City Council - Regular Meeting

26. Members of the public are invited to attend in-person city council meetings in council chambers on the first level of city hall. Public access to tonight's meeting is also available on the local government access channel 8 for Comcast subscribers on the city's YouTube channel online and by telephone using the call-in numbers posted on the meeting agenda. Will the clerk please call the role? Mayor Lightidy here. Mayor Prom Lukeman Hiramasa will be absent. Council member Burns here. Council member Severs here. Council member Condo here. Council member Roer will be absent. Council member Goff here. Council member Noiki here. And

council member Lighty will be absent. Thank you. We have three items on the agenda tonight. So I'd like to welcome um our guests. We have our communications and marketing assessment update number one. Uh so Joy Riot will present this item. So come on up. Hi everyone. Hi,

I'm Jessica McCarthy. I'm the president and co-founder of Joy Riot. I'm also joined by Rick Emirado. He is um from Citic Consulting Group who's our uh subconultant on this. Really excited to be here today to give you basically an update on where we are in the process. Um we will go ahead and start with um as you all know since you were a part of it we concluded our council member um interviews we did have a chance to speak with every single council member um what I'm going to present in terms of the initial findings these are not hey here's what we're see you know what the final word is or any recommendations this was just to help us inform um overarching the communications assessment, but also what are some of the things that we wanted to dig deeper into with staff. Eventually, we will be doing our survey to the community. Um, so these are not final conclusions, but we'll talk about them anyway. Uh, so overall, we heard from you all that Northlands Communications delivers accurate, reliable information, particularly through traditional channels um and event promotion. But at the same time there are expectations um that are constantly evolving and there are a lot of opportunities to enhance how when and uh where content is delivered. So within that some of the themes that we heard from you all overall there's a desire to modernize content and the channels we want to make sure that we are uh expanding into using more real time video first social content um building more engaging digital first communication streams also making sure that things uh particularly in the social space are timely and there's continuous engagement. we're meeting the community where they are. Um there's a desire for more consistent coverage before, during, and after

events, initiatives. Um really as more of a consistent update for the community. Um and there's an overall opportunity to improve speed and relevance of the content delivery system. Overall, there's some opportunities for council to further align on um amongst yourselves as well as with the staff uh expectations for visibility and content coverage, the internal workflows and roles to support these more modern communications practices. Um and then really importantly, balancing the generational differences in how people consume content. making sure we are um being adaptable to all of the different content consumption needs of the community. Additionally, there's a desire to really strengthen the systems and processes. Um really making sure that we streamline and consolidate communications channels where it makes the most sense potentially by audience type or um topic type. Those are things that we are continuing to dig into as well as improving coordination across departments particularly where there may be some opportunities to crosspromote or um kind of work in conjunction with each other. Overall, the goal is to build a more cohesive and scalable communications approach. Uh one that like our typical content consumption is also evolving over time. The big thing here is really emphasizing transparency, education, and community storytelling. So, making sure as a government organization, you are being very transparent, making sure that the information is very accessible and easy to understand. Um, there was a desire to see more education of kind of demystifying these government processes so that the community understands why things are the way the they are. Um, and then also incorporating a balance and

having more positive, inclusive, and communitydriven storytelling. There's also a desire to have a a greater focus on public safety content, highlighting community policing that balances transparency and tone and gets at the more full picture of what the organization does. So, that's the highle kind of themes. Um, I'm going to turn it over to Rick to give a status update on where we are and what we're looking to do next.

Good evening, uh, Madame Mayor, members of the of the council. Today, we actually concluded our stakeholder engagement with city departments. Um, you can see we talked with Park Rex and culture, your economic development team, your communications and engagement team, as well as the the police department. So, um, we discussed with them a lot of the same concepts that we discussed with you about the percept their perceptions of North Glenn, what they feel the outside world thinks about North Glenn. And then we dug a little bit deeper into their role, the role of communications in government, their processes, how effective they think they feel they've been, as well as, you know, the training and tools that they think they may need in a new communications environment. So, it was very fort and and frank. you have a great staff here that care very deeply about what they do and it was really refreshing to be able to sit down and kind of dig deep uh into what they're doing. I was saying today that I actually went and I did a tour of the rec uh center and the theater and as someone who has built theaters for municipalities in my role in government. You guys knocked it out of the park. Oh my god. If I had to back off the back stage that you have there, it's what you want. So, congratulations. One of the other things we wanted to talk to you was about the competitors that we're going to take a deeper dive into in our conversations. You know, Thornton and West Westminster aren't a surprise. They're your regional sort of competitors. They may have different demographics, a different size, different budget, but the fact is regionally you're competing for new residents. You're competing for people who use some of your parks and recreation services, right? So, it's logical for us to take a a deeper dive even though they may have much larger budgets and things like that. Uh if you look at Erie, Wheatidge, De Moine, and Farmers Branch, they're more your population size, more of your budget. Erie, not so much, but it's the same sort of size city. And so we're going to take a deeper dive into uh those places. And in next steps, we're looking for

direction from you to approve our competitor deep dive list. If there's any any suggestions or something that we missed, now is the time to let us know so we can start that work. And our next steps are to take all of the information from the stakeholder focus, all of our information from talking with you, uh, putting that all together and then working on the questionnaire for the community to find out how they receive their information, how they would like to see receive their information, what they think about how the city communicates, how they'd like to see you communicate. All of that hopefully will be encompassed in our survey that'll go out to all the different groups that we want to make sure we reach. Um, that being said, thank you. And if there's any questions or if you have any concerns about the competitors list, we're here to answer any questions.

Council member Condo. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for presenting. Um, I'm just curious when you I don't know if that was a comprehensive list of all the departments that you interviewed, but I noticed that the IT and ops and finance departments are not on that list. Is that in your scope or is there a reason why those were excluded? I think we really focused on the communication forward departments. Um, you know, we wanted to keep this as focused as we could within the capacity that we had with this RFP. If there if you think there's um value in that, that's something that we'll definitely look at.

Yeah. I'm just thinking that um with a lot of the economic headwinds that we're looking at and a number of residences that uh have previously expressed some concern about transparency in our finances, uh finance seems to come to front of mind. And then of course the other component here that I think about is okay, so we're talking about potentially uh renovating or changing the way that our website could be or our our social media. So, I would think that it would also have a dog in the fight. I I don't know. I mean, I'm making that assumption, but you tell me.

Yeah, for both of those things as well, we're looking at the the public facing audit and looking at what's currently there, benchmarking it against competitors, um, as well as the community input will be really helpful in determining that as well as one of the many inputs into this process. And I also in the in the sense that if we at the end of the process have recommendations for new technologies that you could use, I think I think it would definitely have uh a role in that. So, thank you. Okay. Gotcha.

I'm happy to add a couple additional pieces if you'd like. Council member Condo. Um the looking at a new website platform is already included in the strategic plan. So, um I've been having conversations with um our director already about that effort and so she's looped in and um you know the the refresh we just completed and launched early last week is simply that a refresh and I think based on council direction through the strategic planning process our our sites are set on when financially available um the funding that is will look at launching um excuse me, we'll look at um securing a new platform with greater functionality and launching that. It likely won't be until 2027 at the very earliest 2028. Um but certainly Joy Riot's um recommendations can be around that but currently there is no plan to have finance staff andor IT staff meet with Joy Riot um as the um project progresses and once we start receiving recommendations those recommendations will be shared with all of leadership team. So there will be an opportunity for all directors to weigh in and react to the recommendations. So that's how I envisioned um more of the secondary departments to be involved in the process. Um but we certainly prioritized the immediate stakeholders in the way that we did.

Okay. Gotcha. Thank you, Council Member Burns.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, and to your point a little bit further, Council Member Condo, I think like there's a difference between internal and external comms and like specifically like the staying within scope of like looking at our internal processes at the moment. Meeting with teams that already have a comms person because we don't have that centralized comms, right? And so I think like when I think of like where we're going, that would be the job of the comm's director to put out things from finance and it if we needed, but mostly that is an internal comm's role. Um just an FYI. And then to your point, um what the question is here is like I really like this competitor set. I'm very I'm really interested in Farmers Brands Texas. Um, I like their website setup. I think like and like the location of both of the cities. De Moines, Washington, not De Mo Iowa. Um, is very close like they're so similar because like in their proximity to airports and like sort of like the major m like major hubs was like really helpful as well. Um, and I think like I was really shocked by Farmers Branch Texas to be honest too because I think like their vibe is very much us too. like did you guys see their Cinco deago event for Cinco de Mayo? Um, and so I think it's just like I think like their values are pretty aligned to ours as well. So I'm really interested to like dive deeper into this. Um, so yeah, I thought they were cool and different.

Council member Noiki.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Excuse me. Thank you both of you for being here and for your work. Um it's interesting to kind of think you mentioned this uh you know kind of thinking of North Glenn as a product and that that's something I'll have to kind of toy with because I've not kind of thought in that context but thank you for that um because that is helpful. I am in uh I'm curious how you kind of separate or uh you know and in in your expertise like what is kind of a communication problem from like a product problem? Um because I mean we think of it it looks like for council uh there's kind of you know we call it kind of this hidden gem you know and whereas others have their perception like oh just we didn't even know North Glenn exists.

So can you speak a little bit about that? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, when we we think about a destination and or, you know, as as a product, you're we're really selling so many different things, but it comes down a lot of times to the experience.

Um, and that's not necessarily a tangible thing. You're talking to businesses, residents, you know, all all of these uh different components, visitors who are coming in for Pirate Fest and all of that. So as we think about um really those those two things communicating those things marketing those things um as well as what internal things need to change there is a lot of interconnectivity but the big thing is working with what it is that you have and finding that beautiful nugget of insight into what is that common thread throughout everything and every everyone that you're communicating with. Um, as well as thinking about, um, you know, I I always use the example of selling ice to an Eskimo. We can do that really well. We can we can do all all of that, but it's really about finding that thing that is truest to who you are and who you want to be in the future. Um so throughout this process there will be things uncovered where it's a hey where might be there might there be some challenges on the product side? Are there ways to overcome those? What are those ways or are there things for more of a long-term plan where you think about addressing some of those?

