City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man.

Okay. Let's see. Adam, mayor, do you need something? Uh, you're on mute right now.

Hello everyone. I'm going to call the meeting to order for our regular February 18th city council meeting. The time is 5:31. Ben, may I get a roll call, please? Thank you, Mayor Prom. Uh, councelor Koso here. Councelor Lawyer here. Mayor Prom Woodruff here. Mayor Yazy and Councelor Gonzalez. Mayor Yazy, I think you may have been on mute. Do you just want to say present for the record?

Here, here. Here. Great. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Ben. Uh, could we please get a reading of the indigenous land acknowledgement?

This is a call to honor and respect indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. As residents and visitors of Durango, we are called upon to educate ourselves about the history and cultural heritage of the land we inhabit. The city of Durango is situated on the ancestral homelands and territories of the Nute Hickoria Apache Apache PBLO of New Mexico, Hopicome, Hopi, and Da Navajo nations. The original stewards of this land were forcibly removed and exposed to countless atrocities by the United States government, including repeatedly broken treaties, forced assimilation, the tragic legacy of Indian boarding schools, and the loss of ancestral homelands. We recognize lasting generational trauma exists within native communities today. We affirm the continuing importance of ancestral sites to descendant communities as integral to the living cultural landscape. This acknowledgement only becomes meaningful when combined with accountable relationships and informed actions. May this serve as a step toward inclusion and reconciliation.

Thank you. Um could we please get an intro? Could we please introduce the translator for the evening?

Yes. Hi, good evening. My name is Lee Torres and I am here with my colleague Sam Guzman. We're here with a community language co-op. Thank you so much for your commitment to language justice so that everyone can participate in the language of their heart. If you're joining us online, please go to the more menu whenever you need to select the language and speech and select the language of your heart from there. If you are have any questions, make sure that you raise your hand. and we can go ahead and get started.

Thank you. U moving on to opening remarks by mayor and council. Anybody here would like have to make any opening remarks? Councelor Kosa.

Thank you, Mayor Prom. And uh just a couple of things. Um I wanted to express my congratulations to Tommy uh for his Region 9 lending partner of the year award uh which he received at the end of January. So, it's always nice to see those awards coming out. Tommy, he's in the audience now. No. Anyway, uh anybody who sees him, please congratulate him. I thought that was a really nice award for him. Uh also, city staff was running a blood drive at the rec center today, and I wanted to say thanks for that as well. That's all I got. Anybody else? All right, moving on to presentations and proclamations. Do we have any today? City manager. Excellent sir. Um and then city manager updates. No updates.

All right. Moving on to committee, board, and liaison reports.

All right. Councelor, lawyer.

Yes. Um I had the um alliance board meeting and um community meeting. What why am I blanking on the name of that? Um and uh we went over um lots of you know updates. Uh the um uh economic summit is scheduled for September 13th. It's a Thursday. Um they already have some u amazing speakers that are solidified. They're looking for breakout speakers. So if you're interested, you can go online. Um they're also looking for sponsors for um the um the summit and um it's one of like the best business and local conferences I think that I attend every year. So um if you're have a business and want to sponsor, go ahead and take a look at those opportunities. That's it.

Great. Kip, you want to go ahead and go second? only because uh uh very shortly I had office hours yesterday and I just wanted to share that I had several uh conversations around ADUs and our third consideration that's happening tonight. Uh opposition to changes in the PD and city hall design uh and then neighbor concerns for West Second Avenue which I will be sharing with city staff. And then lastly, um I have had two separate conversations on a topic I'm hearing more and more about, especially given uh increasing representation in the population, and that's um uh aging related issues. And so doctor turnover at Mercy was one of the conversations uh accommodations for el elders supported as they age and modifications to city facilities for those less ablebodied. So hearing that more and more so just wanted to share that across since it was office hours yesterday. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Uh coincidentally, I also had my office hours on the 4th of February. Um there were some folks that wanted to talk about sustainability um and how we can move forward um along to make sure that affordability and sustainability go hand in hand. Um we also talked about u some multipal projects um upcoming and kind of how we lost some momentum in 2025 but looking forward to 2026. So um looking forward to that um from some of the folks and then I didn't have a chamber of commerce meeting. We decided to go from a monthly meeting to a quarterly meeting. So I will reporting back on that uh on a quarterly basis. Um and then the last piece is um we had the community development commission executive committee meeting today. um and had great conversation around some policy um possible, you know, things coming up in the future along with some um like how do we move forward together to better work uh in concert with one another as our two um entities. So, yeah, really good uh meetings overall.

Mayor Prom, I just got a couple of process questions. I'm not sure. So, so we we're going to go back to the old roll call vote that we were doing previously just because of this scenario has presented itself. And so, yeah, u I've been able to speak to both Tom, Evan, and um Ben about how we're going to do this. And so, just be an old school roll call vote um like we were doing previously. Same thing, Mayor. Well, I'll I'll probably just make sure that that she has a chance to pipe in if she so wishes. Okay. Thanks.

Of course. And Mary Azy, do you have anything to add for committee uh board and liaison reports? Um, can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Um, not right now. I'm having a echo, so I'm trying to work that out, but thank you for asking.

Okay. Thank you, mayor. All right. May I please get the public comment uh on items for cons of adoption tonight. Public comment is encouraged on agenda items set for consideration and a vote by the council tonight. Public on items not set for consideration by the council come later in the meeting. Please begin your comments by stating the agenda items set for a vote you intend to speak on, your full name, and if you are a resident of the city of Durango. Make your comments directly to the council. Do not expect a response from the council or staff. Comments are limited to 3 minutes per person unless modified by the council. Unused time is not transferable to other speakers. Comments must be specific to the item you identified when you began your comments. Profanity, hate speech, personally derogatory remarks, speech unrelated to the item you identified, or other speech that is disruptive to the meeting will be ruled out of order by the chair and any remaining time will be forfeited by the speaker. Exceeding the time limit infringes on the rights of others and is out of order. Only a majority vote of the council can modify time limits. Please note, you must sign up prior to the mayor calling the item on the agenda. Signing up after the item is called will result in your name not being called to speak. Thank you. And there's uh several individuals who signed up for agenda related items for public comment. Um the first group of people are wanting to speak on item 8.2.1 2.1 on the consent agenda which is an an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances chapter 27 the land use and development code regarding elimination of parcel area minimums for accessory dwelling units and the first

individual is in person and that's Chris Pollson.

Hello my name is Chris Pollson. I live uh 423 East 30th Street in Durango. uh this item has there's been a fair amount of discussion about this item but every time uh there's discussion all we get are more questions and uh most recently we talked about waivers and I thought wow you mean people don't where these ADUs are supposed to be owner occupied but there's apparently a waiver program out there so that certain people can rent out both units they don't have to uh occupy at least one unit and I think that's, you know, it's like how many of these waivers are out there? How many of these units are where they're all rented out? That's that's one of the questions that's come up. Apparently, they're in the process of trying to figure out exactly whether or not these places are owner occupied or not. The 60 to 70 that they don't haven't tracked. And it seems like why are we going forward and opening the door for more ADUs when there's all these questions about whether or not these things are are following the rules as is. And there's as far as enforcement, well, if you um go overtime parking, there's fines. But I haven't heard anything about fines or any sort of enforcement mechanism so that if you break the rules that you're uh penalizing any sort. Uh we're also talking about $7,000 to do an ADU. And I'm thinking, well, 70 time 70,000 time 70, that's 490,000. That's a lot of money to leave on the table. And why are we not going after these people and making sure that they pay if they're for these ADUs? We're t we got all up in arms about u the ethics complaint 177,000. Well, 400 and some thousand that's more than twice three times what that ethics

complaint is worth. But yet nobody seems to be too concerned about that. I'm concerned. I pay taxes. My property taxes just about doubled. And now we're talking about putting all these ADUs out there and I'm finding out that if you have a break in your sewer line in these old sewer lines, it's costing 17 to $18,000 for a repair. You know what about me? I've lived in this community over 30 years. You know, I pay my taxes. I pay my bills. You're more concerned about the property, about the potential people, than you are about the people here. I worked on the school board for four years. I didn't get paid a scent. I would like some concern for the existing residents, the existing neighborhoods, and not all these people that you want to move in here. So, as far as uh the people that are concerned about this community are the owner occupants. And the more more you push the people out, the more you create more and more rentals, what you're going to have are a lot of neighborhoods that aren't maintained, that aren't taken care of, and you've totally ignored

Thank you. Your time is up, Mrs. Pson. You totally ignored your time. Thank you very much, council. The next individual signed up to speak on 8.2.1 is Karen Mcmanis, who is online. The name called is not on our list on teams to uh select. Thank you. I can move forward. Um so the next individual for the same item 8.2.1.

Sorry Ben. Can we just pause for a sec? So can we make a motion to allow Karen? Did Karen not sign up in time? She's she's been pretty adamant on this issue. It's she's not on the Okay. It's I was asking for clarification. The next individual is Dick White.

Good evening. My name is Dick White. I live at 575 East 8th Street in Durango. I served on the city council from 2011 to 2019. Specifically, I joined the vote to approve the new LUDC in 2014. At lengthy public hearings, we listened to extensive com public comment on primarily on two very contentious issues, vacation rentals and ADUs. We proceeded cautiously. We established limitations on vacation rentals that have largely spared Durango from the excessive vacation rental developments that have happened in some other mountain towns. We also established lot size restrictions specifically omitting EN1 properties south of College Drive in addition to u adding the additional the critical owner occupancy requirement. Arguments against removing ADU lot size restrictions today echo those that we heard in 2014 and listened to at length. uh and they apply uh about ADUs in general then and they're now applying to the specifics about expanding the possibility. Now we have data now that explicitly tells us what has happened in the 12 years since the land use code was passed and we started allowing ADUs. We've had 160 units in 12 years for on a potential of,00 properties. At this rate, expanding the opportunity to more use unit more owners would lead to seven new ADUs per year. This will have minimal impacts on established neighborhoods and provide a small but still welcome increment to Durango stock of affordable housing. As manifested by the other items on the

tonight's council agenda, you and the city staff have many of many other items on your plate. I urge you to approve the pro proposed amendment tonight rather than divert additional council time on this issue and let staff follow up on the enforcement issue which I agree is important. I want to thank you.

Thank you. And the next individual signed up for 8.2.1 is Mary Finley. counting down. Should I? There we go. Hey everybody, I'm Mary Finley. I live um on East Park Avenue in Durango. Do you need my full address bor? Okay. Anyway, um yeah, I live in Durango. Um thank you all for being here on this snowy night and um thank you for bringing up this issue. Um I think the council has done some really good work on affordable housing. We have some really nice projects going in and I think ADUs in principle really could be a help um for this issue. I just am a little concerned. Um it feels a bit like maybe we're rushing and I understand it feels very urgent to address this problem, but it does feel like maybe we're rushing to approve the proposal before we've got some guardrails in place. Um you know, obviously the ADUs, they're going to have a bit of an impact in a neighborhood and that's something we just have to live with in a growing town. But I do think we need to be careful about it and as the other people have said it it seems like and the um the council has admitted that you know you're having trouble already policing what we have or not policing that's not the right word but regulating making sure it's owner occupied so there's someone there to really care for it and make sure you know everything's copathetic um and so I think we need to figure that out as Miss Mrs. Pollson mentioned, you know, is there any sort of fine if you, you know, it would be great if people would just obey ordinances, but maybe they won't. And so what do we do then? How do we do that? Um, and then I think the infrastructure. I'm married to a structural engineer. Well, very familiar with orange pipe. Is that what it's called? Um, you know, and just the aging infrastructure, the plumbing. And so, one, how do we deal with the increased load? And two, you know, if someone's built an ADU and they have all these earth moving equipment

and then a door or two down, someone has to spend 20,000 or whatever it is to repair their pipes. That doesn't seem fair. So, how do we do that? Is there a fee for the ADUs that goes towards just upgrading infrastructure? I don't know, but I think it would be a really good thing to answer um before we pass this resolution. Um so, those are my main concerns. Just again, could we just I know this seems like an urgent issue, but could we just take a step back, get some of these ducks in a row as it were, um and then maybe move forward with more community support and and more um just community engagement. And I hopefully it'll be a win-win for everybody at that point. Thank you so much for everything you do for our little town. Take care. And the next agenda item in which people signed up uh was for item 11.2 which is a resolution to adopt a master fee schedule for fees collected by the city. And the first individual is Johnny Ratting. Hello. Good evening. My name is Johnny Ratting. I live at 1389 Avenue to Deloul. Um hello city council and hello mayor. Uh thank you guys for having us tonight. Uh we first came before Durango Organics, my business. We first uh which is a um medical and recreational marijuana business here in town. We first became before you guys to discuss the marijuana licensing fees and the lengthy application process back in July uh of 2025. We followed up uh in October by attending uh a staff presentation on the existing fees and budget. It was advised by the city attorney at that time that they wait till 2026 to discuss the fiscal changes including the

marijuana fees. Um it seems like since then unfortunately our licensing fees uh discussion got lumped in with the rest of the licensing fees for the city. Um and as discussed before the MJ the marijuana uh fee schedule has not been updated since 2014. uh which back then of course the industry was totally different and you know there was a lot of concern back then and we understood that the license licensing fee was high. We were also kind of low hanging fruit and didn't have much decision making in that. But now 2026 it looks like uh we're looking to reschedule marijuana and eventually full legalization. Uh but unfortunately the industry in Colorado has been on a decline in the most recent years and you can see that through our recent tax revenue and that since the height of the industry we've seen about a 45% decline with the industry here locally. Um we're a small local business. We're struggling to stay open and the city's high fees uh licensing fees for the marijuana have been extremely hard to keep up with. um they're very disproportionate from anything else in the fee schedule that you guys have for any other business by like eight times as much. Um we currently pay $8,000 per license. We have two thou we have two licenses totaling $16,000 where no one else including liquor pays anything close to that. We're charged $2,000 for example just to modify our premises to make any changes where the state enforcement division charges us nothing and I don't think you guys charge anybody else anything to modify their premise. So $2,000 seems pretty ownorous. Uh also um uh many municipalities and this is the big thing have also streamlined the application process. Um, a lot of the

information in the uh, city of Durango packet is redundant from what we put in the state. A lot of other municipalities just collect the state application and that helps streamline it. Uh, and we what we are really here to ask is that you guys start uh, taking some action staff and action steps and direct staff the current fee schedule. Right. Thank you all my time. Thanks. Thank you sir. Thank you. And the next uh individual signed up for the same agenda item is Carolyn Re.

