Remarks by Dave Donelson
131 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 5 of 6
“And you kind of covered what it can be used for, the funds that are generated this way.”
“Do these usually apply to all retail within the district or could it be restaurants, yes, retail, no?”
“Okay, thanks for pointing out my lack of attention to detail. No, that's all right. It's behind you, so you can. That's good, I'm testing you. I already knew that, but I wanted to see if you would point that. Okay, that's good for now, thank you.”
“Yeah, thanks again, Madam President. Could we go back to the slide with the one more before that? So, Drew, this five and a quarter percent, what I understood you to say is some of the boards will vote to exceed it. Is that correct?”
“Okay, so they could, I get that. I get the distinction there. And some are doing that. Yes, some are proposing to do that. No district electors have done that yet. The first vote on that is still in the future.”
“Do you know, was it successful? Well, do you know how many attempted it? Was it successful in all or was there some that was approved, some that wasn't approved?”
“Yeah, thank you, Allison. It's helpful to know kind of these details. And then this may be the final question. What is it, like when Planning Department reviews these, and you bring them to us and you say, hey, go ahead, we've reviewed them all, put it on consent, what would you see in one of these plans where you would say, give us advice other than that? Is there anything you would see where you would say, you know, council, we have some concerns with this BID's plan?”
“And our planning department has looked through all of these for those kind of concerning changes and sees none?”
“Drew and you? Yep. Okay. And I've expressed this concern in the past that council is asked to vote yes on this, but we don't have an outside body that, or an outside expert that could come in and review them and say, well, this is odd. You don't typically see this. Should I understand it that you're performing that function?”
“whenever before i vote on it it doesn't have to happen right now absolutely i think i'm toward the end of my presentation councilman donelson yeah thank you and allison when i ask this if you'd like to hold and answer at the end that's fine but You know, on page one of our packet, just under the background, it points out this is an age-restricted, these are age-restricted units, 55 and older, and it says that the district's board felt that creation of a standalone service plan would allow them to better utilize the mill levies taken in by this district and provide amenities and services more…”
“Madam President, if I could, is there any additional information about the unique characteristics of the unique population, like the... amenities, this district will provide amenities and services more appropriate to their unique population. So is it not that it's a 55 and up community, it's really that it's a gated community and therefore there's some different services that they would need, is that accurate?”
“So that makes sense to me, the direction towards 55 and over doesn't seem like it matters at all. It's just the gated side. Okay, okay. I'm over 55 too, so it's fine.”
“Sure, yes. If I could, Madam President, I would like the lady from the back to, she had something to say about the over 55. Either one, whoever.”
“Okay, I might see you for any openings that you have later on.”
“What Councilman Landweber said is very true about public health. So the title of this agenda item is Council Member Reports and Open Discussion. And so under the open discussion part, I will just once again state that I believe we should move the date of our reconsideration of Project Taurus to either a month later than what it is currently scheduled to or before the ballots get mailed out. And that would reassure citizens that that date hasn't been chosen. Right now it's one week after the election in a lame duck period when council members who either don't run for reelection or actually are…”
“Yeah, thanks, Madam President. I do have a question. Is it Allie or Mary?”
“Very good. I feel conquered. Mary, so it's excellent that we go out and clean all this garbage up. Where is it coming from?”
“Okay, and I appreciate that. However, I do see numerous homeless camps in Colorado Springs with tremendous amounts of garbage scattered all through them. And I think that's something we may forget that in our desire to be kind, we allow people to live along the waterway and they're destroying it. We have high levels of E. coli in the creek also. So thank you for being here today.”
“Yeah, thanks Madam President. I have the opportunity to do the next resolution. And what is one of the things we use water for? to put out fires and that's what we're going to talk about next fires we're joined by our fire marshal chris cooper and these other strapping young men in their black uniforms up here in the front row This resolution is really gonna focus on lithium batteries. It's fire prevention month and it takes a focus this year. Their job is extremely hard as firemen. It's risky, it's dangerous from the fire itself and then all the smoke. And smoke from lithium batteries…”
“And Fire Marshal Cooper, is there any further presentation?”
“Yeah, thanks, Madam President. And Chris, I think you pointed out, it's not just the community members, it's even the cows. Because if that cow kicks over the lantern, we're all burning. But I wanna thank you for what I think is a really practical presentation of material here today. And I was watching our guests' faces here in the room. People are interested in this because every one of us has a certain degree of risk in our own homes. and that idea of letting things charge overnight, I think a lot of us make that mistake. So if you can unplug it before you, unhook it before you go to sleep,…”
“Always thinking. So I want to thank you two ladies for being here today. And it was, you know, the Project Taurus, or the data center hearing has been brought up. earlier and I would say council's actions can sometimes create an environment where incivility occurs and at that hearing we postponed the vote to the week right after the April elections and that is kind of a lame duck period where we will have members of council still sitting here and able to vote on it who may have not run for reelection or have lost that election. I proposed moving that vote to before the election so citizens…”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“And Scott, just to say that with different words, that means your rate is the same 24 hours a day. The five to nine higher rate disappears, but you pay a little bit more all through the day than you would have for those 20 hours that aren't five to nine. If you stay with this, the rates we have now, it's less expensive all the other 20 hours. If you go to the fixed rate, it's gonna be more 24 hours a day, but you won't have that five to nine when it really goes up. So thank you, Scott.”
“Madam President. And I'd like to second that motion. And I would like to point out for those in the room and those watching this online, that this is a small amount. On a typical bill, it's gonna be like your electric will go down about a dollar and a half. That's a small amount, we know that. But it's something we can do. Because we understand gasoline is expensive, everything's expensive, utility bills are higher right now than they were last summer. But multiple things are about to happen. So this is just one small piece of why you're gonna notice your utility bill goes down starting…”