City Council - Special Meeting

It is the May 26, 2026 special meeting of the City Council of Louisville, Colorado. If we could get a roll call, please.

Council Member Kern?

Here.

Council Member Cooperman? Here. Council Member Fahey? Here. Council Member Dickinson?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton? Here. Council Member Hefner? Merely?

Here. You can join with me in the Pledge of Allegiance. We have just a couple of items of regular business tonight. And one of them is meeting with PEEP Lab, which is our formal, not formal, it's informal, but it's a chance to get together once a year to meet with you. We really appreciate your, I mean, there's sort of several reasons for it. I mean, We want to thank you for all the work that you've done, to ask some questions about the presentation that I gather y'all are going to make. And we talk a little about roles and so forth. And then to get the questions answered that you all have raised. I really appreciate all the time and thoughtfulness that's gone into the presentation, at least what we've gotten of it. But I know that there'll be more. So without any more than that, I guess, should we launch in?

Sure. First, I'd like to introduce Chris Davis. You all have not met with Chris. And so I'd like Chris to go ahead and introduce himself, and then we'll share the presentation from PPOP.

Good evening, Council. I'm Chris Davis. I'm new here, so I'm just embarking on my third month here. So one of the challenges that I look forward to is working with the board. It's something that I haven't done. So John's dedication with the board members as well has made this transition easy. So I appreciate your thanks and all the hard work, but I really need to pass all that hard work on to the board members that came before me and all the work that we're going to do. So tonight... Really, John and the board put up a really good presentation for you guys on some of the work that they've been doing pre-me, and then this is going to be the work that we're going to be doing post-me. So I look forward to doing the good work with John.

Before we get going, I had forgotten to do some introductions. That probably would be good. We've got nameplates, but you don't necessarily know all of us except from the interviews that we did some time ago. So why don't we go around?

Diana Langley, City Manager.

I'm Judy Kern, City Council for Ward 2, right across from the Rec Center. That's our whole, our ward. That's where Ward 2 is.

Excuse me, Caleb Dickinson, Ward 1. Yeah, two blocks away.

Deb Fahey, also Ward 2. And it does go all the way north of South Boulder Road.

Chris Lehmere.

Barbara Hamlington, Ward 3.

Josh Cooperman, Ward 1.

Welcome. John Webb. I'm currently chair of PPLAB and also the B-City subcommittee of PPLAB.

I love your shirt. Don't tell me that's not intentional.

