City Council - Regular Meeting

recording in progress

Welcome, everybody, to the City Council meeting. It's another beautiful, hot evening in Pueblo, Colorado. I now call to order the regular City Council meeting. Today is Monday, August 24th, 2026. First up, we'll have our invocation. I understand Pastor Micah Aragon is not here. He is here, sir. So please join us in the invocation with Pastor Micah Aragon of the Pueblo Christian Center. And then immediately following, we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance.

yes let's pray heavenly father we love you and we call upon the name of jesus today and we ask for your help lord we thank you for this great city that we live in father from the leadership to the first responders lord we thank you and today we ask for help lord would you even be in the meetings today with the various topics and we thank you for the freedoms that we have to even be able to come into our room and share our ideas and share our thoughts and concerns, Father. And we just ask you to be in this place as we gather and we meet together. Again, help us today and tomorrow and forevermore. We love you. In the mighty name of Jesus, and everyone said, Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Aragon. Mr. Clerk, roll call. Mark Dalus. Here.

Brett Boston. Here. Roger Gomez. Here. Joe Latino. Here. Ted Hernandez. Here. Diane Dante.

Here.

Selena Ruiz Gomez.

Here.

Everybody's here and accounted for, fantastic. Special recognitions. First up is a mayoral proclamation presentation for Andrew Hayes Day, August 24th, 2026. Andrew Hayes, Director of Public Works, come on down.

WE HAVE ANOTHER DISTRICT JOINING US TONIGHT.

I'M JIM. I'M THE DISTRICT MANAGER FOR COLORADO CITY.

okay andrew hayes day monday august 24th 2026 whereas andrew hayes public works director for the city of pueblo has been officially recognized by the colorado city metropolitan district with a letter of accommodation from the board of directors and whereas in june of 2026 mr hayes assisted colorado city with the applewood fire and aspen acres fire by providing critical assistance to the colorado city water supply And whereas if Mr. Hayes hadn't reached out with concern to offer his knowledge and resources, further fire damage and longer evacuations may have occurred. And whereas Mr. Hayes' dedication and care for the community shown by his daily actions of going over and above expectations is sincerely appreciated by those affected by the fires and by those who are responding to the emergency. Now, therefore, I, Heather Graham, the mayor of the city of Pueblo, Colorado, by the authority invested in me, do hereby proclaim August 24, 2026 as Andrew Hayes Day in the city of Pueblo to acknowledge and commend your personal contributions to Colorado City in the time of great need. And we're going to hear a little bit more about the back story.

We had a... fire at our Applewood in our trailer park on Father's Day. He came down with equipment and also other assistance that helped with the fire and get it stopped. You know, this is Father's Day and he's down helping us out. We also, we had Aspen Acre fire that happened and I happened to be on vacation on the other side of the world on a cruise and I had Cream came in and helped and he wanted to be here tonight, but he was stuck on an airplane himself. But yeah, between him and Cream and me on the phone, we were able to get, he was able to get generators down to our plant because it was shut down, we didn't have electricity. If he didn't do that, we would have ended up having to be evacuated probably 10 to 12 more days because then we would have had a boil order and all other things that would have happened. So without his assistance in all those little things that happened, we're in debt to him he was very helpful in all those situations and we want to make sure that he gets recognized for it i do have a letter that's framed here from all of our board of directors that signed it and all that same thing that she had on that plaque so thank you very much

It's very important that this recognition is amazing. Thank you for just even saying thank you. But this is what a career in public service looks like. This is what 30 years almost of helping communities build themselves up, protect themselves, defend from fires, whatever it is, this is what it looks like and this is what we're supposed to do. This didn't happen because of me. There were a lot of people that helped, and credit needs to go to those folks as well, but that includes our public works staff, our stormwater staff, our wastewater staff, Board of Water Works, contractors that helped in the local area, contractors in Denver that helped and jumped without question and provided those generators and got them on the road and got them down to help. But the night of July 2nd going to July 3rd, the fire was expanding, and the footprint grew significantly over that night. Folks may remember there were heavy, heavy winds going on, and so the fire was spreading very quickly. But going into the holiday weekend of July 4th, there wasn't going to be a whole lot of spare capacity sitting around helping I guess so we wanted to make sure that you were taken care of and a lot of folks jumped up to make sure that you were taken care of so this was by no means Andrew Hayes alone there were a lot of people helping to make sure that happened so thank you for the recognition thank you for the recognition and thank you to the community for your trust again this is this is what what we're supposed to do so thank you

All right, we have another mayoral proclamation presentation for Kim Bowman Day, August 31st, 2026. Kim Bowman, Executive Director of Posada, Inc. Yeah, bring the whole team down.

The whole team. The whole team. The whole team down. Okay, talk about public servant. Kim Bowman Day, Monday, August 31st, 2026. Whereas Kim joined Posada in 1991 as the director of development, a role in which she spent nearly three decades building the financial and programmatic infrastructure that would define the organization's growth. In 1997, she took on a mission that would become her signature contribution to Southern Colorado, leading Posada's designation and ongoing work as Pueblo's sole community housing development organization, positioning Posada as a force for affordable housing expansion in the region. It is a distinction that requires technical expertise in housing, finance, and federal compliance, plus deep community trust. And whereas in 2018, Kim assumed the role of executive director, bringing with her a foundation of institutional knowledge, community relationships, and operational credibility. Under her leadership and across broader tenure at Posada, she has overseen the development and renovation of 197 single and multi-family housing units, assembled in low-income housing tax credit funding packages in excess of $27 million, and established Alpha West, a wholly owned subsidy dedicated to expanding affordable housing development. And whereas what sets Kim apart is not simply what she has built, it is how she has built it. Known among colleagues, funders, and community partners as resilient, high energy, and charismatic, Kim combines strategic vision with a get it done approach that inspires confidence. With more than 35 years of leadership at Posada, in Pueblo, her ability to hold the big picture while attending to the operational details that matter most has been the engine behind Posada's longevity and impact. And whereas Kim's leadership extends well beyond Posada's walls, she has served as the board chair of the Rosemont Museum, a board member of education at the Shrine of St. Therese Catholic School, a member of the Pueblo Homeless Coalition, a grant reviewer for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and a judge for Historic Preservation Colorado Springs. A proud graduate of Colorado State University Pueblo with a degree in mass communication with an emphasis in journalism. Kim brings the storyteller's instinct to everything she does, never losing sight of the human story at the center of her work. As she concludes her tenure at Posada, her legacy is not measured only in housing units, built or dollars raised, but in the lives stabilized, the staff she mentored, and the community she helped shape over more than three decades of purposeful, principled leadership. Now, therefore, I, Heather Graham, the mayor of the city of Pueblo, by the authority invested in me, do proclaim Monday, the 31st, 2026 as Kim Bowman Day and urge the citizens of Pueblo to join me in expressing appreciation for Kim's efforts to create safe, supportive spaces for everybody in the Pueblo community. And Melissa also has a award that she would like to give you.

Yeah, so to add on that, I don't have a proclamation and all of this information, but I think it's so important for the community to know how hard development is, how hard housing development is. You hit roadblocks at every corner and you have to continue and you have to persevere. And so 197 units is absolutely commendable. Of those, the city of Pueblo was able to partner with Kim on over 130 of them. Yes. And so over the years, Kim has been our number one developer over and over, steadfast, continued to come back. So with that, on behalf of the Department of Housing and Citizen Services and the City of Pueblo, we also wanted to present you with this. We appreciate you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Melissa. And I just want to say that none of this is possible without the tremendous support of an incredible staff. I have Veronica in the back, one of my staff members who's not down here joining us. And I'm grateful for the ability to do this work in the community. And I'm just so proud of everything that Posada has accomplished. So thank you.

I called her out, so I was like...

And our final proclamation is for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Day, September 5th, 2026. I'd like to call down Tanya Johnson, chair and co-founder of the Mental Wellness Task Force of Southern Colorado, and Genevieve Gonzalez, co-chair of the Mental Wellness Task Force of Southern Colorado, and Nancy Gonzalez, chair of the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Pueblo County. Come on down.

Well, well, well.

This is a proclamation for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Day, September 5, 2026. Whereas suicide is a national public health crisis that claims the lives of more than 49,000 people in the U.S. each year, leaving families and communities devastated and grieving, and whereas mental health conditions affect one in five adults and one in six youth each year, Yet stigma and barriers to care often prevent individuals from seeking the help they need, and whereas the effects of suicide are long-lasting and deeply felt, particularly by those who have loved ones, parents, siblings, friends, partners, and coworkers who continue to carry the memories of those they have lost. And whereas Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Day serves as a meaningful opportunity to honor the lives lost to suicide, support survivors of suicide loss, and raise awareness about mental health and bring communities together in hope and healing. And whereas community-driven efforts such as education, advocacy, access to quality mental health care, and open conversations are vital to reducing stigma, increasing prevention, and ultimately saving lives. And whereas we recognize that mental health is essential to overall health, and suicide prevention is a shared responsibility. Now, therefore, we, the City Council of the City of Pueblo, Colorado, by the authority vested in us, do hereby proclaim September 5th, 2026, as Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Day in the City of Pueblo. and encourage all citizens to join in honoring the memories of those lost, supporting survivors, and to make a commitment to mental health advocacy, education, and compassionate community care. In witness whereof, I have hereunto sent my hand and caused the seal of the City of Pueblo, Colorado to be affixed this 24th day of August, 2026. Signed, Mark Aleph, President of the City Council. I'm very, very happy to give this to you.

We are just hoping that everybody remembers September 5th is our fourth annual Suicide Memory Walk at Minaquah Lake. We would love to have you. It's 9 to noon. Perfect.

Thank you again. We'll get a picture with Amy. We now move to public forum, and first up is Bill Klenlow, Klen? Come on down, Bill. Thank you for coming. And just hit that button there on the microphone. You're good, you're on.

I am, Bill.

Hi. Just pull it down a little more. There you go.

Hello, I'm Bill Klinke, and I just wanted to come and voice some concerns about this proposed train station that I guess is going to be built maybe around 2030, 2032. I was reading in the Pueblo Star Journal where the cost of that is $38 million, and I did some research. Amtrak has a pretty good site called Great American Train Stations. And you can pull up information on every train station in the United States. And this proposed train between Pueblo, Denver, and Fort Collins requires some more funding. I guess we've got to put a sales tax on the ballot for November. But from what I understand, each locality has to pay for the train station itself is what I've read. And so for the Pueblo County and city, I guess the county's supposed to fund it somehow.

The cost that they've requested is $38 million.

And this research that I've done looking at Amtrak's site, saint louis the city of saint louis is a town of two-and-a-half million spent thirty six million on a train station in two thousand eight and they had like three hundred and seventy five thousand three hundred ninety five thousand writers there's another train station on the north what dot transition is on the southwest side of saint louis is another train station on the northwest side cross the river and it had like 75,000 riders and they spent $28 million building a train station there in 2017. So I don't know, it just doesn't seem like 38 million for a town our size, county our size, seems to be pretty extreme. I was curious and last night I looked to see what Fort Collins was doing on the opposite side, on the north side of this train line. in the council meeting there and the railroad director said well, we just want a simple platform and Then we'll see how many riders show up and then we might go from there So it seems like we're jumping in with both feet forward Maybe into a potential fire These trains have been running between St. Louis and Kansas City. A similar type train runs twice a day between St. Louis and Kansas City. And there's six or seven train stops there, including the capital city, Jefferson City. They have about 40,000 riders annually. And the University of Missouri is 30 miles north of there. So there's about 250,000 people in that regional area. And looking at some of the other numbers of these towns, I would guess that maybe Pueblo, our ridership might be between 10 and 40,000. And almost all of these train stations across the state of Missouri are open air ones. Even the one in Jefferson City for the capital city has an open platform and just a plastic shelter, kind of like what you see with the bus stations and stuff. They don't even have one inside the building or anything. So I don't know. My comments are as I just think, you know, we really need to reevaluate this, giving the shape that our city and county finances are in right now. And that's all I have.

Thank you, sir. Ken Dante. Hello. Thank you for coming.

Hi. I just wanted to talk about a milestone that Colorado has reached. I've got a graph here to show. It's about renewable energy. There's this database in the United States called the EIA, and you can look at this database, EIA.org. I'm sorry I had this on my phone. I should have brought a piece of paper, but the graph is renewable energy in Colorado. And it's kind of late reported because they have to collect the data first. This is actual energy that's powering Colorado. It's not made up. It's actual energy that has been used. And this shows over time. from 2004 up to present. And in Q1 of 2026 this year, 50% of our energy came from renewable energy resources that include mostly wind, a growing amount of solar, and a little bit of hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power is kind of constant. So we're powered by renewable energy. And that's basically all I had to say.

Thank you. Elvis Martinez. Hello. Thank you for coming.

Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, everybody else. So a bit different tonight than what I always speak on. So thank you, Madam Mayor. Shocking. Thank you for making it easier to vote for someone else next year for mayor. Speaking about the election next year, I have been talking to someone that isn't here at all tonight, maybe watching, about running for mayor. And I will support he or she. for a better Pueblo, for a better tomorrow. In just 435 short days, we will be voting for a new mayor. In roughly about 512 days for the runoff, which will be another low voter turnout at an expense that none of us know yet, And in just 526 days, February 1st, 2028, we will swear in a new mayor. And without talking about the items on the agenda later about the taxes, I'm gonna, Talk about this, Pueblo is the poorest city of 25,000 population or more. A one penny increase isn't a 1% increase, although it is a one percentage point. Just wanting to specify misinformation that has been spreading out on Facebook. It represents a 13.16 relative increase in the tax itself. All you got to do is know some good math. And then what I've been talking about since last month, I'll pivot to this now. It has been 43 days That Brian Hunt was murdered in broad daylight on his property, shot five times. No report from PD, no condolences from the mayor to the family, and I know the family personally. They are grieving, his father's grieving, his siblings, and his only daughter. No answers. That's a shame, at least put something out, even if it's private to the family that whoever they want to give it to, they could give it to.

No answers whatsoever.

Brian Hunt wasn't just a father. He had degrees, look it up. He was also a veteran that fought for our rights. That is a shame that a veteran was murdered in broad daylight. It was no self defense, he didn't have a weapon on him. So I am demanding PD to give a report, even if it's a brief report, to the family in the next 14 days. Give the family some answers on the case and arrest and charge the individual that killed Brian Hund in cold blood, broad daylight, 43 days ago. Now, I would want you to put your feet in their shoes if it was your dad, your brother, your sister, your mother, your wife, your child, even if it wasn't in Pueblo, if they lived in Texas or California or wherever. If you guys weren't getting any answers, you guys would be irate. at the PD or if it was out in the county in those other cities and states with the Sheriff's Department without giving any answers whatsoever. And yes, I know they have to get evidence, but we just had another murder just two or three days ago. They arrested that person on charges of manslaughter. Not that hard. PD knows who this individual is. They haven't given a word in edgewise to the family. Why is that? And once again, Chief Nola should resign.

Thank you. Gregory Collins. Gregory, come on down. Hello. Thank you for coming.

Thank you, first of all. Appreciate your time. I know you guys are busy. So I'm a local business owner, born and raised here. Lived here my entire life, except for when I went off to the military. Do own a business here in town. And one of the things that I wanted to really address to you guys is this city is so business unfriendly, and I don't understand why. We've got a budget that you guys are always screaming that you need more money for. Well, businesses will get you out of that. We pay a lot of sales tax to you. We pay a lot of property taxes to you. Now, I'm going to give a perfect example here. Well, first of all, I'm going to start with I just expanded my business a few months ago. Actually, it's been about two years. It took me eight months to get the permit and six months to build the extension. So it took me two months longer just to get through the paperwork than it did actual construction. Now, I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm going to use Chipotle and Starbucks over there on Pebble Boulevard because they're close to my business, and I drive by them every day going to my work. It is insane. that two fairly large companies, I mean, pretty big companies, take so long to get through the bureaucratic nonsense that we gotta go through here, okay? I'm gonna give you guys some numbers here, and I'm gonna be fairly quick about this, because I know you guys are busy. Chipotle makes, on average nationwide, they make about $8,500 per day. That's what they bring in. Starbucks nationwide makes about $3,200 per day. You guys can Google this. It'll tell you. You're looking at roughly, if you combine the two, for the city of Pueblo in sales tax alone, you're looking at $158,000 a year in sales tax. That's a little bit of dinero. Okay? So, $158,000 just for the city. That's not the county. For the county of Pueblo and the city, you're looking at a little over $200,000 a year in sales tax. I'm not talking about property tax, because those go up too. So you guys get a chunk of that. So, my understanding, and like I said, I don't have a dog in this fight, so maybe something's come to fruition that I don't know about. But my understanding, Starbucks, it took them so long to get open because the state was holding their CO hostage because of a stoplight. Now, from my understanding is the city has been fairly accommodating, trying to get their COs for them. However, when the city and county are going to make $200,000 a year and a stoplight, is holding up a CEO. Now I realize the state, they're up there in Denver, they could care less about us down here. They really could. I don't know how much the stoplight was gonna cost, but let's say at the top end it was a million bucks. Let's just take a million dollars for that stoplight. I think that's absolutely insane, but let's take a million dollars for the stoplight. You guys will have, just the city will recoup that money in six and a half years. If you include the county, you recoup that money in five years. So you guys pay for the light, get them their CO, they give you their sales tax, and in five years you guys are making pure profit. That $200,000 a year I think's gonna go a little ways towards your budget. Okay, it's going to start filling some holes. And if we can make it easy for companies to come in here, they're going to start paying this sales tax to the city, and it will start filling budgets. That's all I have to say, guys.

Thank you. Is Heather Roybal here? Nope. All right, we'll move to council member and mayor commentary. Mayor Graham.

Thank you, President Aliff. Mr. Collins, you're going to be very excited tonight because on city council's agenda, we have item N2 on first presentation, which deals exactly with the Starbucks deal. and the Chipotle and the usage of the half cent sales tax fund being able to fund the infrastructure so those businesses can get open. So thank you for coming and voicing your concerns about that tonight and just know that the city is well on its way of being able to grant the access permit as long as city council approves the use of the half cent sales tax funds. to pay for the infrastructure that's desperately needed. Next, Tammy, if you could please pull up my picture. So there's been a lot of discussion over the last several weeks on the flock cameras and the ALPRs that the city of Pueblo uses. So I asked our police and IT department to send me some actual pictures of what is being caught when somebody drives by one of the city's ALPRs. So the city of Pueblo currently has four different license plate readers that we use. Flock, Plate Ranger, Genetec, and Motorola. These pictures that are on display show you exactly what is being caught when a vehicle passes through one of our flock cameras or Genetech, any of our ALPRs. So you can see that it typically catches the back of the car. The license plate comes up. So these license plates aren't redacted because these are all city vehicles that have gone. through the ALPR, one of the ALPRs that are located within the city of Pueblo, and I thought that it was really important because we hear a lot of conversation, but I've yet to see anybody actually show a picture of what type of identifying factors are being put out as far as what some may say is tracking or racial profiling or what exactly that looks like. This white truck that's coming at us is actually a city vehicle that's turning in the wrong lane so you can kind of see the driver. If you get close to the picture, you cannot identify who the driver is. Last week, Chief Knoller put a directive and a policy together that all went to city council and answered several questions that Councilwoman Diane Dante had proposed through a citizen for him to be able to come back with some factual information. So I thought I would go through each one of these cameras and kind of tell you what they do, what they're recording, what that looks like. So this top one is a sample of what Motorola looks like. This is not a capture of video. It only captures images. Still shots. These license plates have been redacted because these are not city vehicles. This is taking through a parking lot. If you go up, Tammy, or down, whichever way you want to go. This next one is going to be Plate Ranger. Again, with Plate Ranger, we do not have continuous video. We only have the plate, and it captures an estimated of three seconds of video footage before and after. Again, this is a city car, so you can see that the license plate is not redacted. And next, this is Genetech. These are also still photos. It's not a continuous video. When the plate, when it's coming head-on at you like that, it's because it's taking it. The car was taken. maybe not in the correct lane or changing lanes. Again, city vehicle. And then the last one is going to be what the flock cameras capture. So again, we cannot see who's driving this vehicle. I cannot see how many people are in this vehicle. I can just tell you that this truck drove by this flock camera at this time and that this is the image that we see at the police department. So all of our captured reads in our system, they're safeguarded under the public police department policies and directives that Chief Knoller has sent to city council, as well as full compliance with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's criminal justice information, CEGIS, the city has to have CEGIS clearance in order to view this information. And the city of Pueblo undergoes an FBI audit every three years. All data within our systems is owned by the city of Pueblo and is only shared in accordance with public police department policies and directives and which has been sent to city council. All system access is logged and audited per our public police department policies and directives. All captured reads are retained within their respective system for 30 days. Audit-related data is retained for one year as required by CEGIS compliance standards. All captured reads across all systems are encrypted end-to-end both at rest and at transit and adhere to applicable privacy protections. And so tonight I just wanted to put this out to the public and show you what we're seeing when cameras drive through an ALPR because I think that there could be some misconception about what we can see in your vehicle, who we can see, who's driving, what's being done in the vehicle. These were taken straight off of each one of our ALPR cameras that we use currently in the city of Pueblo. And that's all I have, President Aliff.

Thank you. Councilor Latino.

