City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening everyone i will now call to order the regular city council meeting of july 13 2026 members of the public are invited to attend in-person meetings in council chambers public access is also available by telephone by using the call-in numbers posted on the meeting agenda and tonight's meeting will be broadcast on the city's youtube channel online will the clerk please call the roll

Mayor Lighty will be absent. Mayor Pro Tem Luke Manjaro-Massa? Here. Council Member Burns? Here. Council Member Seavers?

Here.

Council Member Kondo?

Here.

Council Member Roper will be absent. Council Member Goff will be absent. Council Member Nowicki?

Here.

Council Member Lighty? Here. Thank you. Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

INDIVISIBLE WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. GOOD EVENING, CITY MANAGER GEIER. ARE THERE ANY RESPONSES TO RESIDENT INQUIRIES? GOOD EVENING, MAYOR PROTEM. THERE ARE NOT. THANK YOU. ARE THERE ANY ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS TO THE AGENDA TEAM? EVERYBODY'S GOOD? AWESOME. Moving into public invited to be heard. This is an opportunity for public comment on any item not set for public hearing. Statements are limited to five minutes per speaker. Statements must be related to city business and limited to matters of community interest. City Clerk Small, is there anyone signed up to speak to council tonight?

Yes, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, there are five individuals who signed up in advance. The first person on the list is Tom Lampo. Thank you. Welcome.

Please state your name, ward, or address and provide your comments.

All right. Thank you very much. My name is Tom Lampo, 3951 Jackson Way. Hope everybody's doing well. Happy 250th. Hope you enjoyed your Independence Day. It's good to be here this summer night. I'm here to lift up North Glen to the Lord in prayer. So please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, we ask that you would be here tonight with us to guide our thoughts and decisions. In your word in Psalm 24, 1, it states, the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in therein. You're always welcome in North Glen, but everything is already yours. So thank you for welcoming us into your presence. In the last few weeks, you have provided us with some moisture. As you know, we could use more. Colorado has 14 wildfires burning, and late last month, we lost three firefighters, and yesterday, we lost another one. We lift up the family and friends of those firefighters to you, and we ask that you comfort them. The drought is affecting all of us. Your word is your truth, and we can find you within it. Ephesians 3.20 states, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. Your love for us is beyond measure. You are the way out of all of our predicaments. Our ask and imagination can be great. None of us desire to be in the drought we are in, so we ask for more moisture and imagine our rivers and streams with flowing water and our lakes filled with water. Grant success to all those who are working to extinguish the fires and keep all of them out of harm's way. The same power which has brought us salvation is the same power that brings us moisture. Direct your moisture to our state and be mindful of where there is fire. We are celebrating 250 years as a nation. The nation has been well tried. We've experienced success and failure, good times and hard times. Express love to our fellow citizens and hatred. We are people, and we have all fallen short of what you would want us to be. On May 17th of this year, we rededicated our nation to you. Now, as we look forward, we claim Proverbs 3, 5 through 6, which states, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. We recognize you as Lord and creator of all things. Nothing escapes you. You know the beginning from the end. As we move forward as a nation in humility, we come for you and ask you to direct our paths so the nation can be everything you wanted us to be. You are our God and we are your people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you, guys. Have a nice night.

The next person on the list is Chris Baum.

Hello, Mayor Pro Tem and the Council. I'm Chris Baum of Ward 4, and this is a reiteration of the comment I made on June 8th about the wisdom of increasing fees to fund stormwater infrastructure maintenance. On the North Glen website, there is a statement. The city is committed to an honest budget, responsible spending, and financial transparency. The stormwater issue does not pass that test. When you discuss raising the stormwater fee you impose upon residents, I remind you that fees were instituted as a way to get around the taxpayer's bill of rights, commonly known as TABOR. TABOR requires the tax increases be put to a vote by the electorate. Calling taxes fees is a devious and unscrupulous way to get around the will of the citizens. While I realize the state and other Colorado government entities do this routinely, that doesn't mean that Northland should imitate their misconduct. Additionally, why stormwater infrastructure funding would be broken out from the public works budget can only be understood as a way to mislabel increasing taxes without voter approval. To the contrary, it should be an integral part of the public works budget and funded by taxes. Surprisingly, on June 8th, council was concerned that the fee had not been raised since 2004, as if a surreptitious and dishonest means of raising taxes is an acceptable practice. Why do we have fees? Because they're a way of labeling tax rate increases to avoid voter approval. Taxes, on the other hand, provide automatic revenue increases with inflation. Housing prices go up, property tax revenues go up. Consumer prices increase, sales tax revenues increase. Fees, on the other hand, remain static. So, not only do fees subvert the will of the citizens, they have no means of increasing revenue with inflation. TABOR was instituted in the 1990s because government revenue had far outstripped inflation. Government revenue still rampantly outstrips inflation. Inflation since 2010 is 52 percent. Tax revenue since 2010 has risen 214 percent. Fee revenue since 2010 has risen 190 percent. Very startling comparison. Shouldn't a high-performance government keep its spending within or lower than the rate of inflation? not four times the rate of inflation. The five top category stormwater projects cost a total of $3.5 million. We spend $10 million a year on recreation and $105 million total. Cut recreation by one-third, since it's a questionable government function, and we can fund all the stormwater projects in just one year. I would much rather forego a flooded basement than have recreation. Stormwater drainage is a core function of government. Recreation is not. Let me repeat. Inflation since 2010 is 52 percent. Tax revenue has risen 214 percent, four times the rate of inflation. Fee revenue has risen 190 percent, four times the rate of inflation. A 3.5 million expenditure is one-third of what the city spends in one year on recreation. I think the press would have a field day if we had a flood because of neglected maintenance. I for one would not notice any decrease in the recreation budget, nor would the press. I urge you to do the right thing. Do not increase the stormwater fee. Thank you.

Thank you. The next person on the list is Melissa Ryan.

Hello, please come forward, state your name, address or ward and provide your comments. Welcome.

All right, Melissa Ryan Ward three. And I came here today to speak to you. Because I went to coffee with the chief and I hop and safety concerns seem to keep popping up for many residents and it did their coffee with the chief as well. ONE CITIZEN MENTIONED HOW THEY MISSED THE BI-WEEKLY COMMUNICATION VIDEOS FROM THE NORTH GLEN POLICE DEPARTMENT AND HOW THEY HAD NOT BEEN UPLOADED IN QUITE A WHILE, WHICH I HAD ALSO NOTICED BECAUSE I USED TO WATCH THEM BI-WEEKLY. SO I WAS CURIOUS AS TO WHY THESE VIDEOS STOPPED AND WAS INFORMED THAT COUNCIL PUT A PAUSE ON THE COMMUNICATION VIDEOS BECAUSE IT'S NOT FAIR TO BROADCAST PEOPLE ON THEIR WORST DAY AND IT MAKES NORTH GLEN SEEM UNSAFE. I find that interesting because I found the videos to be very helpful. They gave me real insight on what's going on in the community, what the police are dealing with and what awesome services and protections they provide to the citizens that abide by the laws. Those videos highlighted the good, the bad, the struggles and the improvements within the city. I came to ask for those videos to please start back. I miss feeling connected. and well informed about what is happening within North Glen. I would also like to point out that this isn't the criminal's worst day. It's the worst day for the person who got assaulted by the criminal. It's the worst day for the person who got hit by the drunk driver featured in that video. It's the worst day for the employee who got robbed, not the robber. Giving criminals a victim mentality and protection doesn't do the community any good and it doesn't make us any safer. And if you don't want to be featured in the videos for doing terrible things, then the only solution is don't do these terrible things. Stop protecting the criminals and start standing up for the citizens who follow the law and let us know what's going on within our community. Maybe if these videos weren't stopped or put onto a pause, as you call it, then maybe the residents at the Keystone Apartments that are dealing with the undocumented Romanians that have taken over the facility would have had better preparations for what is happening in their own areas. second concern i have that i came here today i listened to your last study session where the majority of you wanted to approve duplex expansions or additional dwelling units this is such a terrible idea we have nowhere to expand and our streets are already crowded and in need of repairs why would you think it's a good idea to make that problem worse by jamming more people into maxed out areas The parking of the city is already a nightmare, and the roads are already congested. The very thought process is irresponsible of you, and I think that you guys need to reconsider the stance or drop that altogether. Cramming, we've got one duplex, or one of the townhouses at the end that have... I would say three generations and all their wives and kids living there. I mean, there's like 15 people and they take up the majority of the side street parking, just that one townhouse doing it. So if you have all the townhouses in my area doing it, I would be walking a mile to get to my house. So I ask you guys to strongly reconsider that. So thank you. Have a good night. Sorry.

Thank you. Next person. The next person is Kathy Shea. Please come forward, state your name, address or ward and provide your comments to council. Welcome.

Good evening. My name is Kathy Shea and I'm in ward two. And my concern that I'm bringing to the table tonight is our code enforcement. Can someone tell me why it was changed back in April of 25?

So public comment is for you to provide comments. We don't respond during this time, but we'll take notes.

Okay, that's perfect. Because I, as a resident, my husband and I have lived in North Glen for 50 years, which is probably more than all of you have been alive. We've lived here a long time. We've seen a lot of changes in North Glen. One of the changes with the code enforcement is I don't see it working. I know on our website it says that we want to take a friendly approach, but friendly can also be taken advantage of by the person in the house. How can someone... we've got someone in our neighborhood who i know court enforcement enforcement has been over there many times i've seen the gentleman rip things up i've seen him not i mean i've been told he's not coming to court how many times does somebody have to be held you have to be held accountable for where you live and how you live This person is bringing not only my husband's and my property house down by thousands of dollars that we've strived for to live there. And for someone to come in that doesn't show any respect for things, that's not appropriate. Each one of you were nominated by your ward to help us. On our website, it says, what can you do to help the residents? So I feel when residents come and show a complaint or are really concerned, I'm hoping you'll open your hearts and reconsider this because we've got a fantastic code enforcement person in Ward 2. And we have told them several times, you know, the city should be very happy you're here. He really looks out. I've seen him many, many times. Unfortunately, I think his hands are tied when he issues tickets all the time and then it goes to the courts and the courts sit on it and sit on it and sit on it. And I don't know what, where the gap is that's holding things up, but something I think really needs to be done and checked into. I don't know if you as a committee, um, involved the gentlemen that are code enforcement officers and helped you find out what their needs are, because I'm sure there are plenty needs, just like your jobs. There are plenty needs, and when it's brought to your attention, maybe everybody can put their heads together and make things better. But I don't believe that saying, we want to be friendly, we want to be friendly. If you look at our police officers who stop somebody for speeding and we go, oh, well, we're going to be friendly and just let it go this time. No, you have to be held accountable. People have to be held accountable for where they live and what their houses look like and just know how to treat people. And I'm just asking each one of you to really look at this because it's not working. And I would like to know what, next time I come back, I'd like to know, or maybe you can print somewhere, what has worked by changing this? What have you seen? Because Fred and I have seen a lot of changes in North Klan. And Northland's got a lot of properties that people are just they don't care. You've got a lot of families living in Northland. And I understand that. And it used to be somewhere to be really proud of. And now if you drive around and look, you'll see so many homes, so many homes, and it hurts my heart. Because it's not fair to the people that have lived here all their lives. And that's what I wanted to let you guys know.

Thank you.

Do we have anyone else, city clerk? The last person on the list is Dionne Miller.

Okay, please come forward. State your name, address, or ward and provide your comments to council and welcome.

I'm loud and obnoxious. I don't need that. Dionne Miller. I believe I'm in Ward 1, 104-93 Lincoln Court. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm at the right place, but anywhere I can go to get this taken care of, I'm willing to do. About a month ago, I went to a meet and greet with, I met some of the commissioners talking about the detox that we've been trying to put in for three and a half years now. I asked them if they would move forward with me. They said, yes, send us an email. I said, if I don't hear from you in a month, I'll be at town hall. And now I'm here. So Colorado continues to rank near the bottom of the country on every major behavioral health measure in In 2024, Adams County had the fifth highest overdose rate among the 13 Colorado counties with reportable CDC data. Adams County's own behavioral health assessment says our system does not meet the need and that we do not have enough medically supported detox and withdrawal management services. This is not an abstract statistic. It means people in this county are still trying to find somewhere safely to detox. Families are still trying to figure out where to take somebody. The limited resources we have are not enough to meet the need. It is time we stop accepting that and do this the right way. The lack of a local detox also puts a strain on law enforcement. When officers have to transport someone outside their city or across metro area to find appropriate care, that is the time they are pulled away from their patrol area and unavailable for other calls. Adams County's own co-responder assessment raised this exact concern. Officers often do not have time for these long transports, and transportation remains a serious challenge. I've worked in this industry for more than 20 years, and I have plenty of experience in recovery, including direct experience in detox and treatment. I worked in the field during a time when the programs were getting people sober and producing real results. I have seen what doing this correctly looks like. That experience is where I can help Adams County and, of course, Northland. I also want to make one thing very clear. I'm not here representing, recommending, or supporting any particular company that I do not have a provider I am not trying to get a contract for. I'm here because I see a serious need in my community and something must be done about it. I'm not going to spend my time tonight repeating the entire three and a half year history of the detox effort. You already know how long this has taken. I'm here because I wrote to the commissioners twice. I asked which municipalities we should approach, which decision makers we should speak with. Regulations and requirements are creating the biggest obstacles. What standards a new detox would have to meet and what members of the recovery community could actually do to help this move forward. There are people willing to volunteer their time. We are willing to attend meetings, educate communities, speak with the city councils, bring stakeholders together, help to address the barriers. I was told I would receive a response. I followed up and I still have not received one. My main question is straightforward. Who is currently responsible for the Adams County Detox Project? Who owns it now? Who has the authority to move it forward? Who is responsible for communicating with the public and the recovery community? And who should I contact from this point forward? I know you can't answer right now. My expectation is not perfection. My expectation is communication and accountability. I am not here simply to criticize. I am offering my experience, my time, and my willingness to help. but the recovery community cannot help remove barriers when nobody will tell us what those barriers are, where the process stands, or who is responsible for it. Adams County's residents still need a safe place to detox. Their families still need somewhere to take them. Our police officers should not have to leave their communities for extended periods because there is nowhere local to take someone. After three and a half years, identifying who is responsible and allowing experienced community members to help should not be difficult it is time to do this correctly it is time to identify who owns this project communicate honestly with the community and move forward thank you for your time and what you do

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else?

City Clerk Small?

Not on the list. OK. Great. Is there anyone on the phone? I see someone on the phone, but I'm not sure if they wish to speak to council. If so, you can unmute yourself by pressing star 6. No. OK. Is there anyone else in the audience who did not have a chance to speak to council who would like to come forward? If so, please come forward, state your name, address, or ward, and provide your comments.

Hi, good evening. Rebecca Robinson, UDIS Ward 2. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council. I'm here tonight to express my disappointment regarding the removal of the North Glen Police Department's weekly patrol videos from Facebook. I used to watch them on a regular basis and was sad to see that they disappeared from my social media feed. The videos I thought were a valuable and clear window into the realities of public safety within our city. Through community discussion, I learned that this was not a decision that our police department wanted, but rather the direct results of pressure from this very council. I don't agree with this council banning the police department's patrol videos, especially since they were well received by residents and community members of the surrounding areas. I know that residents have been asking the police department where they've gone and when they'll be back on Facebook. a place where you all know a lot of people go to to get their information. So a decision of this magnitude which impacts the information available to the public should not be made behind closed doors by a biased view. The public deserves a say in whether they want access to these videos instead of having a handful of individuals dictate what information is deemed appropriate for us to see. I think your intervention is detrimental to the transparency our residents deserve. I've also heard that some on the council do not like these videos because they catch people at their lowest of lows. And I also think that sentiment is extremely disingenuous, especially when there are individuals from these videos that are repeat offenders with multiple priors. It's not just a one time thing. If the city is so concerned about these people being caught at a low point, the responsibility lies with those same individuals to cease the illegal behavior that is getting them on the videos in the first place. Our council should not be prioritizing the perceived hurt feelings of offenders over the right of law-abiding constituents to understand the local crime trends occurring in our own backyard. And let's not forget that the expectation of privacy decreases when you are in public, not to mention it further decreases when you are caught committing a crime. If privacy is a genuine concern, it is easily addressed by standard industry practices such as facial blurring. Using privacy concerns as a blanket excuse is not a good reason for quietly telling our police department to stop posting them on Facebook. Instead, it's an act of coddling those who choose to break the law. Now, I know the mayor's not here tonight, but we've all heard her say time and again that education is key, especially to a thriving city. I couldn't agree more. But education is not limited to the classroom setting. It is vital for public awareness and public safety. And these videos provided that. They were an effective educational tool, providing a firsthand look at the daily challenges that our officers face. And by removing them, you're choosing to curate a sanitized version of North Glen as opposed to an informed one. I don't think residents care about the optics. I think they care about the truth. They value the truth. So I request clarification on whether this decision is going to be an official policy going forward or if it's still an informal request for it not to be on Facebook from the council to the police department. Either way, I urge this council to reconsider, have the police department restore those patrol stop videos on Facebook and engaged with the community before making decisions that keep us in the dark. We are a community in Northland that wants to be informed, proactive and vigilant, So please trust your constituents with the truth. We don't want a Northland that looks good to the outside world. We want a Northland that again is informed and feels good on the inside. And right now I feel extremely uneasy with anyone pushing against this transparency, the transparency that those patrol stop videos did offer. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience who did not have a chance to speak? Now is your time. You may come forward. No? OK. Thank you. We have two proclamations. So I'll please ask city council to join me down front for the proclamations. Welcome, welcome everyone. Our first proclamation is National Disability Independence Day, and we have diversity, inclusivity, and social equity board members, Sammy Gomez, or board member, sorry, Sammy Gomez, who will accept the proclamation. Please come forward, welcome.

You get applause.

Whereas National Disability Independence Day is observed annually on July 26th to commemorate the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the ADA, landmark civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination and advances equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities. And whereas, the ADA has expanded access to employment, public services, transportation, education, recreation, communication, and civic participation, improving the lives of millions of Americans with disabilities. And whereas, people with disabilities are valued members of the Northland community whose talents, experiences, and perspectives enrich our civic, cultural, and economic life, while reminding us that continued efforts are needed to remove barriers and ensure accessibility and inclusion for all. And whereas the City of Northland is committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming community where residents and visitors of all abilities can live, work, learn, recreate, and participate fully in civic life with dignity and independence. And the City of Northland's Diversity, Inclusivity, and Social Equity Board supports these efforts through education, advocacy, and community engagement. and whereas National Disability Independence Day provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of individuals with disabilities and reaffirm our shared commitment to equal rights, accessibility, and full participation for all. Now therefore, I, Shannon Lukman Hiromasa, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of Northland, Colorado, do hereby proclaim July 26, 2026, as National Disability Independence Day in the City of Northland, and encourage all residents to recognize the contributions of individuals with disabilities, learn about the importance of accessibility and inclusion, and join in supporting a community where every person can live independently, participate fully, and thrive. Dated at Northland, Colorado, this 13th day of July 2026. And this is for you. Welcome. So first of all, thank you for everything you do on the Dice Board, and I'll let you take the mic if you'd like to say a few words.

