City Council - Regular Meeting

Do we know what road they're gonna start on? John, do you know what road

Amen.

Brandon, when did you send it?

Yeah, he's on the phone, so he's here. Yes, I did.

Yeah.

wine yeah they do wine to take off premise yep

Hey Brandon.

Brandon?

Well, you ask him. He's on the phone.

Hey, Dan.

Hello.

Hi, Dan. Sorry, I... Ghosted you. I'm sorry. I got wrapped up into something.

You did not ghost me. I was just like, oh, shoot, I wasn't... I hope I wasn't supposed to call her, so no problem.

I'd like to call the Florence City Council meeting for Monday, July 13th order. Please rise for the pledge. Roll call, please.

Councillor Van Houten? Here. Councillor Stiefel? Here. Councillor Murgleman? Here. Councillor Gardner? Here. Councillor Stone? Here. Councillor McKinnon? Here. Mayor Wolf? Here. And City Attorney Dan Finley is here via phone. Okay.

Thank you. Seeing that there was no public comment, we will move to consent agenda, approving the minutes, expenditures, a couple liquor license, takeout and delivery permit, city manager for an agreement for the 2026, that'd be this year's audit, amend the contract for the ADA ramp project, and then authorize and stage managers for a police vehicle and a public works vehicle. At this time, would any council members like to pull any of these items?

I would like to pull items G, H, and I. G, H, and I are pulled.

Any others? All right, would someone like to make a motion to approve consent agenda items A through F?

I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda A, B, C, D, E, and F. And do we have a second? I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, motion carries. Item G, considering an amendment to the contract amount approval of change orders due to unforeseen conditions during the ADA ramp replacement project. City Manager or Public Works?

Thank you, Mayor. As you know, we had the contract out for the ADA sidewalks. That was a project that was approved in the budget, went out for RFP. Council approved that project. What I'm asking for is to authorize an amendment to the contract price exceeding the previously approved amount of $48,059 and adding an additional $4,916.24. during construction there was some unforeseen work that was identified and had to be fixed if you guys remember that intersection flooded and that that caused some additional concrete work it caused some additional pans and and some excavation to be done. So there was actually two change orders that were done with it. One of the change orders was covered by the budget and the other is what we're bringing to you today to ratify and get that in front of you. John, did you want to discuss that at all? If there's any technical or any questions that you may have. So the work has been done. We are just asking for a ratification of that and amend that for payment. Payment that $4,000 has not been made yet until it is approved by council.

Was this the project at 3rd and McCandless?

Correct. They started doing all the construction and the irrigation ditch got turned on. Flooded the project. It was a real nightmare. Brandon Angel was very instrumental in helping it get shut down. But unfortunately, we weren't able to shut all the water off their valve wouldn't shut off. So we had to divert water and then we had a power pole issue with the power lines we had to block off the street. I mean, good time.

Okay, so did the company know we were working on that intersection?

I don't have the answer to that.

And then you turn the water off.

Again, I don't have the answer to that. I'm not. I think so. But I don't have the answer.

Would they be liable for any of the extra work we had to go through because it turned the ditch on?

I don't believe so. I again, I don't know what their what the agreement was prior to we've done so many of these in town.

And he kept saying it was the irrigation digital irrigation ditch runs through all of them. Anyway, I just write a hard time figuring out why. This one was any different than any other?

I don't know if they got behind schedule a little bit and then the irrigation ditch was scheduled to turn on. I don't have the answers to that. I'm sorry.

Have we ever had them turn water down when we were working on other ditches?

My understanding is we tried to schedule those to when it's the off-peak ditch times so the irrigation water is not running during those times. It's my understanding.

Yeah, yeah, well, good lesson learned.

And so what was the change to a 10 inch pipe? That was the only thing I saw that was actually a materials change. Was an eight and change it to a 10.

Yeah, due to the volume of irrigation water. Yep, that that they had to change that size that irrigation waters on down the little down that canal. Yep.

And I believe Sam talked with Brandon and to try to avoid that from backing up in the future. It when it was looked at and identified, they changed it to a larger

Oh, that pipe, yes.

Yes, the pipe, yes. Because some of that is really old infrastructure that sometimes, talking with Sam, you don't know until you get in there. And some of that old, some of the ditch infrastructure is very old. And it will take a collaboration going forward, and we have had lots of conversations about that, have we not, John?

Yes, we have.