Good evening. Carolyn R, 107 Rodman Lane in the unincorporated part of Duringo. Um, yeah, also on the topic of the marijuana licensing fees, um, I don't actually have all that much to say as the reasons that we have been asking that the marijuana licensing fees be brought down to a more reasonable amount have been presented repeatedly. Um, we have been approaching city council since May of last year. We have already submitted lots of uh, supporting information in person and via email. Um, I actually brought some copies of basically everything we've sent before just so it's quick at hand. Um, and I think that council has really been doing a great job at listening to what we have been saying uh over the last 8 to 10 months. Um, I feel that there is understanding and some support for our charge, but um, I feel there now needs to be uh, steps outlined for action. In October, we heard staff give a presentation on what fees exist, but there was seemingly not work to look at um current costs admin administrating the fees today or work being done to propose a more realistic fee schedule. Um the bulk of the language in the Durango ordinances for marijuana, the application elements as well as the fees got worked out over a decade ago. um it seems it was kind of set and forgot about and uh maybe there wasn't a staff person or the city attorney monitoring the annual rule changes that take place at the state level um and keeping up with the evolution of the industry. Again, not to point fingers, individuals come and go, but um sometimes those things fall out of being top of mind. And kind of as an aside, the county here, Llata County, has done a pretty good job with the attorney's office and the licensing coordinator typically know, you know, the changes that the state are making just as fast as we're learning about them as we follow that annual rulemaking. And they've made adjustments to kind of reflect and keep things current. They've also streamlined

some processes, making small ch changes and modifications, just a floor plan submitt the next time you renew. They've lowered some fees as well. Um, and just back to what we're asking for today is asking council to help ensure that there are directives and action steps on an agenda or whatever internal processes um there are so that staff is charged with developing a new fee schedule for all the marijuana licenses and also look to update and uh streamline the code for the areas that have kind of fallen away from kind of current pieces that are there. So just asking that the council help do those things and that it all unfolds in a timely manner. So thank you very much. I'll leave a copy of all things

and those were the remaining folks for agenda related items. Excellent. Thank you, Ben. Um could we please get a reading of the consent agenda?

Yes. Thank you. Um, on the consent agenda tonight, we have 8 point, excuse me, approval of minutes, and we have 8.1.1, approval of the February 3rd, 2026 city council meeting minutes. Under 8.2, final reading of ordinances, we have 8.2.1, which is an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances, chapter 27, the land use and development code, regarding elimination of parcel area minimums for accessory dwelling units. 8.2.2 Two is an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances chapter 27 the land use and development code regarding electric excuse me regarding electric fences and mats and related definitions. 8.2.3 is an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances chapter 6 buildings and building regulations regarding electric fences and mats. There are no adoption of resolutions by consent. Uh there's no approval of other administrative items. Under 8.5, requests for public hearing. We have a request for a public hearing for the purpose of amending the code or excuse me, amending the zoning of Lightner Creek Commons Real property located within the city of Durango, Colorado at 271 Twin Butes Avenue. And then under 8.6, Six, introduction of ordinances. We have 8.6.1, which is an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances, chapter 27, the land use and development code regarding fair share housing and related definitions. 8.6.2 is an ordinance for the purposes of amending the zoning of Lightener Creek Commons, real property located within the city of Durango, Colorado at 271 Twin Butes Avenue. And then 8.6.3 6.3 is an ordinance amending in amending in part the Durango code of ordinances chapter 1

general pro provisions section 1-16 general penalty continuing violations and then lastly under 8.7 under request for excused absences we have request for excused absence for Mayor Prom Woodruff for the March 3rd 2026 city council study session and regular meeting. Thank you Ben. Would anybody like to pull an item from the consent agenda? Mayor Potam, I'd like to pull 8.2.1, please. Anyone else like to pull anything from the consent agenda? I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda less 8.2.1. Second.

All right, we're going back old school. May I please get a roll call? Yes, sir. Thank you. Councelor Lawyer, yes. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Councelor Koso, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. And Mayor Yazy, yes. All right. Councelor Koso, we need a motion to motion. Yeah, I think we right. Correct. Yeah. So, I'll make a motion to approve an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances, chapter 27, the land use and development code regarding elimination of parcel area minimums for accessory dwelling units.

Second, discussion. Council, in the previous vote that we had at our last meeting, there was really minimal discussion uh among the city council regarding the reasons for disregarding the CDC recommendations on reducing the minimum lot size requirements for detached ADUs in EN1 and EN3. Uh the current ordinance language aims to eliminate lots size requirements for detached ADUs, which does not align for the CDC's recommendations, and I'm hoping to have some conversation around that. I'd like to engage council in a discussion about the pros and cons of not following our CDC recommendations. Additionally, I welcome input from council members on potentially modifying the ordinance language to incorporate some or all of that citizen committee's recommendations.

Um, could I speak to it too? Yes. Um, he's okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Mayor, can you hear me?

Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. Um, I agree completely with uh what Kip said and I do believe that we need to look at this issue a little bit more broadly since it impacts some of our um older neighborhoods and the character and the way of life in these neighborhoods. And we haven't even looked at the fact that um these dwellings don't even have any regulations for um limiting the rents that people get from them. There are a lot of reasons why we should slow down on this issue. So, I would welcome uh more discussion on this and just taking a a step backwards and holding off a bit and have more public input and more discussion going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Shirley. Oh, sorry, Council Gonzalez.

Thank you. Um, thank you, Mayor Prom. So I I I have all equally felt conflicted um about this issue um especially because we've heard from so many community members that um it's really had a lot to say about it and having done a number of ADU ordinances and in my experience um there was usually like a lot of community engagement. there was would be the equivalent of an engaged orango. Staff would have gone to neighborhood associations. We would have gotten some feedback. We would have came back with an ordinance that nobody liked um that made very minimal improvements. Um but we would have gone through the exercise and we would have come up with something. Um and so I I I was surprised to see that that didn't happen. And you know, my gut was telling me that this was not a good idea. Um, while I support not having lot sizes, I'm from Texas. We're very much supportive. I mean, I was raised with uh private property rights being high priority. Um, my general feeling is that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own private property. Um, but I'm not here for my own thoughts, uh, my own experiences. My responsibility is to listen to the public, to create consensus, um, to respond appropriately, and ultimately, of course, I have the final say. I have the final vote. I am your elected representative. Um, but I, um, was disappointed not to see the staff recommend what came back from the CDC.

Um, so I'm I'm open to an exercise of um how we might proceed. Um, I know that, you know, it is uncommon to change one's opinion after they've already voted. Um, I'm learning how we proceed on this council that there is a this is a final reading. This is supposed to be just uh standard procedure. Um so I I I know there's a motion on the second on the floor and and um I don't know what that looks like. I mean is there a potential for an amendment? Mark, could you give a little direction on what that might look like? how we would proceed further or um since we uh are have already essentially approved this item that this second or this final step is just a formality or could you perhaps give me a little feedback?

Traditionally, uh the second reading has been a formality. I think it stems from the charter which hasn't been amended in 30 years where communication was much slower. So there was an opportunity for new facts to be presented over time. Um but since we all communicate so quickly now with all the technology we have, it has become much more of a formality. Um what I can tell you is that any change to the substance of the motion would require a subsequent second reading. So any change would not be a final action. It would then have to come back for another second reading as amended. So essentially amendment would convert the second reading into a new first reading. Does that answer your question? I mean it's a little bit of uncharted territory. Um you it's been used in the past to have additional public comment, addition counselor comment and it just depends on how you guys want to define yourselves, you know, as a board if you want to have a second bite at the apple when you have split vote on things um or not. It's totally at your discretion how you choose to do it. But specific to your question about an amendment, an amendment would if it gets three votes would then um count as a first reading, it would have to come back as a a final reading. I'm sorry, a first consideration tonight and then would have to come back as a final reading at your next meeting.

The amendment would have to be accepted by councelor lawyer first. Correct. Since she made the motion. Correct. I think I have my hand raised. I don't know if it's raised up there. Yeah, we're still Thank you, mayor. We're going to go through the rest of our comments. Um, uh, council lawyer and myself have not had a chance to make comments yet and then we can come back to you after we make ours. Is that okay? Sure. Thank you.

May I make one quick comment just for the topic on this side? uh uh just because I know that we're we're talking about the staff recommendation and we're talking about the CDC and I want to kind of just ensure for the public and the council to understand where the staff uh recommendation came from and where it was. So if we recall on this item, this item was actually directed by the city council to uh take out the minimum lot sizes. And so when that was done and then approved to be placed on an agenda to do so, the staff will follow that direction from the city council. So when the CDC makes an alternate recommendation, staff will always still follow what the council has made as their direction, which was to go forward with an ordinance to eliminate the lot size reductions. So I do that from talking about our staff perspective. It was not that we disregarded the CDC or that we didn't think their recommendations were important. It was the council has directed staff to move forward with this ordinance. So we are going to move forward with this ordinance until the council tells us otherwise to do so. And I think that's an important part with this process as you're having discussions of regarding specifically the CDC's recommendation and why staff re recommendation continue to be with what was directed by council

when it's your turn again. Yes. Great. Thank you. Council lawyer.

Yeah. Thank you. I'll address the CDC comment real quick. Just say because that you wanted a discussion around that. Um I in the CDC discussion it was a split vote. It wasn't unanimously approved by the CDC that recommendation that came before us. Um there was discussion around it being a political decision because of the pressure from the community members. It is I feel like in when I listening to it like it it was it is a hard decision and that's our hard decision to make. Um I didn't feel the CDC's recommendation was bold enough. I'm seeing communities around us do much bigger things to tackle affordable housing. I don't think that 10 units every year is a big deal. I don't think that is that bold. I don't think it's going to ruin our community. I believe that a vote on this tonight is about what kind of community that we want. whether I think it's about whether affordable housing um is a line in our strategic plan or responsibility we are willing to act on when it becomes uncomfortable. We have heard a lot about process. We have heard a lot about trust. We have heard concerns about infrastructure congestion character. They're valid concerns and they are part of our job to weigh. But let's be honest about something. This ordinance does not remove design standards. This ordinance does not eliminate parking requirements. It does not eliminate lot coverage limits and it is does not eliminate owner occupancy. It removes minimum lot restrictions in neighborhoods where ADUs are already allowed bringing equity across zones and allowed modest increment infill. Since 2014, we've approved roughly 160 ADUs. That's about 10 a year. This change doesn't change that. It doesn't change the fact that construction is expensive and many can't afford to add ADUs even if they live in

permitted areas and can follow the requirements. 10 small one-bedroom or studio units per year. This is not reckless density. This is incremental housing. If our infrastructure cannot absorb this kind of scale of growth, then our infrastructure challenge is far larger than this ordinance. and delaying housing will not solve it. I received an email yesterday from a local bank president whose ADU is nearly complete. He shared how much smoother the process has become under Jaime's leadership. He started the process before Jaime was here and is ending it with Jamie. His words in this email is you can see systems are improving. Accountability is improving. That is what we can continue to improve and I believe we are. He told me that he and his wife recently leased the space, his new ADU to a young couple, one of who is a special education teacher for 9R. That is who we are talking about. And this is who this ordinance helps. Teachers, young professionals, adult ch children trying to return home. I want my kids and everyone's kids to have the option of coming back to Durango to find a place to live. That is what I ran on. Right now, what we have is not working. It is not affordable for a thriving multi-generational community. And if we are unwilling to change this policy, we are choosing the status quo. This debate also reminds me of the library neighborhood discussion when I was mayor. The neighborhood wanted a garden council ultimately for move forward with a larger Head Start facility and potential affordable housing. I received emails then saying these people who attend that school don't even live in this neighborhood. That is not how I will ever vote. I was not elected by one neighborhood. I was elected by this entire community and what is best for this entire entire community. Not the

residents just of EN1 2 and 3. We can disagree on policy. We can vote differently. But suggesting that this council is not following the process because we disagree with an advisory recommendation undermines the very structure of representative government. I wonder if the people writing editorials or neighborhood groups saying we aren't following process listened to the CDC meeting. I wonder if they knew it was a split vote and not a unanimous decision. I wonder if they heard them discuss that this is a political decision. The CDC did its work. Staff did their work. Council deliberated. And yes, ultimately this is a political decision because we are elected to balance competing interests and make hard calls. Opposition to this ordinance is framed as not a opposition to housing. But if we impose incremental housing tools, tools used across Colorado and the West to respond to this same crisis, then we cannot honestly say that we support affordable housing. You cannot support affordable housing in theory and oppose it in practice. I will be voting yes for teachers, for young families, for future residents, for opportunities of taking care of our aging family members and for the kind of multi-generational during I believe in.