Just I wear this all the time. Wow. I left the antenna at security. Too threatening. But thanks for the opportunity to present to counsel. I've been with, we can do next slide, I think. My pronouns are he, him. I'm currently chair of PEPLAB and the Bee City Committee. I'm in my fifth year working with the PEPLAB Committee, third year as Bee City Committee chair. I'm really pleased with the folks that I've been able to work with. We have some really smart, dedicated folks that have shown up to take the reins. take the reins and to do the heavy lifting of peep lab and also at Bee City. So it's been really fun and almost always entertaining. Let's do next. So tonight, here we are at the annual meeting with city council. We'd like to give you an overview of PPLAB's role and activities over 2025 and also make sure that we're in alignment with council's 2026 work plan. And I'll tell you a little bit about our 2026 priorities. Hopefully we'll have questions. And if you have new directions you'd like to see, we're certainly happy to do our best to meet those expectations. Next. So, according to Louisville Municipal Code, we have advisory responsibilities and also hearing of appeals from our community residents regarding aspects of parks and public landscaping. We've also, during the course of our regular meetings, heard input from community members during the part of the meeting where we listened to their specific concerns, some complaints, but mostly concerns. Next. So the kinds of things that we do according to Resolution 65, assisting city council and staff determining community's needs and desires for parks, programs, and facilities in relationship to parks-related issues in the Parks, Recreation, Open Space, and Trails Master Plan. Advice to City Council and staff on park and public landscape maintenance, development, and redevelopment. Review referrals for proposed landscape plans for public areas. advise City Council and staff on capital and operating budget as it relates to parks and public landscape maintenance, advise Council and staff on best practices related to parks and landscaping, promote healthy horticultural and forestry practices in public and private landscapes, educate the public regarding horticultural and forestry practices appropriate to Louisville's climate and soils, review and give comments on city landscape master plans, landscape ordinances and other appropriate landscape documents. Maintain a list of small, medium and large trees, bushes and shrubs to be planted as street trees or park trees and advise council and city on the adoption of regulations for the care and planting of trees. Next. All of our board meetings are open to the public and we continue to follow rules set forth in Open Records Act and open meeting rules and the Home Rule Charter. Follow Robert's rules of procedure as best we can. These cover meeting civility, general rules, meeting requirements, and more. Bylaws, we're operating on bylaws that are maybe a generation old by now. But we're looking for updates. Apparently, the city clerk's office was involved in that process last I heard, and this would be at some point last fall, perhaps. So still waiting for that. We've been advised of our continuing quasi-judicial role and served in that capacity at least once last year, as I remember, regarding property on the eastern entrance of the city of Louisville. Next. The items that really stood out in my review of the 2026 Council Work Plan were the four priorities for economic vitality, core services, safety, affordable housing, and lenses of focus, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and environmental sustainability. Next. details from council work plan, downtown vision plan, streetscapes and public places, economic vitality committee with policy recommendations, targeted development for code and process amendments, development of code rewrite, Sundance Film Festival, and the McCaslin Corridor. Our work plan... is designed to complement and comply with city council work plan objectives particularly sustainability maintaining as existing parks infrastructure and landscape fire hardening of existing park infrastructure and future parks development promoting economic vitality by fostering a welcoming and sustainable parks and infrastructure promote EDI through work plan objectives and actions, provide budgetary support for parks in 2026 and 2027, support initiatives for fire resistance, water-wise sustainable parks management, and promoting community resilience, provide educational opportunities to promote pollinator habitat, ecologic diversity, and sustainability in our parks, provide support for Louisville and integrated weed management program, including recommendations, communications, and educational opportunities to reduce the use of pesticides in our community, working toward measurable pesticide reduction in parks and surrounding community, and working toward transparency in pesticide use in public parks and landscaping. Work plan summary for PEEP Lab, support and advise parks recreation open space projects budgetary support for 26 and 27 memory square and rec center playground design median renovations continuing identified 2026 capital improvement projects development review red tail ridge if acquired if required and lewisville east entry. review parks long-range plan as requested, provide educational opportunities to promote ecologic diversity and sustainability in our parks, and PEEP Lab bylaws review and update. Highlights of 2025, we completed review and approval of restoration plans and opening of enclave and sunflower parks. A review of Dillon Road and the casual and median renovation plans, cornerstone flowerbed replacements, focusing on native plants, fire resistance, and turf replacement. Initiated improvements and Arbor Day planting of new trees at Arboretum. Wrote a manuscript on Japanese beetle mediation and milkweed pollinator benefits. Reviewed Joint Louisville-Lafayette mixed-use athletic fields and tennis court upgrades, discussed pesticide use, pesticide safety, and continued pesticide reduction in Louisville, reviewed Louisville comprehensive plan and long-range plans for park and open space, and a little bit about Bee City. We conducted a seed swap of native plant seeds at the Louisville Library with the Wild Ones front-range chapter a winter sewing workshop of native plants with Louisville Blooming Seniors Garden Club, participated in informational tables at Earth Day, Everyday Event in Lafayette, Pollinator Garden Tour, Davidson Mesa Native Plant and Pollinator Walk. Members participated in the BioBlitz and worked to reinstate Louisville Bee City USA as a subcommittee of Peep Lab. 2026 PPLAB priorities related to council's work plan, budgetary support for core services and safety, support park operational budget needs for current two-year budget cycle, pollinator habitat, resilience, fire resistance, water-wise and sustainable landscape opportunities related to core surfaces. I'm sorry, yeah, core services, safety, economic vitality and sustainability. Particularly focusing on sustainable landscape opportunities that are resilient, fire resistant and water wise and support pollinator habitats. Collaboration with OSAB for pocket prairie plantings and transitional planting areas from parks to open space. Completing cornerstone landscape repairs and continuing work at Arboretum. educational priorities, core services, sustainability, EDI initiatives, find educational opportunities as outlined in PPLAB mission to support public's knowledge and understanding of the park's operational program. Topics to include fire hardening, sustainable landscaping, Japanese beetle mitigation, mental health benefits of park spaces, and continuation of the Bee City USA designation

through public outreach opportunities.

Next. Continuing with alignment with parks development work plans, working with pollinator landscape plantings, pursuing additional opportunities for arboretum landscape transformation, upgrading landscape plantings at community park to include water wise and pollinator friendly native plants, educational opportunities with parks, rec and open space marketing, park operations seasonally, Japanese beetle and emerald ash borer mitigation, habitat survival guide for drought and water conservation, and staff collaboration with Play Boulder and Youth Forestry Corps, planting 25 trees and education on urban tree care through Youth Corp. Next. Looking for council guidance at this meeting and in the future, anytime. Opportunity for discussion and direction. Anything else that we would consider related to council work plan, council guidance on work plan items, and important considerations are all the items in purview of the board and advisory to council in nature. Is this what council needs from us?

Okay, is that it?

I guess that's it. To the Parks and Public Landscape Advisory Board members for your leadership and time, thank you so much. To staff for your amazing work, amazing work and accomplishments. Next step, we're a little bit out of date on May 16th options, but for November, looking for recommendations for the 2026 legislative agenda to help counsel on that particular issue.

Thank you very much for the overview. I'm always amazed at how many things boards and commissions actually do during the year and the quality that you bring to the table. So thanks again, and thanks to staff too. I thought maybe the first piece that I think we'd want to do is to ask some questions. And where I want to start really is your last year, because there are a couple of questions I had. And then maybe we can talk about the work plan after that and some of the questions. And then we'll get to the questions that you have on your list. I think the peep lab highlights, if you could pull that slide up.