Yes, I would think the ditch company should, probably be given a notice when we're going to come under their digits.

There'll be great communication moving forward.

and and rudal we did talk about that i've talked about uh with brandon and orlin about walking some of these ditches and john has been very active with the ditch to make sure because we do share some of this infrastructure for stormwater and that maybe in the past has not happened but that is something that we're committed to do as the ditch for the ditch customers, our water, the ditch, and all of that. So that is definitely something that is different than it's been in the past.

It caught me because we have done so many of them. Then all of a sudden we get a new guy and we get new problems.

Yeah.

I mean, got to give a little red flag there. Yeah.

Well, and I don't think it helped where the pole was and the dirt and the compaction.

It seemed like a perfect storm. Yeah.

But the pole was there when you did the job.

Yeah. But then everything got washed out when the irrigation water turned on. Yeah, it was a call. And they had it all. So all of the material around it.

It still came down to turning the water on while you guys were working on the ditch. Yeah. That's not a good thing. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

I kind of realize that may be one of the reasons why that was saved for near the end of the whole big project, too, because that was one of the tougher corners we had but needed. All right, thank you.

Did they do a good job?

Yeah.

Yes, they did.

Okay.

Yep. All things considered, yes, it was a good job. Good job. Did you have any other questions for me?

Okay.

Okay.

All right, someone make the motion I think prior to read that one.

Okay, I will make the motion to ratify the contract for the ADA ramp replacement project ordered to brush hollow Creek construction, increasing the total contract amount to $52,975.24 to include the additional $4,916.24 in approved change orders.

All right, do we have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. All right, item H, considering authorizing the city manager contract for an additional police vehicle.

City manager.

Thank you, Mayor. In the budget process for the 2026, you all approved two police vehicles. We are asking to purchase one. We went out for RFP and bid and we received one. We are asking to get that approved for the police department for a Chevy Silverado 1500, plus the uplifting patrol package. We are asking for $79,409.50 to make that purchase. And then once we go out for bid again, we will try to make that other purchase this year.

Okay. And that's total cost. There'll be no other add-ins or any other equipment that'll be needed?

No. No, there will not be. It's all included in there.

Okay. Any other questions?

My only question for bringing it up was budget. And we were budgeted for two and we bought what?

Yes. Yep, yep.

All right, someone like make motion.

Okay, I will authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with Daniels long Chevrolet for the purchase of one Chevrolet Silverado 1500, including the Watts up, up fitting patrol package in an amount not to exceed $79,409.50.

Do we have a second?

All second.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. All right, item I, considering authorizing the city manager to enter into contract with Southwest Motors for purchase of one public works vehicle. City manager.

Thank you, Mayor. At this time, staff is requesting approval to move forward to purchase one public works vehicle. This is a truck that will be dedicated to the public works director. This request supports our long term fleet replacement and management strategy. Right now, we are in the process of making a long-term fleet management program, but right now we are in desperate need to replace the truck that Sam drove for 20 plus years. We are in desperate need for this vehicle, especially as John is a first responder, and the need for a truck for that. is where we started thinking about this. So we went out and solicited four informal solicitations and found one locally in Pueblo. We are requesting 46,599. Now, with that, funding for this purchase, it is not budgeted. We did not budget this, but we found we have been selling older vehicles and we would use the income and the sales for this so to date we have sold thirty three thousand uh seven hundred and fifty thousand worth of vehicles that's the tow truck um a skid steer and some older older vehicles on gov deals so we've already acquired that we have um two on there now that should make up the forty six thousand they just are still at the bid process where they're on the auction and that should make up the difference but this truck was a great deal and something that we thought we would bring in front of you in light of the fires I'm going to tell you John was driving a blazer trying to cut fire lines and haul things and um it it just it's it's not working for what his job needs to do and the truck that sam originally had i will tell you it's not reliable for him to be where he needs to be this truck is definitely something that the city could use long term and it will improve john's ability as his as the director and a first responder which John, in his role, is a first responder.

My question, is it 2024? Uh-huh. Is it a used vehicle?

Yes.

What's the mileage on it?

It's 20,000.

Is that all? I think. I guess my question is why aren't we buying a new one if we've got the money?

Well, I'll tell you, it's a great deal. If you think I know, John, come on up here and tell him about this truck. What is the difference between a new and this truck?

Cost? It's about half the cost of an of a new vehicle of its caliber. So this one's got a tow package. It's got Oh, what is it got? It's got Off-road package, tow package, integrated trailer brake, all that good stuff.