Thank you, councelor Lawyer. Um, I'm going to jump into the process um because that has been certainly bandied about. Um, so this process uh started in July 2025. The conversation started on the 15th of that month where I proposed to council to eliminate lot size requirements for detach ADUs in EN1, 2, and three zones under new business. Then on August 5th, it was officially placed on the agenda under 14.3 and it was passed on to introduction unanimously to the August 19th meeting. On August 19th, it was at its introduction phase and on the consent agenda. Councelor Kosto asked to have it asked to remove it from the consent agenda and recommended that it go to CDC for their review. On September 29th, the members of the commission had a robust conversation around the original motion to the tune of over 1.5 hours on this topic alone. After their deliberation, and thank you again the for the commission for their work, um they chose to amend the original amendment of the LUDC to reflect changes of lot size requirements of 6,500 ft in EN2 and 7,000 ft in EN3 with the removal of the garage bonus. There was much conversation around how to best navigate this topic as a commission and different avenues including tableabling the item for a later study session or to amend the original amendment or to accept the proposed changes. Again, they chose not to amend. They chose to amend the original proposal which is their absolute prerogative. I was able to watch the meeting and having relistened to it and appreciate the intention around their conversation on the topic. After listening to it again, there was a commission member that even mentioned, and I quote, "giving it back to the city council and they can and they get to make the decision in regards to this." This puts this back into the position of a city council to handle this issue where I believe it should be because this is such a charged issue in this town." End quote. I believe they realize that this is a political issue that may better be solved by council. That being said, this was their recommendation to council and it is up to us as a body to proceed with their recommendation or not. This is how the charter was written. The council appoints board and commission members to leverage their knowledge and expertise in an advisory

capacity to council. We value their knowledge and experience and weigh their input greatly when making a decision. But ultimately the decision is for council to make and that is what we are elected to do. In my opinion as one counselor, I saw the CDC amendment would have allowed 400 fewer lots to be available for detached ADUs under the proposed uh under the proposal versus the original amendment. I felt there was more opportunity for us to address housing affordability with more lots available than fewer. Again, as any one of us at that October 7th meeting could have proposed to amend the original amendment to reflect the recommendation from the CDC, any one of us could have made that made that recommendation or amendment, but we chose not to. At that meeting, there was robust public comment to table the amendment till we had a study session regarding enforcement regarding enforcement, infrastructure impacts, and compliance to the current ADU program. At the time when the amendment was on the consent agenda, I moved to table the item after to after our January 6th study session. At that January 6th study session, Director Lopco gave us a detailed background of the ADU program, current enforcement protocols, and alternatives for stricter compliance. As per those conversations, we learned where the delta was between current enforcement, and where we needed to be to hold homeowners accountable to the spirit of the program. As per the motion, as per the motion to table until after the study session, the motion came back to council at the January 21st meeting under item 12.2 in which we tabled again because councelor Koso's absence from said council meeting. The council wanted to ensure councelor Koso and councelor Gonzalez were present to ensure we had thorough debate and conversation on of the amendment. At the following council meeting on February 3rd, the item came back to council as agenda item 12.1. At that time, we had informed conversation and debated the merits and drawbacks of the proposed amendments to the LUDC and passed as first consideration at the time 3 to2. After all this is said and done, we've showcased the process of how we are able to govern ourselves and show how that process works. Whether or not you agree on the outcome of the process has no bearing of how we got to where we are

today. To me, we've disc we've discussed the item. We've taken public comment multiple times. We've had a citizen advisory commission look at the proposal. We've had we've held a study session on other aspects of the AD program and on and on over the past six months. We've given this topic broad considerations throughout multiple methods and engagements. At many steps along the way, we we may not have agreed, but the votes have been cast for both sides. To me, this means the process is working. We weighed we measured the LUDC amendment. After much consultation, we've moved forward each step of the way. The fact that there has been discussion for both the merits and the detractions of the amendment show me that we can act as a body to do what we think is best for the community even if we do not agree which direction is best at times. You all should not expect us to line in every single vote each time. Each of us brings a unique background and different life experiences we draw from when making decisions. This is one of those moments where I think the long-term vision of Durango and our community members will benefit overall from this decision. I feel that the benefits far outweigh the perceived disruption. I'll leave my further comments until after councelor Kosa goes.

Um, thank you, mayor. So, I think I'm just going to try and and talk about a couple of the um issues that were raised. Um, I from my personal opinion, the the uh CDC vote can't be second-guessed from the dis here. The vote that they make is the vote that they make. going back and reviewing and and reinterpreting what how it was decided or how it got to I I don't think is a fair way for us to to proceed with the um with the commission. Um three readings are for us to consider these issues. Uh if it's historically been that the third issue is a rubber stamp, then that's fine, but it doesn't mean that it has to be every time. And so bringing the issue back up since there was considerable community input much of it most of it uh against proceeding uh the way that we had been proceeding I think that merits uh more discussion on the topic number of units is less of an issue than following through on the agreements that we made with the neighbors when we did put them in. We keep going back time and time again that it's just adding 10 or 12 units. I understand that point. I don't think anybody is as adamantly against the addition of ADUs. The key point here is is that we made promises 10 or 12 years ago and we have not followed through on those. We have no idea who is inhabiting the ADUs, at least 70 of them at this point. Much of the data and and the collection of data that was given to us as we were making this decision, some of it came in very last minute, even 24 hours before the last vote. So, this hasn't been a very smooth process at times because we are trying to backtrack through 10 or 12 years. And I due respect to the staff for for gathering that information as best they could and getting it to us as fast as they could. That still doesn't mean that we had a lot of time to digest this info over the course of all the times that you you had suggested. Um, the last thing I I I think I wanted to just say is that there is some voting to be done for the best of the community, but it's important

that we think about the impacts to EN1, EN2, and EN3. These are the neighbors that have been living with these impacts. And when you start lumping short-term rentals on top of ADUs in these neighborhoods, these are the neighbors that have to deal with these impacts. And so 160 different ADUs and then whatever the number of short-term rentals in these neighborhoods as well. These are not impacting the other neighborhoods. And so a vote that's best for the community that only impacts three key neighborhoods. Those neighbors need to have more of a voice. And so we need to understand what the real impact is there. And we need to enforce the rules that we made 10 to 12 years ago before we dump more ADUs into the system. Thank you. Mayor Yazy, would you care to make your comments?

Oh, yes. Thanks, Dave. Okay, so I had a red card item, and this is for Mark. Okay, so if we have a vote that's three against this or um ordinance going forward, that would take it off the table and we could regroup and um listen to the community and come forward with another um bite of the apple. That's correct. Okay. Three or a two three vote in opposition to the the second reading would essentially end the legislation and you'd have to start over.

Okay. So, that is an option. Thank you very much for that clarification. Okay. So, what I've learned being on city council is a lot of times until people are impacted by some kind of process that city council starts to implement, that's when the residents wake up and take notice. And that's okay because, you know, most of the time they're busy living, working, taking care of the kids. Um, so I do really feel that if we take a step back and go at this again, we've learned a lot from the process here and that's what we do as as the government is it's a process and we try to make the best decision for the whole community. So if anybody decide to change their vote and we had a three-to vote, we could restart this issue again. Okay, that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Councelor Gonzalez.

So, I clearly this is on me to make a decision about where I'm landing and right um I'm the one who's considered changing my vote because I did hear so much feedback from the community in ways that I hadn't before. Um, and as we were going through the process last week, my gut was telling me I think we should not proceed. Um, regardless of my personal feelings, which are I think we should approve the ordinance as it was proposed. Um, and so that's where, you know, for the sake of my colleagues and the staff, that's really where, um, I've been landing and that I was uncomfortable with not taking the recommendation from the CDC. I expected to see that come from the staff. Um, in retrospect that we didn't have an engaged Durango related to that, that we didn't have staff and council go out to the community and get their opinions about it as is often a process when we know that there are ordinances that we're voting on that are very contentious. And it seems like the most contentious things that we do on the council, ADUs, short-term rentals, um, and affordable housing, those are always really contentious issues that I think we have to take very seriously. Um, regarding affordability, I don't I don't and I don't really believe that it helps affordable housing. I'm mostly concerned about private property rights, which I think are really important. Um, I think people should be able to do what they want with their private property and that means adding an ADU if it if it's necessary for their family. Um, I'm one of those that I have my mother living with me. She would never move to an ADU, but she has taken over uh a bedroom in our house and we um are having to make adjustments in our home to accommodate her. So, I believe very much that families should be able to do what they need to do to um live comfortably in this community. I did hear from very

many young people saying that they wouldn't have been able to live in Durango if there were not ADUs. Um, and I believe that we also need to build a Durango that's that's affordable for young people and acceptable for young people because we know we need their enthusiasm. We need their workforce. We need their innovation. We need families in our schools. Um, and so I'm I'm inclined to support the ordinance as it was presented, um, as I voted for the first time around. Um, I'm I still give myself a few more months of learning um, as we go through this exercise, but um, I'm inclined to stay with the ordinance as it was presented. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Councelor Gazis. Councelor Lawyer.

Yeah, I'll just have a couple quick comments. Um I think it is I I have in the my past five years listened to Fabbor meetings, CDC meeting, you know, a lot especially when it comes to decisions like this where we are trying to balance like when there there has been various you know issues where lots of community members come out um I remember my first one was the tree on 32nd Street and lots of people come out about the tree and you're like what is going what did I miss? And so I I often before I vote will go back and I find that it does influence my opinion a lot. Like if I were just to see that the um CDC recommended this and didn't go back and listen to the meeting, I might have done the CDC recommendation um because I do I value their opinions. I value. But that when I went back and listened to it, I was like, "Okay, well, it wasn't quite as cut and dry as like this is their recommendation." And so I I find it so helpful and I will continue to do it and I will continue basing my votes upon it all the time because I think that that makes us well-rounded and makes my decisions more valuable. Um, I want to say that I Durango has always evolved. Um, we we used to lead in creative policy. I remember previous councils with our STR policy and we like lead the state in our STR policy. Like our STRs are so limited here and it has preserved who Durango is because of our creative staff recommendations and council pushing the boundaries. Um, I we can't become the city that freezes when things become uncomfortable and change is uncomfortable. Um if we continue down the path of saying not here, not yet or after infrastructure, we wouldn't have an Animus River Trail right now. I can tell you that. That was super controversial back in the day. Um and

now it's one of the most beautiful pride possessions of Durango. Um this is not equity. I think I mean the ADU I think what we're doing hopefully here tonight is equity. Um and the ordinance is not radical. It's not reckless. It's not dismantling neighborhoods. its modest, responsible step toward allowing small scale housing in areas already served by alleys and infrastructure close to downtown and close to services. Um, I I just think it's it's whether affordable housing is a real priority to us and I urge us to stand behind our strategic plan and say that we do it even when it's hard.