Okay. And you'll be able to and you'll just kind of give us that frank feedback. Yeah.

Okay. Great. I would appreciate that. Thank you. And from my point of view, I look at it as what is what is your identity as a community, right? Um, and what are the services that you are providing in that context, right? You you know, you could be pro business, you could be anti-development, you could be uh very environmental and pro parks, and you could be let's get the traffic through our city as quickly as possible. You could be um, you know, unresponsive to the community as a whole. You could say, "No, we're making these decisions for the best, you know, best of our knowledge, but you know, we think we're right to do it." So, you know, figuring out what that identity is as a city. That's your product in in a sense. Right. Right.

Um now, you can't be everything to everybody, but you have to have that core value and that's really what and what sets you apart from the people around you. Yeah. Because I think in the past, our product, I mean, if we think, you know, kind of continue down this line of thinking as North Glenn as a product, it was kind of that bedroom community. right? That was the product that was North Glenn. And now, you know, I think the things we're kind of exploring is, you know, can it can it be different than that? Um, I really hope that it can. Um, you know, because I think it needs to kind of grow and that way we can maintain the the stuff for, you know, the infrastructure and things that we have. So, excellent. Thank you.

I had a couple questions. Um, we're looking at communications and marketing and PR and it struck me how unassuming your presentation is and I was wondering about that like it is just I'm assuming there was a choice but it's just white with text. Y can you talk to me about that?

Absolutely. Um, that was very p purposeful. Okay. uh when we present research it is very much here is exactly what we heard. We are not spinning anything. We are not pulling out anything of therefore you know go here. So in this presentation we wanted to be very clear this is not an end product. This is where we are in the process and what we've heard along that process as well. Okay that makes sense because it struck me and then I was like I bet this was on purpose. Yeah.

Um, the other thing that I thought was interesting is you have additional slides that I've looked at that were not in this presentation and some of them I think would be interesting to unpack. Um, the key findings around like barriers to audience attraction. um key findings around um some of the there was just a lot in here that wasn't in today's presentation um that I think is I just want to make sure that council takes a look at. How do you plan on weaving all those extra components as we move forward because it was very limited for the public today?

Yeah. Yeah. So, um knowing that you guys are very busy, we wanted to do a very brief overview. Um but again because this is a part of the greater process all of this information and all of that additional information will be folded into kind of the final findings and final deliverables where we're taking the things that we had um heard and and are in that append appendix um is now looking at from our stakeholder interviews where are we seeing people in agreement of maybe some of these barriers or challenges uh where there may be discrepancies and Most importantly, I think when we get to the community survey, are what's the community thinking about these things? Are they seeing these as challenges? Um, you know, where are they getting their information? What information is is most relevant to them? Things like that. So all of this will come back to kind of the final presentation and uh providing more insight into what what of these barriers may be more of a structural nature uh process nature or a purely communications nature. So we will absolutely dig into that.

Okay. Because there's so much there. Yes. But the one that kind of went to your original question is the slide that talks about what we think our competitors are. Mhm. And I could see some of some of those cities are on that final list. Um I have never I know I know our city manager used to be in Wheatidge. I think sometimes we overcompare to Wheatidge. I don't know that Wheatidge is necessarily the the mark. I mean, it's similar in size, but there's a lot of other um municipalities in Colorado that are. Can you speak to why you highlight a couple that are not in Colorado?

Yeah. So, we wanted to look at um comparatively other places that may have similar demographic makeup, geographic makeup, you know, different population things as well. Um, additionally, we've worked with a lot of municipalities. We have seen a lot more than is currently on this list and so are also just by the nature of why what we do and what you know how we do it um are also thinking about best practices as a whole across the country. And while yes, you need to, you know, actually compete against those that are in the the closest proximity to you, also seeing the inner workings of how some of these other municipalities that are similar in some way. um so that we can kind of benchmark of oh well this type of town might have x number of staff or resources or are able to accomplish some of the things that you all have talked about and how can we do that um you know there are also things where they may do something because they happen to be in Texas and that's only a Texas thing of course we understand those things as well

um but really trying to not just compare yourself to those in Colorado, but look at best practices across the country.

Okay. And you probably have those in your list, client list, I'm guessing. Okay. Because I didn't I didn't have any opposition to the competitor deep dive. I think um Eerie I think is interesting because I know a lot of our residents move to Erie and there there's an appeal there. There's reasons they do that. And so I think that's interesting. Our neighbors make perfect sense. Um if if we can you think of a third not Colorado one that might that could possibly replace Wheatidge?

Uh we do we I'm trying to think of the list that we had. We were looking, I think, at Rustin, Virginia, and there was a place in Massachusetts we were also considering, um, as a non-col similar proximity, demographics, things like that. But we can absolutely send that to you. I was just wondering um cuz I I see the value in looking in Colorado but also there's great things happening across the country and if we can tap into something like that I think that would be that would be great. Uh Council Member Condo.

Thank you Madame Mayor. I'd like to just continue that conversation on uh pure cities. So De Moine, Washington, interesting. But unlike North Glenn, they don't have their own waterworks. They're in a Highland water district. So I don't know if that really might be a good pure competitor to look at. I I don't know. I mean, I'm just bringing that to your attention because, you know, clearly here in Colorado and hopefully your very brief time that you're here, you're starting to understand that water and the availability of water is a big deal. Mhm.

And in fact, one of the things that's creating a lot of confusion, uh, if you listen to our last council meeting, is the fact that the cities have different ways of labeling what stage of water restrictions they're in. which I think is fascinating. But, uh, again, I I think the mayor has a great idea about, yeah, maybe we ought to include some other, uh, municipalities outside of the state, but I I also have some concerns about selecting a pier that doesn't have their own water system because that is a big deal for us.

Can I ask a question about that? Like having because that that's a fact for sure. How does that relate to communications? I mean, yes, we're going to we need to communicate about water, but as far as having a communication strategy, yeah, again, I'm just trying to say pick peers that are similar in structure and an organization and services that they provide. So, in this case, De Moine, Washington does not provide their own water. They do manage their surface water but they do not have a water treatment plant, sewage plant, etc.

I personally am not seeing the direct connection to comms with that. I do see that and that's where like we overcompare ourselves to Wheatidge because they're very very similar in city structure but maybe not necessarily their comm's plan like I don't know I don't know if they're like a model because they're doing communications and marketing and PR so much better than we are but just because we both have our own police department that that to me is I'm not seeing the direct connection there. I guess

uh Madame Mayor, I I just think that when you're trying to compare yourself, you would like to do it apples to apples if possible. I mean, if you try to do apples to oranges, it might actually cause you to have cause you to go in a direction that may actually take you left of center line, left or right of center line. In which case then now you're acting perhaps on or maybe having an action plan that's not necessarily based on something that is somewhat similar to what our city is. Okay. In terms of its organization structure and and view of services that we provide to the public.

Okay. I hear what you're saying. I just don't see how it relates to comps. For example, Thornton is five times our size. I agree. But it's still very wellware. Right. So we can't do apples to apples in the whole list I guess would be gotcha if that makes sense. I agree. You know, my point, Madam Mayor, is this that uh we're different being in the mountain region area

and you know, clearly there are things that are affecting us right now in the near term. And certainly the availability of water is a without waters societies will evaporate and disappear. And so though that appears to me from what I've heard from residents a very hot topic something that is of sensitive sensitivity and that it's important that we are very clear in our communications. Okay.

Right. And that's how I'm tying it to communication because again, if we are not cleareyed and very open about communicating our situation, then we are failing to be very good communicators. And that's what this is all about, isn't it? I'm I'm unsure, but let's hear from other people. Council member Goff.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so kind of to continue the conversation, um, I guess I wasn't thinking necessarily that every single uh, community that we're comparing ourselves to should be similar because it's interesting. It would be interesting to see, you know, just how different comm different cities for, for example, say Thornton handle something differently and maybe their residents love it.

So maybe we could do something like that even though we don't have exactly the same thing. And so for me, I mean, part of the thing the some of the the the concerns about water and that might be more uh an issue for us to be better at communicating about and I would include also the fact that we do our own trash, which many communities don't. Um, we do a lot of stuff inhouse that other communities don't offer. I don't know if every community has their own, you know, like passport program. you know, there's just some things that um we're different about. And so it might be kind of interesting, not even kind of, I think it would be interesting to see what we do that other people don't. And also, do our residents realize the difference? I mean, we hear people I mean, we've had people, you know, have concerns about trash raising our trash rates recently, but compared to other communities, we are still so inexpensive. And part of that is because we do it ourselves. Um, and I don't know how many people realize that. So, that that's kind of where I am on that. You know, I think it'd be interesting to see how what other different communities are doing differently or, you know, maybe there's something we could emulate or learn from them. So,

Council Member Burns,

thank you, Madam Mayor. I think maybe it would be helpful for us on the DAS to regground in the in this project because we kind of had two comm's paths going, right? the comm's director and then this strategic change and like looking at how we're structured and what we're doing. So yes, while watercoms is super important in this moment, the project we're working on with Joy Riot is much more long-term and structurally based versus what's happening because like we didn't hire them to be our comm's director, right? And so like I hear you council member Condo about like our priorities. However, yes, this is a competitor set because we're technically all competitors because we're all municipalities, but this is also aspirational and looking for inspiration and ideas of how we can structure ourselves. And so, I hear you about water, but I don't think a small minute data point like that they have a we don't have our water system and they or they don't like you're kind of like missing the forest for the trees for this project in my opinion. um with this one thing and but I hear you but like and I think that's like why we just need to like regground in the actual purpose of working with Joy Riot versus like a comm like the comm's director role that's on pause. Thank you.