But it's gently used?

Yeah. Actually, what we did is I gave them some parameters to look for, and they came up with this truck. We took the mechanic down and had him go under it before they detailed it. And he said it looked like it came off the showroom floor.

Okay. No question. Just so you got a good truck.

Got a good truck and did due diligence in looking for it. Okay.

All right.

I really appreciate that. Yeah. Any other questions?

Yeah, so Lori, in the request, I know you said it was $33,750, but you also said that it's going to be $50,000 via water fund and water fund. Is that if those other items don't sell for or whatever's left over in the water?

Nope, it's going to be split between those two funds because the skid steer, as you remember, was the water funds. So they've put their money in. The rest are older general fund fleets. We have a lot of cleanup to do in these old, I don't know how else to talk about it.

So the 50-50 split is from the proceeds from the auction? Yep. Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Do we have several more that need to be sold? Yes.

Well, some of them are not not in in good shape. And Eric's got to get come on up. Come on up. It's your fleet now. He loves it. Yeah, it is a trend. It is a transition.

So to answer your question, yes, we are going to be selling some of these older ones, but we've got to get them sellable. So some of them need a little bit of cosmetic work as far as seats repaired and stuff so we can get our best bang for our buck out of them. That way we can start replacing some of these fleet vehicles.

And it really is a balance game on how much do we want to spend in them and effort to them and what we're going to get back with an ROI for them. I don't know if you've seen our mechanic vehicle, but his vehicle is he's he's kept it together. We are keeping them together. But there are some of these. It is time. we've even looked at do we go with a fleet management company so we're actually looking at that too but really truly we've got to get rid of some of these old assets that were we're insuring but they're not even usable so yes yes yes and I don't know if most of Public Works they all ride together and we are definitely taking it very serious how much gas what we're what we're doing everybody you know rides together you're not seeing a waste of gas or effort but sometimes these vehicles man they just are not reliable and it really hit with this fire with all of the driving around I'm I took one of Brandon's vehicles from Kevin retiring and I was using it going around and he had a truck with driving was a blazer. It was like this ridiculous. You need the truck.

I'm I'm just so I've got I was currently driving the old 2007 Dodge Durango from the police department. And that was a battle worn vehicle.

Which is the building inspector vehicle, which that will be another conversation. So we we don't foresee anything other than the PD vehicle that's been budgeted for this year unless something happens. But there will be for next budget season once we figure with the budget, because I know that that's very important to keep it with the budget. But there is unexpected things or You know, sometimes this was a great deal, you know. Eric can probably keep this going for a long time, this vehicle. Yeah.

Okay. So I just have one more question. So the $12,849 remainder, where will that money come from?

From the vehicles that we have in there. We have several in there now. Yep.

Gotcha.

Yep.

So all of it's gonna be proceeds.

Yep, it all will be proceeds driven. Yes, as long as we can, we have enough to make that. And honestly, now people are buying those vehicles.

And they're nickel and dime us to death. Trying to keep them going.

Yeah, and that's what we've been doing.

And someone will probably buy Sam's truck. It's cold to them.

Yeah, right. You know, Sam's pretty attached to it. He's probably out there thinking of it.

All right.

Any other questions? All right, I'd like to entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with Southwest Motors Inc. Incorporated for the purchase of one 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 in the amount not to exceed $46,599. Second. We have a second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries.

Thank you, council.

You may. And we thank you guys for your hard work and just, you know, trying to cover the cost. And, you know, yeah, but we don't want you guys, you know, just working on a shoestring either.

And, you know, but this emergency woke my eyes up to a lot of a lot of things that we need.

Okay. Thank you. All right, all business item five, consider adopting second reading of ordinance number 520 26. City Clerk.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Housekeeping, again, this is a project for the fee schedule. We are establishing some fees for the liquor licensing. We've been utilizing the Colorado Department of Revenue liquor enforcement fee schedule, and we are just extracting that language and putting it in the fee schedule so nothing is changing for the applicants at this time. So this is just your statutorily required second reading of the ordinance.

Any other questions? I'd like to make a motion, please.

I'll make a motion to approve the second reading of ordinance number 5-2026, a general housekeeping and process ordinance amending chapter 5.28 of the Florence Municipal Code.

I'll second. All right, we have a second. Roll call, please.

Councilor Stone? Yes. Councilor Murgleman?

