City Council - workshop

Time is now 2 p.m., and we will go ahead and start our city council study session for September 1st, 2026. Can I get a roll call, please?

Councilor Costa?

Here.

Mayor Church, I'm a lawyer. Oh, Jesus. Here. Mayor Woodruff?

Here.

Councilor Yazzie? Here. Councilor Gonzalez? Press it.

Thank you. May I please get a reading of the Indigenous Land Acknowledgement?

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

Thank you. We will now go ahead and move forward with staff presentations, starting with capital improvement projects.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Tony Vicari, Aviation Director at the Durango-La Plata County Airport, here to provide you with a brief overview of the proposed capital projects for the airport over the next five years, specifically focusing on 2027. First off, just talking briefly about how our projects are identified for airport capital investment. These are guided by the airport master plan and terminal area plan, separate documents that guide the overall development of the airport. In addition, the airport maintains an ongoing asset inventory and standard replacement schedules, which are driven by industry best practices in terms of investment and preventative maintenance on assets around the airport. we also have airport advisory commission input i would acknowledge and note that the 2027 projects we're about to discuss have already been reviewed by the airport advisory commission in their june meeting and approved to move to this stage and then lastly we coordinate closely with the faa and cdot aeronautics as grant funding partners on some eligible capital projects at the airport Here's a list of proposed capital projects over the next five years. I will not run through all of these because that would take quite some time. We'll be focusing on 2027. As you can see, there's a robust list of projects. I would note that all of these projects are currently programmed into the financial forecast of the airport and are able to be funded through our projected revenues and available grant sources for the airport. So zeroing in on 2027 here, this is the list of all the projects. I'll go through them one by one momentarily. But just looking at them holistically here by funding source, you can see the breakout. We have two projects that have major FAA grant funding associated with them. One project with significant state grant funding as well as several others with match grant funding. PFCs are restricted use funds that the airport maintains for eligible capital projects. And then unrestricted cash is just that. It's unrestricted cash reserves of the airport that can be used for any eligible airport project. The main note here is we do have a relatively large unrestricted cash expenditure plan for 2027, just north of $5 million with the predominance in the parking expansion phase three project, which we'll discuss. Like I noted before, however, the airport is positioned to make these expenditures and still maintain one year of operating expense in terms of cash on hand, which is our airport commission driven board goal for maintaining a cash position for the airport. So with that, I'll jump into the individual projects. First up is the runway 321 pavement maintenance. The airport maintains a sole runway. This was repaved fully in 2022, and matching our five-year cycles will be seal coating, crack filling, and restriping that pavement surface. This is a 92% FAA grant-funded project that has significant federal support. Next up is the replacement of an aircraft rescue firefighting vehicle at the airport. We maintain two aircraft rescue firefighting vehicles to maintain our FAA firefighting index that's required to service commercial service aircraft. One of our ARF trucks was replaced a year and a half ago. And this will be for the replacement of the other one, which is a 2002 model. So it replaces a 24-year-old vehicle that is at the end of its service life. And also note that this is a 90% FAA, or in correction, CDOT grant-funded project that we were able to attract significant state grant funding to support. The last of our major grant-funded projects is the Commercial Apron Northern Expansion. The Commercial Apron is where aircraft park at the terminal and where passengers are in-planing or de-planing off of aircraft. As we continue to grow, and particularly as we continue to see larger aircraft, the space demands for that pavement surface continue to increase. So this project is simply expanding the northern edge of the apron. This will be replacing some temporary asphalt that was put in place several years ago as a phasing part of another project. and replacing it with permanent concrete and also expanding that surface further to the north. This allowed us to add one additional mainline gate position that can accommodate up to a Boeing 737-sized aircraft, fundamentally increasing the capacity of our parking apron, which is a potential restricting factor long term as we look at the ability to stage multiple aircraft on the ramp during peak periods. And then it is noted this is the last of the major grant-funded projects at a 92% FAA grant funding. Next up is the largest expenditure project, and this is a large unrestricted cash outlay for the airport. So this is parking expansion phase three. We've been through obviously several phases of parking expansion, as we've seen the increase in traffic at the airport and by extension, the demand for vehicle parking growing at the airport. currently maintain almost exactly 1300 total parking spaces at the airport but we meet and exceed that during peak periods particularly the holidays spring break fall peak fall etc we're able to manage that currently through the maintenance of off-site remote overflow shuttle lots during some of these peak periods and this project will allow us to continue to keep up with that ongoing demand for parking i can see the cost estimate just shy of 4.5 million dollars it's a large cash outlay for the airport but this will involve a few things one is a major reorganization of the roadway infrastructure at the airport which you can see shown on the exhibit on the left of the image here this will consolidate two roadways that are currently somewhat redundant in infrastructure at the airport into a small roundabout which will be able to take traffic into either of our two parking lots or into the frontage curbside for the terminal. So it consolidates and creates efficiency in our roadways. And by doing so and moving some of the roadway infrastructure, it enables us to infill into the main parking lot and add additional parking spaces. As depicted here, this would add about 120 paved parking spaces to the airport, but it also enables us to add another 90 to 100 additional spaces just off page right of this image, which will be included as a bid alternate on this project as a potential expansion to get us in the range of about 200 additional paved parking spaces. Next up is the main vehicle parking lot pavement maintenance project. This is a routine pavement maintenance project we do on five-year cycles. This will be similar to the runway we discussed early, crack fill, seal coat, and restripe of the entire main parking lot, just best practice for maintaining asphalt surfaces long term. This will be a heavily phased project. We're not in the position to be able to close our entire main parking lot without having a major capacity challenge, so we'll have to break this into multiple phases. throughout the construction season to be able to maintain capacity throughout the duration. Continuing on here, next up is the 820 Airport Road RTU replacement. These are heating and cooling units on the property that the airport owns at 820 Airport Road, which is currently leased to Agile Space Industries. These are two commercial buildings that sit just north of the terminal. Agile Space, for those that were, several counselors were in attendance at a ribbon cutting just last week. that opened up a brand new building, a second building that Agile leased from us. Agile maintains a triple net lease with us where they're responsible for the operations and maintenance costs of the facilities. However, a capital investment such as the full replacement of rooftop HVAC units is the responsibility of the airport under the lease. We are at the end of service life of some approximately 25-year-old units, and this will be the first in a two- to three-phase project to replace all the RTUs on that facility, ensuring that we're maintaining a facility that works for our tenants. Next up is a simple vehicle replacement project. The airport independently budgets for vehicle replacements. This one is Unit 2108, which is an environmental division vehicle at the airport. It's a 2015, so it's an 11-year-old vehicle that's seen heavy airfield use and needs to be replaced as part of a standard replacement project at the airport. That'll also include plow lights and radios to outfit that vehicle for airfield access at the airport. And then our other vehicle replacement is vehicle 2109. This is an administration vehicle, also manufactured in 2015, 11-year-old vehicle, just over 150,000 total miles currently and scheduled for replacement on a routine replacement cycle. Next up is the FBO fuel truck hard stands. FBO is fixed based operator, and that's essentially the private terminal and fueler for the airport. They maintain heavy fuel trucks, as you can see in the photos here. And those have been degrading some of the asphalt surfaces at the airport. This project looks to identify an area to ID for long-term parking of this heavy equipment that's specialized in a concrete hard stand type of approach that'll allow for the safe and non damaging parking of these vehicles over the long term. And lastly, another HVAC project. This is replacing one terminal rooftop unit on the terminal facility. This is the final rooftop unit of the airport that hasn't been replaced in the last three years as we've moved through various phases of the terminal project, of which some were involved in that scope and others have been tackled independently. This is the last unit that's a legacy unit in the 20-year age range that will be replaced, giving us a fully commissioned across the airport HVAC system that is fully upgraded on that end. And that is the end of today's presentation for the airport's proposed capital program.

taking questions after each individual section i suspect right yeah counselor yeah great thanks tony really appreciate it saw this at the airport commission meeting as well so thanks for the the overview do do we see much uh efficiency improvements when we're replacing these units if they're 20 year old old units is there much to be gained

on the efficiency side yeah admittedly most of the improvement there is more of a reliability and time and service type of improvement as opposed to massive efficiency gains but yes there are incremental gains from sustainability and you know natural gas and electric utilization

Okay. And then last question, the parking lots have just become these unending blacktop surfaces and those things. Are we talking at all about trying to break those up a little bit? We've got some water restrictions, so trees don't necessarily become the solution. But is there anything else that's in discussion right now on how not to have just miles and miles of blacktop?

Yeah, good question. The short answer is yes, but only in the margins. The challenge the airport faces with, as a whole, with development is that we are land restricted. We sit on the mesa top, and if you go to the west of the airport, you will find yourself on a steep hill down in banks down to the Florida River. And so that footprint we have to expand within the greater terminal area is bound pretty firmly by those geographic considerations. So it inherently causes us to be very focused on how to be as efficient as possible in that space. So admittedly, you know, we've not built in major landscaping features, major blockouts. trying to make sure we can maintain the capacity we need on that front. That being said, this does have some moderate landscaping associated with it that'll be associated with the entrance. We're looking at some potential art installations that might be a welcoming feature for the airport and the new configuration, as well as xeriscape landscaping. We do do some moderate irrigating of some of the lawns around the front of the airport. We're working to get out from underneath that requirement long-term given the drought challenges that exist in our region and particularly at the airport. So we're looking at putting drought tolerant sort of shrubbery and bushery in place that will be manageable long term. But it's definitely more of a zero escape type of approach. So trying to thread that needle of maintaining a good aesthetic while being as efficient as we can with limited space.

um lastly sorry i did think that the conversation around um adding solar but potentially solar that's on top of covered parking was a really interesting element that was uh the part of the airport commission conversation so looking forward to more coming from there yeah and just for context for the uh the rest of the council the airport commission recently discussed you know future revenue opportunities at the airport and other amenities kind of in conjunction with the capital program and

uh solar continues to be a strong conversation we just installed a 200 kilowatt system on the rooftop of the terminal which is currently offsetting about 30 to 35 percent of our daily demand for electrical at the terminal which is excellent long term there is interest from the airport and the commission around opportunities to potentially scale solar including things that might provide amenities like covered parking the limitation we have right now is ongoing discussions with lpea and their substation capability to absorb additional reverse flow of power during off-peak times. And so that does put a little bit of a limiter on it. But that being said, as we continue to work with LPEA through that process, everyone's in agreement that there's some potential path forward there. Thank you, Tony.