Well, and I think the final question um that was presented to us. So you guys presented a few slides about like kind of a status update, who you've talked to, what the key findings were, and what your next steps are. Um, and the final one is provide approval of the competitor deep dive list. So that is kind of what we're out to do right now. Um, are we limited to six? Is that like timewise? Then that yeah, that was that makes sense. Okay.

I mean, I'm happy taking your recommendation of the six. I just thought if there was one we could slide out and come up with a new one. Um, that would work too, but I don't know. Council member Noiki. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, I'm afraid I don't necessarily have any input on that question specifically. Um I am curious about the uh you mentioned it. Oh now I lost it. Oh uh under the barrier uh barriers to audience attraction and engagement you mentioned uh identity challenge can can is can you say a little bit more about that?

Yeah. Um so what we heard from the council members was um that there were a couple of issues in terms of a cohesive identity particularly with the different uh you know social streams and different people in charge of different communications pieces and making sure that there was a kind of cohesive what is the positioning what is the uh you know personality of the brand things like that. Um there were also some comments about the logo itself and not really being representative of Northland and what you are trying to exude. Um or uh I think the the quote was uh not really having any meaning behind the logo itself. So basically the barrier being you know without a cohesive identity that everyone within the city is able to kind of point to and be like yes this is who we are. How can we then create communications based on that or market to the business audience the the residential audience the visitor audience without that cohesion.

So it's really that kind of like you put a bunch of other kind of brands. It's that kind of cohesive brand identity. Mhm. Okay. Excellent. I understand. Thank you. Yeah. Can I jump on that for just a second? Cuz I started to panic when you mentioned the logo. I first of all, none of us were here when it was rebranded. I know there was a ton of work and meaning that went into it at the time. The cost of rebranding the entire city is astronomical. And so I'm certainly hoping we're not heading in that direction. Mayor, development of a new logo is not part of the scope of this project.

Thank you. Okay. I just my ears perked up and I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." Okay. Telling you what we heard. Just checking. Yes, I know. And I don't I don't know who said it, but I know that none nobody on the current council was a part of that process, including myself. So, I stepped in right as it was over. Um, but I know from what I was told there was a ton of work and identity wrapped into that process. But I was like, "Oh, that's expensive." Okay. I do think there was some mention that the new logo hasn't been disseminated into all of spaces that it needs to be. Um, I think it's only missing a couple. There's some signage that may not have

the big ones. The big ones. Yeah. I think I think it was some of that as well. Okay. And that's still on the list of things to do, right? Yes. I mean, part of why we didn't do a complete roll out is we're being financially responsible and waiting for the infrastructure to um life cycle out and Yeah. then we'll do replacement. It's like a It's not a huge list of things. Okay. Just checking. Yeah. All right. Will be 10 years old next year. Yeah. Yeah. Me, too, I guess. All right. Council member Condo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. On the peer list, I would not be adverse to swapping out Wheat Ridge with Western Virginia.

I'm familiar with Western Virginia as I went to school on the East Coast. It was, I believe, the first planned community in the United States, founded in 1964. North Glenn was incorporated in 1969. We were actually featured in Life magazine as another plan community. And so I again maybe you're gonna maybe pick me pick on me for kind of going for apples to apples comparisons but I I think there are some very nice similarities if you will. Uh albeit that it is a city that is in the east coast which you know I don't mind. I I spent a good part of my life on the east coast. Um, and so I would like to make that proposal instead of having Wheat Ridge uh slot in Western Virginia.

So was that a recommendation you had? That was one of the when we were looking at peers from a demographic and geographic is in outside of a major city that came up on our internal list. Okay. Because I think I still go back to city to city. I mean, you're going to tell me that this is how it works, and that's fine, but I would like to look at I think to Council Member Burn's point, the aspiration of they do comms really well

and they have, you know, they're innovative and creative and cohesive and all those things that we had said we needed, just because they look just like us, we could see that they also have a problem with their comms just like we do. And so I don't want to emulate. So if you if you recommend it, I think that's fine. Yeah, they are um definitely on the positive calm side of things. Okay, that's that's just something I'd like to think through. Yeah, I'm I'm fine with that if that's okay. You okay with that? Anybody? Yeah. Okay, great. We'll make that swap. Perfect. Okay. And then we'll see you again in June.

June 1st. Great. Anything else? That was our That was our homework, right? Our task. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Nice to see you. Okay. Coming up next, 2024 Metro Cohort Model Code. Our sustainability coordinator, Mara Owen, is here to present to council. Hello. Hello. Um, oh, just gonna make sure we're getting to our presentation first. We'll get there. Oh, you just didn't click through them all. Keep going. Oh, am I going backwards?

There's all the other slides.

Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. Hey. Oh, keep keep. And we made it. All right. Um, good evening, Mayor Council. Um, Mara, sustainability coordinator. I am here to talk to you about something slightly less exciting than a rebrand or about communications. We're talking about energy code. Um so we're here to provide essentially just a time for us to give you an overview of the hopefully proposed adoption of the 2024 international energy conservation code including amendments um developed through the regional building policy cohort which you all should be some of you should be a familiar with. We've been doing that for quite a bit. um and it is actually been fully adopted by the ICC and has its own formal title. We call it the Metro cohort model code. So that's what we're going to use from this point forward. Um we are also joined today, so have the pleasure of having Brienne Bole with L at Lotus Engineering. Um as well as Christine Brinker with the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project or SWEP, you might know it. Um and so I'll turn it over to Brienne to kick us off and then I'll come back up here to finish us up.

Good evening. As Mara introduced me, my name is Brienne Bole. I'm a senior associate with Lotus Engineering and Sustainability and we led the facilitation of the regional policy cohort in collaboration with partners from Chums Kota Associates and then sweep and we have Christine here. Hopefully I can figure this out. So for tonight I will give a bit of background on the cohort. I'll talk through the state code requirements in terms of what exact exactly is required by the state energy office for jurisdictions to adopt the state minimum. I'll explain a little bit about what the metro cohort model code is and then I'll pass it back over to Mara for some looking ahead items. So in terms of the cohort background, there's about 15 jurisdictions that are participating in the cohort currently, including North Glenn, and North Glenn has actually been participating from the very beginning. So they've done a really good job being an active participant. The cohort originally established itself in 2021 and at that time they focused on adopting a regional code based on the current energy code at the time which was the 2021 international energy conservation code. The cohort started meeting again in 2024 to talk through the now current energy code, which is the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code, to talk through regional amendments or regional modifications to that base code um that could be adopted uh as a group. Another exciting update that happened recently was that the EPA awarded the Denver Regional Council of Governments about $200 million to work on building decarbonization on a regional scale. And that program includes funding for local policy adoption, including energy code adoption like we'll be talking about tonight. So the group of about 15 jurisdictions that I spoke about has now

merged into that larger group of the Dr. Cog communities. So, I wanted to make sure it's very very clear what is required for jurisdictions to adopt in terms of the minimum energy code and I will walk you through that. I know energy codes can be very confusing and if you don't work in it day-to-day um it's kind of a black hole. So, I'm going to hopefully break it down in a way you can understand. And so, looking at this table here, there's a number of different codes that were created on different geographic scales. And starting from the top, okay, this pointer works over here. Um, I'll talk about the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code. So, this code was developed not only for the entire nation, the US, but international as well. And this code is um essentially to encourage energy conservation. And actually, all of these codes are to encourage energy conservation in buildings. These codes are updated every 3 years. And so like I mentioned the current code is the 2024 IEC or international energy conservation code. Then moving down the list uh the state of Colorado has a state minimum energy code that was developed by the energy code board. And that is the new state minimum starting July 1st of this year. Meaning that when a jurisdiction updates any of their building codes, not just the energy code, they must adopt that model low energy and carbon code or a code that is as strong as that code. The old minimum state code, um, in case you've heard of it, is the model electric ready and solar ready code. I've included that in here just because that was the state minimum, but starting July 1st of this year, the new state minimum is the low energy and carbon code. And then the last uh code that you see on the list here is a code that was developed by that regional cohort of jurisdictions and that is the metro

cohort model code. That code is based on the 2024 international energy conservation code. It aligns with the state's code. But really our goal as a group of jurisdictions was to reduce energy costs and emissions and to simplify the code as much as possible and to create a regionally specific code. and I'll talk more about that. Another thing that I wanted to highlight was that we worked closely with the Colorado Energy Office to make sure that the metro cohort model code complies with the state minimum requirements. We conducted modeling to show that it complies and the state provided a letter that basically says any jurisdiction that adopts the metro cohort model code complies with that state minimum requirement. So now I'll talk a little bit more about the metro cohort model code, why we developed it, and what it includes. So at a high level, we wanted to create a code that was uh as simple to use as possible, knowing that energy codes can be long and confusing. So the metro cohort model code is much shorter and much simpler than the low energy and carbon code. The other thing that we considered was that the low energy and carbon code was developed for the entire state of Colorado and the state includes a variety of climates and development types and community types. And so we wanted to create a code that was specific for this Denver metro region. And we received input from building officials in this region and included their suggestions for modifications. We also wanted to create more flexibility for builders in terms of um the ability for them to comply with the code. So we added a couple more compliance options essentially that they could use. Another advantage of this code is that because um it is meeting the state minimum requirements. It means that cities that adopt this code are eligible for additional funding opportunities. Uh specifically, um one that I wanted to