Back a couple.

There it is. On that one, the question I had, one comment, one question, but awesome opening of the Enclave and Sunflower Parks, that whole event was just like so... magical for all of the residents, I think, and the kids. Really appreciate that. But I was interested in the review of the joint Lafayette Lewisville mixed use athletic fields and tennis court upgrades. What sorts of things do you review and kind of what conclusions did you all

Well, thank you, Marilee. This was a legacy item that was brought to us from the Recreation Advisory Board. A member from that board sat in with us for a year and brought to us the problem that there had been in the past an initiative or an intergovernmental agreement between Louisville and the city of Lafayette where Louisville would create, support, build, maintain athletic fields, which turned into the sports complex. This was a little bit before my time, but there were some loose ends as far as Lafayette's contribution to the intergovernmental agreement. And this was well beyond, I think, the scope of PEEP Lab's responsibility. But we felt that it was important to hear the concerns of the member from Recreational Advisory Board and ask that staff would inquire up the chain of command to see where this particular project was And it was, to me, anyway, just a very high level responsibility for intergovernmental cooperation to go knocking on the door of Lafayette and say, hey, remember this paperwork that we did so many years ago and We have a desperate need in this town for mixed-use fields and Lafayette as well, I think. A lot of the school properties are used for community activities and a lot of wear and tear on those facilities, I think. So it seems worthwhile, but it was well beyond our purview and certainly with budget constraints all around, it's hard to imagine that there'd be significant movement in that direction. But We did our best to hear the members' concern and pass our recommendations up the line. Thanks.

Are there any questions that folks have about what folks did last year?

Go ahead. I just have a couple of quick questions. One is in one of your slides, you're talking about the east entry to Louisville. Are you talking about Pine and Forty-Two? Or are you talking about Dylan and.

This was at highway 42 entrance where the railroad cars were right and we reviewed a development proposal. To dedicate a strip of land to city parks department in exchange for development concessions on that property. And. The consensus of the committee was it was too small of a strip of land to be relevant and useful for City Park public landscaping. And we recommended that the developer pursue the fee option for that particular. There's dedicate land or pay a fee, as I remember, were the options. And I understand that the city later purchased that property. But our input was that it wasn't really a big enough parcel of land for parks to take on responsibility or really any significant benefit for the community.

Okay. And then second thing was I noticed in the presentation that you don't have a full board. Any suggestions or ideas on how we could fix that?

We lost one member due to personal illness. It's a really difficult situation for our member, Jody. And we were short a member from the recruiting efforts last fall and into December. Bee City is looking at recruiting some additional members from city staff. city advisory board staff and possibly the community. And I would be happy to share our strategy with, with council and the appropriate city recruiting boards. It seems like summer is a tough time to recruit people, but if we put a call out through city social media, I don't know that many people spend a lot of time with the, enclosures in the water bill and, and that sort of thing. But our quarterly newsletter, I think it's a lot of circulation. And that's how I found out about the opportunity to show up for peep lab was in that quarterly publication or its predecessor five and a half years ago. I thought, well, it seems like a good time to kick in. Um, and I really thought that, um, Louisville needed to become a B city and all of the, uh, I guess, initiatives that came with that seemed really important for sustainability and livability in Louisville. So I thought it was a good fit. But that's where I found out in that quarterly publication.

Okay. And then my last question is about how you feel or felt, I guess, in the past about having a liaison from council to your board.

I think it's great. I love seeing you folks there. And if I know that you have super busy schedules, but in the comments, not on agenda, it's a great opportunity for members of council or any city staff to say, you know, we think that we could use your input on something or here's a concern. I mean, what do we do about Japanese beetles and how can you do a little research and report back to us? So I don't think it's a requirement, but it always just gives me a happy feeling when we see a council member show up or any city staff, because you do a lot of really great work and we're happy to help out any way we can.

Are there other questions, either about last year or the other slides that, you know, go ahead.

Councilmember Cooper- Councilmember Fahey asked my question about recruiting more members. I'll skip that. I'm curious, have you continued at all to collaborate with the Recreation Advisory Board this past year?

This year, I don't think we've had a tiger team that meets with the recreational advisory board. And we're looking forward to an opportunity to meet with OSAB as well. And I think it'd be great to have a sustainability contact as well. And those are the committees that I think we have the most crossing interest with. But we haven't done that yet.

Sorry. And then I threw two questions, which are sort of maybe partially for staff. Has, have we had peep lab formerly weigh in on the downtown vision plan? In any capacity?

I to my knowledge, by short knowledge here, three months, I do not think that's happened. But I'm not sure. Okay, John, do you?

I don't think we have. We worked on the guidebook project so far this year, but that's really the only input that we've had for city infrastructure. Right.

