come on up, Barb. Thanks for letting me speak again. It's good to see you again. Thank you for your service. I'll start by saying that I really appreciate what the city of Laramie has done in terms of building our infrastructure. It's amazing. Um it's well above and beyond what a small town like Laramie uh would be expected to have. So, thank you. Excellent. Um, I'm also not going to question uh Mr. Moody's assessment that the aquifer is here 700 ft of water. Um, but I would like you to take a look at the the long-term data. The claim that 2016 will be like 2002 is incorrect. If you look at the is it possible to put up my presentation that I attached uh you will see that 2015 the summer levels of the aquifer were lower than the uh 2002 by far and that the uh high values in 2014 and 2015 were about the same as the lowest in the mid 2000. Also, one should think about recharge despite the fact that I I agree we don't need to panic but we need to pay attention looking forward into the future. If you look at number of years below average precipitation, we have never had nine consecutive years below average. The early 2000 it was only

three. So I'm asking you to look at what would we do please what would we do if we have five more years of 2016 what is going to happen if we have 10 more years just as a recent uh climate models show we are developing a super El Nino it may be actually good for us because we get more rain in late summer in El Nino But this Elino will not come until November. So we need to think forward and to say we're okay. We don't need to panic is not planning. Planning is what you've done so far which is change from aquifer only to also rely on water by water rights from the Lever River through the ranches. I'm asking that in future planning. Let's look at the long-term data just to show you what the river looks like this year. uh really abnormal. If we can go to a couple more slides down. Thank you. We are at 10% today. Uh if you go one more one more showing you the problems with precipitation. This is the last five years decline in aquafer which is what the uh uh water department showed you in this table. But the reality is if we look at the long-term data which we have and should use. Next slide please. Look at what we're looking at. We have a major trend going down and that data ends in November 2015. This this year will be even worse. So please look forward. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thanks for sending

Oh, thanks for sending that information along as well. Others who would like to comment, public comment, come on forward. Sully Balmer, 7:15 South 11th. And I will be brief but appreciative. Overall, if there's one huge message, it would be you can propel us. You can do whatever you want to to produce education. So, people do not know what the aquifer is, what it does. I've been working on water issues for about 20 years, both here and in other places, but it's like they we don't know. And so, I want you to tell some good news about education. The principal of the Mont Montasauri school is taking her class to clean up Spring Creek. But that level of like it starts here. I again feel in dismay at all the waste. We take water for granted. So don't forget how important it is that you're doing what you do cuz it's not just for us. And we're not isolated from other world events or other events in Wyoming. The city of Sheridan had a major problem when pollution entered their water system. I don't know if you know about that or not, but you can certainly call on the state engineers, but I won't overdo it, but please don't give up and know how important education is for each single person that lives in Albany County, you know. Thank you. Don't give up. Thank you, Sally.

Other folks in the audience who would like to comment on this item? Anyone online? No one else with hands raised. Okay. Okay. Are you sure? All of you audience people. Nobody else. Okay. All right. So, we'll move come back to council for um comment after hearing all that great information. Uh councelor Shamway.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. First of all, I'd like to say that we have absolutely wonderful water that comes out of the Casper aquifer. I have always loved to tell people you want to have great drinking water, come to Laramie, Wyoming because it's terrific. Um, I believe that the University of Wyoming on their flood irrigation uses different formations in the Casper. I think they use either Fel or Sanka. So, and it's not as good a drinking water as what we have in the Casper formation. Other comments? Council Free.

Um, thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to appreciate the city staff who've I mean, been managing our water and our resources for long before I've been here. Um and and just the confidence that I think our council shares and with our city staff for for managing these resources and and making sure that we have water for now and for in the future. And you know, I think a couple topics that I think we can work on as council too is an education component. And you know, I know director Webb mentioned all the social media posts and you know, our city manager has um you know, tools in in the tool belt if we need to address water restrictions. But um you know I think we can we can definitely work on how we can can continue to let folks know to you know not consume more than you need and um do those things that we can at an individual level and um I think you know having this conversation and and making sure that we're we're being a part of this community moving forward in the summer months where water might be tight I think is going to be important. So, I'm grateful for the community support here in the questions and comments, but I feel like we're in a good spot from from the city's perspective and and making sure that we continue to have that feeling is important.

