City Council - workshop

How are you, sir? Good, how are you?

Morning.

You bet.

It's my morning, anyway.

Did you work last night?

No. I just was out hunting all day and starting my day now. Did you bag anything yet? No, I'm still in that picking stage. I still got two weeks. No, you're good then. You're good then. I think so. Anything that looks weird. It is. You can go home and you're going to sit there for 10 minutes.

I'll get the chance to do it while you guys are here. I'm turning off all the live chat features. So, like, people can't do reactions or comments and stuff. If there's anything that the government entity has been kind of, like, commenting on, I don't want to read that stuff. It's also related, so then I don't want to be the one to have to go through. I already have to go through and get emails and stuff. You don't have headphones. There are ways around this. I don't want to be like...

Hey, how are you?

Morning.

I'm glad it's not morning.

It was a Monday and a half today.

I know, I was thinking it was Monday.

I always hate the Tuesdays after a Monday holiday.

I'm forgetting I had this tonight. So you see that microphone? Yeah, it's on for Labor Day.

No, I labored for about... Yeah. Are your feet dry? Are your feet dry? Yeah. Well, they're going to be sticky when you put socks on. They're not going to be sticky. Which is your left one?

That's my right one.

These ones are a little hard too. Yeah. Well, you're all sticky. Sticky. We'll see you tomorrow. Yeah.

Did a great job. Tommy was there too. Take a picture. Yeah, she was there. I was there. City representation.

Two former mayors as well. Like Steve. Yes. He was there on the board. He's still on the board.

Oh, is he? Oh, good.

Yeah, he's still on there. So I knew there was going to be plenty of sitting people. Yeah. But I didn't even bother because I knew that. I'm like, oh, they're all different.

All right. I'll break for Pat and Michael. Never mind. Sorry. Talk amongst yourselves.

Wanted to get one of his shirts.

Yeah.

Never has my size. I bought it off a truck at the Harbin County Fair and Rodeo. Came to a couple events here at the center. What is that? I think he makes them himself.

Hales. I like them. Okay, let's go ahead and get started with tonight. While a couple items are using pretty intense in the sense of patient. So any meeting follow up from last week from our business meeting? Questions? Okay, so I'm just going to jump right into the repeal. City manager.

Good evening, Council. So we have your esteemed staff from the building division of the Community Development Department here tonight. and I didn't think Director Becker was gonna kick us off. but we're excited to talk to you about some revisions to Title 15. Just before they start, I know they're gonna tell you this, but I wanted to applaud their efforts to pull together what I think is a very succinct and very easy to understand presentation about the changes that you'll be looking at, and also wanted to acknowledge that they did some preemptive outreach to the building community, to your contractors, and hosted a meeting here at City Hall about a week and a half ago seemed well attended and what they're gonna talk to you about tonight was shared with that community and was well received by them. I was present for that meeting as well. So I think they've done a great job and they're looking forward to hearing your feedback on these proposed changes. Justin.

Hello again, it's been a while.

Mayor and his counselors, I'm Justin Scott, Chief Building Official for the City of Casper. We have Deputy Chief Kevin Ross and then we have Deputy Building Official Sean Barrett. So yeah, I put together a little presentation here for you. What we are proposing is a repeal and replacement of Chapter 15, which is buildings and construction. And this is primarily because. It's kind of an outdated. Title and it's it's. In its current form is less to be desired. It's difficult to follow. When it's outdated.

So. Laptop.

We started some of the key changes that we are proposing. We reorganized the chapter so it it flows better. You all should have a copy of this PowerPoint. Also case some of this is a little bit difficult to read on the screens. We reorganize it so it flows better. So for example, the current title has the international building code, international residential code, then it'll jump to like plumbing, building permits. So we reorganize it so it goes through all of the codes, then gets into building permits, and then gets into contractor licensing, and then payment of interest building. So it just flows better. It's easier for contractors, the general public to follow. There's also several grammatical and spelling errors in the current title that we've tried to go through and catch and correct. We've deleted several sections that are no longer applicable. We've added or expanded on some sections pertaining to renewable energy systems. We've added some additional subcontractor and contractor license classifications that have been requested from the contractor. One of the biggies where we are proposing that we would like to add continuing education. For the contractor license categories. We've added a whole new section which Chief Ross will get into related to. Fire protection and alarm systems as far as licensing and permitting those. We are currently in the 1988 of the Uniform Code for the abatement of dangerous buildings. And we would like to adopt the most current version, which is. 1997. And then there is a plan review fee update proposal as well.

There we go.

So as I mentioned, chapter organization like I already went through that. Basically, we're just making it flow better, so it's it reads. Uh, better, it's easier to follow. And I don't know if Mr city attorney did, did we get them a red line and, uh.

So they don't have the actual for mayor counsel. We're still wordsmithing a few sections of this, uh, rewrite. I think substantively, uh, what you'll hear tonight is is correct. There won't be changes very much substantively. Uh, but no, we have not finished.

Kind of review, and so if this moves forward, then obviously get that before the so I was going to say that most of the changes you'll see artistry number really did not add anything to what is currently adopted. If anything, we other than the fire side of things. If anything, we've taken stuff out of it, so it's a more refined version of what we currently have in place. So deleted sections are primarily with the National Electrical Code. We've deleted this. The numbers on this PowerPoint are going to reflect what the new number is. But we've done in in the existing title. We've deleted 15.28.215. Which is the GFC outlets requirement across spaces 15.28.30, which is a disconnect section. 15.28.360 which is an electrical fences requirement that is captured in another section of the ordinance, so that is not needed. 15.28.420 which is a nail plate requirement. 15.32.120 which is a permitting requirement. And 15.08.060 which is just an outdated. code that actually. Became Nolan Boyd in 2007, so. Those are the sections that have been pulled from the current code that is in place, and like I said, those are all but one are we're out of the National Electrical.

Yeah, go ahead. You want questions so as you going through. You could do your whole.

If you can save him to the end, Q&A kind of section at the very end of it. Unless you want to ask him now. I mean, either way, however, Council wants to proceed.

Council, you want to wait till the end for Q&As?

OK. And then we also removed some license classifications just because they are null and void. I mean, no one ever applies for them anymore and they're captured via. Those will be. captured via a master plumber license, so there's really no need to have them in there. So solar and wind energy, the big change here is it takes a lot of our time. So for example, a residential solar installation can take up to a week for one of our plans examiners to review. And right now we are not being compensated for that time we're putting into the plan review, so We are creating a solar permit and solar plan reviews for those permits. So I'll plan your feet for that. So that was the big addition to the solar and wind energy section. Some of the additional license classifications that we are proposing is a cellular communications contractor. And the reason for this is currently when a cell company wants to put up a new tower, They have to hire a licensed electrical contractor and a licensed general contractor. And in all reality, a licensed electrical contractor could handle this. So we're going to create a cellular communications contractor who. The sole purpose will be just cell towers and sell equipment so they'll be able to. Permit to install the tower and do all of the low voltage electrical work that's associated with that under one license. We've had a lot of inquiries about concrete, whether it's foundation or flat work. So I'm proposing that we create two licenses for that one is a flat work contractor where all they can do is sidewalks, driveways, patios. Any general concrete contractor they can do anything structural, including flat work. So it would be foundations. Monolithic slabs. Hayes on sidewalks, driveways, anything. Framing contractor is just what it says framing. They would be allowed to frame both residential and commercial. That's wood and steel. Insulation is insulation and drywall would be drywall. The purpose for this is. We few years ago I think it was 2023. We created a light in the class for a handyman license which. Really, I think we have probably three guys that have obtained that license, but for the most part, the general contractors that are doing. The building they would they want to have license framing, installation and drywall contractors so they can hire and these guys also want to get licensed so that they can start. Getting experience in the construction trade and working their way into a class 3 class 2 and class 1. It was just a stepping stone and safeguards for general contractor community and for the general public. So continuing education, that's going to be the big one. And the reason we are wanting to propose this is. Contractors are professionals, they. In all reality, other professionals out there and any other professional doesn't matter whether their doctor, lawyer, dental hygienist, an attorney. They're all required to have continuing education to maintain their licensure, so. The states around us also serve Colorado, South Dakota, Utah, Idaho. They all require giving education, so I just think that it would be in not only the contracting communities benches best interest, but the general public are just ensuring that. Our citizens are hiring qualified and professional individuals, so. The reason for this is strictly that it's just to make sure that the contractors that are getting licensed with us are maintaining their education. They're up to date on standard practices and current code cycles. And the what we're proposing is going to be 4L for hours. And I have a. Little pie graph here. It breaks down the states around us, so we have Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah. City of Casper what we're proposing and then with the state of Wyoming requires for electrical contractors. So if you break it down, we go from the gold so it's clockwise. You have Idaho is 16 hours every three years. Montana is 4 hours every every year. Colorado is 8 hours every two years. Nebraska is 10 10 hours annually, South Dakota. 4 hours annually, Utah 12 hours every two years. We are proposing the four, then the state of Wyoming requires 16 hours every three years for electricians. So with that four hours we're coming in at the bare minimum. So that's four hours annually. Three new license. So, we're now into Emily chief Ross step in here to kind of go over the additions for the fire protection permits and inspections and like.

Mayor council members, so what we're proposing is to essentially mimic.