call out was the Colorado Energy Office local policy accelerator um for jurisdictions that have adopted the most recent code or or code that's more stringent. Another thing to point out is um by adopting this code now, it keeps you ahead of those energy code adoption schedule and the state minimums and you have a little bit more control over it because like I mentioned before um any jurisdiction that updates any of their building codes after July 1st must adopt the low energy carbon code or a code that's equivalent to that. And the last thing that I wanted to point out here was another motivator for us was to achieve regional consistency. You know, builders work across multiple jurisdictions and it can be confusing when there's a patchwork of different codes that they're trying to comply with and that leads to compliance challenges. So, we wanted to create a code that is adopted by multiple jurisdictions in the region to ease some of that confusion. And there's already been multiple jurisdictions that have adopted the metro cohort model code. So now I wanted to walk through some key components of the metro cohort model code and highlight a few highle differences between that code and then the states minimum. So I'll go over a couple key concepts starting with electrification. And there's multiple benefits of electrification. It increases energy efficiency. It improves indoor and outdoor air quality. And it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. And the way that we've tied this concept into our code is that the metro cohort model code encourages electrification, but it does not require it. So buildings can still be built with gas. The next concept is fuel neutrality. And I'll give a little bit of background here on what we mean. Um, so technologies, uh, heat pump technologies are much more efficient than gas appliances. However, the way that the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code works is that gas appliances are evaluated on a separate scale uh a

different scale than electric appliances are evaluated. And we wanted to create a neutral scale um that recognize that heat pumps are a more efficient technology. Um, one example of kind of that, um, two different scales that are used in the code is, uh, that a heat pump that is 300% efficient is looked at worse than a 96% efficient gas furnace. Um, so we wanted to rectify that. And the way that we've done that in the metro cohort model code is that we um, essentially give extra credits to buildings that use heat pumps. Another concept that I wanted to highlight was the energy metrics or the metrics that are used for evaluating a building's energy efficiency performance. And the way that that 2024 base code works, the IEC, is that they evaluate the building's energy efficiency based on the energy cost. And there can be a lot of challenges with that because energy cost is very specific um based on the location. It depends on variable utility rates that are changing. and it gives a bias towards cheaper fuels um less so for more efficient buildings. So the way we've tackled this in the metro cohort model code is a metric that we use to evaluate the performance of a building's energy efficiency is the energy use of the building which makes a lot of inherent sense. The next concept to highlight is how we have included home size in the metro cohort model code. And our goal here was really to lower barriers for starter homes and for workforce housing and to include proportionally higher requirements for large luxury homes. So the way that we've done that is that there's more requirements for large homes which are defined as over 3500

square ft. they essentially need to do more energy efficiency. And then for extra-l large homes, that was another home size category. Those are defined as over 5,000 square feet and they're required to be super energy efficient um to specifically be net zero energy. And just to give you a sense of context, I think there is one house on the market right now in North Glenn that would qualify as the large home over 3500 ft² and then one house that's on the market currently that would qualify as extra large over 5,000 ft². And existing homes would not need to meet these requirements. These requirements are specifically for new construction, but I just wanted to give that sense of how many homes it might impact in the future. And then the last concept I wanted to highlight was around renewable energy. And the cohort had a lot of discussions around um we really wanted to make sure that buildings are built efficiently first and that there we don't use renewable energy to compensate for an inefficient building. So the way that we've folded that into the code is by requiring energy efficiency targets to be met without renewable energy. And if a building is interested, they can still add renewable energy to it. The base 2024 IEC included requirements for commercial buildings to to include renewable energy uh which can be very very expensive. And so we removed that requirement in the metro cohort model code. So these next couple slides are to help highlight the comparison across the different code options and just to explain how the tables are set up. We have the base 2024 international energy conservation code in the column on the left in the middle is the state minimum the low energy and carbon code and then on the right is the metro cohort model code and the uh we include different

considerations for the policy components. And I'm not going to walk through um these tables um rowby row, but I wanted to really highlight that the metro cohort model code is not that different than the state minimum low energy and carbon code. It just offers more flexibility and it's simpler and shorter. So this code is specifically for new residential buildings. The next table is for new commercial buildings. And then we have a couple tables that highlight the differences for existing buildings um for addition scenarios um or alteration scenarios. And these tables highlight um just the difference between the state minimum low energy and carbon code and the metro cohort model code. This one's for residential and this one's for commercial. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Amara for the looking ahead section. still awake. I'm excited. Um, this next part and I did not mean that as a bad. You did an amazing job. I think the content is just hard. That's to be clear. Um, I just also wanted to say in the looking ahead, we do have support for this. So, we are adopting a code that I think again is shorter, simpler, and more regionally specific. But we also are not doing this alone. We're doing this as part of um the building policy collaborative as you're very well familiar. Um specifically we have the BPC or the building policy collaborative peer network which um is a contract for regional policy network facilitation. So we have meetings where we get together with all the other municipalities that are in Dr. Cog and talk about how this is happening. Um we actually are part of this group number three, the energy code adoption and implementation support which is semi these are monthly meetings that go past the full BPC to a very specific set of all municipalities who are adopting energy code and then helping them understand what are the challenges we're

seeing how we make this happen. This is not how North Glenn we have never been supported in this way for a code adoption and this is really exciting because adopting a new code is always confusing just because it's new um and you have to learn. So having this kind of resource is just really fantastic and we're excited that we have this for the first time in a code adoption. So just wanted to let you know that that's happening. Um next steps. So you have of course the council session today. This is one piece of a larger code. So the ICC the full building code. So electric code, plumbing code, all those pieces are going to come to you for a a study session on May 4th. Um it'll be riveting I'm sure. And then you will have uh if though if you decide to move forward with all them as it as suggested, we will have the code adoption dates of June 8th for the first reading and then uh July 13th for the public hearing and second reading. So tonight we're really just seeking to uh consensus to proceed with the adoption of this metro cohort model code as our updated energy conservation code as part of that bigger building code package. And we separated it out since this is a little specific and we wanted to be able to get enough time to talk through it. I'm here for questions. Thanks,

Council Member Burns. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, never mind. I want to sit on my question. Never mind. Thank you then, Council Member Goff.

Thank you. Thank you, um, uh, Mara for the and everyone for this presentation. This is a lot of really important, but some of its technical information. Um, so I just want to say I think the idea of consistency across the region is really really helpful not not just for well it's for everyone like we it's you know if we have something that makes it more difficult for people to build here then they're not going to build here. So if it's a larger group that is helpful. Um but I wanted to say ask if you would say something probably more for our residents than for us up here but you know could be helpful. Um, how does the the changes in code affect permits and costs for developers or PE even just residents who are trying to like add on or build an ADU or whatever? Could you just kind of explain that relationship for people?

I would love to. And actually, do you want to take some of that because I think you actually have a modeling which I would love for you to talk about.

Sure. I I can't answer how it would affect permit costs, but in terms of the cost to build, uh we conducted some modeling of this code and what we have on the slide here shows uh I know there's a lot of detail here, but we look at um uh one scenario of mixed fuel buildings. So that means they have gas and electric appliances. And then the second half of this chart is for buildings that are all electric. and we compared the increase in the initial cost to build um and then the annual energy cost and uh annual energy savings. And so we looked at the base 2024 international energy conservation code that state minimum low energy and carbon code and then the metro cohort model code. So what this table is showing is there there can be a small increase in the initial cost to build um using the state minimum low energy carbon code or the metro cohort model code, but there's more energy cost savings, meaning that residents energy bills will be lower because their homes are built more efficiently. Um and they see energy savings as well, meaning that the city would see greenhouse gas emissions reductions with those buildings. Um and that is true for both uh the mixed fuel buildings and the all electric buildings. Um so we really want to emphasize that uh really like residents that are in the home daytoday, they're paying their annual energy bills and we think it's really important to um see that reduced cost on their annual energy bills because of a more efficient building.

Okay, great. That's great. Well, I would just like to kind of put in a request that by May 4th we get I mean I'm curious if the city can do something in terms of reducing permitting costs to because I I totally agree with everything you just said. It's just that the upfront cost is sometimes very discouraging to people and I know permits can be expensive. So, and currently the while the code itself is changing our permit like the fees for a permit wouldn't change at least not related to the energy code itself. That's good. But I it would be nice to know if we could lower them or something or do something different. Anyway, thank you, Council Member Condo.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, thank you for the presentation. I'm just curious. Obviously, the city partnered with I forget if it was Lafayette Superior for the building policy uh collective grant. Mhm. And I'm just curious, was was that were those monies kind of uh is that what's supporting this activity presently?

Um so actually no, those are separate and additional which is even better. Uh so as part of our I'm going to go back actually as part of our Dr. Cog funding forward. Oh actually no. Yeah. So the jurisdiction subawward is the number one um and that's actually where we partnered with Superior. They are also adopting um the same metro cohort model code um so that we can have the same they also work with safe belt so we can be using the same building officials they're learning one code versus you know five or two or whatever um but we are applying we have actually applied with them for the jurisdictional subawware program separately we are part of the BPC which is another 2.5 million to help us with the code adoption so we aren't even dipping into that necessarily um we are using that jurisdictional subaware program to have more outreach to our community because we when change happens with codes, you want to make sure you're bringing people along and making it a white glove experience versus a figure it out kind of experience. So, that's really where that funding is going to go on top of us being able to be a part of this peer network and use the additional funding that's already there with the 2.5.

Okay. And then I understand there's a second subawward window that's opening. Are we are we planning on participating in that? We are very interested in it. They have not unleashed. Well, uh, I'm on the subboard or the the working group that's trying to figure out how it's how it's gonna work. So, I'll let you know. Very good. Uh, I do have a question for the first speaker. I forget your name. I'm sorry,

Rian. Um, and this is more out of professional curiosity, right? So, you you called it the metro cohort model code. I'm just thinking on a broader basis. You know, Colorado obviously we have very urban areas and then very rural areas. We have the the east slope, we have the west slope. And I'm just kind of curious, is the is the metro cohort model code more of a regionalized sort of standards and that perhaps maybe in different parts of the state where there's lower population density clearly maybe there's a different regional code. Can you can you just talk to that?