Okay. And then, you know, particularly in the council's finance committee, we've had discussions around the parks budget. And I was curious, have we formally engaged or should we formally engage PPLAB to provide any input on the parks budget, particularly looking ahead where it doesn't look so great?

I think our advice in the past or our impressions in the past were to do as much as we can with what we've got available to us. And I know that there were some concerns with allotment of money for parks and public landscaping Department, and it sounds like that had been resolved earlier this year or the end of last year.

No, not yet.

Okay. Well, so happy to help out where we can. Yeah.

Microphone.

I think it does technically fall in their purview. I don't know how useful it would be, but just a thought.

So two items. On the front and center project, we're still determining the scope of the design. The LRC is still working out what's going to be included. Once we have a better sense of what's going to be included in phase one, then I would see us engaging with PPLAB related to that. Related to the parks budget, at the last finance committee meeting a week ago on Monday, staff did a presentation of the current state of the parks fund to the finance committee. That meeting is recorded and available, and also the presentation is available on the website. That would be a good... item to review either as part of prior to a PPLAB meeting, or we can have the finance director come and do a supplemental presentation to you. The parks fund is not in a good state. Even though we transferred $100,000 of the conservation trust fund, if you look at the long-term financial forecast, we're still going to be moving into below our target reserve levels and then potentially into a deficit position. And so that's one of the things that the finance committee will be evaluating is what do we do about the parks fund as we also talk about increasing project demands and and increasing requirements for maintenance. So it's a very complex topic that's going to need to be addressed, and there's the discussions that need to take place. While we don't have any answers right now, there's different paths that we can go, and I can see PPLAB as being a part of that conversation.

Thanks. Glad you teed that one up. That was good. So, I mean, I'm in full agreement. I'd really love for all of you and hopefully more people to get very engaged in this conversation. I mean, we have an amazing finance committee. But this is going to be a heavy lift as a city to figure out how do we maintain the excellent level of parks, those standards. I mean, we're kind of known for them. I mean, if you ever go, you take a kid... It is amazing. You go to any park in the city, in any neighborhood, and that standard is there. And so I think getting more input. I mean, I love all of the Bee City and the tree and the bird. That's wonderful. And I think those are like lovely layered add-ons. But I think a lot of the core that falls under parks and then the public landscape piece is the parks. And it is getting really expensive to figure out how do we continue with staff? That's expensive. We're having a hard time recruiting for your board. I mean, but then we talk about, could we get volunteers to come out and help in the park instead of maybe it being 100% paid staff? We are a small community. We used to do that. When I first moved here 30 years ago, there were a lot of volunteer opportunities outside of a board within the community. So I'd love to have you guys sort of engage with each other and anybody else, you know, and just bring ideas and, you know, do the advising piece that we need. I am, there was one topic and I'm sorry if it's a sensitive one, but the Bee City subcommittee of PEPLAB, I kind of wanted to talk to council, but all of you as well. I feel that should be made up of members that are appointed by council, just like any other committee.

Can we wait on that discussion? Just the questions right now, because then we're going to go to public comment.

Okay. So, and I did actually with the budget thing, you guys hadn't talked about it. Maybe it's still coming, you know, because of our retreat coming up next month. What any, if any like big items you saw expenditure wise that you were kind of hoping that the city could work in, right. We did, we did the medians before we've done some big park improvements. We know that it's going to be several years before we need new park equipment and but are there any other things that you guys were really hoping for that there could be some specific expenditures?

I would, I think the committee was really psyched about redevelopment of the flower beds in community park. I mean, that is a show place for our community. We have concerts in the park. People go there all the time. And right now they're just like mulch beds with some shrubs that are hanging on. Um, I mean, it could be just an amazing show place. And there are sources for native plants that are free and available. So I mean, I know that it can be an expensive item to design and install and purchase materials to get that done. But I mean, it's such an important show place for our community. The other thing that is more of a long range project is our arboretum is a beautiful space and we've spent a lot of time and effort as a community installing and maintaining the trees that are both pollinator habitat and bird habitat. and demonstration for our community members of what works and what doesn't work in the landscape environment and the kinds of infrastructure that's necessary to care for architectural planting. Last year, we installed two pollinator gardens near the pavilion. That was a parks project. The plants came from Resource Central. I believe there was a grant or two involved in that process. We also installed two areas of Bermuda grass also to the east of the pavilion. And it's really interesting to see how both of those projects are faring from a demonstration standpoint. I think if we did a little bit of signage with those to areas. It would provide more education to the community. And I'd like to see some dedicated host plants for our native butterflies and moths installed. Right now it's flowering plants and it's great for feeding, but it's not great for rearing larvae that feed birds and grow into butterflies and that sort of thing. So that's something that I've We've spent time emphasizing to parks that our plant list needs to include native plants that are host plants for our butterflies. From 2020 to, I'm sorry, from the year 2000 to 2020, population surveys of butterfly abundance have shown a 20 to 22% drop overall which is scary over 20 years. I mean, you lose 1% per year, how long can that continue? And it's because of pesticides, it's because of agricultural changes, it's because of suburban landscapes tend to lack the kinds of gardens and landscaping that feed our pollinators and we need them, they don't need us. and also climate change and planning for resilience and the difficulty that our insect friends, neighbors, cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles are struggling with. Everybody knows that when you take a drive at night and there's like two dead bugs on your windshield instead of 20 or 40, that's real. That's real. So serious sustainability and environmental biodiversity issues that I think we can address here in this town by some more pollinator-related gardening and letting our community members just know how important it is. Turn off your lights at night so the bugs don't beat themselves to death. Simple changes.