What the apartment has already done for several years just to our contractors specifically. contractors, fire alarm, hood suppression, heating and fire extinguishing companies. This is new for us, but it's not new for the region. Cheyenne has adopted something similar last year, and then numerous cities that are comps to us have also adopted this in other areas. The permit and fee side is also going to be new for us. The proposed the structure that I'll present to you guys once complete is going to be based on our cost recovery model. So keeping kind of with industry standards and then it's going to be an accurate reflection of what time we put into these construction projects. Again, very similar to what the building department already does just for us. All of our license classifications, experience, continuing education, all that would be the same as what's going to be with the building side of things.

Alright, so moving on. Like I said earlier, we are currently under the 1988 edition of the Uniform Code. Debatement of dangerous buildings. This is simply just adopting the most current version of it with some local amendments that would help us. Recoup some of our costs that are with these buildings up front. So currently, under the 88 edition, we are not allowed to recoup any costs until we record a notice and order on the property, which is after we send out notice and orders and secure the property. So the amendments to this would essentially allow us to bill for demand hours involved with securing the building and posting it. along with all the other steps with abating the nuisance. And these are just, we'll probably get into these when we sit down with you with our dangerous buildings presentation. I think we're doing that in October. But since we have started this program back up in 2023, we have effectively addressed 22 dangerous buildings within the city of Casper. 14 of those properties have been successfully resolved. Nine structures have been removed through demolition. Six of those have been renovated and returned to productive use. All in total, we have spent city has spent roughly $57,000. With these buildings and we have recouped 29,000, we currently have five active cases that we are working So the other big change that I am proposing revolves around our fee for planning our planning fee schedule. Currently, the city of Casper has a $280 plan to be a fee for new single family residence construction. And 65%. Time to be a fee which is based off of the building permit fee, so it'd be 65% of whatever the building permit fee ends up being. And that is assessed on all projects that are $25,000 or higher. And I'll have some bar graphs coming up to kind of reflect this. The City of Casper's residential permit fees are amongst the lowest in the state. Commercial permit fees, on the other hand, are the highest in the state. As I mentioned, the following slides will reflect this, but I am proposing that we implement a 40% building permit plan review feet across the board. So it'd be residential and commercial. And will pertain to projects that are $25,000 and over. And the reason why the $25,000 comes into place is because that's a $25,000 project is a more substantial project. It involves a plan review. So it takes more of our time to review. So as we get into some of these bar graphs, this this bar graph here is a reflection of what? So FY 25. The reason we have FY 25 up here is because that was our highest grossing. Revenue year to date. So if we if we The baseline of 25 is our highest. We try to get a ballpark of where our fees should be. So in 2025 or commercial planning fees, and this is just the planning fees. This does not include building permit fees. Was 194 roughly $195,000. Residentially we brought in 19,000. So with a 40% increment across the board. That will then shift. to $119,000 roughly for commercial and $107,000 for residential. And in general, when you break down the 65% to the 40% for FY25, you've seen an increase in about $12,000. So that's about as net zero as I could get with doing a manipulation of the plan review fee schedule. So this is a municipality residential plan review fee comparison. So in this, we have the city of Casper. We have Natrona County and town of Evansville. So the county inspects the town of Evansville, which is why those two are together. We have the city of Mills, Cheyenne, Laramie, Sheridan, Cody. And you'll notice that The Toronto County and the city of Sheridan show a zero there. That is because they don't have a plan view feet. They just have a flat rate permit fee. So I can't compare apples to apples there. But as you can see, city of Casper, the gold and silver represent what our current plan review fee is to what the proposed would be. And then your darker colors are the total permit fee, so that includes the building permit and plan review. So as you can see city at Casper right there, when you start comparing us to the city of Mills, Cheyenne, Laramie. And Cody, we are. Amongst the lowest. And then when you look at total permit fee. We are the lowest as far as our permit fees are. With a. Implementation of a 40% permit fee. Or sorry, plan of your feet. We would still be amongst the lowest in the state that will bring us back up to the medium of where we should be with the rest of the cities. And as you can see, we're still over the North North County of Evans and Evansville and comparable to Mills. Next slide is going to show the commercial plan review fee, which same breakdown. Gold is our current plan review fee. Silver is the proposed. Your lighter Gray and then dark Gray would be your total permit fee current and then total permit fee proposed. So as you can see, once again we are highest in the state for pioneer view fees commercially. And our total permit fee currently is highest in state. Proposed 40% would bring us down below everybody, but Cody. Total permit fee would bring us closer to the median statewide. And that is based off a $20 million project. And then the residential was based off of $450,000. Residential house, which is kind of the median where we're at So when you start comparing permit fees, which would be a total permit fee. Municipality for residential permits. City of Casper. Currently is the lowest. Proposed with the 40% per plan review fee. We'd be right there in the middle with the rest of the state. It's about an $800 increase in a total permit fee. partially once again $20,000,000 project currently total permit. Fee city of Casper on a $20,000,000 project to be $185,000. With a 40% reduction in or sorry 40% per plan review fee. That drop roughly $34,000, so it's pretty substantial in the commercial world. As far as whether a project will happen or not. when you're talking $35,000 that they could use elsewhere in the project. So with that, I think, I hope that explained the planning review breakdown a little bit. We can always go back to a slide if we need to. We're to the question segment. We have Sean Barrett, like I said, Deputy Building Official, Chief Electrical Inspector, Chief Ross up here, and then myself. Answer any questions you may have.

So let's open it up.

Scott questions start with you, Pat.

So. Number one, how many this meeting that you had with the contractors, current contractors, how many people actually showed up?

So we had 22 contractors. They range from general contract. Mechanical contractors to architects. Fire suppression contractors.

In 22 different companies represented represented. Any plumbing?

There was a mechanical contractor that wasn't a plumbing contract.

So.

Changes to. Several sections throughout the chapter to ensure consistency. The adopted codes. In so when you're looking at the 2026. Electrical codes or. How that was put the 2026 any? Um? So on. In in that I just. Want to be assured taken out? Fire suppression systems out of residential.

Sprinkler systems. So yeah, that that actually falls in the International Residential Code that has been amended out. So there were no changes to any of the existing or any of the icons. It only changed to the codes itself or the adoption of the 2026 NEC, which is because the state of Wyoming adopted that in July and by statute we are required to adopt it within six months. So the only code adoption change whatsoever was the adoption from 2023 NEC to 2026. All other amendments that were in place are still in place and no new ones have been added. So yes, the fire suppression has and will remain amended out unless the state of Wyoming requires that we amend it back in.

And then. On one of these slides, I think it was 7. Park packet that. You mentioned something about. The way I took it was GFI's in an attic or I might pardon GFCI protection in a crawl space. Why would you need? Any electrical down there unless you've got a furnace, so be.

Why would you? You don't need electrical in a crawl space unless you have appliances now. So if you have a furnace, water heater, dehumidifier, ventilation system, technically do not need electrolyte crawl space. But the National Electrical Code has finally caught up to the city of Casper and now requires GFCI protection down there if you do have power. So there's no need to have that local amendment in there anymore. That's why that was pulled out.

So it's deleted. It's not put back in.

So yeah, we did not leave it in there. We took it out because it is covered by the National Electrical Code now.

And then turning to. The solar and wind. So is this? And in this section, is it strictly on residential or does go all the way if somebody wanted to come in within the city limits with a solar farm. Is that what we're talking about or is this residential income?

So it doesn't, the state of Wyoming regulates what you can and can't have solar wise. The implementation of this section is merely permitting and plan review all of those permits and plans. So what this does is it gives us the ability to require a separate permit for it. And establish a plan review fee and inspection schedule. So it it doesn't allow or disallow solar residentially or commercially. It's mainly just a permitting and inspection and review. Process we've added.

So when Mr Johnson. On city works. Put all those in Atrium Plaza. Put all of those solar panels. There's no code. Many know any standard.

So we we permitted them as just a normal electrical permit. But this is creating a solar permit and inspection and. Element to the. the renewable energy section. So they were permitted and inspected and they had to meet international building code requirements and national electrical code requirements. But this is merely just permitting inspection and plan review processes that are added to the code.

Thank you. So additional license classifications. So currently any of our concrete contractors, whether it's flat work or general. Contracting. They're not currently licensed. They're not required to be. And are you? I don't want to say this. Incorrect. So with the continuing education for. For credit hours, whatever that might be for an installation contractor. And a. Flat work contractor. Those requirements would be in place, correct?

Yeah, would be. Across the board for all contractors and that can be So manufacturers put on presentations for a lot of their new products. General contractors, contractors can go to those or view them and they actually get certification showing that they completed those courses. The Wyoming Conference of Building Officials putting on several classes statewide throughout the year, hoping to get contractors attending them for code review code updates. Product updates. International Code Council get on that website and they offer numerous amounts of trainings. And any other? There are several other. Programs other kind like ICC that offer trainings. We're not going to regulate where they have to go to get it. We're just going to require some sort of documentation. They took some sort. of continuing education throughout the year related to their field.

So I have a hard time with that, Mayor.

I don't. I don't agree. And some of this I agree, but on that I think it's a step too far, especially with. So few of contractors, especially in the concrete business. So did any of those kind of contractors show up?

So we did not have any installation strictly or concrete strictly. We have general contractors. Sure. And keep in mind this is 4 hours in a year, so half a day. 365 days is power required for asking.