Well, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Council for this proclamation today. The Dice Board happily accepts this proclamation and affirms the city's commitment to fostering an inclusive, accessible and welcoming city for people of all abilities. Part of the Dice Board's mission is to ensure that all city events and initiatives are inclusive to people of all walks of life. accessibility is at the forefront of that mission and what it means to be inclusive we work to ensure the dignity and rights of those living with a disability is upheld and while we celebrate the progress that we made we also recognize there's also always work to do to make sure that Northland is a more accessible place to live work in and enjoy so we appreciate this proclamation today well said

Thank you.

Okay, our next proclamation is National Parks and Recreation Month and Recreation Professionals Day. We appreciate all of you. So I have a ton of people here. I would love for all of you to please come forward and you're each gonna introduce yourselves because this list is way too long. Look at this amazing team. Okay, so before I start, I would love to acknowledge each and every one of you, and I don't have everybody's name on this list, so I will start maybe with you and kind of move down the line. Just quickly say your name and your role, and then I will read the proclamation. I'm and I'm the recreation manager.

Roman Ortega, sports coordinator.

Jordan Wood, the interim facility coordinator.

Karen Cario, fitness instructor.

Melanie Flores, recreation front desk.

Cindy Makula, I'm at the front desk at the recreation center.

Kara Hockaday, children's program coordinator.

Cassie Riggle, Recreation Coordinator for Youth and Teen Programs.

Sarah Schwalier, and I'm the Fitness Coordinator.

Megan Wells, Park Ranger, Future Employees, Priya and Gwen Wells.

Michael Stricker, I'm the Arts, Culture, and Community Manager.

Amanda Peterson, Director of Parks, Recreation, and Culture.

Jesse Mestrovich, Project Manager. Kyle Vandewoort, the assistant at the Senior Center.

Wow.

This is an amazing team.

Okay.

Whereas parks and recreation services are an integral part of communities throughout the United States, including the city of Northland, providing opportunities for recreation, wellness, education, conservation, and community engagement while enhancing the life or the quality of life for residents of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. And whereas North Glens parks, trails, open spaces, recreational facilities, cultural opportunities, public art, programs, special events, and community gathering spaces foster health, lifelong learning, environmental stewardship, community pride, and a strong sense of belonging for residents and visitors alike. And whereas the City of Northland is committed to providing accessible, inclusive, and welcoming recreational opportunities that enrich the lives of the community and strengthen the city's identity. And whereas the dedicated parks, recreation, and culture professionals who serve the City of Northland work year-round to maintain parks and facilities, preserve natural resources, deliver programs and events, support youth and older adults, promote health and wellness, and create meaningful experiences for the community. And whereas July is recognized nationwide as National Parks and Recreation Month, and July 17, 2026 is recognized as Parks and Recreation Professionals Day, providing an opportunity to celebrate the essential role that parks, recreation, and culture play in building vibrant, resilient communities, and to recognize the dedication and public service of North Glen's parks, recreation, and culture staff. Now therefore, I, Shannon Lukman Hiromasa, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of North Glen, Colorado, do hereby proclaim July as National Parks and Recreation Month, and July 17th as Parks and Recreation Professionals Day in the City of Northland, and encourage all residents to celebrate the benefits of parks and recreation, enjoy Northland's outstanding parks, trails, programs, and facilities, and join in recognizing the contributions of the City's parks, recreation, and culture professionals. dated at Northland, Colorado, this 13th day of July, 2026. Who would like to take this? I would also love if any of you would like to say a few words, please go ahead. Amanda, our Director of Parks and Recreation, welcome.

I feel like I was just informally nominated by this team. I just want to say thank you to this team for the passion and heart that you put into every program that you provide day in and day out. As the proclamation stated, there's really representation here from all aspects of parks recreation and culture from park maintenance and park development to our theater team fitness special interest youth and teen programs our children's preschool programs our guest services staff that greet everyone every day and handle the multitude of questions that come in our sports staff and just fitness appreciate all that you all do every day and thank you to our community for being active participants in our parks and our facilities we are celebrating national parks and recreation month this month with some free activities for all of you so we would encourage you to come out on festival lawn on friday evenings we've got some free lawn games i know cassie and her team have set up some fun for you the full schedule is available on the city's website and on social media so we encourage you to come check something new out this month thank you we really do appreciate everything you do

I have two phones to take pictures, so just bear with me. Everybody look at me. I'm sorry. Big group. Everybody smile. Keep smiling. one more everybody's happy and smiling at the camera okay perfect thanks thank you good to see you all that's true

Okay, thank you again to everyone that showed up for the proclamations. We appreciate all of you and those were really fun to read. So good stuff. Moving into communications. First we have ward one. I'll start with council member Burns.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you to everyone who came and spoke to us this evening and shared their concerns. You can always reach us via email or phone numbers on the website if anyone would like to have more of a dialogue. I know coming up here is just kind of like talking to a blank wall sometimes. But thank you so much. We do appreciate hearing from everybody. Thank you so much for the proclamations, specifically our parks and recreation. So much goes into recreation. It's not just all fun and games, so that is part of it. But it helps things with, like, childcare, which is something I use from the city, which provide at a great cost savings. And childcare is infrastructure, so people can go to work and do, provide to the economy. So just something to think about that a lot more goes into that than just events. I WANT TO TAKE A MOMENT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE WILDFIRES THAT HAVE BEEN BURNING ACROSS COLORADO WITH THESE DROUGHT CONDITIONS AND THE FIREFIGHTERS WE LOST. MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH THOSE COMMUNITIES AS WE MOVE FORWARD. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES THAT CONTINUE TO BE IMPACTED BY ICE RAIDS, INCLUDING OUR OWN HERE IN NORTH GLEN AS OF LAST FRIDAY AS REPORTS SWIRLED AROUND THE INTERNET. IT'S BEEN A WHILE, SO IT'S A LOT TO SAY. THANK YOU TO THE CITY STAFF FOR PUTTING TOGETHER JUNETEENTH. I'M SORRY TO HAVE MISSED IT. AND FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, IT WAS GREAT. THERE WAS A LOT OF SAFE FIREWORKS TO BE HAD. SO PLEASE ENJOY. AND THE CAR SHOWS, EVERYTHING WAS AMAZING. SO THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH TO CITY STAFF. We missed a council meeting because we had the Colorado Municipal League. This year I presented a panel about modernizing council communications and sort of what people can do called who's influencing your residents, and I had a bunch of Colorado-based creators and influencers come. We had a packed house, lots of notes, more than 100 attendees. If anyone, we got some good press out of it. If anyone would like to talk more about that, please do reach out. And please join us this Thursday for the Ward 1 neighborhood night out on Thursday at the Middle Park in Fox Run. I don't know the name of it off the top of my head at this very moment, but it's the middle big one. Central Park. Central Park. Classic. The one that is central is Central Park. So yeah, come out, join us. I'll be there. There's food trucks, music, movies. It'll be a good time to talk to us and learn any more information. And that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Lighty.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. That's a mouthful. That's hard. Okay. Thank you so much for starting me off. I want to first start by acknowledging the recent ICE-related actions that have impacted families and communities in Texas and in Maine. My heart is with the families and individuals affected during these difficult times. The fear and uncertainties these actions create for families is unacceptable. unacceptable, and I believe that it is important that we continue to support one another and ensure that our community remains a place that everyone feels valued and respected. I also want to acknowledge the ICE-related incident in North Glen that has been circulating social media. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the arrest itself, the actions and tactics used by the agents were not okay. What was shown in the video was deeply concerning, and the way that the actions and the situation were handled appeared violent and inhumane. There is no place for that kind of treatment in North Glen. Our community deserves to feel safe, respected, and treated with dignity, and we must continue to stand for compassion and accountability. While we didn't have any regular council meetings over the past several weeks, the Colorado Municipal Annual Conference took place. CML provides an opportunity for municipal leaders across Colorado to connect, discuss challenges facing our communities, and share ideas and best practices that can help strengthen our local governments. North Glen celebrated our successful 4th of July. It was super fun. It was awesome to see so many members of our community come together. I want to shout out the American Legion Post 22, which proudly calls Ward 1 home. They continued to dedicate their time, their efforts, and their... celebration to our community while their commitment to honoring and supporting our veterans is deeply valued their service extends far beyond that through their ongoing involvement and partnership in making north glen a stronger community i would also like to thank everyone that participated in the annual car show i know it was kind of weird because it switched last minute but everyone was super flexible and they seemed to have such a great time on the incredible vehicles, the enthusiasm, and the community spirit helped make the event the highlight of the celebration, for me at least. Thank you to everyone who continues to attend community events, support one another, and make North Glen such a welcoming place. I look forward to seeing some of you this Thursday, like Councilmember Burns shouted out at Central Park in Fox Run. It is the big middle park. It has a dog statue. You can find it pretty easily. It's awesome. Other than that, that is all I have. Thank you so much.

thank you council member sievers thank you madam mayor pro tem thank you for everyone that came out uh and brought it up as council member burns said it doesn't always i mean for sure come here but if you guys want to reach out and have more discussion you can find our number and email anywhere um i was just at a a resident called me and council member nowiki about her having issues and i it's a saturday all my days off for basically doing this so i went right over to her house i checked out what she was having an issue with just to make sure it was or wasn't valid so it's not like i'm gonna come to everyone's house but If you need me to swing by, I would love to. So on quick, I know there's some people missing, so I was going to go quick, but now I'm going to take my time, you know? I know it's going to be a long night. So quickly, a rundown. On Tuesday, June 16th, I had a dinner meeting with Westminster Council Member Jack Johnson about working together across borders. On Thursday, June 18th, I attended the Ward 4 Neighborhood Night at Danahy Park with Ward 4 reps. On Tuesday, June 23rd, I attended a breakfast with the city lobbyist, Adam Berg, and Mayor Pro Tem Shannon Lukeman-Haramasa. On Wednesday, June 24th, I attended the Sesquicentennial meeting. On Thursday, June 25th, I attended a power-up business happy hour at Provost Brewing, along with the city economic staff, our sustainability coordinator, Mara Owen, right there, and Xcel Energy and local businesses. On Tuesday, June 30th, I picked the brains and spoke with both the Chief of Police, Jim May, Deputy City Manager, Jason Loveland, and I ended the day with a Planning Commission tour of new developments, specifically the election, Aspendale and Arden Carls Farm properties. On Saturday, July 4th, we had a great celebration. Thanks for all the staff. North Metro Fire, North Glen Police, everyone that took, all the musicians, all the people that are involved, it was really great. And on Wednesday, July 8th, I attended the promotion and swearing in of four leaders in the North Glen Police Department. Congratulations to Commander McNeely, Lieutenant Thibodeau, Sergeants Fraser and Toe. On a lot on Thursday July 9th. I attended Northland volunteer appreciation dinner followed by attending the summer concert series on the festival on right there and Today councilmember condo and I had lunch with in a good conversation with Thornton City Councilmember Drew Morris spoke about development north of Carl's farm and advocated to work together to push for a road that can give the ward to representatives and residents North exit from the neighborhood And we also spoke about creating a multi City Council multi City City Council working group to discuss on issues around 120th Avenue and see where we can help and where we can agree that things need some things need to be fixed and Lastly, and after that, I followed up by visiting and speaking to the managers of both the affordable housing property, the Greens of North Glen, which will be discussed later today, and then El Mirado, A MEXICAN RESTAURANT, WHICH ON JULY 9TH, AS MY FELLOW COUNCILMEMBER SAID, HAD TWO WORKERS SNATCHED BY ICE. ONE OF THEM HAD BEEN WORKING THERE FOR SEVERAL YEARS. AND A COUPLE, THE OTHER ONE HAD BEEN THERE FOR A COUPLE MONTHS. THE MANAGER SAYS BUSINESS IS DOWN. BUSINESS IS SUFFERING BECAUSE OF CONCERNS. ALSO of people that work there are concerned, even if they're legal and everything's great. All you have to do is one accidental move and you might get shot. I mean, we're seeing that today in Maine, a three-year-old girl in bluey pajamas watched what is believed to be her father get shot in the face. He had work authorization, social security number, and the Secretary of Homeland Security stated that that person was not a target of the operation and did not have a warrant. Just days ago, Lorenzo Santiago Arrugo, a 35-year resident of Houston, Texas, business owner, father of three American children that he put through college, a taxpayer with no criminal history, was also killed by ICE agents. Three workers in the work van are being detained and being pressured to self-deport with little or no investigation of the incident. neither of these incidents had body cams and even if they did they probably wouldn't turn over the footage so oh and finally as an american the iran war is still happening and we're still spending billions of dollars not here in america but abroad thank you thank you councilmember nowicki

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you all for being here tonight. First of all, I would like to say thanks to all the city staff, the police, everyone that helped out with the 4th of July celebration. I believe it. was a success and thank you to all the residents who came out as well and celebrated Independence Day. I would like to address a few questions about the OAF committee several weeks ago. So just real quick, kind of giving you a recap as to OAF stands for Outside Agency Funding Committee. uh it's made up of myself as chair council members condo and lady and supports outside agencies that provide services directly benefiting northland north glen residents well-being through both event sponsorships and grants so each year the oaf has budgeted uh twenty thousand dollars for sponsorships and twenty five thousand dollars for grants In order to be eligible in an organization, it must be a nonprofit organization providing a direct service to North Glen residents. Criteria, the applicant has to be a nonprofit, organization is nonpartisan, organization direct services, directly serves North Glen residents. Funding cannot be used to promote political or religious purposes. The organization is preferably located within North Glen, and the organization's purpose does not violate any portion of the North Glen City of North Glen Home Rule Charter. And lastly, the organization is not associated with any personal interests of a member of the City Council or a City of North Glen employee that may be deemed a violation of the ethics policy. So a couple other things. I know you all raised a lot of really good questions. I'm working with city manager Joanna Smalls to kind of address those, and we're working as an organization to kind of put some structure in place. We'll be meeting later this summer to address some of the questions that were raised by y'all several weeks ago, in addition to creating a kind of more formalized standard operating procedure structures around the grant and sponsorship process. Again, with the aim of transparency, you know, who is kind of receiving what and where that money is going um so that is the oaf um with regard to uh the ice operations uh i did follow up with uh police chief may to ask a few questions about it and i'll share the questions here um that way y'all um had the information. The first question was, can we confirm the agency was involved? Was ICE or Homeland Security Investigations? Chief May's response, at this time, we cannot independently confirm which federal agency conducted the operation. While reports and social media suggest ICE or Homeland Security involvement, they have not received official notification or confirmation from the federal government. Number two, did NPD have any advanced knowledge, involvement, or mutual aid role? His response, no. The Northland Police Department was not contacted before the operation, had no advanced knowledge, and did not participate in or provide mutual aid. Three, were warrants presented, and if so, were they judicial warrants or administrative ICE warrants? His response, we do not have that information because MPD was not involved. We have no knowledge of what legal process, if any, was used during the operation. And the last question was, were the individuals detained facing criminal charges, or was this a civil immigration matter? His response, we do not know. That information would have to come from the federal agency that conducted the operation. So in interest of transparency and kind of asking questions around this, I wanted to tell you about that. The last thing is our Ward 2 Neighborhood Night. Not to do y'all's thunder here. Certainly go to their ward, Neighborhood Night, and I will most likely be there as well because they are a lot of fun. And I think any resident who's attended will tell you they're a good time. Thursday, July 30th will be Ward 2's. It's at Waco Park. The band will be Tom Pichelli and Steve Glotzer, though the band usually starts around 5.30. The movie, which I'm super stoked about, is the Super Mario Galaxy movie, so that'll start around 7.30, which actually isn't even out on streaming yet, so I don't know how they're doing this. Is it? Oh, yeah. I'm talking like, you know, not the one where you have to pay like $25 to watch it. Yeah. So regardless, I fought for that one. So Michael can attest to it. I sent him an email about it. And then the food truck. So the movie typically starts around 730. And then the food truck will be Philly on the go in Bamboo Skewer. And as always, you know, if you come on out, there's usually if you talk to your city council member, there's food truck coupons available as well, which is always a nice thing to help offset some of the costs. so please whatever ward you're in you can go to any of them but you know just make sure you go to one because i do think it's a great way to celebrate the joy in our community a lot of work goes into it and it's a great way to just come meet your neighbors and meet your city council member okay so uh thank you all and that is all for me great thank you council member condo

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I'm going to deviate from my normal council communication style. I usually try to keep it the three things and try to keep it short in chronological order. I'm going to go in reverse order because I want to make sure that some members of the audience have an opportunity to hear what I have to say, especially when it comes to engaging with residents. Last Friday, I actually spent some time with two residents in Huron Crossing, which happens to be on Ward 3. Their names are Donna and Patrick. And this was in response to first an email and then a phone call that I received earlier in that week. And it was a very useful interaction because first and foremost, if there were concerns about zoning or code enforcement or code violations, it was an opportunity for me to walk the, I hate to use the military term, but walk the battlefield, walk the environment, walk and see firsthand what the issues are. and i would say that conversation was a two-way education and so there there are things that obviously perhaps you all have grievance or issues and there are things that perhaps the city can act on or maybe it's not necessary city staff maybe it's a police matter and so i i thought that it was a good opportunity for me to kind of feel and understand what their need is, and then figure out how I can say, this is how I believe the city will respond, or here are some means for you to elevate your concerns. Certainly if there was something that was really glaringly safety and life safety matter, those were things that I would actually act on and elevate to staff vis-a-vis our city manager. So I really appreciate those opportunities. And it sounds like you do too. So please don't be bashful. You know how to reach me and I'm more than happy to do that. Also, Dr. Goff, I believe is willing to do that as well. Although I know she's out because of a health related matter. Both council member Seavers and I are on the time capsule commission was a pleasure and an honor to be part of that group we also have some luminaries like our former mayor downing and novak and as a veteran both of us are veterans actually i'm very happy to say that we do have something from our american legion that we're going to add into the capsule the so-called plastic license plate, which every American Legion has. So that will go into our time capsule. Certainly for those people in the audience, there's opportunities to approach any of us and suggest anything that you'd like to put in. I believe the deadline is July 17th, so you've got four more days. So please come forward, let us know. It should be something that's relevant, obviously, to the time, 2026. And the capsule will be sealed. We'll learn more, of course, when we get briefed and opened in 50 years. So that was quite an honor and privilege to be a part of that. I ALSO HAD THE HONOR AND PRIVILEGE OF PARTICIPATING ALONG WITH COUNCILMEMBER SIEVERS AND OUR MAYOR PROTEM AND THE OFFICERS SWEARING IN. WE HAD FOUR ADVANCEMENTS, IF YOU WILL, PEOPLE BEING PROMOTED TO THE NEXT HIGHER RANK. I THINK THAT'S A SIGN, IT'S A VERY GOOD SIGN BECAUSE THESE ARE PEOPLE THAT ARE GOING UP THE NEXT STEP. We are promoting from within, and we are taking that talent and asking these people to really step it up a notch. They're prepared, they're ready, and I totally feel confident in our police department to deliver, to provide public safety services. I ALSO PARTICIPATED IN THE VOLUNTEER DINNER ALONG WITH MAYOR PROTEM AND COUNCILMEMBER SIEVERS. AGAIN, ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT FUNCTION WITHIN THE CITY. WE COULD NOT DO A LOT OF THE THINGS THAT IS POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE SERVICES OR TO REACH OUT TO OUR CITIZENRY WITHOUT HAVING VOLUNTEERS. AND THAT IS SO VERY IMPORTANT. THAT WAS LAST THURSDAY. And again, it was so nice to sit down and talk with folks. In fact, at that dinner was when I had the opportunity to speak with Donna and make that appointment to go see her the next day. So again, this is so important for you all to reach out to us in person if possible, so we can be out there and see firsthand what your pain points might be. Following that dinner, I also participated in what is known as the Northland Arts Humanities Foundation weekly concert. This one was very interesting. It was a band from Zimbabwe. Yeah, you liked it, didn't you? The guy played the marimba. It's kind of like this giant African xylophone with gusto. I suppose. And he actually went out with his wireless microphone and banged on his marimba in the middle of the audience, getting everybody to dance and do the can-can. I think that was the longest can-can I've ever seen going through the anything library truck. And that was a joint event that was hosted by Anythink. And if any of you are aware, Anythink will be opening a mini library, if you will, here in the city this coming fall or a little bit later this year. So I really do appreciate all that we do in terms of cultural enrichment by our parks and recreation. It helps you travel the world, if you will. If you're not able to go to Zimbabwe, you're able to sample and understand Zimbabwean culture just by going to a concert. And I'm almost done. I would like to thank the North Metro Fire Rescue District. As many of you know, I do sit on that board. And I appreciate a lot of the conversation, the coordination, the collaboration that happened in advance of the firework display that happened on July 4th. I was not in town for that. I know that a lot of municipalities had canceled their fireworks show, but there was a lot of conversation that happened in background between North Metro Fire County, the cities, cities of North Glens, city and county of Broomfield, which both North Metro covers, to make sure that all the elements came together, whether it's weather conditions, ground conditions, the types of fireworks that are being launched, all of that taking into account to be sure that a professional fireworks show would go off without any hitches, and it did. So thank you very much. And I know we have a member, actually, of North Metro Fire here. So thank you, Chief Gosselin, for all that you do. I do want to acknowledge some comments made by my fellow council members as well as Mr. Tom Lampo acknowledging the death of three firefighters and then most recently a helicopter pilot who passed away last night fighting the fires in the mountains. It is tough work. This is very tough and dangerous work what firefighters do. And I'm not diminishing anything about what police officers do either. Although after this, I'm sure our police department is going to give me grief about that. But public safety is such a vital piece of what we do as a municipality. It is so important. And we fully support our police department. I support, as a member of North Metro Fire, our firefighters. And we want to make sure that we continue to do what is important. Core services was mentioned tonight by one of our public commentary people, one of the residents. And those are things that we definitely put priorities on. And we will never shirk from that responsibility. I will never shirk from that responsibility. And I want you to know that, again, we are very thankful for all that you do, our public safety service people. Madam Mayor, pro tem, I know I went long, but I really appreciate the opportunity to say what I did.