Yes. I have some concerns about, I was in contact this afternoon with one of the merchants, well, with one of the significant individuals in this community. Let me get my thoughts together here. Anyway, I was in contact this afternoon with one of the proprietors and managers, presidents of the Housing and Urban Development, well, the Senior Living Center here. And he told me that last evening that we had a number of gunshots right here in the parking garage and a number of gunshots. The police were called and there was no response. That seems to happen a lot. I mean, we can put cameras everywhere we want in the city. I prefer not to have cameras in every place in the city. This is the United States of America, okay? So I'm not supportive of that, but I am supportive of having police on the streets. And I think probably what we need to get back to, and at one time I contacted the governor of the state of Colorado and said, we need some help down here. Maybe we need the Colorado National Guard to come down here and help us. Sad, isn't it? Sad, isn't it? Isn't that sad? Yeah, I agree. I agree. You know, when we were growing up, we could come down the streets of Maine and Union after football, basketball, baseball practice at the high school, local high school, PCH, and our parents never worried. Walk right down Maine or Union, 5, 6, 7 o'clock at night, rock across the railroad tracks, up to Gold Hill and Smelter, wherever we were, the east side, wherever, you know? Again, we need to be creative. How about police on the streets? You know? How about police on the streets? You know, I think we need to, again, I think we really need to sit down and we need to be creative. Maybe we need to put a committee together in a community and do some things that are creative that would put Pueblo back in a position where it is Pueblo home of heroes. Again, this is the United States of America, and we're the only city in this country that's got four Congressional Medal of Honor winners. I've said that a number of times. Not one city in America has four. Cincinnati has seven. Cincinnati has seven, but not one of them were raised in Pueblo. So we need to be the actual home of heroes. We need to take care of each other, okay? We need to take care of each other. So I'm saying we need to be creative, and maybe we need to put a committee together to look at those kinds of things. And again, Talking to one of the local merchants here, we had shots fired in the garage right next to the senior living center, senior resource center. Okay? That's not good. It's not good. It's like me finding a homeless amputee right behind this building here laying on the street with no shoes and no shirt out of his wheelchair. Okay? Those are the kinds of things that we need to avoid. And again, we are a community that we can work together if we really want to do that. But we need some guidance from the top. And we need some support and help from the police department to do the kinds of things that they're expected to do. I realize they're short. However, response times are not the best. They are not the best. Guidance and direction is not the best from the top, from the very top. I've asked the chief to resign twice. You know? It's time, Pueblo, that we come back to where we were when we were growing up and realize that this is a great community. It is a great community. There's a lot of businesses that would come here, except they read in the paper, number 10 in crime in the United States of America. City and county of approximately 200,000 people. That's not the way it should be. I guess that's all I gotta say.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Ruiz-Gomez.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to welcome Pueblo to this meeting. Thank you all for coming out. I really appreciate everyone coming in to hear what's going on. So if you can please just give yourselves a hand for being here this evening. Thank you so much. This is your meeting. Okay, just want to take a minute to... I say thank you to Mr. Andrew Hayes for your work and your proclamation, as well as to the folks at Kim Bowman and to the folks at Suicide Prevention for all of the work that you all do for our community and all of those root cause things like mental health and housing. that are very important to what we are talking about today in building our communities with resources and the things that we need that connect us and bring us together. I want to just take a minute to address some of the things that have been coming to my attention regarding the speed cameras and the flock cameras that have recently been discussed and I want to thank the folks who have been sending information and been inquiring about this and helping us to understand this issue as thoroughly as we can understand it. And I just wanna say to you as our community, please be patient. We are barely scratching the surface of all of the things that we need to know about what we as a community are gonna decide to do about how we move forward on this issue. So just please be patient, please keep us informed on what your thoughts are. There is, I believe as early as Friday we received the information, thank you Mayor Graham, from the stuff that Chief Nolar had responded on as well as the city policy on this. And so I would, there is something on the agenda today that I'm gonna ask council to hold off on the vote until we have our, we will be hosting a work session on this particular battle grant and other things that we would like for Chief Knoller to help address in our community in response to some of those things that got brought up. So Jessica, I'm just asking you, we are trying to make the best decision in this. with this issue and so help us with any information or feedback that you have. And my hope is that we can come to this where we are promoting our liberty, safety, and building a better community for one another. That's all I have, Mr. President.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Boston.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd just like to start off by saying I had the privilege to go out of town today and play at the Air Force Academy Golf Course in a tournament for a very good cause. And it reminded me just how thankful I am to live in the United States and how thankful I am for all our active and former military service members. Thank you to all of our service members. And on my way home, I also happened to see a state patrolman on the side of the road helping somebody change a flat tire. So that just goes to show our first responders and how much good work they do. So another thanks to all the first responders still responding to the fire and still working hard every single day. And I think people forget sometimes up here, yes, we were elected by the people, but we are people too. But we were elected to serve you. And when I campaigned, I campaigned on three key issues. The first being public safety, the second being economic development, and the third being bringing more amenities to Pueblo. And I try to do my best every time I sit up here representing those who voted for me and those who didn't as well, trying to make sure that I do what's best for Pueblo, standing behind those three key issues. So just remember, when we make decisions, whether that be allowing you to vote for something, whether you agree with it or not, that's us giving you the rights you elected us to do. So I appreciate everybody always coming out here, voicing your concerns. In my day-to-day job, I hear from many different members of the community from all walks of life, and I try to gather as much information on hot topics or topics that some people may not think are important, and I always try to formulate decisions based on the information I gather from constituents, based on research, and based on the information, whether I get it from legal, department heads, or my own research, and I try to always make decisions that are best for Pueblo. So I continue to do that, and I will continue to do that, And I hope you guys are gracious with us sometimes when we're up here trying to do what's best for you and the city of Pueblo. And that's all I have tonight.

Thank you, Councillor Boston. Councillor Dante.

Good evening. Nice to see a full house. Last week, I went on a tour of the Rocky Mountain Steel Mill. And while I was there, a question was asked of the president about how much solar the steel mill uses. And they say that they're 100% renewable. So that was really great to hear. Flock cameras. I really want the citizens to have a voice in these cameras. I want you to feel comfortable with these cameras. So I'm still doing research on everything that is associated with the flock cameras. So just be patient. And that's the end of my report.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Gomez.

Yeah, I'm concerned about, well, one of the things I hooked up with Selena Gomez in reference to the shopping cart issue. I want to discuss a couple things with that. I spent a lot of time meeting with different grocery stores, and they're so scared they don't even want to be identified. Some of the things that are happening, some of the reservations they have is because corporate is giving them the marching orders. If you look at some of these carts, you know the gray ones that are on top of their plastic and the bottom is metal? Those are about $350 a piece. The metal ones are about $500. So when we talk about... 4,000 carts. I mean, that's a lot of money by the time you get finished it. But what amazed me is when I did talk to the folks, to the supervisors of those stores, they are scared to death of allowing one of their people that might be new even touch a cart that's walking out with New York steak, filet mignon, it's packed to the gills. Go ahead. You'll get fired on the spot. And that really, really bothers me. Another thing as I'm going through this and I'm trying to pass on what I've learned, we have an ordinance out there apparently that you can't just take a cart like they used to do in the old days because they were all metal and bring them down and have them scrapped. When you talk to the homeless about the carts, They like that because the carts, there's a lot of ingenuity with people that, even though they're poor and homeless, they utilize those carts and they would put a grill underneath it and they would cook. So when you hear all these different things with carts and how they're being utilized and how they're being taken advantage of. But what gripes me about the corporations of these stores They actually have little skin in the game. Even when they hire those guards, that's for dressing. They can't do anything either. They have to watch them walk out. I've talked to the guys in the meat department and said it makes them sick. When they're sitting there watching all their stuff go out, whether it's expensive produce or expensive, they can't do a damn thing about it. And who do you think absorbs the cost for all of that? We do. Every single person here. I wouldn't be surprised if they're figuring out a way to make it a profit. calling their insurance and saying, hey, we've got a loss of product. Let's charge it to the consumer some way that will get us to pay for it. So I'm angry. I don't want to see the vendors get hurt. I don't want to see Supers or Safeway or Albertson, whatever you want. I don't want to see them penalized. We want them in our community. But to put it all back on the community and trying to figure out a way when they have – to stand up for the rights of the people here in reference to these cards and stop putting the onus of the penalties on us and not standing up and saying, wait a second, we're not stealing them, you're not stealing them, we're not taking them off. How do we have those companies take some responsibility and say, screw it, we'll have the customers pay for it in the end? That's what gripes me. And I found all this out spending about three hours with these guys. Not one of them want to put their name down because they're afraid of losing their job. That's the first thing. The second thing in reference to the, well this is going to make me famous here, the flock issue with these cameras. I've heard the complaints from folks that a lot of these guys are out there or policemen or people in high security areas are utilizing them to track their girlfriends, to stalk, whatever. I heard those things already. In the areas that I represent, in the lower income areas, they're living through a lot of the potential for crime and the accumulation of a lot of crime. If you're driving through Bessemer, it's one thing, and I don't want to play class warfare, but if you're driving through, it's a little different. You got people living in those areas that are looking for police. They're looking for police on the ground. And if you don't realize this by now, the recruiting for a policeman is not that easy. And it's not just Pueblo. It's Colorado Springs. It's Denver. So what do you do? How do you soothe somebody that comes to you and say, my house was robbed. My son was hit by a car driven by gang members that came after him. How do you do it? Do you offset some of that with technology when you don't have the manpower to deal with this? If we were full staff, we'd be talking a different story. So think about what this administration has to struggle with to try to make that up. I believe in technology, okay? I'm a law-abiding citizen. I don't care if you put a fly camera in my front seat. I expect the rest of that to be passed on to the constituency as well. We all have a responsibility to follow the law. But if we have somebody that's got a camera that gives them any kind of edge, I'm not against that. And I'm not going to BS hit and look for applause from anybody. I am telling you, I was on the street for a long time in law enforcement about 20 years. And any assistance that we can give these officers out there, we should be doing. And I'm not saying I would be the first one. If I found that it was an officer, and I was in law enforcement for a long time, and I found out they were utilizing that camera, I would have them tarred and feathered and fired immediately. So I'm not in favor of them utilizing or abusing that system. But right now, let's be honest, do you think we have enough people in law enforcement that are joining the ranks to stop crime? No, we don't. So what do I tell my constituency? when they complain to me. The other thing I get offended by is when we talk about drones, and drones are considered first responders, BS. The first responders are your firemen, your policemen. I'm talking about human beings. I'm talking about eye-in-the-sky drones, which I don't want to turn away, but if they're being abused, those people that are abusing should be set and thrown in jail. So I think somewhere along the line, we're going to have to come to a compromise somewhere until we get our full staffing. and they can actually work with a staff that's willing to be, I mean, today, in public, what, it's 80 grand a year, plus probably bennies, somewhere 100 grand, you're talking. But we're not the only ones looking for cops. It's all over the place. So how do you offset some of that? And you got everybody screaming for more protection. Look at the low-income areas, and not just the low-income areas, the high-income areas that are gonna be marked. It's slowly going to some really nice areas now. It's expanding every day. So all I'm saying is if we have any advantages with technology, let's look at it. Let's look at it honestly, calmly, and see, will it make a difference? All I know is when you have a camera that just followed and got information from a drone, and they're connected, and it can be connected, and they say, you know, there was just a crime over here. It was a red Subaru with a plate number. and left that area, and they got a connection between all these license plate readers, and they can track that vehicle and stop them before it goes to the next victim's house. Excuse me, maybe it's me, but if it happens to be, we save one person with that, that's an improvement in what we're doing now. And I understand, we have police officers, rank and file guys, that have to take orders. Okay, you got corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, I got it. So we can't just take a brush, and I was in law enforcement a long time, and it really hurts me to say this, to blame these guys who are on the street that are busting their ass. And I am telling you, I've worked with these guys. We have some of the best, and I'm not looking for any... Applause from them either. We have some really dedicated folks. They're professional as hell. They're working shorthanded. Do we not want to give them any kind of edge at all or just say the hell with it? We're not going to worry about the cops coming five hours later or the next day, all the complaints I hear. Meanwhile, we have some things we can do and get some kind of edge in our favor. And now we're going to say, well, we don't want Big Brother watching this. What is it? What does everybody want? That's a great tagline. I got it. But I'm just telling you, when you're on the street and our obligation is safety first. Okay, that's fire department, mayor's office, this is dais. We are responsible for safety. And if you're going to sit there and tell me that we're meeting the grade, we're not. I'm telling you we're not. Because it's not the council's fault. It's not the fact that we can't get more people in there trying to recruit as many as they can. We're in a box right now. So for what it's worth, I just want to express my side of it. I understand what Joe's saying. I understand what you guys are saying about the big brother aspect. I got it. But we need help. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Hernandez.

Thank you, President Aliff. I want to start out. maybe bring it down a little bit. I had the opportunity to visit, be part of the South High School ribbon-cutting ceremony a couple weeks ago, and as most of you know, I've been very critical of District 60 with regards to both the condition and the academic rigor at South High School. So I had the opportunity to go to the ribbon-cutting, and I can tell you that they have a new team that they put together. They're an administrative team for the students. My eldest grandson is a freshman there, so that school is very, very important to me. It's a very historic school on the south side, and so I'm going to continue to challenge District 60 to work on increasing the enrollment at the school because it's below 700 right now, which is... It's sad as far as I'm concerned. But I'm gonna give them the credit for putting the money into the school and making it look a lot better. Now if we can get the educational rigor up, then we'll be in a good place. Also wanna point out a young man who was in an automobile accident the night before graduation. Kevin Guida, 18-year-old young man. Coached him four years at South High School in football. Had eight surgeries, died three times, and fortunately for us, South Colt coaches and South Colt family, Colt Nation, he was at our game on Friday night. He actually walked. So... He's still working really, really hard to get back at recovery and to be the old Cayman that we always knew, but he's working hard, and so we're super proud of Cayman, and we look forward to the day when we defend the cannon and Cayman gets to come out with us and be our captain. Good luck came in and we're got our eyes on you and finally I went to high school long time ago Sheesh, it's hard to even imagine how long ago it was but there I had a classmate by the name of Bill Nimick and Bill was He worked for the fire department for over 40 years. So I kind of want to recognize Bill. I have the privilege to recognize he was assistant police chief and he retired after extraordinary 40 years of dedicated service to the citizens of Pueblo. Throughout his career, Bill exemplified what it meant to be a public servant. He advanced to the ranks of the Pueblo Fire Department, earning the respect of peers through hard work, integrity, and exceptional leadership. For 18 years, he served as an assistant chief, including 12 years as a nationally accredited chief fire officer, where he helped shape the operation, safety, and future of our fire department. Bill's impact reaches far beyond the titles he held. He was an incident commander at some of Pueblo's most challenging emergencies, including the Sacred Heart Cathedral fire, the Branch Inn explosion, and the Fountain River wildfire that threatened the Belmont area during extremely windy conditions. During these and countless other emergencies, his calm leadership, sound judgment, and commitment to protecting both public and his firefighters were evident. His contributions extended well beyond the fire ground. Bill secured numerous grants that brought valuable resources to the Pueblo Fire Department. He played a key role in the design of fire stations, apparatus, helped develop equipment and firefighting procedures that improved operational effectiveness, and continually looked for ways to make the department stronger and safer. His expertise was recognized nationally as well. Bill authored several articles published in a national distributed fire service magazine, Fire Engineering, becoming the only member of the Pueblo Fire Department to achieve this distinction. He shared his knowledge not only with his colleagues in Pueblo, but with firefighters around the country. So to my friend Bill, he retired back in July 31st, I think the chief told me, of last year. Thank you. Please remember that us old guys always remember you old guys, and we appreciate your 40 years of experience. Thank you, sir.

Are you good? Thank you, counselor. I rarely get a big crowd like this, so I get a rant for two minutes. So what hasn't been in front of you and a lot of people don't know about is the Black Hills energy debacle. The debacle of again asking for double digit 18% rate on its rate payers. And I believe 14% to 18%. It's 14%. Does it matter? 14%, 18%, 6%. So they got 6% or 8% last time, and they didn't like it, so they're suing the Public Utility Commission or whatever because they didn't think that was right, that they should get more money. so for years i've been arguing and arguing and saying you know we gotta do something about this we've tried twice to create a municipal utility that just was shot down i'm over that we fought tooth and nail with the public utility commission the last time to try and get it down to a reasonable raise, and we thought we got that done. This time we're still fighting, trying to offset the high rates. But here's what I want to say. The only way anything is going to change with our utilities, especially with electric, is something has to be done at the state. It has to be done through the Public Utilities Commission. It has to be done through our state legislators. It has to be done through our state senators and the governor and so on and so forth. Literally the only lifeline that the city of Pueblo possibly has is community choice energy. And if we don't get serious about community choice energy allowing communities like Pueblo who are held hostage by these utilities, given us the opportunity to buy the utilities off of the wholesale market and still utilize our utility provider to deliver the electricity. It has an opportunity to reduce our rates. Governor Polis, it never went through. It's been at the state. Governor Polis said that he would veto it if it ever got through the House or the Senate, and it never happened. So here's what I'm asking. Here's what I'm asking. Everybody that cares, anybody that cares about how bad our utility rates are and how high we are as compared to anybody else in the state of Colorado, whoever's running for a state representative, whoever's running for state senator, who's ever running for a state position, this needs to come to the forefront if you're a Pueblo citizen. It needs to be on their radar. You listen to them talk when they have their town halls or their public meetings or whatever. Our energy costs are never in the conversation, ever. But yet it's the only way that it's going to change. And the only way that it'll change is if we hold them accountable to change it. So please, as you're talking and you're asked to vote for specific people, hey, and this isn't a partisan deal. I haven't heard a Republican talk about it. I haven't heard a Democrat talk about it. I haven't heard an independent talk about it. Nobody. They're all guilty of leaving us in the lurch when it comes to our energy costs. And this is our last chance. Our last chance is community choice energy. And they need to at least get it on the floor, debate it, talk about it, and get it to the governor. You know, the Public Utility Commission actually did a study on it five or six years ago, and they just dropped it. Our state representatives just dropped it. It never went any further than a study that says, well, it could help Pueblo, but we'll see. And so that's my rant on utilities. It's very important. Join me on that. And I'll just close with this. Anytime a government wants to mass surveil The citizens of its country, something's wrong. Something's wrong with that. And nothing good can come out of that. Nothing good can come out of it without unbelievable barriers to what they can do with that kind of stuff. It's a wreck waiting to happen, in my opinion. We'll move to the review of the agenda. Councilors, page one. Page two.

I'd like to pull my own. Yes. M as in Mary eight and M as in Mary nine.

So you'd like to pull M eight and M nine.

And bring them down to the regular agenda.

Did you get that, Mr. Clerk? Move to the regular agenda. We move to the regular agenda. Page three.

Sir.

Whoa. Page two.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to move M as in Mary ten to the regular agenda.

Mr. Clerk, you get M10 to the regular agenda. Is that all on page two? Page three? Page four? Page four?

Mr. President, I would like to postpone R1 to our regular meeting on September 14th, 2026.

This is on the regular agenda. Should we take it to the actual presentation and then you make the motion?

That's fine. Thank you, Mr. President.

I think that's the best way to do that.

Page 5.

President Ayla, staff would like to continue R8, R9, and R10 to October 26th. R8? 26.

Till 10, 25. You got that, Mr. Clerk? October 25th. And is there an approval of the agenda?

Mr. President, I make a motion to amend the agenda, moving items M8, M9, and M10 to the regular agenda, and postponing items R8, R9, and R10 to October 25th, and approve the agenda as amended.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Councilor Gomez, any questions? Let's call for the vote. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

Why is that working? Why is that working?

Did everybody vote? Passes six to one. We now move to a reading and approval of the minutes. Is there a motion?

It's a motion.

Got to read it.

My honor, okay. Motion to dispense with the reading and approve the minutes of the regular meeting dated August 10th, 2026 as distributed.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Councilor Hernandez, any questions? Let's call for a vote. Do you want to have a race next time? Is that what you want to try to do? Passes 7-0. Mr. Clerk, we now move to the consent agenda. There is nothing under communications. We move to section M, resolutions, item M1.

Item M1, resolution ratifying the award of an emergency construction contract in the amount of $295,504.20 to Rust Grading and Excavating, LLC, a Colorado limited liability company. for project number 25-012SWAN03 for emergency storm sewer point repair on 10th Street and Conley Street and approving a change order in the amount of $62,485.12 for additional work and materials and authorizing and approving the purchasing agent's execution of same. Item M2, a resolution preliminary determining Mr. Bishop. Turn the microphone up, Tammy. A resolution preliminary determining that the petition for the annexation of the 89.93 acres, commonly known as the Pueblo Master Plan Community's annexation number one, is valid under the provisions of Colorado Revised Statute section 31-12-104, parentheses 1A and 31-12-107-1, tabling final action on the petition for a period of not more than 180 days and referring the petition to the Planning and Zoning Commission for review and recommendation. Item M3, a resolution confirming the appointment by the mayor of Janelle Quick and Shannon Vargas to serve a three-year term expiring August 31, 2029 on the El Centro de Quinto Sol Recreation Center Board of Directors. M4, resolution confirming the appointment by the Mayor of Heather Black to complete a three-year term expiring December 31st, 2027 on the Human Relations Commission. Item M5, a resolution authorizing the issue of a revocable permit REV 26-24 to the YMCA of Pueblo for the use of the outer lanes of Spalding Avenue both directions between the north entrance of the YMCA and Pueblo Boulevard, both directions between Spalding Avenue and its northeastern terminus for the 5K run slash walk corporate cup event. Item M6, a resolution approving compensation with respect to a legal service agreement with Fairfield and Woods PC. Item M7, a resolution accepting the letter of agreement regarding procedures outlined between the Pueblo Airport Traffic Control Tower, ARFF, and the City of Pueblo Department of Aviation. N ordinances, first presentation. N1, an ordinance approving and accepting a Colorado resource for emergency and trauma education grant establishing project number PS2609 for emergency and trauma education grant and budgeting appropriating grants in the amount of $22,500. N2, an ordinance approving CONTRIBUTION AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF PUEBLO, A COLORADO MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, AND THE MARTINEZ PROPERTY HOLDINGS, INC., AND NEW MEXICO CORPORATION, AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE SAME. ITEM N3, AN ORDINANCE APPROVING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE PUEBLO, A COLORADO MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, AND PUEBLO MUNICIPAL RAIL CORPORATION, AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE SAME. N4, an ordinance assessing the cost of demolition and removal of dangerous buildings upon land located at 125 East 7th Street. N5, an ordinance approving and enacting a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Pueblo, and the International Association of Firefighters, local number three, commencing January 1st, 2027, and authorizing the mayor to execute same. N6, an ordinance approving a lease agreement between Pueblo, a Colorado municipal corporation, and Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, a Virginia non-stock corporation, relating to a portion of the building at 317 North Main Street, waiving and releasing certain common area maintenance and operating expense charges, and authorizing the mayor to execute same. N7, an ordinance approving a T-Hanger lease agreement between the City of Pueblo, a Colorado Municipal Corporation, and Anwar Saeed Allen for Hanger Unit E at 31501 Bryan Circle, Pueblo, Colorado. N8, an ordinance approving a T-Hanger lease agreement between the City of Pueblo, a Colorado Municipal Corporation, and Nathan C. Hawkins for Hanger Unit C at 31501 Bryan Circle, Pueblo, Colorado. N9, an Ordinance Approving and Accepting Airport Improvement Program, AIP, non-competitive discretionary supplement grant agreement number 3-08-0046-056-2026 from the United States of America acting through the Federal Aviation Administration for funds in the amount of $75,881 to reimburse the city up to 95% of the total cost TO ACQUIRE 15 VEHICLE MOVEMENT AREA TRANSPONDERS UNITS FOR AIRPORT VEHICLES AND AUTHORIZE THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE SAME. ESTABLISHING PROJECT NUMBER AP2605PUBVMAT UNITS Budgeting appropriating $79,875,000 to said project and transferring matching funds in the amount of $3,994 from project number CIAN18 Grant Matches Airport. N10, an ordinance amending the fiscal year of 2026 staffing ordinance by abolishing one vacant full-time wastewater compliance officer position. and adding one full-time permit compliance specialist and adding one full-time pretreatment compliant technician position to the authorized staffing of the Wastewater Department. N11, an ordinance establishing project CI2619ARFF truck improvement accepting budgeting and appropriating funds from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, CDPHE, PFAS take back program into CI2619, budgeting, appropriating, and transferring funds from the Airport Improvement Trust Fund to CI2619 and transferring funds from the project CIAN13 vehicle and equipment and CI2606 fire apparatus equipment into said project for the purpose of removing and replacing AFFF with a non-PFAS foam. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Is there an approval of the consent agenda?