So your last question.

I was gonna say, I'd like to circle back to the volunteer suggestion. We did start in the last meeting having conversations about how to engage the community on work projects. So we haven't gotten very far about it. But we've already started to talk about that.

That's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate you guys doing that. We need you. Okay. So quick question. So you mentioned the different boards you were going to, it's important, Chris, the different boards that you were going to be working with. Have you talked about working with cultural advisory board? David, this may be easy for you to do, given that one of the board members lives in your house. But for things like different like art and things like that to go in the parks, we get a lot of conversation with that within the community. I wanted to see if that was part of what was resonating with your group to discuss.

Thank you. We just completed our K through eight pollinator art contest, and it was primarily promoted through the library and our contacts with local schools. But I think we could bring the cultural advisory board in on some of that. And I don't know everything that was done because we had this tiger team that just ran with it. and did a tremendous job. We had 70 entries this year. Last year we had one because of the difficulties with getting into the library, I think was the main issue. But yeah, I think cultural advisory board would be something worth connecting with.

Do we have any public comments? Does it look like it? All right. Why don't we come back to your questions? First, anything the board should consider related to the council work plan? Council members? Yes, Mayor Patel.

Thank you. So we walked through some of the different boards that you all have collaborated with in one way or another. One that I haven't heard mentioned where I wonder if there's some synergy, it's not a board, but groups in the community, the chamber and economic vitality. And the reason why these come to mind for me is not necessarily like an immediate future project, but I could imagine there's some synergy down the road. with some of our entryway public landscaping and the work that they're doing. You know, in my last conversation with Jillian, who heads our chamber, she's exploring the, well, she's trying to build an idea of like explore Louisville or something like that, you know, and I could see some synergy between her work and what you all do at the entryways as well. So I don't know that it's something that's on the immediate work plan, but I wanted to throw it out there for people to kind of noodle on in the near future.

Are there responses to the work plan items? Yes.

So I remember last year, maybe it was the year before last, part of what it came up, you guys were talking about you met last year about the East Entrance. But there was a lot of conversation about P-PLAB working with staff to talk about how to be more inviting, like announce you're in Louisville. But when you cross McCaslin and now you're in Louisville, you're not superior. Or when you're at 96th and Dillon, nobody knows you're in Louisville. And if you go into most other communities, they have these like beautiful, like stone things with these like beautiful metal, like Louisville or Broomfield. Broomfield does a lot of it actually. So I, that, and that came up before and years ago with you guys. And I didn't know if that was still on the radar as something you were looking at doing and working together on a group.

I think it was 2024 where we worked with, um, keep lab suggestions about how we could, um, improve the signage. I mean, when you improve on something that's, that's not there, it's pretty easy, but we talked about different places on the McCaslin entrance to Louisville and where there was property available either on the median or on the West side, I believe there was some city property, um, We didn't get much farther than making recommendations for the placement of that particular entrance, but we were concerned about it. And there was quite a bit of conversation devoted to that. And we even talked a little bit about potential design, like shadow sculpture kind of cut out sorts of things, honoring our past and our present. happy to entertain again what we might be able to help with.

And going back to budget, is there budget for that?

It's a great question.

And I think that you're right, that probably is it. If we said you have X number of dollars, this would be a great idea for you to look at. Right now, that's a whole other conversation. I think we are struggling just to maintain what we have in the parks and public landscape areas.

But if there's overlap with other advisory boards, is there budget somewhere else that could come together?

I think it might be tight in the next two years, to be honest.

I thought council members had questions. Yeah.

Just to double click on this idea. I mean, I echo council member current sentiment regarding the budget being tight. One of the things that brought this to the forefront for me is Sundance coming up and obviously the chamber economic vitality. They're very invested in leveraging that. to benefit our city in many different ways. So, you know, while budgets are certainly tight, that opportunity, I'm not certain, could maybe open up some coffers or other, you know, mechanisms to get funding that we just don't have in our capital project funding right now. So again, it's not something that we have on our work plan at the moment, but I could see it maybe in the future at some point being a real conversation that we have and maybe building those connections and relationships now and establishing those could be really useful if and when the rubber does meet the road and we're serious about those entryways and collaboration in that manner.

Yeah.