Councilor Lawyer.

Yeah, I just have one quick question. I know years ago when we had SALTFAB, we had reserve policies for every enterprise fund. We've changed the cities, obviously, recently. I know you said it With this reserve fund project for the parking, it's going to bring obviously our reserve fund down by $4 million or whatever it is. However, you have a year's worth of operating revenue, which seems fine. What are you operating on now as your reserve policy?

Our policy states six months, so it's 50% of one year's cash on hand. However, in long-term multi-year discussions with the airport commission, we understand that that's our policy minimum, but as an operating practice, we've tried to maintain the goal of maintaining a year of cash on hand because that's more of a best practice within the airport industry, knowing that there's a level of volatility. We have a risk as a two-airline airport that you would ever have a major disruption that would eliminate one carrier that represents a significant revenue disruption that could potentially occur. And we maintain a lot of infrastructure that could potentially, you know, necessitate some quick movements on a capital front. So we've operated with the goal of trying to maintain a year of cash on hand while knowing that our policy minimum is six months.

Excellent. And then this 128 parking spaces added with almost 100 that you could in the future. Do you feel like that? Because I know it's always that Thanksgiving rush. Do you feel like that will be sufficient? Or I mean, I know it's never enough, but...

That's a good question. So obviously, it always depends on what the long-term forecast is for growth. That's the unknown that we look and we have a kind of a bands of parameters for. Right now, if those 200 parking spaces were added and they were added right now and we were going into the upcoming holiday season, that would be sufficient to capture what we would anticipate as peak Thanksgiving and Christmas traffic based on the counts that we used last year inclusive of the remote off-site overflow lots. And so right now we do anticipate that that would be sufficient. We do have some other projects in the future to take back some rental car spaces as we move some additional infrastructure around. So the short story is that we do envision that there's sufficient capacity at the airport to manage growth for the foreseeable future. We'll actually be re-reviewing some of our long-term parking forecasts and demand forecasts with the airport commission in their October meeting coming up. But we are anticipating that we have enough phases of expansion to be able to maintain that. The caveat, of course, is what the future growth looks like. That's assuming normalized single-digit percentage growth well into the future, which I do think is a realistic forecast. However, if we were to see more aggressive growth, then that does put more pressure on us, which would probably force us into some other plans we've looked at for more ongoing remote off-site parking operations on a shuttle basis or very far down the road potential structural parking. But right now, the financial investment of that is just not realistic for the airport.

Great. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Tony. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Hi, council members. I don't recognize the name or face. It's my first time presenting to you guys. I'm Matthew Scott. I'm filling in today for the Public Works Department while John Harris is out of town. And I'm talking about our public works department, 5 year capital program, and some of the biggest projects we have in each 1 of our funds. I'll start here with our 2019 sales tax fund and as I reach the end of each section for each fund, I'll stop and give you guys a question to ask for that particular fund. So we don't lose it by the end. As I said, I'll start here with the 2019. This funds our streets and alleys, sidewalks and curb and gutters. The first part I want to point out about these 2019 projects is this ballot measure sunsets in after 10 years, which would be 2029. So this funding in 2030 and 2031 is up for election and not necessarily guaranteed. So keep that in mind as we go through these. The first project I want to bring up to you is a sidewalk and curb ramp improvement program. The purpose of this project is to find areas in town where we currently do not have sidewalk and to install new sidewalk. So in 2027, we're looking down here in the lower grid portion near 2nd Street and 3rd Street, also a little west of 8th Ave there, and then up on Gigline Gulch between Jenkins Ranch and Hillcrest for a very requested portion of sidewalk here in town. You'll notice the budget is increasing year after year as we move forward. The reason for that is we're kind of running out of the simpler areas to install a sidewalk where there's not much to it. It's a flat ground, not much in the way. You can just go and install the sidewalk. running out of those easier areas. So in the years forward, these will get them a little more complicated where they might require some great separations or some walls, some more complex design to go into it. So in the years forward, we're looking to build more sidewalks and possibly more complex sidewalks. So you see the funding increasing year after year for that reason. Next up, I've got our pavement preservation program. Here in town, we've really got essentially two methods that we can break this out into. We have a mill and overlay system where we take down roughly about two inches of the existing asphalt and then pave back a new wear surface on top of that. This is more of like a rehab and keep the road going sort of method. In 2027, we're looking down here in the Bodo area in the photo on the right for mill and overlay of that area. And then our other larger treatment process is a full reconstruct where we completely remove all the existing pavement down to the sub base layer. address that sub base and then bring the asphalt all the way back up to the final wear surface. This is a little more costly, but of course you do get a full new road and a full wear surface out of that. In 2027, we're aiming on 2nd Street and then on the northwest side of town there, Cottonwood Drive and Needham Court. Another project we've got is the alley improvement program. Our alleyways around town, as you guys I'm sure are aware, are in several different current states, I would say. Some are paved, some have poor drainage, some need a sewer line in them or a water line in them. So there's really a varying level of need for each one of our alleys. That's why you'll see the budget jumping around quite a bit from year to year. In our department, we've identified the alleys that we want to go after in the year's future. And so that's why each alley per year has different needs. Therefore, we have different costs that are bouncing around a little bit. In 2027, right now, we are engineering for and then in one year and then building the next. In 2027, we're at this in the red section there between 8th and 9th Street looking at block 64, which is between 5th and 6th Ave. So this is another project where we design one year and construct the next. That's it for the streets 2019 program. I'll stop there. Questions on those.

Thank you, Matthew. Appreciate it. And if there's any questions that you need to get back to us on, that's fine too. So if you could go back to the sidewalks slides. One of the things that I noticed is just the sidewalks that we're looking at, and maybe you talked about this with the fact that these are easier, quote unquote, easier sidewalks to put in. We're concentrated on the downtown. We don't spread out much in regards to Crestview or any of the other areas. And so some of those sidewalks are there, but they're two foot wide, historically really old sidewalks. do we see that we're getting to those eventually? And these are, these sidewalks that you've outlined right now are just the, the, the easier and maybe more needy ones, but there's just still a lot of sidewalks around town that are not in these neighborhoods that need a lot of work.

So with the existing sidewalks that are in neighborhoods, uh, our town or the charter at the moment states that it's the resident's responsibility. Okay. So we are trying to avoid that, uh, conflict maybe and just focus on the areas where there currently is not a sidewalk that because there's no stipulation on we can't go install a new one but to upgrade or repair an existing one falls on the residents so we are sticking to the new areas okay um okay uh there doesn't seem to be any projects sidewalk or road that are uh out in three springs is that just because that's only 20 year old roads and 20 year old infrastructure and so it's doing just fine or We, as far as sidewalks specifically, they're in pretty good shape out there.

Okay.

Um, the roads as well. Yeah. I mean, we have more pressing issues.

Okay. Uh, that's, that's me. Thanks. Councilor lawyer.

Yeah. So when you look at the pavement and the sidewalk projects, it looks like over the one, two, three, five years, there's about a 75% increase in the cost of things. And I know projects get more complicated. Is it include the anticipated increase for construction costs as well? I just want to make sure like how much represents infrastructure we're actually repairing each year and how much is like inflation?

So with sidewalks, a lot of it is more and more complex. Uh, we do build in an inflation projection into all of our future years. Uh, that's not the major driver for sidewalks though.

Um, for, well, so for sidewalks real quick, sorry. So for the sidewalk, since you were on that one, so you said more and more, so we're going to do more sidewalk projects in 2029, like double the amount of sidewalk projects than we're doing next year.

Yes, ma'am.

We anticipate we'll have the staff. Well, sure, sure. We're good. We have the staff. We're going to be able to handle that many projects because we've gotten into trouble before saying we're going to do all these projects and then we don't end up doing them and then they get pushed a little bit.

So the ones we're undertaking right now, there's really no engineering behind them, so they're not, it's a cheaper project really so as we get those more complex ones that's a the engineering typically is outsourced to engineering firms um so that's really the driver behind those costs okay is it the engineering because they're more complex projects got it engineering comes with a cost, more difficult project comes with a cost. If I've got to build a wall next to the sidewalk, that's an expensive wall.

Okay, excellent. And then do we have like a target pavement condition index that we're using to prioritize these projects? Um, or how do we, how do you decide that it's that one this year and that one next, like, does that make sense?

A lot of times you'll see that PCI target number. I don't have on top of my head. No, no, we do. Uh, that is how we address them though. So we are going this lowest area. It's a, it's a balance between lowest PCI scores and like how big of a chunk can you get done in one area? Because it's easier to mobile contractor into one area, keep them there for awhile.

And that's what I just wanted to make sure we do do that. And that's how we're prioritizing projects. Because I guess my question is, if we fund this entire five-year plan, right, and we're going to go forward with it, are we getting ahead of deferred maintenance? Are we staying even? Or are we continuing to fall behind?

We really are trying to catch up to what a decent PCI score should be. We're not getting ahead. I would say that.

but we're trying to catch up, which in a way is getting ahead. So from like where we're at now, we're making progress. And I guess that's what I want to clarify. All right, thank you so much.

I'm sorry, Councilor Yazzie.

Thank you for your first presentation. Okay, so I'm curious on the pavement, we don't do chip and seal.

We do. So there's several different, this particular project line item has several different treatments available in it. Some of those are crack seal, chip seal. On Florida Road, we just recently did an OGFC overlay. So those are built into this budget. That's also why this budget is quite a bit larger. So those are options, but these are just the bigger more identifiable projects where we are going to take down a whole portion of the road and build it back up so do you have a follow-up for chip and seal because those maintain the road a little bit long sorry what was that scheduled for doing a chip and seal you know throughout the city we the schedule we've built out really is around the mill and overlay and the full replacements um those kind of I would say lesser treatments we fill in with what budget we have left out of after we've fully replaced and milled and overlaid. Those are kind of secondary options, I would say. They are ongoing and we do do them each year, but our first focus is where can we fully replace a road? And then the smaller treatments come after.