And Cheyenne requires this all of these.

The state of Wyoming requires all electrical contractors to have continuing education.

I get that.

Cheyenne, nobody in the state of Wyoming currently requires other trades to have continuing education at all. We are hoping to be the first, and I think if we are the first statewide, they'll start to follow.

My well statement, so my my belief is. I've worked with. Several of the flat general. Concrete guys in I just can't imagine. I don't think they'll leave leave town. I didn't good luck. I just don't want to regulate our contractors out of business so we have nobody left to do the work but it just seems that way in some of this so I'm the continuing education and I'm well aware that some of these guys do go to sessions right here in town or they'll like mechanical guys, HVAC, train will put a seminar on down in Denver or Fort Collins, and they'll take the time, you know, but an electrical, I get it, but the rest of the trades, I'm not in agreement with. So on the continuing education hours, Only the state of Wyoming requires the 16 hours on electrical, correct? Anything else they require?

Currently, the state of Wyoming only regulates electrical contract. I brought the slide up again for you case look at it. This is region wide. But all the other surrounding states require an. The proposed four hours, like I said, is the minimum. It'd be less or equal to everyone else around us. And the other states around us don't just regulate electrical. They are, across the board, general, plumbing, mechanical, and electrical, as far as these requirements go.

And we would be the first.

In the state of Wyoming, correct.

Yes, sir. And and you think that's OK.

Yes, I do. Strictly because I am looking at protecting in the public. By ensuring that. The contractors that are out there. There's scouring of work or getting work from the general public. I want to make sure that they are up to date on practices, codes and requirements, not only. state requirements, but in the CASPER requirements. And the best way to do that is by ensuring that they are annually educating themselves and making sure that they're up to date on everything that is new.

Oh, yeah, one more, and then I'm going to go right ahead.

Mine's on this topic, if we, before we move on to fire, if that's cool. Okay. Justin, can you talk a little bit more, because I'm interested That's not a question. I'm interested from your perspective to highlight what you see is the need a little bit more for this. I'm in favor of it if you feel like there's a need. So I'd be interested because I have heard from a number of constituents over the years about work that's been done for them that they're unhappy with. And in most cases, I feel like we've been able to do very little for them or I've been able to do very little for them. But I have only seen, you know, the folks who have raised it to my attention. So I just coming through your office, what types of things are you seeing that have elevated this to your attention to elevate it to our attention?

So this, in our office, we have talked about this for 15 years. I'm just the one that's finally bringing it forward. But what we see is we have a contractor that will come in and get licensed, or we have contractors that got licensed 30 years ago. They pay The renewal fee over here. When you ask him or you're out in the field and you have an issue with him or have code violation, he pointed out and they argue with you. You say, well, get your code book. Did they even have a code book? No. So. The point of this is making sure that they stay up. On their education. They're not just getting licensed 30 years ago using that license and never learning anything else, right? And I realize. Construction, yeah, it's pretty much the same thing over and over, but there are new advancements. There are new every three years codes are adopted. New codes are adopted. By the state of Wyoming, which means that municipalities have to do the same thing so contractors should be aware of those changes and the best way to do that is through continuing education. So it would help. With that aspect of it, where contractors are getting license and then never doing anything but paying a fee. It would help ensure the customers are getting most up to date. Craftsmanship. And it would help us make sure that individuals are out there working or actually doing. But they're supposed to be doing hopefully. That answer your question, counselor. I think so.

And maybe how I'll frame it too is, and I'm just going to use my personal example, you know, mental health is regulated the same way. And I know there's a lot of different, but I'll speak from my perspective, is that there is, we have to, every three years, we have to take, we have to have so many CEUs based upon different areas. So if we're going to understand, you know, some mental health practices or some things like that, it helps us stay on top of it. And I kind of see it the same way. And And to me, I think it protects the broader community. And in bringing it back to contractors in this, I think this protects the broader community. Do us therapists like having to do 70 hours of CEUs all the time? No, but we also know that we need to hit areas in suicide prevention. We need to hit areas in grief. We need to hit all these areas to keep us up to date in the education. And to me, four hours a year is not an imposition on anybody, in my opinion, when we have to do 75. You have your hand up. I thought you did me. Yeah, I thought you put your hand.

No, but I'll go with a thought that I had in my head with this. So if around monitoring their training that they're going to be getting at those hours, you said as soon did I hear you right when you said as soon as they can just prove that they took some kind of training to you in their field. right? So how does? How do we go about knowing that they actually got updated on new codes or new developments that are happening? You know when we're not regulating what kind of training they're having? Do you know what I'm saying?

So they will be required to provide a certification. I mean, they can't just have write something that says I took this and took 4 hours. So we'll have to provide a see you. Cert or a manufacturer's successful completion of a course. Those generally have a .6 or .4. .8 or whatever the to see you value was, and then I'll just have to add up to four, so they will have to provide physical documentation that they actually took it at the time of renewal. But as of right now, we're not going to say you have to have it all through ICC. Or through WCBO. Or a certain organization, we're going to give them the option to go out there and find. is going to work for them.

Okay.

And then submit that to us.

So not knowing like what there was for options out there, but saying that it needs to come from a certified person, right? Or business or manufacturer. Correct.

Okay.

So I'm going to go to Amber and I'll go back to PAX. I know Pat has something as well. So go ahead.

Justin, was there any feedback from the meeting around this topic specifically from contractors?

I mean, you, you get your, Oh, I don't want to do that type response, but, There wasn't any negative feedback like I'm not going to do that. In fact, several of them came up and said we already do that anyway, so it's really not going to be an imposition to us. I mean, they're already going out there. They're already getting continuing education. This is strictly for some of. The guys that are just out there. Advertising and getting work. They're not truly the professionals. So the professional contractors out

So if if. I was a plumber. And I'm probably a two person operation and my wife is doing the books. And I'm out in the field and I've renewed for 30 years. but I'm still in business. I doubt they'd be in business very long if they did a bunch of shoddy workmanship and when the building inspector comes to check the different, whether it's framing, electrical, plumbing, you know, going along, I don't think they'd be in business With or without additional. Training. Do you see a lot of? Those kind of issues with. Guys have been business 1520 years.

Yeah, there's still issues with them. Just not knowing what the current code says, so codes may change and we will go out and inspect and it will change from the last time we saw them. So yeah, there is that element. where continuing education could help them.

There's a key word, could. So I'm done with that section. On to fire.

Kyle, I know you had your hand up.

And then I got Brandy after that too.

Thanks, Justin and Kevin. Appreciate all the information. My question is actually in regards to the permit fee, residential versus commercial. I was totally understanding the logic of all that. I appreciate all the comparisons to the other municipalities around the state. So I'm following the logic. One of the things that I try to be mindful of sitting in this seat, something I've been witness to multiple times with the votes I've cast is kind of the unintended consequences of some of the decisions we make. And so my question is, I guess it's a two part question. Number one, have you heard from contractors either about the my guess is you don't have anyone bringing to your attention that residential permit fees are too low, but as anybody brought your to your attention that commercial permit fees are too high and or do you expect to see? Do you expect those proposed changes to incentivize any sort of commercial development? You know you mentioned it could be up to 30 $40,000 in a project. Do you do you expect it to spur kind of commercial development in that regard? And uh, what impact, if any, on residential development if they're kind of making up the difference.

So let me see if I can.

Try to pull up a. Spreadsheet for years. Thanks for the question.

Counselor, I promise it was two party. I think it was like three or four. It got a little unwieldy there. Apologies.

I'm used to having two big screens, so trying to keep this on.

So here this is spreadsheet I create.

Created to.

To come up with this 40% so. Am I at? That's commercial. So if you look at. This section here we have. Can you see my mouse kind of? It's going really slow on the TV, so we have 2025 calendar year residential planning views fees. And then 2025. Plenty fees, so that would be 40% on all projects over. $25,000. So if you look at this spreadsheet, scroll down.

$280.

Is for new single family homes. Period, that's all. That's the only plan review fee we charge on the residential permits. So we had 70 permits that we assess that value on. You can apply the 40% to all permits over over $25,000. And you can kind of see some of these numbers. Your plan review fee would be $230, 158, 208. Some of the really large projects are over $100,000, might be $500 for a plan review fee. So it's really not. I mean $100, $200. Yeah, it's it's a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things, when you're talking to $50,000 project. It's really. Not that much, so you can just see that the number of permits that we would capture. By adding that 40%. That's where the big difference is coming from. It's not shared numbers in the dollar amount. It's the number of permits that we were able to capture a fee that we are not getting compensated for current. So we are still doing plan review fees on the or plan reviews on these. We're just not getting compensated our time to look at. So as far as the residential, does that help answer that question? Your residential side of it?

Yeah, I think so.

OK, and then.

Yeah, here. Go back to PowerPoint.

So then on the commercial side, I do think this will. Increase more commercial permit activity, not so much on the major projects, because when you're talking $20,000,000. $20,000 is a drop. the bucket. But when you're talking some of these smaller projects that are only a $200,000 project, that can be $6,000, $7,000 that might help pay for fire suppression or something else that will be required by a code updater or something, depending on the building. So I do think that the reduction in fee on the commercial side will definitely help impact some more commercial activity. That's the hope. Is it kind of even it out so we're all on the same playing field? So that. Right now, commercial is. Bridging the gap. For residential and it needs to just be evened out. In my opinion, it's work or more towards the midline for the rest of state.