I guess one that's maybe more of a comment, but... I know in the past, OSAP, in the recent past, OSAP has asked us to sort of look at our integrated pest management program and other things that related to pesticide use in the city. And we haven't got around to quite taking that up. I don't recall if PPLAB has formally sent us any memos about that. looking at that again. But that's something that I'm interested in doing at some point in the near future. And so if there's interest from your board, you might let us know again. Yeah.

A couple of people from the Bee City Committee met and talked about current pesticide safety data. We downloaded those documents from EPA or wherever they come from. And I think it's really critical that we update our management of weeds and pesticides to be more sensitive to the current suite of chemicals that are available now. We're five or 10 years out of date, but certainly stopping the use of glyphosate and 2,4-D and the neonicotinoid pesticides, herbicides are just incredibly persistent and damaging. So, you know, that's a great start. I think we can improve both for the safety of our staff and also for the safety of our community and to help with biodiversity and not killing things that don't need to be killed. So I think it's critical, and we'd be happy to help with that.

I want to save some time for the Bee City piece, because I know that that's one that you've brought to us. But I want to go back to budget for just a second. We often throw cold water around. on budget items. You're not the only advisory group to labor under that. We all labor under that. The city labors under it. But I really would encourage you to look at the items that you have and the capital items that are in there and to provide any guidance that you'd like on priorities, particularly, you know, what projects might be in there, what kinds of expenditures, where you think. the money would be better spent. That's the kind of stuff that really is helpful to us when you meet for the budget. Same thing on work plan. You know, sometimes the budget advisory boards don't see their recommendations necessarily flowing into our work plan. That doesn't mean that they're not important or that they won't be filtered into what staff is doing. But the budget is going to drive You know, our decisions on the budget should be driven by our priorities and you can be a part of that. And I really, you know, so instead of just saying, oh, the money is not there, look at the money that is there and give us a good sense of what the priorities are. The second thing I was going to say for my own self is that you all do a lot of, you get a lot of things on the work plan and you're down a couple of people. And I just want to make sure that you all feel like you can, you know, that the priorities that you're looking at, you can cover. You know, I guess that's a kind of a question. There are things you don't feel like you can do on that work plan with the current, or do you think you're in good shape? If you're in good shape, I'm happy. That's great.

I feel like we're in pretty good shape as far as our work plan goes. I mean, we do a lot of asking and advising and that's easy. Putting on a pollinator garden tour or managing an art project is a little more time intensive. And, you know, we're going to see how the garden tour goes. I think we've got a little bit of work to do before people start showing up, but I think it's going to come through pretty well. Bee City is hoping to do a couple of two or three presentations in the fall about soil health and what we can do in the community to promote healthier soils, which is healthier water use and healthier plants and fewer pests. Happy plants don't get bit. That's pretty well known. We also have an idea for two of us went to the Pollinator Summit at CU that's conducted by the Colorado Pollinator Network. And there was this great talk by a member of the CU Museum, fossil pollinators, 30 and 60 million years old. And I thought that'd be a great program for the library to talk about. sustainability and biodiversity in addition to earth history. So, you know, those are the kinds of things we'd like to promote. And Bee City did submit a budget a month ago with some detailed recommendations for our particular program. And I think as far as parks go, there are some neighborhood parks that probably need renovation and equipment repairs and replacement. I mean, that's top priority because those are high usage. I would love to see community park gardens be a top priority because I think that's a show place. And when we have visitors coming from out of town, they see that garden, it's like, oh, Louisville's all right. Louisville rocks. So those are things that I think are important.

On B-City, my understanding is that there's a requirement that we have some sort of committee. The city has a committee. And I guess to open this up a bit, I know that from talking to Josh, Josh has a really good sense of the history of this, is the Bee City group has sort of traveled in various forms as kind of part of PEEP Lab and it's been on its own and it's been You know, and you've kind of brought that back as I think it should be based on that requirement, which I think is different than some of our other flora and fauna city arrangements, be it bird city, tree city. And I guess for council, the suggestion I think has been made whether to involve well, how to nest that within PEEP Lab or somewhere in one of our boards and commissions. PEEP Lab has been the ones taking the laboring war on it. And if that's where it belongs, whether that's a kind of committee of the whole, that is PEEP Lab is the Bee City Committee, or whether there's some appropriate rule for volunteers in that, as members or non-members. So I guess I'm interested in getting some thought about that. Yes, Ma'am.