Yes.

Councilor Van Houten? Yes. Councilor Stiefel? Yes. Councilor Gardner? Yes. Councilor McKinnon? Yes. Mayor Wolf?

Yes. Okay, council reports. James.

Well, I'm sure everybody's going to echo this, but the fire crews and the cities and everything going on, just great job. Keep up the hard work.

Thank you very much. Gail. I can't remember. I think we've had a preservation meeting in between time, haven't we, Mellie? And getting a little closer to flag distributions and a couple of locations for council to approve on the preservation list and then also thank you to everyone that participated um however we did with the aspen fires whether we har harbored vehicles for those people that were evacuated because I did and I know several other people that took on extra for our evacuees. Also, I want to just asked the public and I called waste management and I also called twin environs and I said I know you guys want the trash out the night before but this is bear season and Bob, I'm calling, big old bear, uses my yard every day, every evening at 2.30, between 2.15 and 2.30, and a lot of times he has a trash bag in his mouth. He likes my yard, and I'm his dining room. And as I'm cleaning up the trash, it's not our neighborhood that he's bringing it from. Because every once in a while I find envelopes addressed to someplace else that's not our neighborhood. So I would like to encourage people to not put their trash out of evening when it's picked up the day before. We're just not put out the garbage end of it until evening. THE MORNING OF THE PICKUP. AND YEAH.

THANK YOU. LET YOU KNOW BOB'S BROTHER PICKED UP MY NEIGHBOR'S TRASH TWO NIGHTS AGO AND HAD A PARTY UNDER MY TREE IN THE FRONT YARD.

DID HE? WELL, HE BROUGHT IN PIZZA, CHICKEN, WATERMELON, 4TH OF JULY, AND HE WAS SO CONSIDERATE, I EVEN HAD PAPER PLATES.

OH, YEAH, HE'S BEEN AT MY SISTER'S LIKE THE LAST THREE DAYS WE'VE BEEN PICKING UP GARBAGE.

Well, not to be outdone with just the dinner. Chief, if you want to know where he hangs out. It's in my big cottonwood tree in my backyard. Yes. That's right. He's up. That's where you'll find Bob.

Yeah.

She's got experience. He'll he'll take care of it.

Yeah. All right, Matt. Just a massive thank you to the nearly 2,000 personnel that are working in the Aspen Acres fire and all of our local assets that have also been assisting in the outreach from the community. Everybody's been doing a fantastic job, and fingers crossed we're on the downhill slide for this fire. So thank you, everybody.

And a big thank to Matt, too, because he's been up there at the airport working hard for I don't know how many straight days here. Thank you, Matt.

Not nearly as tedious work as the firefighters.

No reports. I just also want to thank the firefighters and the community and everybody for helping out.

I don't. The other thing is just I don't know why these things happen. But being out of Pathfinder a little bit and stuff and looking around in the town, it just makes you remind you how many good people there are in the world.

Thank you. Brenda?

I have to say the same thing. I spent several days out there at Pathfinder Park and looking at the kitties and all the animals and the evacuees and this community has really rallied. Thank to the city. Everybody makes my heart proud.

I know, a bunch of us here did some intake work out there and help set up with Red Cross. This last Friday also helped with the tri city care and share program every once a month, Karen share brings food into Williamsburg, Coal Creek, Rockville area. And obviously they said, hey, we can still come. And we didn't know at that time that the evacuation would be lifted, so they decided to do it down at Pathfinder. And it was a pretty good turnout considering, you know, most people had left Pathfinder. But again, Karen Sherriff steps up. big time in this um you know obviously the red cross and everybody office of emergency management um yeah um some other things that i have done since the last meeting senior coffee has been in there um i like to thank uh laurie and the staff for putting together that emergency management work workshop for us that helped to learn, at least to give you an idea of the complexity of it all, and especially when you start to get federal resources and state resources in, and the cost of some of these resources. It was eye-opener. This morning, I sat in on the Central Front Range Transportation meeting, and the 115 project has now been not actually delayed but spread out so they're talking now two thousand thirty one maybe try to finish it up two thousand thirty six that's that big project you know we had the big open house the pathfinder and the whole bit so that two million dollars or whatever it was has been spread out over five years uh... the other day i got to go down and judge the the Bell Tower Stars and Stripes Art Show. And that was kind of fun to do that. And the other thing that I would like to say is just that, you know, again, kudos to the community, to everybody involved in the fire. I know some people were inconvenienced. Everybody knows there's some communication issues that we can improve upon. But the most important point, I think, It didn't get to Fremont County. No houses were lost in Fremont County. No houses were lost in Wetmore, and I don't think anything were lost in Greenwood. I heard one structure may have suffered minor damage. But at the same time, so we've got to be cognizant and remember that in the rest of Pueblo and Custer County, You know, they've lost 337 homes. And so those people are hurting. Nine businesses were destroyed. I heard this, 2% of all the homes in Custer County were lost in this when you take the total number that was in there. Yeah, so that's, you know, a big impact there. Yeah, we were, and I blame myself for this because I was kind of grumpy for being inconvenienced. And then I started thinking about the whole big picture. And so I think we need to also keep our neighbors to the south and to the west there in mind. If there's any way you feel led to go out and help, please do that. All right, city manager reports. City manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Did anybody have any questions on my report? I only have a few things I want to touch base on, but I want to see if you had any questions.