Other council members, councelor Odori, you sure? Okay. Anybody else? Um, thank you city staff for bringing this forward. I I mean you all had said we're fine, we're good, but to see the data and see the numbers and um allowing other public to come forward and you know ask us to look at things you know other other areas to look at is is so appreciated. Um, I think if there is I love the idea of all this education. If we could even ramp that up with like some sort of I don't know, get creative with uh, you know, some sort of I'm a I'm a nighttime water. I don't know what it is. Like some some kind of campaign. Um, I think to even improve that is would be great. Um, I am so happy to hear because before this I came into this thinking, yes, we have water now, but what if like two years from now we still are in a drought? What does this look like? And yes, we need to look at that data that was shared, but I also feel a lot more um confident in knowing, holy smokes, we are so lucky to have a river and an aquifer. Um there are a lot of places that don't have that. And so it's just thank you for bringing all that information forward. And I think um allowing us to walk away with actual data that we can share with people. So thanks very much. Other thoughts, comments? Okay. So we will close that. um agenda item, work session item and we will move on to city council updates and council comments. You all are welcome to stick around for this. It's pretty riveting, but if you want to leave, feel free.

Um updates. Who would like to start? Who's ready? Go for it.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor. Pretty easy update for me. Um the only uh well there was a a fundraiser last week last weekend um is a bingo night. Drag queen bingo was amazing. They raised a ton of money for um different organizations across Wyoming. I got to be a part of that with councelor Vh Hill. So that was really special. Um and then on Friday I got to participate in some of the waste characterization studies with councelor Rody who was there all week last week and I know we had other city staff or city manager was there. I only spent four hours sorting through trash and it is wild. Uh, and you know, council can speak to it and anyone else who volunteered, but just a really interesting way to see what we're putting in our landfill and and what could get diverted or not. So excited to hear the this the study that comes from Tri Hydro and and the city from that. That's it.

Lockard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, for the life of me, I can't remember what we discussed at the Albony County Tourism Board last week. So, so I apologize for that. Um, but then I attended last night, um, evening the, uh, planning commission meeting and I, I couldn't attend all of it due to family obligation, but I did attend the, uh, port the first hour or so with the, uh, approval of the Westside uh, project um, for the URRA over at the GU property. And so and then they passed that last night 4 to2 and so um so we get to vote on that next week. So do you also want to update about the LCBA?

Oh yes. Gosh. Yes. So we had a membership drive uh for the LCBA and um dude Nutsu does this whole big deal which was he made it fun, you know. He made it really really fun. So we had a couple days of that and so we had a bunch of us there volunteered to do it. um people chose us and then I found out like I had mentioned before that I was supposed to recruit some people too. So felt like I was in multi-level marketing but I was able to get you there and um about five people there and then we were just calling people that we knew that were either already um members of the LCBA or we asked them if they could join and Mr. Renzy was able to speak on why the importance of having a chamber and did fantastic like I think we hit our goal. I don't remember what the exact goal was at the top of my head and and our team had the most my captain me the captain and you guys all had the most um registrations between new and um we upgraded some people and I got another one today.

So they got hold of me today. So I was like mention my name when you call you know. So but it was a good time. So, I appreciate everybody that got involved and a lot of new people signed up and um and the importance of having a chamber and the importance um that Brad and his staff do for us with the legislation and things like that trying to improve Laramie. So, that was fantastic. Councelor Newman, I don't think I have any updates and if I do, I'll tell them next time.

Sounds good. Um since we're just going around the table, I will go next. Um, we had beautifification. They are accepting applications from um, entities kind of anyone around town if they have a beautifification project. And they just moved to increase their grant level to $3,000. I think it was 2500 before, maybe 2,000 before, I can't remember. Um, but they are looking at applications and that kind of is just open and um, at this point. And I I'm not sure if there's like a closing time to that. Um, actually, I think it it may have just closed. Um, I'll find out though if you have questions or thoughts on that. Um, the downtown development authority got a great presentation from director Tini about um and um and uh the city engineer about um short-term parking. So, 30-minute parking spaces in downtown um that was received well. So, I think those will be kicking off here anytime soon. Um, and then Pilot Hill. I don't know if any of you have had a chance to go out to the um, trail head, but um, Keler Bowling sent me a great video the other day when he was out there, but it is looking so good. And so they are making they've made huge progress on that. Um, and then I will say I was part of the winning team for Matt, but I did zero work. I showed up for the beginning thinking I would be getting to work and that was all like the raw time. I called no one. So, I don't get to take any credit for that win, but it was fun to be there and next to you, counselor.