So it sounds like based on how you teed this up, that there's specific requirements with our Bee City designation that we have to meet. One of those is this Bee City Committee, but it doesn't necessarily have to be housed in PEEB Lab. Okay. Because one of the things that came to my attention as I was preparing for today is My understanding is a subcommittee should be composed of committee members. So having this labeled as a subcommittee and contain more members outside of that isn't truly a subcommittee. So I think if we're going to do a subcommittee, it should be committee members that are appointed by council. that's not what we want to do then i think we need to figure out what a b city committee is going to look like but i think as it stands right now it's it's not a subcommittee as is by definition um where it lands like i don't have opinions on that tonight i would need to know more and hear from people but i think as it stands right now that it's not what it says it is

Yeah, so I totally agree. I kind of see where it would almost be a joint subcommittee with OSAP and P-PLAB. I can see the crossover there with the necessity for a lot of what both of the committees engage us with and some of the needs. And I think there's a lot of interest, too, from members that are on Open Space Advisory Board for this. So for me personally, I'd actually think, and surprisingly, I actually do have an opinion. I'd actually like to see it be a subcommittee of the two. And you guys have great crossover. But I do think that the budget needs to squarely lie within the regular budget. I don't think that it should have additional funding. And reading through the requirements, and thank you to the city manager for forwarding that to us. it is outside the scope of the requirements of the B-City. And so I think that it needs to, I think as a committee, we need to figure out how to do that and stay within the confines of the regular P-plot budget.

Yes. I haven't read the B-City requirements recently, but some of those requirements are around like the practices that you do in maintaining public landscaping and stuff like that, which is largely on the staff side, right? But then there are also requirements around doing sort of educational events over the course of the year, which could certainly be staff. A lot of that work has been the committee. So I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to get at is like the committee itself it's not really, it doesn't have the same kind of role as I would say, I mean, in part maybe, but it doesn't really have the same kind of role as our advisory boards. I would, I would say, um, not that they couldn't offer advice, but, um, right. There are sort of these other defined roles in the requirements for what you do as a B city. And so like having these kinds of events and stuff is not what we would typically do or have our advisory boards do. Um, so I just wonder like, is, I don't know what the right structure is. You know, if, you know, I mean, a lot of the work that has been done with the committee has been done by people who are not on any of the boards. And so it, you know, it might be fine to have it be a joint subcommittee, but I guess then the question is, you know, how, I think, you know, First of all, do we get enough interest from people who are on those two boards? But then also, how do other people interact with that committee? Maybe people who have been involved or are there just other people who want to be involved? Because again, the things that that committee has done and I think is tasked to do are just different from what

advisory committees do so in the interest of time um it may be good to suggest that we give that to staff to think about how best to organize that because i could see the the wisdom of having a joint committee i i'm concerned about staff staff commitment and time because I think it's an important um role and I appreciate your your bringing it to us and explaining that there's a lot more to it in some ways than others other kinds of committees that that um operate um in this space um but I can also see it's you know I've see it maybe not completely operating outside of the city because it's a city requirement. But that's probably a really good thing for you all and staff to kind of shepherd through and maybe offer if to the extent we need to respond or make some adjustment through resolution or something, you can bring that back to us.

Right. So B-City, per resolution, is a subcommittee of PPLAB. And then to be qualified and continue to maintain your certification as a B-City, there are certain requirements, including one educational event per year. Right now, the current subcommittee, based on my recollection, is comprised of PPLAB members, OSAP members, and then members of the public that have kind of key roles in this level of expertise. And so if we were to go to a joint advisory board, being on the subcommittee, going to Councilmember Cooperman's question in terms of how do we bring in other folks that are not as part of the advisory boards, it may just be taking what's currently taking place and ratifying that into a resolution to reflect what's actually occurring. Regardless, it has to be a posted meeting. And so we wouldn't be changing that practice, but we can discuss a recommendation and bring that to council. It wouldn't require council action because it is by resolution.

One last thing on this, and just to throw this along with the discussion on bylaws and all that stuff, there's nothing really on... fauna in the peep lab resolution. There's nothing that really talks about non-plant related stuff. There's stuff that talks about facilities and things as they relate to plants. I wonder, without opening, I'm not going to say it.

So if I could just say one thing. We were hoping tonight to get a more targeted scope for PPLAB and staff because, as you can see by PPLAB's work plan, you all do tremendous work. And there's a lot of goals in terms of things to address. As we've talked about the budget issues, you know, Chris is tasked with trying to figure out how to run a division with a limited budget, with expanding scope of services required, while also being the staff liaison to PPLAB. And so I really appreciated their request for council guidance tonight because there's not a lack of things for PPLAB to work on, but to understand what's really important to council as we move into this next year. so that Chris's time and staff's time, as well as PPLAB's time, is used most effectively. And so, you know, I'm hearing about budget understanding to me is a big item. Reviewing the current capital list to see if there are projects that maybe need to be deferred or reconsidered or reallocated to higher priority projects. Another thing would be, you know, we're looking for PPLAB guidance on We still need to adopt the PROS plan. There's going to be more review of that, the front and center project. We do still have a replacement of playground equipment. I believe a community park is the remaining park that needs to be done. So just from a project perspective, they have things on their agenda to discuss. And so, you know, if you will allow staff as part of the meetings with PPLAB and Chris's staff liaison to to be able to work with P-Lab to really try to narrow down the scope of work for this next year so that we can make sure that we're using time efficiently and effectively. We'd appreciate that support from council.