Thank you.

Brandy.

You said only three people have gotten the handyman licenses

I can tell you exactly how many. Pretty difficult to get, in my opinion. Even if you've got a journeyman's electrical.

So that the handyman license is a 35 question test. It is basically over. Questions that I hadn't mentioned, no. It's. Window sizes, how I would use window needs to be off the floor with the windows. I needs to be. Municipal code questions like whether you need a permit or not. So it it is not nearly as difficult to test as a Class 3, which is your entry level general contractor or a Class 2. Which is multifamily or commercial or the Class 1, You can build a hospital. So. Yes, it does have some mechanical, electrical and plumbing questions on it, but that's more geared toward replacing a toilet, replacing light fixtures, grill size requirements, things like that. So class four and you were at one. You know how many there were. So there are actually four. They have four that are currently licensed with this.

The reason we did that was to protect the average Joe like myself that just randomly called the guy. I saw the truck who came and did my drywall and after the fact was like, well, you know. You didn't get permit, so it's fine. Like they're not gonna look and I was a cool anyways, I digress. So this will actually require. As a homeowner, all I now have to say is do you have a license with the city? And then I know you can at least answer 35 questions and pass some sort of test that says he actually knows what he's doing. But I am still going to need to say, hey, are you licensed? Yes, but like that's the big part, like the whole thing. Reason we started this with the smaller thing was to make sure that I didn't hire somebody with my qualifications to change my toilet, which by the way I can do me too. Unless you're coming to check anyway. So still kind of the same basis. We're just trying to protect. Me. From hiring the cheap guy. Runs off with your money. He may or may not actually know what he's doing and know the difference between the crimpy thing for the plexiglass pipe that actually has two kinds for the water in the bathroom. See, I told you I'm practically qualified.

And I know we have some media in the audience here. We have revamped our website. It's just an FYI. So you can go to the City of Casper website. We need this to go away.

No city capture website and go to building.

Services section inspection on our home page. There's a link to. 2026 licensed contractors. That gets updated the first of every month, so it's the most current list we have. Contractors who are licensed with the city of Casper, and this is all of them. Class 1 class 2 class 3 handyman roofing, so it's like a phone book. So anybody, any homeowner can go to this website. Click on that link and find out if the guy that they want to hire.

His license. Thank you.

And I take it, Justin, if they're not on this list, you'd probably recommend that a homeowner not contract with them. Correct.

If they are on this list, they have met our examination and experience criteria. They have proof of insurance. I'm going to say legitimate. Any of them can have a bad experience. But they're as qualified as we can ensure that they be to work in the City of Casper.

Thank you. Thanks to both of you and everybody else for being here tonight. I just want to get some more clarity on the on the dangerous buildings numbers. So my question is you indicated that there was. It's like the 4th and 5th side and. 22 dangerous. But anyway, you had said that it was the 22 dangerous buildings addressed since 2023. that 14 have been successfully resolved, nine removed through demolition, six renovated. So is there a duplication in that 22 then, Justin, as far as said 22 had been addressed, but I'm just wondering if the 14 that were resolved, that's in the 22, I'm assuming?

So of the 14 that have been successfully resolved, that does include some that have been demolished, some that have been rehabbed. I see. So that Those are the successful and that's. Investors coming in and buying home or investors coming in and tearing him down. OK, the City of Casper actually demoing home that that includes those numbers.

So it does include the. Does it include the demolition and renovation? Correct OK. and then the 14 is part of the 22, is that what you're saying? Correct.

Okay.

Thank you. And then my second question is very brief, but I'm just curious on the continuing education, would it be helpful to, what I'm wondering is, will contractors know where to go to get them? Is it Casper College? Is there a professional organization? Is there, I mean, Yeah, but will they know where to look? You would think a professional contractor would know. They would be affiliated somehow with some organization where they can find resources. But I guess even so, does your office maintain a list of those? If a contractor says, hey, I need to get my four hours, where do I go? I guess that's part of the question. Then Is there any thought to the? It sounds like a lot of the what we're interested in having the contractors know is current state and local codes and updates, correct? So. Would it be? Would there be any? Benefit or return to for the city to maybe develop a thing and offer it once or twice a year or even even better like a. training video with some accountability built in, either a quiz or a test or a sign-off that you attended. Do you have any thoughts about that, Justin?

Yes, great question. So we actually have put in a lot of thought on that, and we are looking into developing a we don't know if it's going to be quarterly or semi-annually, but putting on an in-house training where we can kind of sit down with the contractors and hit what we see most in the field issues. So we are looking into developing that. As far as your first question. It's we're going to have a. One year grace period, so it's not like this would go into effect and then 2027 they show up and they have to happen. So it did. Beginning 2028 and we are going to develop a list of providers that they can access to be able to obtain that that we can Give them when they come in to renew their 2027 license. Yeah, thank you very much.

Okay, before we move on, you know the questions around that topics and opacity had some on the fire licenses. We jumped around something. I guess you have anything on the fire. You said yeah, I think you said well.

So. On on the fire in particular, so. An unpermanent. Heart. I get it on inspections and licenses so. Like Western States fire has no license requirements. In. They're based out of South Dakota, so. I can't imagine I've we've got what four companies here now. Or 5 but.

So and they would also have the.

So when you talk about. The continuing education and so is it for? Each of their hands or so I've I've got my. With this only be the master plumber or master over. So yeah, breakdown be the company that essentially can master So if I'm a laborer working my way up on, you know, working with Western states or a number of different companies, some of them are actually coming out from Colorado. So I'm assuming Colorado's got all of these same restrictions, and I doubt we reciprocate on some of this stuff.

much stricter in Colorado.

Coming up here. OK. So anybody working under a general? Contractor. Is required. In any of these categories, so if I'm a. Again, I'll go back to concrete. So if I'm which doesn't necessarily really, but so if I'm doing flat work and I've got. A team of 812. All of those different. Flat work guys are going to have to get a license.

In the labor's counselor would only apply to license holders. So if. As far as so, if you're flat work contractor or your general concrete contractor. Hired 12 laborers, the 12 laborers wouldn't have to. Because they're not licensed, they wouldn't have to show continuing education. Just the license contract. OK, and I also wanted to clarify so apprentices and all trades also are not required to have continuing education because being every day is their education. So they would be the one exception from the continuing ed requirement.

Okay. So back to fire. Sorry, I got sidetracked there. In the licenses, so how far in the fire protection are you looking? So the sprinkler contractors, Rocky Mountain, just down the street, monitoring services,

So you're asking like, what, what specific underneath the fire realm we will be licensing essentially. Yeah. So, so fire sprinkler contractors, fire alarm contractors, good cleaning contractors, suppression contractors, fire extinguishers, and then special extinguishers. Smaller ones like fire pumps. but a lot of these companies do multi-discipline. So Western States, for example, does fire extinguishers, fire alarms, fire sprinklers all in-house. So they kind of cover multiple disciplines.

Okay.

I guess one fear with all of this that I've got is we get too carried away And it's hard enough now. I don't know what kind of increased staffing all of this is going to going to require. To monitor, inspect and do all of these different things. So and I'm sure I'll hear. Well, none were doing that all in house. And perhaps that that'll be the case, but. With all of these additional requirements, my belief is it'll take additional personnel, but we know of a couple of buildings right here in town that we put so many requirements on it that the first and center building probably won't never get renovated. Unfortunately, Because we can't back off of some of the fire requirements and fire codes, so he can't. He's stuck. He can't sell it to anybody, so that's willing to put millions and millions of code right now. Code requirements. We're right across the street is a building that. Because it wasn't unoccupied, it's all grandfather. So. That's one of my fears with going too far with some of this. So it's making it harder to get anything done in the city of Casper.

Yeah, thanks back. I would agree with Councillor Sweeney in the sense that you know I have tried really hard to make sure that we're making things easier for developers cutting red tape if possible. That doesn't mean unnecessarily opposed to some of these proposals, It is hard for me to really figure out where I land without having access to like the red line. You know code ordinance and so my question is before this comes in front of us for a regular meeting for first reading or passage, what do you expect? Is this another pre meeting topic before regular meeting agenda item or because I feel like that's pretty critical to have to see at a granular level? What kind of impact this is going to?

Three mayor. I think Council we would defer to what you'd like to do there.

Yeah, I would concur. I mean, we can certainly provide the red line prior to the first reading, but it's counts as pleasure to have a pre meeting or another work session, and that's certainly prerogative.

Would Council prefer to have the red line? Before.

Yeah, I would say before even a first rate like I personally would like to see it on another work session or pre leaning before. see it at regular meeting.

Yeah, great. Can we get that session for me?

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions, anything like that?

Yeah, good. And fees. Is it possible? Being County is doing inspections and stuff and all of that for Evansville, which I don't think requires all of these licenses that you're talking about, but I might be wrong on that. The county might. I don't know. Does the county have a lot of regulations around Different licenses and permits.

So the county typically piggybacks off of the city does. So whatever the city of Casper has adopted ended county follows. So the county. They've adopted the same codes as city of Casper. They have. Very similar amendments. And the license categories they require. Everybody that gets licensed with the county to be licensed with the city of Casper 1st. And then they show my license in the county. So yes, they have the same requirements.