Thank you, council lawyer. Um, so when council approved this initial AU ordinance in 2014, um, they intended this program would evolve as the community try out the program to see where it could be ba better tailored to serve its original intent. Since the original adoption, the AD program has undergone six amendments. Once in 2014, two in 2015, then in 2019, 22, and 23. Uh, this program has evolved over time to best serve the interests of the community. Um, and I see this as just an evolutionary step to make this program better and help address housing affordability in Durango. I believe this is the better path forward for our community. Um, unfortunately, I do not think there will ever be enough time to table this discussion moving forward for some folks. There will never be enough data to support the decision to eliminate lots requirements for detach use, nor enough success stories of how this program has helped people gain footing in our community. However, in my capacity in my day job, I've gotten to hear from some other community members and how they appreciated our take on this issue and applauded us moving forward. While the proponents of this amendment may not be as loud as some of the detractors, we still hear them and their opinions are not drowned out by the loudest. I refuse to accept that we would close the door of opportunity behind us to families, young people, and others that wish to call Durango home. This amendment allows that opportunity if homeowners are willing to take on the task. Um, yeah. I I would also say councelor Koso that um there are nuances to those conversations with the CDC or the FAB or or any of those boards and commissions and it's in my opinion I think it's important to yeah dissect their conversations and figure out what what were they trying to speak to and how are they trying to approach this issue. Whether or not we agreed or disagreed to me is um neither here nor there. The fact that nobody took up their recommendation when they had the opportunity tells me everything that I needed to know that nobody else agreed or else they would have brought forth the amendment as part of that conversation. Um, so I guess I I really

feel strongly that some people don't think that this is going to do enough to address affordable housing. And no, it it may not be the end all beall to solve affordable housing. But I what I do know in my limited uh understanding of economics and um supply and demand, I do know that if there's more supply, it will push down the cost because of the demand will be lessened because there's more supply out there. So if there's more supply of housing out there and the same type of demand, it will push housing down and therefore make things more affordable overall. So u that's my two cents. Um and I hope that we are able to move forward um on this this evening. Thank you. So, you guys have reached the end of your cycle. You've each done your five minutes and your three minutes. I see that there's a counselor with his hand up. In order to recognize him, you would need to suspend your rules.

In other words, you have a rule that you have five minutes and then three minutes. And each each counselor is either five minutes and three minutes. All right. Uh, in the case, um, can I get a roll call, please? Thank you, Councelor Gonzalez. Just for clarity, can you reiterate the original that passed at the last meeting? Thank you. Yes. Mayor Yazy, no. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. Councelor Lawyer, yes. And councelor Koso, no. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Um we will now move on from items pulled from the consent agenda and since there are no public hearings we'll move over to number 11 resolutions. Thank you. The first item under resolutions is 11.1 and that's a motion to adopt a resolution of public censure issuing a letter of apology to the residents of the city of Durango and disqualification of service former infrastructure advisory board member John Simpson for violating the city code of conduct and ethics acting in a manner unbecoming of a city official and bringing disrepute to the city of Durango municipal government. So, um I do want to point out that the chairman um of your ethics board, Chairman Dennis, is present. Um I'm sure he doesn't want to answer any questions, but he he would be available if you had any questions. Um I can certainly answer any questions uh you have also. Um but again, I did what I committed to at the last meeting was provide um the the text for a formal censure um under the provisions that I outlined prior. I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution of public censure issuing a letter of apology to residents of the city of Durango and disqualification from service former infrastructure advisory board member John Simpson for violating the city code of conduct and ethics acting in a manner unbecoming of a city official and bringing disresp disrepute to the city of Durango municipal government. Second.

Great. uh discussion. Well, I mean, I guess I did have some comments, but um I guess it it you know, when I was elected in 2023, um had the opportunity to sit down an informal onboarding with Jose, the city man of the city attorney at the time. Um, and we went over Robert's roles of order, um, and overviews as what my role is a city councelor, etc. But what stood out to me in that meeting were the ethics surrounding my capacity as a counselor. Um, we talked about the integrity of the position. Um, it means that we'll always do what is right, no matter uh no matter when even when somebody's not watching. Um, it means we're not going to act with impropriety or even give the illusion of impropriy. Um, and we're going to be open and honest about our roles um, and not attempt to hide anything from anyone. So, um, yeah, I I really feel like the board and commission appointees are an extension of council, um, and we're the body that appoints those members, um, to their terms of their respective commission. And, um, I feel like this is a mantle that we take on seriously, um, if not only for our own values and integrity, but the sake of everyone else that has sat and has sat um, in these seats. Um, so yeah, I feel like this is an important to bring closure to this whole process. And so, thank you to the board of ethics for your just pronounced efforts in in in all of this and thank you to uh Mark for for your work and all the outside council that we had to bring in as well. So, um I'm glad that we're going to finally get some closure on this and I think we're all ready to move forward. Um and again, this is something that I think we all take incredibly seriously um about what our roles are and what sort of ethics we provide um in terms of how we conduct ourselves. um when making policy and decisions. So um yeah, that's all I had

to say.

U Mayor Prom, I just do want to comment that there was a newspaper article written and there were comments made when we went over the the findings um that brought in some things that occurred with Mr. Simpson that were outside of the scope of the ethics proceeding. Um, and I would encourage all of you not to make your vote tonight based on any of that, but limit it to the specific findings of the ethics board and the specific provisions listed in the resolution tonight. It would be um improper for you to go outside of the finding of the board of ethics to look at those other facts that were in the newspaper article and may have been said at different points during our history with Mr. Simpson in making this decision. Um the resolution is very very specific to just the actions that the ethics board found and your decision to censure and these other items should be strictly limited to just those findings.

Excellent. Any other discussion? All right. Can I get a roll call, please? Thank you. Mayor Yazy, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Councelor Koso, yes. And councelor Lawyer, yes. Thank you. The next item under resolutions is 11.2 and that's a resolution to adopt a master fee schedule for fees collected by the city.

Uh yes, mayor and council is Heidi's coming up here, our new permanent deputy chief financial officer. She had acting for a while. So congratulations first and foremost Heidi for stepping up and taking on that role. You've been doing amazing work. So appreciate that and looking that to continue. I do just want to introduce this item just a little bit. Uh as you recall uh as we were going through um the budgeting process around October, November, uh we did have um some folks from the marijuana industry uh come up and discuss uh some of their concerns about the business fees. However, we were right in the middle of budget. And uh just to kind of remind the council of where we are, we did say we were going to come with a master fee schedule approval. Now the fees that Heidi is about to go over and I hope I'm not stealing too much of your thunder uh have actually already been approved by ordinance via other specific ordinances or through or resolution through other resolutions or the budget resolution. However, what we wanted to do is place it in one area, one master fee that has all of our fees outlined, which will then come back every budget year with the council that'll be adopted with the budget. puts it all in one place. So, all of the fees she's about to present have already been passed in some various form of resolution. We're just placing them in in one spot. To kind of continue on with some of the concerns that have been brought on, I know uh Councelor Bule, you have uh some things on the marijuana business and I know councelor Koso, you had talked about the business structure of businesses. If you so choose wanting to do that, uh a amendment to a motion uh to approve would be an opportunity to say and to amend for staff to come back on whichever fee that you would like a presentation on for changes uh would be would be op would be would be something you could do. So just wanted to kind of outline that as we go through and go from there.

Yeah, totally stealing my thunder.

That was the whole presentation. I am so sorry. Yeah, definitely not going into the details of the master fee schedule like in depth because it's a lot of fees and a lot of charges. So, um if you have specific questions, we can go into that. But hello, I'm Heidi Wise um with the financial services department here to present on item 11.2, a resolution to adopt a master fee schedule for fees collected by the city. And this item aligns with our mission vision value but also the organizational stewardship goal area as this item addresses foundational processes in the organization that ensures we have the approaches in place to support strategic and operational focus. So what's a master fee schedule? A master fee schedule provides a comprehensive list of fees, rates, and charges assessed by the city for services, permits, licenses, and other activities. The intention is to provide transparency, consistency, and equity in the recovery of cost associated with municipal services, ensuring the city can continue delivering highquality services to its customers. And the goal is to provide a process for reviewing, updating fees, rates, and changes annually during the budget process as Jose outlined and as needed. All right. So um a couple examples of how this document can be a tool or a guide. Um one it provides a budget a budgetary tool an official process of reviewing costs and services revenue trends and cost recovery. Two it's a guide for citizens and users of city services. And three it provides consistency and process to review at an organizational level not necessarily a department level. Um, so similar

services are priced uniformly. So, um, here's just a snip of our how we laid out the master fee schedule. We did it by, um, a strategic goal area and then had the department fees under its specific strategic goal area, right? So, um, this item is is to request adoption of the master fee schedule and its current fees. Um so this is what we adopted as budget in 2026. Um these fees have previously been approved um through a resolution or ordinance or through the budget approval process. These are not new fees. Um and then there are two presentations for requests to amend fees to follow this presentation. And then if adopted the request for fee changes will be presented as a request for amendment to the bud the master fee schedule going forward. And the goal is to amend it annually as Jose mentioned as a budget adoption and then other amendments occurring as needed throughout the year because we know programs can change and things like that. Here's the recommendation motion. Like I said, I didn't go into the details of the master fee schedule. I'll make a motion to approve the resolution adopting a master fee schedule for the city of Durango, Colorado for fees and user charges for the city of Durango services and operations with direct hang on was not done.

My fault. um with direction to staff to review the current marijuana business fee schedule and licensing process and return to council with a recommendation that aligns with current state requirements comparable municipalities across the Colorado and the region to ensure a fee structure is equitable, defensible and aligned with current market and regulatory conditions. So sorry I missed half of the amend the additional amendment there. Can you just go a little slower on that? So I just want to make sure it's got the components that I was looking for as well. Sorry. Okay. Um with direction. So this sure

is there and then with direction to staff to review the current marijuana business fee schedule and licency pro licensing processes and return to council with a recommendation that aligns with current state requirements and comparable municipalities across Colorado and the region that is equitable, defensible, and aligned with current market and regulatory conditions. If I would love to see that a piece of that is also just comparing it to current alcohol licensing fees. Would that be a friendly amendment that I could tack on to your amendment? I would love to see what it looks like if they also reduced marijuana related fees down to the level of the alcohol related fees.

Um wh why would it be? Well, I'm not saying that what if it should be less and alcohol should be more. Like what if does that make sense? Like what if Yes. I I was just looking for the comparison if they we did lower the fees to be equivalent to where where we are on alcohol. What does that look like in addition to if they want to look at a comparison for other Yeah. I would just say that there I mean I think every business is a little different and like making sure that's comparable to I mean I don't know. Before we get into too much debate, could we maybe land on the appropriate second for the original motion per original second? Happy to second that. Great. Now we can move forward with more discussion.

So not interested in that friendly amendment because it's not quite where you want to go. Yeah. I don't think that setting one against I think it's like a little bit of an unprecedented standard to be like oh my cleaning company should be compared to Zia too the restaurant or whatever. I only saying that because we're sitting here, you know, like it just seems they're not the same business. Um, and as we were told in one of the presentations, most of the liquor licensing actually takes longer and is more intent time inensive than the marijuana. You know, does that make sense? And so I just don't see I just don't want to set a precedent for comparing things that aren't the same apples to oranges or something. Does that make sense? I don't know. I'm not like so against it, but it's not like you're not so against it,

but I'm not so for it. Like I'm like I don't know. If it's the only way it gets passed, I'll take it. But I have a feeling maybe Sorry, I'm rambling. I I wouldn't mind seeing maybe a more staggered approach to things like windows and like re-roofing and solar. Like those aren't necessarily because we're talking about the fee schedule, right? And then but your second was on on the your right. Right. But we're not we're talking about the whole fee schedule. That was the original motion along with Right. So are we can we talk about some of the other fees as well or we Right. So what's on the floor

the approving the master fee schedule alone? Okay. So that's that's the original motion then it's not amended. You had you had a recommendation, but you put an original motion on the floor which can now be amended. Okay, that makes sense. Right. And that's what I was trying to I was trying to see if there was any appetite to maybe look at a more staggered approach for like I think the if you want to replace a window, it's $250 for a permit now instead of $0, which is what it was before. you know, solar had a significant increase for a solar permit versus I think that's the next item where we're going to actually we're not we're not on that. This is that isn't part of the master.

This is just what we have. This is what we have right now today. Then you're going to have an item right after this that's going to be specifically on the building changes. This is just and then this ising what we do today. I see. I didn't realize we were talking about three different master fee schedules. I apologize. trying to separate it by jumping the gun. This is the current masterpiece schedule and then the two would be give me mayor for one hour and look at me. I'm just gripes. While the mayor approach recovers himself, let me ask a couple of simple questions on this one. The cadence for fees is is it independent to each department, independent to to each of the fee holders just to decide when they want to reassess fees?

It was and this is trying to formalize a annual process. Excellent. So annually everybody will just say relook at your fees. Do you need to adjust them? Then we'll come in annually back to you during the budget process. So they can also analyze gosh recovery and other things like that. Fantastic. Love that answer. Um Ben, this may throw over to you. I have forgotten on page 102. We have specific fees for cross connection control technicians. Pond brokers. You remember this. I cannot remember why we've separated out these four for extra fees. Can you Thanks. I'll speak from right here. Um, thank you.