Are there any other thoughts among council on those items if there are some that think are higher priority than others? Glad to entertain that before we

I don't have any discussion about what things should be prioritized over other things. That I think could be something that the board can refer or recommend to staff rather than coming from council because they're the ones with the expertise. They know what could be a higher priority and you'll know what we can afford.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah, just briefly, like, you know, I think to earlier comments, like we have some of the most wonderful parks in the country, state, county, like people come. It's really cute. They come from out of town to come to our parks, right? I just met someone the other day. It's like, oh, I drive in to go to memory square park. It's the best park. It's actually oddly enough in a complaint about it changing. It's like, why are you, it's my favorite park in the entire state. I literally drive all the way to go to that park for all of the reasons that the park is right now. Why are you changing it? I'm like, well, I think, I think it's going to improve. I shade will stay blah, blah, blah. Anyway, unbelievable parks. unbelievable parks um and doing a great job and i would just say the one thing that i'll leave you with from my perspective is that increased uh focus continued and increased focus on decreasing water usage from a sustainability issue and a monetary issue it's just the less water we use the better and and as much native plants as we can drought resistant plants kind of go into that. And so whether it's a park or a playground or a median or an entry place or whatever, you know, really focusing on less water and more native plants all the time. And I think, you know, we're seeing it statewide and certainly locally is, you know, less turf. And how do you do parks and playgrounds and things without regular artificial or natural turf? But, you know, we're trying to do less of that. And I think about community park and a 150-yard by 250-yard grass field that is mostly unused on a daily basis other than the music in the park. And as a soccer coach, I've tried to use that space and got kicked off because you can't. You're not allowed to use it. Anyways, it's not usable as a park or as a soccer place. And so that's fine, but then why do we have... Oh, much grass and so few trees and this enormous, but so again, it's just, as you keep going, how can we use less water, less turf and more natural plants in our beautiful parks and areas? So thanks. Thank you so much for meeting with us, taking time.

Um, I think you've got, um, a lot on your plate and I appreciate staff's willingness to work, to try to focus the efforts, um, else for the good of the order just two words beautification and trees there you go all right thanks again thank you thank you all good to be had right great our our second item on the agenda is an executive session. The city manager is requesting an executive session with the purpose of discussing real estate or real property acquisition disposition pursuant to Section 5.2.C of the Home Rule Charter and CRS Section 24.6.402.4a, specifically as to appraisals and other value estimates strategy. Prior to obtaining any motion, the city clerk will read a statement required by the city governor.

It is the policy of the city to conduct public business in meetings open to the public. While in executive session, it is inappropriate to take straw votes, keep minutes, or to make any final decisions. It is the duty of each member to ensure that executive sessions are conducted in strict compliance with this ordinance, state and federal law, and any applicable provisions of the state and federal constitutions. if at any time the scope nature or parameter of this executive session goes beyond the publicly stated topic it is the responsibility of the council to terminate and cease any further deliberation within the executive session and return to the public meeting only those topics described in city ordinances may be discussed in an executive session those topics are summarized as follows one where federal or state law requires that the information being discussed remain confidential Two, certain personnel matters involving only employees directly appointed by the council and other personnel matters upon request of the city manager or mayor. Three, consideration of water rights and real property acquisitions and dispositions, but only as to appraisals, value estimates and strategies. Four, legal consultation with an attorney representing the city with respect to pending litigation.

Regarding the authority for the executive session, Section 52C of the Home Rule Charter authorizes an executive session for the purpose of discussing real property acquisitions and dispositions, but only as to appraisals and other estimates of value and strategy. An executive session for this purpose is also authorized by the Open Meetings Law, Section 2464024A of the Colorado Revised Statutes. The request involves potential disposition of real property or acquisition of real property. With that, you may entertain a motion to go into executive session for consideration of real property acquisitions and dispositions.

Thank you. I move to go into the executive session with the purpose of real property acquisitions and dispositions. And at the executive session includes City Manager Diana Langley, Open Space Superintendent Amber McMillan, and Deputy City Manager Melinda Culley can get a roll call on the motion. Deputy City Attorney Melinda Culley, I promoted you or demoted you.

Right, right.

All right. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? Can we get a roll call?

Council Member Cooperman?

Yes.

Council Member Fahey? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Hamlington? Yes. Council Member Dickinson?

Yes.

Council Member Kern? Yes. Mayor Lay?

Yes.

Council Member Hefner? Yes.

Right motion passes, we will now turn to executive session and for those who are tuning in and i'm not sure there are any, but if they are. We are shutting down until our final. Report after this so we'll be back, thank you.

We're done.

We're going to reconvene here, and I believe we have a report from the executive session.

Mayor and council, as noted on the meeting agenda, the executive session was for the purpose of discussing real property acquisitions and dispositions, and the city had such discussion. No further follow-up is required this evening.

Thank you very much. I think seeing that that's the end of our regular business tonight, do we have a motion? Move to adjourn?

Second.

All in favor? Aye.