No, thank you. I think you said some really important things, so appreciated. I'll just go ahead to not repeat all that, but just to echo what was said and appreciation for North Metro and everything they did for July 4th and our police department, because they were also there. walking the perimeters and making sure everybody was safe and not shooting off illegal fireworks. They were really busy that night, I'm sure. I know I may have made a call as well. It was pretty nuts. So I just want to say all of the appreciation and don't want to repeat all of the things, but we're so incredibly lucky to have such a great team between North Metro and our police department. So thank you for all of that. And then, of course, thank you to the staff who worked so hard to to put everything together and make that such an incredible event. Got to walk through the car show with my grandkids, which was really cool. That lasted maybe about 10 minutes before they were done, and I had to send them with my husband. But they did enjoy it. They got to take some pictures in the cars, and we got to choose the winners, Council Member Lighty and the mayor and myself. So that was super fun and special to do. Trying to see if I can remember anything else about July 4th. I think that covers it between everything everybody else has said. And then Super Mario Galaxy, for real. I've watched that probably about 20 times with my grandkids at home. I had to buy it, so I'm just saying. I can give you the play-by-play if you want and save you the whole two hours of the movie. But just kidding. It's a great movie. Please go to Ward 1. Please go to Ward 2. They are fantastic neighborhood nights. And that kind of segues into my communications. I also do, actually before that, I want to acknowledge the lives that were lost and condolences to those families of those firefighters and homes. And, you know, it's just, this is why we just need to be careful and vigilant. and appreciate our fire departments and then i also want to acknowledge the comments regarding the ice raid in northland even if we don't have all the details the video was extremely disturbing and that is a family that was affected so i also asked the question i know our police department was not informed and they had no i had no ahead knowledge of that as well so i will just leave it at that and thank you for all the comments on that as well Moving into my actual communications, we did have a very long segment of time, which is why everybody's communication is long tonight between the last meeting, and then we broke for CML, and then it was a fifth Monday, and so on, and then a study session. SO AWARD FOR NEIGHBORHOOD NIGHTS WAS JUNE 18th, AND COUNCILMEMBER ROPER IS NOT HERE, BUT IT WAS A REALLY GREAT EVENT. I THINK IT WAS JUNE 18th. SORRY, I THINK I SAID THE 19th. GREAT EVENT, VERY WELL ATTENDED. PEOPLE HAD AN AWESOME TIME WATCHING THE MOVIE, EATING ICE CREAM AND EATING ALL THE FOOD. We had lots of conversations. I stayed there pretty late talking to people. It was really cool because I think it's an opportunity. These neighborhood nights are an opportunity to talk to people maybe that aren't able to show up to our regular council meetings because of the time or the location or so forth. So I saw a lot of young families there with their kids. It was held at Danahay Park, so the playground was right there, which we know the renovations have just been completed. Super exciting. So I'd just love to say thank you to everybody that showed up to the ward for Neighborhood Nights. Thank you again to our police department for um showing up and for north metro as well for having a presence there like the kids really love the fire truck i'm just saying maybe next year we need to have police cars at the ward event so that the kids can play with them too right or not play with them but you know check them out but the fire truck was definitely a big hit kids had the stickers and the helmets and they were talking and they were just so excited so thank you thank you for that I already talked about July 4th, so I'm going to skip back and forth because so much has happened. As Councilmember Burns and Councilmember Leidy mentioned, we had the Colorado Municipal League Conference. Congratulations to Councilmember Burns on your presentation. I was able to sit on that and I think she did a great job. It was really great information. Some I knew, some I was taking notes, like, oh, this is really cool information. So I think you did excellent, and you had really great engagement. So I just wanted to do a shout out, and I was glad to be there to support you. DURING THAT. GREAT NEWS, I WAS ELECTED TO THE CML, THE COLORADO MUNICIPAL LEAGUE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AND THERE ARE ONLY 21, WELL, WE JUST CHANGED THE RULE, SO NOW THERE WILL BE 22 BOARD MEMBERS THAT REPRESENT OVER 207 MUNICIPALITIES AND TOWNS THROUGHOUT the state of colorado so it is a huge honor to be one of those 22 people cml is i guess you can call them the advocating body that oversees policy and legislation especially fights for and against legislation finances and so forth for the cities and towns of colorado strongly advocates for the needs and it's a varied board so there's small category medium category and large and extra large i think that's it um and we represent or i will be representing the medium category for colorado municipal league so that was fantastic news thank you Let me see, going through my notes. Attended the promotional swearing in and I'd like to just say it again. Congratulations to brand new Sergeant Frazier, Sergeant Toll, Lieutenant Thibodeau, Commander McNeely. Congratulations to all of them and the new leadership that's rising up in our police department. We're glad to have you and so proud of you as well. went to the volunteer dinner, as was mentioned, had the honor of providing the welcome and the thank you. They really keep our city rolling and running and all the good things that we really wouldn't have as much as we do in terms of amenities or information and feedback and community engagement if it wasn't for our volunteers. So big thank you to them again. I had Neura last week, which is our urban renewal authority. I was late to it because I went to the promotional swearing-in. But we approved three big grants, which are business improvement grants for Holly Street Suites, Himalaya Enterprises, and Orchid Nails and Spa. And then we also had an executive session, which I won't talk about, but it was regarding the property owned by Neura and Irma and 112th. um i am gonna shoot back real quick to my award meeting because i promised residents i would mention it great conversations mostly positive some concerns and concerns were very big around e-bikes I just have to say it, because I promised I would say it, and I don't want to forget, and I almost forgot. So, speeding, excessive speeds, and our trails, Ward 4, and I know other wards have trails as well, but we have the whole big open space, so it's a really nice big area where you can speed without easily being caught. We talked about the difficulties of trying to catch someone who's speeding on a trail in the Northwest open space by the time a police officer can get to them. But I do know that I saw that on our future agendas. So I'm going to leave it at that and not bring forward a formal request to look into e-bikes, because that is something that is on our future agendas to be discussed. And I know our police department is being vigilant and working on that. So to the residents that asked about that, there you are. We are listening. And the last piece that I will end with is I think everyone who's listening or is here and hopefully will listen, the theme that you hear from everybody is community engagement. We want to hear from you. We want to know what's going on. And everybody kind of said that in their own way. So I'd just love to reiterate that. To the folks that came up and spoke in public comment, thank you. But also, if it's tough for us because we can't respond during public comment, it's your time. But if you want a response, please email your ward representatives. Email us. And as a follow-up, everything is public on the page, as was mentioned. And just say, I'd like a follow-up or something to that effect, please. And then we can give you the follow-up that you might need or want. feel like i'm forgetting something but it was way too long between meetings so that that's all i have i will move on to city manager guyer do you have anything for us tonight

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. I wanted to extend a huge thank you to all of our staff who worked the 4th of July and who are working the multiple events that we have and have had. So upcoming and those that we've successfully executed on. Summer months are an extremely busy time for staff and it takes a huge team effort across departments. to come together and put on these events so we look forward to seeing you at the upcoming neighborhood night events as well as concerts and if you happen to see a staff member please say thank you and they surely appreciate when residents give them a shout out and acknowledge the great work that they're doing so thank you thank you city clerk small

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and Council. I have one quick item to update everyone on. This Saturday, July 18, the city clerk's office will host another one of our Passport Saturday events. It's from 9 AM to 3 PM. It's for those who can't make it into the office during regular business hours or who prefer weekend appointments. Appointments are still available by going online to the city's website or by calling 303-450-8756. This will also kick off our third donation drive of the year. And anybody who brings in a non perishable food item will receive a free passport photo and those donations will benefit the Good Shepherd Food Bank. Even if you don't need a passport, it's a great time to stop by, meet the city clerk's office drop off a donation. And I am excited to announce that we will also have a donation bin at the North Glen Recreation Center in case that's more convenient for folks. Thank you very much.

Excellent. City Attorney Hoffman.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem, Members of Council. I do not have anything to report this evening.

Okay, thank you. We are moving into the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve? Put your microphone on.

MADAM MAYOR PROTEM, I THINK ON THE AGENDA FINANCIAL REPORT IS UP NEXT.

OH, SORRY. YOU ARE CORRECT. I AM JUST GOING TO SKIP RIGHT AHEAD BECAUSE I'M ANXIOUS TO GET THROUGH THE MILLION THINGS WE NEED TO DO. SO GUESS WHAT? YOU'RE UP. DEPUTY CITY MANAGER JASON LOVELAND. I WAS JUST GOING TO SKIP RIGHT OVER YOU, THIS FINANCIAL REPORT. WELCOME.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR PROTEM, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. WITH THAT IN MIND, I WILL TRY TO GO QUICKLY THROUGH THIS. So we'll start off with the May update on sales and use tax. Through May, continue to see kind of negative trend. We're down 0.8%, so basically down 1% through May. So those are sales January, February, March, and April. And then we've collected the April sales in May. Within that number, sales tax itself is actually up 1%. Auto use tax is down 4.2%. Obviously, with the large closure, that tax is down 20%. And then marijuana tax continues its slide that's been going on for quite a while. It's down 15%. So specifically on the marijuana tax that we continue to track, we may actually stop tracking that. Just the downward slide is fairly significant, and I don't know that that is an industry that necessarily, unless it's councils can provide me feedback, not necessarily tonight, but just as we move forward, if that is... As relevant as it was once, we were back down to 2018 levels. So we're almost back a decade as far as the revenue from that marijuana tax. So it is interesting to continue to monitor. It is still a large portion of sales tax, although it is going backwards fairly consistently and quickly. So we're taxed by geographic area. You can see here, this is just the graph portion of it, but if you take a look at page 11 of the other report, tax collected by geographic area is actually up 3.3 percent, which is very, very positive. The out-of-state or really our online sales continuing that trend that we've seen for several years, since 2021 really, That's up 11.6%. So people in North Glen are still shopping and making purchases. It's largely being delivered from some online retailers. Of that 3.3% that this report share reports being up, if you strip away that online sales component, we're up just just below 1 percent. So we're just kind of hanging on. You'll see Maui, Washington Point, Huron at 104th, and Huron Crossing are all down. The other areas of the 13 or 14 areas are doing decent and are up slightly. So that's what's going on on the sales tax front and kind of in town. within our boundaries. Moving ahead to the general funds, you'll see total taxes at $11.2 million. That's reflecting a 15% increase year over year. You'll remember we moved the funds from the water fund. That total is $1.1 million. If we remove that, the sales tax and use tax component is flat in the general fund. So if it were not for that, this revenue number would be indeed flat. Intergovernmental revenues are $860,000. Again, that's largely based off of federal, state, and local county grants. So we're expecting to see some fluctuation there. licenses and permits specifically construction is down fairly significantly and that's reflected in a 20 or 19 percent decrease year over year charges for services so you'll think kind of on the big recreation side of things those are relatively flat when we combine um there are some increases on the recreation side that being offset by other charges for services Fines and forfeitures, down 6%. And then investment earnings, they're down over 16%. So total revenue in the general fund, that's just under $14.8 million. Again, it's up a little over a million dollars, and that's simply due to the revenue being, the sales tax being moved from the water fund. So overall... some increase, but basically just from a movement of funds and overall revenues in the general fund are flat. Otherwise, on the expenditure side, you'll see total expenditures at the bottom of this at $15.4 million. This is down just under 7 percent. A couple of main contributors are capital or investments in vehicles, which we're not budgeted for in 2026. as well as we have several frozen positions that we've made those decisions on throughout the year, so we're capturing some salary and benefit savings throughout the departments. Moving ahead to the Water Fund. Let's see, total revenues are just under $3.6 million. One of the larger things I guess to note is our water charges and specifically water use down in the bottom in that blue box. Total revenue is up about 4.6%. Consumption through May is actually up 1.7%. So still working on conservation efforts and through Through May, we made our declaration in the middle of April and communicated that out. I do believe that from January to April, there was some increase. I mean, there was no moisture, so people had kind of gotten started early. So we'll continue to monitor that. I can say from the residential standpoint, single family is conserving. And so that is positive. We've seen that in May and June. And then we've got some additional work to do just as overall kind of the goals that we have throughout the city. Total expenditures in this fund are at $4.3 million. Again, in line with budget, we would consider spending to be appropriate if that was at about 42%, since that's the portion of the year that we're through. so in the operating expenditures and other areas are spending as an alignment with what we budgeted i move ahead to the wastewater funds total revenues of 2.6 million dollars and expenditures of just under 1.2 some increase in wastewater charges attributable to the rate increase that took effect january 1st again on the expenditure side things are falling in line with what With what was budgeted and some slow spending as we work more on planning and designing of larger construction efforts, you will see that there's about a $9.8 million budget, and we've spent not much of that. So we're getting design and those planning efforts underway before we'll see large expenditures, which I would not expect to see in the wastewater fund That's very unlikely to happen in 2026 at this point. And the stormwater fund total revenues of $190,000, expenditures of $43,000. No significant changes to report there. A flat fee of $2. And then on the expenditure side, just on the operating side of things, that spending is in line. Next, the sanitation fund revenues are up $919,000. We did have a increase in the fees for 2026. So we would expect to see growth in that area. So trash charges being up 23%. That makes sense. expenditures, including capital outlay are in line with the budget. And there's no more reporting from me on this and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, and sorry, I almost skipped you. Oh, totally fine. That's okay. They keep me on my toes. Council Member Condo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and Deputy City Manager. I wonder if we can just go back to slide three, tax collected by geographic code. Just curious about Washington Point. Obviously, 2026 is, there's a step down from 2025. Is that reflective of the Safeway closure?

yes okay gotcha thank you okay i don't think there's any more questions um i will say personally i was surprised that the water is increasing water usage but it's been really hot too so we'll see if that's just a result of the extreme hot weather we've had for some reason um other than that thank you so much for the report i appreciate it thank you thank you OK, now we can move into the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve. Second.

Thank you. Please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote. I got it. I'm too busy. I'm busy doing this. Sorry.

I will close that vote, and the consent agenda passes unanimously.

Thank you. Moving into public hearings, will the clerk please read the title?

This is for CB 2039, a bill for an ordinance repealing and reenacting Articles 1 through 8 and Articles 11, 15, 16, 17, and 21 of Chapter 10 of the North Glen Municipal Code, adopting by reference the International Building Code, 2024 edition, the National Electrical Code as adopted by the state of Colorado, the International Plumbing Code, 2024 edition, the International Fire Code, 2024 edition, the International Mechanical Code, 2024 edition, the International Fuel Gas Code, 2024 edition. the International Residential Code 2024 Edition, Metro Cohort Model Code, the International Property Maintenance Code 2024 Edition, the International Existing Building Code 2024 Edition, and the International Swimming Pool and Spa Code 2024 Edition.

I will now open the public hearing on CB 2039. Comments are limited to five minutes per speaker. Is there anyone who would like to speak either for or against CB 2039? No. Is there anyone on the phone who would like to speak about CB 39? You can unmute yourself by pressing star six. See someone there? OK. No comments on that. Hearing none, I will close the public hearing. Moving into ordinances on second reading, will the clerk please read the title?

A bill for an ordinance repealing and reenacting articles 1 through 8 and articles 11, 15, 16, 17, and 21 of chapter 10 of the North Glen Municipal Code, adopting by reference the International Building Code, the National Electric, 2024 edition, the National Electrical Code as adopted by the state of Colorado, the International Plumbing Code, 2024 edition, the International Fire Code, 2024 edition, the International Mechanical Code, 2024 edition, the International Fuel Gas Code, 2024 edition, THE INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CODE 2024 EDITION METRO COHORT MODEL CODE, THE INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY MAINTENANCE CODE 2024 EDITION, THE INTERNATIONAL EXISTING BUILDING CODE 2024 EDITION AND THE INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING POOL AND SPA CODE 2024 EDITION. NEW SPEAKER MOTION TO APPROVE.

NEW SPEAKER SECONDED. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

SO SORRY TO MAKE YOU REPEAT THAT. I just read the script right away and probably didn't have to repeat that. So we appreciate the heck out of you. Okay. Um, we have director of planning and development, Becky Smith, who will provide the presentation on the item for us. Welcome directors.