So on permit fees on commercial. Is it possible that 25 numbers are skewed because of the Mesa Mesa build on the 220 some thousand square which would have occurred basically in 25 and finished up in 26.

I personally, I do not think so because we had several large projects going in the city of Casper also in 25. So I think if anything, they were relatively comparable between the county and city of Casper as far as revenues go on that end. Okay.

Any final questions? Yeah, go ahead.

Just to add, if I might, I think it's important to remember 16.6.1101 was adopted by the state to allow reciprocity between municipalities, local governmental entities. So to Deputy Chief Ross's point, if Cheyenne requires, for instance, fire companies to obtain a license in Cheyenne, and they have at actually obtain that license, then we have a method for them to basically, through reciprocity, obtain their CASPER license. So when we talk about these various types of licenses, that is another avenue, I think, just to remain aware of.

Okay. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

So it sounds like we will have the red line in the next work session to go over and discuss a little bit more. Thank you guys for all your hard work. So.

Yeah, wait the red line version. Um? And I mean there were looking at 120 pages, 200 pages, 685.

You know there I'd have to. Look at Mr Scott. I can't remember, but it's yeah, I was gonna say 100 and some,

125 pages. I can leave this if Council wants it. It's not the official red line version.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's fine. Maybe some minor tweaks, but I think this is generally.

I'm not sure.

I imagine most of this is going to just be punctuation, easily skimmable for the most part.

Thank you, everyone.

Appreciate it.

All right, tiered water rates.

Let's go ahead and move on. We'll have staff come to the podium, but of course, this is the follow-up to your last discussion where you had asked for some additional information with respect to multifamily customers. And so I will let Director Johnston and Ethan walk you through it.

Dear Counselor, tonight we're talking about updating our water rates again. And again, this is established based on the cost of service. The cost of service all involves the cost of water lines, tanks, and water supply needed to get the water that all of our homes, businesses demand. Ref Telus, our consultants on this, is following the industry standard practices from the American Water Works Association to recover the utility operational and capital costs directly from the specified customer classes responsible for incurring them. This rate structure has each customer class covering their own cost of service. There aren't subsidies across those customer classes. And with our historic rate structure that we've had for many decades, water users with smaller meters have been subsidizing the cost of service for the users with the larger meters. So updating the water rates is making this a more equitable system. Council's consternation has remained with multifamily rates, and the first proposition had three tiers with 6,000 gallons included. And we heard that your concerns were the impacts to the lower income residents at the larger facilities. Alternative two provided the three tiers again with 6,000 gallons of water included. This one had a higher threshold for the first tier of water consumption, reducing some of those demands on those lower income customers. But we also heard Council's concerns with the challenges posed by not being able to distinguish between facilities with two units versus 200 units. and making it equitable among all of them. Additionally, there was some concern about the included water volume. So tonight we're in our memo, and the Rev. Telus memo as well, we are providing alternative three. And this alternative has no water included in the base charge and a flat rate of $4.79 per 1,000 gallons for the multifamily class. Alternative two results in a larger number of decreasing water bills. And this is because the tiers supporting those who live in facilities where meters serve less than eight units. There are many more units out there that have eight or fewer units than there are facilities that have greater than eight units. Alternative three proposed has a larger number of decreasing water bills for those meters serving greater than eight units. So your larger facilities or larger buildings serving more than eight units are seeing a decrease there. So with that, these numbers, I guess we're at a point where we'd like to either proceed with one of the alternatives for multifamily and the tiered rates FOR RESIDENTIAL AND THE FLAT RATE FOR COMMERCIAL, ALL HAVING THE SAME RATES FOR THE PER METER SIZE AS THE BASIS FOR THOSE RATES. I'D ALSO INVITE HIM TO ADD ON ANYTHING THAT HE MIGHT HAVE.

THANK YOU, MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. THANKS FOR HAVING US UP AGAIN. I THINK KRISTA DID A VERY GOOD JOB OF COVERING IT. ONE THING THAT I WOULD POINT OUT THAT KIND OF OCCURRED TO ME kind of is the intent. But a lot of these graphics that we presented to you show a comparison against the existing rates. As Council may remember, back in December, we did approve rate increases for 2026 and 2027. So this is comparing the 2026 rate, not the 2027 rate, which would include an 8% increase. If that helps.

Okay, discussion. Questions for staff? For the consultants, anything like that. Yeah, go ahead.

Thanks everyone for joining us for the third time now. Maybe appreciate y'all giving us your time, especially Todd. Thanks for joining us virtually today. My notes are lacking tonight. I'm trying to find exactly where in the memo this was, but. Somewhere in the memo it refers to Some users experiencing a $15 to $35 increase. It's one of those kind of demographics. Page six of the memo. Yeah, that was probably it. And so my question is, that's the number that keeps sticking out to me is just the people that would see like, very significant increase, but this is not per unit. This is per facility, right? Per meter. Per meter. Okay, so I don't know if we can, I don't know if it gets into how many units those, and this is very hard for me to digest, and I'm sure it's hard for you guys to put together the fact that different size facilities have different numbers of water meters and stuff. It's made this very hard for me to kind of process in my mind, but. So this $35 increase for multifamily resident that could have anywhere from like four units to 200 units potentially. Would be spread equitably across all of the people renting there. So this $35 increase could essentially amount to. Pennies or dollars, depending on how large the facility is for the people actually for the tenants.

Mayor, Councilor, you're correct. We don't have all of the granular data, but if you look at the last two pages of the Raftalis memo, specifically, page numbers. My page numbers are off, but the ones where we were comparing alternative one and two, actually, and two and three, you'll see that many of the increases are in the ARE IN THE NINE UNITS AND GREATER THAN 20 UNITS RANGES. THE ONES IN THAT SAME TABLE THAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT, VICE MAYOR, FOR UNITS THAT ARE TWO TO EIGHT, THEY'RE PRIMARILY DECREASING IN COST.

YES.

But then when you compare two or three, that is where you see that alternative three tends to favor the large complexes.

Thank you. Other questions?

Yeah, Michael. So, Ethan, I just want to make sure I'm understanding your opening mark there about About the the 8% so. So. Is it would it be correct to summarize by saying that this this rate structure? Is just that it's a rate. It's a new rate structure. But the but the 8%. Overall increase. still goes into effect in January of 28, correct? And that, depending on where the customers fall on the new rate structure, that's going to determine that, how that 8% is calculated. Am I summarizing that correctly?

Council, so the proposed rate structure is alternative to 1, 2, and 3, do not include any increase. It's just a flat we're going to replace the existing rate structure with a new rate structure. Yep, if we. Opted not to go with alternative one, two or three. We would still have to move forward with an 8% increase to the existing rate structure to generate the same amount of revenue, OK?

Thank you.

Either or either or not.

Ever. Someone can help me understand. I just keep staring at these charts on page 4 to me. And I recognize that that's kind of a case study situation. Alternative three looks relatively favorable overall across the spectrum. And similarly, between the high income versus low income bill comparisons. Then when we move on to page eight, where we're comparing two and three, say it looks quite a bit less favorable and sort of more extreme in its impacts. So I'm wondering if somebody can put that into words for me so I can stop trying to look at these charts.

So, Mayor, members, council, yes, on page four, it was just kind of a case study, some specific examples. Essentially, and maybe Todd or summer can weigh in on this if I get it wrong, but. Alternative 2. Really, you see the smaller size complexes benefiting. That's mainly because of the service fee and included water.

Conversely, on alternative.

3 sorry, I'm getting confused about all our alternatives are now on alternative 3 with the flat rates. Uh, because there is a service fee and we're charging from the 1st gallon of usage. There's no free water. It does put more burden back on the smaller units. So it's really. The options are are kind of.

This or that.

So, no, please go ahead.

I was. looking for the one that feels the least sort of extreme in terms of the impact to the broadest group of bills. Would I be in number one or number two?

Mayor, counselor, I believe it would be number two. Thank you.

Me too. Yes.

I thought that's what I was seeing, but if,

exactly yes any other questions i'll throw out for clarity alternative three is essentially our current rate with an adjustment on service fee yeah it's a new a new number thousand gallons but it's our current procedure

So if we go with. The strip don't don't go with the tier increase by the 8% or effectively. Uhm? They're still with the 8%. We give them like residential. The first what is it 3000 gallons 4000 gallons?

Council, the current rates include 1500 gallons, which is annoying because we need water per 1000 gallons, which is one of the reasons that we are proposing either 1000 or 2000.

And for comparison, alternative to in multifamily includes there's there's there's water included. And that'll turn it and was it 6,000. Okay.

I did ask graph tell us if we.

That rate would need to be. I mean, I don't have a graphic to show you because it's kind of. A late addition, but it's 533,000 gallons. If we include 2000 gallons of water instead of 0. You know, it was a water 79 cents. $5.33 per 1000 would be needed to include 2000.

So here we are. So it looks like the direction or that we're looking that they're looking for is alternative two or three. Am I correct in saying that? What we want to do? Yes, Michael. Michael is doing two. Two over here. And I think Michael said two or piece. I'm not sure. Peace out.