Yes. So, uh, those are general business license fees not associated with liquor or marijuana. Um, uh, those are additional license fees where there's usually additional requirements on on behalf of the city to do that work. Um, so the there's a cross connection control additional licensing fee for uh those types of businesses that tap into water lines. Um they also have it involves an additional department um over in public works to be able to collect the reports um gauge calibration certificates, insurance, all of that stuff. So it's an additional fee that we charge for the city to administratively handle that even if some of that work goes into another department. It's the same thing with the tree trimmer license. Um they take an arborist exam with parks and wreck and the city arborist. Uh yeah, we I think we only have one pawn broker. They pay an additional fee and then they have like a software reporting fee that links up to PD for them to be able to look at some of the items they're pawning. So those are what some of those supplemental license fees are for applicable businesses.

Okay. Sadly, I would probably be asking that annually just because it's hard to remember, but thank you very much for that. So I appreciate it. Mayor Yazi, do you have anything that you'd like to ask or add to the conversation?

Um yeah. Okay. So this is in two parts voting on this. First adopting the master fee schedule. So I would say let's divide the question. Let's just vote on this and then we'll move on to the second part of this. And what we can do is probably put the second part of that, maybe postpone that a week so everybody can get their questions together for what the fees they want adjusted and that might be a better way to go forward.

Yeah, just maybe I think mayor um that the the motion on the on the table right now is with the amendment that was seconded. So, as the motion stands now, that's what we're going to vote on. Um, and then subsequently, if there's any more amendments to any further um, resolutions, then we'll we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But for, you know, we we can certainly bring it up under new business. But for right now, we are moving forward because of the motion and the the approved amendment that's on the table currently. So, anything that goes to new business, we'll need to go through the whole process again. And that's what I would love to avoid if we can, right?

So, I'm not trying to cause problems, but Well, if there's another I mean, friendly amendment, I can make an amendment to my motion. I didn't think that the liquor one was the one I wanted to do. So, no to that. So, no to that one. Yeah. Okay. So, um the trash uh fee for over stuffed trash cans is $12.81. 81 cents and I would love to revisit that fee because I don't think that's a disincentive for over stuffing your trash can which leads to bare issues. So there's this is where I don't know where to put this one but was hoping to avoid new business if that could be done. Um could I raise my hand again? Let me see.

Yeah, go ahead, Mayor. Okay. So, what I think since we all have questions on the fees that we think need to be adjusted, how about if we just vote down Jessica's amendment and approve this original recommended motion and then we can go forward with adding amendments after we have more time to study and figure out what we want to adjust because I heard there's some value in what Kip wants to offer and um I'm sure that Shirley's going to have some something to add. So, that would be my suggestion.

And I I think that's a good suggestion, Mayor Yazy, but unfortunately, we can't walk back a Yes, we can. We can vote down. We can have three that go against. We can, but we but we need to finish the discussion and then have a vote on it. So, but for right now, the motion with the amendment is on the table and we're discussing it and then we'll vote on it and then whichever way that vote goes will be how we decide the next steps. Council lawyer, if you want to say no to that, we could just go ahead to a vote. Well, hold on. I think council lawyer has some comments that she would like to make. Your hand is raised. Yeah, I I have comments. Shirley's

Yeah, then councelor Gonzalez has one. Then Kip, I think back to you. Maybe if we when we're doing our discussion, if there's things you want to bring up, like you're like, I'd like to look at this and this and this, then I can ask like make an amendment or whatever. Okay. Um, thank you for all that hard work. It's so nice to see them all in one place so it is easier to find and figure out what we're charging for what and how it works. Um, I apologize to Johnny and um, for coming here and I should have emailed you and told you my plan of what I was going to propose to council on this master fee schedule now that we have it all in front of us. The process, some people in the room think the process is so long and some people in the room thinks we don't spend enough time in the process. So, it just we can never win and I apologize um that this has taken so long, but it was like right in the middle of budget season and it that's crazy. And then I wanted to get all this in front of me before we took a look at Marijuana Feast. So, thank you for your patience and thank you for continuing to come to council meetings and listen to all this excitement up here that we do. Um I um when you go through the fees and you how often do you update them on a regular basis? Do we have a cadence now or do we have a plan now going forward? will now

now do do you know what that will be or no not yet alongside the budget process. Okay. So every year we will go alongside the budget process and look at these fees and say is this reasonable does this align with similar communities next year. Yeah. Yeah. That

so like looking talking about like because it is a good point like the trash uh overflowing $12. I'm sure I've gotten that maybe once or on my and I had didn't even know it was there cuz I don't pay that much attention cuz it's not big enough to be like I am sorry excuse me and then be like oh I did throw that in as I was leaving and I probably shouldn't have. Does that make sense? And so um it is something good to think about as like values of our community and what we should do and how it is. If it's getting done every year like I'm excited about it. I think it's great. I think if there's a couple that we want to address a little earlier since it's like getting ready to get into bear season, I'm fine to add that one into um the motion. So um but I'll let council finish discussion before I make an amendment to my motion. So that way just in case there's ones that we want to like add in. But thank you for your hard work and thank you for your patience. That's mostly what I wanted to say. Thanks.

Great, Council Gonzalez. Thank you, Heidi. Um so generally um does something like this go out to the community for feedback in a formal in fee schedule? You know do the business community weigh in? Do you like tourism

weigh in? I'm I'm just cur I'm more again procedurally um how how did these get determined? That's going to be a complicated one because they're all different fees, right? So like on here you'll have your water and wastewater which goes through a utility study. Your trash and recycling goes through a study. So depending on what the fee is, there could be different levels of the way that they go through. Uh so I can't say that every one of these has a robust discussion about it, but there are definitely fees in here that go through the business community and get through it as we go through a rate study and all of that portion. This is just the tool that we see that helps us as we go through budget to know here's all the fees that we're going to be charging that help fund this budget. But some of them like your water and wastewater wouldn't be things that we would do annually necessarily unless there's a rate plan that's behind it that says for the next 5 years you should do this and we would follow that rate plan for the reasons for those adjustments. Other things that are in there conference room uh charges those are just things that departments put up annually of like this is where we think it is. Some haven't been changed in a while, some have. So, there's really not an easy answer to say yes, all of them have, but I would say the majority of your most impactful ones do go through a process that has public involvement.

Thank you for that. And um is it all general fund or do they go to the department? All of this is not these are every fee in the city. All different funds that are on there. It's going to have your airport. It's going to have traffic, cycling, transit, water, wastewater, general fund. It's every It's every fee.

So, every fee goes to its designated department. Um, and then but it's all I'm just trying to understand from a budgeting perspective because I know we held this off for budget purposes, but you it's your department that collects the fees, assesses the fees. Um, right. or how if they if it's a public fee, how does that come through? Depends. Oh, right. Well, I mean, it's just going to depend on the department. So, if somebody goes to the library to rent a conference room, the library is going to collect them. I see.

If somebody goes to transit for a parking fee, that it's going to go through transit. Now, at the end, everything goes through finance, but they're not necessarily always the ones that collect the fee. I see. Okay. Okay, I'll I better just leave it there um for that. Uh thank you. Thank you, Mayor Councel. Just a small amendment if if accepted. Um we had a situation where a business was just changing its name and had to repay an annual fee. I would like to see a proration uh opportunity uh available when staff comes back and does a presentation. So in an appropriate circumstance that would they would be allowed to prorrate the fees.

Okay. Was that like a suggested amendment ask another one of you session? Mayor Yazi any input?

No. Um, I will take the friendly amendments in terms of adding in their uh revisitation towards the over stuffing of trash cans, especially as we head into bare season. So that way maybe it's more impactful recommendation from staff saying like this is what other communities do, this is why it would be beneficial to our community and this is what we recommend. And then um uh look having staff look into basic changes for small b for businesses like if it can be a less charge rather than the full charge depending if it's minor and you bringing recommendations back for that. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Okay, great. Do I need a second on that now? Did I change it enough to get a second? Need a second?

It's if you accept the amendment that counts as first and second. Okay, I that's my amendment. And was there did we did we need to offer another amendment for the marijuana proration that will be that will be a part of it. Perfect. Excellent. All right. Any other discussion? Great. Can I get a roll call, please? Councelor Koso. Yes. Councelor Lawyer. Yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff. Yes. Maria Yazi. No. And councelor Gonzalez. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

The next item under resolutions is 11.3 and that's a resolution amending the master fee schedule related to planning and building permit fees. Good evening, uh, city council. Jamie Lopco, your community development director, uh, presenting some amendments to the master fee schedule related to our lane use and building permits. Um, these few changes do are supported by our organizational stewardship goal by ensuring financial sustainability framework to support operations. So fees collected by community development are intended to cover the cost of performing necessary functions related to submitted projects. That's permit administration. It's our plan review. It's our inspections. So I'm going to go over proposed changes in two parts. We have our planning division which is our landing land use permits and our building division which is our building permits. Um but each each reviews a project at different stages and the fees are based on the level of review and complexity of the type of application. And again, they're designed to cover the co staff's time and resources um to provide the requested services. So, just give you a snapshot of um the fees that we've collected from 2023 to 2025. Um we have planning fees, building fees, and also total fees listed there. Um just to give you an idea of where we're at with that. And this is only the permit fees. It doesn't include the use tax, doesn't include the plan investment fees. It does not include impact fees. Um so over the three years um we've collected well over 500 under $500,000 and that actually covers less than half of the staff cost related to um executing the the permits. All right, so let's look at our planning fees. Um we have some minor cleanup changes in there um based on names of permits. We don't have a minor variance. We don't have a minor established

neighborhood alternative for compliance. So we want to do away with those um take away the word major from those. and then also change the name of our sign variants because that's not what we call it in the code. It's a sign alternative compliance. Um in addition to those we have several other changes. Um you'll see probably the the one most notable is the alteration certificate and design review. Um those are one of the more dominant applications that we do get and currently there's no cost for those. Um and so what we have done is um request a uh fee of $250 for those. And that's um in line what we charge for most of our administrative reviews. That's to cover uh staff cost um related to the administration, the execution, the uh inspection, um alteration certificates go to our historic preservation board. So a lot of that is a staff time to cover that. Um the remainder of the permits um you'll see we get very few of those. But these requests are to keep us um more competitive and in line with comparable jurisdictions nearby. Um we want to make sure that we make small incremental changes so we don't come back to you with a really large change because we fell so far behind. Um and so that's where the planning fees are coming about. Um the building fees are a little bit different. Um a little more in-depth. Um we have several requests with that and um you'll recall back in uh 24 we changed our uh construction valuation data to be based on the 2023 building valuation data. So that's what we have now the $167.37 a square foot. What we would like to see happen is um for council to authorize us to automatically adopt that each year in August. Um, so if we went to the 2025 data, which is a two-year jump, we're going up $343 a square foot over that two years. So instead of coming back every five years, every 10 years and asking for a large change, we'd like to just automatically each year have a dollar or two change in that to make sure we're keeping um uh track with the

um building valuation data trends that we're seeing. And so um second one is just a formality right now. Um, if you're doing a renovation, if you're doing a tenant improvement, um, we're not allowed to use the building valuation data to calculate the cost of your permit, we have to do it based on the value of the construction as given to us by the contractor, which is then verified by our building official. That's not something that's codified. So, we would like to go ahead and codify that that anything that um is a renovation, a remodel, a tenant improvement, that we're going to use the valuation to determine that fee. Um the next three are um pretty substantial changes. Um we currently have a re- roof fee um that we don't charge anything for. As you can see, we have a substantial amount of those um that we're not gaining anything from as well as a window and sighting replacement, which will be a new permit. Now, the additional the consideration with those is the wildfire resiliency code. So any area that is in uh one of our hazard areas, we now have to be able to permit and track those and ensure they're complying with the new regulations. Um that's why you see a new permit for the window and sighting. Right now there is no permit required for uh something like that. But with the new regulations, we are going to have to see those permits in those hazard areas to ensure they're complying with those codes. Um that's why you see the the uh cost of uh we've kind of standardized the cost for um similar to an administrative planning review. 250 for residential and 350 for commercial to try and recover some of the costs related to the review that we do on those. And for solar right now we only charge $20 and again that's not recovering a lot of the costs that staff puts into those type of permits. And you see those are are very substantial permits that we get um quite a few of those each year. Um, and so looking at the cost, you're getting about $100,000 um, a year just from re- roofs and solars. Um, not sure what we're going to get from windows and sightings since we

don't track those right now. Um, and we're saying about a 2% increase um, if we went to uh, the 2025 uh, building valuation data for that. So, minimal incremental uh, changes for that. And so then I have a motion for you and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay. I move to approve a resolution R um sorry I move to approve a resolution number R-20206-12 amending the master fee schedule related to planning and building permit fees.

Second. Great discussion. Councelor Gonzalez. So just so I understood this correctly, you want by approving this resolution today, we were approving a fee increase.