Thank you, Mary pro tem council. Um, tonight I am presenting on CB 2039, uh, to adopt the 2024 international building codes and national electrical code as adopted by the state of Colorado. In addition to the adoption by reference of these codes, CB 2039 also adopts recommended local amendments. Alejandro Pantoja, our chief building official, and Mara Owen, our sustainability coordinator, will join me during the presentation to go over the high-level changes. We also have Sarah Borgers, public works director, and Steve Gosling, division chief at North Metro Fire Rescue District, here to answer any questions specific to amendments. The fire department also provided a response to the comment we received from the Home Builders Association, and it was left on the dais for you. Just a little bit of background. The model codes are updated every three years and adopted locally across the country. The code's purpose is really to improve the construction and maintenance of the built environment, thereby improving health, safety, resiliency, and adaptability. And the supporting amendments strategically align codes with the city of Northland goals. The ordinance will be effective 90 days after final approval and this is to allow time for public outreach and engagement. We'll have more information later on the presentation about the specific outreach and engagement that we have planned. This slide is just to show that the adoption of the 2024 codes does align with other city plans and policies that we have in place. And with that, I'm going to ask Alejandro to join me to start the overview of the 2024 codes.

Hello.

Welcome Alejandro.

Good evening. Nice to see everyone again. The codes have been updated with new sections that give better guidelines for the approval of materials and methods that fall outside of the model code. This ensures a wide range of materials and methods comply with the intent of the building codes without restricting new technology. NFPA reported over 1.5 million fires and 3,790 deaths in the U.S. in 2022, with 72% of those being residential fires. Excuse me. NFPA data shows residential fire sprinklers can increase survival rate by 89%, while increasing construction costs by approximately 3%. Sprinkler heads are installed flush with the ceiling and concealed behind decorative covers. As one of you mentioned earlier, one of our main responsibilities is life safety also. So we wholeheartedly support introducing this back into the municipal code. Two-family dwelling fire. This one is especially important because a couple of years ago, Colorado adopted Excuse me. Allowing the ability for anyone to turn their basement into an ADU, the upper floor of their unit into an ADU. So this addresses that specifically. Stacked dwellings without a sprinkler system in both units shall have the following. Assemblies separating the units including egress stairways shall be constructed in a manner that limits the transfer of smoke. A notification appliance must be connected to the smoke alarms of the other unit that simply says that if you do turn one dwelling into two, that their smoke alarms must talk to each other, must communicate. New residential code sections, again, more safety. A new section was added to address sleeping lofts. This is a topic that was not specifically covered in any previous additions. A new section was added to expand on handrails. This section has some additional requirements to ensure the safety of handrails in dwellings. Guardrail supports. The code requires guardrails to protect people from falling off of lofts and stairs until 2024. The code did not require those guardrails to be supported by bracing under the floor. The 2024 codes now require bracing or blocking to be installed under the floor to support the guardrails. Energy storage and protection, very important in Colorado. Any room that contains battery storage is required to have a self-closing door, a heat detector and fire rated walls. A garage that contains battery storage is required to have protection from a vehicle to avoid battery damage. National Electrical Code. The state of Colorado will adopt the 2026 edition of the NEC on August 1st. All electrical work done in Colorado must conform to the state's adopted code when the permit is applied for. The wording in the code adoption has been changed to as adopted by the State of Colorado instead of giving a specific addition to prevent confusion. And just like North Glen is adopting a 90-day window, the State of Colorado allows a six-month window. So it's time for training and public comment. Code applicability. Any new construction, additions, remodels, only areas affected by the scope of the work? ADU additions and remodels exempt from fire sprinklers if they are nonexistent on the main house or the main structure? That question comes up often. And this is Mara.

All right. I'm going to talk about the very exciting energy code. So just a reminder, since we did talk to you about this on April 20th, this might be a little bit of a refresher, but the Metro Cohort Model Code is actually a local amendment set created by the Regional Building Policy Cohort, which we were a part of. It is all based on the 2024 IECC. So the cohort background, we were part of an energy code cohort. It was established in 2021, essentially to adopt the 2021 cohort of the International Energy Conservation Code. We had a second one in 2024, so again, the next code cycle. Had a lot of meetings, talked to a lot of building officials. That's where we came up with our set of adoption amendments. The EPA at the same time was awarding Dr. Cogg a nearly $200 million grant. which is taking on the cohort. So the cohort coordinated that policy section of the grant. So it is now a regional building policy collaborative that is open to all the Dr. Cog region, whereas before it was really an opt-in and it was a little bit limited because it was self-funded. So the cohort communities that were a part of this 2024 cohort have expanded considerably, but the ones that made this particular set are up on the screen. I'm not going to read them all. But in future years, I'm hopeful you'll see many more on this list, which will be great. This is just a slide to let you know that we are in compliance with state energy requirements. So the base international code, the IECC, is no longer going to be the base. The state of Colorado actually has adopted, as of July 1st, the Model O Energy and Carbon Code, so the MLECC. So that is now the lay of the land that is the minimum code for energy that you can adopt. You cannot adopt the 2024 IECC as is. It has to be this little higher level. We previously, the old state minimum was the Colorado model electric ready and solar ready code. Huge mouthful. That one has been retired as of July 1st and it is now just the MLECC. The Metro cohort model code, which is the one highlighted in blue on the very bottom, is the one we are choosing. And we will go into why in a minute, but it is fully compliant with that state requirement, so we are fully compliant moving forward. We do have a letter from Will Tour, who's the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, stating that so that we know and we are solid. But why we chose to do this particular code instead of the metro cohort, instead of the model low energy and carbon code, so many codes, It is shorter and simpler than low energy and carbon code. We have only one region to deal with, so instead of having different climate zones across the entire state of Colorado, and again, the code for the entire state of Colorado is much longer, we could cut out those pieces of code, so make it a little easier to understand, easier to, and just shorter. overall is really tailored to the metro region again it was developed with building officials from those cohort communities that we talked about earlier so really specific to our region adds a few more options for how buildings can comply the state was limited and how they could pull things forward they couldn't pull anything that didn't already exist in the code or its amendments and we could and so we could add a few more pathways like I'm forgetting a pathway. It'll come back to me. But we do have a few more flexibilities that the Colorado state code was not allowed to do. And then it does position us for future funding opportunities. Again, Dr. Cogg is supporting these pieces. And again, we're ahead of the energy code adoption schedule and all the state minimums. We're working for it. I'm going to go really briefly into some of the high level differences between the 2021 code, which we're coming from, and this one. They're all going to be really broadly around electrification. Electrification is important. We are actually in the middle of a beneficial electrification plan through our sustainability efforts, which is really great. We know that it increases energy efficiency. It can improve indoor and outdoor air quality. So there's a few reasons why this is something that's important, along with greenhouse gas emissions in those pieces. But just to reiterate that this code, even when we are encouraging electrification, we do not require it. You still are allowed and can have multiple fuel, mixed fuel. We are not saying that gas is banned in any way. So just really clear that this is an encouragement. We are going to address a few pieces like fuel neutrality and site energy use metric that are how we're kind of getting at this encouragement of electricity. But I'll try not to go too into the weeds. So fuel neutrality, the previous 2021 code saw electric and mixed fuel homes. So most homes in North Glen are mixed fuel. You maybe have heating coming from gas and maybe you have electric coming from, you know, how you run your computers and everything else. It saw them the same, so the lowest efficiency fossil fuel heating. So your 50-year-old gas heater was considered the exact same as the highest efficiency heat pump, even though they are very different efficiencies. This is simply making that difference. It's also connecting to our metric. So we're saying in the performance path, we're actually changing the metric from energy cost to site energy use. And I have a whole slide on this. Energy metric is basically looking at how you're deciding what you're using energy as. Before, it was looking at cost, which is really hard because cost changes. Xcel can change regions. If I'm in the same city, instead of North Glen, I could be having one cost being in Xcel territory and one being in United Power territory, and those are two different regions. um areas it's not really comparable so as a consistent metric energy use sorry use is much more effective because you can actually have consistency and say how much energy did it actually take to do that whether it was coming from electricity or if it was coming from gas so just making it even and then home size we did look at just making sure that they're very small homes and dwelling units which are important for affordability new homeowners are not being seen as exactly the same as large homeowners large homes, sorry, which typically consume more energy and are typically not your starter homes. So there are additional requirements and it gets more stringent as you get larger. And then renewable energy, this is one piece that was put in because there was a feeling that on-site solar, so if you built a really, really inefficient building and just had windows open, no insulation, that you shouldn't just be able to put many, many solar panels on and then say, well, we're energy efficient. and we meet the code. And so this does not try to remove the incentive to put renewable energies on your buildings, but it does say you have to still have an efficient building underneath it. Just a reiteration that Dr. Cogg is supporting, so this is again the energy policy, the building policy collaborative that has now been taken over the policy code cohort is moving forward. There is funds to be able to support it. We are part of the BPC peer network, which is $2.5 million towards regional policy, and they are actually assisting us with our public engagement efforts. So we have coming up, well, actually attached to your packet, you have a resident FAQ, which is really looking at what is this code going to do for me so if i change a toilet if i uh update my kitchen cabinets if i replace my floors what does this make me do or not make me do and so we're really trying to be very clear most of these codes really address new buildings um so that's one of the big pieces we want to put forward but we also have a few opportunities and outreach engagement efforts for the public to be able to learn this. So we have a public Lunch and Learn, which will be recorded for a later viewing. That'll be on August 5th from 12 to 1 in the community rooms. It will have lunch provided. You'll have a contractor and design professional training, which we didn't have in time to be able to put on this, but is scheduled for August 26th from 8 to 9 a.m. So early in the morning, before you get your day started, breakfast will be provided. There will be a connection newsletter article, some social media to try and make sure that we're promoting those events and the FAQ for how this would affect residents. Building inspector training will happen internally for both hopefully September and October, but we're still working on exact dates. And then an updated web page with some FAQs and training, those same training recordings that we're having. and some implementation resources uh that'll be on the building department page and then i'll put some there will be some on the energy efficiency page um that i think is everything we have here and in finally uh staff does recommend approval of cb 2029 on second reading 2039 i knew that was um but if you have any questions let us know thank you

Thank you. And let's please not make a city clerk small read that again. So we do have a hand up, Council Member Condo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. And I do have a few questions and possibly one for Chief Gosselin, Deputy Chief Gosselin. I would like to go back. You briefed about battery storage requirements and whatnot. And I just wanted some clarity there. Are we talking about a Tesla battery wall or an Enphase battery, those sort of things that might be installed inside a garage? Yes. Would EV also trigger those requirements? Would parking an electric vehicle also trigger those sort of requirements as well?

No.

so it's really mainly limited to battery storage now i know there are a lot of people that are interested in kind of doing plug-in solar and part of that is to have like a battery generator although it's it's really just a battery storage device maybe on wheels or whatnot if they decide to put that in the garage would that trigger that requirement it's possible that would be case by case okay understand thank you um I wonder if we could just talk briefly about sprinklers because I think I had a misunderstanding and perhaps maybe Chief Gosselin can come up and talk about that. You know, originally when I started going through this package, I was thinking the sprinkler role is really to protect property. But yet when I flipped through the... the graphic representation with these two timelines, you know, there's this phenomena called flashover. I wonder if you could just speak to that and how exactly the sprinklers, what does that do for you?

Sure thing. Flashover is defined as when, within a compartment, everything that can burn ignites simultaneously, and that is what's the most deadly for occupants in the structure as well as our firefighters responding to initiate offensive fire attacks. So what sprinklers will do is they activate early based on the heat rising at the ceiling. 135 degrees is the element activation temperature, and then individually they will discharge water that cools those gases and hopefully reaches the seat of the fire, containing the fire in a way that allows occupants more time to safely escape the home.

You're saying really the role of sprinklers is more life safety than anything else, giving the occupants a chance to get out?

Residential sprinklers, yes. That's their primary focus. Okay. Property protection is secondary.

Gotcha.

Unlike the sprinklers in this building, which are designed to discharge at a greater rate and save property. Historically, though, in residential settings, fire sprinklers do very much save property, but that's not the primary reason for their inclusion.

Okay. Thank you. I think we had an example, right? Wasn't there a senior assisted living facility that had a fire and the fire sprinkler activated here in North Glen and had a positive impact?

Yeah, I believe there was. Early 2026, there was a facility that we were working with to get their systems up to snuff. And yeah, shortly before that incident, they had received the all clear. All the systems were up and running and it worked perfectly. All the systems as well as their evacuation planning and emergency planning worked perfectly. So no injuries were experienced as a result of that.

Gotcha. Thank you. Those were all my questions. I do want to thank Ms. Owen. I know that you've been involved in a lot of this stuff. Yeah, you're grimacing a little. But I know that you also work very closely with Dr. Cogg. So a lot of this is not possible without your active involvement, not only at the city level, but also at the region. So thank you very much for doing that. Are you at the floor?

Does anyone else have any questions or comments?

Okay, Councilmember Burns. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. It's just a piggyback off Councilmember Conda to applaud the team on all of the work that you've been doing behind the scenes on this. I know we've been talking about it for a while. And it's a very long title and the changes being made in this FAQ document is really good too from Dr. Cogg. So I'm excited to see how that gets circulated as well. So thank you again for everything.

I agree. And Councilmember Condo, thanks for asking the question about the storage because that was definitely my thoughts as well as where and how that would work. So I don't see any other hands. I would like to echo all the incredible work that you've done. Thank you for that. The sprinkler system, like I'm actually thinking how I can retrofit my house just because I have grandkids that stay over and, you know, life safety is 100% matters way more than property. It's not replaceable. So appreciate all the work that all of you have done. Thank you so much. Looks like we are ready to vote. Please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote.

I will close that vote and CB 2039 on second reading passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Ordinances on first reading. Will the clerk please read the title? This is for CB 2040, a bill for an ordinance amending Chapter 5, Article 3 of the City of North Glen Municipal Code to eliminate the 1% vendor fee.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Thank you.

We have Deputy City Manager Jason Loveland is back who will provide a summary of the item. Welcome back. I didn't forget you this time.

Thank you so much. So CB 2040 to eliminate the 1% vendor fee. So again, this was brought forward last week and to the Finance Committee a month or so ago. So this is the vendor fee. It's an administrative rebate of sales tax provided to vendors that submit their sales tax returns and taxes due on or before the due date. So the proposal here is to eliminate the 1% fee, as you can see in the memo and in the document attached, simply striking out any reference to that. This would be something that would go into effect January 1st as staff, if it were to be approved, the staff needs to work on the infrastructure on the technical side to make sure that we get all of those things taken care of and cleaned up if approved on first reading this evening a second reading and public hearing will take place on july 27th so happy to answer any questions i feel like we just talked about this last week so i'm not sure that there are any

We did talk about it. Oh, wait. Oh, the hands just popped up. I thought we were good to go. I was going to say some things. I will wait to say my things, and I will give Councilmember Burns the floor. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem.

Sorry, I was a little slow on clicking. Thank you so much for being here. Just to reiterate, this is basically a 1% off we would give to folks who filed their taxes earlier on time as like a bonus.

Correct.

It was like an in-kind thing, right?

Yes.

Cool. But I would like to point out that residents, we don't ever get that when we file our taxes on time. So this was a very nice thing that we were doing as a city. And I understand times are changing and so...

sometimes maybe we can do this again someday in the future but i think it is time to remove it right now thank you council member sievers thank you madam mayor pro tem in addition to council member burns creative question or great yeah great input uh it was also you know we have different technologies than we did 20 years ago so maybe doing a spreadsheet happens like that so it's also in addition to all this technology that's coming on board across the country and world it should be easier to do some of the paperwork elements of it so it's also that's in addition to the fact that it was a thing we did voluntarily and out of our goodness of our heart thanks

yes i will say as a business owner it's not that easy still but also um again i was very surprised that we even offered this because it's not something i see and it was a nice thing but i think it just makes sense at this point and i absolutely could be on board with looking at it again in the future at some point if we're able to but We talked about this last week. Was it last week already? Yes, it was. So I think we're good to go. Actually, I did make one note. I was just curious. You mentioned staff will have to work on infrastructure. What exactly did you mean by that?

So all of the remitting, we're recommending and request, if not forcing, to use our online forums. And that's through Gov OS electronically in the SET system. So either one of those from an infrastructure standpoint as far as reformatting forms, removing calculations, and also the communication to businesses to let them know that that change is potentially coming, depending on what happens July 27. OK.

So just updating systems to make it usable.

Correct.

And workable and efficient.

Yeah. So making any modification to software, as much as it would be nice that just like that happens overnight, there will be a fit into somebody else's third party schedule to get those modifications coordinated. So that piece could take a little while.

OK. That makes a lot of sense. And that hearing is on July 27 to repeat that? Yes. OK, great. Thank you. Doesn't look like we have any more questions. So please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote.

I will close that vote and CB 2040 on first reading passes unanimously.

Thank you. We have several resolutions tonight. Will the clerk please read the title for the first one?

This is for CR 75, a resolution ratifying the adoption by the City of North Glen Planning Commission of the North Glen section 36 area plan as an amendment to looking up a vision for North Glen's future, the City of North Glen's comprehensive plan. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. Thank you. And we have Director of Planning and Development Becky Smith back. Welcome, Director Smith.

Hello. CR 75 ratifies the Planning Commission's adoption of the subarea plan for Section 36, the city's detached one square mile property in Weld County, which is home to our wastewater treatment plant. This is a return item. Council remanded the plan back to the commission in May with the direction to reconsider data centers as a preferred use. Staff removed data centers from the preferred use list per that direction. I do want to note that this does not prohibit data centers from being eligible to be developed there, but it doesn't signal that we're actively targeting that use either. The Planning Commission reconsidered the amended plan at its June 2nd hearing and voted to adopt it. Council's options tonight are to approve CR 75 ratifying the Planning Commission's adoption of section 36 area plan as an amendment to the city's comprehensive plan, remand the plan back to the Planning Commission with specific direction for further consideration, table the resolution for additional review by City Council or deny the resolution. The plan would remain as adopted by the Planning Commission but without City Council ratification and staff is recommending approval of CR 75. And I'm happy to answer any questions that there might be at this time.

I do, well, yes, I do. You guys are tricking me tonight. I'm telling you, every time I start speaking. Council Member Seavers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, and thank you, Director. As she pointed out, the only thing that changes, we removed data centers from the preferred option. Thanks to the Planning Commission for doing that with us. And I feel like I had something else, but I totally forgot what it was. Oh yes, here it is. I had to dig in there. It's a mess. Anyways, as we were talking to a Thornton City Council member earlier today, we just talked about, you know, sometimes staff, we operate in silos. I know we always ask our neighbors questions about how they do this or that, but I know for sure that Thornton and multiple neighbors are having conversations and researching the finer points of different types of data centers. So it would be really fantastic to maybe tag team that. So as a region, we understand better and we share resources if it's possible. I know we are all in our own city, but we're duplicating work multiple cities over. So if we can try to use what they've already done But we're going to learn. It would just save time, I would think. Anyways, just a suggestion.

Thank you, Council Member Seaver. So that was a topic at the CML conference of one of the sessions that I attended as well. And it was really interesting to see how many cities municipalities are putting moratoriums on data centers until they can do more research into all of the consequences, the benefits, effects, environmental issues, and so forth, data consumption, which is huge. And that was the first time I really saw comprehensively just the variation between the different types of data centers. I think Broomfield just passed a moratorium on a certain amount that use over, don't quote me, I think it's like 10% power or something like that. So I think, and this won't be a formal request, but I think maybe in the future I would love to have some kind of a study session. I'm not making a formal request on the different types of data centers just for educational purposes. But we can bring that up later. I won't do that. So I just want to say I appreciate also the Planning Commission on adopting and taking our information. So I think we're good. I don't see any more hands. So thank you. Yes. City Manager Geyer. I opened a can of worms, didn't I?