Yeah. So, I spent the past week uh digging through trash, and my anecdotal report is that uh I think people are being pretty good about what they're recycling because we didn't I mean, I don't know, but it seemed to me that we weren't pulling out a lot of the recyclables. It was mostly stuff that you can't recycle and a lot of food. um sometimes. And but the other thing I I wanted to mention about that is on the way out to the landfill every day, it's very distressing to see how many bags are blowing around. And back in 2020, we tried to do something about bags and um then the pandemic hit and was like, "Yeah, maybe not the time." But um I think it's something we should look into and um maybe a beautifification project. Um, councelor Frerieded was saying that the uh the forest or or the um Wyoming Conservation Corps, they they do volunteer projects. I think it would be cool to just have like a big army of people walking as if you were looking for a missing toddler or something walking through and grabbing those bags and making it a a public, you know, get some videos and maybe get people to tie up their bags. That was my lesson. Okay. Thank you. I thought about once putting a giant like art sculpture that just captures all the bags and then it like becomes a bag sculpture out there. Council Shamway.

Well, first of all, I'd like to thank our city manager Todd Feeser for all the and all the staff work that they have done on the community cleanup. Uh, I'm volunteered to be at the cemetery this weekend, I think Saturday from 9 to 2 or something like that. And and I believe that they've got 200 people showing up for that. So hopefully I'll get out of there before too late. But anyway, that's the one thing I love about this community. There's so much participation in beautifification of Laramie. Uh anyway, I also attended a uh a fundraiser called HearttoHeart at the Harvest Church where they had over 600 people show up for that fundraiser and that was very very rewarding. And I have a check for whoever for the soup kitchen, whoever that

whoever that goes to. Who do I give it to? Mayor Yeah, we'll give it to her cuz she lined it up. I don't even have an invoice yet. So, let's give it to the mayor or you can give it to me and I'll give it I'll give it pass that on down to She's on the board. Thank you.

Okay. Check his check. Uh let's go up to councelor bowling.

Thank you uh vice mayor. Um uh I think since last I was able to report just a few updates. Um police uh the emergency planning commission we had a couple presentations. um one of which was about uh you know the estimates or the considerations for fire season um which I think is inextricably listen linked to the drought presentation that we just saw but some things to note including the fact that they're kind of finding unprecedented low foil fuel moistures in Pole Mountain currently that this was at least at the beginning of this month and also are able to access areas to measure fuel moistures in the snowies that are have uh historically been inaccessible at this time of year. So, um just more exciting things to think about for the summer. Um uh we also had a police advisory board meeting. um the presentation of that uh in addition to doing a um an op-ed about the uh SPE tax and how it will um affect public safety infrastructure. Um we also had a a working session on the use of AI tools in police reporting that the LPD is currently using. Um and as part of that, every member of the board, um basically we were watching body cam footage of a of a incident happening locally. Um and then we had to write a report by hand. Um and it just brings to light some of

the things about the fallibility of memory, especially in reporting. um and some of the actual public safety mechanisms that can be put in place by the use of AI tools in that reporting. Um which is also to say that it's not without its um shortfalls or fallibilities or questions, but that's also something that the board is thinking critically about. Um, and uh, as Council Richardson said, everybody go check out the Hill Trail Head. Um, thank you. Uh, yeah, just to reiterate, um, Councelor Freed, uh, we had a great time at bingo night, um, last weekend. Raised a lot of money for, um, a community in need, and so that was great. And um yeah uh town gown association is rocking. Um there was a proposal accepted at the international town gown association conference in Texas uh next month. So some folks from um kind of the working group on that will be presenting in person, some will be on Zoom. Um so I went to a meeting just talking about what we're presenting on and so um that was kind of cool. So mostly um right now it's just successes and challenges of uh living in a rural community um but also having three separate institutions uh educational institutions rather um and so yeah good stuff. Thanks. Great. All right so I think that is it for um our updates. Anybody have any questions about the agenda for next week? Yeah, it's a

Is there any number 20? Is there any way to move that forward just because a lot of people are going to be here for that and hate to have them wait for an hour and a half just to be involved in that? Yeah. So, the mayor thought about this and thought the the kicker with that is if we if that takes up the bulk of our time, if there are so many public comments, then we're not going to be able to get through the business we've got to get through. That makes sense. We went back and forth on it. I understand. Um, makes a lot of sense.