Councilor Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor. So I think you answered the question with some of the others that asked, but just for my own clarification, Residents are responsible for the sidewalk in front of their right-of-way. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Is there any potential for people to apply if they have a hardship? Do we have any funding available for families that present a hardship in their sidewalk if it was on a route to school, for example, or for any reason?

I don't know that answer.

Okay. Okay, and what about you mentioned the... So perhaps we could find out, right? I suspect there's not. Is there any funding available? 50-50? Say that again?

Yes. Okay. We do still have the 50-50 project where if a citizen pays 50%, the city will match that 50%. But it's not necessarily a hardship. I think it's anyone who would like to participate to that program. Historically, we just have not seen any participation or interest in it.

Okay. Um, okay, so that anybody could? Is it so it's not an app? Is it an application process? Or is it they would just suggest it so anybody's available? It's not it's not a hardship that anybody can apply? Is it a simple thing?

I don't know exactly how the application process goes. I just know we've had a lot of discussion around it, just mainly because it hasn't been utilized and we haven't really seen interest to burn into it and things that we've taken a look at of how to maybe make that more useful.

okay i think that might be a future project um just to make sure people are taking advantage of it especially if it's on a route to school or a major i don't know the library or something like that um you also mentioned uh the alleys or is that coming up i talked about the alleys okay so is it same scenario so city maintains all of our of the alleys

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. And, um, okay. So all of those, that's not something that's like a 50, 50 match or anything.

No, that's not on the citizens to go repair or replace the alley.

Are, are all of our alleys, um, well, I guess they must be utilized. We don't have any unutilized alleys.

I don't know for sure, but I would say, yes, they are utilized.

I imagine because then we wouldn't maintain them, right? If they were not being utilized for all the reasons that one might use them. Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Lots of utilities run through the alleys to counselor Gonzalez. So lots of the utilities downtown. Matthew, I just wanted to follow up. So the sidewalk budgets is,

homeowner needs to pay for residential when we just did the second avenue sidewalk construction did the commercial owners have to pay for anything for that so the target there was uh city owned adjacent properties so a lot of those were right next to we had a parking lot there or some other structure and then As I was choosing which places to go, I wasn't really going to like go strictly in front of our parking lot. And then right there is a heaved, horrible piece of sidewalk. I wasn't going to stop right there. So kind of logically went to the limits of where does this make sense in that area?

Okay. Normally, if there's a sidewalk project, commercial tenant to commercial owners also pay into that project? Yes.

Typically, it's the same rule as residents. If it's in front of their property, they are responsible for maintaining.

Does the 50-50 program work for commercial as well as residential?

Don't know that answer. I can follow up with you. Thank you. Any other 2019 questions?

I think we're good, Matthew. We're going to keep continuing.

I'll move on to our water fund. The first project to point out here is our 3 million gallon tank installation project. On the screen here, you guys can see the 7 million gallon tank in the lower left of the photo. This tank, as you'll see in a slide upcoming, has some interior coating work that needs to be done. While we do that work, we do need to completely empty it. And so in that meantime, we will need a spare tank or reservoir while that work is ongoing. So we're looking at building a 3 million gallon tank. That tank won't be built just for a temporary usage. It also is meant to expand our capacity of the plant and upgrade some of our water treatment features, like those conical C shapes that you see on the inside. Helps with contact time between water and chlorine. This project is being engineered in-house with city staff working through 2026, and we are looking to start construction in 2028 for an estimated almost $19 million cost over those three years. Our next project is the Florida raw water supply pipeline. Many of you know we've got a nine mile pipeline from just below the lemon reservoir down to our treatment facility. That pipe is pretty old and has some places that have leaks or breaks. And so this is a project to first assess the existing condition of the pipeline, find the worst areas, and then figure out which treatment would be best for that location. A lot of these were looking at an HDPE or plastic liner on the inside of the pipe, where they go in, line the inside of the pipe, and then return it to service. Um, the first spot we're looking at is just here on Florida road, about a half mile up from the two 50 intersection, uh, shown on the screen there. Um, and we're expecting this to go over four years at two and a half a year for a total cost of 10 million. Um, they'll start assessing the condition in 2027. Um, we actually, I've got a note there at the bottom. there's a chance we may begin that assessment in late 2026 we recently are putting this out to bid and expecting that come back soon yeah that's florida next project is the 160 west waterline this project was recently split up into two portions this Project reaches essentially from Roosa Avenue up to the Speedway gas station. And I mentioned it was split in two. So the Twin Buttes developer, as well as Goff Engineering, is going to be responsible for the far western half of that project, which goes from the Speedway gas station about a half mile east to the Animus mini storage. So we're in a cost share agreement with them on that portion. They are responsible for engineering and building. then the city is responsible for the animus mini storage to rusa avenue portion we've got our designer in contract now we're working through that design at the moment and looking to build in 2027. so this is an upsizing of the line from a current six inch to a 12 inch pipeline And as you can see, the existing line has some spots of disrepair that needs to be upgraded as well in the photo. Around town, we've got several tanks that need to be addressed. Rockridge tank is one of them. You can see in the photo, the existing exterior coating is in pretty rough shape as well as the interior coating. So we need to rehab those. While we're in there, we'll go ahead and install some instrumentation and a tank mixer to help prevent icing over the winter. And looking at constructing this next year for roughly $800,000. As I mentioned earlier, the 3 million gallon tank, here we've got the 7 million gallon tank. You guys can see in the photo on the left, the interior structural members are pretty corroded. So we've got to take that down and address that coating. Like I said, this project can't take place until we complete the 3 million gallon tank. So in 2028, as we're starting to get towards the end of that project, we'll start engineering this one, looking to construct it in 2030 and 2031 for roughly $3.5 million. Another project that's got a prerequisite is the Wildcat tank rehab. Right now, when the Twin Buttes pump station is pulling water up the hill there, we don't have quite enough water in the existing 160 West water line. And so it has to be supplemented with the water that's in this tank. And so until we upsize that line and have more water in that line, we have to keep this tank as supplemental for those scenarios. So when we finish the 160 West waterline upgrade, we'll then move into the Wildcat tank rehab. This is another one where we've got some safety upgrades to make on the outside with the handrail and ladder. And then on the inside, we've got some sampling ports and SCADA instrumentation items to upgrade as well. Looking at 2029 and most of the construction taking place in 2030 for just under a million dollars on that. this next project we're pretty excited about. We haven't had a annual water line or sewer line replacement program in the city. And we've got several areas that have leaks or breaks that occur frequently. So we're going to start getting ahead of those and addressing those yearly. This is the first case of that. This Crestview and East Lawn neighborhood has been identified as our biggest problem area for both our water and sewer. You'll see a sewer slide coming up later for that. But the way this project will work is engineer one year and construct the next year, as I've laid out for a couple of the others. And we've got plenty of work in just this neighborhood to keep us occupied for the next five years for roughly $1 million a year. And then some miscellaneous projects I'll point out to you guys in our five year. First is the 8th and 8th Street water line replacement. This is, you might see from multimodal, they've got an eighth and eighth project going as well. This is being designed in tandem with that. I will say, regardless of the surface level improvements, these utility improvements need to be made and will move forward whether or not multimodal does their project. So that one is going in 2027. And then a little lower on the list, you see the main avenue water line replacement. That's in the same footprint as the Downtown Next Steps project. This is another one, though, that's being designed in tandem. However, regardless of the surface level improvements, these utility upgrades must be made, and we are budgeting for and planning as if it will continue in 2029. And that's all I've got for the water. I'll pause there and take questions from you guys.

Going to kick us off here. Thanks, Matthew. Going back to the Florida pipeline, and maybe you answered this, but I missed it. Are we able to maintain service during that slip line procedure or whatever sort of maintenance project we're going to be doing with that?

That portion would need... specifics of the project haven't been worked out but while you are slip lining a pipeline you can't have water running through it so we would have to have some kind of bypass or something like that or they may be coordinated shutdowns but no you couldn't have water moving through the pipeline at that time they are pretty short procedures um the liner cures pretty quickly but there will have to be some work around figured out for that

I see. So there are expected blackouts if that's the route you decide to go.

I think we'll probably work towards reroutes or bypasses, but a blackout is potential.

So walk me through that. Does that just mean you're going to slip line a portion of it and then you're routing around that portion?

Make a little speed around it.

Gotcha. Will there be turbidity expected within the water system to the consumer while we're doing this project?

It should. Sorry, I'm kind of spitballing here, but it should, you have the same in as coming out and that bypass pipeline shouldn't be extra dirty. So I wouldn't imagine you'd have an increase now.

Okay. I guess what I'm looking at eventually is like, what does the outreach look like from the team to be able to make sure that we're communicating with residents and making sure that everybody knows what's going on and they can plan their lives around any sort of perceived outage or I'm sorry, not perceived, but any sort of outage or if they're getting some turbidity in their water, you know, we're not getting a bunch of phone calls asking what's going on. Just, What sort of like proactive approach are we going to make sure that we're letting people know and giving them the tools that they need?

So for commercial projects, we have a pretty established network. Water shut off notification procedure. I would hope that if we're doing that to our commercial, we ourselves would maintain that. So, yes, for sure. We will be reaching out to citizens and then to address the turbidity. This water goes into the large reservoir at the treatment facility. So any turbidity issues. Would be. it's a upstream of that really like what comes out of the water treatment plant isn't going to change we're not going from the florida pipe straight into your tap it goes through the treatment facility first and then out to uh distribution actually perfect okay then thanks for the clarification there um and then on the eighth and eighth um we're getting conjunction with the multimodal um

trying to remember, are there any sidewalks on that 8th Avenue part, like going north? I mean, because isn't there like there's a portion of that going north where there's no sidewalks? Would that be a part of that sidewalk project that you were discussing earlier, or would that be something that we are looking at as we're currently working on this project?