I was going to talk about that. I missed my last. I usually get the snoop on Thursdays in the farmer's market. But how are we budget-wise on that?

We are good. We had to do one change order, two. We got the second one for some, what is the name of what we did? We've done two. So we are within budget. We don't see any problem with that. Actually, Rudel, July 24th, mark it on the calendar. That is our scheduled.

Scheduled.

and we are going to do a grand opening. The community needs a good thing. We need something where we are excited about it. So July 24th, we're gonna do a, this is funny, a ribbon cutting for a bathroom. But it's that important. We're gonna celebrate that darn thing because we've all waited a long time and it's such a beautiful building. I went into it, what, two weeks ago and it was, and today it's, Good Lord, how fast they go at the end. So, we'll do something fun around, that opening grand opening for the bathroom who would have thought may we bring gift wrap packages of toilet paper oh that is hilarious yes we're gonna Cortland's gonna do we're gonna have donuts we want the community there this is a huge project for us and it probably will be another what 30 40 years before we can do it again so we're celebrating so July 24th which, remember that date because it's, Cortland's gonna tell you about another date, so it'll really make people happy. We're thinking 8 a.m. We don't wanna hold off too long, because we wanna open them. But we'll send out invitations and Cortland will do her thing. Yeah. Yes, John will let us know if there's any change, but be prepared around there, we're doing something.

It definitely I think our citizens will just love it love it John picked out the paint for the beams I don't know maybe we even give it a

memorial name I don't know so that'll be during farmers market right Thursday morning oh yeah it is oh they'll be even really happy we will have some fun Friday Oh, day after.

Oh, 25th, okay. Yeah.

24th. Maybe they can get it early. But they're doing a great job. It was a slow start, but, man, it looks great. The asphalt, and it'll be wonderful. The fencing we're going to add because that's kind of where we thought, ooh, we don't want, you know, people to take residency back there. So that's good news. A1 chip seal tentatively starting Friday with the gravel roads. That's some really good news too. So that'll be a project that will get started. Let's see, we did our second 81226 podcast on just communications of the Aspen fire. Our next one will be on drought. We're working on a handout to get out to people, because as you know, and Brandon's going to touch base on this a little bit with some of his reports, but Level 2, I hope the citizens are going and finding the resources that they need to understand what Level 2 means. and I'm and what we want is if citizens if you see something reported we're not saying be bad we want to educate people not so much we want compliance but we want to know if somebody maybe they don't know their watering schedule and we need to tell them and if it's us at the city making a mistake something goes off let us know 812 to six it to me and I will take care of that because we're serious about these water restrictions it will help us all so look for some communication on that maybe a handout or something Cortland did put it on Facebook that outlines it but we're gonna try to pull it together and it may be an easier to read little pamphlet yes and that is separate that is separate so if you have it yeah they are thank you that is their ditch water they have shares to do that and that is not under this restriction so um that's why if you see something eight one two two six it and i'll let you know um don't be afraid to use that i got a couple in uh today and i i shot back um some answers but that way we can educate All right, and Brandon's gonna kinda go over some of the water usage and where we are on his time. Brandy's working on some dilapidated and vacant building ordinances, so we probably will be scheduling some workshops and some things with that. She has been working hard on that. We're gonna be scheduling a manor workshop. Also, we're working hard on that backside and scheduling that. I too would like to thank all the city staff, the directors for all the work they've done, all the hours, all of the late night calls that we got from emergency management. We have worked hand in hand with them. Even before it even got close, we have been monitoring and working with Michael Krull. He has been very engaged. in training us and including us. I myself spent a lot of time at the emergency management answering phone calls while the boots on the ground were those three sitting right there and right here. So we were ensuring Florence got everything that they needed from every level. Brandon, I think you worked 24 straight hours. 38, so you didn't go to sleep, wouldn't I? so we had the water plant at 24 hours because we were protecting that valuable infrastructure his crew jumped in with no questions to do what they needed to do to provide that valuable resource so i thank you brandon i thank your leadership and you're always providing that clean drinking water and john you were at the water treatment you were driving me around, you were making lines, you were teaching us how to do those lines. And Chief, you were in the coal towns, keep doing whatever you needed for them. And Cortland was just keeping me sane and pushing out information. They were available 24 hours a day, and I don't think people realize that. top of Michael Michael's good leadership in what we needed to do even though Florence may not have been in that we were in it and I want to thank all you council that volunteered and we're we're right there with everybody I think people really need to know that the leadership of this community was right there and I appreciate it and I'm proud to be a part of it. And we learned a lot of lessons, so we will just get better. So I'm really happy about that. Each director's gonna give a little bit of something in their report that's important for them to tell you, so I will stop talking, unless you have a question for me.