I move to approve all resolutions set forth in this consent agenda, pass the ordinances of the consent agenda, setting public hearings for September 14th, 2026, and order the ordinance to be published by title.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Councillor Latino, any questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes 7-0. Mr. Clerk, we now move to the regular agenda.

Item M-8. Item M-8, a resolution concerning the assessment of costs for the demolition and abatement of dangerous structures upon the property located at 125 East 7th Street within the City of Pueblo and setting a date for council hearing thereon. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Mr. President, members of council, good evening. The resolution before you sets a hearing for a public hearing to consider the assessment of costs associated with the demolition of the property there at 125 East 7th Street. This is the property that's more commonly known as the Albany Building. But this is simply a resolution that sets that hearing date. There is an accompanying ordinance that is on for first reading that actually passed in the consent agenda tonight. that would actually assess those costs. So that ordinance will be heard for second reading, and there will be a public hearing at the next council meeting if this resolution passes. So that concludes my report. I'll take any questions you have.

Thank you for that report. Councillor Dante, you pulled this?

Yes, I did. So I was reading the background paper, and under financial implications, it says that there's no financial impact on the city. But then when you go down to stakeholder process, there's $750,922.08. So that didn't make sense. And then if you go down to alternatives, it talks about the city will not recover the costs associated with the completed project. So... You're not going to recover these, so is it?

I'll clarify again. There are two items on the agenda tonight. One is this resolution. The resolution does one thing. It just sets the hearing only. But the accompanying ordinance is item number N4, November 4. That ordinance contains more of the information there and talks about the assessment of those costs. So it is up to council to assess the cost, but we're bringing a report of demolition, so I need a backup. If this resolution passes, you will set a hearing date. At that hearing, presumably, I will be bringing forward the report of demolition so it'll have that cost breakdown for the $750,000 worth of expenses. And then it is up to council to vote whether or not to assess in full, in part, and how to do that. So we'll be bringing that ordinance forward again for second reading at the next meeting in conjunction with the public hearing at which you'll hear the report and get a chance to ask questions.

So will we be trying to recoup these costs from the actual owner?

So that is my recommendation. So we are going to, I'm recommending that we, I will be recommending that we assess the costs against the property. The property is owned by an LLC. And so the city has already obviously completed this demolition. This project's been done for some time. But presuming again that this hearing resolution passes, we will be bringing that report of demolition that breaks down those costs for you.

So until we know, rather, we're going to recoup it, it's going to cost us $750,000, is what you're saying?

It has already cost the city $750,000. These are costs that were incurred back in 2024. Okay.

That was my question. Thank you.

Thank you.

I was remiss. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Councilor Boston, second by Councilor Gomez. Any other questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes 7-0.

Mr. Clerk, item M-9. Item M-9, a resolution establishing the Airport Policy Advisory Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. President. Earlier this year, airport staff, airport administration, and city leadership drafted three documents for the airport, rules and regs, minimum standards, and rates and fees. Through that process, we determined that we needed to, well, as per guidance, we wanted to include stakeholder engagement with the creation of those documents, so we pumped the brakes on that initially. You guys might remember seeing those a few times on council agenda. We had two very productive meetings with users and stakeholders. And through that interaction and engagement, it was determined we were going to form the airport policy advisory committee, specifically to construct and continue the draft of these three documents. So through that process, applications were received through the mayor's office. and also feedback and comments were received to get these documents into a draft position so now we can finish them off with the advisory the policy advisory committee to be able to present them to council and as you heard tonight the mayor has asked to postpone or table those continue those documents to that october meeting so between now and october once this committee is formed we will then present these to council for consideration in a finished form That concludes my report.

Thank you for that report. Is there a motion to approve? Motion approved. Councillor Gomez, is there a second? Second. Councillor Dante, you pulled this. You have a question?

Yes, I did. Okay, my question is this. During reading this, it talks about the previous council action saying it established the Pueblo Memorial Airport Advisory Committee. It was established, then it was repealed, then it was reestablished, and it kept going back and forth. So my question is, do we now have two advisory committees for the airport?

Yes, technically. One would be specifically directed to review these policies and procedures with an annual review. We're not quite sure we're going to get the feel of the committee once we get it settled, if it's a biannual or if it's just annual. But anytime something comes up, we can call these folks to the table to say, hey, this rule, this rate, or this minimum standard is just not quite working for us or it doesn't fit its unintended consequences, perhaps. So we will have that ability then to revise and redraft and bring back for council consideration. So that is the purpose of this policy advisory committee. This does not take the place or does not work against or actually in conjunction either with the existing Pueblo Advisory Committee, which is marketing and promotion of the airfield. Two separate groups.

Okay, and one more question. Yes, ma'am. With the three ordinances that we have now, is this new committee gonna be working on that at all?

The three documents that were on the agenda today and tabled until October 26th, those are the sole purpose of this policy advisory committee. But again, we have them, we have formed them, and any other policies or advisory opportunities that come up through policy and documentation, they would be a good resource to have for those as well.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Councillor Gomez?

Yeah, just for the record, Councilman Hernandez and myself, probably in the last couple of visits, we spent over seven, eight hours with the airport folks, and they've been really gracious. I spent three hours today alone. And one of the things I'm walking away with, I hate to say this, but I... There are some really reasonable people on both sides, on the tenants or the hangers on the other side. I think we'd solve a lot of this if we just fired the attorneys on both sides and make these guys sit out in a room and figure this thing out because there's some logical people on both sides. And when you get attorneys involved, forget it. So I'm just saying for what's, I think there's a compromise there. I know that there's a lot of motion right now, and you're gonna be, you're still stuck in the middle of this, but I'm just saying for me what I saw, I was glad to see on both sides some level heads, but I don't think they get a chance to talk because we have attorneys involved. That's just my opinion, so forgive me. Thank you.

Councillor Hernandez. Just a couple of questions. There's gonna be five people on this committee. I believe so, yeah. And the mayor's appointing four? Including myself. So who will be the fifth? Okay, and then you'll have the other four.

Who are the four people that you... You will see them on R9, R10 tonight.

Okay, so can you tell me a little bit about Thomas Slovotnik?

Mr. Slovotnik is a flight... a pilot trainer on our airfield. He does...

This is on the next ordinance. Resolution has also been pulled, so if you want... Oh, that would be an appropriate time for that.

Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I just jumped ahead a bit. I'm done. I'll get it on the next one.

Any other questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes six to one.

We now move to M10, Mr. Clerk. Item M10, a resolution confirming the appointment by the Mayor of Thomas Lvovoknik, Bill Evans, Vance Crocker, and Reese Hayes to serve terms on the Airport Policy Advisory Committee. Thank you, Mr. Clark. We have a staff report.

Thank you, President Anil. If this resolution before you, before this resolution, establish the Airport Policy Advisory Committee that will be providing a committee consistent of five members, four of whom are appointed by the Mayor subject to Council confirmation with the Director of Aviation serving as the fifth voting member by virtue of office. Section 2-5 of the charter requires that appointments by the mayor specify the term of the office of each individual in order to achieve the overlapping tenure. So two of the members will serve four-year terms and two of the members will serve two-year terms. And happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that report. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Councillor Hernandez, is there a second?

Second.

Second, Councillor Dante. Councillor Ruiz-Gomez, you pulled this.

Yes, thank you, Mr. President. There's just been a lot of communication from constituents at the airport, I'm sure, to all the councillors. We've heard out a lot of the issues there. And there was a specific... there were some specific conversations around these particular appointments. And so the reason I pulled this was for us to, number one, recognize that, yes, the charter does say that these appointments are, you know, their Mayor Graham has the authority to appoint. However, we do ratify that appointment. So I was just wanting to open up conversation around, you know, Thank you, Councillor Hernandez, around some of these folks, because I know that you all have done some diligence and wanted to give an opportunity to discuss these particular folks.

Councillor Gomez.

I don't think it's justice being served if we don't separate and vote on each person individually. I don't like this four-person. I think it has to be voted on individually, and I hope we can do that. I make that motion, I believe.

Make the motion.

I'm making that motion that we separate and we vote on each candidate on their own merit.

Second.

Mr. Gifford.

If council's intent is to vote on these separately, we could always bring this back next week so we could have four separate resolutions. Clerk, are you able to track four separate votes and number those as four different resolutions? They would all have to be four separate. That's my concern.

It would be easier for us to bring it back that way.

So for clarity, and I think for purposes of voting on each person individually, we could bring these back two weeks from now on the regular agenda, appointing each separate person to the Airport Policy Advisory Commission.

So your motion would be to bring back in two weeks as separate resolutions on each appointment? Correct. You good? Yep. Sarah, second? Second. Councillor Ruiz Gomez, any other questions? Councillor Hernandez?

So this is gonna surprise you a little bit, but when you do bring those back, can you please give us some information on each of the individuals?

Yeah, I'd be happy to provide that. Are they in the packet? Information. I didn't see it. They're in the packet. I read each and every.

I didn't see them at all.

Talk to you a little. It came last Thursday. Friday, actually. I could talk to you a little bit about why each of these individuals was appointed, if that would help answer some questions. Counselor Gomez.

Is that going to change the motion?

I don't know. I don't know if he wants to hear why.

We can wait. I can wait.

Before they're changed.

Looking at it. What's the easiest way, but we're going to do it individually?

Vote on it right now. Go ahead and give us the information. Share what you have. Sure.

So President Ayliff and members of council, as you know, this has kind of been a long, drawn-out process with the fees, rules and regulations, and the standards. The last Thursday and Friday in July, I held two public meetings. There wasn't anybody on city council who attended these meetings. And so you may not know about the information that was provided from the individuals that came. Each one of these individuals came and gave testimony either as part of a larger group, part of commercial, part of GA, or contacted my office as a citizen. That is why I went through each of the applications. It was based off of the information that they had provided over the two periods. and their intent to sit on this committee. This committee was actually recommended by the individuals who came to give testimony. So starting off the first, Thomas is a flight instructor who came and gave about 30 minutes of testimony about how the fees, the rules and regulations, and the minimum standards could affect his ability as a flight instructor or any other flight instructor. We took down all of his comments that he gave to Mr. Gifford and I and those have been rewritten into the red lines of the rules and regulations. Bill Evans is a community member who I believe flew F-16s and 14s, I think he's here tonight, 14s and 18s. His interest is pilot-based. Mr. Vance Crocker is a representative of the airport users, so a group of individuals that belongs to a user group. He also came and gave testimony on behalf of the users, so I thought that he would be a good individual to sit on this committee because he represented multiple people at the airport. And then Reese Hayes is general counsel for Freeman Jet Center, so we also wanted to have somebody who was involved in community, or I'm sorry, commercial aviation, also come and speak. He also gave several comments back to the law department on what he wanted to see as far as rules, regulations, and standards. So each of these individuals had lots of testimony, lots of comments, and have been working with the city over the last several months on all three of these ordinances that were tabled tonight.

I'm sorry.

Councillor Hernandez? Thank you very much. I think it's important, even though that sometimes we have all this information, I don't think the community has it all, and that's why sometimes I ask you to do something that we already have in our information. Because I think it's important not just that we know, but that the public know it as well. So thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Of course.

Just in reference to some of the folks that are here, I know that one of them has a strong invested interest in a business there at the airport. So I'm not sure. I have to weigh this out, and that's why I want to do it individually. I don't know enough or feel comfortable unless we're voting on each one individually. I don't see why that's a big issue. I don't think it's a lot more work to do that, but I think there's a lot of things that should not be compiled in the one vote like this. I think it has to be divided individually, again, on their own merit.

Okay, there's a motion with a second. Any other questions, Councilor Latino?

Yes, I guess I want to know why I wasn't involved in this. I'm on the board. Nobody talked to me about this.

Sure, Councilman Latino, this is a different board, so this is the new policy committee separate from the board that you sit on. This, again, is just rules, regulations, minimum standards, and the fees associated.

I would think, though, that I, sitting on the board, on the general board, that being the council representative, that I would have at least been notified and had the ability to attend

Sure, so all city council was notified of the two hearing dates, like I said, and nobody from city council showed up. So that left me to make the decisions as the appointing body of the government when it comes to the boards, and that is before you tonight, sir.

You did this all by email, did you? Is that right?

No, they were public meetings. They were recorded, and they happened in this room I set at the dais, and several different community members, members of the airport, commercial users, general aviation came and gave public testimony. I also had an email address that people could submit, and I have forwarded you every single email that has come in from the Pueblo Air Commons for any of the users or anybody that wanted to adjust any of this information. Okay.

Again, so there were members of the current airport board that were involved, or there were tenants involved as well, current tenants?

Anybody from the public, any tenant, anybody who was part of the current airport commission could have come and give comments on those two days.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, no other questions? Councilor Gomez.

Just again, that's another indication. If you have a airport member and he doesn't even know about this, I want to make sure that the rest of the constituencies feel comfortable. I don't. I don't see what the big deal is voting on each one of these gentlemen. It's not going to take that much more work, but there's a lot of things I don't know about two of these gentlemen and two I know a little bit more about. So it's not fair on both ways. So I don't feel comfortable. I think we need to separate these and vote on them individually. And that's the motion I've made.

And that's the motion we're going to vote on, Councilor.

I just want to add that I did give a presentation to City Council in which I put up on the screen, actually, the two different dates that City Council could come. So every single City Council member was here, and you were made aware several times at these. meetings were taking place. So to say that nobody on city council knew or was advised, you were on multiple occasions.

I'm talking for myself. I'm not talking for the council. I don't feel comfortable voting. I don't know what the problem is. Why can't you accept that?

Councillor, you have a motion. We're good. We have a motion to postpone and bring back as four separate resolutions with a second. Let's call for the vote. Passes six to one. Mr. Clerk, we now move to the regular agenda, resolutions, item Q1.

Item Q1, a resolution authorizing payment from the council contingency account in the 2026 general fund budget to Pueblo Chamber of Commerce in the amount of $2,500 to sponsor the Pueblo Chili Balloon Fest taking place at Langone Soccer Fields in the historic downtown Pueblo on Union Avenue on Friday, September 18th from 3 p.m. to 12 a.m. Saturday, September 19th. from 10 a.m. to 12 a.m., and Sunday, September 20, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Yes, thank you President Aliff, Council, and Mayor Graham. This is a request from Councilor Ted Hernandez to sponsor the Pueblo Chamber of Commerce Chili and Balloon Fest. And that's taking place at Langone Soccer Fields and in historic downtown Pueblo. The request is for $2,500. During Balloon Fest, 20 plus giant hot air balloons will inflate and launch from the soccer fields and fly over the city for about one to two hours, weather permitting. Sponsorship funds will be used to cover the costs related for travel, room and board for all of the balloonists who are volunteers. Council has sponsored this event annually since 2022 for 2,500 and the estimated cost is about 30 grand. As of August 13th, they had received $20,000 in sponsorship funds, and this sponsorship tier does include a hot air balloon ride for three, if anyone's interested. And the contingency balance is $35,250, if approved. And that concludes my staff report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that report. Mr. Martinez, you signed up to speak on this?

I just want to add, that's one heck of a city employee. And thank you, Katie, for reaching back out to me on Friday. So on this one, as I read on the paperwork that was put out, it was 1,500 last year. why are they asking for $1,000 more? So we could amend this back to $1,500 and how it was stated, weather permitting, it's mother nature. So if weather does not permit, we still pay these people, the pilots to come on out. So that's paying room and board. So I would ask for you guys once again to amend this to $1,500 to match last year's so we could have a bit more money left in the council fund over here. And then amending it to 1,500 would give two rides instead of three, weather permitting. Who would those possible two people be if amended to 1,500? And if you guys don't amend it, who would those three people be because... I would not like and no offense for any elected official to do that because I would see that as kind of a conflict of interest and just to gain right up in the sky when it could go to any veteran out there that earned that right. That is not an elected official. And then also, who would, and it also includes passes to the festival. Who are getting those passes? Shouldn't be no elected official, it should be veterans. And then who would the two shirts go to? Once again, no elected officials, veterans. How much are you left always says veterans first. of that nature. And then for transparency reasons, it should be made public who is receiving all of these right here. And so, once again, I'm always up here griping at you guys to save money, and I'll talk again here later. But please amend this to $1,500 to match last year's fund because, as we know, Council funds last year was $100,000 and it went down to $85,000 this year. So I don't know why several nonprofits are always asking for more money than last year. So please amend it to $1,500. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Councillor Boston, is there a second? Second. Second. Councillor Dante? Second. Any questions? Councilor Gomez.

So it was $2,500 last year?

I'll double check, and it might have just been a typo on my part, but I'll double check it.

We are trying to do our fiduciary responsibility, and I see all these, I don't know, a lot of asks. I'm in the... I'm trying to settle my mind with all the different things that are coming forward in council. And one's $2,500, one's $1,500, one's $1,000. I'm trying to find a fair place that we can... And then I look at the time. Is it three days? Is it four hours? Is it two hours? All these things, and then what other... any other associated fundraising that they're getting. Those are the kind of things I want to make sure I'm doing right. So I think I would limit this to the... $1,500 as well for now. Thank you.

Councillor Dante.

When I look at these basically grants that we're giving out through the council contingencies, I look at what type of event it is. If it's an event that's a sit-down dinner where only a certain number of people can come to, I think less money. If it's an event that the whole city can go to, I think more money. So I'm happy with the $2,500 on this one. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes 7-0.

It wouldn't make any difference.

It is. Mr. Clerk, item Q2.

Item Q2, resolution authorizing payment from the council contingencies account in the 2026 general fund budget to Mountain Park Environmental Association doing business Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center in the amount of $2,500 to sponsor the Land and Legacy Benefit Dinner on Friday, September 25th, 2026 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Pueblo Union Depot. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Yes, this is a request from Councilor Ted Hernandez to sponsor the Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center's Land and Legacy Benefit Donor. That's coming up on September 25th, and that'll be at the Pueblo Union Depot at 5 p.m. The request is for $2,500. Proceeds from this event will be used to support their youth education programs, raptor rehabilitation programs, and the monumental recovery of Pueblo Mountain Park and Horseshoe Lodge. following the destruction from the Aspen Acres fire. Councils did sponsor this organization's winter solstice celebration in 2024 for 900, but this is the first for this event. The estimated cost for the event this year is 30,000, and as of August 13th, they had 19,000 in pledged sponsorships. The cost to attend is about $75, and this sponsorship tier does include eight tickets to the event and an annual membership to the center for all eight guests. And the contingency balance, if approved, is $32,750, and that concludes my staff report. Happy to answer questions.

Thank you for that report. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Councilor Boston, is there a second? Second. Councilor Ruiz-Gomez, questions? Councilor Ruiz-Gomez? No, Councilor Gomez.

What was the amount last year that was given? No, it wasn't? This is a first plan. Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Any other questions? Let's call for the vote.

Passes 7-0. Mr. Clerk, item Q3. Item Q3, a resolution authorizing payment from the Council Contingencies Account in the 2026 General Fund Budget to Parkview Foundation in the amount of $2,000 to sponsor the 45th Annual Starlight Gala Golden Legacy on Friday, September 25th, 2026 from 5.30 to 10 p.m. at the Pueblo Convention Center. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Yes, this is a request from Councillor Brett Boston to sponsor Parkview Foundation's Starlight Gala on September 25th. The request is for $2,000. Sponsorship funds or proceeds from the event will be split evenly in thirds between the Pueblo Police Department, the County Sheriff, and Parkview Foundation. Council did sponsor this event last year for $1,500, and as of August 13th, they had received $57,000 in sponsorship funds. The cost to attend is $150, and this tier does include a table for 10. The contingency balance, if approved, is $30,750, and that concludes my staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that report. Mr. Martinez, you signed up for this?

Did you guys miss me? That's a no. So, once again, I'll say it in other words. You guys are too dang liberal with the taxpayers' money. Not conservative whatsoever, and we all know the makeup of city council, so think about that next time you guys run. So I would politely ask you guys to amend this to $1,500 because I know Ms. Dante looks at everything. She has for many years, like I have, but I don't know if all of you guys looked at all of the attachments. So the difference between $1,500 and $2,000, it's an extra $500 just to have our logo on the table and on the screens. That's pretty dang expensive just to put a logo on the table, $500, and on the screen. It makes no difference to put that right there for an extra $500. And I think that's just a rip-off. And right here, even with the $1,500, it'll still give us tickets. And most people wouldn't be able to afford this. So if we have veterans or first responders, give them the tickets. And city council could pay for their own. The mayor could pay for her own if she wants to attend. So I don't think you guys would amend this because... You guys hardly ever amend anything lower and we're running out of funds. I did some calculation and with the rest of the meetings left, we're only going to be able to give away about $3,700 per meeting on average, $3,800. And we're well over that on this meeting. So we have no clue what's going to be coming up. in next month, October, and then around the holiday season when other people want $500, $600, $700. So think wisely and remember when you run again.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Councillor Gomez, is there a second?

Second.

Second by Councillor Dante. Any questions? Let's call for the vote.

I had a question.

Councillor Ruiz Gomez.

Thank you. Katie, would you mind... Just one more time, you said that this, the proceeds are gonna be split in thirds. Can you, one more time, tell us where the Parkview Foundation is going to be splitting their proceeds to?

Yes, so all of the proceeds from the event will be split in thirds evenly between the Pueblo Police Department, the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office, and Parkview Foundation. and the funds that go towards Parkview Foundation just go towards their hospital initiatives that advance patient care.