So we are considering the possibility of taking some of the funding from the sidewalk and being able to put it on that project as well, because we do want to install sidewalks there. And that is one of the more complicated sections, because there isn't a sidewalk. It's a pretty steep hill over there. So yes, to answer your question.

Okay, great. As long as we're kind of thinking about that as we're leading to that project. So, all right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Matthew. Counselor lawyer.

Yeah.

Before I forget, I just want to say you're doing great for your first presentation to council and some party questions. And John's not here.

We haven't finished yet.

He left you in the trenches and you're doing awesome. So thank you so much. But I have a couple of questions quick. I know the $7 million tank is contingent on the $3 million or the $7 million. No, 7 million gallon tank is contingent on the 3 million gallon tank getting completed. What happens if that runs over schedule or over budget?

um anything financially operationally it's a deferred maintenance thing so essentially your maintenance goes longer but we do need to do that work so the seven the three million has to get built yeah um if it were delayed then the seven million would just delay but we can deal with it fine okay um last year or two years ago i forget when it was we had some line liner being replaced from a new tank that was like a newer are these at life expectancy are we seeing like these replacements or as we're the seven million is pretty old and yes definitely within the lifespan of a reg what you should expect a tank to last

Are we trying to get like a schedule? So it's not like, oh crap, we have a 7 million gallon tank and it is way behind maintenance schedule, you know? And we're like trying, I know we have so many, and that's another question I have like so many projects to catch up on. Are we making progress? Do we have the money to make progress? So we're not like in a, oh crap moment.

Um, We are looking forward to which ones we do need to address. The money statement, we...

It's OK. And I don't really answer that. Yeah.

Yeah. As far as the catch up, we do have freezing nickels currently doing our wastewater and water master plan that should be finished next spring. So that's the one that will really help us with the catch up in the funding and the structure of what that looks like in catching up.

Okay. Cause that kind of goes to my next question. Like if we're looking at the five-year CIP projects for water, not just project by project, what rate increases or debt issuances are currently assumed to support it? The $10 million Florida pipeline, the $3 million and the two water tanks that, you know, does that make sense? Like.

Yeah, so I believe part of that water master plan is sewer rate studies.

So right now we're just sort of saying, rolling the dice. Here it is. This is what we need to do. is what we need to do we also need to figure out the funding yes perfect and then the last thing um you talked about the one neighborhood over five years the rest for you in east long yes exactly so for five years we're focusing on one neighborhood yes that means every other neighborhood in durango is now five years older by the time we get to choose to focus on another neighborhood

Yes. We have to choose our battles.

Yes, exactly. And I know that this one is the most needed and I'm assuming the water master plan will come to us and say the next ones.

Yeah.

The next ones. And no, we can't do one neighborhood every five years. We have to increase, like if we can't, I don't know what they're going to say, obviously.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. That's my concern. Obviously I'm sure it's your concern. Everyone's concern is our water.

And we were to only do one every five years and then within.

I mean, that's probably what we can afford to do in the money sense, but can we afford it in the, we need water and the, yeah. So there's two types of affording, right. As a community. And so, um, I guess that's where my concern is, is making sure we can afford both.

Um, I don't want to make any major funding discussions. My, my job is the projects.

You can make sure you can have John respond another day. I'm just kidding. Thank you.

All right, Councilor Crosso. Matthew, the Crestview areas, if you're doing the roads, do you typically look at the water lines and try and do all that at the same time?

Yes, sir. So if we were to put a water line underneath the street, the street comes with it.

Yeah. Yeah. But, Councilor Lawyer, I agree. There's an element of us replacing these things, 2% of them every year for 50 years and having that ongoing replacement schedule. And I love seeing that we've got some of that going on at this point. So thanks for that. um the florida water line the previous budget i believe was in several million dollars and it was because we had a lot of easements to deal with um and it seems to me that a liner removes the need for the easements and a lot of the costs that we had budgeted for on that project am i confusing projects is that right so that is uh we did have previously listed a florida pipeline replacement project yeah and that did include a lot of easements um

to address the current line we would already have an easement for where that line exists today so you aren't necessarily procuring easements um but also it's less cost because we aren't looking to replace the whole line we're just slip lining the bad areas so we're seeing some savings from the money that we allocated this year to do some of that initial work yes sir okay great thank you very much council yazzie

okay so i'm wondering okay so we're going to do the water line replacement expand it like double the size up on highway 160. okay so what do we have enough water or is that going to be the pumps are also going to be um getting the water up there how's that going to work since we're doubling the capacity so the current six inch water line

We have enough water in our system to be able to do it, but the current six inch water line itself does not have, can't hold enough water. It's like, if you have a whole gallon jug and just a cup right here, you still got a whole gallon, but you only have the cup to drink from. Um, so when we upgrade the pipeline now, instead of just a cup, I've got a big Nalgene water bottle that I can fill up from. That's the analogy I would make.

Okay, so you're saying that we do have the capacity to fill up the large pipe?

We have the capacity. We don't have the pipe for it right now.

And we don't have to change out pumping stations or anything like that?

No, ma'am. Those pumps can still, the pumps will still function. They will just pull from the different source.

Okay, good. Hey, thanks. Great.

So we have, you want to keep going, Matthew?

Sure thing. I'll move on to our wastewater utility fund. First project to highlight here is our annual lift station replacement. So you can see in the previous photo, the status of one of our lift stations, our pumps are pretty old and in need of upgrade. So the way that these projects work is we engineer the lift station one year, procure all the materials the next, and then install it in year three. So I've got a map there on the left showing you the locations where we're going within the next five years. And in 2027, we're looking to replace Lightner Creek. They're pretty close to the 160 and 550 intersection. Our next project is the Island Cove sewer main upsizing. You can see in the photo on the left, the current sewer line is going right through several of our residents' properties. As you can imagine, this makes maintenance and upsizing pretty difficult. So we're looking to relocate this line out into city right-of-way and then connect it into our main sewer. Looking to do this, engineer it in 2028 and then build it in 2029. Out at our Santa Rita reclamation facility, our dewatering building in the upper right of the photo has an existing hydrogen sulfide gas mitigation system, but we need to upgrade and modernize that. And so we're looking to do that in 2029 for roughly just under $400,000. And then as I showed the East Lawn and Crestview neighborhood earlier, with the water lines, this is the sewer lines in the same area. While we're doing one, we'll knock out the other as well. And then Councilor Costa, as you mentioned, the street would get paved right on top of those. So we would have a new street in that area as well. And this is coming in right above a million dollars a year. And then also out at our Santa Rita, treatment facility, uh, the wastewater environments are pretty corrosive or caustic to our concrete structures out there. So kind of on a recurring basis, you need to recoat and reline the interior concrete. Um, so that's what this project is for at roughly $385,000 a piece. Uh, we're looking to do digester one in 2028 and one of our primary clarifiers in 2029. And then for miscellaneous projects in the sewer fund, this top one here in 2027, we've got the Santa Rita Park Irrigation Conversion Feasibility Study. That's just a feasibility study to determine could we take recycled water and water the park out of Santa Rita to help with our drought watering issues. And the other one there is the eighth and eighth sewer replacement, similar to the water line replacement. Regardless of the surface improvements, we will continue with that project as needed. And then in years 29, 30, and 31, again, you see the main avenue water line or sewer line replacement. That also is regardless of the surface level improvements. whether or not you guys vote on the DNS surface improvements we still plan on and will do these utility replacements underground. And that's all I've got for sewer. Stop there for questions.

Yeah, just short question on the Main Avenue waterline replacement. So the spread out over the years, do you figure that that's two blocks each year or is there any kind of a guesstimate on what that means?

Two blocks a year. We can get essentially two blocks for about a million. So that's.

In speaking with the Pagosa folks, the contractors always wanted as much duration as they could get on these projects. And so do you foresee, by any chance, do you foresee shutting down two blocks all at the same time? Or is it a rolling thing that the businesses could stay open until the replacement got to them? Does that make sense?

I don't have an answer for you.

All right. And I know we're still in early discussions on all this. Okay. Thank you. Councilor Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor. So you mentioned, I think you mentioned something in your presentation about recycled water.

Yes, ma'am.

Can you elaborate? I missed it and I missed the details.

So we actually still have it on screen. It's the Santa Rita Park irrigation, the first one listed up top there. That's just a feasibility study to determine could we take recycled water from the Santa Rita facility and pipe it right over to the park. That's right in the same area there.

And that we are the cost of the what we're trying to figure out is the cost of the feasibility study or actually the feasibility studies estimated at 55 grand.

And then that would tell us potential cost of the project and whether or not we can do it.

Okay, and that's already budgeted the 55,000 that the 55 is to do that study.

okay okay thank you thank you mayor that's all great any others that's it okay i'll move on to our solid waste i've just got one to show you here uh that is our solid waste cost of service study the last one we did is in 2021 uh those roughly look out about five years so 2026 is the expiration uh so we're looking to renew that in 2027 for about 110 000 That's all I have for you. I'll take questions on that one.

Do you have anything? Yeah.

Matthew, does the solid waste cost study, do you know if it incorporates at all the producer responsibility impacts? This is on the recycling side and the potential money that's going to be, the costs that are going to be put back on the producers rather than on fees that we charge to residents. Do you have any idea if this wraps in, if this cost study talks about that? Municipal wide composting, yard waste drop off, any of that? Do we know?

They'll be analyzing our system on a whole. So yes, that would be a part of it.

It would be part of that?

Okay. Yes, I believe so.

Okay, great. Thanks.

That's it. I appreciate your time, guys. Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew. Appreciate it. Is that all we have on the capital improvement projects?

Yes, sir.