No, you didn't. What I was going to recommend is if council would like to have us bring back the subject in a study session, it's appropriate to make a request of staff to do that. And that's something you can consider. Sorry.

WELL, THEN I'LL GO AHEAD AND MAKE A FORMAL REQUEST BECAUSE AFTER SEEING THE CML PRESENTATION, I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE JUST THAT KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL OF US SO WE'RE EDUCATED ON THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DATA CENTERS AND THE USAGE AND, YOU KNOW, THAT COULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE WHAT OTHER CITIES ARE DOING AS WELL BECAUSE THERE WERE QUITE A FEW ON THAT LIST WHO HAVE DONE DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESOLUTIONS AND They're all very different moratoriums on this as well. So are you guys on board with having that in the future? Good? Yes? OK. I'll look over here, too. My neck hurts. OK, great.

And Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I would just add one thing. We will certainly bring it back and bring it back quickly, but the issues are probably not as significant in North Glen as they are in places like Broomfield because geographically we are limited and the area where we're not geographically limited we own. so we would have discretion on property we own at the front end so that doesn't make it any less important to bring it back but the communities that are imposing moratoria have much different land use issues where it could be a more imminent use than in north glen absolutely thank you so much for that i did see all the issues that broomfield has as a county

And they already have data centers there. So very different from us. But I know the conversation came about because of our property in Weld County. So always worth, I think, just for our own knowledge. As I mentioned, I was truly surprised at just how much information was in that session. Thank you. I don't see any more hands. The vote is open. Please vote.

I will close that vote, and CR 75 passes unanimously. Moving into CR 86, will the clerk please read the title? A resolution vacating a utility easement held by the City of North Glen for the Alexa North Glen Multifamily Living Development at 505 West Community Center Drive.

Motion to approve.

Second. Thank you. Welcome back, Director Smith.

All right, CR 86 is a resolution to vacate an easement at 505 West Community Center Drive, the Alexa and development. During the final title alter review, a leftover portion of an eight 1987 utility drainage easement was discovered that's no longer needed on the site. vacating it won't have any negative impact to the city utility providers or residents. And there's no financial or time impacts to this item. Staff is recommending approval of CR 86.

Thank you. Pretty straightforward. I'm going to give you guys a second in case you decide to raise your hand last minute before I call it. Okay, I don't see any hands. Thank you so much. Please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote.

We'll close that vote. And CR 86 passes unanimously of the members present. Thank you. CR 87, will the clerk please read the title? A resolution approving an agreement between the City of North Glen and Bel Air Buildings Incorporated doing business as Bel Air Site Works Services for the Civic Center parking lot construction project.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Thank you. And we have Director of Public Works. Welcome, Sarah Borgers.

mayor pratem and city council lovely to see you this evening i do have a picture This was requested and quick work. We were able to get this up. So thank you for City Clerk Small for helping us do that. So this contract is to do the parking lot construction for the location right here across the street where we have old City Hall used to be. Now it's a not so pretty dirt lot. This is a transitional parking lot that once it's constructed, it'll allow us to do the remediation work in the existing parking lot on the north side of the building. So there was a formal bid that went out in May of this year. We did get eight bids back ranging from $849,374.05 to $1,849,362. So pretty wide range, but we did background checks and reviewed the bid for the low bid and found that to be a good bid. And so we'll move forward with the low bid in this case, which is with Bel Air. We're also asking for a 10% contingency of $84,937.41. Uh, so looking at the drawing, since we have it here, uh, the right, the left side here is the rec center. The right side is where city hall is going. You'll notice we've added a driveway along the right side here to, um, allow people to drive through and drop off their utility bill. Um, uh, their ballots along with, uh, the mailbox will be right there. There's a little over 150 parking spots here. They are not ADA compliant. Our ADA spaces are adjacent to the buildings. The grading here is just a little too steep to allow us to put any additional spots here, but there are sufficient spots for the site already in place. So you will see You can access without going through stairs. If you go along the north sidewalk, we do have stairs that will go up to the theater. It's about seven steps there, and about six steps to get down to come over to City Hall. We're happy to answer questions.

We have questions Councilmember Condo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Director Borges for providing a picture for those of us who are visual thinkers. So I understand that none of the parking spaces will be ADA compliant, at least in this transitional parking. But in view of additional parking spaces being provided, will there be more spaces freed up adjacent to the rec center for senior slash handicap parking?

Yes, and I probably should add the main parking lot doesn't have ADA. But if you look right here, that will be an additional ADA parking spot there. It should relieve parking pressure both for City Hall and the rec center theater. And so while the number of ADA spots, besides the spot here won't change, it should relieve pressure so that there is more parking more immediately adjacent to the buildings.

Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

Council Member Lighty. Sorry, I'm going to ask a follow-up question to that just because it's kind of my thing. So can you point, like on this map, there's none on this map right now. There would be no ADA parking in this map. Or would there be?

There's just the one.

Just that one section?

Just that one, yep.

Interesting. That's kind of disappointing. Is there any way... I mean, I'm assuming that's not something that can change at all. And I, I know you mentioned the relief, but I mean, if, if I was, if I had small children, I would want to park right up next to where I can. And if it's not designated as an ADA spot, I'm going to do it. So I, okay. Okay. I just, I don't know. It feels icky, but that's okay. Like that's okay.

So this site, because it's not immediately adjacent to a building, ADA requirements come with a lot of cross slope requirements. You certainly don't want to be going down steep slopes or have a lot of offset. And so you want those ADA spots to be right next to the building, because it's not just the spots themselves. You've got to have a pathway that also meets those requirements. And so because this one is such a far distance,

from any building that's partly why the ada spots are going to be focused more against the building and those are already in place i hope that helps it's a valid question councilmember leidy um so what i heard just to repeat that you we will be adding more ada spots in that section there that are closer to the building How many additional spots? Just the one. Just the one, right. Just one spot. Yes. Okay, single. All right, got it. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, that was a good question, thoughtful question. But if there's ADA compliance rules, of course, and I would assume I'm not an engineer, but changing the whole slope of that would be a completely different project on a whole different level versus what we budgeted for.

It would and the site already accommodates the number of ADA spots the buildings require. And so there's from an ADA perspective, we've already done so much work around this building and around the rec center that meets meets those requirements. And I would like that it would be a substantial redesign.

Yeah, no, understood. Yeah, thank you. And I would like to just point out that $1 million is provided by Urban Renewal Authority. So that's great. I don't think I've ever been so excited for parking. It's not like the coolest thing that we've done, but it is sorely needed. I know, each and every one of us have gotten calls about parking at some point in time. We do have more hands up, so it looks like we've thought of some more questions. I'll give everybody a chance to finish their thoughts. Council Member Nowicki.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Director Borges, thank you for being here. I did not see it. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see this in the materials that we got this map. Can you, just for my purposes, can you orient me to where the different sites are?

Absolutely.

Located relative to this?

Let's see. I am not good at using the pointer here. All right. So the theater's right here.

Okay.

Rec center.

Okay.

New, the place we're sitting right here.

Gotcha.

And then this up here is where that north parking lot is, and the open field is over here.

Okay. Perfect. That's all I needed. Thank you.

WE NEED MORE VISUALS FOR THE EXTRAVISUAL FOLKS. COUNCILMEMBER BURNS.

THANK YOU, MADAM MAYOR PROTEM. AND THANK YOU SO MUCH, DIRECTOR BORDERS, FOR THIS. I THINK WE ALL ARE VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS temporary parking. And I would like, and while, you know, we would like, of course, like we are up to code with our ADA compliance, but also like to remind everyone, this is a temporary project. We have big plans for this space for our civic plans. But I think this is going to be a great interim. So thank you so much. Really do appreciate that. Thank you.

Council Member Kondo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. And as Council Member Burns said, it's transitional, but I was just wondered if this has to exist for a longer duration. Was the layout of the islands and all that planning done with the view that perhaps maybe the food truck carnival could be placed there, say we end up having this for several years running?

So we would have to probably talk

I CAN ANSWER THAT QUESTION BY SAYING AS WE EMBARK ON THE PROPOSED 2027 BUDGET, WE NEED TO HAVE A SEPARATE CONVERSATION ABOUT EVENT PLANNING. SO I'D ENCOURAGE COUNCIL NOT TO GET TOO FAR INTO LAYOUT OF FUTURE FOOD TRUCK CARNIVAL BECAUSE WE HAVE BIGGER POLICY QUESTIONS WE NEED TO RESPOND TO IN TERMS OF 2027 BUDGET.

OKAY. THANK YOU. I RETRACT MY QUESTION.

COUNCIL MEMBER NEWICKI.

Back at it. Thank you. Just out of curiosity, how long is this kind of designed to last?

It will last several years. This is not going to be something that's going to fall apart in a couple of years. We wanted to make sure, you know, it takes time to get through development processes, and so this was designed to have some life expectancy to it.

Okay. Several is such an interesting word because it can mean three to, when I hear several, I think three to seven.

Okay. I will say more of the 10 to 20 range.

Okay. So it's more of a permanent structure. Okay. All right. So there's, keep that in mind. Hope you guys like it. Is it going to have plants?

It will not. So there's no landscaping here with the transitional kind of component. There is lighting, but it is not landscaped. Oh.

If I can interject a couple things. So to earlier comments made, the city council established a vision a couple years ago for the overall civic campus plans, which is why this parking lot specifically has been referred to as a temporary parking lot. So there's other work that needs to get underway in terms of council's vision and how this site is redeveloped if and when it's redeveloped that's really the bigger picture question and the work that needs to be done and so staff advanced at the request of council as well as the community the need to address parking shortages through this design of the proposed temporary parking lot. So we're also trying to be fiscally prudent and that's why you don't see things like traditional landscaping and elements that you would normally see if we were moving forward with a design that was intended to be permanent. So really the timeframe, Director Borgers was honest and shared her perspective on that. It's really going to be driven by council and what you want to see happen. Moving forward so that's a discussion that needs to occur at some point in the future right?

I guess the the miss I don't want to say miscommunication But maybe the misunderstand the assumption on my part when I was thinking a kind of temporary structure. I was thinking Maybe three years max, but if we're thinking 10 to 20 Is it possible throw some pots out there and some you know? It's it's I hear what you're saying. I understand that. But again, I guess, you know, and I don't know where y'all are at as kind of a council. You know, when I heard, you know, kind of a temporary structure, maybe I was not thinking on these kind of longer, more longer timelines.

If I could clarify that. So I don't know the cross-section of asphalt design on this, but usually these kind of parking lots are about four inches of asphalt with some level of subgrade underneath. So subgrade meaning just like rock for this to sit on. That is sort of a minimum standard for a parking lot. And those kind of parking lots, if they're well-maintained, should last 10 to 20 years. So it The minimum is not something that would fall apart in five years. Gotcha. And it's also not something that's going to be difficult to move should council decide to go a different direction.

And in hearing that and recognizing the constraints, recognizing that we've had a pile of dirt there for a while, I do want to get this moving, so I'm not going to hold it up. Thank you.

Thank you. And just to remind council, we did have these conversations when we were looking at, when we were, I guess, completing our vision for the Civic Center campus and the reason we chose a temporary parking lot. I'm actually excited to hear that it will last longer than three to 10 years because that gives us or future council enough time to do the right thing in that area, whatever that might be, if anything at all, since we've had that visioning process several times. So I just want to say I know we had talked about, like, NURA and the amount of funds they could provide and what we could do with that. And so that's why we decided on the temporary. As much as I appreciate your vision for plants, that was not the part of the conversation back then. So thank you for doing that. I think it will, the benefit will far outweigh, I don't think it will look ugly, but our residents will appreciate it. And it looks like we do have some more hands. I'll let them speak. Council Member Seavers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. And just to reset for the residents, right? So the city hall had to be demolished for the parking lot. Now the parking lot's going in. So that far parking lot and the brownfield right there can be remediated, which also ties into Odell Berry Park. So these are all steps that have to happen to get these projects going. So again, the only thing when you have a parking lot, a parking lot's a parking lot. It's going to be built the same way. As Director Woerger says, maybe it's not as thick, so you wouldn't want to necessarily throw some semis over it, because that might hurt. But generally, it's just a parking lot. ADA stuff is already close to the building. Most people don't utilize that big parking lot for this stuff unless they absolutely have to. So it will be closer. It'll be more central. 10 years. It definitely can take 10 years for the city, the Civic Center, to be developed. I WAS IN THE CROWD AS A SPECTATOR WHEN YOU GUYS KIND OF PUT IT ON PAUSE A LITTLE BIT. SO IT'S LIKE THIS IS A TENURE PLAN AND IT IS GOING TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY BETTER THAN OUR CURRENT SITUATION AND IT'S GOING TO ALLOW US TO GET OTHER PROJECTS GOING. SO THAT'S JUST CONTEXT FOR FOLKS. THANKS.

Well said, Council Member Sievers. Council Member Lighty.

I just wanted to go back and correct. I had no idea what was going on in this map. So I was over here like, yeah, the rec center's right there. And then I, so I blew it up. I blew it up in my head. Now I understand what you're saying about all the ADA stuff. So I wanted to make sure everyone knew that because I was like, oh, wait, as soon as you asked that question, I knew where everything was. I was finally put together. So that makes total sense. Thank you so much for everything you do.

Thank you. Again, I'll just say I'm really excited for a parking lot. So things to be excited for. Appreciate your work in going into this. I don't see any other questions. I believe we're good to move on. So please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote.

I will close that vote. NCR 87 passes unanimously. Moving into CR 88, will the clerk please read the title? A resolution adopting the City of North Glen Comprehensive Safety Action Plan.

Move to approve. Seconded.

Director Smith, this is your night. Welcome back again.

All right. So CR 88 is a resolution to consider adopting North Glen's comprehensive safety action plan, which was completed in partnership with Adams County and six other jurisdictions. It's a policy document and approval of it does not commit the city to any specific actions, but rather provides guidance. I do want to note before I get too far into the presentation that I was not part of the project team. that developed this plan. I'm presenting it tonight on their behalf. So if there are any technical questions that I can't answer tonight, I'd be glad to bring those questions back to the team and follow up with answers. I also have Eden Teklamarian, our planner two here tonight who joined the team towards the end of the project. We've had some turnover and positions. And so she might be more familiar if there are any specific questions, I'll ask her to help answer if she's able to. The presentation will cover an overview of the project, engagement, safety analysis, prioritization, recommendation, or sorry, recommended countermeasures, and implementation. The plan was funded through Federal Safe Streets and Roads for All Program, which is also called SS4A. The goal was a data-driven roadmap to reduce fatalities and serious injuries. Four core objectives of the plan were to identify high-risk corridors and intersections, prioritize safety projects, build long-term reduction strategies, and position Northland to compete in future federal and state transportation funding opportunities. Adopting this plan can improve our eligibility and competitiveness in federal and state transportation design and implementation grants down the road. There were five project goals identified in the plan, and that was to analyze the system, understanding equity impacts, identifying projects, identifying funding strategies, and regional collaboration opportunities. The planning process included review of existing plans and robust public engagement. The project team reviewed 20 planning documents and used a community engagement platform called social pinpoint, which logged over 1000 views and over 850 contributions. So this slide is really just to show that the recommendations in the plan aren't just engineering driven. Residents told the project team where they felt unsafe in the community as well. This slide is really just to be a visual of the inputs that went into the analysis to identify the priority areas. Over the five year period that this project looked at the data, North Glen averaged three crashes a day, and a fatal or serious injury crash every 20 days. About one in eight people in a severe crash were either walking or biking. The map on this slide shows where the crashes have occurred. Total crashes dropped nearly 40% in five years, but fatal and serious injury crashes stayed flat. Overall crashes are declining, but the severe ones aren't. So recommendations in this plan are really targeted at trying to reduce those severe crashes. In the five year period bike and pen crashes also fell by 45%. But they still remain a high priority because they tend to result in more serious injuries. Based on the analysis, North Glen has 11 intersections that were rated at the highest severity category for level of service and safety and 42 in the top two categories. And this just really shows that the intersections and corridors were scored and ranked by percentile. So the highest risk of the network could be flagged for our attention. The city chose the top 20%. So roadways segments in this systemic scores greater or equal to that 20% are considered part of the high risk network. This slide is really just a visual output of that scoring from the previous slide. The map shows the corridors and segments that Northland should prioritize. 28 priority intersections were identified using crash history, roadway characteristics, and engineering analysis. These guide the recommendations for future safety investments and capital planning. And this slide. Sorry, I think I'm off on my slides.

Back one.

This slide shows the methodology for identifying the top corridors and sorry this map shows the top corridors and about seven miles of corridor were identified across three categories with some overlap between the different categories project prioritizations were determined based on weighting inputs so safety Safety data, which included crash history and risk scores, was weighted at 70%. Community input was weighted at 15%, and equity considerations were weighted at 15%. The prioritization process was intended to balance that hard data with resident voice and equity. And this slide just shows how the scoring in the previous slide was applied spatially in order to rank the intersections citywide. Um, and this shows the top 10 intersections for prioritization. There is a full ranked list in the plan for reference. Um, the top, um, intersection is East 104th and Irma that was identified. Um, the slide, this one shows how the scoring was weighted for, um, in order to rank the corridors citywide. So very similar to the, um, intersections. And then this slide just shows what the top prioritization is for those corridors. And so there is a lot of overlap you'll see between the corridors and the intersections. This slide shows that 104th Avenue East and West is at the top of the list. So moving into the recommendations, the recommendations generally fall into four categories of countermeasures, which includes signal and intersection improvements, speed management, walking and biking improvements, and roadway improvements. These recommendations are a guide. So every project would still go through capital planning and budgeting. And Northland did identify targets through this plan and Northlands targets are to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes 5% year over year, translating to an estimated 26% cumulative reduction by 2030 56% by 2040 and 74% by 2050. The plan recommends a near term goal of completing three to five system at systemic improvements or a larger corridor and intersection projects within five years. Today, So staff is recommending adoption of CR88. Adopting CR88 by resolution can improve the city's competitiveness and grant applications by having clearly identified goals and prioritized locations. The plan's crash analysis, high-risk network, and prioritized locations can directly inform two transportation studies that we already have underway, the comprehensive transportation mobility plan and North Glen's first and last mile community mobility plan. So with that, I'm happy to try to answer any questions you may have or have Eden come up and answer any questions, but that's the end of the presentation.

Council Member Cando?

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Director Smith, for the presentation. I will tell you, bravo. Kudos to your team. The presentation was very intuitive, I guess, as a visual thinker and looking at the process flow and how you represented all of the data and the conclusions that come out of that. A few questions. I'm assuming that the work wasn't just planning and development. It was working with the police department and coming together to gather all that data.

Yes, the police department provided a lot of data to the project team, including all of the city's crash data and who was involved with the crashes. Our public works department was also involved in setting some of the targets and goals.