Okay, did it talk a little, talk about what the proceeds for the police department and the sheriffs are gonna be funded for in particular?

No, they just shared that they would be funding those departments. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Councilor Donte?

Yes. As I said before, normally if there's a dinner, I would cut it down to $1,500 as well. But being that this is split for three different sections or organizations, I would leave it at $2,000. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes six to one. Mr. Clerk, item Q4.

Item Q4, resolution declaring the intent of the City of Pueblo, Colorado to issue revenue bonds in the connection with financing residential facilities for low- and middle-income families of persons.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report. Yes, thank you, President Aleph. Private Activity Bonds, or PABs, are a tax-exempt financing tool used to support qualifying private projects that serve a public purpose, including affordable housing. PABs are not actual dollars, rather they provide access to tax-exempt financing for eligible private entities, which results in a reduced interest rate. The City receives an annual allocation, but is strictly prohibited from using the bonds for its own purposes. For 2026, the city of Pueblo received a PAB or private activity bond allocation of $7,675,759. Each year by September 15th, the city must allocate the bonds, carry forward the bonds, or reassign the bonds. This resolution would carry forward that allocation for the Tava Square Apartments, which is a 105-unit affordable housing development proposed by Rocky Mountain Communities, a nonprofit developer. Pueblo County is also expected to carry forward approximately $3.9 million, which is their full 2026 allocation, at the Board of County Commissioners meeting this upcoming Thursday, August 27th. In 2025, the city carried forward approximately $7.3 million for this same project, and the county carried forward as well their entire application, which was $3.7 million approximately. Combined with the 2025 and 2026 allocations, the Tava Square Apartments is looking at a total of $22.6 million in private activity bond capacity. Currently, Rocky Mountain Communities has an executed purchase agreement with NeighborWorks of Southern Colorado. Sorry, give me just one second. for the property located within the pikes peak park development on the public west side this demonstrates both site control and the readiness for the proposed development staff anticipated from the outset of this project that it would require two full years of private activity bond carry forward from both the city and the county in order to make the financing structure work as such this is expected to be the final pair carry forward for the tapa square apartments and we do not expect an additional carry forward in 2027. Once the 2026 allocations are carried forward, this would be the full project financial stack as far as the bonds are considered. This carry forward continues to demonstrate the city's continued commitment to supporting affordable housing within the Pueblo community. Bonds are an important and very unique development tool available to municipalities, and because affordable housing developments often require significant bond capital, it is very common for multiple year private activity bond allocations. If this resolution is not approved and the city does not otherwise preserve our use for the 2026 bonds by September 15th, the unused allocation would automatically go back and be reverted to the Department of Local Affairs for use potentially outside of the city of Pueblo. This concludes my staff report.

Thank you for that report. Is there a motion to approve? Councilor Gomez, is there a second? Second. Councilor Latino, any questions? Councilor Dante?

I'm seeing that there's $7 million here that you're going to use for low and middle income. Do you have any idea what you're going to do?

Yes, so these bonds will be reserved to create the 105-unit Tava Square apartments. They will be deed restricted at or below 60% of their median income, which is required by the bonds.

Okay, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Councilor Gomez.

Yeah, I don't want to fake anybody here saying I don't understand all the revenue bond stuff that you're talking about, because I don't. and I don't think a lot of people in the audience, unless you're in this field, I don't feel comfortable. You said 105, now the revenue bond, explain that just a little bit more so the rest of us can get it, or the rest, I can get it.

So bonds are not dollars. The federal government allows municipalities of a certain size, you have to be a minimum size, they allow us bond capital, or bond cap is what it's called, to then allocate to different eligible projects. All that a bond really is is the capital market, so a bank, will allow you to have or give you a lower interest rate in exchange for a tax credit that they are getting. And so depending on the interest rate, this results in the $7.6 million for 2026 will result in a roughly $100,000 annual reduction in debt service for this project.

Okay, clear as mud.

Thank you. Councillor Ruiz Gomez.

Thank you. So does this mean we will be financing the project?

No.

No. No, we literally just give the authority for them to go find their own private financing, and that bank would then apply for the tax credit from the federal government. We are just the pass-through entity. So these are not dollars, and I understand this is very confusing. It takes a lot of time to really dive in and understand this. So they are not dollars. There's no dollars associated here. We are just given the authority to hand over that federal tax credit to someone else. We cannot utilize it ourselves. That's in the private activity bond. It has to be done by a private entity. So about 85% of them nationwide are used for building affordable housing, affordable housing creation. It's not the only use. There are other uses, but it's the most common and the easiest use of private activity bonds.

How much would you say, when these 150 units are developed, what would be ballpark rent in that neighborhood that the folks would be able to access these units for?

Yeah, so it depends on your household size and which one of those brackets you fall under, if you're 40, 50, 60% of the area median income. And so it really just depends, again, on your household size, but we are talking about rents that some of them will be deeply subsidized at roughly $500 per month, and then some that will be much less subsidized that may go up to $1,400 per month. And so you have a variety of rents in a project They call it the unit mix, and that unit mix is very important. You want to have some that have deep subsidies. You want to have some that don't have as deep of subsidies so that they can generate the revenue to go and pay the debt service on this bond.

And can you explain the debt service? Like, does that mean that the developer is responsible or does that come back to us and they cover that?

No, nothing comes back to us. And to be clear, nobody is approving this bond tonight. This is simply to roll over and carry forward before the statutory September 15th deadline. Once we get a contract in place, we will come back with a developer agreement, and that will have all of the specifics. So some of this is not even clearly identified yet because the project has not yet applied for low-income housing tax credits and the other components of their financial stack that will be required.

Can you tell me the name of the development again that you're working with, Neighborhood Works?

So we are working with Rocky Mountain Communities. Rocky Mountain Communities has an option agreement to purchase the Tava Square Apartments, which is part of the total development that NeighborWorks has done, which is Pikes Peak Park. So it is not the entire Pikes Peak Park. It is just one project within Pikes Peak Park.

When do you anticipate this coming up on a vote for the use?

So they are anticipating to apply for low-income housing tax credits in the April round for the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, or CHAFA. We would come to you at some point after they were awarded. It would likely be later next year. We anticipate that an award would probably happen in mid-summer, and then we would work with all of the attorneys involved to come up with a good acceptable developer agreement, and then that would come to council likely late 2027. It's possible it could be early 2028, just depending.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes 7-0.

Mr. Clerk, Item Q5. Item Q5, a resolution establishing a schedule of fees for the impoundment and storage of abandoned shopping carts pursuant to Section 7-3-67 of the Pueblo Municipal Code.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Yes, Mr. President, members of council, good evening. The resolution before you is a re-presentation of the resolution that was presented on August 10th related to the setting of fees for the impoundment and management of shopping carts that are collected and impounded by the city. You may recall that this was tabled or postponed until tonight, but there has been no specific question or information request that's come from Council in the past two weeks, so we're presenting obviously the resolution in its current form as it was presented on August 10th. I think it's important for Council to recall that this is a A fee schedule that is required by the code, the ordinance that was adopted back in 2024, contemplates setting this fee schedule separately by a separate resolution. So that's why this is being brought forward. So that concludes my staff report, and I'll take any questions you have at this time.

Thank you for that report. Mr. Martinez, you signed up to speak on this?

So I remember this was on the agenda back in 2024. I was against it then, still against it now, because this will hurt any business that wants to move here. Talk about economic development. How are we going to get another grocery store here if we want to implement this? If some idiot takes their cart, we have to find the idiot that takes the cart and not the business. makes absolutely no sense. Yes, it puts a lot of work on Mr. Hayes, his people, fire, PD, whoever is picking them up, but what other cities are doing this? And when all of this was on the agenda, I reached out to some council members out in Kenyon City. They have something similar to this, but they do not fine the stores whatsoever. So, if you guys want to kick the can down the road for another three weeks, because it'll be the 14th of September that you guys meet, and talk to the elected body out in Canyon City, because this absolutely makes zero sense. Let's find a business that pays a lot of taxes to be here when some knucklehead or knuckleheads steal their carts. That's like saying if you get something, if somebody owns a gun and the gun gets stolen, that person's gonna get fined for having their gun stolen when it was locked up. No. If you have an alley in your backyard and some idiots dump a couch and other stuff, city's probably gonna fine you. That makes no sense when it wasn't you that did it. You might have to pay to haul it off since you wanna get in your garage if the garage is in the back. We have to hold knuckleheads responsible for their actions and not a business. And it was spoken about earlier by Mr. Gomez, whoever he spoke to, I have no clue, don't wanna know, that's a private conversation. But how many other people have reached out to King Soopers, Walmart, Target? And when a card is found, how are we gonna know which Walmart it came from? How are we going to know which Dollar General it came from? It's not identified by the store number. Maybe we could tell the stores to put some type of sticker on the bottom or on the side saying this is store 2500, whatever the store number is. That's how you identify them specifically. And there's other mom and pop places that have carts from other places that have shuttered their business. So are you going to find that mom and pop shop if you find out that they have a Circuit City one or a Kmart or Big Lots or whatever that's shuttered? Ridiculous. So either vote this down, postpone it until next time, and speak to the elected body out in Canyon City. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve? Motion approved. Councillor Gomez, is there a second? Second. Second by Councillor Dante. Any questions? Councillor Gomez.

You're forgetting about the stuff that's in the cart when it leaves the store. If it's packed and they can't stop it, what happens to all that material? What happens to all that? What I'm having a problem with is that the stores, the vendors, and I feel for it. I don't want to lose a vendor. But when they say, hey, any of your employees, stop them. We're going to fire them. Where do you think the costs are going to go to? Everybody's complaining about high costs. How do you think this is going to end up? There's got to be some responsibility on the vendors. And maybe if we could get a little bit more intervention, we don't have the police to do it right now. I wouldn't think that's a priority. call to the police department. I just don't. How else do you solve this thing? You've got to make the corporate people take some onus in this thing and just say, well, it's a cart. No, it's not just a cart. A lot of these carts are leaving with a lot of groceries in it. That's what I'm concerned about. Are we doing anything to stop this? Because if not, every one of us taxpayers are taking a hit on this in every single store, in every single item, in every single cart that he put it in. That's all I'm saying. I think we've got to start getting a little bit tough all over the board, not just there.

Thanks. Any other questions? Councilor Dante.

Good evening, Andrew. I'm looking at a larger picture here. We've got carts. We've got food theft. We have the cart management system. I look at carts like if somebody went in the store and took a Twinkie and took it and ate it and threw the trash on the ground. If it was a Kirkland cupcake, you wouldn't know what store it came from. But you wouldn't go back to them and say, hey, you need to pay for this being out here. But yet the cart management system, that's a whole different thing because it's not somebody else stealing their stuff. It's something that they're putting into a system that will prevent the theft. And my suggestion, it's just a suggestion, would be to look at the cart management system and look at how many stores do not have it and find them according to who doesn't have the management system, not on how many carts are out there. And it would be just a flat fee. It would not be a fee for one or two or five. It would be one flat fee, which would make it a lot easier, too. It's just an idea.

Thank you.

Councilor Latino? Yes, I agree with Councilwoman Dante. What they're doing, and again, I find a lot of them in my district. The homeless are using a lot of them. And they just say, the vendor just says, okay, well, we'll make it up with the cost of the item from the good people that come in and buy the goods and pay for them. So they make up the loss through the good vendors that come, excuse me, through the good customers that come in, pay their bills, and walk out. The prices just go up. So again, I agree with Councilwoman Dante.

Councilor Boston.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Hayes, can you tell me exactly what it would cost for recuperation of carts for the business?

You're talking about what it costs the city to recover and return carts? Yeah. Or how much it costs for a shopping cart?

How much it would cost the business to recoup them from the city. Oh.

Well, it depends. So there's three components to the fee schedule as proposed. There's just an initial impoundment fee that's $35 per cart. That's, again, supposed to help offset the cost for city staff and equipment used to go collect those. There's a $2 per day impoundment or storage fee that's on there. And then there's, I believe, it's a $15 per cart disposal fee if it's held more than the 30 days. So that fee collectively would be capped at $95 per cart because the $2 per day fee would stop accruing at the end of that 30-day period. But it gives stores enough time to also be able to come back and collect their carts. So it depends. A, there's an initial fee when it gets picked up, but if they're prompt in picking them up, those fees can be kept to a minimum, $35, $37 for the next day, that kind of thing. So it varies, but the fees could be relatively low for vendors who are interested in seeing their cards returned to them.

And is there any way to get the fees waived by the businesses?

So currently, in the underlying ordinance, this isn't in the resolution, but in the underlying ordinance, there is a grace period that is set up that will expire at the end of this year. But that grace period allows those retailers to be able to present a shopping cart management plan, such that they just need to address how are they – trying to keep shopping carts from leaving their property. They're doing something actively to do so. Many places just don't even have any kind of system at all. But that shopping cart system management plan does not make any minimum specific requirements that it doesn't have to be some fancy electronic locking system. It doesn't have to be some high tech thing that keeps the carts from leaving the premises, the perimeter, right? I think those systems might work, but they can also be very expensive and it might only be economically viable for a retailer with a large number of carts. But, you know, it could be something as simple as locking up the carts and preventing them from leaving the property when they're not in use or actively employing staff to go collect the carts before they're taken off the property. So there's a number of ways that that could be addressed. Currently, that provision expires on December 31st. So that's not subject of this resolution, but it could be something that council could consider if that was directed to extend that grace period. That's something we could bring forward if council wanted to see that.

So council could potentially, if we see them actively trying to put, you know, the locking mechanisms or lock them up at night or have somebody running up more often, maybe the fees could potentially even be waived if we gave direction to do so.

That's correct. We could bring forward an ordinance to amend the current code, amend the ordinance that's in place to shape this the way you'd like to see it come forward. Just the way that it's considered right now, it is simply a fee schedule needs to be implemented. So that's what this particular resolution is about.

And what is the approximate ballpark cost of a cart?

I'm sure they vary, but we've seen anywhere from $400 to $600 a cart, and so there's a significant amount of money that leaves the retailers when they lose a cart, too. So in many ways, it's in their interest to also employ some kind of shopping cart management strategies of some kind.

So them getting carts stolen and not getting carts back would probably be more expensive to buy new ones than try to retrieve their carts. So those more expensive costs might be passed on.

That's probably true. I understand that some retailers do file claims with insurance and those sorts of things, particularly those that may lose lots of carts. But again, those are... losses that they pay premiums for, and those premiums are passed through to consumers as well. So either way, I think consumers are taking a hit, whether there are city-imposed processes here, or if retailers just aren't doing anything to try to stop the carts from leaving in the first place.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I'd like to get a little clarity.

Councilor Gomez.

A little clarity on something. If it's a $95 hit, and I own a grocery store. From point A to point B to the $95, how many days are we talking to it, including the $2 fee, whatever? How many days is that? That's the 30 days.

That's 30 days. Correct. So you get a $95 hit for 30 days? If it was collected $35, then $2 per day for the storage fee. And if it's held all the way through that 30 days, then another $15 for us to dispose of it. If they come to pick it up, the fees would obviously stop accruing the day they came to get it. So it could be less than that significantly. $35 would be the initial fee, though, for us to collect and use staff and equipment again to collect those carts and bring them to the storage area.

Do you have an average in reference to how many carts are stolen in fair weather, hot weather, cold weather? It's got to vary somewhat. I can imagine in the middle of winter there ain't going to be doing a lot of that, but do you have any numbers like that you've broken out? I have not, not explicitly.

This is a good point, too. The fee schedule is set by resolution, and if the fee schedule turns out that This is not meant to be a penalty. It's meant to offset the costs that the city's incurring for managing this program and taking care of these issues. If we find that it's costing less than the fees coming in to manage the shopping carts we're collecting, we can bring an amendment forward to also reduce the fee schedule back to offset these costs. But it's meant to, again, offset costs. not as a penalty. It has, I think, a secondary effect of nudging retailers in the right way to achieve a benefit of not having these carts leave the property, but it's not its intent. It's simply meant to help pay for the services that are being provided by city staff.

I'm just struggling with this because I don't know how to make the corporate folks be a little bit more responsible and take this seriously. And I don't know what your numbers are. I mean, I don't know 14 carts in one location. The carts that they have to use now, they've gone from that metal, which are about 600, to the hybrid cart that's plastic on top and the metal on the bottom. Those are about 350. Okay. So I'm just wondering, is there an answer to this, or are we just saying? The other thing is that a homeless person I spoke with said, and I don't know, I haven't tried it yet. I'm not homeless yet, but I'm getting there. I'm just wondering, they said to me, if you take the car, one guy gets on one end, the other guy gets on the other, and they lift it up, the ones that stop when you're outside, you can't go any further, they can trigger that by taking it and moving it and then problem solved. Have you heard of that?

I am sure there are some systems that people can work around, right? We have a lot of mechanics in Pueblo.

Well, I'm just trying to say how do we solve it? This is a tough one. But okay, that's all I had.

Thank you. One piece to your point here, or one case in point. You asked, I guess, how many carts do we pick up? And it varies wildly. Sometimes it's just one in the middle of the street or on the side of the road or in an alley. But frequently, particularly in areas where encampments have been an issue, along Fountain Creek, for instance, we will find sometimes hundreds. And so the cost of us, I guess, collecting this and the equipment needed to get back there and go collect them and strap them down and make multiple trips, it can vary wildly. And so just loading up one shopping cart in the back of a pickup truck is one thing. But sometimes, again, we're talking about hundreds of carts that are stacked up out there. It can vary from case to case.

But the city's not collecting. They're paying a service for somebody.

No, no. The city's doing it? 100%. What we're talking about here is if the city collects shopping carts that are... If we get a call from a citizen, hey, there's a shopping cart in my alley, do they need to dispose of it? It's not theirs, right? So we would be collecting it under this ordinance and impounding it and starting to collect fees on that based on the schedules here. If it's one cart, it's relatively straightforward. if it's lots and lots of carts down by Fountain Creek or in other areas of town where encampments have been an issue again, that's a lot of equipment and man hours and time spent getting those things collected and hauled to the storage place and then processing that.

Do we have any other communities that you've looked at similar size, similar budget that have dealing with this and they've seen a reduction in it doing the way we're gonna try to do it? Do we know that yet?

I don't, I can't speak to the effectiveness of those programs. I feel like this fee schedule, again, it has two effects. One, of course, is, again, the offset that costs like I talked about. The other is, again, it incentivizes store owners to help spend some of that money that they might incur in these fees on the development of plans and shopping cart management systems or other things to keep those carts. So it's hard to say what the effectiveness will be until it's implemented and in. There are a number of cities that have various types of measures. Big cities, smaller cities. Elvis just mentioned, for instance, Canyon City has an ordinance. So there's a number of ways to do this, but many have fees. Many have fees that are much, much higher than what's been proposed. That $35 impoundment fee is kind of in the middle of what I've seen out there, and they vary from $25 to $30. $80 or so, right? This $35, though, wasn't based on what I see out there. It's based on what I try to perceive as maybe an average of staff time and equipment spent to go collect and bring those carts back into storage.

Do you have a shopping cart team, sort of like the graffiti team? I mean, is that what you have? It's the same. And what would happen if they were to try to, if they had somebody that's got a cart and it's not parked somewhere, but they see somebody with it, how does that work? So we're not out wrestling carts out of people's hands, but we find abandoned carts frequently, right?

People call about abandoned carts on their property. And so those are the kinds of scenarios that primarily code enforcement and stormwater, public works, the infrastructure departments may find. So these are the kinds of cases in which we are collecting those carts typically. The ordinance has separately tools available to the police department for those who are defacing or damaging carts or taking carts off properties. Those are different. Those are different. Those are those are handled under a separate part of the ordinance. This is simply if we find abandoned shopping carts There's a process and a fee schedule to help offset the cost of managing that.

Have you had a store refused to take the cart back?

I have heard that but I will say that Even myself, when I've found carts and been able to toss them in the back of the truck, take them back to Target, Walmart, Sam's, whoever, right? Usually I just put them right back in the shopping cart stall because that's where they came from. So I've done that, but that's not practical to do when we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of carts from all over the city. This puts a little bit on us, like you said, some accountability for the stores and the retailers. It puts a little bit of skin in the game to help kind of prevent this problem from happening. So I think that's an important element of what this structure brings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And so this is, you know, for me, this is the most bizarre conversation we've ever had in the history of city council. Thank you. and I'm gonna say it and then I'll get off that horse. It is incredulous that somebody steals somebody's property and then we're going to charge them because somebody stole their property. I think sometimes the best answers are the simplest answers. Every single person that's walking down the street with a shopping cart is in possession of stolen property. Why don't we enforce our laws that if these carts cost $3,000, $5,000, $3,000 or whatever, somebody has stolen property and it's guaranteed that they didn't buy the cart. Right? And that it's not their property. Maybe we can reduce the amount of carts that are out there if we actively enforce the laws that say you cannot be in receipt of stolen property. It just does not make sense to me. It never will to go back and charge the business any kind of money because they got it stolen from them. There's no argument that anybody can make to make me think any different. I've just never heard of anything like this. But, Councilor Boston.

Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to speak to Councilman Gomez's question on the effectiveness of this. I can just speak from my personal experience. Prior to the mitigation plan resolution passing, I used to have a plethora of shopping carts near my business that were stolen or put in the ditch near my business that were stolen. And since this has been implemented, that number has dropped to next to zero. And I used to have 25, 30 a month or more. SO I DO THINK THERE IS SOME EFFECTIVENESS OF ASKING BUSINESSES TO PUT FORTH THESE PLANS, AND I'VE SEEN IT PERSONALLY. I SEE LESS OF THEM OUT THERE IN THE COMMUNITY MYSELF, BUT THAT'S JUST MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. SO I DO THINK THAT THE PLANS HAVE BEEN EFFECTIVE.

Anybody else? Councillor Hernandez.

What is the maximum amount a billion-dollar corporation would have to pay to get their carts returned?

So the maximum amount for a cart on the first cart would be $95 if they left the cart and if we collected a cart and we stored it for 30 days and we got to the end and disposed of it, $95. On their fourth or more cart, there's a $50 surcharge as well. So those are the repeat offenders, so to speak, the way the fee schedule is set. Okay. So if, again, we've got four in a rolling 30-day period, then that fourth or more cart would be subject to an additional surcharge.

Okay, so if I'm the owner of Roger Mart, and I've got a bunch of carts, to make it even more ridiculous, and I've got a dozen carts that have been stolen from me, and you come to me and say you owe me for a dozen carts, what's to keep you from saying, I gave those carts away, they don't belong to me, I gave them away?