Okay, great. We'll move on to 2026 Q2 financial services report.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Excuse me. This presentation, again, is for the Quarter 2, 2026 Financial Services Report, and it is under the goal of organizational stewardship. This is covering June 2026. And we did push this from the last study session, so it is a little later than we would normally be looking at June, but all months are on our website in the financial transparency portal. So you can see that in detail and much more detail than we're presenting today as well. And so just as a reminder, the financial services in the finance division, some of the things we do are listed here. And these are some of the core functions, including being financial stewards of public funds, overseeing the audit and internal controls, as we've discussed recently, and, of course, making sure that we're in compliance with state laws and city charter and all regulations. So in addition to the finance division included with us is customer service, which is also sometimes referred to as utility billing, and the fleet and facilities maintenance division. So just a few things to note that we're currently working on and wanted to call out the 2027 budget process, as we've just been discussing the CIPs for public works and airport. And then finance is working with the departments, with city management office, going through to have this ready for the council for a budget retreat on October 14th. As far as the CIP, we are presenting this requested, the 2027 projects to the FAB in September. So this is broken up this coming Thursday night and then on the 17th. And then that will be put together with the entire fund, with the funding sources. I know council had some questions on that. So we'll be looking at it with the funding sources and possible rate discussions at those meetings to bring back to council at that budget retreat. Some other statistics that are mentioned here are the bids that have been issued, 21 bids. This has now, I think, doubled in just the last couple of months, and we have 56 active grants. We are actively reviewing policies in finance for updates, which a couple of these will come back to council. In facilities, they've processed 155 work orders. Fleet has issued 165 pieces of inventory. And then again, they're just a review of the SOPs regarding vehicle and equipment replacement processes. And the customer service has issued food tax rebates. So this is an annual rebate program. So this year we issued $30,530. And also utility refunds in the amount of $14,894. And then also working on some audits of historical accounts. So as mentioned, this is for June 2026. We will look at our budget to actuals. And we'll start with the general fund with revenues. We like to go through these revenues. And then, of course, we can discuss any questions that you might have with the, these are major funds that we normally present, but all of the funds in all detail are online. So the sales tax, we are showing that we've collected 47.5% as of June. It does show an increase over the prior year of a little over 3%. So if we're looking at these far right columns, this is comparing to 2025. And then the last column is comparing to our current budget. And of course, generally we compare with the portion of the year that we are at, which is 50%. This is very generalized. Many revenues and expenses are not evenly distributed throughout the year. And one example of that is right below in the county sales tax. So this is distributed to us quarterly. And so we are showing that we're at 28% of the budget that has been collected, although you can see that we have an increase over this time last year. In the joint sales tax, this is budgeted for the library operations and we perform a true up at the end of the year with the county along with what they have budgeted for to contribute to the city's library. In the state marijuana sales tax, this is to note because, as you can see, we budgeted $300,000. This declined last year. We had already seen declines here, and this is actually a program that has been cut by the state. So we will need to adjust the budget for this account. We will no longer be receiving this revenue. In property taxes, this reflects the increase of the mill rate that was approved by the voters in 2025, increasing by 3.53 mills for the fire district contract. And then you can see In use tax building permits there, we have collected about 90% of our budget or about 41% over last year. So that's definitely noteworthy. And then in the other taxes and fees, I wanted to call out what is included there. So let's see. That includes the smaller categories such as alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana fees combined. These are approximately 68,000, and we're at about 31% of collections. This also includes general use tax returns, not in these ones that are mentioned as specific categories. And the collections there are about $100,000, $112, or 36% of the budget. Moving on to charges for services, we did split these out as external charges and internal charges. And so we can see here that the overall collections for external charges for services are increased about right under 5% over last year, and we're at about 46% of collections for the year. Under the internal, these are mostly made up of transfers and services provided to other funds. And these are usually distributed evenly throughout the year. We do have a few, so notably capital improvement. Division management revenue, these are fees that are charged on projects so that we, instead of consulting these services out, and these are generally 5% of project costs, so these are adjusted at year-end depending on project costs, so we don't have any collections there. In the miscellaneous revenue category, these are categorized as miscellaneous in our audit, but we've listed out interest revenues, fall spring cleanup fees, leases, and then other miscellaneous. In the other miscellaneous category, this includes some restricted interest revenues that are not called out separately. These also include revenues without any other classification on the list, some rebates or refunds that are distributed for prior years, also includes our peak card rebate that we receive every year, as well as CORA requests, restitution, and small contributions. Then moving to Intergovernmental. Here we are showing About 26% collected, although we are 14% increased over the prior year. And many of these are collected unevenly throughout the year. The other intergovernmental does include contracts with other entities such as the DFPD system analyst and the Durango 9R resource officer, as well as mineral leases, motor vehicle registration fees that are distributed to the city. And then we have license and permits. We've collected approximately 51% and almost 4% over this time last year. And fines, we do show a decrease over last year of about 35%, and we've collected under 40% of the budget. So overall in our revenues, we do show right under 11% increase over last year and collected about 45% of the budget. This graph is just to further show details of the sales tax revenues. As mentioned, we do have an increase right now over the prior year of around 3%, and we have collected about 48% of the budget. So moving on to general fund expenses, we are looking to see if we have staying right around that 50% mark. Of course, not all things are distributed evenly. We may have some one-time expenses or capital items that may be included. So with public safety, we see that we've expended right around 49%. General government, we're right over about 52%. WITH PARKS AND RECREATION, ABOUT 47%. PUBLIC WORKS, 47%. COMMUNITY SERVICES, 51%. AND NONDEPARTMENTAL, ABOUT 33%. SO OVERALL, WE ARE AROUND 49% OF OUR BUDGETED EXPENSES IN THE GENERAL FUND. IN THE WATER FUND, SORRY, IT LOOKS LIKE THIS GOT A LITTLE jumbled on this slide here. We are showing revenues collected at about 38%. So water revenues are collected in arrears, so they are about a month behind. So this does accurately reflect our collections. And then expenses were around 39%. In the sewer fund, we've collected 44% of our budget, and we have expended about 46% of our budgeted expenses. This does show a capital expense there, but this is a kind of an operating expense that is in that capital category. This is not reflective of any capital projects. And so this report is only covering operating funds. And in the transportation fund, have collected 37% of revenues. And I'll draw your attention to that intergovernmental line. This is where our grant revenues are. These are first expended, and then we submit for reimbursement. And so these do lag behind in that category. And then because we didn't split out, I didn't know if it would be of interest to know it was included in charges for services. And we can split that out if that's desired in the future. But parking meters makes up about 900,000. Parking permits, about 150. The lodgers tax percentage that is distributed to transportation is around $812,000, and the fixed route fares are around $80,000. And then, again, the expenses are around 45%. And that is the last of the report with these revenues and expenses, and I can take any questions that you might have.

Yes, we are.

Yeah, thank you. I think most of my questions are going to relate to us getting ready to go into the budget for 2027. Is there any revenue or expenditure trends through Q2 that materially change the assumptions that we're currently using to build the 2027 budget?

There are, particularly in the general fund. We did have some assumptions from 2025 as we went through the audit and we realized that some of those were The assumptions were a little higher than what we should have maybe anticipated, and this may have been from previous trends. And so we were aware of some of those, and we're kind of watching to see how other revenues trended. We know we were up in sales tax. However, there were some of these, such as the state marijuana sales tax that came in low and, excuse me, that was not anticipated. Also, in property taxes, there was, that includes one category of the property taxes. It's listed separately here as the specific ownership tax. Sorry, I got something in my thread there. And this has decreased significantly over the last few years. So those are areas that we would want to decrease in our assumptions as well as interest revenue. Although that is, you know, increasing right now, or I'm sorry, that is decreasing right now. And we're all aware of that it was in recent years had decreased. And then there were a few, um, council directed, um, recent changes such as the marijuana, um, licenses, and we've made that change in the budget this year. So we'll, we'll use that going forward as well.

Okay. Is there any, in your opinion, is there anything that council should be thinking about or educated on now rather than waiting until October 14th or whenever it is?

I think that we're just watching these revenues. We'll, of course, have a rate discussion. And so those are the drivers of those enterprise funds. We've already brought to the council the certain funds that we know are going to be looking negative in the next few years. And so those will definitely be a concern. And we'll want to talk through planning forward. Of course, the budget we bring you is for one year. But we want to look at five years and what things look like and discuss, you know, what can we do as we know these things are coming. So we definitely want to plan forward and not just be looking at one year only.

Excellent. Thank you, Gloria.

Just one quick question. Going back to the business licenses, if you don't mind, I saw those down 13%. And so kind of brings it back full circle. You talked about marijuana fees. Do you feel like the marijuana fee amendment to how much we're taking in for those licenses have incorporates into that 13% being down? Or do you think there's other factors involved?

There are likely some other factors as well, maybe timing. But as far as those specific licenses, I don't have that information right here. I could look at it and probably would need to get with Fay and see, you know, who changed. And we know there were some of those things that changed. But I know that some of those, you know, there are renewals at certain times in the year, and it could be timing, some of that as well.

Okay, gotcha. I guess I was trying to figure out if, is it, are we down 13% because the marijuana fees or do we have fewer businesses renewing? I mean, just trying to get a 30,000 foot snapshot of kind of where.

I believe that the assumption was that it was going to be a decrease of around 70,000. Um, that's a, that's a round number, so I can definitely respond back to the council with some more definite numbers. Okay.

It might be just good to see if that has really adversely affected, you know, that to that degree. So, okay. Um, that's all I have. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thanks, Gloria. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Moving on to comprehensive plan outreach.

All right. Good afternoon, Council. Jamie Lobko, Community Development Director. So today is very exciting. We're beginning our formal kickoff of the comprehensive plan updates. It's grounded in meaningful engagement, data-driven analysis, and long-term visioning for Durango's future. So we're fortunate to be partnering with Logan Simpson, nationally recognized planning engagement firm with extensive experience supporting Colorado communities. They bring specialized expertise in community engagement, land use planning, and creative public outreach tools. I'm going to introduce Jen Gardner. She's a senior associate with Logan Simpson. She's leading our engagement and visioning components of our comp plan. She's been closely involved with our team in the recent weeks, helping us get our engagement schedule up, the boards, the materials, communication, and helping shape this engagement week. She's going to walk you through our comp plan, the phases of it, the engagement processes we're going to use this week. She's going to go through our schedule, milestones, and how council can be involved going forward. So I'm pleased to turn it over to Jen, and she'll kick off our engagement framework and what to expect as we begin shaping Durango's future together.