Sure. So this metro cohort model code was designed specifically for this region. And the way that these codes work is there's different climate zones based on like the type of climate in your community. So, this code is specifically for the climate zone that North Glenn is in and that the metro uh region is in. We're working with other jurisdictions across the state of Colorado. And their considerations, I would say, are just different um than the metro region. Higher elevation, colder climates, um less contractor availability, and so the codes that they're considering or the code changes that they're considering just look a little bit different than this region.

Gotcha. And then just a followup, the does it pretty much overlay over uh the Denver MO or the Dr. Cog region or how do how do you kind of divide it up? I might call in Christine to answer that question. Okay, great. Um I was going to stand here. It's okay.

Sure. Right. Um the the previous cohort that Brienne mentioned that was based on the 2021 code was six jurisdictions. um North Glenn, Eerie, Boulder County, a handful of others and that went reasonably well people thought and so there was a desire to expand it. So, this phase had 15 different jurisdictions, but it's still mostly in this north of the Denver uh north of Denvernorthwest of Denver. And and so that's 15. And then that was used as the basis for applying for the Dr. Cog funding um which was successful. And so that includes the whole Dr. Chicago region which is 59 jurisdictions um which is all of the metro area plus some that you don't really even think of as a metro area like Idaho Springs or etc. Um and so that group since there were uh a number of jurisdictions that weren't in on our ongoing um discussion about what is each community's priorities and um what do we want to focus on in this particular code? They're not necessarily going to adopt this code, but it's likely that they would consider it because the choices starting July 1 would either be the low energy and carbon code or the metro cohort model code. Um, or they can go their own route, which is ill- advised. And so um it should have strong adoption across the metro region but not 100% adoption exactly but um they are very closely lined the low energy and carbon code and the metro cohort model code since that goal is consistency.

Okay, gotcha. Thank you. I appreciate that explanation. Council member Severs.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh I was just looking for a little more uh des uh more describing or of the situation for renewable energy on the commercial code. Uh it's being it was removed. Uh and I know maybe for a small business it would be like could be hard to build at that point but when I know there's also legislation about uh data centers and stuff. I think I brought this up at one point with if a data center was wants wants to go to our weld property, how we don't have any power to like push uh some more of the renewable energy, especially on the roof of the building.

I mean, data centers are obviously different than a lot of other commercial type businesses, but can you just speak to like what you've seen in that? I'm gonna let Brienne get into the specifics, but I I really want to clarify that the majority of this code and what it will affect is mostly new buildings. So, I think your question about what new build what new commercial might be coming in is is relevant, but I'll hand

Yeah. One of the reasons why we removed the requirement for the um commercial solar was just because of the cost. It's like thousands of dollars um depending on the size of the commercial building, but commercial buildings always have the option to include solar if they want to. The other thing that we were considering in that the the state group that developed the state minimum considered was the fact that Colorado's energy grid is getting more and more clean. So um that energy is being sourced uh being uh from clean sources. And so with that transition to the energy that buildings would get from the grid, we thought there wasn't as much of a need to require um renewables or clean energy on site directly. Another thing I'll just point out is we do have the section 36 plan which is going on and has some points that might come up that um would be a way for you to say uh you know regulate it a different way versus code.

Go ahead. Um, can I add one of the slides that Brienne had earlier showed the international conservation code and how that's developed at a national level and that's I think why that renewable energy mandate is in the commercial section is because they were trying to make it applicable for the entire country and we have probably the most renewable energy or at least we're way up there and so it's not really applicable here because our utilities have to supply that renewable energy anyway. So essentially, you're shifting the cost from the utility over to the new commercial development while not adding any renewable energy essentially that you wouldn't otherwise have. Um, and so reducing that cost was a key consideration. Um, it's it's not only an option that they can use, but they can use it towards compliance. So after you meet your base uh level of energy efficiency, you can um add some additional energy efficiency to get your required points or you could add renewable energy or you could add demand response and load management. So there's options. So it can still count towards compliance.

Unders understood. Thanks for the context. I just I know also uh there is a lot of concerns across the country uh about how expensive it is to build small homes and small businesses because the permitting and upfront costs make it impossible to do some of the things that we would like to do. So I just thanks for the context. Council member Burns. Thank you Madam Mayor. Sorry, I just have a process question for everyone listening. And so because um Mara, you asked us for to basically consensus to proceed with adoption. Yes. Of the code this evening. Yes.

But then we're also having a hearing and then we will have an official vote on this. Right. Like this is not this is so you have time to answer questions and feel comfortable. It says there is technically a choice. You could go with the state minimum instead of this metro cohort model code. We do have an option. Yeah. And because we wanted to make sure that we were on the same page because this is not just a foregone conclusion that we are going with this one. Um because it's hard to get things set up for council, we did set up those dates, but they could be moved. It's not set in stone. Okay. Thank cuz I was just like I thought this was like anformational session and then you were just like we need to vote on this and I was like it's not sorry it was phrased in pro. Yeah. Poorly. Okay. Okay.

What I'm really looking for is if there's any big red flags that you're saying, hey, you're going down this path and this is not where we want to go. we would much rather go with the state minimum, you know, or like if if there was some misgivings you're having based on this presentation, we'd want to know now. Okay, that was that's the ask. That's what I thought because I started like spiraling. You said we were voting on this and I was like, what? Yeah, it's more if there was an a consensus where saying, hey, actually half council thinks this is a really terrible idea and we need to be looking at something else. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah, and I appreciate you getting in front of it. Um I was looking at the dates as well that are coming up and knowing

that we are without a comm's director right now and thinking that there's you know a public hearing on this. This is very dense. You are all experts in your field. This reads like English to you. It does not read like English to the rest of us. um we have more background and can you know infer

and listen um but if you know if a new business or a contractor or a homeowner that maybe wants to do something new or we have a little bit of land that we can put new build on this is complex and so thinking through the plan the roll out of

yeah I I've always worry about public hearings especially because 99.9% of them nobody shows up. And I wonder why. Um, some of it it's a slam dunk. We know it's, you know, a high quality idea. It's not a big deal. But something like this that's so dense, I just want to make sure that there's a an easy to consume piece of paper that says this is what we're talking about. Yeah. And here's where you can learn more. I was noticing the I think it's right after the memo that uh graphic it looks like it would be a flyer. Yes, that's very nice.

We tried to put some of those pieces in there and that's um meant for distribution. So, yes. Yes, that's actually very nice. Um it's very easy to readad. It makes a lot of sense. So, if we could somehow put those two things together just so that if there was someone that wanted to come Yes. to the public hearing or even council meetings where we're voting on first or second reading. I just think it would be helpful to make sure that they have a full understanding of what it means.

And then again, what does that look like in the connection on our website? You know, do we have an FAQ page? Because there could be, you know, what if this may not apply to you at all, right? So, for most people, yes. I I bought this home in 1970 and I'm never moving. Okay. Well, this probably doesn't apply to you, but Yeah. And so, so we don't want to freak people out for no reason. Yes. But those that need this information, I'd like them to have it. But my my main question for you when I looked at the cohort list and I understood it was a regional list,

but do you have any sense of why there's key municipalities not not even in the cohort? So like I'm looking at Arvvada is missing, Lakewood's missing. Those are sizable communities in this region that have not joined. Do you know why?

Yeah, I can answer that. um back to the first cohort again in 2021. It was a pilot effort and we hadn't done something similar. Um and so we wanted to keep the number of communities manageable in order to do a lot of handholding and and uh collaboration there. So that's why that was limited at five. And then essentially from there it was opt in based on who had heard about it and and basically raised their hand like can we join because that sounds pretty cool. And so there wasn't an active recruitment effort to get the whole metro area involved. It was just this seemed to work. Let's build on it and make sure it's still something that we can manage and maintain.

And then I'll mention every Dr. Cog community is part of that BPC now. Got it. So when we Yeah, that was the you're seeing kind of the fruit of one uh one cohort, but for going forward, every Dr. Cog community is in the BPC. Oh, that's great. Which is great. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Fantastic. Okay, I think that's all the questions we have. Thank you so much.

Thanks for coming. Oh, this should be fun. Topic number three. I know. Artificial intelligence approach. Our director of technology, Virginia Roberts, is here. Good evening. Good evening. Give me I don't think we've had a presentation from you, have we? You have not. Oh, well, welcome to the podium.

Thank you. It's great to be here. Just going to fast forward to my slides. One moment, please. Okay, good evening again. So the North Glenn strategic plan uh directed city staff to create a policy uh that enables the use of artific artificial intelligence within city operations that also addresses the risks of using AI. Uh we are almost complete with that item and I'm here to give you an update. So our process was highly collaborative and it began with the creation of a steering committee. That steering committee consisted of membership across every city department. It had several department directors in it, several um team leads and supervisors as well as frontline employees. Membership also represented a variety of um exposure and skill sets with AI. We had some who were beginners who were just beginning their journey of curiosity with how to use AI and others were using it nearly every day. We also had a variety of sentiment or attitudes towards AI within the group. Uh we had some uh skepticism, a little bit of dose of healthy skep skepticism as well as some very enthused members. So I go into that detail about the diversity of representation in the steering committee to make the point that it gave us a very strong foundation of a balanced approach which was great. So uh the first thing that the steering committee did was we sat down and we identified all the various ways that the city is currently using AI and could use AI in the future. So that was important to understand all of the various use