Sure, I suppose that could be something that happens.

You're welcome, everybody.

In general, I mean, the carts are pretty well marked on who's there, right? And if somebody's giving away their property and selling it, generally most companies when they sell off vehicles, equipment, they remove their branding because they don't want their brand out there associated with litter in the streets. So I'm going to say that I can't guarantee that Target, Walmart, Sam's, whoever, Home Depot, would always remove that. And it's pretty obvious when you see a red plastic shopping cart. I don't know where that one came from, right? Even if they removed their branding, I think that would still be tough to do. But you're right. If Target came to me and said, for instance, that we gave away these carts, these are not our carts anymore, We'd just be disposing of those carts. But again, this is now a burden that the public is picking up.

Correct.

And so it's not just the retailers that are affected. It's the rest of the citizens as well that are picking up that burden. Thank you.

Okay. Councilor Latino?

Thank you. Again, Mr. Hayes and Public Works are trying to clean up the mess in this community. Okay? I can't emphasize enough. The cleanliness of this community growing up. And we're not helping people by allowing them to steal things. That's not what this is all about. Okay? So, again, when you're on the streets at night, and I'm on the streets at night, and you see them walking around with the carts from Targets or Walmart or wherever, again, we're not helping by enabling. Okay? And so I think we need to support what he has come up with in terms of a plan, and we need to support it wholeheartedly. We need to clean this community up.

Okay. Nothing else? Let's call for the vote.

I'm going to say yes.

Let's get it started.

Passes five to two. Mr. Clerk, let's go to item Q6.

Item Q6, the resolution transferring $232,369.13 from Project CI2113, City of Pueblo Wastewater Infrastructure, West 11th Street to West 21st Street. and $396,450.56 from Project CI-2113, City of Pueblo Wastewater Infrastructure Northern Avenue Sewer, with 25,000 to be transferred from Project CI-2113, El Centro Renovations, and the remainder to Project CI-2113, Neighborhood Trash Cleanup, as an expansion of the program services consistent with the U.S. Treasury SLFRF guidance. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Hi, Council. Mayor, the resolution before you transfers from two wastewater ARPA infrastructure projects that came in under budget and had unused funds. Per the Treasury's guidance, we can transfer this excess to existing projects that were obligated prior to December 31st, 2024, within some other parameters also. This resolution transfers 25,000 for cost overruns at the El Centro renovation and the remainder is transferred to the neighborhood trash cleanup project, which is in the qualified census tracts. Pending any questions, that concludes my report.

Thank you for that report. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Councillor Gomez, is there a second? Second. Councillor Dante, any questions? Councillor Dante.

So with all this money being transferred, will that close out the ARPA account?

So there are a few projects out there still that are active and open that are still awaiting completion, but this is one step closer.

Okay. And what happens if there's ARPA money left over that wasn't obligated back before December 31st of 2024?

We're going to send it back.

Okay, thank you.

Councillor Gomez. I'm sorry. Councillor Latino. I'm sorry. Let's call for the vote. Passes 7-0. Mr. Clerk, we now move to ordinances. Final presentation, item R1.

Item R1, an ordinance approving and accepting a grant funding agreement in all applicable conditions pertaining thereto from the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority, CAPTA, relating to the beat auto theft through law enforcement battle team, establishing project PS2605, budgeting and appropriating funds to project PS2605, and authorizing the mayor to execute same Introduced August 10th, 2026 by Councilor Selena Ruiz Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Thank you, sir. Good evening, President Arliff, members of council, Mayor Graham and staff. And with me tonight, I have Captain Santino Oliva. He's the captain of our Criminal Investigations Division. And in the audience behind me, I have Director Robert Force. He's from the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority. And so we're all here to answer your questions if you have any. Okay, so this ordinance approves and accepts a grant funding agreement from the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority for a statewide battle team. Under the city's existing three-year MOU, the police department has been awarded $125,059 effective July 1st of this year to support overtime costs for auto theft investigations and enforcement. This ordinance formally establishes project PS2605 and budgets and appropriates the grant funds accordingly. The approval also authorizes the Mayor to execute the agreement and associated conditions. For some background, the police department has consistently received CAPPA grant funding since 2009, so 17 years ago. The state funds are shared statewide among multiple law enforcement agencies and supported through the formal MOU that I just referenced. The battle task force uses these funds to prevent and reduce auto theft by conducting coordinated intelligence-driven operations, sharing information across jurisdictions, and improving stolen vehicle recoveries and offender arrests. Grant funds must be used in accordance with CAPLAW's fiscal year 27 award requirements under this project. For the 2025 and 2026 to 2026 grant cycle, our battle team has recovered 165 stolen vehicles at a value of almost $1.5 million and made 163 arrests. Year-to-date auto theft in Pueblo was down 11% from 2019 and 38% since last year. Two weeks ago, just for an example, they arrested a seven-time felon, and he was one of our former Safe Streets wanted persons. He was in a stolen car. They chased him on foot into a local residence. They got him into custody, and then they found an AK-47 inside the vehicle. that vehicle or that person now is being considered by the federal government to take him and charge him with federal crimes. So that's what we're doing here. This is not a license plate reader ordinance. This is just funding for overtime to deal with auto theft. Since we've been, like I said, we've been doing since 2009. And so that concludes my report and I will accept any questions you have.

Thank you for that report. I want to remind everybody that this is a public hearing. Is there anyone here wishing to speak in favor of this ordinance? Seeing none, is there anyone here wishing to speak against this ordinance? Come on down. Will you guys let him sit there, please?

I have papers to give to city council.

If you just give them to the clerk, he'll pass them out. Please just state your name and start.

Hello, City Council. My name is Devin Flores. I know that the folks who were just presenting said that this is not a surveillance camera situation, but the fact of the matter is that this grant does include a requirement that the city continue to cooperate with larger ALPR systems. That's part of what this program includes, which is why that's what I'm going to be talking about today. I'm not necessarily saying that I like car theft. I don't. What I'm saying is that there are There have been many cases over the years, not just in Pueblo, but in hundreds of municipalities across the country, where ALPRs and that kind of surveillance is snuck into grants, into street improvement funds, and things of that nature. This is by far not the most egregious example. It's just the most recent one. So with that in mind, I have a couple of very important questions that I think that a lot of us in this room and a lot of people in Pueblo want to see answered before the city commits to continuing to work with ALPR companies and continuing to allow them to... surveil our streets. These are private corporations, not public entities. So holding them accountable for what they do with this information and how they collect it is much more difficult than holding law enforcement accountable. The most common thing that people keep saying, and we hear echoes of this whenever this conversation is brought up, people say, if you have nothing to hide, if you're not committing crimes, why are you afraid of these cameras? If you have nothing to hide, why do the police need a warrant to enter your house? If you have nothing to hide, how come the police need a warrant to tap your phones or to listen in on your conversations? These are basic rights. and allowing them to be eroded in the name of public safety is very, very dangerous and should be considered with extreme scrutiny. especially given some of the information that comes out about these ALPRs every single day in this country. It was brought up earlier by Council Member Gomez how there are several criminal cases in which not just law enforcement but employees of these companies used these cameras to stalk and spy on people that they know that is a huge breach of privacy and the the city at this time does not have guard rails in place systems in place to hold these companies accountable when something bad happens And the justification is consistently that, oh, we're using these to solve so many crimes. We're using these to recover so many stolen vehicles. I have pulled data from the FBI, from the information that the city of Pueblo provides to the FBI every single month about such crimes. And so since the ones we talked about most recently, could I get the presentation? Is that possible? we talked about vehicle thefts. So vehicle theft is by and large... I'll figure it out eventually. So vehicle theft is down, but only relative to this massive spike. Yes, it's important that we fight this massive spike, but what was going on back here that was keeping vehicle theft down? Because it wasn't these cameras. These cameras didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago. The technology for them did not exist. And furthermore, when we look at the percent of these vehicle thefts that are being solved, that number is also down and has not significantly changed in the last four or five years since the city started using these cameras. And that is a pattern that you see consistently, municipality to municipality across this country. These companies like Flock, they advertise to cities like ours to prey upon our concerns and our anxieties in order to make money. They make money off of us and they make money selling our data and training their AI robots. to scan for cars and learn different things about how normal people on the street behave. That information has value and we trust that they're going to hold to a contract even if the contract says that they have to delete this information. What's the fine for breaking the contract? Probably a lot less than the money they make by breaking the contract. So how can we trust these companies? Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak against this ordinance?

I know the drill. Elvis Martinez. So I know this is a question and answer portion, so question and then I hope the answer is no for you guys. Raise your hand if you had a car ever stolen.

I've got two.

So, back in January, a car of mine was stolen, and I talked to Mr. Olivan and several other officers, and it wasn't even found by PD. It was found by State Patrol at U Pull U Pay up in Springs. Completely gutted. And then it went to some towing guard and they asked if I wanted it back. Yeah, I want it back when it's completely gutted, no engine, no nothing, no tires. So I haven't been compensated, and I would love to know, of those arrests that was said by the deputy chief, how many of those people were actually convicted and tried and sent to prison? Because the individual that stole my vehicle, I have her on camera, God bless her. She was arrested, but Oh my God, the DA threw it out because of not enough evidence. And my vehicle wasn't stolen because I had it running or anything. I still have my keys. I still have the title. It was stolen because somebody she called had a trailer and on camera it took him about 15 minutes to hook it up to the trailer. He busted the passenger window because he was It wasn't smart to open it another way, all on camera. I have the footage. I'll send it to you guys if you want it. And then he was interviewed by the DA or somebody in the DA's office. And guess what? He walked free. Completely on camera, broad daylight. It was a bit after 2 p.m. when I wasn't home. And nothing happened to him. They know his name, but I was never informed on who this knucklehead is. So guess what, none of the ALPR cameras caught him. And I figured out his license plate before PD, when they had the video before I did. I did my own investigation detective work. And one of the officers said, good job on the license plate. So I have no clue who this individual is. I know who the neighbor is, but I haven't spoken to her. So I would love to know the stats of the arrest, whatever number that was, on how many of those ones were actually convicted. And was it the first time stealing it, second, third, 20th time? What have you? And how you guys just passed that other one, Why don't we pass an ordinance that people who get their car stolen find the person who got it stolen? Makes sense. No, it doesn't. Being sarcastic. So vote this down, and it does have the ALPR in it, in the attachments. You can't BS somebody that knows this stuff. I'm sorry to say that it was a bunch of BS up here, and I know I can't say those words, but I can say the letters. This is a bunch of malarkey. And, Mr. President, I hope after R2 we could take a 10-minute recess, because I know R3 is going to be pretty hefty with the people behind me. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. Is there anyone else wishing to speak against this ordinance? Come on down. Hello.

Hello. My name's Marissa Lopez. In this ordinance, as it's been stated before already, they have said that there's something about ALPR written in the ordinance. There is a clause in this ordinance that we have to continue using these ALPR cameras. That is why I'm speaking out against this particular ordinance. We need to have more conversations around how we're promoting these ALPRs within our community. There are way too many unanswered questions. There's information that's been shared by Mayor Graham herself who said that we don't share this data. On the Genetech website itself, it does say that we have access to certain data through the NCIS, which is the National Criminal Information Center. So I'm wondering how that works both ways. Do we reach out to them? Do we get information from them? Can they get information from us? These are connected to those centers. This data is all connected somehow. We have to answer questions. We need to table this, honestly. And we need to have an actual conversation that promotes both sides of the story. We've heard from experts on one side of the story from the public police department. I understand that they're understaffed and that was Mr. Gomez's statement earlier. I get that. I completely understand that. But we need to have these questions asked. We have a whole list of questions that have been sent to y'all. I think that it's time for the actual community to have a conversation about it, not just hear from one side. It's important. So please, I recommend tabling this so we can have those conversations before we start moving forward on these. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak against this ordinance? Sure, come on down.

My name is Susie Jade and I've been here before. The question about this bill is not that we're objecting to having the police department get the funds that they need. I mean, I'm all for subsidizing and making sure my police department has the equipment and stuff that they need. But when you sneak in stuff... in a bill, just like the big beautiful bill, you know, you sneak it in and then you fund it. And without the community having any say-so of it, uh... if you take that part out of the bill then i don't think there's any objection to this bill for the police department but when you're sneaking in technology that we don't have any control over we don't know what the upgrades will be in the future we have no protection against our data and you have no safeguards in place then i think it needs to be tabled the bill until you take that portion out i'm for uh... the police department having money i'm for them having tools and i understand that there's some benefits to having some surveillance but the data part of this situation is what we're concerned about and you guys can't promise that this is going to uh... not come to bite us in the butt. And I know that there's a case up in Boulder where they're arguing against this, and I know that in other places they're saying that it violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. So, you know, we're playing with a little bit of fire here, and... I think that you, as citizens that protect us, should at least table this bill for a re-look at and maybe a rewording, because I don't think that anybody in this audience doesn't want our police department to function. They just are worried about the data and the consequences. And then who will be responsible? Will you be responsible for my data being misused and I can sue all of you? Because that's what it amounts to. Are you going to take the burden on and say that the police department is not going to misuse, mishandle so those are the things that this whole audience are part of this audience is worried about is how are how are we going to be protected and so i appreciate your time thank you council members uh... i have listened to everything he said and i'm weighing the pros and cons but i do feel like to blatantly surveillance uh... a community uh... just because you can doesn't mean it's right doesn't mean that it it should be done and uh... and and especially when you can't secure uh... any updates i mean who's to say in five years that you're not going to be able to see into my car because they're going to get a nice little update because the company can update it you know who's to say that you're not going to track down you know there's all kinds of possibilities and and i just think that you don't have enough information and this bill that has that portion in should not pass. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak against this ordinance? Okay, seeing none, the hearing's closed. Okay, come on down.

I just wanted to say that it would be... Could you give your name, please? I'm sorry, Eleonora Bartoli. I just want to say with all the information that has come out and so many people don't know what this cameras, how these cameras work, the legality of it, what's in the contract, what's not in the contract, there's a lot to be learned. So please postpone it, like... council member Gomez was saying, and let's all learn about this topic. And even the police chief said that we need to have a discussion. So let's give it as much time as we can to understand the topic. Thank you.

Sir, come on down.

Good evening. Hello, hit that button there for your mic. This one right there? Yeah, you're good. My name is Doug McGannity. I'm a recently retired military intelligence warrant officer, 35 years in the Army, working in signals intelligence. And I'll tell you, in my experience, if information exists, it will be used and it will be abused. My job was collecting information. My job was watching other foreign governments collect information and finding out what they do with it. The people here are right. This information is dangerous. We don't know how it's going to be used in the future. We're going to see it collected and aggregated and dissected. I understand that I just found out through the conversations that people hear, while I appreciate the intent of the ordinance, if this really is in there, that we have mandated requirements to continue the use of surveillance cameras such as Flock in this community, that eventually, Like we see in the media, somebody is going to be unjustly prosecuted for something they did not do because of wrongful use of the information and the AI tools that are being used to analyze this information. It's going to happen. And we can either choose to be part of it or choose to not be part of it. And perhaps there will be safeguards in the future that say, okay, we now can find ways to not use this information incorrectly and protect the rights of the people, but it ain't there now. It's the Wild West when it comes to AI analysis, when it comes to the aggregation of data, and who we have requirements and restrictions on who is going to be able to use it and see it. Who is seeing the data of Pueblo citizens and what they're doing on a database is based on these collection. What are their qualifications to see this data? What are they assigned to make sure it stays private? So we strayed far from the initial conversation and into something that is really important here that this is dangerous data and it will be abused at some point in the future simply because it exists. So thank you for your time. I just want to say something.

Is there anybody else wishing to speak against this ordinance? Seeing none, the hearing is closed. Is there a motion to approve? Councillor Gomez, is there a second?

Second.

Councillor Dante, any questions? Councillor Ruiz-Gomez.

Mr. President, I would like to move that we postpone a vote on this until our meeting on September 14th, once we've been able to have a work session on the specifics of this particular ordinance with its use of ALPR. That work session is scheduled for September the 8th.

Okay, we have a motion to postpone till September 14th. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councillor Gomez. Any questions? Councillor Dante?

Sorry.

Let's call for the vote. Passes six to one. Mr. Clerk, we go to R2. R2.

Item R2, an ordinance authorizing the disposition by donation of certain surplus personnel property of Pueblo, a Colorado municipal corporation to the city of Chihuahua, state of Chihuahua, of the United Mexican States, introduced August 10th, 2026 by Councilor Selena Ruiz Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Yes, thank you. Good evening, President Aliff, members of council, Mayor Graham and staff. This is not an LPR ordinance. This is to donate stuff to Chihuahua PD. Do you want to clarify that? This is an ordinance authorizing the donation of surplus pouches and loose hook-and-loop fastener stock no longer needed by our police department to the Chihuahua Police Department in Mexico. The property consists of 112 fabric pouches such as handcuff pouches, magazine pouches, flashlight pouches, etc. that attach to the outer vest carriers of our officers to wear. The property also includes the elastic loops onto which our pouches are mounted. Chihuahua, Mexico is one of our sister cities, and we have made previous donations to Chihuahua PD in the past. This concludes my staff report, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you for that report. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here wishing to speak in favor of this ordinance? Seeing none, is there anyone here wishing to speak against this ordinance? Seeing none, the hearing's closed. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Councillor Gomez, is there a second? Second. Councillor Ruiz Gomez, any questions? Let's call for the vote. Passes 7-0. Mr. Clerk, item R3.

Item R3, an ordinance approving an economic development agreement between the City of Pueblo, a Colorado municipal corporation, and Pueblo Steamworks, doing business as Southern Colorado Science Center, doing business, Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America, a Colorado nonprofit corporation, and authorizing the mayor to execute the same, establishing project number ED2602, Leonardo da Vinci Museum, and budgeting and appropriating $885,000 from the unencumbered Fund balance of the 1992 to 2031 sales and use tax capital improvement project. Fund to project ED2602, Leonardo da Vinci Museum. Introduced August 10th, 2026 by Councilor Selena Ruiz Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. We have a staff report.

Yes, thank you President Nailiff, members of council, Madam Mayor. I'm going to present as a staff report. I have created a PowerPoint presentation. If I can get that up on the screen. So I wanted to go into a little bit more detail on the staff report. This is an ordinance that's going to approve an agreement between the city and the Leonardo da Vinci Museum for an economic incentive agreement. This incentive agreement is for an amount of $885,000. The money is gonna be paid pursuant to section 14485.5 of the Pueblo Municipal Code. The museum will have until February 25th, 2028 to spend the funds. Any unspent funds as of that date will be repaid to the city. The term of the agreement is for seven years. In return for that, the museum has certain obligations, and these are the obligations under the agreement. Essentially, they're gonna have to produce the STEAM exhibits and interactive learning experiences. They have committed to being open to the public year-round, seven days a week, except for these holidays. So they're gonna be open all the time for the public and the community. They're going to have to continuously maintain their partnership with the Artisans of Florence. They're going to have to provide educational programming on Fridays and on weekends. They're going to operate an onsite cafe or coffee shop. They're going to operate an on-site gift shop, and they're going to commit to aggressively marketing and advertising the museum to out-of-town visitors. And they're not only going to advertise the museum, but they're going to advertise to visit Pueblo, the Riverwalk, neighboring attractions, restaurants, events, and hotels. So we have amended the agreement so that city council can see under section of the code in which we have gone under for this agreement is under placemaking. So this agreement fits under placemaking as defined under the code. Under placemaking, it is tied to certain things that they have to do. It's tied to capital improvement. So under section 4.01 of the agreement, The DaVinci Museum would have to use the money to do capital improvements, renovations, remodeling, fixtures to the facility. So the facility is the convention center. The convention center is owned by Urban Renewal. They have a lease with Urban Renewal for the interior of that space. The outdoor area, the patio area is owned by the city. They have a lease with the city for that space. The city council approved that lease last year. And so these are what the funds are going to be used for. They have provided an estimated budget. This estimated budget was provided last week and I meant to provide this to City Council for the executive session. I looked tonight, that was not provided to City Council and I apologize for that. But this estimated budget is what they provided to me. This is how they break down the $885,000. This is estimated. And they are here tonight, so I'm sure they're happy to answer any questions about that But this is how they're they're breaking down that eight hundred and eighty five thousand dollars So as I talked about under the code, we have placemaking. Placemaking is defined under our code as a process and act of creating high quality public spaces and amenities that encourage people to want to live, work, play and learn in the city, community or region. So DaVinci clearly falls within placemaking. It is an amenity in the city that is going to encourage people want to live, work, and play, and learn within the community and region. And so it fits within that, but placemaking doesn't stand alone within our code. It is tied to our special categories, which is 14485.5. So under this special categories is how we tie placemaking into our code. And this is where we come to the acquisition of land and construction of so-called shell buildings or acquisition, remodeling and renovation of existing buildings for the purpose of or making such buildings available for placemaking. And so this is the section under which the DaVinci Museum qualifies for our half-cent sales tax. However, this is not the only criteria under which the DaVinci Museum qualifies. Under our code, the DaVinci Museum also qualifies as a regional tourism project. Under our code, a regional tourism project is defined and is defined as a primary job. So it stands alone as a primary job. As a primary job, the person or the entity that receives those funds can use those funds for whatever it wants to use those funds for, unless it is bound to use those funds by contract on certain things. And the city has, in the past, constricted the use of those funds for certain things under our contracts. But typically, they can use them for general operating, marketing, however they want to do that. So they do qualify under the Regional Tourism Act. Now, if you remember, I don't know, you folks weren't on the city council at the time, but in 2011, the city applied for state increment financing or a state increment tax revenue from the state through the regional tourism project under state statute. And in order to do that, the city had to demonstrate that it had a project that met all of this criteria. And the project had to be extraordinary and unique in nature. It had to contribute significantly to the economic development and tourism in the state and the community where it was located. It had to reasonably anticipate it to result in a substantial increase in out-of-state tourism. A significant portion of the sales tax revenue generated by the project had to be anticipated to be attributable to transactions with non-residents. of the regional tourism zone, and they had to provide reliable economic data. And so demonstrating these things. And so at that time, when we were going through this process, it was the Professional Bull Riders that was the project that the city partnered with in order to get the Regional Tourism Act incremental tax revenue. And so when, in 2024, when the professional bull riders decided to leave the city of Pueblo, the city needed a new partner. And so the city went out and sent out an RFP and we invited people to come in and apply to be our new partner and to take over that space in the convention center. The DaVinci Museum was one of the entities that applied for that. And as part of that, the city looked at all of the people that applied, and the Da Vinci Museum was determined to meet the criteria the best. And so DaVinci partnered with the city and we went to the state and we went to OEDIT and we partnered with PEDCO and with Urban Renewal and we went to OEDIT and we asked them for permission to allow us to substitute DaVinci for the Bull Riders Association. And that's important because it allowed the city to be compliant and still fulfill all of the requirements that it had under the Regional Tourism Act because we still have obligations under that act to spend that money within the Regional Tourism District. And so that allowed us to do that. So they came in and they partnered with us in February of 2025, OEDIT and the Office of Economic Development came in and said, yes, you qualify. They met all of the criteria, and so they essentially blessed that substitution, and they said, yes, DaVinci can come in and be your substitute. And so just so you know, I won't put it out there, this is the definition of primary job under our code. And it includes under subparagraph B that employment resulting from a regional tourism project qualifies as a primary job. When I was going through and I was preparing for tonight, I went back through and I looked at some of the legislative history. It's also important to note that this change, this economic development criteria, when this was added, it was added in 2012. this criteria that primary job means regional tourism act. And city council changed that in anticipation of getting the state increment tax funding. And we did that because we wanted the ability to get that tax funding and we wanted to have the flexibility to use that. And the purpose of that was not so much to tie it with jobs, but because the city council recognized that tourism was going to bring in outside money, so people coming in from outside of the community, spending their money here, so new money in the community, and it was going to increase our tax base. And so when they did that change, that ordinance specifically provided that they were making that change so that the criteria ordinance could be flexible and it could account for the realities of economic development in the 21st century. and that it could be codified so that the public could reference it and those engaged in the economic developments could reference it. And so I think it's important because we've talked a lot about the criteria ordinance and the changing of it, but back in 2012, all these same conversations were had and at the time, city council wanted the flexibility of having that and they recognized the flexibility that was needed. And the stated purpose of it was then was to codify the existing criteria and to add new provisions which granted city council additional flexibility and clarified the criteria. So that is the staff report tonight. And just in conclusion, again, the museum qualifies for the half-cent sales tax revenues under multiple provisions of the criteria ordinance, not only under the special categories, which is 14485.1 , which is the placemaking, but also under the Regional Tourism Act. But in this particular case, we have narrowly tailored it under the placemaking. We have put safeguards in place. We have put in there specifically what they can spend the money on. They have provided a budget, which you have been presented with tonight. And so you have the information available, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you for that report. Before I open the public hearing, what I'd like to ask is a question of the people in the audience. By a raise of hands, how many people are planning on speaking either for or against this? Okay, Mr. Clerk, we'll limit testimony to three minutes. I just ask that everybody has the right to speak. If you hear somebody saying the same old thing over and over again, please be cognizant of that. So I'm gonna open this hearing. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here wishing to speak in favor of this ordinance? You guys can line up on the steps there and start talking. We can only have one person at a time. Okay. So... Please state your name and...