Sorry, Pat. So rather personally, I'm saying skip the tier go with the 8% because that's. Straight forward. And. All you all you're doing with rate two with Tier 2. It is. Redistributing I mean those that water their lawns are going to get nailed and that that's fine. That's my choice. Brandy's choice. And. And. So. Oh, in my opinion, you're just shifting. In order to prevent an 8% and who's paying. or in my opinion, is the large complexes are going to end up paying more.

Thank you, Mayor. And I appreciate you looking at it from that perspective, Councillor Sweeney. I guess how I'm justifying it in my mind is Krista introduced the topic this evening by saying, you know, my guess is it's there. Opinion why they're bringing this proposal to us is that the current distribution is maybe not fair and equitable that the people with larger pipes do, you know. Small people with smaller parts of subsidizing the cost associated with people with larger pipes, because when you have a larger pipe that creates more peak demand, which means all of our back end infrastructure capacity infrastructure has to support that increased kind of throughput for those higher pipes. And so I guess that's how I'm justifying in my head is that it doesn't make sense for those to be the same cost because. FROM AN INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT POINT OF VIEW, THEY HAVE DIFFERENT COSTS TO THE SYSTEM. SO I GUESS THAT'S WHY I'M LANDING ON THIS SIDE OF DOING IT FEELS MORE FAIR AND EQUITABLE TO ME TO DO A TIERED WATER STRUCTURE THAN KIND OF MORE OF A FLAT LIKE WE'VE BEEN DOING IN THE PAST, FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH. THAT'S MY TWO THOUGHTS.

IT SOUNDS LIKE PAT IS FOR JUST STAYING WHERE WE WERE AT, THE 8%.

TO ALL CLASSES OR JUST MULTI-FAMILY?

No, I I think the recommendation. 6 months a year ago, so it was 88% across the board. Yeah, yeah, no tears.

Just structure change. Anybody else kind of following that line with that?

Yeah, Michael. One the one reservation I did have was kind of. address this somewhat, but is just the how how understandable. This structure will be to the customer. That's to me. I think that's part of the bottom line is. You know if our just how are we? Are we feeling like? You know, I could rationally explain. You know to to my grandmother how her water weight structure works. You know without. overcomplicating it. You know, where I think, you know, Councilor Sweeney's, that 8%, that's pretty cut and dry, where this variable rate structure could complicate things, I think, as far as just helping the average homeowner and, you know, service provider, the contractor services, making it understandable for them.

I'll give you an example. 18-wheelers pay more for using highways than a Volkswagen Bug does. Same basic thing here. We've got the 18-wheelers, the multi-big that put a lot of strain on the system, just like the 18-wheelers put a lot of strain on the streets. Therefore, they should be paying for more of it than what the guy driving the Mini Cooper should pay for. And I'm driving a Mini Cooper, so I got an 18-wheeler. That's destroying things. Pay more than what the

And I think in reality, I think, you know, if grandma shows up with her water bill and says, help me understand this, if you just look, I think what looks, it gets confusing to us or to me anyway, is that, you know, you're looking at all these multifamily, single family, and where that feels complicated. But I think if we're just looking at one individual water bill, and I want to understand, yeah, how did you arrive at this number for my bill? IT'S PROBABLY WAY MORE SIMPLE THAN I'M MAKING IT.

AS SIMPLE AS IT IS.

STAFF HAS ANY THOUGHTS ON THE COMPLICATED LOOK AT IT? I MEAN, AS WE'VE BEEN PROCESSING THIS FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS. SO WHAT ARE YOUR GUYS' THOUGHTS?

MAYOR, CITY MANAGER JORDAN AND I HAVE HAD THIS CONVERSATION ABOUT MAKING SURE THAT THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDS OUR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT GROUP WOULD BE INVOLVED IN EDUCATING the public. But additionally, we've talked about putting something on our website where people could look up their bill would show them the areas where they would need to look up. Say this is my meter size and this is the consumption I've had and they can look at a January bill which is going to be pretty low in July. Bill that might be higher because of irrigation. They can put those numbers in this calculator and look with their bills would be moving forward.

Yeah.

Mayor, members, council, just to make council aware, part of the scope of services of RAPTALIS is to help with public education. So they will be developing materials to help with our communications team to inform the public. And that's part of the reason we're here today now is so that we know what we need to inform the public about rather than coming to you in December with this.

Okay, where do we land? Yeah, Pat. So I really appreciate Mike's analogy. So we're really not looking at the 18 Wheeler and I'll compute that to a hotel. Which is looking at the two ton trucks, major water user where my bills and this is 11 years ago. Would have been. 12 in the summer, summer times, high occupancy, lots of laundry going, lots of water usage, 12 to 15,000 a month. I think I paid my fair share with the size taps. And I thought you were on commercial rates, not on.

Yeah, by family rates. So we're looking more at two ton trucks rather than 18 wheelers.

But so. But I just think this whole, my opinion, and I've only got one vote, but others that I've talked to that have been in the game a lot longer and on council for a long time and knows, he said that, looked at it, multiple times at least three times that he can remember and he just always tried to steer away from it so i'm gonna stick with him and i i would rather see us go with a straight eight percent increase like we set out and not this tier i think it's a mistake

But the logic here was if I'm paying for a seat on a bus, I'm not driving the bus by myself. Then how's the water logic work on me as a passenger in a versus me as a passenger in a Mini Cooper at the end of the day? That's our problem. It's not the tap that it's the problem. It's the I'm a passenger, not the car owner. which is the part I'm having a really hard time wrapping my brain around. And I really just can't get past, and I understand the size of the problem, and I understand some places have one meter and some have 400 meters. What I don't understand is why can't we figure out how to make a fourplex not the preserve? And I guess at the end of the day, that's where my problem is. Option number three is respectfully the most ridiculous thing I have ever looked at on paper. There is nothing about that that's feasible. Well, we were looking at 80 people bills go up, but here's an option where 500 go up. What is that? It's not even feasible. It was borderline offensive, and I'm sorry. I just would like to know why is it a fourplex can't be separated out from an apartment complex? And I realize that is obviously not the accurate word for what I'm trying to understand. But yes, a giant complex is going to be split up above a lot of people. But we also know where they're at. And I'm not asking you guys to do all the legwork of the meters because I get that that's stupid and that's hard and it's terrible. But there has to be something in here. Maybe we do a tier by the size of the stupid pipe in the first place. I don't know. But I feel like nothing that we've been presented with is even somewhat reasonable when it comes to the multifamily. Like, I don't like any of it. At the end of the day, now we're like, okay, well, option two is the least of the terrible options that we have. Let's go ahead and up the water bills at Centerpoint Apartments. It's like settling and I don't like it.

So if we look at alternative two and look at the. I'm on page 7. The bills that increase. Increase 31 accounts will increase by more than $35, but that will be divided between 9 to 20 people. And. 45 bills will increase by more than $35, but that will be divided between 20 people or more. So we're talking $5 bill increases at the most.

How much more than 35? And I was told it could be significantly more than 35.

Well, even if it's 200, that's still 10 bucks a person. So, you know, I... I don't know what the upper limit on that is, what the upper ceiling is, but we're talking about quite a small under alternative to most bills are going down. There's only a handful of bills that are going up and they're divided across the most people. So I think they're going up by a matter of dollars, a few dollars. So I don't think it's, I think that is like to me that the smoothest, if you wanted to like graph it out over each individual impact, that's going to be like the flattest line that we're going to get.

Here I wanted to see if someone had anything to add on that regard with. Knowing the best way to. Impact the larger customers or what that $35 increase greater than $35 increase is on versus alternative to an alternative three.

First, this is Todd. This is a great discussion because we kind of hit on these things a little bit before. We can provide that information. What I want to point out is, as I brought up last meeting, that multifamily is the most difficult to try to get your arms around and make everybody happy. And we are limited on data. The number of units are being able to apply that with the billing structure. But one thing we need to consider is that with the uniform rate, that's the most basic cost of service rate there is. And in terms of getting a higher rate or smaller units or higher units, everyone pays the same rate, just the bill is greater because you use more water. So the large customers are going to pay more, the lower customer are going to pay less. Now, when you transition and rip the bandaid off and switch to the rate structure, you have different changes in bills. But after that year, you'll just have a continuous 4% increase or whatever it is. So it's just this one year of getting over that hurdle in this one year. Regarding large increases above $35, it was a few complexes, but it was a large dollar amount that really offset the reduction in those duplexes and things like that because we were doing a 6,000-gallon allowance, which pushed the rate you needed to recover or the dollars you needed to recover in those higher tiers. So that's why they saw a higher Fewer customers, because there aren't that many large customers, but they saw a much higher increase just because we pushed off 6,000 gallons of usage into the service charge. So we could provide that on alternative two and three, but in terms of minimizing that huge decrease on one end and that huge increase on the other, the uniform rate structure will get you there with that. Because you do have kind of a uniform rate structure right now as it is, with the exception of that volume allowance.

I don't think I follow that.

What was what was the? Can you say that again? What about the uniform rate structure?

The uniform rate structure is probably in terms of simplicity and cost of service base. It's the most basic cost of service way to go. The tiered structures and things introduce other pricing objectives and things like that, like the indoor-outdoor usage. But the uniform rate structure is kind of the Toyota Camry of rate structures. It's tried and true, but what it'll do is it'll help balance out that – it'll balance out what alternative to – what was causing an alternative to the tiered structure. Because it's not based on units. Alternative two is not based on units. We just don't have that. We don't have the ability to do that billing. So uniform structure kind of fixes that. With uniform structure that everyone pays the same rate, but if you use a lot of water, you're going to pay more. So if you're a large complex, you're going to pay more from a smaller complex. Everyone pays the same rate, but the total bill is different. I think maybe that's what the 18 Wheeler analogy was kind of getting at.