Gotcha. I think this is a great example of really working across functional areas. I know we talked a little bit about silo earlier, but I love the fact that we are working across departments to kind of solve some very tough systemic problems. um i do want to ask and if this is beyond you maybe uh chief or deputy chief can answer this but you had the acronym loss l-o-s-s is that uh basically calls for service no or is that something else so i have it written down sorry let me see if i can find that it's a level of service and safety and so it's just a way to rank the the high priority corridors Gotcha. So not a numerical sort of numbers of calls for events that happen at locations. Thank you. And then I'll just close with a statement. I believe Dr. Coggan 2024 approved the Region Vision Zero policy. And I think this really dovetails really nicely with that because the organization is striving to have zero traffic fatalities by 2040 and zero serious injuries by 2045. I know it's probably a big carry a goal. But it is aspirational. I know that we are trying to figure out a way to lower the number of deaths, and it looks like the trends at least are looking good. I would assume that this analysis and what we have here actually makes us more competitive when we put in our nominations for the TIP process so that we're more likely to get awarded grants and things like that. Is that correct? yeah having these established goals and then priority areas does make uh grant applications more competitive great wonderful let's is i'm so delighted to see this all starting to fit together you know there's just multiple connections and and um not only just at the city level but at the regional level so i appreciate all the work that is going on here thank you councilmember burns

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you so much for presenting this, even though it's not your directly work. So you may not be able to answer this question, but what does access management mean? Is that like left arrows?

Yeah, I think access management is how a car enters an intersection. I love a left hand arrow. Okay.

So what'd she say?

Sorry. Sarah just agreed with my answer.

So okay, so basically, they're saying tell surprise that access management on 104 down towards Irma is tough because there is no left arrows and it's just kind of crossing into traffic there. So that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of life's problems could be solved with a left hand turning a green arrow, to be perfectly honest. And then so looking again like at our map on slide 17 or page 17, I don't know what slide, yes slide. 17 of 72. We have a speed management section on 104th. The cameras we have discussed placing there, would that go towards one of our systemic goals? It could.

Again, this is a policy guiding document, so we can use this to inform our decisions moving forward. Okay.

Cool. Thank you. Council Member Lighty? Thank you. Thank you so much for all this information. This is an amazing packet. I did have a question because I was looking over the participating agencies and it doesn't look like Thornton is one of them. And then it also said, we stated that 104th and Irma is one of our main priorities. How do we prioritize an intersection that's in two different jurisdictions? Because the, I think, West is North Glen, but... East is Thornton. How does that work? And maybe that's a question for many different people. But I was like, oh, how does that work?

So we're grateful to have really great partners over in Thornton. So when we have stuff going on, we have connections there that we are constantly talking with. We have various IGAs with them. We manage like the traffic signals, depending on some of them North Glen manages, some of them Thornton manages, but we share ownership. And so we have a lot of opportunity there to, if there's something that we want to do to improve to coordinate with Thornton.

Is there a way to maybe get them a part of this situation? Like how do we get them to be a participating agency? That would be cool.

Yeah, I am not sure why Thornton didn't participate. I'm sure Adams County would have extended an invite to them when they invited all the other communities that are listed. Each community is getting their own specialized document with recommendations like this. So yeah, I'm sure that Thornton had...

Well, I don't know. I was just looking and I'm like, oh, some of these, they hit each other. And so it's like Westminster's on this side, but we're here. Or Thornton's over here and we're here. And then my last question is, do any of these corridors intersect with our safety sensitive zones? Or is that, are they kind of different?

I am unsure. But I think since most of these are on major arterioles, I don't think we have any safety sensitive zones on any of our arterials or major collectors. But I could be wrong.

OK. Good. OK. I had the same thoughts as Councilmember Burns if that's going to inform more having our speed corridor. along what I call the crash corridors, 104th and 120th would be something that fits into this plan. It looks like it will, just from some of the things that are here. But I do have a question because I'm sorry if I missed it, of who is a part of this team. So we have PD, Public Works, Adams County people. Who else do you know?

Yeah, so it was mostly consultant led. And so a consultant team hired by Adams County. with their subcontractors were the ones that worked with the different cities to collect all of the data. And then they had regular meetings with staff from the different communities, which included Brooke and Sarah, when she was with the city and then Eden. And so working with the consultant team to find out what information they needed in order to put this into a plan and identify those high risk areas is really what happened.

And this was commenced in 2018?

2024, but the data is from 2018.

Okay, great. Well, I'm hopeful. I'm looking at, I think it's, it was, I don't think that's correct. It was the slide that had the picture of the bicycle with like the barriers. I was really shocked to see the high incident of bike and pedestrian injuries. So hopefully adopting this plan will maybe, as was mentioned before, get us some funding to do something like that. because those are, I think they're very useful in keeping people safer. Green arrows are great, but I actually was hit by a red light runner going through a steady green arrow. So, you know, changing behaviors is important too, which is where that enforcement piece needs to come in as well. which is on here, as well as intersection design and all that to the expert. So thank you for presenting this and putting this all together. Great example of how an IGA can work to achieve things that we all need to achieve. So appreciate the information. And I don't see any more hands, so please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote.

I will close that vote and CR 88 passes unanimously. Thank you. CR 90. Will the clerk please read the title? A resolution authorizing assignment to the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority of a private activity bond allocation of the City of North Glen pursuant to the Colorado Private Activity Bond Ceiling Allocation Act.

Motion to approve.

Second. Thank you. Welcome back, Director Smith. I think I've said this multiple times. It's your night.

This is the last one for me. So tonight, we're asking council to consider CR 90, a resolution assigning the city's private activity bond allocation to chaffa. Each year, the city receives private activity bond allocation from the state and for 2026. It's a little bit more than 2.5 million. Security Properties has requested that the city assign this year's PAB to Chaffa to support renovation of the Greens of North Glen, which is a 128-unit affordable housing community that was built in 1998. The bonds help satisfy the federal requirement that 25% of the project's basis be bond financed to qualify for 4% low-income housing tax credits. And the renovation scope includes flooring, appliances, HVAC, roofing, accessibility upgrades and common area improvements. This will be done building by building and they will do temporary relocations as needed as they work through the project. If the project doesn't move forward, CHAFA will redirect the allocation to another eligible Northland project or for its first step home buyer program. If not fully utilized in North Glen, the remaining balance would be reassigned to other eligible areas. There are no budget implications for this item and staff is recommending approval. I do have Sean Burrows, senior director with security properties that has joined us by phone this evening to answer any specific questions about the project. And so we're happy to answer any questions at this time.

So that is the mysterious person on the phone. Welcome, Sean Burrows. I was wondering who that was. I know it has it in here, but just for our residents, maybe just a quick overview of what that looks like. We've been talking about the need for more affordable housing. So this seems like, I won't say low-hanging fruit, but something that we can do to kind of achieve that in a portion of our City. So I am curious to maybe hear a little bit more about what that looks like. Just quickly overview from either one of you.

Sean, did you want to answer that or would you like me to take a stab?

Yeah, thanks Director Smith. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay, fantastic. Yeah, thank you Mayor Pro Temp and Council for the question and consideration. of this project. So just kind of a general overview, the property was built darn near 30 years ago as an affordable housing property for generally large families, two bedroom, three bedroom and four bedroom units. The 128 units currently serve a very low set aside of incomes at 40 and 45% of area median income, which is an extremely needy lower income uh, kind of cohort, even within low income housing. Um, and, uh, you know, our plan and the plan that we've been discussing with Chaffa is to utilize new, a new allocation of tax exempt bonds from both the city of North Glen and, uh, Chaffa, as well as 4% low income housing tax credits that would extend, uh, the 30 year affordability, um, by an additional 30 years, while simultaneously performing an $80,000 per unit renovation at the property that would go into cabinets, countertops, floor and fixtures, HVAC, windows, community room, amenity upgrades, pool upgrades, ADA accessibility, both inside select units and across the site. And under the delegation or assignment of that, the city of North Glens, $2.5 million, what that does is that opens up kind of under Colorado's Preservation guidelines and the way that they allocate taxes on bonds that allows us to essentially capitalize almost $35 million of preservation capital to renovate the property, acquire it, pay financing costs and all the things that it takes to develop the affordable housing. So again, it's a large project serving large families, very stable tenancy with extremely deep set asides. And our plan being to obviously no changes to the Rents at the property were only deepening affordability. We acquired the property in 2019 with kind of the express purpose of achieving this long-term recapitalization and preservation plan when the resources were available. And again, this small amount of bond cap actually leverages $17 million of bonds from CHAFA and allows us to raise almost $30 million of capital.

Okay, thank you so much for that information. So the goal, it will not increase their rates, which was one of the questions that I had. So the goal is pretty much to improve what sounds like quality of life for low-income rentals, for example, by renovating the units that they're living in and preserving, you said a 30-year period? 30-year preservation?

Yeah, so it was built in 1998 with a 30-year use agreement. We're however many years into that. And we would be, in connection with our allocation of new tax-exempt bonds and tax credits, we'd be entering into further 30 years of affordability at those deep set-asides. So we'd be extending affordability for an additional 30 years.

Okay, thank you for that information. I think that was very helpful. And now we do have a few hands, probably in response to what you just said. So, Councilmember Condo?

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Just curious, when we talk about this particular part of our city and also the Dr. Cogg Powerhead Colorado Initiative, does this area qualify as a LIDAC community that would benefit possibly from electrification of heating, cooling, cooking, electric stoves, et cetera, et cetera?

I'm glad that you asked that question. So we did reach out to security properties and talk to them about the possibility of utilizing the power ahead Colorado grant program. It does sound like grants are especially challenging in this type of project. So I don't know if that's the best avenue for them to pursue. But the other thing we are looking at is prop 123. And I don't know if there's any way for this development to take advantage of it, but it might make us compliant with it and be able to use those funds in another way. So thank you.

That's, that's interesting about prop 123. I thought our city just didn't qualify for that.

But we're looking at it again. Okay. So this project is one that would be eligible as far as maintaining. So they've changed some of the rules And so we're trying to see if it makes sense for us to look into that and if we can then take advantage of some of that.

Okay, thank you for that update. Councilmember receivers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, and thank you, Director, as usual. I actually stopped by the property earlier today and spoke to the manager that's actually covering for the manager that's on maternity leave. She works at the reserve, which is right on the corner of Community Drive, and sounds like they did that same thing in 2019 or something, and Yeah, I wouldn't have thought that from walking by a lot, I wouldn't have thought there was a lot of affordable housing in there. I would have thought it was another complex. So that's good to hear. And then I also got an example of what rent is, and I can tell you it's actually affordable. A lot of people are always like, Affordable housing is not actually affordable. What's your definition of affordable? As far as I'm concerned, I can be corrected if I'm wrong, but the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority sets the rents that can be taken based on how many people live in the unit, how much they make. It's all pretty straightforward and pretty... pretty under control. And then the other thing I think that people need to always remember is, you know, 30 years in property time is a long time. And just because you don't have or you're in affordable housing doesn't mean you don't get to live with dignity and in something that's up to date. in good shape. I know their pool's not open. They have a neighbor that they, I guess they share a sister community pool, but even their pool's not open. So, you know, it's little things. When you feel like you have dignity, you can afford, you can save a little bit, maybe you can upgrade. I talked to them, and they're like, a lot of people that live there have been there a long time, but she, again, the manager said that When people move out, they tend to move out because they're moving out of the state or they're buying a house. So the transition from more of affordable housing to houses, certainly an upgrade. And again, hopefully, again, 30 years is a long time. I can tell you 2008 is already too long ago for units because, again, they get beat up. And again, I think it's a good thing that this is happening. I mean, we can always talk about... other things, but it matters that we have this affordable housing and that we keep it affordable housing for years to come. Thanks.

Yeah, thank you. And it's property that already exists. It's not adding to our infrastructure or taxing in any way. It is literally just renovating it and providing better living facilities at an affordable rate, which is very hard to come by. I see there's and I was just thinking I would love a tour to see what it looks like once it's renovated at that point might be a good time but uh including townhouse style floor plans and we were just having this conversation so I think this is a perfect example of having something we've been talking about in a place that already exists infrastructure in place to be able to support this so For those reasons, I will be supporting. I don't see any other questions, comments, thoughts. Okay. Thank you so much. Please open the vote.

The vote is open. Please vote. I will close that vote. NCR 90 passes unanimously.

All right, three more to go. We're powering through team CR 91.

Will the clerk please read the title of resolution increasing the stormwater impact fee pursuant to section 16 dash 13 dash 7.5 of the North Glen Municipal Code.

Motion to approve.

Thank you. Welcome back director Borgers.

Good to talk to you again. Alright, so I'm going to go through the slide presentation, a lot of its slides you've seen. So I'm going to cruise pretty quick. But certainly when we get to the end, if you've got questions, I'm happy to answer those. And we do have updated slides for the $7 rate model as well. So purpose tonight consider CR 91 to a resolution increasing stormwater impact fees effective January 1. Like we talked about last time, our stormwater systems made up with all kinds of variety of infrastructure rating ranging from open channels to pipelines to inlets. These fees that we're discussing tonight will help us maintain that infrastructure. We had completed a condition rating. You can see most of the infrastructure is black, which is great. It's in relatively good condition, but we do have some areas in red that need some more immediate attention. We did have a couple that you see in pink that we couldn't access either for geometry reasons or because there was debris or something in the way. Mostly that is Grant Street and a couple of small locations. So we talk about high priority. This is what we're talking about. Either the pipe has fallen apart in some way, like in the picture at the top, or we've had boring companies come through and bore through our infrastructure, which we're not happy to find. But it does happen, and correcting that is a process. Medium priority, this is just where we've seen shift in the pipe, and it's catching debris. It's not allowing water to flow efficiently. And then low priority, this is pretty much just stuff that's got a little bit of wear and tear, but it's generally in pretty good condition. And then like I mentioned, we do have a few pipes that are inaccessible, and we are working to gain access to those using our maintenance funds. So along those lines, we have 100,000 set aside beginning this year to address maintenance related issues. This includes regular cleaning and CCTV inspection, and gaining access to some of those inaccessible pipes along with addressing some lower priority issues. As a side note here, we have been in contact with Mile High Flood District on some issues we've been having and we're coordinating that with them to use some of their contractors to get some of this work started. We have our top five recommended projects. This is just a map here. We have one down on 104th. It's not the entire stretch of 104th. It is just portions of that pipe. So we have number one, 104th. Number two is the section up on 112th towards Fox Run. Number three, Irma Drive replacements. And then four and five are Muriel Drive and Larson Lane. And here are the cost of those projects. So the current fees we have right now at $2 aren't sufficient to address and repair these needs. And so we are proposing pairing stormwater impact fee increases with a very deliberate and measured capital improvement program. Residential fees would go from $2 to $7 per month and commercial would go from 20 to 70 per acre per month. The chart that's hard to read from here that has all the details of what is included in the rate modeling that was done, this is if we do nothing in terms of raising stormwater fees. It includes our top five capital improvement projects, a stormwater system assessment in 2033, and $5 million in improvements with Mile High Flood District matching. And you can see that the numbers turn red pretty quickly here in that scenario. A fee increased to $7. This includes, again, the top five capital improvement projects. Improvement projects in conjunction with Mile High increased to $7.7 million, which just improves our ability to address some improvement issues that we need to look at, and also the stormwater assessment update in 2033. You can see that this keeps the fund balance relatively stable. And for the visual among us, this is the green line is at $2. In that scenario, as I discussed, in the blue line is the fund balance should council decide to change to admin the fee to $7. How we compare to our neighbors, $2 is where we're currently at. We're at the far left end of the chart here. $7 is shown in orange, our proposed fee. That puts us in line with Westminster, Frederick, Firestone, Lakewood, a number of other communities. They're in roughly that same ballpark of fees. Communication. So with this increase in fee, council wanted to make sure that we are sharing what that fee gets for our customers. So certainly social media, connection newsletter, even stormwater fees at work as we're doing various construction projects and utility bills to make sure that we're sharing the whole picture. Yes, the fees would be increasing, but this is what you get from it. Council also requested that we come back every couple of years and give an update on the status of our stormwater system so it's not 20 years later before we're coming back again. And that's actually written into the resolution that we will come back in two years and give a presentation about where we're at the construction that's happened and how the fund balance is doing. So next steps is council's consideration for the fees from $2 to $7 for residential and 20 to 70 for commercial to be in effect January 1 of 2027. With that, I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you so much for this. Before we take questions, and we already have a couple, I would just love if our city attorney Hoffman could take a minute to explain the difference between taxes and fees, just because that could be a concern, as we've heard that residents might have.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. I think a speaker in public comment referred to what council was considering tonight as devious and unscrupulous and called it misconduct. I cannot emphasize enough how incorrect a statement that is under Colorado law. There is a long history in Colorado law of distinguishing between a tax and a fee. This is not a tax under any scenario. A fee is when the charge is imposed as part of a regulatory scheme. Here we are regulating stormwater, and it is bearing a reasonable relationship to the direct or indirect cost of providing the service, and you just saw that in the presentation.

Whereas under Colorado law, a tax

is a means of distributing the general burdens of the cost of government across the entire city. This is directed entirely towards stormwater. So it's nowhere close to a tax. It is a fee under well-established Colorado law. The Colorado Supreme Court has addressed this issue numerous times. The statements he made were just plain wrong.

Sorry, it was muted. I appreciate that clarification just for further understanding because I, you know, we don't want to assume that everybody understands how that actually works if they hear that it's a hidden tax, for example. So I appreciate that and also the fact that the stormwater fund is its own separate fund that we cannot just take a from a different bucket and put it into this bucket or we are not allowed to do that so that is the other piece as well anybody is welcome to add to that but if not i'll move into questions we're good okay great uh council member condo

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you for asking that question. I also had that same thought, so I appreciate City Attorney elaborating on that. I wonder if you can answer my next question, probably both of you. So on slide eight, you saw that yellow sort of, I would assume maybe it was an internet cable, I don't know, but is there an opportunity to go after the company and recoup money or seek some sort of recompensation, if you will, for creating that wonderful blockage.

Yes. Part of the problem we run into when we do these assessments is that we don't know when the work was done. And so we do have right-of-way permits for anyone who's doing boring. But oftentimes we're not finding out about it until a year or two later when we're actually TVing. And so it is hard sometimes to go back and identify whose infrastructure it was without just going through and cutting it. And so that part is challenging. And Corey, I don't know if you want to add.

The only thing I would add is as part of the right-of-way permitting process, there are security requirements in terms of... bonds, cash, letters of credit, so that if we do determine who caused it in a timely manner, we do have the ability to go after the wrongdoer and we have the tools in place to do so.

Okay, gotcha. On slide 19, where you show the comparison of the increased fee, I'm just kind of curious, right? So North Glen is just juxtaposed with Frederick and Firestone. I wonder, is that a fair comparison? As I think Frederick and Firestone are newer cities, so wouldn't their storm drainage systems be actually in better shape than maybe North Glen's, where we're 50, 60 years old? And if that's the case, which communities on this chart should we actually compare ourselves to?

That's an interesting question. And I think every community is different with different situations. my just tummy comfort seven dollars feels about right but it's based on what's specific to northland we've got an older system but a newer community may have different problems they may have a lot of new development that's pushed a lot of dirt into their infrastructure and it may be causing different kind of problems and so without knowing specifics of what each of those communities is dealing with it's hard to answer that question in a meaningful way okay

And then my last question, in regards to the Irma drive replacement, obviously that's one of our top five. As you may know, a couple of years ago, we had flooding that occurred around 112. So will that improvement effort help alleviate some of the drainage flow rate concerns?