I'm David Lytle. I'm the attorney for the Da Vinci Museum of North America. And thank you for the opportunity... I'm David Lytle. I'm the attorney for the Da Vinci Museum of North America. Thank you, Mr. President, members of council, and mayor. Ms. Sykes did a great job of going back and reviewing the history of how all this came about. A couple of things. One comment I would mention as to the impact of the RTA grant to Pueblo. It is $35.7 million. About $25 million of that have been paid to date. One of the things part of the RTA was it allowed the urban renewal to sell bonds. Those bonds were used to build the convention center and the area where the Pueblo Bull Riders University was located until 2024. In 2012 and 2013, when all of that was being negotiated, I was representing another client and I was working with Urban Renewal. And we had a conversation because my other client needed to also look at this and approve it. And I was speaking to the chairperson of Urban Renewal and said, well, you know, the agreement isn't great. and he was also an attorney, and he said, David, you have to understand, the Bull Riders is now owned by a bunch of investment people out of New York. And they said, it's either this agreement or it's no agreement. Without the bull riders, there would have been no RTA money. There would have been no convention center expansion. There wouldn't be the opportunity today to proceed and take what was an okay deal with a much better deal with Da Vinci. The bonds still have to be paid. When PBR pulled out, There was a concern at Urban Renewal and by others that, what's the Colorado Development Commission going to say? Because this was the key point. Without it, we would never have received the RTA resolution and the agreement. And so then the city did go out and put out an RFP to get another partner. The city, Urban Renewal, went to the Economic Development Commission and they agreed to let us substitute Da Vinci as this key element. Now, Da Vinci has raised close to $2 million and all of those monies have been going into refurbishing and renovating this facility, a facility which is owned by the public. So this isn't a private building. This is a public building owned by Urban Renewal. So the city gets all the benefit of this improvement and this project.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak in favor of this ordinance?

Thank you. I'm Joe Arrigo, the... founder and director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America. Just to review just a little bit that the Leonardo da Vinci Museum opened its doors on June 12th, 2026 at 310 Central Main after being accepted by the Colorado Economic Development Commission as a replacement for the Pueblo Bull Riders University. The PBR University had been an essential element for meeting the criteria of the Colorado Economic Development Commission for being a regional tourism act reward. The museum has become a destination. Since opening, we have become a destination for thousands of visitors, with nearly half of them arriving from out of Pueblo. We are attracting tourists seven days a week. Visitors from 39 states plus international guests from Canada, Mexico, Europe, and the Middle East. I personally work in the museum, and I could tell you a number of stories, but I won't for too much time. But I'll tell you one. I was there this weekend, and I'm greeting a set of grandparents from Bon Carbo. And those of us that live here know that Bon Carbo is one of the coal mining towns near Trinidad. The grandparents are coming because the grandfather has a birthday. The children and the grandchildren are coming from Denver, and they have chosen the Da Vinci Museum to meet in celebration of the grandfather's birthday, and then they were going to go have lunch together. This is the kind of thing, the stories we're hearing anecdotally from people coming from Denver, from Colorado Springs, from care centers in Colorado Springs. They're coming in groups. The attendance numbers that we had given to the council, beyond those attendance numbers, our STEAM Education Center, Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math Center has served 2,400 young visitors, numerous classes, camps, and special events. Having said all of this, I'd like to tell you why I believe this internationally recognized museum science center is important for our community. Students passing through our science center are learning unique skills, skills of critical thinking and problem solving. Our mission is to ignite curiosity, encourage exploration, and inspire innovation that will lead to unique and creative outcomes. These students will be our future leaders and entrepreneurs. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak in favor?

Good evening, Council, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Steve Narocki, former city council member for eight years, and I take full responsibility for this whole thing. Two of our elected officials from Pueblo, one a Republican and one a Democrat, who worked together across the aisle in the state legislature, Keith Schwartfurter and Angela Heron, they were the ones that were able to sponsor additional RTA projects that we could get in Southern Colorado. The first original three all went to Denver. So you could thank those folks for even making it available to come to Pueblo. But it could only come to Pueblo if we had skin in the game. And I can assure you that the city council at that time had no more extra money than what you have right now. So the only source of revenue that we had on hand was a half cent sales tax. Our city council at that time, in their wisdom, Ordinance to have sense sales tax ordinance and included tourism as being a primary job developer in 2025. $22.2 billion was generated in the state of Colorado because of tourism. If that's not something contributing to. The income of our state and primary jobs, I don't know what is. Anyhow, I take full responsibility that city council amended it to allow tourism. Certainly the Da Vinci Museum falls within that criteria. And the key thing that the Office of Economic Development and International Trade was that it was unique. That was one of the key things. I'll tell you right up front, we used the PBR and they used us. We never could have gotten that project down here if it hadn't been for the PBR. But then the PBR, in my opinion, never fell through with what they said they would make the commitment to the community. So the best thing that ever happened in my opinion is when they adios from our community. And I was sitting on Urban Renewal. We had nothing else to put in that. I went to the convention center. They had nothing that they had any ideas for. But actually, our mayor was the one that was insistent that we had a project, and it was the DaVinci Museum. That would be this mayor right here. So it's your fault, too. Thank you. And so anyhow, the precedent has been set. We were able to get 14 point some million dollars from half cent sales tax that was used to match the 37, 36 million dollars from the RTA at the state level from the Office of Economic Development, International Trade. former council member to new council members, it's in your hands. You have the legal ability to make a decision one way or another. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Graham, city council members, President Aliff. My name is Christina Trujillo, and I'm here tonight to express my support for placemaking as an eligible use of economic development funding here in Pueblo. Creating good paying jobs is incredibly important and should continue to be a priority, but economic development can take many forms. A strong local economy also depends on creating a community where people want to visit, live, spend money, open businesses, and invest. This is why I believe placemaking belongs in our economic development strategy. This year, our nation celebrated its 250th anniversary. Colorado celebrated its 150th anniversary of statehood. These once in a generation milestones gave Pablo an incredible opportunity to showcase our community, our history, and our identity. But I do not believe we should look at this as an opportunity for just one year. We should use this moment as a starting point for something much bigger. The investments we make in placemaking today can create destinations and experiences that continue bringing people to Pueblo for years to come. We already have something many communities spend years trying to create. an authentic identity. We are the Steel City. We have incredible history, diverse neighborhoods, museums, arts and culture, organizations, historical sites, local businesses, and generations of stories that make Pueblo unlike anywhere else. When people come here to experience those things, we want them to stay longer. We want them to eat at our local restaurants, shop at our businesses, stay at our hotels, visit many attractions, and come back again. This is economic activity. So as we celebrate these historic events, I think we should also ask ourselves, What do we want people to discover about Pueblo today? What will bring them back in 2027, 2030, and beyond? To me, that is what placemaking is about. It isn't simply about funding a project or celebrating a milestone. It's about investing in Pueblo, building upon our current identity, and creating economic opportunities that will continue for years to come. We don't need to create a new identity for Pueblo. What we need to is invest in the one that we already have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Mark Yeager, sorry. I lost my voice standing back there. But anyway, I own a gallery, a 5,000-foot square gallery in the heart of the Union Avenue Historic District. I represent many of Pueblo's world-class artists. And I want to tell you, just like she was just saying, the arts and culture is an economic driver, and you need to know that. A place like the Da Vinci Museum is bringing people to Pueblo, and it's bringing people, if they're here long enough, they come down to where my gallery is. I want to ask, have any of you been in my gallery? I've been there since 1989. Okay, one of you. The arts and culture is pretty hidden in this town, and it needs to be known. And the museum is going to help bring that in. It's going to bring more people from out of town, because it's a classy place. So I really urge you to vote for this. I do want to say artists are primary jobs. They manufacture and export a product. And I've been collecting that sales tax for this economic development since way before 89. I've been in the gallery business for 50 years. So I urge you to show what Pueblo's class has and learn about the culture here. If you haven't been to my gallery, go to the galleries in town. Pueblo has become a real arts community, and that's pretty unknown right now. But we've got much more than Denver, Boulder, or Colorado Springs here. In Santa Fe and Taos, we really have something here that needs to be shown. So please fund this museum. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Marlene Stiles. I'm president of the nonprofit The I Will Projects that's worked to bring STEAM education to our community for 12 years now. We very much support the DaVinci Museum and what they're doing to bring educational opportunities to our city. The bottom line is it's very difficult to keep the lights on when you have a large organization and you have a big building and a staff. I wanted to point out a couple of statistics. The American Alliance of Museums and Giving USA, which is an annual report on American philanthropy, reports that only six to ten percent of a museum's operating costs actually come from admissions. We have a lot of people coming in, but we cannot rely just on people coming to the doors to pay for those overhead operating costs. Also, there have been a lot of wonderful, generous donations from our community, but again, according to the same statistics, only 30% of donations really cover operating costs. So this leaves a 60% deficit, and that's why the museum is coming to you asking for this amount. It is really an investment in the future because it will bring tourist dollars in, it will bring new people into the community, it will support our educational system, and we have already tapped out property taxes and the sales tax. I don't think we can go anymore. So looking at the tourist dollar is another way that this will eventually pay back what we are putting into it. And I hope you do support it and vote for this. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Susie Jaden, council members and mayor. I went to the Da Vinci Museum and it was fabulous. I spent so much time there, I could have spent all day there. It was fabulous, the people there were kind, they spent time, they talked about, I went with Marlene, they spent time with us, they talked about every single item there. They demonstrated. We had fun shooting airplanes. It was just a marvelous, educational, fun place. I'm going to go again. I'm taking my son. I'm bringing him from Colorado Springs. His name is Leonard. I named him after Leonardo. So I just tell you that this place is great. I know everybody else had statistics, but I just want you to know how funny it was. I am going to go there again and again because they're going to bring in new stuff. And who wants to not see new stuff from Da Vinci? Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Jay Rosenberg. I moved to Pueblo a little over six years ago. And I can't tell you how much Pueblo has changed my life for the better. And when people come and visit me, I do this little tour of Pueblo to show them why. Because they always ask, why Pueblo? So I show them around. And I can tell you right now, five families have moved to Pueblo and bought homes because of what I've shown them and how much I've fallen in love with Pueblo. And I have four more families that are going to move here once they can sell their houses from where they're moving, from all over the United States. Personally, I've lived in multiple places, some considered the best places in the world. I lived in Switzerland, I lived in Denmark, lived in Austin, Texas, I lived in Connecticut. I've never lived in a community as wonderful as Pueblo. I travel a lot. I had 10 kids, 11 grandkids. When I travel, we go all over. I've been to Europe recently multiple times. I've been all over. I can't wait to get back to Pueblo. I have to be honest. Anyway, when the Da Vinci Museum opened up, I was excited to be able to volunteer. And the people I meet and who come in, and I meet them from all over, not just Pueblo, in fact, more and more, people from Colorado Springs who From what I understand, they not always have the best view of Pueblo. They come down, they go, Pueblo is amazing. We had no idea. They come in from Denver. They come in from Castle Rock Monument. But they come in from Texas. They're coming in from New Mexico, from Wyoming. They're coming in from other countries. They're coming from the East Coast. So before I run out of time, I just was looking through the reviews. and there's hundreds of them. Every single one, five stars. Here's just a short one by a visitor. This is the most amazing museum we've ever seen, including all the museums in Europe, New York City, and Washington, D.C., where we are from. My kids have been completely engaged for three hours. This is a destination, three exclamation points. So... Anybody who says that the Da Vinci Museum is not going to, once the word gets out, everybody who comes and visits says, not only am I coming back, I have to bring other people here and tell everybody about it. So it's an asset to Pueblo. Pueblo itself is an amazing asset. It brought me here. It's brought other people here as a result. And only good can come from it. Thank you for my time.

My name is Jeannie Walker. I work at the Da Vinci Museum. And I work primarily up front in the gift shop and where the admissions are. So I'd like to share with you. We talk to everyone who comes in as they come in. We track where they come from. And we talk to them again when they come out to see what their reactions are. And I'd like to share a few things that people say to me personally and our other coworkers. Mind blowing. incredible, inspirational. They just don't know what to say, how much they enjoyed the museum, how much they were inspired. The other thing that I hear all the time is from people who come in, not only from out of town and from all over the United States, but from people actually who live fairly near to Pueblo, they come and they say, we had no idea that all this was here. They've never walked the Riverwalk. They haven't been downtown. They come because of the museum. They come here and then all of a sudden they discover, wow, there's all of this. And they go and they walk the Riverwalk. They eat at restaurants. They shop in the shops. They stay an extra night at the hotels. They just talk about that we had a completely different impression of what Pueblo was. That impression is changing for the better. They want to come back, they want to bring their friends, they want to tell their friends, their relatives, bring their kids, and they do. We've hardly been open two months and I'm seeing in-person repeat business from people who live in Pueblo bringing their friends, their out-of-town guests, their relatives. It's just, it is a driver. It's making Pueblo a destination. Kids are learning. Kids, I was just surprised to see teenagers engaged actively without looking at their phones. How often do you see that? Phones are in the pocket. The teenagers are really excited about what they're doing. The adults. We get a lot of groups of multigenerational families, grandparents, parents, children. How many places can you go where everyone in each of those groups has something to do that interests them and inspires them? I was there when that birthday boy who happened to be 97 that Joe talked about, and his family came in. They spent hours there, and every one of them loved it. He loved it. It's just a real resource, and day by day, it's changing Pueblo. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Eleonora Bartoli, and first of all, I hope you all visited the museum and you realized how fun it is, like everybody's saying, and fun for all ages. I wanted to thank you, counsel, for making the case that this is a legal ordinance or whatever, as opposed to a lot of stuff that was said on Facebook and other places. So thank you, and thank you, the mayor, for supporting this. Anyway, it was wonderful to go there. I went on the first day. I was supposed to stay there for an hour and a half, but I stayed for three hours until closing time. I'm definitely planning to go back for the manuscripts, which is so special because I Nowhere because all the manuscripts are Leonardo are in bits and pieces all over the world and we have all the copies here So it will be really special Leonardo is has always been particularly important to me because I was born and raised in the area about ten miles from Vinci and he's always been my favorite Italian and it should be It should be the one that we have a statue to, in my opinion. So please vote yes on this and help these people that I put $1.8 million that I'm bringing all these people in to visit that are putting Pueblo on the map. And I would like to ask you, maybe if you're undecided about this vote, think about 10 years, five or 10 years from now, and if you vote yes or if you vote no. And if you vote yes, and the Da Vinci succeeds. And if you vote yes, and the Da Vinci fails. And if you vote no, and the Da Vinci succeed. And if you vote yes, and if you vote no, and the Da Vinci fails. there's only those four possibilities in the future. And if you can put yourself in the future and see what future do you want and how you want to feel about yourself and how do you want others to feel about you, please think about your yes or no and the four possibilities.

Thank you so much.

Hello. I'm Joel Carpenter. I'm one of the artists in residence at the museum. Everything's been said except this one point. I've been in Pueblo my whole life. I love Pueblo. I went to college here and I've stayed here. I get really tired of out-of-town places. comments about Pueblo. It's a ghetto, pew town. And then people come down here, they see the river walk, they go into the museum, and the comment that I get consistently in the museum is, I had no idea Pueblo had such class. That's what we need. You know, it's part of growing up as a city. We no longer depend on the CFNI, Alpha, Beta, and Rockwell to, that's all you needed. The PAD, that's all you needed. That's all anybody wanted. Well, it's a new age, and... I think we need to keep up with that, and how we do that is we bring things like the museum in that bring people in. Tourists love that place. I'm there almost every day, and people are just amazed. It's a world-class museum. You could find it in New York, London, Paris. It would fit right in. And, you know, this is Pueblo. This is great for Pueblo. You know, and I understand that, you know, Pueblo has many needs. And, you know, I'm a social democrat, so I'm always leaning towards, you know, spending money on social programs. But this... is something that can go along with that. We need to do both things at once. We need to care for people and society, and we need to present culture like this museum. So anyway, that's all.

Thank you.

Hello, good evening. My name is Jean Arrigo, and I do work at the museum. I'm the director of operations there. I've been there for about a year now. As has been mentioned, our museum's mission is to ignite curiosity, encourage exploration, and inspire innovation that will lead to unique and creative outcomes. The students that come into our museum of any age, and right now I can tell you, you're hearing, we've got 98 year olds and we have six month olds. These are our future leaders and these are our entrepreneurs. We have created a space very intentionally that is a safe space for anyone of any color, of any creed, and speaks any language that they may come into this space and feel welcomed and want to learn. This is a safe space so that the youth may become discover what they want to become, whether it is an artist or an engineer or a fashionista or a physician or an architect, or perhaps something entirely new. Their future may begin with a single moment of wonder, and all of us have experienced that. One moment in your life that will change your future. That is what this museum is intended to be. Our museum and science center exist to create moments of wonder. Museums preserve the stories of humanities, the greatest achievements. They protect the fragile thread that connects us from the past while inspiring the innovation that shapes our future. A museum is a classroom without walls. A museum is a university without tuition. A museum is a sanctuary where curiosity is welcomed regardless of the age or background. The Leonardo da Vinci Museum has shown its ability already in a very, very short period of time. It's shown its ability to impact our Pueblo community that providing added tourism and river walk activity with businesses increasing for our surrounding neighbors. Yes, we need your help. We've done what we can and we really want to move quickly. There's a lot of impatience. We all want instant gratification and we are working very hard to try to create the best space that is safe and we already are needing to expand because we have so many students. We would be grateful for your support in this phase of our development. Thank you for your time.

Well, good evening. I'm Barbara Vidmar. The last time you saw me was February 23rd, and I'm sure you're pretty surprised that I'm here in favor of the museum. To refresh everybody's memory, on February 23rd, you all voted to amend the appropriate criteria, standards, rules, and regulations for the appropriation and expenditure of the monies in the Half-Cent Sales Tax Fund. I'm here to tell you that the DaVinci Museum fits well into this amended criteria. I know there's been a lot of chatter on social media. However, you are the seven people, the ones elected to make important decisions on our behalf. And you are in a position to know the relevant facts as opposed to just social chatter. And I hope you will vote accordingly. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Betty Jo Aragon, BJ. I've worked for the city for many years. But before I came to the city, I worked for the art center. And I remember back when it was being built and being additions added on all that, if it wasn't for the contributions and the support of city council for the city of Pueblo and the county, the art center wouldn't be what it is today. Over the years, the Arts Center used the money that was given to them to grow and become what it is today. That is what the DaVinci Museum is trying to do. It's offering the citizens the same thing that the Arts Center is offering, but in a bigger area. When I worked at the Art Center, many people would say, God, I wish you had a cafe. I wish there was a place we could sit down and have a drink or a cup of coffee, or if they had their kids there, I could buy them a snack. Well, that's what this museum is asking for, is to be able to offer that amenity that is needed to keep the business downtown and them not going back home hungry or thirsty. I honestly believe that the city would not be in odds on this topic if it wasn't for what the city and Petco are experiencing together right now. In the past, Petco supported the art center. But because of the smear campaign that has disappointed the people who are doing this smear campaign, they're doing it for revenge and not for the betterment of the citizens of Pueblo. I'm asking you to please vote to give the museum this money because it will bring more visitors to Pueblo, put a place on the map that even Denver would be envious of us. I have people who have come from Denver and said, wow, you guys have really changed since the last time I was here. Let us grow. It's time for the good old boy clubs, the old regime to move over and make room for the new generation. You guys are it. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Jeffrey Moore. I am the exhibits coordinator at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America. I like to add that it should always be added, North America. It's in the title. We are an international museum. To reiterate a few of those stories, it is true. Every day I talk to people from all over the state, people who came here only to go to the museum. At that point, they asked for where to go get coffee, where should we have lunch. They want to stay. One story from that is I met a man and woman who came up from Santa Fe, and they stopped here at the museum, the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America, just to visit. The man said, we live 45 minutes away in Colorado Springs. We are going to spend the night right here instead of driving home. A quick story, I'm like everyone, or not everyone, but at my age, we left Pueblo, we explored life, we went after a dream, and a lot of us came back to Pueblo, being our family, which I am very happy to have come back and be near my family. If I had been told at any time in my life that I was working for an international museum in Pueblo, Colorado, There's no way I would ever believe that. I am here to say that the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America is one of the greatest things we have in North America, and it is right here under our nose. Thank you.