Okay. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, just a kind of a Yeah, it's like a not very not a win-win really either way. Yeah. We did have um director um Webb suggest if you wanted to move item 15 to consent agenda. Um he thought that that would be okay. Uh I don't know how the city manager feels. I haven't been able to talk to him about that. Um but he said at this time it's just authorizing the emergency work um to begin um for failed water main and the money item would come at a future um

meeting. So yes, please. Okay, that sounds great. Couldn't council goals to go to the end? Just thinking that too. Number 17. Couldn't that go some? We could probably put that on the end. That should be very quick. And even if we didn't get to it right on Tuesday, we that would come up again and be really quick. So, not as timely as some of the other things that we've got to get. We got another meeting in May, too. Okay. All right. So, did you get that um city clerk? Okay. 17 the end. Okay. Yep.

What about what about community partners? Is that another one that needs to be done at this meeting or The kicker with that though is if we don't approve it, they don't get their money, right? We have to approve it before they get their money paid out or anything. That that was kind of my question. Honorable vice mayor, I think that the community partners could be approved at a later date because the funding is based on next fiscal year if I remember correctly. Yeah. And so we can actually we could actually truthfully if we wanted to we could move council goals and community partners to the next meeting in May if you so choose.

Um I do you all feel like I mean that works for me. Well there's four proclamations. Yeah we've got a lot of proclamations. Four proclamations. Those are going to take a while to read and to take photos and then coun or youth council presentation as well. Okay. Yeah. Councelor Shamoi, Vice Mayor, if we move community partners and council goals to the end of the agenda, it automatically and we don't get to it, automatically go to the next. That's a smart idea. Put it there because I I don't think those are going to take a whole lot of time, right? Do you all are you all good with that? Yeah. If you don't do it anyway, good idea, Council Shamay.

Okay. So to recap, we are moving emergency work to consent agenda. We're moving community partners to number 20 to the end. And we are moving uh council goals to the end. Is that everything? Yeah. Yep. Okay. Perfect. And if we don't get to it, they just roll over to the next agenda. I like that. Council pre my only question this is vice mayor was that city manager said he was going to make you know really short agendas for us in 2026. So that was my only agenda review comment and question.

Perfect. Well accountability you know. All right. Anything else on that? Okay. Thank you for the help on that. I think that makes that a better agenda for next week. Um and now we will Oh, can I have a motion to adjurnn? move we adjourn the work session and go to a special meeting. Yeah, we can take a break. Uh let's take a Can I get a second? Okay. All those in favor? I Okay. And then let's take five minutes and come back. And we This isn't closed. This is just regular, right? Yep.

All right. So, we are back to it

to read the notice. City man or city clerk?

I'm happy to if you'd like. That would be lovely. Thank you. Notice is hereby given that a work session and special meeting of this Larmy City Council will be held Tuesday, April 28th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. at 406 Ivansson Avenue council chambers and via Zoom. Um for the following purpose work session with number one, Le Ned log property update. Number two, citywide parking task force development. Number three, water planning. Uh where are we? What's unknown and what's ahead? Number four, city council updates and council comments. Number five, agenda review. The special meeting call to order. Number one. Number two, roll call. Number three, public comment on non-aggenda related items. Number four, resolution 2026-28, budget amendment for fiscal year 2026. And number five, to adjurnn.

Thank you. City clerk, will you call the role, please? Bowling here. Freed here. Lockheart here. Newman here. Odory here. Shamway here. Behill here. Richardson here. And Cumbi absent. That's eight present and one absent, your honor. Thank you, city clerk. Come on up. Director Wade, please. Oh, sorry. Public public comment. Thanks for keeping me in line. Any public comments? Okay, now to you, please.