cases for AI here. We also married those use cases with the risks of AI and we had a workshop to do this. We identified all of the risks that can arise with using artificial intelligence. Um discuss them so that we could build awareness and understand them and then we branched off into smaller breakout teams. And each team received a scenario from that original use case set of a real use case of the city using AI and the each group was asked to identify the risks that were present in that use case and also to discuss and propose ways to mitigate those risks. That was a pivotal part of this uh policy development process. Uh, coincidentally, but very fertuitously, uh, North Glenn High School invited us to participate in an AI cafe. It's what they called it, a workshop to collaborate with students about artificial intelligence. Uh, this picture is from that event. I believe we were uh participating in an activity uh organized by the PEK program. And in this picture we are trying to flex our skills and trying to identify uh between a set of picture several sets of pictures which one was real and versus which one was created by artificial intelligence. So that was a really sharp group and it was very beneficial to this process. Um we also researched relevant laws. All of those were inputs into the development of a draft artificial intelligence standard operating guidelines. uh that draft was reviewed by the leadership team and um approved to move forward. So now I want to dig into the standard operating guidelines themselves. You have a copy of that in your packet tonight. Uh because standard operating

guidelines is a mouthful to say, I'm going to say SOG if you don't mind. Uh so the SROG uh establishes some clear guard rails and guidance for employees in their use of artificial intelligence. So um these are the uh high level risks that they aim to address address and mitigate for and I'm going to explain the guidelines through the lens of those risks. So the first risk is safeguarding sensitive information. There's a lot in the SOG that applies here. Um, one is that you might notice in the SOG there's nearly an entire page dedicated to defining what sensitive information is. That was something that was identified in that steering committee workshop is a necessary component. That's because if you don't if you don't have clarity around what sensitive information is, you don't know when to trigger in your work when to adhere to the special provision provisions and the prohibited uses in the SOG. So uh that is uh why that is such a lengthy definition. Um there is also uh an item here at the very end that requires technology review and approval of all artificial intelligence systems that are considered for purchase by the city. That's to perform a cyber security assessment and also to look at the agreement to make sure that they will not share our information outwardly. Human accountability is also addressed in the SOG. Um we spoke a lot at the steering committee workshop about how artificial intelligence can sometimes make mistakes and have inaccuracies in its output. So the pol the SOG uh in really encourages not really encourages it it underscores that humans are leading the use of AI and that human verification of both the inputs into an

AI prompt and model as well as the outputs. Uh human verification is required part of that. There's also a section that requires disclosure to one supervisor if your use of AI is going to drive the majority of a work assignment. That is to um provide an opportunity for guidance uh in the event there it is being using used inappropriately or if there's additional input needed into the verification process. The SOG also protects both employees and residents from algorithmic biases that could be present in AI models. Um, it does so by prohibiting AI assisted decisions uh that might um impact access to services in several categories that are outlined in the SOG. Tonight I will specifically call out the fact that it is prohibiting AI assisted decisions in employment and essential access to essential essential government services. And last on the slide but certainly not least in importance uh North Glenn's commitment to environmental stewardship is also represented in the SOG. there is a guiding principle that addresses uh the fact that we don't want employees to use AI in circumstances where they could accomplish the task with something else. Um that helps minimize uh unnecessary energy consumption in those data centers driving AI. So as I mentioned before we are nearing completion of this item in the strategic plan. So what is next is to roll it out. Next week I will announce this to all employees at an all employee meeting and in the next city manager report I believe in second week in May. I will also feature an announcement in the city manager report which is the internal uh

newsletter for employees where we we are also going to launch an employee resource page on our internal internet. Uh it will include uh not only the uh SOG for convenience, but it will also have some FAQs and it will include some educational and instructional resources as well. We want our employees to be ready to and equipped to use this technology well and and be in an informed state about it. And then lastly, uh during the month of May, I will work with human resources to prompt employees to acknowledge that they have reviewed the policy and we'll do so in a tool that we also use uh to publish um benefits information and other policies to employees. So, that concludes my update. I'm happy to answer questions and I welcome any feedback you have. Council member Burns.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. I have a lot of questions. Just buckle up. Okay. So, me too.

Um, I think this I think this is great that we're getting ahead of it and like sort of like putting together all of this stuff. I do think this feels very boilerplate. I'm very interested to know knowing that we're doing this like internet FAQ page as well. like are we going to define what an LLM is and an agent and all these things because like we're broadly using the term artificial intelligence when that does not accurately define what most people use AI for which is an LLM right which is basically just a glorified auto bill and so I think like and I would love to know more too about like what tools are we thinking of using like is it just co-pilot and sort of like what does that look like from our internal policy as well like are we going to have chat GPT business level account like I would love to know because those two systems are also very different right um okay so just like so many thoughts on that um I would love to hear the um clerk's thoughts on this as well um because AI chat is going to have a huge implication on elections this coming year so I would love to know more about our plans for that um

she's like I don't know. So,

no, I'm just I'm just I'm just like prepping and talking out loud because this is like the first real election processes of like even just like people asking chatbt versus Google where to vote and what is our comm strategy to make sure we have all that correct information in this. Um I am also very interested in again like the very wrong amount of information AI gives AI again using that term loosely um gives to people like from a search perspective and like I so I appreciate the human element of like double-checking work and like you know this is you know don't eat rocks. I think like that's like one of the biggest examples out there. Um and then just again like a forward thinking question. I've been following some municipality like there's a municipality that is thinking of policy to absolve all a comp like AI companies of future harm. So, if like a municipality is using like an AI tool and like an oopsy happens and people die, um there's like a I think it was in like Michigan or Tennessee or something like that that was came out last week. Um

um but yeah, not interested in that. Just putting that out there for the record at the moment. Um okay, those are all of my thoughts at this moment. Thank Okay. So, let me dive in and and if I miss anything, um, please bring me back. Um, so I think a few of your points, uh, the intention is to address in the in that resource page. So um providing resources for speaking to the heirs, providing resources to train people how to make more intelligent prompts. Um guiding employees on how to guide the model to on where to look look in reputable reputable sources, cite them, provide links. So some of that training is there um as so so tips and tricks on how to create a guiding prompt to to steer the model into the right place. Um you had another thing that I was thinking of the FAQs for it was in the beginning of your question.

Oh the LLM and the definitions. Yes, the the um resource page is a perfect place for that. So yes, you you're you are right on on target there. Um do you want to address the elections question? It it doesn't need to be addressed. I am just thinking about this already as like a human in the world. Um and specifically to like from a comm strategy because we don't have a comm's director of like what is our because like

chat pulls in I think it's almost like 30% of their responses now from Reddit. Cool. Um, so how are we are we as a city like do we have a Reddit strategy and policy then to make sure that like when people Google where can I vote in North Glenn or ask chat GPT the correct information is coming up and that's like what I'm crashing out about personally. So, welcome and and I'll go back to the to the educational resources and guidance definitely to to speak to that. Council member Condo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh first of all, uh bravo for taking this on. Obviously, it's important because if you just kind of stick your head in the sand, the world will just go by you and then, you know, you're you're playing catch-up um forever. Also, I I want to say that I'm glad that you did this. I think it was a PBL at North Glenn STEM, the high school STEM program. So um because I think it's really the young people that really have the most fil understanding and the latest comprehension about all the technologies that are going on in the AI world. I do have two questions. One of which may be misinformed, but I I just remember hearing this during an AI breakout at NLC. I forget where which NLC it was, but um I think the conversation in in the proposed draft of your standard operating guidelines may address this, but um I think the anecdotal concern that came up was the use of MS Microsoft Copilot

in that if you have a license and you're using it within your city, the C-pilot itself will start to create a database on which to draw off of. And if you're not careful about setting up firewalls and things like that, it may actually accidentally go into maybe some sensitive HR files and grab information from there, which may be really bad if, say, for example, somebody's pay amount gets out there in the public domain or what have you. At least that's what I heard in that breakout session. I don't know if that's urban legend or if it is factual. I wonder if you can speak to that and yes,

if indeed it is true, what are we doing to make sure we don't have embarrassing situations like that?

Absolutely. So, Microsoft Copilot is a tool that uh the city licenses right now um and it will be one that we will be providing some training on for for employees. Um, Copilot is a tool that is embedded within your Microsoft ecosystem. And by ecosystem, I mean it's embedded in Microsoft Teams, it's embedded in Word, is it's also embedded in SharePoint and has the ability to look at content in those places. Um, the great thing about it is it respects permissions. So, as long as you have the appropriate permissions set, um let's use uh me as an example. I if I'm trying to use the co-pilot tool uh to do some research in our internal environment, uh it is not going to look into a folder that I don't have permission to. So, I do see the potential risk for uh some organizations to maybe uh have an employee who potentially places a sensitive file somewhere that it doesn't belong. Uh the policy does speak to this. I believe it's in the security and privacy guiding principle that uh care needs to be taken to make sure that you you you are practicing. They didn't use the word data governance in my draft, but uh it's data governance. is making sure that you're you are not placing sensitive information where um it is stored in a place where those who do not have a need to know can see it.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Um thank you for answering that. Uh one other followup uh or a second question and clearly there are so many different large language models LLMs out there. Some are US-based, others are based overseas, whether it's in Singapore or China or whatever. And I just wonder if there is, and I I wasn't able to read the policy in total, but are there any concerns about using uh AIS that are not US-based in terms of perhaps, I don't know, leakage or loss or corruption of database or information? Can you speak to that, please?

Absolutely. That's a great point. Um and in the technology review that would be conducted um of any new system AI system that we would purchase we would look at that we would look at whether or not they have um data centers overseas. Um the great thing about our tenant for going back to Microsoft is that it's a government tenant and has some stricter restrictions on where data can be stored. So yeah, that is that is top of mind. Okay, great. Thank you, Council Member Severs.

Thank you, Madame Mayor, and thank you for Virginia and staff for working on this and trying to get ahead of it. Um, I think AI and everything adjacent, especially agents and all this other stuff is really uh going to change the world in some ways. I mean, sometimes you think it's a bubble, sometimes you think it's not. Um, with the whole Sora wrapped up, I know they got rid of they closed that up. I think there was talk about them using that more for like commercial businesses, but going back to like election stuff, like creating videos of someone doing something that never happened and then it's on social media and then now it's fed back into AI and then AI confirms the thing that never happened and it's like this scary loop of where does it even like I've asked questions to AI and it it I'm like that is not correct. and I go look it, I'm like, "Okay, this is the incorrect information." So, I think unfortunately I would like to kind of go back and forget AI ever happened and erase it from the map, but I don't think that's where we're going as a country and a world uh since everyone's going full full thousand miles into the AI uh language models. Um, can you speak to some of the um concerns about the AI systems grading public records that might be uh, you know, subject to Kora?