Will we talk about how we communicate out to the community the level two? status because I've been asking lots and lots of people and very few people really truly know we are in level two. And you know and again it's

Go ahead. Sure.

So the level 2 communications were sent out I think last week. We were trying to be strategic. We didn't want them to get lost in all of the fire communications. We wanted them to be a little bit more impactful. So a constant contact went out. Multiple Facebook posts went out. And we did have to reschedule previously our water stewardship town hall, which we are planning on rescheduling. And like Lori mentioned, we're trying to create an infographic to be all encompassing of the data that's in the drought plan, which will also again go out on Facebook and Constant Contact. And we've also been, we established some data in the kiosk too, so just another point of information for the citizens.

And we may do some drop-offs of those info certificates that we're going to make maybe to some key areas in town, the library, the senior center, some of these.

Big Ds, something like that, yeah.

Big Ds, everything to get that out. but it's it's education and it's asking questions and it's uh sharing but we will have a town hall um brandon and myself so we need to get that scheduled sooner than later so we can give people an opportunity we had such a great one when we did the last one on the drought that i i think that's what citizens really want is to come in and have the conversation so um courtland's going to get that scheduled and we'll get that posted we would like to do it this week but it may be the beginning of next week but sooner than later okay thank you um all right brandon you want to come up and talk about

Good evening, everybody. All right, so I want to start by saying our current, the current river call date is May 1st, 1874, which puts us smack dab in middle of level two still. We've been level two for 13 straight days of the drought plan and Predictions are still that Kenyon City's hydraulic ditch is going to be making a call in the river. Now when that hydraulic ditch is called, that is our level 3 trigger. So in the near future, probably within the next few days to a week, it seems like that's going to be They're going to put that call in, so we'll be one short step away from level three. And it does not look like it's getting better right now. So that's kind of where we stand on that. I had some help today with my guy, Aaron Jackson, one of my treatment operators, helped me put together some numbers for you guys tonight. Excuse me. We wanted to show the comparison from the last three years compared to some drought years. So the years you're looking at 2002 and 2018. Now 2018 was worse off than 2002 for the first part of the year as far as snowpack and drought wise. And then 2002 was worse the last half of the year as far as water left and snow remaining and water in the river. So that's why I chose to show both 2002 and 2018. But what you're looking at, the numbers I've provided for you today, is strictly usage for Florence as a whole. Excluding Williamsburg Rockville Coal Creek and East Florence So it and bulk water Was not included in this but our citizens And and customers for the city of Florence you can see the difference in usage now 2002 being the worst year for We were really bad stewards of conserving water at that point. On the graph, that's the very blue in the back, and you could see usage was very high. The pink up in the front, that's the current year, 2026, and we have done a pretty good job so far this year of talking about conservation and whatnot. At least this is my opinion, I feel like we've done a good job of communicating to the community and talking about conservation and letting them know because looking at the numbers compared to even the last two years, 25 and 24, we're even better off. And looking at 2002, kind of makes sense in a in a dry drought year it's so hot and dry even though people are restricted you know like watering instead of seven days a week watering three days a week inside of their window from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. they think okay well this is my window I better water now they end up watering more and their total usage that week ends up being more than what they would have if they just watered normal seven days a week That's my theory, my understanding of it, because I catch myself doing the same thing at my house. So regardless, I think, I think we're doing a pretty good job this year. So any question on the numbers?