It will not. So what these are doing is correcting the, and fixing issues of what we have. So, um, Irma and 112th are both areas that are something that we would want to work with a mile high in order to do an improvement. Now, what we tried to do here is if you look and it's a tiny to see, but we've got Irma drive replacement happening in 2031. If you notice, we also paired it with a project with urban drainage. And so when we're doing those repairs, we're hoping to be able to marry that with a project we can do with Mile High and leverage some of Mile High's flooding as well to do improvements there. Now, what that project looks like, I think is yet to be determined.

Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

Council Member Lighty.

Thank you so much, Madam Mayor Pro Tem.

I got it that time. My question, I just, I'm glad we're on this slide. I was looking and I'm assuming just because it has the fun little asterisk, does that, the Mile High Flood District shared cost, is that why we go into the red in 2032? that is it why does it turn red so sorry i'm just looking at so we're good we're good we're good and then 2032 we're in the red and then in 2033 we're in the red so the so i'll point it out here like sorry so you're talking about these two numbers right yes and then i just happened to look up and it looked like the mile high flood district shared capital costs are that three million so with that is that what Why do we turn red in 2032 is my real question. Why are we red?

So that line is our net change from the previous year and not the fund balance. Perfect. Yeah. So you can see we spend, I keep it on the wrong button here. All right. If Sarah can figure out the clicky thing. All right. So unassigned fund balance here, you can see is six and a half million in 2031. Thank you. And in 2032, it goes down to four million. So that means that we've seen a reduction in the overall fund balance by 2 million and 2.4 million ish. Um, so that's what those negative means. It's just that the fund balance is coming down, but it's not negative. The fund balance is not negative.

Okay, great. Nevermind.

Excellent.

Thank you. Council member receivers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I just want to speak to people's concerns about raising fees. And again, we all work. I work two jobs, and we all, if we're on the dais, we all live here as well, and a lot of the staff does as well. No one, again, assuming my math is right, maybe I should have Jason check it. Deputy City Manager, sorry. But again, if we had raised, I said this the last time we talked about this, but residents just knowledge if he had raised it a quarter every year since 2004 we would have had 13 extra million dollars and we wouldn't really be in the situation where we're talking about such a big reach so It would be great if we could replace stormwater without making spending any money in a perfect world That would be amazing. I would love it But no one's coming to do this with for us or with us other than if we have some money We can cost share with my high flood district so I frankly don't see us having to adjust this anytime soon. If it moves to seven, I think that's certainly going to be good for multiple years, more than a decade in my opinion. But we can't just put our head in the sand and say, well, you know, we've always been the lowest, so we always have to stay the lowest. We just have to take care of our issues. As Councilmember Kondo said, We are an older city. A lot of our stormwater infrastructure, as is our water and wastewater, all these are older. So if we don't invest in it, at some point, it does fall apart, and it won't be any cheaper in the future, and it won't be any cheaper when it's fully falling apart. Or, I mean, I know a lot of us aren't too concerned about floods here, but actually when you're very air dry and dry environment, a little rain does actually do a lot more damage because your ground's not soaking it up as quick. So, again, I totally understand. I don't want to pay $7 every month, no, but... It is what the data speaks that it does need to happen, and it will put us in a really good spot. In 10 years, I think we'll be more or less like, wow, OK, we're in good shape for the next 20, 30 years. I totally get that everyone's concerned about the difference, but the fact is if we hadn't waited 22 years, it wouldn't have feel like a big difference because we would have handled it over a year. So I just, and that's not an excuse, but I just want to put out there that the city does operate using money that we provide services for as it's fee. So thanks.

I thought I saw another hand up, but it's gone. Okay. Yeah, Councilmember Steeves, you did take some of the words right out of my mouth that I was going to say. So I'll just kind of piggyback on that. You know, infrastructure is one of those things that's not the cool stuff, like I mentioned earlier with the parking lot. It's not really the cool things because you don't see it. You don't see stormwater, but it's one of the most necessary things. And sure, maybe we, you know, we're not in a, I guess a rainforest or a heavy flooding area, but we've seen, we've seen it can happen. So I don't want to, you know, put all my eggs in that basket that it's never going to happen. I think what we're doing here is we're being diligent and thoughtful and thinking about the future and setting up future city councils for success to be able to manage and check it in, check in every two years so that this doesn't happen again as well. And Council Member Sievers, you said it, you know, we all live here, like we're, each and every one of us are also going to experience that increase as well. So it was not without thought. It's definitely, it feels like for me, a difficult decision, even though it doesn't seem like a lot of money, but it's, I guess not difficult in terms of hey, you know, we're gonna increase it this much so But it's absolutely necessary the forecast looking at without that fee increase at a deficit of 8.6 million in the fund balance versus doing this now in 2036 looking at you know, $2.8 million, which is there for unknown and future projects as well. So it's the right thing to do. It's the hard thing to do. But here we are. And I do see, Council Member Recondo, did you have another question?

Yes, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem, thank you. I think this is a question that I might have for Deputy City Manager or City Manager. I just want to, you know, I'm thinking of the fact that we are an aging city and I hope our planning philosophy is starting to think about more of life cycle costs and trying to figure out how do we Not get caught behind if you will and then having to do large incremental increases over such a long time horizon, and I'm just curious have we started to think about as Councilmember Sievers talked about being a little bit more thoughtful about doing small incremental increases to keep up with the times Thanks for that question I think though

depending i think i spoke about this the last conversation we had on this topic but just we've taken that approach on the water and sewer side or water and wastewater side as far as incremental fee increases to help keep up sometimes when you have those more tangible or visual or things that come into play on a more regular basis like water and the wastewater side of things you can see hey in 10 years we're going to need to replace this plant or X, Y, and Z. And so we can start structurally planning for that financially as we build and plan for the future. I think I mentioned on the stormwater side, this one in particular, it's not things that we see all the time. took the last couple of years to do a deep, thorough analysis of where we're at so that we could propose fee increases to cover those things, knowing what the projects are versus, hey, we're just going to raise the fee because we know that things cost more. And so I think there's two sides to those conversations as far as bringing plans forward for those things. summarize yes we are taking a look at all those components and how to to plan for the future the best way we can and truly to try to ease the burden on residents as much as possible and not have really large increases at any one time I'm sure you see that in the news regularly with water rate increases and whatnot that people are getting hit with you know 15 20 30 percent increases in one year because there's an emergency need. Um, so those are things we're trying to mitigate and, um, not run into not saying that we're perfect in any, any means like those things can happen. Uh, but that is the approach that we take.

Okay. Thank you.

Uh, deputy city manager. If I recall, I feel like the mayor did bring that up the last time as kind of an ongoing request for the future to do check ins for different areas and projects that might be needed. So because we did have that conversations, it's important to get what you're thinking. But I'll just throw that out there. I know that was mentioned during the last meeting. Anyway, this is critical infrastructure that needs to be taken care of. And our job is to take care of our residents in our city. So I don't see any more hands. And with that, thank you. Please open the vote. The vote is open.

Please vote. I will close that vote. NCR 91 passes unanimously. Thank you. Two more to go. All right, CR 92. Will the clerk please read the title? A resolution adopting the City of North Glen 2026 pay plan and 2026 personnel summary as amended.

Motion to approve.

Seconded.

Thank you. Welcome back.

Good evening. As the title read, this is to amend the 2026 pay plan and personnel summary amendments. Both of these documents are exhibits to the resolution. The purpose for this request of city council is in the municipal court, we've had a couple of retirements and we're looking to restructure the personnel in that group. Following the retirement of the administrative clerk, whose position provides clerical and administrative support to the prosecuting attorney, the municipal court supervisor, Darnell O'Hare, thought it would be who of us to take a look at what's in that job description and really make sure that we have the opportunity to recruit and retain somebody that can provide support to the prosecuting attorney as needed. We had a fantastic person in that position, and we were just so lucky to have a person in that position that was able to continue and do that work with their current talents. We just want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up to be successful in the future with the recruitment of that position. So with that, we revised the job description. determine that retitling the position from administrative clerk to a legal secretary would be more clear in an assistance with the recruitment of that position. So a couple of the things that are being brought forward, this is actually a money-saving proposition that we're proposing. So first is to change the title of the administrative clerk position to a legal secretary. within the municipal court division, and also increase that FTE or full-time equivalent from a half-time position to three-quarter time. Municipal court is busier than ever, and we feel the need to be able to provide that support service for the courts. Along those lines, net impact to that We've also had a retirement from a long-term employee of over 30 years who is a court clerk. And we're asking or desiring to reduce that FTE from four court clerks in the division down to three. So then that impact is a reduction of 0.75 FTE as far as adding hours to the legal secretary position and then freezing, but not just freezing, but officially reducing the FTE count for the court clerks. Overall personnel savings from a budget standpoint, the savings will actually be greater due to the retirements. That, from a budgetary savings, will be about $33,000. And if council approves the amendments to the pay plan and the personnel summary, we will start recruiting immediately to fill that position. I'm happy to answer any questions. Court Supervisor O'Hare is also here if you have detailed questions that I am fairly certain I can't answer. That was all I have.

Giving you guys a second. Looks like we're fading fast here. I don't see any questions. I don't see any questions. It's pretty straightforward. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. Please open the vote. The vote is open. Please vote.

We'll close that vote, and CR 92 passes unanimously. Excellent.

Last resolution, folks. CR 93, will the clerk please read the title?

A resolution calling a special election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, submitting a ballot question to the electors of the City of North Glen regarding a proposed increase in the rate of the sales tax imposed solely on accommodation services from 5% to 8%, and setting the ballot title thereof.

Motion to approve.

Second. Thank you. Hello again.

Hello again. So as was just described, this is really to identify and get the approval of council to set the ballot question for November 3rd's election regarding the accommodations tax and asking voters to consider an increase from 5% to 8%. If this is approved, staff will return on August 10th with an intergovernmental agreement with Adams and Weld to authorize the city to participate in that coordinated election. We spoke about this on July 6th, so I don't want to reiterate. On page four of the document is actually the ballot question that's being proposed, so if you have any questions on that.

Please let us know otherwise staff recommends approval Councilmember condo Thank You madam mayor I'm just curious deputy city manager have there been conversations with economic development just to kind of understand the second or third order effects of what we're doing here and how that might affect have an impact, if you will, on our hotel business? Not gonna say which one, but, or for that matter, any other economic activity that we have going on in the city?

Yeah, so I did have a conversation with Director Moding regarding the proposal, and our conversation felt like, one, the accommodations tax rate is in line with other communities, and so it's not, disadvantage or necessarily advantage from that standpoint, and also felt like that tax, as we discussed last week, the marginal difference is fairly small and would not have a negative impact.

Okay. Thank you.

And just to note, we've had this rate since 1982. Is that what this says here? Correct. 5% since 1982. This is a perfect example of a tax. And it's going to the voters for approval, as it should. And I know that's, it looks like Council Member Seavers has his hand up, but that is something that we discuss that we were more comfortable with because the voters will decide, they will approve or deny. So Councilmember Sievers, got something?

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. And just like it's a tax, it's going to the ballot. If I might vote against it, I don't know. I haven't made up my own mind, but people can vote however they like. Isn't that great?

Way to end our last resolution. You know what? It is your right. And I just want to point out it is a perfect example of what is an issue that needs to go to the ballot versus a fee increase. So thank you so much for that information. And we are getting pretty loony here. We're pretty tired. But we're trekking on through. So let's open the vote, please. The vote is open. Please vote.

I will close that vote, and CR 93 passes unanimously.

Fantastic. So we have two amazing discussion items. The first one is the Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee Update. I've been really looking forward to this when I read through the packet, so I'm so excited. Director of Parks, Recreation, and Culture Amanda Peterson is here to introduce this item. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. Thank you for having me here tonight. I'm going to forward through a few of these slides to There we go. So our purpose tonight is to provide an update and request your feedback regarding the Eleanor M. Wyatt Centennial Park and Sculpture Garden Redesign and the Susquehanna Semiquincentennial Committee. I do want to note that Michael Stricker, our Culture and Community Manager, has taken really a lead role with this project. He is also in attendance tonight and can respond to any questions that may come up as we go through the presentation.

So a little bit of background.

In January, we presented to city council and really just sought general direction for the sesquicentennial celebration, which you gave us the direction to move forward with the development of the committee and subsequent pieces associated with that. We excavated the time capsule on April 23rd. As we mentioned previously, we did this in advance at the recommendation of other historic preservation professionals to allow for us to, one, document what was in the time capsule, see what condition it was in, do any preservation that needed to occur, and prepare that for display at the event in August. You all or many of you had the opportunity to be the first to open that time capsule on May 4th and dig into that. And then a little later in May, we did contract with RDG for the park redesign. So they're the architects working on that park redesign project. On May 18th, we moved forward with the North Glen High School Time Capsule art piece. So you're able to meet the student that produced the winning piece. And then committee meetings were held between May and July. So we just wrapped up our fourth meeting. Council Member Kondo and Council Member Sievers were a part of that, as were about 18 other community members who popped in and out as they were available for those meetings really appreciate the time and energy they put into that spent we spent between 12 and 15 hours together over the last couple of months working on this project And then finally the sesquicentennial proclamation was issued on June 15th. So that brings us to where we're at today. Just a reminder of the committee responsibilities. What we asked of that group of 20 people were really three primary items. One was to share their vision and feedback on the park redesign with RDG and city staff. Two is to plan the August 1 celebration. And third is to identify what they would like to see in the time capsule that we bury in 2026 to be unearthed again in 2076. So as we go through the next few slides, we will touch on each of those three areas beginning with the park redesign. The committee really spent the most significant portion of their time on the park redesign. During the first meeting, the design team from RDG got to know the committee and sought to understand their vision. Some of the direction that came from that very first meeting were one, The committee wanted to see the essence of the park as it is today enhanced or preserved. So how do we maintain that essence of the park? They wanted to highlight and protect the sculptures that exist, as well as those that we anticipate placing there in the future. Wanted to conserve water. It's certainly a hot topic this year, but we know that that is an ongoing challenge for us. So how do we conserve water in our park spaces? wanted to create a sense of arrival or destination. And then there was a desire to reestablish the formal gardens that were a part of the 1976 bicentennial vision. And those included a Mediterranean garden, mountain garden, plains garden, formal garden, bird sanctuary, and Japanese garden. And we'll get into those in a little more detail as the slides progress. So at that next meeting, RDG brought forward two different layouts, really as a starting point to seek feedback. I know these are really tiny. You'll get to see some larger versions as we move through. The one on the left that's titled Immersive really identifies a kind of me. I'm going to try to use the pointer here. This one here, you can see the pathway is kind of curved. It meanders through. There's sculpture that's placed throughout that space. And then the centennial bell was placed kind of at this end to create that sense of entry. The one on the right that's titled Wayfinding, those paths are much more linear. They're sharper. Each one ended or terminated in a sculpture. And the bell was right in the middle of the layout, similar to the location that it's in now. As the committee looked at both of those, they provided feedback that said, one, we like both options. We really were very impressed with the work that RDG did for us and felt like they really listened to the feedback that committee and community members provided to them. And as we were providing this feedback, they were adjusting in the moment and from one meeting to the next. some of the things we really heard in addition to liking both options were people like the more meandering kind of smoother trails rather than the um more angular version you saw in that original one of those original concepts they wanted to add a southwest garden They really liked Liberty Bell Plaza central to the park space rather than at one end or the other. And we really received similar feedback from both our committee and our facility visitors. When we put those up in the rec center, senior center, and theater, even though those two groups of individuals weren't necessarily having the conversation together, the feedback very much aligned. There was a desire to prioritize keeping the existing trees with a really healthy tree canopy in that park space. It's very shaded. And we know that's a priority for our community members and committee and our public feedback both supported that wanted to provide more varied seating. So right now there are benches out there if there's a desire for small picnic tables, additional benches, places for small groups to gather. There was a desire to use plants that will thrive in Colorado, as well as including native grasses or other low water varieties in between those garden spaces. So this is the layout that they landed on following the first couple of meetings. It includes seven demonstration gardens. I have an image of those as we get a little later. You'll get to see each one so you don't have to see the little tiny icons and dots. I'm sorry. I'm trying to find my only get to use the pointer if I use the right button. So each of these dots indicates one of the seven garden spaces. in that space. And like I said, we'll see those each one by one. The darker green trees indicate existing trees in our space. The lighter green trees, so you can see there's some of these that are a little lighter that sit here in the middle. There's like three right there. Those would be proposed new trees to continue to enhance that tree canopy. As we go through the renderings in the next few slides, the turf that you see in between the spaces, so All this space in between the gardens is proposed to be a low water alternative to Kentucky bluegrass. So still a green space. They tend to have a little shorter season, but have much lower watering as well as lower mowing and maintenance requirements. And then there are spaces for about 22 sculptures, I believe, that are identified in this concept. We have eight currently. So that would allow the sculpture garden to continue to grow over the next 20 years. So as we start, the first one on the very east end of the park is the Mediterranean Garden. That is where the Mediterranean Garden sits today. This looks very different than what we have here currently. Some of the design principles that you'll see in the Mediterranean Garden are symmetry, vertical elements like the trellis, trees with a more columnar form or growth pattern, and gathering spaces. one of the things other things you may notice as you see the renderings very similar plant material is used throughout the entire park space it's just used in different ways that's one to ease in maintenance but two to be able to honor and really identify plant material that thrives here and is used in a way that meets those design principles for each of those garden spaces The next is the Mountain Garden. This probably looks the most familiar. But looking to be able to take that visit to the mountains that not everybody can get and redevelop that here. It's using plant material, again, that is appropriate for north glenn not necessarily appropriate for up in the mountains so as we look at those aspen trees being very specific about what variety those are so they really can thrive here you'll see the boulders placed in there we really looked at there was a question could we mound more could we give that feeling of height with a lot of established trees in the location of this garden and so the the We want to make sure we protect those root systems and don't negatively impact those trees. So that's why that space isn't built up. But the boulders along the path can help create that illusion. There's a dry creek bed along on this left side here that you can see that runs alongside. This is proposed to be a crusher finds trail rather than a paved concrete trail. So bring that little bit of a more mountainous environment to the park next is the plains garden this plains garden again design principles i just turned my page upside down that didn't help um you'll see some more grade changes some gentle mounding taking advantage of the topography that is already here in place Formal garden, again, that sense of symmetry. This is also where the Liberty Bell is proposed to be placed. So this is right in the center of the park space, very close to where the Liberty Bell sits today. We have received word from the North Glen Arts and Humanities Foundation that they have a desire to have a new bell commissioned for this space, which is very exciting. This would be where the time capsule would be placed as well as informational signage about Eleanor M. Moyant and the park and each of the gardens. And something that's integral really to each of the garden spaces then is and we're still working through those design those signage pieces, but signage that really talks about the design principles for each of those garden spaces and allows that to last the test of time for visitors to know what the intention is of each of those and learn be able to use those as demonstration spaces that people can duplicate in their own yards here in Northland. And then the bird sanctuary. So again, this has an element, has a water element. There was a fountain in the current park space. It is not operational. It has not been operational for as long as I can recall. In some of the research that we've done, we've identified that that fountain was a memorial to eric hagum who's a community community member so the idea is that we could duplicate a new fountain that could that dedication could remain in place this garden you'll see more pollinator friendly plants again encouraging those pollinators and birds as to use the spaces habitat The Japanese garden, again, is an existing garden space. This enhances that using design principles of odd numbers. So you'll see the Soji screens back here, also providing some vertical height in front of that fence that sits behind the trail. You'll see it doesn't just come straight through, but there's some intentional redirection of the trail, intentional change of use of materials between the trail and the garden spaces, and then the use of that weeping cherry tree. Again, an example of a plant material that makes sense here in our community. And then we have the Southwest Desert Garden. And this is the added garden that the committee chose to include. Really wanted to represent our heritage here in the southwestern United States and be able to, this space is anticipated to include the land acknowledgment and uses yucca and a variety of more desert plant material. So I'm going to pause for a moment there because as we move forward with the rest of the presentation, we really start talking more about the time capsule and the event. We wanted to pause a little bit on design perspectives and seek feedback from you as to if you're feeling comfortable with the direction that the committee has headed thus far.