So, um, city clerk, myself and um, Corey's team discussed the open records act at length and artificial intelligence. Um it it there is likely a precedent set that the use of AI does create public record. Um that is addressed in the SOG to make employees aware of that fact. Um it's an just like all new technology that comes out certain laws um are behind and doesn't have specific um parameters around how to manage that and handle that information. But uh we are aware of that and ready to uh respond if needed.

Thanks. And coming off that last conversation about energy and and using codes across multiple multiple municipalities and working together to come up coherent regional things. Seems like this would be a really important thing to be on the same page with like having a regional team working on this so not any one city is just on their own. And I know that's easier said than done. You just want to get your own stuff locally figured out, but certainly uh No, that's a great question. There been talks about that or

uh so not uh so yes, but not not specifically in creating a cohort in in in that manner. Um we were in contact and still are in contact and in collaboration with other local government entities within the state of Colorado. Um there is a group that we belong to uh called CA and uh that is a hot topic and we've shared uh each other's policies and we've shared each other's uh vendor screening methodology. So we are so although it's not a cohort um like Mara's presentation uh presented um it is a a sharing of information for sure.

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, my fiance uses AI every day at her job. Um, I'm like, if that owner sells the company, you're getting fired. Just cuz I mean, her job is very, they want to put a very human forward approach to the situation.

Um, but, you know, I could see someone selling the company and immediately changing that. I mean, that's everyone's really concerned about the job losses, right? I mean, yeah, all this some of this stuff is going to be relevant in the near future, but I mean, having a civilization that isn't breaking down because no one everyone's unemployed is where I'm thinking of like it's just it's exciting time and it's exciting for the wrong reasons, too, you know? So, uh hopefully we can figure it out going forward. Council member Burns.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And maybe this is not for you, Director Roberts. Maybe this is for our human resources director, but I'm also interested in tools around AI usage and our team's mental health. Um, I think that would be helpful to have in a policy as well, like you know, and again, maybe this is like an FAQ of like chat GPT is designed to reaffirm. Oh, I see where you're going with this. Yes. Um, so not every idea is a like there was like that big story last week, right? The guy who thought he invented a new form of math.

Okay. He did not. Spoiler alert, he did not. Um, but there's also been, you know, numerous cases of AI psychosis out there. You know, we've had cases here in our own state of young people who have taken their lives based on chat GPT and other AI usage. So I really would like to again holistically look at our approach to this as opposed to just like from a tech perspective of like what are we doing as a city to be like you know just be and a co-pilot is a very different use case right but like that might be just like a gateway drug situation for people to want to use AI to for back lack of better term but that's just sort of where you know I've seen you And you know, I write my own emails still. I know. Can you believe it? Um, but this is like a very much fastmoving train towards less and less friction in life. And yeah, just a lot of thoughts.

Thank you. That is excellent feedback. That was not necessarily addressed in the SOG and um I had not thought about that in the draft for the resource page for the employee internet, but that deserves mention and that deserves to be addressed. So, thank you, Council Member Goff.

Thank you, Mayor. And this is a I'm glad to see this spelled out in such an uh you know, organized fashion. Um I I my uh one of the suggestions and it's not really this policy necessarily, but I do think there should be either presentations or some way to kind of give advice or explain to our residents. Um I'm just concerned that somebody might think, oh, you know, I need to, I don't know, get a passport or a permit or I'll I'll use some AI tool to fill out the form and then, you know, everything gets all messed up. So, I'm just I'm I don't know. I'm just kind of thinking ahead like this. I just had a meeting with the senior group this earlier today and somebody in there actually explained how she just got scammed by something completely different. that there's there's a lot of that going out there and the the sickopanty fancy of the the AI models, you know, just some general thing that we could either put out um or like like this flyer that we had on the code or I don't know if if the city would do a presentation and have it be open to the public whether it's the seniors through the senior center or I whatever where we do all our programs or something like that. I think it might be helpful just because I think a lot of people hear a lot about it, but to um Megan's point, it's like they don't really know what it is or they don't know the difference between these different things and or what to look out for. Something like that. That's that's my only comment on this. But otherwise, I think this is great.

Great. Thank you. That that's a a great piece of feedback that I'll take back internally to the leadership team and and contemplate how we can address that. Council member Noiki. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, thank you. Welcome, Director Roberts, to your first presentation. Thank you for putting this together.

Um, I again, I think it's a a great place to kind of launch off from. Um, and I too really like that you did it in conjunction with Northland High School and kind of involve the students. I think that's that's really cool. That's really kind of a community oriented thing and I appreciate that. Um, you kind of alluded to this or council members Burns and Severs kind of alluded to this. Um, and I'm just kind of curious your thoughts on it. Um, you know, because I think it will become more prolific uh kind of as these systems uh go on, but the the use of agents,

you know, kind of having uh really the computer cuz I think part of that is having them being able to access your computer and so I'm really just kind of curious some of your own thoughts if you you know read anything about that. Seems like you have

Oh yes, the the cyber security community is speaking of agents a lot and the potential hazards when um left to prolifically I'm not saying a correct word when left to go unchecked. Um, a agents have uh this risk of bleeding into places where you don't want it to have access to and it can uh seep into those seams and expose information that you don't want to be exposed. So um the SOG addresses that by um prohibiting any public AI system including an agent um or specifically anything not approved and has gone through the technology to review prohibits any public a I'm calling those public a AI systems which would include agents. We prohibit them from being downloaded, from being connected to the city's network, from being connected to data sources that the city owns. Um because we really want to funnel people to the technology review so that we can learn what is the use case, what is the information involved and what are you trying to do. So at this time we don't have any agents in our technology ecosystem and uh the intent is to tread very carefully there and make sure that if there is a value added use case for an agent that we're doing it safely and we're we're implementing it in a way that does not allow it to access um sensitive information or allow a highway for hackers to get in.

Okay. Well, it sounds like you're very knowledgeable about this and we got the right person to kind of head this effort. Um, I am hearing and this is just kind of a comment. Um, you know, kind of that they're for the community, for staff, you know, for us that that really that educational component is important, you know, about again I'm talking about agents, you know, I wonder how many actual kind of community members know about agents and things like that. So, you know, uh I I do think kind of having that educational component, kind of ongoing educational component uh for staff, for us, for the community, uh is important for seniors, especially, you know, uh as this goes on. Um so, thank you.

Thank you. Okay, my turn. I have so many thoughts. Um and some may actually surprise you. I actually feel like this is really conservative. Um, and I come at it from a different perspective, right? So, when we talk about education, how are we teaching young kids how to use it? How are we teaching teenagers how to use it? How are college students using it or not using it? What are the protections against it? Right? And then we get into the workplace. My concern is is that AI is everywhere and people don't even know that they're using it.

And so some of the definitions in here, like I I went to the enforcement and it's just a a blanket statement that, you know, you violate this policy, it could lead to termination. Part of me is thinking, how do we assess that? I I do truly believe you need to unpack that statement a little more because an employee could very well accidentally use it. Sure.

Or accidentally and so I want to figure out a way to assess intent in that moment because I don't want a you know upstanding staff member to lose their job because they stumbled down a path that was unattended unended without intent. And I so that just felt too simplistic like I don't know how you unpack that.

The other thing I kept writing down is this is everchanging by the day which means this policy is probably going to have to be everchanging. It can't be uh we did it in 2026. Let's review it in 2030. Absolutely not. like it may have to be something that you look at every year based on new and changing, you know, things in technology. Um, and with that, it's also ongoing education for staff. Like, it can't just be I'm giving you this policy at a staff meeting. This to me is it's more conservative than I was expecting. Okay.

It's very, very tight. Um, and I know there's a lot of risk and council member Burns, her head might explode. I feel like we need to have more freedom with AI to use it, to create, to be efficient, but to learn about it within parameters. This feels really tight, but also really small, like this is a very short document for a really big problem. Um, I'm also stuck on the definition of AI. I think it's really hard to identify. And so the 3.1 to your point,

it's like AI is all these things, so don't use them unless we give you permission or you're going to get fired. I was like, but I don't know what all this is. And so I think maybe that's the resource page where you're really going to break it out and say, you know, because I just opened up our Google search engine and AI mode is automatically there. Mhm.

So are you going to turn that off? Are you going to disable certain things from the city's network? I know they did that for kids in Jeffco. They turned off chat GPT. Staff can use it. kids cannot, but they can all use a different version which is exactly the same thing. So, it's like they're trying to control it probably based on who they negotiated a contract with. I don't know. Um, and so it just feels like a like we're trying to lasso a tornado because it's just so big and there's so many entry points for bad actors. There's so many entry points for creative productivity and if we just shut the whole thing down, are we stifling some really good work, I guess. So, I'm sort of having this internal struggle. But when I go back to the document, I'm I'm really feeling like we have to possibly take one more go at really getting clear on it because the the prohibiting pieces could actually prohibit you from doing some really creative work unless they're not as conservative as I'm reading them and I'm wondering ing about that. So the other question I had was

when you did this process, you said that you were sharing um like a case. Could do you have one that you could share with us that was an example? Sure. So um uh several things. Um I agree wholeheartedly that this is a policy or a document that will need to be updated maybe even more regularly than annually. Um, one of the reasons it is a standard operating guidelines and not a part of the hand employee handbook is to enable that quick turnaround and the flexibility to make edits to it. Okay.

Um, let's see use case example and flex. So, um, you asked a question about whether or not, um, when when somebody opens up a, uh, Chrome browser in Gemini pops up, whether or not this policy prohibits that. It does not. Okay.