Yes. Um per your discretion. What one or two% a year? Is that what or one or two dollars? What was it? Um it will be detailed each of the flat fee permits will be will be detailed there. It's the um the building permits where you see the 2%. That's where it's based on the square footage of the property. Instead of it being the $167, it's now $170 a square foot. Um, and we're just saying it basic construction cost of an entire project will be about 2% higher, but it will be based on that number. It'll be $170 and change per square foot that we would go to versus the 167. And this that fee again goes to development services or it goes to where does that fee go to?

All the permit fees that we collect go into um our uh account specific from building services but then it will go back into the general fund to um cover the cost there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Premier, councelor Kosa,

Jamie, I really appreciate the goal of increasing fees incrementally rather than having these big jumps. We've seen the problems with other uh departments that um we see with with large jumps. I I have a question on the stacking of the fees. So, if a larger remodel project, I'm doing two windows and a door and my siding. Are the permit fees stacked? And so, it's 250 for each of those windows or or for the windows and then there's another 250 for sighting and another 250 for whatever else. Does that make sense? Typically those are individual permits. Like if you're doing siding, you're just doing siding. You're doing roofing, you're just doing roofing. If it's something that's more combined, we would probably look at it as a remodel and then it would be based on the value of construction. We don't we don't double charge fees.

Okay. All right. And so they don't necessarily stack. Um I would love to have a little bit of discussion and I'm not sure how much that's discussion with you and how much that's discussion with council, but I I I think these fees also provide a little bit of a disincentive when we're talking about a single window, when we're talking about small projects. the a high enough fee really does I think um increase the number of folks who just don't apply for the permit who don't want to deal with the hassle and and certainly the extra cost. Um enforcement is a real critical piece of anything that we're doing. I think um I I see what we're doing in regards to the fees to help pay for the costs of the department. I think there's something to be said for the the more we increase fees on the people who are adhering to the rules and paying those fees. It feels like we should be doing more around enforcement to get people who are not paying the permits to to who are doing the work but not getting the permits to pay those fees. I don't necessarily have any direction to go that but I I I did want to at least bring that up as a topic of discussion for this.

Mayor Yazi, do you have any questions or comments? Um yes I do. Um thank you Jamie. Okay so what I was curious about on like say the sighting permit and you know a lot of people probably are going to start putting up the fire resilient um sighting. Okay. So with that permit process, is that how they uh prove to the insurance companies that they have fire resilience res resiliency in their hub or that's not part of this um permitting process? It's

not necessarily part of the process. It's it's part of the requirements from the state that we execute these regulations, but it is something that they can provide to their insurance as proof that they have done something. Okay. So, it is proof for the insurance companies.

Anything else, Mayor? No, that's all. I was just curious about that. Great. Thank you. Um Jamie, when when would somebody need to pull a permit? So, if they do, is it 25% of the threshold if they're going to replace sighting that they need to pull a permit or where where is the line drawn where they they can just do the work or versus when they have to pull a permit? Um, it's going to be for like roofing, anytime you're doing a re-roof, you need a permit, the entire roof, right? Okay.

For the wildfire code, it it it comes into play when you're doing more than 25%. So, like on the roof, if you're doing more than 25% of the roof, you have to comply with the wildfire code. When it comes to um windows and the siding, it's going to be look at the one side of the wall of the house, not all four as a total. If you're doing more than 25% of one wall, then you have to comply with the regulations on that wall for the WRC. Yes.

Correct. Okay. So, when does somebody need to pull pull a permit through the city? You know, if they are going to replace one window because it broke or the seal shot or whatever, when do they need to pull a permit through the city for that one window to be replaced? They will only for windows and sighting be required to do it if it's triggered by the wildfire code. So, if they trigger the 25%, then they have to get a permit. If they're less than that, then they can do that.

Thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't catch that before. I didn't realize that they had to do if they were adhering to the WWRC, then that's when they would have to pull a permit through us. I see. Okay. Thank you for the clarification there. Um, is there any appetite potentially to for an amendment to maybe stagger this, you know, instead of it being, you know, I'm because I'm looking specifically at the solar permit. It's going from 20 to 250 for residential, 20 to 350 for commercial. Re- roof is going from 0 to 250 again, 350 for commercial. And then the windows and siding is going from 0 to 250 and then the 350 for commercial. So, is there any sort of appetite for maybe a staggered approach for like a year to like maybe meet halfway for like a buck 25 and then maybe year two we go to 250? just seems like because I I I agree with with councelor Koso that we don't want to deter someone from um potentially doing the right thing and getting a permit and going through the appropriate process if it's just going to be 250 bucks and it triggers the WRC to kick in. I guess it's more of a free floating question. We can have certainly discussion.

Okay. Um and then that's all I have. Um council lawyer. Yeah. Um I'll just have a few questions. What percentage of the community development operations are currently cost recovered through the fees? Do you have like a estimate? Um I'd say maybe 25 30%.

Okay. Are these will these fees lead to full cost recovery or no? Okay. just I there is a level of we do it because like it not everything has to be fully cost recovered in city operations and so I just wanted to make sure it's not going to generate surplus and we're not you know and and so that was kind of mine because who it really comes down to the person that is doing the remodel and affordability like we're you're charging the the builder but we're pay I'm going to pay it right I mean I just went through a remodel and just paid all the fees and all the things and it the increase in fees makes my project become higher, right? And yes, if they're too high, do you get to a point where you don't pull permits anymore? You you try to avoid it if you can if they're smaller projects because a smaller person is the one suffering rather than the big projects typically. Um, have we evaluated fee reductions for deed restricted or fair share units? I'm nervous on the affordability of some housing projects that we're if we're trying to push through housing projects like is this going to affect that?

No, I mean um I we've created a policy um where uh fee waiverss can be requested to the director and um I do have a policy that uh any affordable housing projects that are deed restricted as well as childcare facilities um are we wave those fees and then we do evaluate nonprofits as well for possibility of waving fees.

Okay. Um, in terms of process efficiency and service level, I know a while ago we got a uh update. How is our current average permit review time and will these fees help like staff us better or like how um I can't say that they're going to make them better. Um, we are consistently making improvements uh both internally with collaboration and coordination but also our open gov software. um we have not been able to um get a good sense of our tracking of our permit times, but I can tell you that as of April 1st, we have a new um I guess new opportunity with with um open gov to better coordinate our permitting that would allow us to track the the permitting anytime it's assigned to whether it's planning, engineering, GIS, it will track down to the minute how long that person has it before they respond. So, we'll be able to get data on that. Now,

great. Um, given tonight's wildfire resiliency discussion, will the new wildfire requirements increase plan review costs? Um, slightly. It's more the administration of it and then the additional inspections. Okay. And then similar to councelor Koso's question, are we double charging anywhere between building and wildfire review or like is there any stacked fees or no? No.

Okay. I wanted to make sure. I think you know the big takeaway is like if it's our priority is housing production economic vitality are they are the targeted fee adjustments that could meaningfully support these goals without compromising cost recovery. Um if we want to if we were to reduce fees in certain areas what would the fiscal impact be to the general fund? You know that sort of thing. And so just those are some of my big thoughts and I'm not opposed to a friendly amendment if you want to make one. Yeah, I would propose uh a friendly amendment to stagger um the three the re- roof permit to $125 from April 1st, 2026 to April 1st, 2027. And then the solar permit, stacked that again um to 125 um for the same time period. and then the windows and sighting replacement um new per the wildfire resiliency code uh to 125 um between April 1st and April 1st 2027.

Real quick, are you going to be adjusting fees every year with the budget uh with like we are with the other fees or is this something separate? He's saying the reason why I'm asking is you're saying April to April and if it's April to August or August, does that make sense to get on your re your time that you are doing I don't want to make this a pain in the butt for you even though we are sorry but does that make sense? The only reason that I had proposed force because that's when they were going to be instituted as of the way the I just don't know what the cadence is for you for reviewing these.

We typically don't do it annually. Um it's one of things that now we usually eval that's why we've asked to um go ahead and adopt the building valuation data every August of every year. So it's automatic that come August of each year we'll have that little incremental increase in our build building valuation data for permitting. So that will take care of that piece of it. Um and planning permitting fees we'll review every probably several years to make sure that we're on par with um a comparable area. And so if I accept his amendment there wouldn't be a better date that you would suggest that that's fine. Okay. Great. I I accept that amendment. Great. Um, councelor Koso.

Yeah, I just wanted to piggyback on councelor lawyer's comments in talking to a couple of contractors and one architect about these fee changes. U, you know, time was what kept coming back and so I really appreciate that we're going to start tracking. I did want to ask um if we'd be able to track when the permit is out outside of our offices and with the architect, the contractor, whomever it is, because I think sometimes when I'm getting complaints on how long the permitting process is, they're not subtracting how much time the permit sat with them and was not with our staff. I don't know if the system will track that, but we will be able to do that based on the dates when we submit the comments back when they submit back.

Okay. Okay, great. Would we're very very interested in seeing those numbers for sure. So, thank you very much for that. That's all. Mayor Yazy, anything else that you'd like to add before we go to vote? Um, no. Great. Any other discussion? Right. Can you get a vote, please? Councelor Lawyer, yes. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Councelor Koso, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. And Mayor Yazy,

yes. Thank you. The next item under resolutions is 11.4, which is a resolution amending the master fee schedule related to Durango Public Library program room fees.

Thank you very much, Mayor and Council. Um, this will be a pretty short one. I won't make the same pun as last time. I'll try to keep my puns fresh. Um, we are looking at um the area of safety and quality of life. And we also put organizational stewardship because um this is going to make us more efficient and we're looking at this for the basis of looking at controlling demand. So why um we have not changed these fees in 17 years since we built the library. But that's not why we're changing it. We're changing it based on the change in the use. As you can see, we've seen an 85% increase in the use over the last three years. Um that's not sustainable. Um, we've seen increased labor costs and we're also introducing a new uh venue, our community venue garden and we're looking at managed competition with that. And we wanted to look with that lens of are we um harming the uh available public meeting room space economy by keeping it, you know, so low for so long. So, we did look at what it cost us on labor, and the average cost of a room setup based on all of our different room setups is $37.93 and the reservation and invoicing $8. Um, that average is low because our we submitted in uh the documentation that's in your packet. Our most common room one is the banquet style, which costs us $62 um for every room setup, and that's the one we do the most. So while that average is that, it's not what it's actually costing us. So we're not looking for a total cost recovery here. We're but we are looking to defay some of those costs and try to manage a bit of the demand. And so this shows you those fee changes where we're moving up $10 per hour for room one and two. And that makes it $20 an hour for the program room combined because that's what we've currently done is you just pay the same room for one

and two together. There is not currently a um bargain for that because it does cost us twice the amount of staff labor to set those up. Um and then when we look at the con rental rate for the community venue garden, there's not a current one. It's brand new, but we're looking at $100 per hour for a profit, $80 per hour for a nonprofit. We looked at parks, botanical gardens, outdoor music venues and found that we felt like this would be affordable enough but also competitive. Um, we are going to look on having a moratorium on weddings because we were looking at a tiered structure for weddings and we couldn't find a one that worked that would not kind of destroy the local economy for weddings. um you know, demand and supply would not completely undermine it, but being able to get married in a botanic garden um for about $500 for the fee for the rental um would be orders of magnitude the best deal in the county. We'd be the best deal in the four count four corners. So, we're holding off on that and we're going to review that annually um as we see the usage and what it actually takes out of our staff and what the staff costs are for that and we're going to track that so we can see is that something that we could offer as an amenity, you know, at a different uh price point, but we're going to start off with not allowing that. Um oop, hit the wrong button apparently. And here is just a look at where you can see those banquet rounds and what that cost is. $63 and that goes into the average. I just wanted that to be there for the public as well. It's kind of small to read right here for the people here, but they'll be able to look at that later. Um, I just want to give a big shout out to our facilities manager, Steve Scales, who pulled all this information and really worked deep to come up with a real justification beyond we haven't changed it in a while and we

know that it's being used at a level that we can't sustain, but if we were going to rise it, you know, every single dollar that we're rising for can be accounted for in our labor cost. So, the next steps are if this is approved, we'll work with PIO, uh, public information officer, to notify the public of these upcoming changes. And we're looking around the first Monday in April. Um, we, you know, April 1 is a nice start, but people don't rent rooms, um, middle of the week usually. Um, of course, anyone who's already rented a room, um, will have that rate already set. We're not going to charge them an additional $10. And we will um as you know you see this will be annualized annually. Um but we're going to be looking at this on a quarterly level looking at both patron feedback and rental rates. You know if we saw like a huge reduction um that's not what we're going for. We're going for stemming the growth. So if we saw that we might look and see maybe we went even though it seems like a small amount. $10 an hour does add up if you're doing it for eight hours. That's $80. That's not a small amount of money. And so we will be looking at that, you know, quarterly to so when we go into our budget process this year, um, we'll have a real recommendation that's databased.