Good evening, City Council. I don't work for the museum, unlike a lot of these folks do, but I'm here to strongly support what they're doing. Could you state your name, please? Yes, I'm sorry. Bernie Zirker. It has been said that this is a world-class museum. and i just want to add a little bit of emphasis to that there are two leonardo da vinci museums in florence italy one from the artisans of florence the main one and then another offshoot of that museum have attended both of those museums multiple times but i have to tell you that what these folks have done here in this space far, far exceeds either one of those museums. So the claim that it is a world-class museum is not at all unfounded. It is a fact. This is a beautiful, beautiful place by multiple factors. As a longtime resident, no, I wasn't born and raised here, but I've been here for 50 years now. I think that qualifies me for, not for residency, but... I didn't go to high school here, I'm sorry. But this is one of the greatest things that has happened in Pueblo in that 50 years. I have strongly supported economic development all of these years. and as a contractor have profited from those economic development efforts. But the thinking that and the way the statute has been changed to allow for tourism development as an economic development tool I think is a brilliant move. I support the Da Vinci Museum personally and I would encourage each of you to support the museum and to vote yes. Thank you.

Good evening. I know you guys are tired. My name is Trisha Burton. And unlike the last guy, I did go to high school here. And I have two boys at South playing football and one at Corwin. So I just wanted to bring that perspective here. Professionally, I spent the last 21 years working in the sciences and high purity chemical manufacturing facility right here in Pueblo. Through that experience, I've seen firsthand how exposure to science, technology, engineering, and innovation can be in shaping a young person's future. As a mother, this project is especially meaningful to me. My three boys are thriving in Pueblo City Schools, strong students, athletes, and I care deeply about creating opportunities that help young people see what's possible for the future right here. right here in the city. And that same spirit is why I believe the museum matters so much. The STEAM education opportunities this will bring to Pueblo students and families have the potential to inspire curiosity, creativity, and future career pathways in a truly meaningful way. As the first one in North America, I love that. This project also has the potential to become a meaningful tourism destination for Pueblo, as has already been mentioned many times. I'm as someone who grew up in Pueblo, built my career here, raising my family here. I deeply care about creating opportunities for the next generation and supporting projects that bring pride, innovation, long-term growth to our city. I believe we are called to invest in our communities and in our children, and this project reflects that spirit. So I just respectfully ask for a vote of yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, that closes the... You wouldn't dare.

I have to come up here because I don't know if you'll let me speak when I get over there. President Aleph and members of council, tonight you find yourself at a two-way stop. One direction leads to a new way of thinking on our community, while the other leaves us here, stagnant and status quo. We can build a community that attracts visitors, families, entrepreneurs, educators, employers, and investors. We can strengthen downtown, specifically in your district, Councilor Latino. We can create places that people want to experience with amenities and family fun experiences. And we can stop acting as though Pueblo's best option is simply to defend the status quo and keep nearly $70 million of untouched potential in the bank. That is the choice behind the item, R3, that is proposed tonight, the Economic Development Agreement for Project ED2602, the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America. It proposes an $885,000 place-making investment from the existing Half-Cent Sales Economic Development Fund for a divine public purpose that will result in a public economic development benefit. In its first 30 days open to the public, the museum welcomed more than 7,000 paying visitors, with 55% of them traveling from outside Colorado, including guests from 39 states and seven countries. The museum also hosted nine educational field trips, has four additional field trips scheduled, served more than 200 students, and preparing to launch a growing lineup of classes, workshops, camps, and school partnerships inspired by Leonardo da Vinci. The question before City Council tonight is not whether one business or activity is entitled to public funding. They are not. The question is whether this project meets the criteria Council adopted, whether it advances a genuine public purpose, and whether the agreement contains safeguards needed to protect public taxpayers. Placemaking means the process and act of creating high quality public spaces and amenities that encourages people to want, live, play, and work in our community. You approve the criteria ordinance with the change of a five to two vote on February 23rd. As a result of the approved changes, up to 15% of the uncommitted sales tax fund improvements can now fund economic catalysts, economic leakage, placemaking. The DaVinci Museum represents one of these. A primary job means employment resulting from a regional tourism project approved by the Colorado Economic Development Commission, which qualifies for state sales tax increment revenue pursuant to the Colorado Regional Tourism Act. Well, guess what? That was approved by the Economic Development Commission in February of 2025. Approving the proposed DaVinci Museum placemaking project is just one of many tiny steps in our new direction, and I ask for council to support this tonight. I see a past city councilman sitting in the office in the audience tonight, Councilman Larry Atencio. And Councilman Atencio used to always lead with saying, think bigger, Pueblo. And so tonight, I hope we can do that. Thank you. Thank you.

You want to speak in favor? Come on down.

Hello, Council. I'm Tara Trujillo. Thank you so much for your time tonight. I know that you've had a long night. This is a project I support, and I worked for the museum watching it grow from day one. Many said this museum wouldn't happen. Not only did it happen, but within two months, more than 13,000 visitors have visited the museum. And on a very lean budget, the museum has managed to consistently get positive press coverage regionally and all across the state as well as nationally. Never did I expect to see nursing homes bringing tours of seniors to the museum, many in wheelchairs, nor did I expect to see those in the disability community coming in tours. Our children who struggle with ADHD playing for hours in the back of the museum. nor did I expect to see so many groups coming in from Colorado Springs. Restaurants nearby have called staff at the museum asking what their hours are because they've had to increase their wait staff to handle the load of visitors that are coming in to their restaurants after they go to the museum. I spend half my time in Denver. I spend the other half of my time here in Pueblo. I grew up here. I am taken aback by how many people in Denver know about this museum, and I love bragging that I've been part of it. It is a huge attraction for so many people in Denver, and friends in Colorado Springs would list a few of the museums that they have that this museum is so much better. But thinking ahead, if you want to fast forward to November, there's a strong chance that Pueblo voters, along with all of the voters along the Front Range Passenger Rail District, will decide if they're going to bring the Colorado Connector, known as Coco the Train, to Pueblo. And the stops there will go all the way from Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland, all the way out to Boulder, Westminster, and Louisville, down to Denver, Colorado Springs, and then to Pueblo. And there is no doubt in my mind that although we have some seasonal attractions like the State Fair and the Chile Festival, and a handful of other museums, The DaVinci Museum is in close walking distance to Napoleon and Depot where that train station will stop. The DaVinci Museum will be one of the largest attractions bringing people from all over the state. And with this I urge you to support the DaVinci Museum. Thank you.

Is there anyone else wishing to speak in favor of this ordinance? Seeing none, is there anyone here wishing to speak against this ordinance? Come on down.

Out of order. Elvis Martinez and just a point of order, Mayor Graham did not state her name for the record. Okay, so elections have consequences, folks. And it was posted on Facebook that Mr. Aguayo, with a video said that they will not be asking for any taxpayer money whatsoever. Well, if she was on Maury Povich, lie detector proven, that's a lie. And also, I'll get into it in a minute, they have also got some grant money, yeah. So this item is the most BS item that has ever been on council agenda. They don't need our hard-earned taxpayer dollars in this to fund it. Named after someone, if he was probably born hundreds of years later, he would be in the Epstein files. Because it's out there, you could look it up.

Mr. President, point of order, please.

Back when he was born, he did have a factuation for little boys. Will the museum teach that? No, they won't. Not the truth. And all of this is not the real McCoy. It is funny that all of a sudden a link that I have That link has disappeared, but it's a good thing I posted it on Facebook and copied it because it has a list of donors. Wow. And the consultant, which is Sarah Allen Martinez. I wonder if that's the same Sarah Martinez that was on council in the past. And just to list a couple of them donors is the high-paying millionaire, Dandy Rose. He's also the president of the Board of Directors of Southern Colorado Council. and also Bill and Barb Vidmar donated, but it's unclear on how much these people donated. Quiet back there.

Mr. Martinez, you're not in charge of the meeting. So here, I just need you to finish your time and move.

My time's ticking.

Go ahead.

This has scam and con artists in all over this. Joe and company shouldn't have to pay for the cafe, the build out, the marketing, the furniture, everything that they're asking for, for the $885,000. An employee told me last week that in the first 60 days, 11,000 tickets were sold, depending on the amount THAT WERE SOLD, SAY, 55% OF THEM WERE CHILDREN AND 45% WERE ADULTS. I'M JUST ESTIMATING. THAT IS $137,500. IF THAT STAYS ON TRACK, THEY WOULD GET ABOUT $825,000 WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR JUST OF TICKET SALES. A GRANT REQUEST WAS FILLED OUT ON 2-28-26 BY SARAH AL MARTINEZ. like I stated, and that was for almost $15,000, which they were awarded.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak against this ordinance? Come on down. Hit your button.

It's not easy being the one against something, but... I'm Nikki Hart and I'm a taxpayer standing up for what voters meant this fund to support and that is jobs. Your decision tonight is bigger than one museum. It is the first major test of a fundamentally expanded interpretation for a fund Pueblo has relied upon to create jobs. Future applicants will point to this choice and ask why they shouldn't receive the same incentives and how do you say no to one if you say yes to one. The mayor asked what changed last week and the short answer is that the facts changed and they continue to change as you've seen tonight. The museum's funding representations and their visitor numbers change almost daily. The mayor herself manufactured the vacancy and she is the one that pressured Pura to evict PBR in order to give this space to the museum. That is on the record. Serious governance and fiduciary concerns emerged, and the city conveniently established a new half-cent funding pathway shortly before the museum applied for their funding. Last August, I left the project along with four others, including two board members and the organization's bookkeeper. At the time, I shared my concerns directly with the museum's board and the mayor's office through Haley Sue Robinson. I'm speaking out now because the museum's request for public funding, not because I oppose the museum itself. I supported the original version and I still do believe that esteemed focused attraction can be valuable to Pueblo and our youth. But there's some things that still remain questions. For example, there was no RFP for this project. This was done privately and people submitted at the mayor's request. It was not open to the public. Signage is not an eligible use of the funds or a project value according to the half-cent fund. And how can a competitive bid exist as fund criteria mandates when the agreement allows reimbursement back to April? Project Falcon faced significant scrutiny over their jobs, but this museum is being openly supported. This museum is not the question tonight. The funding and the jobs are. Build the jobs economy first, and you will be able to watch and see how much Pueblo can afford to build together. That will be a significant milestone for our community, and you can quote me on that, Mayor. And I do want to warn the city that should this pass tonight, and you decide to vote for this funding, I am providing warning that this will be Tabor challenged because I will uphold what these voters said and council cannot override that original jobs purpose. And I do have the RTA handout for you guys so that you can actually see what that meant.

Anyone else wishing to speak against this ordinance? Seeing none, the hearing is closed. Is there a motion to approve? Who said that? Councillor Gomez. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councillor Latino. Questions? Councillor Dante.

This is a great facility, great organization, and it's true that most everything that was said was true. But I need to look at my fiduciary responsibility. And that means if I were a bank and was loaning $885,000, what would I want? I would want bank statements. I would want tax returns. I would want the budget. Some things that I've seen that I'm worried about is memberships. I have not seen one membership, and I've asked three times. I even took my grandchildren there. I've been there twice as an adult, once as a grandmother, and they never approached me for a membership. CSAC, they haven't applied to CSAC either. Also, I've heard that there's, like was said earlier, the RTA has $17 million. Are they... Are they able to apply for that $17 million, or are they using what was left from the previous PBR? I'd also like to hear from the actual operators, which I did tonight. And I'd also like to see detailed information on their capital improvements, their renovations, their remodel. What does that look like? Who the actual owner is? I would just like to get more information, and because of that, I would like to postpone this and get an actual work session and get the information that I need to make a good decision on this. I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm not saying I'm for it. Not until I actually do all my research am I going to be able to say exactly what I'm going to do. Thank you.

Councilor Gomez.

Yeah, I guess, you know, everybody on this council is so supportive of the idea of this facility. I know I'm one. I have an art background. I did a lot of mural work, not just here, but Chicago and Florida, and I've done a lot of work in the city. But what you don't do, maybe it's my background in law enforcement, you don't lie to me. Okay, when I had two prominent speakers on behalf of the museum specifically get up there, and it's on video. We don't need any funding from the city. We can handle this ourselves. That's a problem for me. Okay? When you give me your word that you don't need and you're going to move forward and that's what you get me to bite into and then you come back later on and ask for 1.85 million, what am I supposed to do with that with my fiduciary responsibility to this taxpayer? Am I supposed to ignore that? Is that what you want? And we want to just throw our hands up in the air and say, say whatever you want. We have nine other museums that are subsidized in this city. Let's see where we are nine months from now, seven months from now, in reference to the numbers they're giving us currently. Of course they're expanded. Wait, let's see if they contract. Let's see what the actual numbers are going to, because we're going to get set up again. And that's what I feel like. I was set up. Because I really believe, I want this to work. Believe me, I really do. But the mistake you made with me, I don't know about the rest of the council, you lied to me. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? Councillor Hernandez. Carla, can you come back up, please?

Thank you. Can you pull up your budget? Okay, can you tell me what the time frame is for each of these items?

Sorry. I cannot, but someone from DaVinci probably could. I do know that some of these may have already been started, which is why in the agreement you see, because this has gone through council a couple of different times, their original application was filed back in April, which is why we put in the agreement that expenses would date back to April because this process has taken some time. So some of these things are already underway. So, I do not know specifically where they are in the process, but I'm sure somebody from DaVinci could probably answer that question.

Okay. So, the next question I had was, I don't see gift shop on this budget. The gift shop is part of the ask. That's why I'm asking the question.

So the gift shop was part of the ask. So I'm not sure where that falls in with these numbers.

So would that be something that would be back paid for in April?

That may be something that was back all the way from April, yes.

Can you tell me how much revenue DaVinci has generated in the two months and two weeks?

So with the information that was provided to City Council with the ordinance, there was some graphs and... Yeah, I didn't get any numbers.

There had numbers, but not a total number.

Let me look.

The reason I'm asking, I'm not trying to cause trouble for anybody, but I think it was when the mayor did her press conference, she referenced 7,000, and then I've heard 11,000 today, and then 13,000 as well. So I'm just trying to figure out what those actual numbers might be.

I think I can speak to my number. Thank you. So the $7,000 isn't a dollar amount. It's number of visitors. That's what I meant. That's what I meant. But I took this from their press release from several weeks ago. So the higher numbers are probably the more accurate numbers.

Okay. So do we have – do we know how much revenue that they've – Raised from those 13,000?

It looks like here in the information, it was... I'm not seeing revenue. All I'm seeing is numbers of visitors in the information that I have.

Was anyone here from DaVinci that can give us the numbers? Or give Councillor Hernandez the numbers?

I did not bring those numbers that you're asking for now with me tonight, but I can tell you why the discrepancy of numbers. The first numbers you received when we first applied were like the first 30 days. Then you began to see numbers like 11,000 in the first 60 days, and the last number was 2,000.

The 13,000?

Yes, and those were dated August the 10th. Now, out of those, like I said, I'm sorry I don't have that information with me, but we have absolute numbers from ticket sales, from gift shop sales, zip codes from where they come from, our system documents all of that, and I can provide that. So as one of the earlier people said, ticket sales are only a piece of what happens. The other things that have to happen are the gift shop, and we're trying to add the coffee cafe, and that will be a revenue source. And the impact of having all of these together will help get us closer to the goal. But...

So Joe, can you tell me what your annual expected revenue from ticket sales or from end or gift shop sales are going to be?

It's always been projections because we've only, and so on. We have projected 40,000 tickets sales per year.

Okay.

And the gift shop revenue we anticipated in our budget is at 200,000.

Okay, so what is the 40,000 ticket sales, what does that equate to in dollars?

You know, depending on memberships, and we have sold very nearly 200 memberships, and they vary from dual memberships to grandparent memberships, so on and so forth. I do not have all of that in my mind. I certainly can provide it, but it goes into our budget for the year.

Okay, thank you. The other question I had is... So with regards to OEDIT, to the RTA, they have the placement qualifications from OEDIT, correct? From RTA. If they have that designation, why have they not applied for OEDIT funds, for RTA funds?

So they could.

Right.

They would have to go back up to the state. Right. Because the city of Pueblo has roughly.

Nine million left?

I don't think it's that high. Not that high. I think it's about $4 million after all the bond payments have been made. into the future. So I think it's about $4 million. But that money is also, could be potentially used for the aquatic center. So you have some competing. Competition for it, yeah. But I have the minutes from the meeting and I'm gonna read you exactly what it says. That staff recommended the approval of the change in use. The commission then hereby approves the change in use in the public convention center facilities partially funded by the RTA award previously occupied by PBR University to allow the facilities to host DMNA subject to the DMNA and peer providing annual reports on out of state visitation and other information as requested by OEDIT or required by the terms of the RTA Resolution 1 as previously amended.

So when we talked to, thank you, when we talked to OEDIT last Wednesday night, last Wednesday night, we talked to Jeff and... Eve. Che and Eve, right? They expressed to me that they didn't think that it would be an issue for DaVinci to get some of that, some of those dollars. They said they couldn't fast track it, so it wouldn't be an immediate thing, but it also wouldn't be a long process for them to receive those money. So I'm wondering when we got this designation in February, why we didn't do it at that time.

Those avenues were never explored to come and ask the city for additional funds through the RTA because of the additional phase of the Riverwalk, meaning the aquatic center.

Okay. Just one last thing, Carla. Can you go to your 14-485-1? I just have a question with regards to, let's see, it's 7B, excuse me. I don't disagree with your statement, whether it fits or not. I just don't have a I don't have enough information. I'm not an attorney. You are, so you're the city's attorney, so I'll have to take your word for it. The only thing that I don't understand is when you go to B, it says employment resulting from regional tourism. The part that's missing for me is the employment part.

So the primary job, you have employment resulting from regional tourism projects. So when it's part of the regional tourism district and we have, they are employing people. In the past, we have never, because if it's part of the regional tourism project, we have not tied it to specific jobs in the past.

Okay, gotcha. Joe, how many employees are currently employed?

Ten, ten. May I just add, what happens, I think what you need to understand is when tourists come into town and they buy things, it takes service people to serve them. And I think that must have been part of the reasoning about how tourism creates jobs.

The employment.

Yes. And again, what were you asking? How many employees?

How many employees do you have? Thank you.

Right now, I believe we are at 14 or 15 FTEs. In other words, we have... Do you have some part-time, some part-time? Six, yes. Because we're open seven days a week, we have to alternate that, and some people are only working 32 hours, and we rotate that depending on that. But right now, we are, I think, 14 or 15 FTEs. Okay.

And so if I could also expand a little bit, Councilor Hernandez. So typically when you have a primary job, they're creating something and they have a service that is then marketed outside of the community, right? So when you have people that are working in this type of industry, they're not creating a service. The service is performed here. All right, so it's different than the primary job that you think about because they're not creating something that is shipped outside of the city or a service that is shipped outside the city. The thing that is outside the city, the new money that's being brought in, are the tourists that are being imported To the city. So there are employees.

So it's the outside dollars that are coming in.

Right. It's the outside dollars that are coming in. So the customers are being imported for the jobs to service them.

Right.

Okay. So it's a little bit different model, but it's still employees that are servicing them.

And just the last question, can you tell me that there was mention tonight of where we sit with regards to Tabor? Where do we sit with regards to Tabor?

So this is our ordinance. We have interpreted it. It's our voter-approved initiative. And so any citizen can bring a TABOR challenge to it. They'd bring it in district court. And then the district court judge would determine whether or not it has been interpreted. But... It hasn't been challenged. So people can bring a TABR challenge. This one, because it's a voter approved initiative, it wouldn't be a typical TABR challenge.

Does that change with regards to the fact that it was council that changed the criteria and not citizens?

So the voters approve City Council to create the criteria. When they approve the ballot, the ballot directs them to the ordinance, which allows City Council to create the criteria and regulations to determine how the money is spent.

Okay.

And so that's been in the case for a very long time. The criteria has been developed and changed over the years. It was codified in 2012 into the code, and it's been amended a couple of different times.

Okay. That's it. Thank you.

Councilor Latino.

Yes. The museum is in my district and I obviously am very pleased with what's going on. It's obviously a catalyst for this community in terms of a draw. But I've had nine museums in the city and county of Pueblo lobby meet today with regard to the finances. The Heritage Museum, the Rosemont, the Weisbrod Aircraft Museum, which had a big event this past weekend, the Buell Children's Museum, the Pebble Railroad Museum, Railway Museum, the San Francisco Arts and Conference Center, the Rosemont Carriage Museum, the Al Pebble Museum, and we have the Home of Heroes Museum. I really wanna help, but I just can't. I can't approve the request, I just can't. We've got coffee shops, the Sacred Bean right down the street. We've got the solar roast up here. We're competing against our own community with city money, and that doesn't sit well in a free enterprise. in a republic or democratic environment. It doesn't work. And so, that's where I am. I guess I need more information, but based on the contacts that I've had and the fact that we're dealing with other organizations in this community, at this point in time, I can't support it.

So what I would, how I'd respond to you, Councilor Latino, is that all the other museums can apply for funds from the House and sales tax under the placemaking if they meet the criteria. So you folks change the criteria. If they meet the criteria, they can also apply. Currently, the city does fund these other museums and subsidize them. So the city is subsidizing these other museums that you mentioned. It's just not out of the half-cent sales tax fund. And so the city's already doing that. through rent subsidies for the railroad, the heritage museum.

Yeah, I think they pay $10 a year in rent to the city. So that's a pretty large subsidy from the rail and the heritage museum. I've also provided you with information about the art center, the city of Pueblo. has given the art center over $1.7 million in the last five years out of the general fund, really with no strings attached. It was just non-departmental ask that came forward to city council that city council funded. This agreement before you looks much different tonight because there's actually milestones that this museum has to meet in order to keep this money. That is not the case for maybe the other nine museums that you have spoken about. And when you and I spoke earlier today, we had also talked about how if these museums were able to put a collective application together when it comes to increasing tourism, that that is something that city council could also support as long as it was to fall within the criteria of the ordinance that you voted to change. But just so you know, all of these museums are receiving or have received a subsidy as big as $1.7 million to the art center. Not only did the art center just receive 1.7 from the city, last year the Urban Renewal Authority also gave them $400,000 in which they've been working to do their expansion that you currently see going on. So there has been a lot of public funds that have been vested throughout the community, throughout all of our great museums that you spoke about.