Fantastic. So excited to be here today. We just had some really great engagement over at the library, so we've kicked this off. I think it's going to be awesome. So we're going to run through some reintroductions of our team real briefly, project overview, timeline, a little bit of what we're doing this week, and then we do have a quick discussion question for all of you if you're willing to engage. As Jamie said, we have two project managers on this project, myself and Megan Moore. We each kind of have different specialties within the project, so you'll see us at different times. And then Michaela and Robin are our right hands. They really do a lot of the work, as Jamie can attest. Ben Osterling, he's a GIS. We call him GIS analyst, but he's really a GIS guru. So he can really manage the data, analyze the data. He gets in deep, and we'll have some fun with him later on. Sophie Frankenberg will be involved in the project. She's been involved in a lot of the housing work that we've been doing. She's out on maternity leave at the moment, but she'll be reengaging with the project here in November. And then we have local representatives, Sarah Pichard and Paul O'Neill from SEH, as well as Adrian Diaz, which he's available to do some multilingual translation if needed at events. And then Andy Arnold, I think you guys know him from, he does the economics. so we always want to kind of get out on the front of what a comprehensive plan is and is not so it is a long-range plan that gives the big picture framework and policy guide for a community it's really community-based so what i always explain to people is whereas you all set the strategic plan for the city the community is really heavily involved in that comprehensive planning to make sure that it's a community-wide vision It's not a zoning ordinance. It's not budget or capital improvements that you guys were just talking about. It can inform those, though. And it's not meant to stop growth or mandate anything specifically, but it's meant to guide us as we look at development over time. There's many, many components of the comprehensive plan. I won't go through all of these, but I will say that second bubble up there is that vision and values. That's what we're really here to establish this week. And as we move through the process, you'll see different touch points where we start to develop those goals and policies and implementation plans. We come back to the community at all those different points to say, here's what we heard from you in that first kind of session that we had. Here's how we've rolled that into some goals and policies. Here's how we move that forward. So we want to make sure that the community and you all are giving us that thumbs up along the way. i do want to highlight a couple of items the state has some very new requirements with the water supply element and the strategic growth element that have just become into legislation in the last couple of years so those are things that a lot of communities have always looked at over time but there's a little bit more meat on the bones of what the state is requiring at this time so we'll be looking at those pretty heavily Um, some project goals we want to make sure we create a comprehensive plan. That's a real usable document for staff for city council for planning commission as you're making decisions over time. Um, in the long term, you know, development of the community. We want to provide a consistent basis for evaluating development proposals, and we want to create engaging, consistent, and inclusive process. So that's what we're here this week starting, and we really want to make sure that that's a fully inclusive process that captures the community's voice. Timeline. We're in phase one right now, which is a lot of discovery and discussion. Phase one really kind of creates the foundation of the plan. So if we can really establish that vision and do good discovery throughout phase one, then phase two kind of happens very easily and it kind of falls into place nicely. Phase two is where we'll come back out and do a land use workshop. And that's when we sit down and look at the map and look at future land use categories, look at the preliminary goals and strategies that come out of this first big outreach push and make sure, like I said, that the community is on board. And then we come back out at the end of the plan for a big celebration to say, yes, we did it. We achieved our goal. I guess I just kind of went through this from our kickoff events. That's what we're doing this week. Land use labs is when we're looking at the mapping and all the different components. That's a very robust time in the project as well, where we'll have some focus groups dealing, you know, speaking with smaller, more focused representation of the community. So we may meet with people that are more focused on parks and recreation. People that are more focused on housing or transportation or water, we might have smaller little listening sessions with them to workshop some of those goals and priorities. And then, like I said, we'll do a fun planned celebration at the end. So this kickoff week, you've probably seen flyers around town. Maybe people have talked to you and said, hey, I hear we're having this big kickoff week. What is it? We have listening sessions. We have some going on right now over at the library. Those are one-on-one and small group listening sessions. I think five people in the one that I just left, and they were having a really great robust conversation about growth and different facets of the comprehensive plan. So I think we're off to a good start. We'll also have drop-in events paired with all those listening sessions. So we had a couple of members sitting in the almost a hotel lobby, the library lobby, with a couple of fun activities. We have some maps that we're asking people to engage in to tell us where they love to live, work, and play, where they see opportunities for development or improvements. We have a big, long board that spells out the word Durango, and we're asking people to help us build like a paper mosaic that starts to establish kind of our priorities and values in the community. So those are some of the activities you'll see around town. I'll go through a schedule of those here in a second. Tomorrow we do have an open house at the library at 5 p.m., I encourage anyone and everyone to come. Jamie and I will give a brief presentation, and then we'll have some of those same activities we've had at the drop-in events so we can really continue to gather information and also explain to people what this comprehensive plan is. We do have a questionnaire online. We always pair up some sort of digital opportunity with our in-person opportunities because some people don't want to come out or maybe don't have the time to come to some of these events. So the questionnaire gets into a little bit more detail on some questions that we've been asking in these fun activities. And like I said, we've got these mapping activities. So all these QR codes that you see on the screen now lead us to number one can lead you to sign up for a listening session. We do encourage people to just drop into those as well. Number two takes you to the questionnaire. And number three can guide people to how to engage in the open house. So here's all those activities that I mentioned earlier. We're going to be busy this week all over the community. So today's the library. Tomorrow morning, we'll be at Cafe Amor. We do have a focus group. It's a mostly staff technical group that we're meeting with at lunchtime to kind of dive into some of the details. And then we have our open house tomorrow evening. Thursday, we'll be at the recreation center in the morning. THEN WE'LL BE UP AT FORT LOUIS COLLEGE, I BELIEVE IN THE STUDENT UNION. AND THEN WE'LL BE AT THE MAIN MALL IN THE EVENING. AND THEN FRIDAY, YOU SEE ON THERE THE HIGH SCHOOL OUTREACH TBD. THAT ENDED UP GETTING MOVED TO NEXT WEEK. BUT WE STILL ARE ENGAGING WITH THE HIGH SCHOOL. I THINK WE HAVE TWO OR THREE DIFFERENT GOVERNMENT CLASSES THAT WILL, THREE DIFFERENT GOVERNMENT CLASSES THAT WE'LL BE ENGAGING WITH. We've had great success in other communities working with the high school students in government classes because they really Start to understand what we're trying to do with this process and they have some fantastic ideas They can also be amplifiers to the rest of the community. They bring home the questionnaire to their parents and their grandparents their employers So it's a really great opportunity and then we'll have a drop-in event at first Friday So after all of that information that I've given you, we wanted to maybe open the opportunity for you all to say what challenges you think we should be addressing with this comprehensive plan. And you can spin that around and say what you think would be a success. If such and such got achieved, we think it would be a successful plan. So either way, you want to look at that. So I do have a couple questions.

Yeah, and you can ask questions of us as well. Okay, so do you want us to start with what we think would be successful and then come back to questions? Let's do questions first, and then we'll have our discussion. And then we'll come back. Okay, great. Perfect. And my questions, because I did have that in separate. Here we go. Okay. So we tend to hear very effectively from residents who know how to participate with the city. What strategy do you have for intentionally reaching working families, younger residents, renters, Latino residents, business owners, employees who commute to Durango, people who don't normally come to city meetings and engage with us?

yeah that's a fantastic question and it's always a challenge to try to reach people who aren't coming out naturally well we started that this morning with meeting at the economic development alliance meeting actually one person from that came to our listening session just now and i i found that we were talking to a group of different people one of the the woman that runs the welcome center I GAVE HER A BUNCH OF FLIERS. I SAID LET PEOPLE KNOW WHEN THEY'RE COMING INTO THE WELCOME CENTER THAT THIS IS HAPPENING. SO SHE CAN BE AN AMPLIFIER. THE SCHOOLS ARE A GREAT OPTION. SO AS WE'RE ENGAGING WITH THE SCHOOLS, I THINK WE CAN ENGAGE WITH ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG FAMILIES THAT DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME. working with their children and working during the day. And even the evening sessions are hard to come out to. So those digital options are definitely an option. So if we can all get the word out that there's a website and to stay in tune with that. And then we'll also watch through this first outreach effort. As we're talking to people, we start to get a sense for who we're talking to and who we're not talking to. And we'll pair that up with your demographics in the community and say, you know, we're really not hearing from a certain geographic area or a certain demographic. And then we can start to reach out to folks to help us get that message out. Excellent. Thank you.

How will you distinguish broad community sentiment from highly organized or highly engaged groups that may disproportionately participate?

Right. That is a tough one. So we'll start to hear themes through this first week. We've already just today heard already some themes of, you know, a lot of people are concerned about water and there's certain things. We just have really great conversations with people. And I would say as a consultant, we have the benefit of not knowing who a lot of the people are. So we don't know who your frequent flyers are, who the people are that are constantly at meetings. And so we can listen with a very unbiased set of ears and really take it all in and kind of go from there. And then we use you guys as a sounding board as well to come back and say, here's what we heard. And you can say, well, that kind of seems like a small contingent that's saying that. So let's dig a little deeper. And that's why we have a long outreach process so we can make sure we're kind of having additional touch points throughout the process. Excellent. Thank you.

Yeah. guess one thing i'm hoping for out of the comprehensive plan in terms of like is that it addresses things so when it comes to council we can say no that doesn't fit in our comprehensive plan or strategic plan and we move along or this does fit and we need to tackle it and i i get you maybe in this particular neighborhood don't want this but it does fit Does that make sense, like that bigger picture? And so what will make this plan meaningfully different when a controversial development comes before council? How do we create enough specificity that we're actually able to say this does or doesn't advance the community's adopted vision?