And with that, that brings up my motion and happy to take any questions. Move to approve resolution R-2026-013 authorizing the recommended program room fee changes for the Durango Public Library. I didn't read that too fast today. Yeah. Could you read it one more time? Lower. Second. Right. discussion. Council Lawyer,

um, thank you for the presentation. This actually has nothing to do with the presentation, but I've been meaning to send you a message, and you're standing right here. And so, I'm going to tell everyone in the room, um, my 12-year-old son loves going to the library, and I'm I mean, I love the library, too, but when I was 12, I did not love the library. And every day after school, he like begs me to go and tells me how fun it is. And I just want to say, "Thank you for providing such a great space for my little tween." And, um, he just has the best time. and says that everything is amazing in the library. And so I appreciate

we have an amazing youth service team. Jenny Garer is our youth services manager and we have a you know a mix of some people who've been there with us a while. Uh uh Kelly and Cali have both been there for years, but we have other than that some really new people and they've just brought so much passion and we've always had such innovation in that department that every year there's something new for different age groups. So, you know, I'm so fortunate to have that staff because uh youth services is why we've had such a successful library for generations. We get them from birth and we keep them for as long as we can. Well, and I, you know, I asked him the other day, I'm like, "What do you do that's so exciting at the library?" And he's like, "They just have the best snacks." And they have, and I was like, "Snacks. That's the key to a tween's art is snack.

If you feed them, we will come." Every Thursday we have a teen game day. Um, every Wednesday we have a teen advisory group called TAC. In every single thing we do, especially for our tween and teens, there's always snacks. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, councelor Kosa,

just wanted to show appreciation. I think it's really important that we pay attention to the small business community and don't undercut them because we are tax subsidized and so entering into the wedding field and undercutting small business owners would have been really a problem. So, thank you for thinking that through and making sure that we didn't do that. So, that's it. Great. Um, Mayor Yazi, do you have any questions or comments? Nope. All right. Great. And may I get a roll call, please? Thank you. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Mayor Yazy, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. Councelor Lawyer, yes. And councelor Koso, yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. And the next item under resolutions is 11.5, a resolution to amend the city's 2026 capital budget.

Evening. Gloria Platt, chief financial officer. And again, this item is to request authorization for capital project budget amendments for fiscal year 2026 under the organizational stewardship goal area. So, the majority of the budget amendment relates to budgeted funds that were approved by council for 2025 for projects that have been bid out, have contracts, work started, and uh we have a need to roll purchase orders forward to 2026 to continue paying for work on these projects. And in order to do so, we need appropriated funds to roll forward as well. Uh staff has identified projects that are not completed at the end of 2025 and unspent budget funds to roll forward to 2026. Um you'll likely remember that at the budget retreat, we did discuss projects that were expected to continue on into 2026 and that we would come back to council and request uh that these funds be reappropriated after the beginning of the year so that we would have good estimates at this time. So again, these numbers represent funds that were not spent in 2025. So they would decrease expected expenses in 2025 and be an increase to the 2026 budget. And so this means that for these continuation funds, the pro the projected fund balance is not affected. Also, additional project needs have been identified and these are included in the request for budget amendments. Also, I do want to note that all budget amendments that is in that are in this presentation um with the exception of the airport capital fund and the general fund capital fund, these were all taken to FAB earlier this month on February 5th and uh they voted yes to recommend to council for approval. So we'll go through uh the overall

fiscal impact of the budget amendment, the purpose of the budget amendment by fund and the amendment the amended dollars for 2026. So this slide shows uh the budget amendment summary broken up by fund um with a total uh request budget request of $36,817,07. This slide shows the same amount of uh the budget amendment but just shown in a different way and it's broken up um showing how much of that is continuation projects those projects that are rolling forward in the amount of 37,729,628 um those additional requests uh that I mentioned previously in the amount of 1,392,379 there is a budget reduction included in this request in the amount of $2,35,000. This really rep represents uh pushing a project forward in order to um be able to afford the additional request. And we'll we'll talk about that um a little later in the presentation as well again for that same total of $36.8 million. Uh so getting into um the details by fund um these are this is for the 2015 sales tax fund for the multimmodal portion these projects. So all of the requests um in in this section are continuation projects and they total 5,66,846 in the 2015 sales tax. Also we have parks projects. Uh the continuation fund request for uh to roll forward is $491,280. Uh we do have uh additional requests totaling $140,000.

These are for the community forest plan for 50,000, the surf wave feasibility study for 44,000, the asphalt replacement at the Duringo Gymnastics um for 46,000, and um Scott Mlan, uh parks director, will help us through the next few slides uh regarding these additional requests.

Thank you. Good evening, Scott Mlan, the parks and recreation. So, we've got three projects on the 2015 fund that we're asking for additional funding for 26. The first one is the community forest uh plan management plan. Uh this is a annual reoccurring funding that uh council supported to help maintain and grow our community forest. And 2025 we had $50,000 appropriated. We made the same request for 26. I think we did not spend those funds for 25 until later in the year. So I think maybe the just a duplication of the same two funds, same amounts, the one got dropped so that was an invertent but are asking for funds for 26. The second project river surf wave uh doing a feasibility study. Uh this was brought before council and the financial advisory board late summer. the financial advisory board made recommendation that um before they approved funding and an amount to get proposals. So, we received proposals. Um the amount that we're asking for is $44,000. That's based on a proposal amount of 40,000 plus a 10% contingency and then the Animus River surfers have uh come up with $13,000 to contribute to this project. So the feasibility study as a consulting team that will help us look at possible locations for the surf wave um look at concerns narrow it down to a location and then give us some price estimate cost estimate for that feature. The third project we have is just the gymnastics facility in Bodo. The there's a parking area at the back of the building that is in poor shape and want to get that taken care of sooner than later. uh not on our radar when we put the budget together, but duty to take care of this. So, that's 46,000.

And then with the 2025 tax, we've got a uh the parks, trails, recreation improvements uh fund that helps provide maintenance for our parks, um trails, stuff that's beyond our kind of day day-to-day maintenance. Um, one of the items that was in our budget proposal that council approved for 2026 was replacing the playground at the Durango softball complex. Um, this request is to change using the funds that we had appropriated for that to using the funds for the playground at the Monaster or at Mason Center Park with Monasuri School. uh has helped raise $20,000 to to help with that project. We had some vandalism to the playground that it's older. We cannot find replacement parts or have replacement parts to it. So, want want to switch push off the Dango softball complex playground. It still needs repair or replacement. Um but we'll we'll push that off to a later time. And then the the second request is the same fund. Um, this was just an error on our staff's part on we had a number of different projects in our budget proposal. We had the each of those itemized on on our budget proposal, but then missed copied total over. So, we're requesting an extra $63,55 to complete everything that we had initially proposed in that project. Okay, next is the 2025 sales tax fund with parks projects. Um, we're requesting continuation uh reappropriation funds for 2026 in the amount of 2,ion489,688 I'm sorry, $2,489,68. And then additional funds in the amount

of $63,55 in that park, trail and rec uh improvements. And that was that last slide that Scott just presented. Then we have the 2025 sales tax capital improvement fund and we have continuation project requests in the amount of $2,346,882. In the 2019 sales tax for street projects, we have continuations funds that we're requesting in the amount of 6,121,857. Um and then water construction funds. These projects um the continuation projects are $6,168,321 um with an additional request for 26 of $1,188,874. This is uh for additional funds in the 160 West waterline replacement design. Um and then underneath that is that budget reduction mentioned earlier and this is basically pushing forward the project for the CMWTP train 1 improvements in the amount of $2,35,000 uh with a net of uh1,16,126 as a reduction and John Harris our public works director is going to walk us through those additional funds. Thank you, council. John Harris, public works director. Uh, a little background on this one. I think initially the budget was underestimated when the initial scope was proposed and went into the budget last year uh for a full design of the project. So, we started off a little low in budget. Since then though, the project has doubled in length going from tech center all the way out to the I think it's a Speedway gas station out on the 160 West corridor. We're also in the midst of a

negotiation for a cost recovery with a private developer out on the west end of the corridor. Uh and we think that there albeit uh you know maybe less opportunity for federal funding, there is still an opportunity to get some federal funding in the future. My experience is the federal agencies typically want to see that we've uh done some alternatives analysis. So the scope of the project has increased. Uh we're asking our consultant to look at three different conceptual alignments in case we uh have some federal funding opportunities. I think it's a worst case scenario budget projection if you will. I'm also aware I had some meetings recently with the developers engineer and I know that they have already designed a waterline a 10-inch water line on the west end of the corridor. I know the city I hired a consultant a few years ago that designed a 10-inch water line on the east end of the corridor. Uh so our contract is a time and materialsbased contract. We control when the tasks are authorized and we'll have our uh consultant look at the demands that you know full growth in the west 160 west corridor might uh might project in the future and see if a 10-in water line works and then they could just focus on making the connection between the two pipelines. So all that to say there's the potential that this project will be much less costly than you're seeing on the screen today. But again, worst case scenario, we need to amend the budget uh just in case. And uh sewer construction fund projects. These are continuation projects requests of 1,119,674 in the trash and recycle construction fund. Um the amount requested uh for continuing projects is $25,594. And in the airport construction fund,

again, this is only continuation projects uh in the amount of 12 million 12,583,651. Uh in the general fund capital, these are continuation projects in the amount of $775,915. And with that, I have your recommended motion and uh myself and other staff can answer any questions you might have.

Real long. Um I'll move to approve the budget amendment resolution amending the 2026 capital budgets for the purposes of reappropriating funds for continuation projects from 2025 to the 2026 budget year. Appropriating additional funds in capital in parks capital projects and transferring funds from one project to another. Decreasing a project budget in the water capital projects for the city of Durango, Colorado 2026 capital budget. Second. Sorry, I want I may want to amend. So that's why you do it. All right, councelor Gosa. Um Scott, if I can pull you back up. There you are. Sorry. First off, is that a bunch of surf waiverss in the back of the room there? Yeah, they are.

Way to show up. Thank you very much. Appreciate Yeah, no doubt about that. Think how we feel up here. Um on the surf wave I just need a little bit of clarification here. So the the total budget is 40,000 you think for the feasibility study 10% contingency fund 44,000 but 13,000 is coming from the surf waiver. So why are we not asking for 31,000 instead of 44,000? Does that make sense? Yes. Okay.

So typically I think we treat this the same as we would like with a grant. We appropriate the city appropriates for the entire cost of the project. We do then an agreement with the other entity. So with this case, the Animus River Surfers that they agree to spend the 13,000 towards the project and then that just goes back into the fund that is paying for the project. So as long as they don't run out of town, we we should see a a lowerc cost project on this one. Correct.

Great. Okay. Thanks. And thanks for chipping in. Appreciate the feasibility piece. Um and then I have a 160 waterline question. I don't know if anybody else has something for Scott so we don't play merrygoround. Yeah. Thank you. Um well, thank you. Um those uh so thank you. I had the same question about the surfer. So I wanted to thank the folks for um for coming. But also just procedurally um so I had never seen this model before. Um is this something that's typical? I mean would we expect others to come forward or maybe you could explain it to me exactly how it worked in this example

in in this example I would say the the animous river surfers are group that self-organized came together um and started to advocate or looking at a river surf wave in town and looking at a feasibility study. My understanding is they approached um some consultants and were trying to do that on their own um but then were looking for the city support with that project. So um they they came to council um and then also to the financial advisory board to ask for this to be considered and the recommendation has then happened and

and so this is still just for the feasibility study not for any construction. this feasibility study will provide us some information that then can help us make decisions um further on. Um I think with a river surf wave like this, it there's a lot of variables where it's hard to just compare what we have in Durango to what a salida or what it might cost for Farmington or someplace else just because of the dynamics with the river. So, this will help give us more information as we move forward and we're getting ready to, you know, start the the master plan this summer that that information will then be able to be used in that as we prioritize projects.

So, if if we go through the exercise um and the feasibility study and determine that the project is not feasible for whatever reason, do they get their money back? No. Okay. Okay. I just thought they might want to know because that's um you know it's a risk just so you guys know. Well, I mean I thought you might like to know that only because um many projects are deemed yeah not not possible. I mean, I I just feel like I know I've been a part of many if failed projects

and I I provided the short answer, but we've had that discussion as well on that this is following or this is kind of leading ahead of the the schedule we have with the master plan and that there's um the possibility that the community as a whole prioritizes projects different than what this group may have and and they they understand that

that may not I mean I think I I got to see an example of the surfers in uh in in Salida Um, and it looked like a blast. I know my son got to participate and it looked like a ton of fun. So, I hope it works out. So, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. That was an interesting comment. Sorry, I wasn't going to ask you a question. Now, I am because we have our prioritization of post projects coming up when do we of the or master, sorry, we have our prioritization of projects for parks and wreck. Do we master plan?