So if you wanna look at year over year, just 25 and 26, in May, there was a 11% increase in water usage. And Brandon, this is the one that I did that was just simple in comparison to yours. And then June, it went down to a 3% increase, but it's still those two months is 7% increase of water usage. So there is some work to be done that needs to be done. But compared to that 2002, we really have an opportunity to make some impact.

Correct. Yes, but Strictly looking at at May from from this year to May of last year And 24 as well as 18 Still pretty high But June kind of shows we kind of got it back in check and we're right around June of last year. So again, I I credit that to these two ladies and pushing the information and getting it out to the public and really communicating conservation efforts.

Do you see any type of treatment capacity issues at all if we maintain this level through the summer?

No.

Okay.

This last week and a half was a little rough with firefighting water being produced and on top of our normal usage. So July is going to have some higher numbers, but a lot of that's due to the fire. There was times where we were running the plant at... As far as I could push our one side, you all have seen the plant. You all know we have a two sides to DAF and flock trains. Our plant is a 6 million gallon day plant and we normally only run one flock train and DAF train and we switch them monthly. Well, I pushed the one side we were running to the max and we were producing about 3.2 million gallons that day. Well, In a 24-hour period, if running the GPM we did, we would have produced 3.2 million gallons when it should only be 3 million gallons through that one side per day. So we were pushing it hard to keep our tanks full and to provide enough firefighting usage and dust suppression for the helicopters and whatnot up at the airport.

Yeah, good fun. And some of our customers, too, making sure their tanks were full. That was another one. And something interesting, and I think you guys know this, but I'm just going to share it, is that Brandon, they made the... treatment plant ability to have those two. We don't use that, but it was built for growth. So Brandon went in there and he has got everything ready for the future. He has, there was some, because it was so long ago, nobody thought about it, but Brandon went in and some of his long shifts and his well-trained operators, it is ready to go full capacity. So we could produce all of that. Our storage is full. Our partners are full. We have water. Somebody said we didn't, but we do. But we're in a drought. But we have the water to support the fire suppression, and we have been. So I'm very proud. what you guys did at that treatment plant not only to protect it but to take that other side which is uncharted territory during an emergency crisis you guys stepped in and got it ready so if we did have to go to open that and do that it would nobody would have noticed Florence would have had no issues and honestly the best part of that is turn it on your water you know just turn your water on Florence citizens because our treatment plant has everything ready for you so I'm very proud of that and it wasn't easy because that was some technology from a long time ago and they had to redo it just that quick to get it going because of that 3.2 million pushing it thinking we've got to get that open because they need it

Yeah, it was a little nerve-wracking going. So since I started in 2010, I do not recall running both Flock and DAF trains at all. I know there's the capability because it's a six million gallon day plant. But we got on the phone with our Talos who does our SCADA stuff. They were able to look at the programming and the ladder logic, make some changes. And we did a trial run this morning. We fired up both sides and ran them. and it is literally the flick of a switch and we're able to turn that other side on now and for it to go smoothly and run the plant up to six million gallons a day. So we didn't crank it up that high today, but we successfully ran both sides and have that ability. So it's practiced now, we can say we've done it and we're ready to do it if the need comes.

And what a beautiful thing what besides the fire and the need for it for that for growth and development. We have this wonderful plant that can produce 6 million gallons.

And actually, our engineer, Richard Sexton, when they were doing the design of this plant, he set it up to blow out two walls of the plant and hook to existing infrastructure pipes and add another flock and DAF train and two more filters for the ability to make it a 9 million nine million gallons a day plant for just some smaller additions rather than a whole new treatment plant just hooking on to the existing infrastructure. All right, very good.

And please don't anybody think I say growth to anything specific other than excited about we have a very, very state-of-the-art treatment plant.

Yes. We're ready for it when it comes. Okay.

All right, thank you.

I got two questions. Yeah. Does it bother you when you look over the bridge and see the river?

Yeah, it scares me a little bit. I'll admit.

I had no idea how low that river was until Sunday. I had an opportunity to go up the river.

I don't think I've ever seen it this low. Never has been.

There were four or five-year-old kids walking across the river down there at that park.