THAT IS THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION. SO WE JUST HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT THIS IN ANOTHER COMMUNITY ABOUT A WEEK AGO. AND IT'S REALLY ABOUT BALANCE. SO AS WE'RE DEVELOPING THE PLAN, AND I THINK I'M HEARING A LITTLE BIT OF GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK FROM YOU IN THAT AS WELL, IS AS WE'RE DEVELOPING GOALS AND STRATEGIES, I THINK IF THAT'S REALLY THE GOAL OF THE CITY, WE NEED TO MAKE THEM VERY SPECIFIC. MAYBE THERE'S A GENERAL VISION, BUT MAYBE THE GOALS ARE SHORTER, MAYBE THERE'S FEWER OF THEM, AND THEY'RE SPECIFIC ENOUGH THAT WHEN YOU HAVE AN APPLICATION COME THROUGH, YOU'RE NOT GOING, WELL, OUR PARKS PLAN SAYS THIS, BUT OUR TRANSPORTATION PLAN SAYS THIS, AND THEY SEEM TO BE CROSSWISE TO EACH OTHER. WE'LL TRY REALLY HARD TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE'S FLUIDITY THROUGHOUT ALL OF THAT. BUT THAT'S SOMETHING WE'LL NEED TO BUILD ALL TOGETHER, I THINK, IS TO GET TO THAT POINT WHERE THERE'S NOT A LOT OF DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF SOME OF THE PROVISIONS. And so that we're not creating a scenario where one group feels that they're not being heard and another group feels like they're, do you know what I mean? One thing that I always say, I work a lot with regulations and I feel like if everyone is equally unhappy, then we did our job. So I think if you feel one-sided, then we've gone too far one way and we need to pull it back.

So that kind of dovetails into my last question. We do have a lot of plans and goals. And when I'm making decisions, a lot of times I'll have to pull up the sustainability master plan or a parks and rec master plan. And when was this one last updated? And did it include pickleball courts back when we first did it? Um, and then the strategic plan as well. And so I feel like there's a lot of different plans and sometimes it feels a little overwhelming as a counselor. Like, are we just doing plans for plan sake or is there a purpose behind it? I think is important. I'm not saying that we're doing, I, I'm excited about this. And so let me just wrap this up. So for example, the strategic plan expires in 2029. We're going to have another retreat. This one, um, goes after it by a year, I think, or it doesn't expire until you have a five-year goal?

Right. Is that right? Typically, you want to look at it every five years and do major updates every 10 years. Right.

So just in our strategic plan, let alone all the other plans that we have, that will evolve before the comprehensive plan reaches the end of its useful life. So how do we avoid locking the comprehensive plan too tightly

before up to today's strategic plan.

Does that make sense? Like I feel we have all these like piggybacking and OK, so that's why I'm trying to communicate, but I don't know how.

No, I think you've asked a really great question. One thing that I've seen successful in a lot of communities is to look at a broad spectrum of goals or policies throughout the comprehensive plan. Because to your point, your strategic plan gets updated more frequently than the comprehensive plan, probably, maybe. OK. and all the other plans you're right they are all getting updated when you know at their own time the comprehensive plan can be used as a bit of an umbrella over all of them where we can make sure they're all tied together we don't want to repeat anything that's in another plan but if it's relevant we can you know point to that plan and say you know look at parks and rec goal this or look at the transportation plan or the sustainability plan I think it's very helpful if you have a variety of timeframes in your comprehensive plan. So maybe there's some actions that need to be or could be achieved in the first year or two of the comprehensive plan. Maybe there's some actions that are more five-year term. Maybe there's some that are more 10-year term. AND THAT BUILDS IN THAT FLEXIBILITY. SO YOU HAVE SOME KIND OF BIG PICTURE OUT THERE, GOAL, VISION KIND OF ORIENTED STUFF THAT MAY BE HARDER TO ACHIEVE IN A SHORT TIME FRAME BUT COULD TIE INTO A LOT OF THESE OTHER GOALS. SO AS YOU'RE UPDATING YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN IN 29, YOU COULD COME BACK AND SAY, WELL, WE HAD THIS KIND OF FUTURE LOOKING GOAL IN THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, MAYBE THAT'S SOMETHING WE START TO TACKLE NOW IN OUR STRATEGIC PLAN AND IT COMES MORE TO THE FOREFRONT. I THINK HAVING TIERS, KIND OF LEVELS OF GOALS OR ACTIONS CAN BE HELPFUL. ANOTHER THING IS AN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN AT THE END OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. SO WE'LL BUILD OUT A, YOU KNOW, IT IS YES TO BE DETERMINED EXACTLY HOW THAT WILL LOOK. THERE'S A VARIETY OF WAYS WE CAN DO THAT. BUT WE CAN PULL A LOT OF THOSE OTHER PRIORITIES FROM OTHER PLANS KIND OF INTO THAT IMPLEMENTATION PLAN, WHICH HELPS YOU ALL AND STAFF KIND OF HAVE A ROADMAP MOVING FORWARD.

For example, we're in the middle of a water and sewer master plan right now, which you're not going to have until next year. And that could come back to us and say, hey, city council, you actually can't do anything for the next 10 years because all you're going to be doing is replacing water lines. And then we're, I'm not saying it's going to say that. And we do know what we have coming ahead of us, but I'm just making that as an example. So anyways, so that's my questions on the actual strategic plan. And then I'll get to my challenges that should be addressed that I feel after everyone else has questions. Is that good, Mary?

Sounds great.

Great.

Yeah. I think I'd like to just, and welcome by the way, thanks for coming.

Yeah.

Talk a little bit more about the budget limitations in these things. The comp plans, especially in this community, tend to be recreation and outdoor focused. It's a community that would keep building and building and building, and yet we're starting to see that more and more of our money is going towards the maintenance of the things that we paid for before. So how are we incorporating limitations, real limitations, into the comp plan genesis?

Yeah, that's a great question. And when I was talking about our buddy, Ben Osterling, the GIS guru, he's a big piece of that. So he'll look at what's really feasible, how the infrastructure is in place, what we have in place, what we need, what we don't need more of. And so we'll do a big analysis here. Right after this week, actually, we start an existing conditions analysis. And we start to establish what you have And then we pair that up with the conversations we're having to say, you know, everyone's saying we have plenty of parks, so let's not do any more with those. I have already heard some aging infrastructure that may need to be looked at. So I think that's something that probably will bubble to the surface and be a part of this plan. Did that answer your question? We'll do a lot of analysis on a variety of different aspects.

Yeah, I guess it might lean into council lawyer's question as well, but nobody comes up to you and goes, hey, wastewater treatment plant, you know, we need the clarifier to be refreshed every four years, whatever that is, right? So I'm not sure how you get that because it's vitally important for the success of all the rest of the stuff at times. And so that's where I'm stuck a little bit on the comp plan, being able to give a realistic picture.

That was actually a helpful clarifier. We have a couple of folks on our team from SEH that are heavily involved in city operations, and then we have a lot of city staff. So that's where we start to take questions like yours and piece together. If the community conversation, we have the data that we're able to collect, and then those conversations at a deeper level to say, okay, we're hearing this kind of general thing from the community, but What does that really mean for Durango? And where are you really at? And how do we move that forward? Or is it a priority that moves forward?

And then you'll give the weight. I mean, if the public works director is saying we got to pay attention to these water and sewer lines, you give that some weight because it's only one voice, but you'll give it more weight than necessarily 1,400 pickleballers that are going to come out and want to paper over Santa Rita Park. Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Okay, so

I'm just wondering if this is necessary, because it just seems like we have tons of plans. I mean, when I first got to City Council, we were talking about the $3 million replacement tank up here to redo the $7 million water tank, and we're still talking about that. Okay, so what's the point? Why do we need more plans? We've got the water plan here. We've got the airport plan. We've got sustainability plan. We've got a financial plan. Oh, housing plan, which is very good.

Who else is here?

Transportation plan. Who else? I mean, we've got all these plans already. Why are we spending all this money to do a bigger plan?

Yeah, that's a really great question, and I'll answer from my perspective. I don't know if Jamie wants to add to it at all, but out of all the plans you just mentioned, the one that you're missing is something that looks at land use, that looks at the land moving forward. And that's part of the comprehensive plan. So I think that's where the biggest piece comes together. And the comprehensive plan is an opportunity to take all of those planning efforts and bring them together and say, OK, so we have this sustainability plan. We have the Parks and Rec plan. We have the transportation plan. And they are all kind of in their own little isolated buckets. And so the comprehensive plan is one way to bring all that together. And maybe it's just a few very strategic goals or policies that say, here's how we achieve the goals from all those other plans. And it should be a very implementable plan. So it shouldn't just be another plan that sits on the shelf. It really should be something that says, okay, here's how we take all of those and we actually move a project forward or how we focus our efforts. Do you want to add anything to that? Just a bit.

I mean, sure. The history of all of this is comprehensive planning became the backbone of planning. In a lot of states, it's required that you have a comprehensive plan or you can't have a zoning code. And that's where we're at at this point. There are so many things that are mandated by the state. We have to have our three mile plan. We have to have our land use plan. And our zoning code points to our comprehensive plan. In order for us to approve a development, we're going to look at what is it zoned for and is it consistent with the comprehensive plan land use that is there. So it really was brought about as a growth management tool initially. and it's just morphed into so many other things to help guide the growth at this point not so much control the growth but to help guide it where we want our future to go but it is definitely one of the backbones to the planning that we do for the city okay um thanks for that explanation because that's what people are going to be asking me why do we need to have another plan yep so that's all i have to offer

Councillor Gonzales.