Councilmember Condo has a question, but before you go, I just want to thank the committee for all the work that they put in there because this is, you guys did such an outstanding job. Councilmember Condo, go.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I just wanted to provide a little bit of color commentary as one of the members. And I said this during my council communications earlier. It was really a nice, it was an honor and a privilege to be part of it. It was such a broad representation. You had Mayor Novak, who was representing the North Carolina Arts and Humanities Foundation perspective. You had Rosie Garner. kind of providing the Rotary slash business owner perspective. You had Mayor Downing there for the Historic Preservation Commission point of view. You had members of the Dice Board on there. I think that the fact that it was such a wide spectrum of stakeholders and Councilmember Sievers can maybe back me on this. It was a very rich conversation that covered a wide spectrum. And if you're wondering why we kind of went with the whole emphasis on the current proposed design of the pathway is really to accentuate a lot of the art that already exists there and to try and make it a lot more visible in destination, so to speak. And then the last thing, again, this was me just having a takeaway from this. You know, it's a desire to have visitors to the park to see various biomes that exist in Colorado, especially those who are not able to get there, whether they don't have the transportation means, or maybe they're people that are too old to be able to go out and about. And so this is a nice, convenient way for those people to go and see the various parts of our state without having to go too far. So again, I thought it was very well done. And again, a privilege to be part of that activity.

Thank you.

Council Member Burns. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you so much for this and to the committee. This is really great work. I think this is beautiful. The designs are really amazing. I like the plant material and the design. I think that's great. I also think like it's going to be such like a fun, I like how we've incorporated more like sitting and like community-based space because as the marketplace continues to thrive and grow, it'd be a fun place to go have lunch as an employee over there, like as a worker, I think that would be so cool. So I think it's just even more enticing. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Nowicki.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you for being here and for your work as well. And thank you to you guys for sitting in on this and for the larger kind of council's work on this. I'm curious, and I really like the designs. I think they all look cool. And at first I was like, are there like, is this one design throughout the park? And then it dawned on me that it's like gardens and it's, you know, that's really neat. So I like the variety of different things. And again, the focus on the sculptures as well, I think is a really cool idea because I think sometimes they get kind of lost over there now. I'm curious, what is the essence of the park?

So when the park was designed in 1976, it was designed with those original six gardens. So the committee wanted to keep that essence. They still wanted the six distinct gardens. In this case, it's now seven. They wanted to maintain the... memorials that were there but they didn't necessarily want them exactly duplicated so if a the fountain is an example they talked about that quite a bit it's in disrepair we actually really had to dig to figure out was this a fountain and it was um but they they want to make sure they're continuing to honor that without necessarily having to be the exact same piece gotcha

okay cool does that help yeah um and curious um it sounds like y'all discussed it but how is this park used currently

um so it is currently our sculpture garden it is a space though that people don't necessarily view as a destination so we include it on tours we encourage visitors to that space it's a linear passive use park space but we think there's opportunity whether that be that connection with the marketplace with um resident neighboring residents for this to be a much much more of a destination okay

I like that idea. And lastly, with the surrounding grass area, and this is a good example here, what would that kind of independent of the garden area of like the just kind of standard grass, do we know what kind of grass that would be or?

We do, and I cannot seem to remember the name of that specific grass off the top of my head at 9.50 here this evening. Okay, that's okay. I did not write it down in my notes. But yes, we've been looking at the specific grass varieties with our parks manager, identifying what would work best in this space that's low maintenance, low water use, not a Kentucky bluegrass turf.

Okay, cool. Just because given where we're at with drought two conditions, I expect droughts are going to be more common as we kind of proceed into the future. And given that we're probably not, you know, if we don't water them as much, I want to make sure that... it's kind of a drought tolerant grass that would still look nice and not have like brown spots.

So the intention is that this variety that we're looking at has a little bit shorter season, but is green, can be left just a little longer. So you don't tend to mow it as short, has a maximum height where it, so it doesn't just grow and grow. I believe they said that was about six inches.

Okay, cool. Thank you. Sounds like you considered everything. Thank you.

Councilmember Sievers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Michael Stricker, for being easy to work with. Thanks, Jesse, for being at all the meetings and giving feedback on sustainability of not only the plants surviving but you know I would just say for folks that are so yes if you go to the park now I would say the best part is the tree canopy plus some of the sculptures so again it is kind of more of an open space to me a lot of the gardens are not that good anymore and I think you know, piggybacking on Council Member Byrne's idea of, like, we've got to keep pushing on the 104th Marketplace to be better the next day and the next day, and this is one step in the right direction. It might take five years to figure it out and actually start working on it, but I think it's worthwhile um and again this if this is executed properly it will be a destination it will be something that people want to go to because it will be unique for northland and um and then secondly some folks will say oh the water feature obviously there's already irrigation out there it's only going to evaporate that's It's not going to be a continuous like filling of something as it evaporates It would be filled and or if high winds come through sometimes that can happen with a fountain, but it's not The overall water use will go down because we will be removing our weight Watering Kentucky bluegrass and these plants are designed and a shout out to our RDG RDG I thought they were easy to work with I think they have a lot of knowledge about plants. As we've discussed in the committee meeting, they've done a few of these type of gardens where they do example gardens. And I do have faith that they know what they're doing. And I thought, overall, I think it's great. And I appreciate that I was able to help out however I could. And that's it. Thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Lighty.

Thank you so much, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. And thank you so much for all the work that you've put into this. This is amazing. And to the committee as well. I just have a few questions and I'm so sorry if these were already answered in previous meetings. Do we know how long the redesign is going to take?

So we're working kind of on a three- to five-year funding plan. The goal was to complete the design portion for inclusion in the August 1st time capsule. So hopefully 50 years from now, when it's opened in 2076, they're able to see that vision will have come to life. But we know that that's a longer-term implementation for construction of that project. Okay, perfect. So we have really, it'll be a... will be seeking grant funds looking for those alternate funding opportunities.

Okay, perfect. And then I'm assuming that it won't impact or be impacted by the construction of the Odell Berry Park then, right?

No, I would anticipate this is significantly after Odell Berry Park is complete.

Perfect. Those were my only questions. I'm really excited. As Council Member Nowicki said, I was looking and I was like, oh, we only get one? And then I kept looking, oh, we get all of them? This is so cool. So, yeah, thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Okay, I know you have more to present for us, but again, just want to say, again, great job. 20 members on that committee. Y'all did a fantastic job. Some really great brains working together to get this done. It looks absolutely beautiful. Not to repeat, but it truly will activate that space, I think, and really create kind of those special places that we've been talking about that we want. Thank you for that. Quick time check for everybody. I'm keeping an eye on the time. We have six minutes before we have to officially vote to continue. Just an FYI. So I will mention that if I need to. But go ahead. Thank you.

These next few should be fairly straightforward. You've heard some of this previously. so the time capsule we are in the process of assembling that right now we have a list of over 90 items they include city businesses faith-based organizations other community partners fire district the schools so really trying to tell a story of what it's like in 2026. we have the committee collecting items through mid-july i believe there's a item in today's city manager's weekly update to the council if anybody has something you'd really like to see in there please just let us know we'd be happy to try to figure out how to include that and we just want to say thank you to the city clerk's office who's been cataloging cataloging items from 1976 so we have a good accurate representation of all of those items that were there originally And then finally, the event outline. This has not changed since you saw it previously. We're looking at Saturday, August 1, it's Colorado Day was selected in 1976. The event is from 10 to 1pm. It's free to attend with food for purchase. We are encouraging folks to bring chairs out and really be able to spend a few hours with us. We will have both English and Spanish bilingual event promotion and on site translation available. Confirmed event elements, we have our time capsule. Those contents will be on display. We'll have the new items that will be added, as well as a ceremonial reinstallation. Community, we have North Metro Fire Rescue District participating. We have a North Glen Youth Theater participant who will be singing the Star-Spangled Banner. Adams County Poet Laureate is providing a piece just for this event. And we have a postcard project, which is a community art project, allowing community members to be a part of something that will then get put up in Rec Center, Senior Center, and Theater. Northland High School, in addition to the art competition, is going to have performances from the marching band and the chamber choir and palms. We'll have the park redesign unveiling, so there'll be a version of what you saw here tonight shared with the community. And we'll have children's activities. We have a mini time capsule that they can put together and bring home and put in a safe space for maybe a little less than 50 years. A coloring book that one of our staff has been working on designing that has all of the city facilities highlighted, face painting and lawn games, and then the food trucks and a DJ in between. so our next steps are to finalize the park design and promote the event and be happy to take any questions you may have want to know one are you comfortable with us proceeding with the park design as it's been developed by the committee and two are there any additional ideas from council that you would like to discuss with us

looks like we love it I don't see any questions or comments or did somebody have a hand up hold on oh a physical hand okay didn't see your virtual hand and I was looking that way go ahead I had one question I was I was out trying to ask for people to submit random pieces and actually had a question I couldn't answer like what is the plan in 2076 when they dig it up again is it is that the end of the road or we have to go another 50 years after that is there I forgot what it was

Per what was, we were instructed from 1976, that is the final opening, they could decide something different in 2020.

So in theory, at that point, it'll be displayed for everyone to enjoy going forward.

And it's on July, it's identified as July 4th of 2076. Thanks.

I literally couldn't answer that. I intend to be alive.

Okay. I do have some ideas, but it's late, so would it be good to just email the committee?

Absolutely. You can just email Michael, and I will share that.

Okay. Just putting it out there since it's so late, I don't think we need to discuss, and everybody loves it. So thank you so much for that presentation, and again, outstanding job.

You're welcome.

So cool.

This is the cool stuff we get to talk about today, now. Absolutely. Thank you very much.

OK, folks, it is 9.59, and we do have one more topic, plus public invited to be heard, which we may have somebody. I don't know. So I think, considering it's only one minute, yes.

You actually skipped me. Wait.

No, I haven't. No, I wasn't going to skip you. I was talking that we're about to end. Our 10 o'clock time is ending, so we need to vote to continue so that you're the next person. I did that before, but I didn't do it to you. I just wanted to make sure we voted before we started and then would have to stop you to vote, and I didn't want to do that. So... do we have to take we have to take an official vote right somebody has to make a motion in a second to continue we only have a couple of things left guys so motion to extend this meeting beyond 10 p.m mountain time i second that uh please open the vote the vote is open please vote I will close that vote and the motion. One second. Council member Lighty, the vote has closed, but you had a question on why we're voting. Is that it?

Yeah, I'm just a little confused. And when we go into executive session, we don't have to vote, but when we do, like we don't have to vote to extend the time. Yes. Sorry. I just wanted to clarify that for residents.

And only during regular meetings. Not study sessions.

OK. So only during regular meetings, if we go past 10 PM, we have to vote?

Yes.

And not for an executive session? OK.

Was that vote completed, City Clerk Small? It was. The motion to continue the meeting past 10 p.m. passed unanimously. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.

Valid question, since you're a newer council member, you probably weren't aware. Okay. Now, City Manager Guyer, I promise I didn't forget about you. Now we can let you have your time. Proposed holiday schedule enhancement for 2026. Welcome, City Manager Guyer. Thank you.

I'm sorry about that mix up a couple minutes ago. So this discussion item is being brought forward based on an idea that originated through what we call the Team North Glen idea. box employee suggestion program. It's an electronic form that allows employees to submit ideas to the leadership team. All members of the leadership team receive the idea. Then the leadership team typically at the next regularly scheduled leadership team meeting discusses the ideas. So this idea was received and the idea is to provide a full day of paid holiday for both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve here in 2026. The idea does not extend into 2027. The reason I'm bringing forward this idea for your support this evening is because City Council approves the employee handbook, which included within that handbook is the designated city holidays. And you see that in the attachment included with the memo. So what is being asked of Council is to support this idea. And so what the schedule is today is to have half days on both of those days christmas eve new year's eve employees would work four hours the request is to have a full day off on both of those days they would be paid holidays and certainly anytime we make this type of change for essential workers such as police officers maintenance workers any type of staff that are required to work a holiday and they would receive the equivalent time in their general leave banks. And that's something that we've practiced consistently over time. So the leadership team supports this proposal, and we believe that it recognizes employee dedication and commitment as well as overall employee well-being. Additionally, you know, this is a great example of an employee suggestion that's been advanced in a fiscally tight environment in a year where we're not able to provide compensation increases to employees. So I think that this supports organizational stability as well as employee retention. So I am seeking your feedback and support on this idea.

Council Member Nowicki.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, City Manager, for bringing this forward. I like this idea. Um, but given that we are going to have to have some tough budget talks coming up, as I've heard multiple times, um, do we know what kind of the, is there a cost estimate as kind of what this expense would look like?

So I didn't see anything kind of in the, I did not have a specific cost assessment included. Um, however, deputy city manager Loveland and I spoke today and it's roughly about a hundred thousand dollars. would be the cost not in does that make sense to provide those days yeah to essentially provide because we're extending the time off some staff work those days regardless in terms of essential personnel and so um it depends on how you look at this in terms of a benefit to employees

Right. Like I said, I like the...

The cost we can absorb. Excuse me.

I'm sorry?

It is a cost that we can absorb within the 2026 budget.

Okay.

So to acknowledge that we are going to have difficult budget conversations for the 2027 budget, if we were in a fiscal environment where it was not appropriate to bring this forward for 2026, we would not have

Okay, so we're talking about just doing this for 2026?

Correct.

Okay. But if we do it for 2026, then it kind of becomes the expectation.

No, we always include messaging with employees. And we always clarify the message with employees that if we do this, because we have done this previously, and I don't have the years off the top of my head, but we have. Per our policy, it all depends on how the days fall. relative to the holiday, but we would specifically state that it's for 2026. Now, whether or not employees might have that expectation is one thing, but it would be clearly communicated that this is an exception per the employee handbook this year that is being granted based on council approval if council supports it.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Seavers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem, and thank you, City Manager. The highlight, again, in lieu of being able to give a lot of raises, it's a tough year for that. Again, I don't know what the conversations will be, but it's good to give staff a little win. And more or less, it's basically eight hours of paid time off, right? Extra, because they already had half the day. And let's be real, if Those half days usually don't amount to that much. So since it's a sunset thing, I'm going to support it. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Kondo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I echo the same sentiment as Council. I'm in favor.

Council Member Burns.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I am obviously in favor of this. And I see city manager Geyer how because Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are Thursdays, the holidays are Friday. So it's giving everyone a nice four day weekend, hence the 2026 calendaring of it all. So that's the vibe. I think that's a great four day weekend for everybody. So thank you, obviously supporting.

Thank you, Councilmember Nowicki.

Thank you. Okay. I'm playing devil's advocate here. Are the optics going to be bad? Because I agree. I mean, you know, there's probably doing a half day, like there's probably not much work getting done.

Share more about what you mean by optics.

You know, I don't know if are people going to start posting on Facebook, oh, they're giving Steph another day off and no one's working. And I don't know, am I off base here?

Potentially, I mean, residents have a right to express their views on social media, to call you guys, reach out to you, share whatever views that they have. So I think, you know, anchored back to the purpose of why we're doing this, I think staff, our team is a very hardworking team. And if I had any doubt in my mind that we shouldn't do this, I think that would have been discussed at the leadership team level, nor would I be advancing it to city council. So I think our employees beyond being hardworking are good stewards of city resources. And in a tight fiscal year like we're in this year, I think something like this goes a long way in terms of supporting employee morale and, as I mentioned, organizational stability and retention.

OK. Well, again, I think from a quality of life mental health perspective, I absolutely think it's great, especially if it's falling on Thursdays and Fridays, I think having those options

again so yeah i'm in favor thank you okay councilmember newaker you said you are in favor yeah okay um councilmember lady thank you um i wasn't sure if i needed to say something so i'm going to i think this is awesome um to piggyback off of what councilmember burns said i think it's really cool of you to pay attention to the fact that it kind of it bumps it up into a four-day weekend and that's huge for not only the families but just the people in general and so I really appreciate you doing this and I think just to kind of nudge my devil's advocate next to me you I know but you guys spend so much time working on this that like you said you wouldn't bring this forward if it wasn't a really solid idea and so I really appreciate you spending so much time making sure that you could do this for your staff and also supporting your staff the way that you do so thank you.

You're welcome. And I need to give kudos to the employee that initiated this idea. I'll keep them anonymous, because I didn't ask for their permission prior to sharing their idea. But you know, definitely kudos to the employee who had advanced it.

okay i guess that just leaves me um council member nowicki i appreciate i appreciate your devil's advocate i do i mean you know because i'm sure we all think about this but we've got to treat our employees as humans you know they do so much in helping keeping the city run and i feel like this is just something so small yet also can make such a big difference in their holiday weekend more time with their family um knowing that they get paid for it i think is one small But an important thing in terms of treating people with respect and showing appreciation for their hard work, as you mentioned. I know we do have tough budget discussions. And I think, as Councilmember Seaver says, since it does sunset, with the understanding that we'll take a look at it, if it's not possible next year, at least they know that we support this to the extent that we can. So, I'm in favor. All that to say I'm in favor. And do you have anything additional to add, Councilmember Cephas?

Sorry, I just wanted to point out, in addition to all the great comments, that a lot of families, you know, there is a divorce rate, and Christmas Eve is very commonly another Christmas for half of the family. So, it's important to give them that option.

That's some brutal statistics there, Council Member Seavers.

I've spent Christmas Eve doing Christmas in a divorced family, so it's just reality of life.

So all of that quality of life, I think, Council Member, did you have something to say? Sorry, I could hear you. So quality of life is important. I think that's what he's trying to say. So I support, I think you have support from the six of us. Great, thank you for the support.

Employees will appreciate it.

Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. Great idea. Thank you. OK, we are almost at the finish line here. So last item, public invited to be heard. This is an opportunity for public comment. Statements are limited to three minutes per speaker. Comments must be related to an item previously addressed by counsel during the meeting. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to counsel at this time? But you stuck it all the way through. You are all amazing. I know the public can't see, but I feel like we should give them a hand for staying to the end. This is what happens when we go past 10. Is there anyone on the phone that would like to speak to counsel? I'll stay on script. There's nobody on the phone. There being no further business, we are adjourned. Yay.