I look at it everywhere I can not only just the bridges here in town or on McKinsey. But I've walked a little bit of it. And there's new islands popping up that I've never seen. I mean, usually underwater.

My other question is, that burns car. Is that in any of our watershed?

Yeah, that's in the Arkansas River Basin. I mean, but that come into our it's going to be downstream from us.

It'll be downstream. Yeah. It's going to be a mess. Whoever's getting that water in there.

Our main intake structure is just this side of McKenzie, which is the head gate to the Miniqua Canal. And that's where we pull our Union Ditch Arkansas River water out of the Miniqua Canal. And that'll be Further, if and when that runoff from that burn scar hits, it should be downstream. I don't think there's any chance of it making it down Oak Creek, which I think might even still be downstream of the head gate for the Miniqua canal. So.

That's about as big a blessing in the second chapter.

Absolutely. Because with fire retardant, that's why we have to do all this PFAS testing right now. Because it's everywhere and it's very prevalent. And fire retardant, the whole Peterson Air Force Base was all that firefighting, fire suppression stuff. that that was using that PFAS soaked in everywhere and yeah big deals with chemicals so I'd imagine yeah yeah thank you of course any other questions no all right thank you anything else from Public Works

Okay, any other questions here at all?

I think Chief wants to go over one thing in his report.

council I've added in there the traffic data collector that I would like to purchase and basically you know wanted to come in a city manager that brought something up as far as a flock because it's not a camera it's not a camera all it is it's a box where you see there and it collects traffic data speeding everything and I attached all the graphs to it and the city manager and I are getting a lot of calls and complaints about speeders and all that. And when officers get there, they got marked cars. Obviously they're not gonna speed. So with this, it's portable. I can put it up anywhere and leave it for a week. It's on its own battery and the data does not go into a cloud. It goes, stays in that system and it downloads Bluetooth onto my phone or to the laptop in my, it doesn't go anywhere else, it's our data, and so then I can take it back and show the officers this certain amount of time, this day, they're speeders, so we need to come, and that's, I think that would be good for the whole city, I can use it anywhere, and it's like I said, it's portable. It is not a flock camera. It does not take any pictures. It has a radar. So if you guys see that radar trailer, that speed trailer I had, it's the exact same thing. Just the speed trailer does the, you can see your speed. This one here will collect the data, how many cars, who's been speeding, what, it doesn't take any pictures at all. And it doesn't go to the cloud.

Like, flock and...

Correct. Correct. Correct. So, yeah.

And part of us to determine some speed limits within our streets, we need data to support that. Unfortunately, I can't just say, ooh, everything's 15 miles an hour because people can't slow down. Oh, I need data to produce that. That's a state statute. dan we've been really working with dan and he's probably very proud of me for saying this is that we need the data to support it to make it and change it so this is step one so we can have the data and make good decisions that we can support and then make the changes based on that for stop signs. This is stop signs and all kinds of stuff, which I will tell you, a lot of my 81226 is about speeders. I really wish people would understand it's a city, 25 miles, 20 miles in a school zone, but we've gotta do something.

Is there something that's gotta come to council?

No, it is within our spending authority. I just wanted to make sure we talked about it. So people don't get nervous about the flock or we're doing that we're just we need data. And this is a way to get it and I want to talk about it. Oh, he was ready. And he's right. He came in, he goes, I would like to order this. And I said, Ah, people are going to think it's flock and it's not. So I wanted to talk about it and be transparent.

No camera. Come live on East Main for a while. Cameras are no problem at all. Anything else?

Just Cortland.

Thank you, Council. Just wanted to formally announce that the pool will be closing on August 11th. I'm sure you guys are all aware that 98% of the staff is 18 or under. So they will all be going back to football camps, band camps, volleyball camps, school. So we are anticipating an August 11th closure. And that will give us plenty of time to prep the facility for the renovations that will be happening on the 24th. I also wanted to let you know that the America's Parade Committee approached me today. They will be modifying their event plan, emergency plan, dates, all of the information, and that will represent itself at the July 20th council meeting for approval. So they're looking at August 1st, Colorado's birthday, to kind of continue the celebration. So any questions on that?

All right. All right. Any desire for an executive session at all? Hearing none, do we have a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Adjourned at 731. Thank you, everyone. And reminder, we're back here in a week. On the 20th.

Yes, we are.

Back here in a week.

Yeah, better be like a signed jersey or something.