Thank you. And I'm with Councillor Yazzie. And because I've done these exercises before in another city, and you know, they'll ask you, why are we doing this? Because it's required, right? I mean, and that's really the truth. And so, so which I know, It's probably heartbreaking for all you planners who really love. I mean, planners, you love your work. We do love our work. You're right. And I'm not a planner. I mean, in any way in my life, I'm not a planner. But I appreciate it. Because I do often like to reflect on what's been presented, especially as it relates to how the community feels. And I'll be honest, the way I've seen them work more successfully was when it was driven by the electeds. And so, you know, clearly we're not doing that here. And perhaps it's not a comprehensive plan, but more like divisioning. Right. And not exactly the way that it's although I've also done it the way we're doing it here because it's required in every city, in every state, you know, all over the country. but I guess I, but, but I do appreciate it. And, and I do understand sort of the difficulty of getting people to really, um, to express what they, what their desires are. And I think it takes a really good facilitator to get people to say what they want versus what they don't want, because everybody's really clear about what they don't want. Um, but not always so clear about what they would like or what's even capable, what we are capable of doing. um you know as a city council um so I you know not really too many questions um and I think that you know I think y'all are doing the right things by engaging the different communities and having um you know that doing the exercises that you that you do but but one thing that i feel like has been missing a little bit in in all the number of plans that i've seen is i feel like i don't see really really hard data um in some of them and so i mean i'll just you know give you an example just because maybe it will be helpful um to know for example exactly how many young people in Durango are not working and not in school. Exactly how many people in Durango are dissatisfied with job opportunities, for example. Or I'm kind of reflecting on my previous life, which was very, very different from the demographics of Durango, but it was helpful to make policy decisions. And I'll just give you, for example, it's my understanding that we have a very high rate of college education, very high college attainment rate. So does it make sense for us to do any job training? when in fact most people already have a college education. stuff like that so um anyway i appreciate and i really appreciate the planners because we need planners in our lives it's just not my favorite thing um so and i appreciate you guys and your um seem like you are taking this very seriously as i believe that your team does i know jamie does um take this very seriously and and i appreciate that even though it's not it's not my favorite okay thank you good to know

thank you for the feedback on the data when we do our existing conditions we'll keep that in mind and try to pull out as much detail as we can so thank you all right counselor lawyer do you have a question yeah no i'm i've i've got the challenges that i think we should you know move forward but yeah no no questions you guys have all exactly i had a whole page and you guys all asked them all jerks okay so now we're going to our challenges Challenges. Did you have more questions? Yeah.

Thank you for all your work. I do appreciate it because I don't want to write a plan. Okay, so it's my understanding that a comprehensive plan is required by the Charter. Okay, so does this mean there was never a comprehensive plan in previous years for the City of Durango? And this is the first comprehensive plan? No. Okay. So this is just an update of our old one.

Yes, already. Yep. In fact, I think Jamie presented to you guys the report card a few weeks ago. And that's just saying how much of the existing comprehensive plan you all have achieved as a community. And we use that as a little bit of a jumping off point to say, okay, we've achieved a whole bunch of these goals. So we need to re envision some new ones, some communities we go into and they really haven't achieved a lot out of the previous plan. And so we can kind of reframe some of what's in the plan or make sure that what was in the existing plan is still relevant. So that's a lot of where we're at right now is how much of your existing plan is still relevant, how much of it's already been achieved, where do we want to build in some new goals? And like I was telling Jamie earlier, I know you all are kind of the purse strings of the community, but I like people to think big at this stage. So when we're having our discussion right now, I mean, maybe take off your council hat a little bit and think big, something really different that you've seen in another community or something that we kind of maybe have the edge of, and you want to push a little further or something that that's where we want to, we kind of want to think big at this point, because we can take the data and everything and kind of pull it back in throughout the process. So.

All right. Any other questions before we move on? All right. Counselor.

Okay. It's really hard to think big as a counselor because you're like, I'm looking at transportation that isn't funded and I'm stressed out about water and sewer now because we're never going to be able to afford it. So it's like, no, there's no big. We can't even afford what we're like. Does that make sense? And so I have some challenges that I've written down. I'll think bigger maybe and you don't have to think big. It's your opportunity, but I have seven. I have seven things that I wrote down about my challenges that the plan, I think that as one counselor. So as we're talking about this, it's just my one opinion, right?

Okay.

Um, housing availability across the entire spectrum, not simply subsidized and affordable housing, but workforce housing, attainable ownership rentals, missing middle housing and options for families.

Okay.

Um, where growth belongs. So I Drango is going to change so that I think the plan should identify where density makes sense rather than treating every development proposal as a fresh philosophical debate about growth. Um, infrastructure and growth alignment. Um, today's CIP presentation actually provides the perfect lead in if we're spending millions, increasing water and sewer capacity for growth, the land use plan should intentionally direct growth towards places where infrastructures can support it. Transportation choice without pretending cars disappear. Walking, biking, transit, e-bikes and trails matter enormously, but so do parking, deliveries, visitors, families and employees. I'd like the comprehensive plan to help us move beyond evaluating every transportation question simply by counting parking spaces. How do we create a community where walking, biking and transit become realistic choices while still acknowledging that vehicles remain a part of the transportation system? economic vitality. don't let economic development become an afterthought behind housing and land use tourism downtown small business workforce industrial commercial land and business retention should all be integrated i think durango fell way behind with economic development i think montrose has took a big step forward and we've sort of stayed um and there's some things are not in control of ours but anyways i just think that that's super important

Okay.

Childcare and families. If the vision is a multi-generational community, the plan should explicitly ask what makes Durango viable for young families, not just retirees, tourists, and higher income residents. Councillor Gonzales made a very good point. We have significantly lost our 20-year-olds moving to Durango to start a family. It has severely declined over the last decade. And Region 9, if you're looking for numbers, Councilor Gonzales, Region 9 has a ton of those numbers. They have done tremendous studies about that. How do we fix that? I was 20 when I moved to Durango to start my family. I'm much older than that now. And so how do we get those people to do that again and more of them? Because I think it's kind of unattainable right now, and it's super sad. And then regional thinking. Durango isn't an island. Housing, workforce, transportation, water, the airport, economic development cross municipal boundaries. And so I think it's important we look at all that. Those are the seven that I'm going to just throw at you. And then I can maybe try to think big, but I didn't even talk about a lot of things. Water and sewer, I've mentioned a few times. So I didn't say that here, but that's there.

Great. Thank you.

Councilor Caruso.

Yeah, I'll add in, and some of these might dovetail well, but support systems for children from cradle to graduation. So child care zero to three, after school care, and workforce development related to teens and high school graduates. Improve our preventive and enforcement efforts around bare human interactions. Long-term transportation funding. Intergovernmental relationships between city, county, and tribal governments. Thought that might not come up too much, but very important. Support and expansion of locally owned businesses. The Durango Mesa build out and maintenance funding. And then greater equity at Three Springs in budget allocations, new amenity funding, and community services.

Can you hit on that last one a little bit more? Because we've already been hearing about a little bit of the difference between Three Springs and downtown.

Yeah.

So what's your thought?

Three Springs contains about 10% of our population out there. They've been relatively newer since they've just been established in the last 20 years. At times, it has seemed that there is very little planning or money that goes back out into Three Springs. There's some reasons behind that, some limitations on a road and some access. But it's also probably where we have the greatest opportunity to build significant housing fairly quickly. It's already been planned out. There's about 1,200 units out there. So between housing and community amenities, Three Springs feels to me like it's behind the curve quite a bit, and we're not paying enough attention to it.

Perfect.

Thank you.

I'll jump in just for a couple, you know, kind of piggybacking off of what Councilor Cosa was saying, you know, looking at governmental agencies and how we look at growth opportunities, whether it's with accounting or moving east towards Elmhurst Corner as a city. And then Three Springs is also, I mean, we have a whole phase two. I live in Three Springs, and so we have a whole phase two that's you know, relatively untouched right now. And so how do we look at how we exist with other governmental agencies, whether it's the tribe or with the county and how do we move forward in, you know, better solidarity to figure out how we are going to look at potential future growth. Um, and then really want to kind of piggyback on what counselor lawyer had to say with, um, uh, The biggest challenge I think right now we look at as a municipality is how are we going to find ways to capture and retain young people and young families? That is the only way that we're truly going to grow as a community is if we find opportunities, whether it's through economic means or through childcare or through housing capacity. There's multiple ways to look at that, but capturing and retaining young people and young families is the only way that I think we have a productive future for Um, and so, um, and then overall, like the 30,000 foot view is like, but this comp plan is like balancing pragmatism with lofty goals and big projects, you know, like how do we make sure that we're. know doing what we need to do but also what are some of the the big you know big hairy audacious goals that we do have like how do we balance the both of those things so just those are the things that i see moving forward um that i think are probably some of the more important opportunities in the next five years okay uh counselor gonzalez riazzy anything that you want to add yeah go ahead counselor gonzalez

I think I gave you some examples, but I think really if I had to boil it down to what I think is the greatest priority, and it's been mentioned here already, but it's really that emphasis on economic development. And so that's where I found the most valuable value in other plans was as it related to economic development and the ones that have been mentioned already. But I felt like I needed to chime in with that because I gave you some examples, but I FIND THAT THAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE IN ORDER TO CREATE POLICIES THROUGH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. THANK YOU.

OKAY. SO I DO APPRECIATE YOU SIFTING THROUGH ALL OUR PLANS AND, YOU KNOW, ALL THE ITEMS THAT THE OTHER COUNSELOR SUGGESTED I THINK ARE REALLY VALID. But there's one thing that I think, you know, being on council all these years, there's this, There's kind of a distance between the people of privilege, which are many here in Durango proper, and the people who don't have that privilege. If that could be discussed in the comprehensive plan, I think that would be very worthy. So thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, one more thing. I'd really like our engagement to expose people to trade-offs instead of choices. Instead of saying, what do you want Durango to be? Because we can all say, oh, I want Durango to have more affordable housing, but you don't understand that where does that affordable housing exist? How much does that affordable housing cost us? What are the trade-offs if we put it here versus put it there? So I think it's easy to say those things. I want affordable housing, less traffic, no neighborhood change, lower taxes. and preserve open space all simultaneously the value of this process is helping the community understand where those goals conflict and deciding together which trade-offs we're willing to take so absolutely i think that's a great point okay yes thank you make everyone happy thank you

I think that's all we had for challenges to address.

Yeah. Thank you all so much for your for listening to us and for your input. I don't think we have any other slides, right? Good.

Thanks very much for your time. Thanks, Jimmy. Right. No items on council or on council requested items and then any proposed new agenda items for discussion.

Seeing none, we move to adjourn. Thanks, everyone.