Well, it's my understanding also that the museum on B Street, that they're in the process of buying that building.

They have submitted an LOI to City Council in which we did discuss an executive session a few weeks ago.

Right, I met with them last week. I've got that. Yes. Okay, thank you.

You know, it was a fun... Boy, change is hard. Change is really hard, and I think it's hard on everybody. You know, in February, in February, and there were several meetings before February, you know... I personally argued passionately to change the criteria ordinance. I thought that this is literally a way forward for this community. We've been hearing for years and years and years, we need to be doing something. This Petco is not working out. The way that we spend our money is not working out. We need to do something. So lo and behold, we do something, and then all hell breaks loose. Right? Now it's a disaster. The reality is we made a bold move. Five city councilors in February said we want to change this. We want to have a paradigm shift within the city of Pueblo when it comes to economic development. There are other ways to make money within a community. And just because it's a museum, it shouldn't be blackballed because it has museum on it. What does it bring to the community? You had person after person come up here and tell us, what does it bring to the community? It brings a whole heck of a lot to the community. Even those against are not against the museum, just against the way that we're attempting to give them some money. But if it qualifies under the change of the criteria ordinance, and five councilors out of seven said, we want to change that criteria ordinance, we want to change the way that Pueblo does business when it comes to economic development, then I think you need to put your vote where your mouth is. And step up. and step up and move forward. And people are going to be mad. People are going to be mad and they're going to say, you shouldn't have done that. And then there's going to be people that are going to say, that's the best thing you could have ever done. That's the way every vote goes. It's not just this vote. Nobody's ever going to agree on everything. This meets the criteria that city council put in place It meets the criteria that was changed in 2011 when City Council says we're going to loan urban renewal 14 million dollars for RTA projects I didn't see a plethora of people standing in line to say that's a misuse of the money. I never saw that. I never saw when we decided during the pandemic when Councilor Winters said, you know what? I think we ought to take $5 million out of the half cent sales tax fund and loan it to businesses. There was nothing written in the criteria ordinance that said we could do that. But we said, yeah, you know what? We think we should do that because it's the right thing to do. So I mean, you can get all twisted up, all twisted up on the way things, on how you want to interpret something, but the reality is, it fits the definition. It fits the definition, it's a good project, and we have invested invested a tremendous amount of energy for this to be successful. So let's not throw them to the wolves, city council. Let's not say this isn't worthy of, you know, When they came to town, we said it's worthy. But now that they want some money, we say they're not worthy. I don't know why somebody says they don't need money and then they do need money. But my goodness, this is exactly what we set out to do when we made that vote in February. So I'm supporting it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. President. I have been able to tour the museum and I think it's a wonderful asset to the community. And of the 20 people that testified on this today, you went over and over about the actual programming that is being done in this facility. However, only $250,000 of the proposed budget is for programming that is presented today. We don't have any information on how much money it's actually made. We don't, Mr. Arrigo himself could not bring good data to us today to tell us any of the information. This is your money and yes, I city council stood here in February 30 days into being sworn in and 60 days out of an election that you voted for a certain thing when you voted to put this fund back and it meant for primary jobs. We decided as a council to change that. And so my question to you is to the 12,000 voters who did not approved what this five of the council decided, are those 12,000 voters gonna be okay with us funding this project the way it is? We never even had a word from the community when that decision was made in February. So my proposal is I would like to move that we postpone this vote and invite Mr. Arrigo himself to come before the council and provide us with, you're asking for city money, Mr. Arvigo, and so I think that the fair thing to do at this point in time is I would be willing to offer a work session come January, September the 8th, where you can come with answers and speak to the public about all of the things that you're proposing, giving us the numbers that have come through, your financials. All of that is important for us to maintain the fiscal the fiduciary duty to the voters who are going to be spending their money. And what's being proposed now is only from what, and this was just given to us today as we're getting ready to make a vote of what the anticipated budget looks like. So just to answer some questions, I think that's fair to the community. There's also questions around what happens, you know, this is only, according to this ordinance, seven years. So what happens after seven years? than who owns the renovations that your taxpayer dollars are paying for. So I just feel like at this point, there are several voices on the council today that still don't have all the information. And the other piece too is, I feel like you need to answer to the community when twice you are, there's word from the museum that you are not going to come and ask the city for money to fund the project. So if we can, and we have to defend why we're doing that when that was what was happening at the beginning of it. So that is the, I feel a fair approach at this point to give us the information that we need to make the decision. So I would like to be fair.

To be fair, though, and I understand what Councilor Ruiz Gomez is saying, but when this all started, what was sent over to City Council was a complete breakdown of the Da Vinci Museum. All the projections, everything was in our packet when this all began. If we didn't read it, I can't tell you that...

That's what I... We do get a lot of information, President.

So, again, you're calling him a liar and just saying that whatever they're throwing us is lies and we're going to have to sit here and micromanage. Could you please have your account and your checkbooks and bring all your money, all your cash, everything that you have so City Council can see exactly what you have? I mean, that's what we're asking.

But that's what we ask of everybody who's asking for city dollars. That's not an outrageous request.

The original...

So the original packet that was originally submitted had all that information. The other thing, just to respond to you, Councillor Ruiz Gomez, is everything that's in the building, all the fixtures, all of the improvements, become the property of urban renewal and stay with the building. So all of that stays with the building. It's a public building, and those assets then become public assets. So the improvements, all the money that's being invested in that building is going to improve a public asset.

We need to take care of business. We have a motion to postpone. I'd like to make a comment. You will be able to, but there's a motion that we have to deal with. A motion to postpone to when? September 14th. September 8th.

Thank you, Mr. President. September 14th, and I will put this on the work session, September 8th.

Is there a second?

I would invite Mr. Arrigo back to answer this.

Is there a second by Councillor Dante? Comments? Councillor Gomez.

What you're asking me to do is be complicit. The half-set sales tax dollars were not for this. The definition of a primary job is not meeting any of this. And you're asking me to be complicit with that when I know this. I'm not doing it because it's... I'm going to share something that shocked me. I got a call from somebody who was very close to you, and I'm not going to give his identity away, but when he made a statement to me, I couldn't quite figure it out. And his statement to me was basically, Mr. Arrigo, you're not going to be able to afford the money that you're asking for. I couldn't figure it out at first. I figured it out, and he said, you're going to regret it. it was at 1.87 million. The next day it shaved down by a million dollars. Why did you ask for 1.8 and then shave it down a million dollars? Why did you ask for it in the first place?

If you'll allow me to answer that. When we first applied for the 1.8 you're talking about, there were two sections. One was the capitalization that exists, the 885,000. The other remaining amount was for personnel, for employees. And what happened was it took so long for that process to happen, we were already opening and we were already hiring employees and what we were told was our original application would not allow us to count the people that we had already hired we had we were looking at uh... twenty five people over uh... a two-year period for uh... employment and we had already hired this fourteen f t e and they said well no you now you have to hire twenty five more the circumstances change they wouldn't allow us to count the people that we had already hired therefore i said we can't possibly do that it's not logical it's not responsible and so would you consider just the capitalization what we're doing to finish remodeling the building and have a greater impact with the programs that were creating The spaces that you're talking about, Councilman Donte, part of it is to have spaces to increase that programming for STEAM, and depending on how the construction goes, all of that construction belongs to the building and belongs to the city. Everything we've put in so far and everything we're talking about here that's construction, it's part of the building and belongs to the city.

Mr. Rigo, I don't think you would be doing anything else here in the questions we're asking you because you're asking this council to accept everything you're saying. We have the mayor who just basically admitted that it's going to probably be another $1.7 million subsidy museum down the road here. I'm not willing to do that anymore. I didn't say that. You basically said the other, let me finish, the other museums were having subsidies up to 1.7 million. Did you say that or not?

I did. Okay, so is that what it was? Not this museum, Councilor Gomez. How do you know? I was just giving you information on other subsidies that city council has.

I'm not willing to take a risk on that. I bet. I'm sorry. That's why you have a vote. We have a fiduciary responsibility. I'll be honest with you. Mayor, we have to depend on a city council attorney. We have one dismissal after the other. I'm not feeling really good about our legal attorney. I'm sorry. We're going to get caught again. We're going to get caught again, and we just had two dismissals on two Petco votes. We got a fraud vote coming up. We're sitting here like none of this stuff matters. Well, it matters to me. I'm not going to violate my oath to me, not just the oath to the city. I'm telling you, this is a... But it came to us straight up and said, this is what we need to do up front. We do actually need some help. We don't need funding. That's what you set us up for. And that's what we bid on. This is your fault, not ours.

So I really want to find a reason to vote yes for this. I really do because I think it's a great thing for Pueblo. As far as museums are concerned, my grandkids have been there and they came back and reported to me how wonderful it was. They just had an outstanding time. What I'm having a problem with is not having enough information, not having enough numbers, which is our fiduciary responsibility before we make a decision on something. If you've had 13,000, 14,000, whatever, 13,000 visitors to the museum, we don't know how much money that, what does that mean? So when I ask, why I want to know how much money it is, because then I can extrapolate that out for the whole year. So then I can decide for myself, as a person who cares about numbers, whether what you're making, you can make to support the museum over a long term. Because I don't want you to have to come back here in another year and say, sorry, we're going to be one of those $1.7 million people. We're going to have to ask for some more money. That's all I'm asking. I just want to know how those numbers extrapolate out over the year so that I can feel comfortable with my vote. That's all I'm asking.

Councilman, as you heard earlier, ticket sales, gift shop sales, and coffee shop sales will never support... the type of 501 that we have. That is the nature of what happens. We have to continually look for grants and look for programs and so on. That's the nature of the business. I don't care if you're the symphony, uh... if you're the art center or whatever you always have to look for supporters and sponsors and people that will align with uh... education and children and so on and we will always be doing that and the sustainability happens with the impact that we can make the money that we're asking for adds a revenue source to the coffee shop. We did have originally to expand the gift shop, and we would do that. Also, we expand the programming in the science, technology, engineering, art, and math area, and that will allow us to have more programs that we can charge for. And so it is impactful, by investing money in that now to have a quicker impact on what we're trying to do to grow.

So you think that with this $855,000, whatever the amount is, that you think that that's going to help you to get started, get going, get through the door, and then you have other sources of funding to carry you through the next year?

Absolutely that this gives us an impact much quicker than it would any other way. Based on the numbers that we've given you, I think we told you that these projects would eventually happen just more slowly and that this amount of money, the way the agreement is written, we would have to fulfill the spending in 18 months. Some of these things take, like the signage and so on and so forth, they're six months out. It's hard to determine those things, but those things will help us be more visible on the Riverwalk, be more impactful for the rest of the tourism, so on and so forth, and give us a revenue source with the coffee cafe and so on that will help us make an impact quicker. Thank you.

Mayor Graham.

So I've heard a lot from city council tonight about how unprepared you are. We have had multiple executive sessions. You have said in meetings with these people, you have all seen the application. This process has been going on since April. For the three of you tonight that said you are not prepared because you have not got your questions answered, that is because you have not answered questions. You have me available. Councilor Ruiz Gomez, you met with me on Friday. You didn't ask one question about this. You didn't ask about their funding. You didn't even ask about their ticket sales. You didn't ask about how much the tickets are, who's coming into this museum. Councilor Dante, I speak to you every Monday before city council and we go over the agenda and you ask for specifics. I'm surprised that these questions that you have tonight have never been asked before. The only one of you that has even reached out to me to ask for documentations as it regards to the RTA, what this funding looks like, is President Aleph. Not one of you has reached out to say, we want to know what their financial situation is. We want to know how many tickets are sold. That's on you. That's not on these people. That is disrespectful and disappointing that you're not doing your jobs. Mr. President, point of order, please. At the very same time, it's these specific members of City Council who are willing to sign $65 million out of this account to one project. No freaking questions asked. That is mind-blowing to me. It is your job to ask the questions and prepare yourself for these meetings.

It's your job to tell us the truth.

To drag this on now to... 10 o'clock at night because you're not prepared for your city council meeting to hear from your people?

Mr. President, you would ask for a point of order, please. This is disrespectful to us as a council. I feel really disparaged.

Okay, okay. I think that you've got your point across on preparedness.

I don't think I have, because we're still here, and we're still asking for this to be tabled.

Well, since we're talking, I think that I really feel that, like, we're asking the question now, Mayor Graham, every step of the way.

I sat here and I listened to them.

Can they please listen to me?

You have made a motion to table this because you said you're unprepared, as you do with every ordinance that you don't want to vote on.

That's not acceptable. It's not acceptable.

Order, order, order, order. You have the information and you've had it since April. It's unfair. It's unfair to bring them through the ringer tonight, ask for their checkbook and their financials.

Councillor Boston.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd just like to say thank you for what you said, Mr. President. You know, you definitely have a second gig ready for you as a motivational speaker. I think after this, you had to be ready to run through a wall. And I really appreciate some of the points you brought up. Mayor Graham, you stole a couple of mine because I've been waiting so patiently to speak. You know, the best word I could use is disappointed with tonight. You know, whether you agree with funding or not, I just feel so heartbroken for you, Mr. Arrigo. You have put so much effort and time and energy into this great asset for the community. And, you know, regardless of the funding... I'm very disappointed that all this has just happened and you know you're very not deserving of this you're a very generous and gracious individual and the museum is going to be a great asset regardless of whether or not you get the funding I think you'll be successful and I really hope that you can get the funding but I'm just really disappointed with how this whole system has gone and A lot of us, when we were elected, we were hoping for change. The community was hoping for change. We talked about this at our round table when the newly elected were at our first round table, the four of us together. I remember us talking about change. On that meeting, when you were new, whether or not you thought you were doing the right thing or whatever it was that you said a few minutes ago, you wanted change, the people wanted change. We implemented change and now we have an opportunity to try to do some change. YOU KNOW, WHO KNOWS IF IT WILL WORK? BUT YOU DON'T KNOW IF YOU DON'T TRY. AND YOU MISS 100% OF THE OPPORTUNITIES YOU DON'T TRY, UNFORTUNATELY. AND I THINK THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE SHOULD LOOK AT TRYING. WE NEED TO TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT. THE MAIN PRIORITY OF THE FUND STILL REMAINS PRIMARY JOBS. AND AGAIN, LIKE STATED BY THE MAYOR, I've never seen this kind of scrutiny towards any other project when the amounts asked for are astronomically larger than this. It's very unfortunate. And, you know, looking ahead at, you know, the agenda going forward, let's see, where's the agenda for or the item for Mr. Martinez? Might as well get this scheduled on a work session as well because Mr. Martinez has been to three or four work sessions. We've talked about this idea for over a year and he's been begging and waiting this is the reason we changed this but if we need more information from him let's get this going now so that we don't have to postpone that as well because as that gentleman spoke about during public forum he these CEOs aren't held up by the city it's CDOT and we need to put this infrastructure and we need to try new things he said he was going to generate over $200,000 a year imagine how fast we're going to recoup the money I mean Why don't we try things? I mean, I understand wanting some information, but again, when we sat, me and Mr. Hernandez, and in those executive sessions, we got presented all the financials, all this information with the jobs and all the entire breakdown. He gave presentations, and I'm pretty sure you've given another presentation to this council prior to that regarding some of this information, or back then when the museum wasn't asking for funding. In the end of it, you know, we have a vote to make, you know, and we can stand here on our personal biases, you know, but legal opinion is allowed by many councils prior to this, elections prior to this. It's a legal thing. If you don't like it for personal bias, I don't think that's right, but you're entitled to your vote. And, you know, again, my apologies to you and the community for hurting this asset, I think, with the reputation that we're providing right now, and I do apologize on behalf of myself. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. I don't believe that we have heard anything since June 12th when this museum opened. Yes, maybe we had time, but now is the time where we're asking more questions. It doesn't matter, like two months ago when this museum opened, the point is now. Now the time is, where are you now with the financials? That's what the public is wanting to know. And if you don't care about this $800,000 and are just saying, okay, fine, but this is not for a lack of presentation. I am not going to say what was said in executive session, but I haven't seen anything. That's why we're asking now. And yes, I will own that maybe up to now, we're asking these questions, but in the end of the day, Mayor Graham, respectfully, I wanna hear from Mr. Arrigo. I don't wanna hear a defense from you. You are our mayor, you represent our city. This is about understanding from this gentleman who his organization is coming to us asking for city dollars and taxpayer dollars. So that is where I'm kind of at with it. If the public wants to believe we're unprepared, it's fine. But that's just, like, I want to hear from the person who's requesting the funding, and I think we've heard over and over this case for this, which is fine. Like, I'm not opposing this. I am just trying to say, like, we want to hear from you and your organization, and we have not... Can you tell, have we? And that's why I'm offering the work session to do that and to open up that conversation so that you and your organization can make a case to us as the council as to how, why.

The funding in question is about capitalization and expended on remodeling and expanding the building and remodeling the building. I did not bring financials, which would show our budget between now and the end of the year and that sort of thing. Everything has been projections. Now, I didn't bring those books with me tonight. The part that you're asking is about the money that we're asking for. It has to be spent on the items that we have provided for you. And we have to account for that and be transparent about that. It has nothing to do directly with how many tickets we've sold or how many things are sold in the gift shop. It has to do with can we meet the requirements of where we spend the money that we're asking for. And it's all on signage or on developing equipment and that sort of thing.

So would you be willing to come and have a better conversation and bring that to us? To have a conversation with us about what that looks like? Lots of folks said we'd like to see more financial information.

It was given to you specifically line by line by line in the original request and the fact that you haven't seen it, I'm not sure, it was provided.

We just saw the budget for this particular ordinance this evening.

The budget you saw tonight, but all the information he's talking about was in the original application which council has been provided.

But that was the original application. This is the budget that we're barely seeing what the expenditure, I don't know.

Councilor Hernandez. No, I apologize if I've come off rough on you. I can't apologize for anybody else. That certainly is not my intent. My intent is to make sure that the voters of the city, the people who voted for this half-cent sales tax, feel like... I'm managing the fiduciary responsibility I have to make sure that we're not giving money away that we shouldn't be giving away. And that's why I ask the questions that I ask with regards to what your revenues are right now. I mean, I don't know, and I apologize if that offends people, to want to know what kind of money a business is making that's asking us for money. We've done it with every other business. We've done it with every other person or any other entity that has come to ask for money. We have asked these same questions. Councillor Boston scolded somebody who was before work session because they hadn't gone through the process yet. I would love to have you in work session so that we can ask these questions and we can get better answers so I can make that yes vote. That's all I'm asking. I apologize. I'm not trying to offend anybody. And Mayor, you left me out, thankfully, of your criticism because I have asked questions. I'm trying to find additional funding through edit. I'm trying to find more money for the museum. I'm not against the museum. I want this museum. It's important to me. But we have to find the right funding for it. And that's all my concern is, whether it's this or whether it's funding from somewhere else. Thank you.

Councilor Dante.

Well, I'm along with Ted. I am not trying to intentionally upset you, but I do want to make sure that over the seven years that you have to pay this back, that you're capable of doing that and I've read everything that was given to me and All I'm asking for is the most current Information the most current tax returns, you know Okay

No more outbursts, please. I mean, city council sat here and listened to everybody's testimony. We didn't interrupt. We didn't yell at you. We didn't do anything else like that. Please allow the same respect for city council. No more outbursts, please. Councillor Dante.

Let me finish. If I was a bank... and was asking for a loan, which I've done it several times. I've been asked for two months of bank statements, two years of tax returns. It's not something that's not been done. And that's all we're asking is to see exactly what your financial capabilities are. Because you're asking for money from us.

I will be happy to provide that information and if it's in a work session. We have all of that information. I just, I don't have it with me. I have it up to date. We have our information, our projected budget for 2025, the end of the year. Our budget for 2026 is under development because we're not sure exactly where we're going to be there. But we have the projections that we made before now, but we have actual information, bank statements, bank balances, number of tickets sold, all of those things. I'd be happy to provide that. I just didn't happen to bring it with me tonight.

I'm not upset that you didn't bring it tonight. I didn't expect that. That's why we were trying to postpone it.

So there's a motion to postpone, and there's a second. So if you guys Yeah, before we all go crazy.

I'd like to ask a question. I'd like to ask a question of the city attorney. Sure. Councilor Gomez? I'd like to ask the city attorney, are you the city attorney for the mayor, or are you the council? What is your role, and what happens when we're on different, how does that work?

I am the city attorney for the city. I represent the best interests of the city.

So if we have a division on a difference of opinion, how do you, I'm just curious, how do you feel in reference to primary jobs? What's your definition? Do you think we're meeting the definition of the primary jobs and the half-cent sales tax fund? Yes or no?

So the definition is in the ordinance that City Council has approved. I have shown you the ordinance and I have given you my legal opinion.

You're asking us to violate it.

I have never asked you to violate it. I have told you what the definition is and I have given you my legal opinion.

You've been wrong on the definition. The definition is plainly spelled out. The half-cent sales tax. We're not meeting the basic requirements of the half-cent sales tax and you know it.

Mr. Gomez, with all due respect, you are not an attorney. I have been an attorney. I've been practicing for 30 years. So I have read it, I've understood it, and I've given my opinion. We haven't lost a single case, Mr. Gomez.

Because it's ongoing litigation.

The case is ongoing. We haven't lost a thing.

Okay, there's a motion to postpone. Any other questions? What about me? Joe?

Wow. This is something else. It really is. Again, again, the organization in terms of what's being asked by council members here, my colleagues, is not something that should be looked at in a light manner. And we're asking the right questions. We're talking about money. We're talking about other organizations in this community. We're talking about the DaVinci Museum, the only one in North America, which we all brag about. It's the only one in North America, okay? However, we got to be responsible for finances too. That's our responsibility. And when I've had the calls that I've had in the last week from people that are intelligent people, not just somebody to just make a comment because they don't like somebody. They're making comments because they have an understanding of what's going on in terms of finance. Okay? Again, I'm not going to support this now. I need more facts. That's where I am. Okay, there's a motion to postpone with a second.

Let's call for the vote. Passes five to two. Mr. Clerk, item R4.