I mean it's an 8 percent rate increase. Leave it alone. DIRECTOR DEWOLF.

What's that.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. I've got 8 percent here Pat.

Where are you go Brandi.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. Are we talking just multifamily or everything everything.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. Everything everything.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. Well I like the tier for the people like me that are wasting water or over utilizing water. DIRECTOR DEWOLF.

And I like it for me for the people that aren't water.

Right, so I mean, honestly, I like it for the residentials. I like radio for commercial. I don't even have a problem with the size of the pipes theory. It's just the tears for the multifamily. It's I don't like. But if we did the size of the pipe and the 8% for the multifamily and then the rest of them, we did the tears because I do like that I do deserve to pay more for my brother. I get it. Kyle should pay less for his lack of water. He can roll around in my grass.

Even with the tears, you still buy in more useful.

So I think we could probably talk about this probably all night. And I think we probably should come to a resolution on what direction staff needs as we start to move forward. And so I'm trying to read faces and I'm trying to see where everybody's at. And so when I initially started, I said, how does everybody feel about two? And then there were some things that were brought up that I think I felt saw some hesitation. I saw Matt said that he is for 8% across, Pat is. And so I guess I'm kind of trying to get the sense of where everybody's at after this discussion. Still have two? Kyle?

Yeah, I mean, I'm probably leaning towards two. Where are you at, Jenna?

Conflicted. I know I can't. I like my water bill. Yeah, it's like probably. Right, but it makes sense for the 8, so I'm just kind of on the. On the fence.

I mean, I think counting votes it sounds like. We have the votes for two. Unless anybody wants to. I think because if Kyle are you too OK if I had to cast my vote right this

No, yeah.

Do you want?

Do you want to have a say at all? Do you want to?

Are you counting me?

No, I was just counting the. The five of us is yeah, that have the votes about 8.

I like that analogy.

OK. Looks like 2.

Nose hair.

Thanks for all your hard work, guys. Todd, Summer, thank you guys for joining us. We appreciate all your hard work and sitting through our discussions. Certainly, this council is very thorough, and that's what I really appreciate about this council.

Thank you, and we appreciate working with the city. Anything else you need, please let us know.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Take care, guys.

Bye now.

All right. Great discussion. Gender review. We're going to transition into gender review. Have anything? Patrick. Okay.

So down a bit, approving the vacation and replay creating the Conger edition, number one subdivision. So I just need... Because I spoke at planning and zoning, so I guess that bounces me from voting. Two things I'm wondering, if Mr. Conger, so at some place along the line, somebody's gotta be responsible And I can't honestly get a straight answer out of anybody as far as parking. So he's his plan is to build 24 fluxes on 5 watts. He's already started construction on the one which was totally legal. Done all of that, but. What what can I ask or? guess i'm looking at eric on uh or is this simply approving because i i'm not sure he's even put in for the second fourplex i know he's planning on it but um yeah mayor uh counselor so we can certainly talk offline on this um um

And a couple of things I would just say though, very briefly is certainly we can get an answer to you on the parking, but I probably need to sit, just understand exactly what happened at planning and zoning. And then we can walk through the ordinance because it is a little bit different in terms of conflicts, state statute and determine to what extent, you know, if any, you could participate.

So.

So I may not even, I may have to totally leave the room.

Mayor, Councillor, so there is a provision in our city ordinance that does talk about in a conflict situation that the Councillor would have to, you know, not participate in the discussion and potentially leave the chambers. But again, I wasn't at the planning and zoning. And so I would suggest, you know, we sit down and work through it.

Can't have any more on your agenda or just that that item.

I guess the other concern the way I'm reading that it's under consent. But if I'm not in the room, not able to be in the room, then it doesn't matter. But I I know my neighbors have and they feel they've talked to three different people down here. Rory Franklin has. Well, that's not my department. That's not my department. That's not my department.

Yeah.

If I could, Councillor Sweeney, if you would like to forward those questions to me, we can address that circular response, which is... not what we want to provide. We want answers for people when they have valid questions. So if you send those to me, we'll write them down.

Let you talk to Murray flying Franklin or so so.

Others on the gender review. OK, awesome, let's go into I'm sorry.

I know I was I'm not going to answer. I did have something for agenda review. I saw at our meeting. Next week, there's going to be a lot of purchase agreements for vehicles. I always get questions almost without incident about. Vehicle purchases, especially I noticed next week. Police department is procuring trucks and SUVs. Could we please in those memos get some sort of context for our sake answering questions to the public, but also just for the public sake who are curious why we go with a truck as opposed to an SUV? Like, you know. of like we talked about at landfill last week about the trailers just the more context we can provide for vehicle purchases the better i think because it's i'd say top five things i get asked about is 350 as opposed to an f-150 or why is pd going with a truck as opposed to an suv would love that context to them good

we will definitely work on that, Mayor and Council, going broadly. I've noted a number of questions in this regard, so I've talked to Chris who will prepare a staff work session for probably late October, early November. Wanted to really talk through these processes and help you understand in more detail how we spec vehicles and large fleet acquisitions and hopefully empower you for that. But we will do our best job with the memos for this meeting to describe those things. Thank you.

you know, to that. These new two new rescue trucks don't look as beefy as our old ones. So what happens to the old ones? Do we just send them to be recycled out at Wyoming? Because I mean.

So I don't know the exact answer to to the question on the rescue trucks, but as noted last week, and again, I talked to Christa about this after your meeting, staff are making the best decision as far as the highest value that we can get from equipment once it's decommissioned. And so it'll depend on whatever the piece of equipment is. And as noted last week, you know, sending the item you asked about last week to salvage was the higher value. So they are looking at that. But we'll break that all down in a full from how we spec Equipment and fleet to how the purchasing process looks like to the disposition process as well. So I did note that counselor will look at the whole life cycle.

Alright, let's go ahead and go to Council around the table. Michael start with you.

Start with me OK. Pat and I did a tour of the Speedway if anybody else wants to do that. Okay, but let me hear Jackie know that it's kind of kind of fun to go out there when the speedway was first built. Aging myself here. I was I ran the concession stand the first year and going out there and doing the tour was kind of fun because it's changed quite a bit. It's been expanded and it was it was good to go out and see the Current leaseholders are giving up the lease, and so it will be out for a bid November 1st, I think Randy said. And so then we will see if somebody else continues it, which I'm sure they will because we've got a lot of race car guys in town. So they're excited to get some stuff done on it. But it was good to go out there and look at it. I encourage everybody to go out and see what we own. It's a nice facility. It needs work. It needs some work. It needs some maintenance done. And yeah, few things taking care of lights and stuff. Randy said we now have a vehicle that can change out the lights, so hopefully we get some of the burned out ones replaced.

Also, I think that's about it. I can think of.

Yeah.

RANDY, HOW DID VEGAS GO?

IT WAS AMAZING. I DID LEAVE THE, THEY HAD US SUPER BUSY THE ENTIRE TIME, SO IT WASN'T LIKE YOUR TYPICAL VEGAS TRIP. WE HAD TO STAY IN THE RESORT THE ENTIRE TIME, SO IT WAS FUN, THOUGH. HAD A GREAT TIME, MET PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES. AND THIS WORLD SHOWED UP FROM THAILAND. It was a good time. I did not get a bigger crown. I did really well. I did get invited back. I got a chance to give the whole tourism spiel about Casper and Wyoming. A lot of people are interested. I'd be surprised if some come out. THANKS FOR BEING A GREAT AMBASSADOR.

I APPRECIATE YOU.

NOT MUCH. I WAS CONTACTED THIS WEEK BY A COUPLE CONSTITUENTS ASKING ABOUT THE, WELL, FOR THE CITY MANAGER, BUT ABOUT KIND OF ANY UPCOMING PLANS. THEY WERE ASKING SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THAT. the I called the forecast. North be north of 13th St like that chestnut. Cedar area about just some rough pavement and curbing and so forth that it may need some attention at some points, but I'll forward those to Jeanine. I do have the Salvation Army lunch tomorrow and Friday night is the. Nicolasson fundraising gala. tickets might still be available if anybody's interested.

And then see.

Oh, community dinner at the senior at the station. Thank you. That's a Thursday night. So I'm planning to attend. I think I got the last

Wow right before that so did you yeah, we're probably sitting next to each other. So. This 13th. The 13th for the 10th.

That's right.

Yeah, so.

Last Thursday, I did go to the Benson Boone concert that came up a couple of different times today. He had a great time.

You got called up on stage. You weren't there? No. Just kidding.

Did you do a backflip?

Awesome. So it was quite a production. but Amber hopefully will talk a little bit more about that. So the visit CASPER through some of the development funds through the state actually gave to for the study on the lift load capacity 16,000 towards the 32,000. And so, and that kind of, I had to leave today's meeting. So wait, Amber, I'll follow up on that. So it was, I can't say I would go back again, but my granddaughter enjoyed it.

I was like, you had to have taken some.