Master plan. So we have master plan is a project we have that will start this year that'll likely be 18 months to two year pro um process. So the so the feasibility study should be done before then. I just was nervous that like if that comes out and like this isn't anywhere on it. Not that it won't. The river usually is on there somewhere that we might get push back from the community like don't build this project. We don't you know but so I mean I'm talking

Yes. Well, so I think the downside to it is that this is getting into a bit more detail than the master plan will. The I think the upside is is just that it gives us some more information on what it is for prioritizing and what the cost may be with that project compared to others when we get to looking at projects communitywide. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yep. Mayor Yazy, before we move on, do you have any questions about the budget amendments for Scott?

Yes, Scott. I was wondering. Okay, so this is just a study to figure out if there's enough water, the physical attributes of the river at that park can support a wave. This does not include the parking, the bathroom, and all those other safety amenities that the public would need to utilize this project. The way we've written the scope of work is to take an overall for the consultants take an overall look at the river potential locations work with community stakeholders group focus group that is commercial people are involved with the river to narrow that down to the three best sites and then the consultant to do some analysis generally on that to come up with a selected site that would take all of those things into account. So there may be one location that already is adjacent to a park that has parking. It has restroom facilities that were those things wouldn't be as much of a consideration as we're going to try to build a park facility along with a feature that needs those facilities, parking, restroom somewhere else. So So the goal would be to have an overall cost for the project.

All righty. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Councelor Koso. Thanks. I'm gonna move on and get John. So, John, if we can go back to the slide that you have on the 160 and I just need some clarifications, I think here. Um, we talked a lot about the Wildcat tank here and the 10 or 12 inch line being um critical if that tank goes offline. You talked a little bit about the fact that the engineering may say that we can just go ahead and keep a 10-in line. Can you just throw a little bit more dressing on that one for me?

Yeah, so it's a difficult question to answer because uh properties that are basically east of the tank would be served directly from the pipeline and properties west of the tank would most likely in most times of the day be served from the tank and tank's really designed to provide fire suppression, pressure and flow. So you'd have to model time of day uh impacts. Uh it might be that you see, you know, we typically see demand in the morning and the evening as you can imagine, you know, people getting ready for work and coming home from work. Um so you'd have to size the pipe east of the tank to provide to meet that demand. Whereas you might be able to fill the tank at night when demand is lower. So yeah, I'm not convinced that you need a 10-in pipe the entire way. Maybe I'm not convinced you don't either. I think that's what we need to look at.

Okay, great. Um, that's good clarification. And then why the doubling of the length of the line that's driving some of this cost? Yeah, it's just development. It's my understanding it was as a part of a negotiation with a developer out on on the west end. We're in the midst of that negotiation when, you know, I don't want to get into too much into the weeds in that right now. Okay. Okay. Great. All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. Any other discussion? council lawyer. Yeah. I just wanted um clarify this amendment cuz um reflects capital timing and reappropriations rather than mostly new project expansion. Correct. Correct.

The majority in fact it's like a decrease in essentially in some of the funding that we're there's little increases. Right. The increase is actually a decrease. Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that so people I don't see like a headline tomorrow that's like council approves $36 million in additional spending because there's not existing projects that we approve but half people um uh is there any projects materially delayed like where that's why why are the projects getting delayed in most of these is there like a general reason is it labor is it material is it

the departments would answer that better than myself but um some in some cases due to seasonality. Um, you know, needing to wait till spring to continue projects, things like that. Great. Um, that's all I really have. Thank you. Any other discussion? Great. Can you get a roll call, please? Mayor Yazy, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Councelor Koso, yes. and counselor lawyer.

Yes. Yay. Good job, guys. Sorry. Yeah, I know. I still got a meeting to run, I guess. Council, you still got to run this meeting. Moving on to the next consideration of ordinances.

Thank you. For consideration of ordinances, we have 12.1, which is an ordinance for text amendments to the city of Durango code of ordinances, chapter 27, the land use and development code in response to the Colorado wildfire resiliency code.

All right. Good evening everybody. I'm Leanne Bernstein with Community Development. Um here to present to you proposed amendments to the land use and development code um in response to Colorado's wildfire resiliency code. Um these amendments do align with our strategic plan specifically organizational stewardship um and mitigating environmental stressors by meeting or exceeding state standards. Um so where we are in the process um this item has gone to your community development commission for recommendation. Um it was introduced earlier this month and um this evening you are asked to consider the ordinance um and move on to final reading and adoption at the first meeting in March. Um so a little bit of background here. Um, the state of Colorado back in 2023 created the wildfire resiliency board and tasked this board with creating a model wildfire resiliency code. And um, in that they would require all municipalities to adopt said model code within three months of the board um, creating it and adopting it. Um, in June 2025, the board did adopt a m a model code and they also amended the timeline for municipalities to adopt it from 3 months to 9 months. So, we are um in that uh timeline right now. Um, as a reminder, the city did adopt the wildfire resiliency code by ordinance back in November. Um, so these amendments are just bringing our land use code kind of in in compliance with that. Um big picture here though um why the state tackled this problem or tried to tackle it with a model code. Um the state found that we are incre that wildfires are increasing in intensity and frequency and found that this is one

approach that we can decrease potential devastation from wildfires by um structure hardening is one method. So the actual materials um and some building methods that buildings um are using um and then looking at the area immediately around structures um the structure ignition zone. Um so recognizing that these meth methods will ideally reduce structure loss, financial investment required to rebuild and the cost of insurance um and problems related to under insurance across the state. Um, in general, we're trying to protect existing and upcoming housing stock. Um, and I will note here, um, just to give credit where credit's due, the, um, community development department has been working with Headarters Economics and their SEPAW program, which is community planning and assistance for wildfire. they've been lending a hand in helping us with these amendments and um kind of putting another professional eye on that and they helped with some images for my uh slideshow. Um so digging into what the wildfire resiliency code is. Um part of it is this uh wildfire resiliency map. Um this is just a snippet of um the area of Durango and around Durango that shows a little bit of low intensity but mostly high and moderate intensity fire risk around the city. And these designations uh trigger which level of compliance um new and remodeled structures are required um to adhere to. Um and here's a a kind of summary of those um different distinctions between the classes. Um, one of the items, um, so backing up a little bit, the the building division within community development is dealing mostly with this structure hardening. So

again, reviewing, um, new plans for building materials and and different methods for compliance. Um, and that will be underway starting in April. Um, most of the amendments that the land use and development code touched dealt with these structure ignition zones. So, the areas around the buildings, landscaping, things like that, maintenance. Um, and this is one image that just shows kind of those um those structure ignition zones. Um, so digging into the proposed amendments, um, they're pretty straightforward. I I hope to be confident in saying that for the most part, we are um inserting and updating references to the Colorado WRC as adopted by the city. um we're removing any language that contradicted with it directly um and just trying to lessen the confusion. But you'll see in the red lines, we're mostly just pointing to that Colorado WRC and the um the ordinance that was adopted by the city. The amendments are located in chapter 3, chapter 4, and chapter 7 of the land use development code. Um both staff and the community development commission found that these proposed amendments did comply with the uh review criteria for text amendments. The LUDC uh we have not received any public comments on this matter. Um and with that I have a recommended motion for you all to move this on to uh final consideration the first meeting in March. Move to approve an ordinance amending the land use and development code as shown in exhibit A with the finding that the amendments conform with the applicable LUDC review criteria.

Second discussion. Seeing none, roll call. Oh, sorry. Uh, Mayor Yazy, do you have anything that you'd like to ask or make a comment on? No. Great. Roll call, please. Councelor Koso, yes. Councelor Lawyer, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. Coun or excuse me, Mayor Yazy, yes. And councelor Gonzalez, yes. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Um Tom, may I please roll? Could you please roll the announcement for public comment on city managers not available? not under consideration for tonight. Thank you. And there is one individual who had signed up to speak on non-aggenda items and that's Nancy Raphaeli.

Dear Raphael, I've been a Durango resident for 26 years. Um, I know it's a topic that has been beaten to death, but I do have a few things I want to bring to your attention about what um what what I have discovered about um ICE wearing masks. So you know in October there were a lot of people here uh protesting against no trans you know want transparency and we were given um a lot of flowery uh remarks by um the mayor and the um the police chief. We're going to do something about this. We hear you. We care. And we believed it. Four months went by and nothing. We hear nothing. We see nothing. So, everybody started sending emails to the mayor. That is a a you know a a uh an article in the paper that they they were like she was just getting inundated with emails about why isn't anything being done. Um so I found out that uh city of Durango always had the um the power to decide we won't let them wear masks. Um it's you know Grand Junction they don't wear masks. Denver isn't going to be wearing masks. California. And what I am concerned about is that maybe the reason nothing happened is because if they take off their masks, we probably would know them. And that's just too bad, you know? That's just too

bad. I mean, why should we protect bullies? and they they obviously are um they don't like people with brown skin, you know, and people that are not prejudice wouldn't take that job. They would, you know, they're they're just bullies. So, I don't think it's fair that they get away with no transparency at all. And back in October, we could have had this done. All I did was look it up online and I found out it's not a federal uh requirement for them to wear masks and cover their their license plate and you know um no no ID like what is that? You know they're they're bully gorillas and we have been asking for help. You don't need you don't need signatures now. You know how many people have wanted this? this signature thing just went out like like last week. What's the big, you know, you know, you don't have to pro, you don't need any proof, you know. So, I'm really hoping that you do your job and I appreciate your time.

Any other comments? Sorry. Thank you. That was the only individuals that ended up. Great. Thank you. Um, moving on to other new business. Anybody like to put anything under new business? Sorry, Kip. I don't see your hand raised. No, it is. Thank you. Uh, councelor Kusso.

Council, just a small kind of heads up. A recent Herald article had sparked more conversation around the remediation fund idea and and I got several questions um specifically from some business groups. I've asked the city manager to postpone staff work on the item um for the short term as I talk over in the next few weeks with a couple of the business groups and get their feedback and and individual perspective on the concept here. So, I just wanted to share and see if there was any objections to kind of slow rolling it on the staff side while we see what the the business entities might be interested in in regards to the remediation fund. Yeah, great. That's all I have. Could I could I add to that?

Go ahead, Mayor. Yeah. Um, could we also add how we would fund this? I I just don't feel good about unfunded mandates. So, I don't know how you could wrap that in to this proposal, but I would feel better if I knew where the money came from. Thank you. I think that was in that when we were originally discussing it, it was it was in the um request. So, I'll make sure and do that with the discussions. Mayor, thank you. Uh Councelor Gonzalez,

thank you. Um thank you, Mayor. I would like for us to discuss disconnecting the flock cameras or turning off the block cameras, whatever that would involve. Uh perhaps a presentation by Bryce to see about what impact it would have to turn them off. So, just a presentation from Bryce on the impact of turning off lock cameras. That's correct.

Okay. Anybody else? All right. Now, we move on to item 15, executive session. Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to convene an executive session to receive legal advice on specific legal questions pursuant to CRS 24-6-424B concerning pending state and federal litigation legislation and litigation related to immigration enforcement. Second discussion. All right. Roll call, please. Thank you. Councelor Lawyer.

Yes. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Councelor Koso, yes. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. And Mayor Yazy, yes. Thank you. All right. So, yeah, I'll read this. Yeah, we will now um Yeah, the time is now 8:05 and we will adjourn the meeting temporarily to go towards executive session.

Okay, she can speak. She's have hand raised. So, we're ready to rock and roll. Yeah. All right. Great. Um, the time is now 9:24 and the executive session has concluded. The participants participants in the executive session were Mark Morgan, Kip Koso, Dave Woodruff, Shirley Gonzalez, Jessica Lawyer, Jose Madreal, and Gilda Yazi. Forgot

R. Yeah. R Madrical. Yeah. Uh, for the record, council met in executive session to receive legal advice on specific legal questions pursuant to CRS24-6-424B concerning pending state and federal legislation and litigation related to immigrant enforcement. For the record, if any person who participated in the executive session believes that any substantial discussion of any matter any matters not included in the motion to go into the executive session occurred during the executive session or that any improper action occurred during the executive session in violation of the open meetings law, I would ask you to state ask that you state your record, your concerns for the record. Seeing none, the next agenda item is Yeah, I think um

yeah, Councelor Gonzalez. Thank you, Mayor. Um I move to direct legal staff Mark Morgan and his staff to follow legislation at the state and federal level in regards to immigration issues. Um legislation and litigation. Legislation and litigation. Okay. And then um I assume that would mean that I would report to you if they were standing um in any suit that for the city of Durango to join. That's correct. Okay, I'll second.

Any discussion? Mayor Yazy, any discussion? I Oh, I no discussion. Great. So no further discussion. Can we get a roll call, please? Thank you. Councelor Gonzalez, yes. Mayor Yazy, hi. Mayor Prom Woodruff, yes. Councelor Lawyer, yes. And councelor Koso, yes. There's no further agenda items. We are motion to adjourn.