Oh my gosh. Yes, please. And also that motion, please. We just got done talking about this. Uh, I move to approve resolution 2026-28 amending fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026 bianual budget of the city of Larmy Wyoming and authorize the mayor and city clerk to sign.

Second uh second by V Hill, moved by Newman and and now after three tries to you director Wade. Good evening, honorable vice mayor, members of the city council. First and foremost, I am so sorry about the special meeting for this item. Um, but if I'm going to practice what I preach, um, I needed to call a special meeting and this was important to me. And so on April the 6th, I notified our trustee for the 2018 SPE bonds that we needed to call that issue. Um, the next debt service payments are due on June the 15th and we have to give our bond trustee notice in a certain amount of time to call these bonds. And so on the 6th I sent this letter. I heard nothing, heard nothing, checked back and they confirmed they received it. And then last Friday I got an invoice that said we had to have payment to them by the 30th. And while we had normal debt service payments budgeted for the year because we were un uncertain about the timing of the final SPE tax collections, we actually need to amend the budget upward to be able to call all of these bonds. You may recall um hearing me talk about the reason I was holding these bonds for as long as I could. Um one issue we had a 0.92 that's a 0.92% interest rate. The other issue we were at a 1.06 and the Treasury rate right now what I'm earning on funds is about 3.8%. And so it really benefited us to hold on to this debt as long as we could. But the IRS has some regulations around arbitrage that really make it, you know, not very advisable for us to hold the debt beyond this point. And so we need to call all of those bonds. We are bound in timing. So we do need to get this out the door. And to be really honest with you, I thought we'd be making this payment around June the 1st and I thought I'd be bringing this budget amendment in May. But the timing is what it is. And tonight you're being asked to amend the budget by $5,13,76

to allow us to call the rest of these bonds. This amendment will be funded entirely by of course cash on reserve and restricted for um bonded debt service. And that's a great pointer for how it works with the SPE tax. So over the entire life of the collection of the tax, what we're doing is we're setting money aside for the bonded collection of this tax and and that's been managed for a very long time. And so these funds are in hand. There's no problem with that. And I'm simply asking for permission to amend the budget so I appropriately expend these funds when we call the bonds. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Director Wade. Questions? Councilor Dhy.

I don't really understand what call the bonds means.

You vice mayor, if it's okay. Um to call the bonds means we are going to redeem the outstanding bonds. And so we sell bonds um typically to banks um and to redeem them means uh we're going to put a we're going to say hey we no longer want this debt to be outstanding and so when we negotiate these debt agreements there are call provisions that happen typically after year seven because the banks want to make sure that they earn a certain amount of interest for a certain amount of time to make it worth their money based on what they know at the time. Right? make it a good deal for them. Um, and so there are callable provisions built into both of these debt agreements which allow us after that fixed date to redeem all of these if we want to quit um having the bonds be outstanding or quit paying interest depending on what maybe is the situation we're in. Other questions? I have one. And so um we are calling these bonds because in the last um specific purpose excise tax we had bonded and because that is complete now we need to call the bonds back. Vice Mayor that's correct um because collections are fully completed um IRS regulations say that we really need to call these bonds because to hold them would be to our financial advantage and that is really frowned upon for a tax umexempt bond. Great. Thank you.

Other questions? comments. Uh, Council Newman, uh, thanks for all your work on this and I'll tell you when I got uh, the finance committee email and I'm like, holy moly, that's a lot of money for me to say yes to. Um, but it makes sense why we have to. So, I appreciate all your work on this, Kory. Okay, other comments. Thank you very much for being on top of this and not making us illegal. Thank you. Okay. Um, roll call, please. Oh gosh, my gosh. Public comment. Public comment.

Really trying to get us out of here. Sorry, you guys. Okay, now roll call, please. Bowling, I. Freed, yes. Lockheart, yes. Newman, yes. Odory, yes. Shamway, yes. Vehill, I. Richardson, I. Cumbi, absent. That's eight T yeses, zero nos and one absent, your honor. Thank you, city clerk. All right, that uh has passed. And now we are on to adjourning. I think nothing else, right? Do we have a motion to adjurnn? I move we adjourn. Second.

All right. All those in favor? I I we will adjurnn 8:32 too.