How were you in the pit? In the standing room? No, that's where she wanted to be, but I wasn't going to pay $500. What kind of grandpa are you? Come on, Pat. Friday, I went to the two senior events. It was the 50th anniversary of the Senior Center. I got there in time to Hear the mayor's speech in this. Very emotional timing. Huge turnout. Kyle was there also people have ever seen there and then then I went from there. Meals on wheels was having driver appreciation so. But. And then. This morning DCBA downtown Casper. Liz came in along with the. Casper Housing Authority and that was a really good introduction on the Wyoming Bank building and. Talks around around that. Interestingly enough, at that meeting, also Liz handed out these brochures so that they could have them at point of sale for educational purposes around the one cent. But at the end of the meeting, Benson Boone came up again. And Merchants were. Thrilled about people coming from out of state. To go to the concert and shop downtown and some stuck around in particular. Some Harry Potter thing that one of the merchants was doing and had a huge response and people stuck around from out of town. To go go to that so was really interesting. And then. Join Mike. At the Speedway tour and we've got some work. My opinion is we need to do a better job up there, but then I was also curious. I missed the. Rolling Cedar LLC, the natural gas fire project that's going to be in Commerce County, but will affect us as far as industrial siting process. They had a public meeting down in Douglas. Monday the 31st and I was unable to go. I didn't know what staff is tracking that project.

We are.

OK, and that was my main concern with that one. And I'll see you tomorrow at the Salvation Army deal.

Don't forget Benson Boone. I too attended Benson Boone. I know that Kyle was there, saw your Facebook photos. Really incredible job by everybody up at the Ford Wyoming Center. I think we're really fortunate to get that show here. And the turnout was amazing. I was I happen to be staying at a local hotel that night due to some renovations at my home. And so I saw many, many, many people checking in. So on the merchant side sounds great, but A lot of people checking in for Benson Boone that night as well. And I know they were there for Benson Boone because of the outfits and the demographics. I did not have to ask. Really great. We heard from some of the team at the Ford Wyoming Center today at the Natrona County Improvement Coalition meeting. It sounds like, which I think you could just see by looking at it, but from their perspective as well, that show really pushed that facility to its full limits in terms of kind of everything. It was a relatively elaborate production. We had issues with weight similar to what we experienced with hosier. The production really had to get scaled back. There's a lot of back and forth with the production team and rigors and engineers and all sorts of people to try to make sure that, you know, the show could still go off given the constraints of the facility. And I think... for this show also length. I don't think we usually necessarily hear that complaint. I've heard wait before, but just the sheer length of the facility. It sounds like that stage was 24 feet shorter than it was at other venues to fit, which it was quite long. So he ran around even more in other places evidently. But I think that the team up there had to be very persistent and resilient to try to, you know, work out that show and make it possible up there, given the constraints of the building. And I think everybody did just an amazing job doing that because, you know, if you hadn't told me that, I certainly didn't feel like anything was missing from the show. It was really incredible. And so anything that happened kind of in the background of making that possible certainly wasn't impacting the experience of the evening, I don't think. So I think that's a testament to the team up there and the amount of work that they put in to bring that show here. And I mean, I think... something like 90-plus percent of people who had tickets were there in the building. So it was full, full. It was awesome. Did that cover what you wanted me to say?

Yeah, I mean, the rigging. I'll talk more about it if you want.

Okay, we're going to have a third chance at it. And the only other thing I would mention that hasn't already been mentioned is – parks and rec advisory is they take a break for the summer months and that will be starting up again this week. So I will be attending that meeting Thursday and I will have an update for you next week about that.

Thank you. Thanks, Barry. I didn't have much going last week. There was a reception Wednesday night for the signing of the CNFR contract. So that was nice to be able to kind of step in phone for the mayor. That one signed some PAPERS, GETTING MYSELF IN SOME PICTURES IN MY VERY CASUAL CLOTHING, LOOKING OUT OF PLACE. BUT, YEAH, IT WAS NICE. OBVIOUSLY EVERYONE IN THAT, YOU KNOW, ALL THE STAKEHOLDERS WITH THAT GROUP WERE VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE 10-YEAR EXTENSION AND SO MADE MUCH ADO ABOUT IT. HAD THE OPPORTUNITY, BECAUSE I WAS THERE THE NIGHT BEFORE BENSON BOONE, TO GET KIND OF THE BACKSTAGE TOUR. AND IT WAS JUST REALLY INTERESTING HEARING FROM AMANDA, I THINK IS HER NAME, AMANDA DISNEY.

FLANAGAN. I'm sorry. I was like, I don't know where that came from.

So yeah, they talked about the fact that the event center, its current rigging capacity threshold is 30,000 pounds. As Amber alluded to, that was an issue with Hosier, and he really had to dial back his production. A lot of big modern productions are 100,000 plus. They said Benson Boone, during his tour this summer, every other place he was rocking 140,000 pounds of rigging capacity. again, the event center, uh, usually can only support up to 30,000, but I believe we contracted with a bunch of engineers out of Colorado to come up here, put their minds together, really stretch the limits of that. And I think we only got up to 90,000. So he still had to cut a lot of his production, you know, a third of his production, 24 feet of length from the stage and other things. So, um, you know, that is going to be a barrier that, that is one of the barriers, primary barriers in us bringing in some larger acts, um, And so I guess I'm thankful for his production team and stuff that they were willing to squeeze themselves into a tiny little venue. He made mention at the concert that was his tiniest venue. But I think he kind of appreciated it. You know, he mentioned it was a little more intimate during some of his more meaningful sets. And so it's nice to be able to play to a crowd that small, but also, yeah, that's a huge factor in what sort of acts we can bring to town, our rigging capacity up there. So I'm excited and thankful for Visit Casper in there helping with develop a feasibility study to determine how do we stretch the limits of that building as much as possible to really squeeze the last bit of life out of it. Oh, another thing about the concert that was my first time trying out is online merch. So I think this is only the second event that they've offered it, but there's signage up at the event center now with a QR code. You can buy your merch online and then just pick it up at a booth I mean, those merch lines, I bet people waited over an hour in those merch lines. It took me five minutes to get my very short shirt. I had to go with an extra large this time around because they had the Benson Boone cut. But I would really encourage people, next time you're at an event up there, especially if you want some merch, there's signage all over. So just keep an eye out for it. It'll save you an hour. You can go get your donuts and your coffee instead of waiting in the merch line the whole time. Sweet.

Yeah.

so who was the warm-up back and did she did she sing off key i don't think so that part of the music i don't know i was just excited there's a harp on stage so that's what you see every day so i was i was paying attention to that

Rock Orchestra this weekend.

It's going this weekend. Anything else? No, that's it. Thank you.

Just a couple things. I have a swearing in at the fire department. Chief's done. On Thursday at 11 AM, so I think there's several that are getting sworn in if I remember correctly. I'll be at the lunch for the cowboy up at the Salvation Army, so looking forward to that. I got invited so. Join several other people that are going to be there from the And then, as was mentioned, was able to go and attend and speak at the 50th anniversary of the Senior Center. And yes, it was. The reason it was so emotional for me is that, so my family goes, they call it Pacheco Fridays, because there was this whole group of Pachecos that would go, including my father. And it was a very, it's a very important place for them still. They've gotten smaller, unfortunately. but it was really one of the things my dad looked forward to every week, every Friday, to be able to go down there and spend time with his family but with other people, and I have some very fond memories just going there and sitting with my family to do that. My commitment, hopefully, is to be able to go there much more regularly on those Fridays just to be there. So it was very emotional for me, from that standpoint. But second, it was amazing the amount of people that showed up and how I made it to every table. I wanted to make sure I went to every single table to thank them and to shake their hands and to talk to them. It was very meaningful. A lot of those people, a lot of people from out of town came to participate in that. People that had lived in Casper. It was a very, very wonderful time. And so it was great to have Kyle there and great to have Pat there. And so very meaningful moment. And I'm very blessed that I was able to attend that and be a part of that. Yes.

I can't follow that, but I wanted to mention a couple of things. The brochure that Councillor Sweeney mentioned to you all, if you have locations that you are aware of who might like to have some of those brochures, we have been distributing them to businesses or whomever would like to have them. And you can let Floor or Jolene in my office know. We have many printed. We can print many more as well. And we have the glossy brochure prints, unlike that one that it looks like Liz ran some extras off in her office. So we have some snazzier, shinier looking ones. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is Brandy reminded me that the gaming survey needed to be in your inbox. Thank you. And I did put that in your inboxes this evening. So if you have any feedback on that, the gaming work group would like to have that published this week. They believe it is, and I'll speak for you all, but in a pretty much final form. But if you do see any can have any concerns when you review it or see anything you have a suggestion about, please let us know. Should I hit it right for y'all work group members?

I did bring that up at DCBA.

Yes, thank you.

Melissa was there from DDA also. About the survey, so thank you. I totally agree with the senior center. Meals on wheels. I left one meeting, went to meals on wheels. They'd like 700.

Yeah, so to that point, counselor, we are distributing. Jolene told me this last week. Meals on wheels. Will they had asked for enough to fill their mill allotment for one delivery, maybe two. So Jolene is working with them. There will be it's a it's an adaptation of that brochure that will be inserted with every meal at some point in coming weeks. So, yeah, that's in progress.

All right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, staff. Thanks for everybody being here. Appreciate you.