U, that is a public AI tool. If it is in a browser, you may use it. Um, the prohibited uses do not want you to connect it to the city's network. it does not want you to connect it to and integrate it with another system that it can read information from. But part of the FAQs does address can I use these free tools and and the answer is yes, but

okay. Um so scenarios from the workshop, let me think through those. One was um using an AI tool in recruiting and using it to screen um applicants for a job. That was one and you can see how the outcome of that was that we do not want to do that because we believe that is too risky to do. Uh the algorithmic bias risk is too high. uh perhaps in the future when models get better and vendors have solutions that have been more thoroughly trained perhaps that'll change but for now that is our position.

Okay. Um, another one of the use cases. Oh gosh. Believe there was one crafted around a use case uh the co-pilot use case for lack of a better description of um using a a tool to do research and wanting to source information from documents that you have internally um to make a richer experience. And how would you protect uh how would you guard against the risk of uh somebody getting access to information that they shouldn't have? And that was the use case of ensuring that the information that you're going to source is has appropriate permissions set.

Okay. Um is there time? I mean I don't I'm thinking like tech tip of the week or something. Um because I'm just so worried about the the ongoing education of staff. So how do you ensure that we're supporting them in staying current with maybe the stories because I didn't hear about the story but the story I saw was that a robot ran a half marathon and won, right? And so there's so there's like different there's so much information. So, I feel like it would take a full-time FTE to filter through and that's not you, right? You have other things to do. Maybe there's an AI tool that could do that for you, but but to be able to filter through, you know, here's a here's a scenario of something we don't want, but here's a use that was really effective, or here's a way you can use this tool. Here's a way you absolutely cannot. but keeping the education fresh.

Mhm. Because it's changing so fast and nobody can keep up with it. Uh great point. Um the there is definitely an opportunity to continue to uh share u news stories or tips and tricks and the internal newsletter, the city manager report. Uh, I've also contemplated the idea of having periodic lunch and learns as other employees within the city use AI and they navigate their own journeys, sharing with other employees how they've used it so that we're learning from each other.

Um, you definitely make a point there. There is so much information out there that it is difficult to keep up with it. But I believe that we can squeeze some things in there to continue to stay current and to continue to keep that resource page on the employee internet fresh. I mean, I like that we're focused on keeping

the human customer experience, right? I think that's what makes North Glenn special. And I know larger cities are probably not going to be able to sustain that, but we do that well. And that makes sense. I cannot stand the AI phone systems. That drives me crazy. Um I just want to make sure that we're leaving enough space for the creative use of it. If that makes sense, right? Heard. I hear you. Because it's going to get cool.

Um the other thing that was interesting, some of us were at Megan's like, "No, it's not shutting it all down." Um we were uh at a town hall with some legislators and there there was a a small debate about data centers and how much water they take and we have state legislators kind of debating that right now downtown and there's um a lot of misinformation about how much water, what kind of water, when do they need the water and even our legislators I don't think we're accurately representing that information. So, I want to I love that we have the sustainability goal, but also I don't know that that alone is going to stop it. It's like a runaway train. Um, so I don't know. I don't want us to lose any sort of cutting edge with AI and innovation for the sake of being afraid of it, if that makes sense. So, Absolutely.

I would like us to find a balance. Um I think that was all of my thoughts. Would you like to counterpoint,

Mayor? Mayor, mayor, if I could on the enforcement piece, because I think that is a significant piece. Um I think the way we would look at it is like any other policy. So if you get in a traffic accident, it doesn't mean you're absolutely at fault. And so that doesn't necessarily mean you get disciplined because you were in a traffic accident. you're still going to look at whether you're complying with the policy, whether you've gotten training, whether there's intent. So, if you were to do something where you simply um and there's a lot of examples of this, put, you know, asked AI to do something and submitted that work product as your own,

knowing that that was a violation, that is going to be treated differently than perhaps a technical violation where you didn't know and we work through it from an employment perspective. So it is a tool to train and discipline is really the last resort if it is being abused. Okay. I just it's just a sentence and that that sentence is consistent with what our policy says about policy violations about car accidents. So it's no different.

Okay. The thing about plagiarism and AI because university professors are struggling with that right now and there are tools that they can take someone's writing and put it in the is this AI tool right and really good writers will naturally come back as AI generated work

and and they've done it themselves and so I think we have to be careful because there are some people that are really good at researching and doing writing. And so we can't just put it in a filter. There's multiple and it'll give you like, oh, this is 30% AI or 80% AI. Sometimes it's not any, but AI is starting to write like humans. And it's becoming it's it's getting very confusing. Completely agree. And like any other HR function, if there was a question, we don't just jump to a conclusion. We do an investigation. Okay. So, there's a lot that goes into it before we'd ever get to the discipline piece.

Okay. Council member Burns. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Okay. I'm not going to like completely contradict everything you said. Like I think like I I think but like to my initial point of like defining what an LLM is and like what is the actual capabilities of these tools I think is the first step like the way because I think as a marketing person the marketing around AI has been astronomical and it's very aspirational

but as to your point that hype is not matching up to actually what it's doing right like we see it all the time like there was an article today about how the Gemini Google space has probably is like the amount of miss and disinformation it's putting out to people is actually astronomical and we are yet to find out the impact native impact on society about that.

Um and so I think like grounding in this is really important. I sit on the information technology communications board for the national league of cities. We actually just had a meeting talking about data centers and there is an amazing council member from Santa Clara who I think maybe we could reach out to. He's worked in AI for 30 years. Santa Clara, California has a third of the nation's data centers in their boundaries just about. Um and he ranted for about seven minutes uninterrupted about the place of AI in municipalities and how cautious we need to be because to your point like an understanding you know if you train an LLM with only using the colors green and orange when you ask it what are the what's the best color it's going to give you green or orange right or like the fact that it's like understanding human writing like that's the whole thing and we can get down on the ethics of, you know, stealing work and artwork and like human labor and that sort of thing. Um, but that is like I just think like grounding in like what is real about this tech is really important because then you then you can use it for what it's intended to like you know if I'm like I need six meta headlines to AB test for my ads and I want it to sound like something like this. It can spit out a bunch for me and I can pick and choose like that's a great use case. But yeah, like writing things. Anyway, and then two, kind of like to bring this full circle, like one of the examples that Joy Riot gave us earlier from Farmers Branch Texas, like they have a chatbot on their site that's a lot like our CRM directly built into the website except you can use it as like a chatbot function, which is a great use of in the broad term AI, right? And so I think like yes and right like yes we want to like stay innovative

but I also just like I think I just feel a way of like government moves so slowly and adopting things and specifically with agents and sort of like this like untethered tech like I just we have so much sensitive data and information and I think like that is just always in the back of my mind as we are moving forward with this. But anyway, I so I agree with most of everything.

Well, and I'm I'm not saying I'm one way or the other. I'm fully conflicted, right? I don't I don't love the use of water. Um I don't love the risk. I don't love the the scary bad actors, but Wikipedia was screwed up before AI. like people just put their own information out there. That wasn't even artificial intelligence, right? And people were still using that as a primary source. And so that's that's where I mean I wrote down education 500 times on my thing because it's education for our community. It's education for our staff. It's education for us. It's staying current with education and making sure that we know all the bad things and all the good things. Like you know, you're on the NLC board. I sit on arts boards. Creatives hate it until they don't.

And they're like, "Wow, but I can be more creative if I use this tool. I can be creative faster if I use this tool. I can design I mean, I'm looking at Katherine because I've seen people design like really cool patterns for for all the fabric work that you do." And there's really cool ways that you can use it. I have been beyond inspired by how kids will use AI to then generate better writing and it's so we use it as a tool not an end to the means, right? And so I've seen really cool ways that it works and then there's all these other horrific stories and I'm I'm just advocating for a balance I guess.

So council member do

thank you. One last thing as Megan was talking I went back and reread the 4.4 which is on transparency. To me I think that is like one of the most important parts of this and I and I would even like to see that um when when staff use it um they disclose any amount of it because I think it would help other people to see like you were just saying generate five ideas for me and then pick one. I mean that's not might might not be the core substance of the work or the majority but it would also but then it would it tells people around them and their supervisor and co-workers you know I did use that and this is how it helped and so I think that might be one way to be um uh you know to be transparent also just to even to our um our residents that you know we're using this this is how we use it. I don't know. Anyway, the transparency piece I think is really important. Thank you.

Agreed. That's a good one. Didn't we at one point use AI to do our council recap videos? I believe we're still using AI to do the council recap videos. We don't use the voice. We were using the voice at one point, but um currently Michael Ringling is the voice um because we were having issues with um the pronunciation of names, words, also just the overall tone of the voice wasn't working for us. Yeah. But yeah, they still use some level of AI to produce it.

Yeah. And so I think like to build off like that and like to merge all these sort of topics together like it is almost impossible to do anything creative now without AI because AI is built into Canva like you do use the background remover technically that's AI right you throw in your video footage and you type in like can you just pull out these five highlight clips like Cap Cut does that for you and so I think like again AI that def like to your point mayor of like the definition of AI being so vague and so broad is really my biggest problem because it's not actually intelligence also like it's sure

and I think like that's like again like the marketing for this has been amazing um yeah well and so is that something that we need to look at is 3.1 um because that that has all the things in it like I I zoned in on images and I'm like okay So for limiting certain uses of AI for staff, I don't I don't know like how do you we may need to unpack that a little bit. I heard I I definitely think 3.1 could could use some edits to to more fully flush out um all the various

forms of artificial intelligence and a descriptor of how it's not really intelligence. Yeah. It's a big one. I mean, it was Thank you for taking it on. Um, and I'm sure we're gonna learn more as we go. Definitely. It'll be great. Okay, I think that's all we have for now. Thank you. Okay, there's our three items. All right, have a great evening. We are done.