City Council - Regular Meeting

Does he care?

Okay, everyone, we're gonna get started in about 30 seconds, please. Check, check, check, check.

Man, it's my birthday. It's your birthday?

Happy birthday.

All right. All right, everyone. Welcome to the city of Steamboat Springs. Regular meeting number 2026-25. Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 at 5 p.m. Julie, could we have roll call, please?

Steve Muntin.

Here.

Gail Gary. Here. John Agosta.

Here.

Dave Barnes.

Here.

Michael Pacino.

Here.

Amy Dixon is absent, and Brian Swintek.

Here. Okay, let's rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, tonight is a work session for City Council, and Council will give direction to staff at work sessions for the presentation of action items at future regular Council meetings. No motions will be considered. Public comment will be taken near the end of each of the work sessions. And email comments are encouraged at citycouncilatsteamboatsprings.net or through the city's website. So with that, we will get started tonight. And as I said, we have two work session topics. The first one is an update from Chief Beckett on the ALPR status. So... Where is the chief? I saw him just a minute ago. Okay. Here he comes.

Very sneaky. Mark Beckett, police chief. I tried to get the music queued up. It wasn't ready yet. We're having a computer issue. Give me two seconds and I'll be right back.

Okay. Take your time. While we're waiting for the chief, Garth Brooks was great.

It was a great concert.

Garth Brooks was great in Denver. Okay. Jack Johnson was great in Denver too.

She went last year.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're all set. I sent out a note on Farmer's Market. So thank you everyone for signing up this year. We got it covered for the next three weeks. So appreciate everybody's effort on taking care of that.

All right. No, all right. We're going to wing it for a second. So the perfect time for the police computer to crash. They're trying to get it spun up and logged in. So we're going to ad lib this. I'm looking at my city attorney. You can do the CIP first, if you'd like. Honestly, it's up to you. If they're ready, we can do that. I don't know what's going on with the computer, so.

Are you okay if we switch them up?

I'm here all night for you. Someone else to, you know, or do you Zoom the connect to the.

Is it a Zoom or is there something specific on the.

The internet on my computer is not working, so it's not logging into Zoom. If you guys have access to it and want to put it up, I can go.

Well, I think we can present it from here.

That'd be fine by me. I think. Let's see. Oh, they're going to let me in. It's a good sign.

Josh, can we get the computer laptop that we have here to be able to show the presentation? Oh, here we go.

Lock has taken over. Not a good time for that, Counselor. Love you, Chief.

Let's do it. All right, thank you. Okay.

Okay. We're good. Apologies for that. Thank you. You can count on me for something. All right. So the intention tonight is to give council an update on the ALPR program or where we are with that, the status for the police department, and specifically for some information on FLOC. As everyone knows, we hosted a Civic Connections event two weeks ago. I think almost everyone was here for it. We had over 100 folks here. Many of them were expressing displeasure with the program, and we did have some positive feedback as well. Community opinion on ALPR currently remains mixed. Most of the folks who are supporting are doing so through letters. But again, the overwhelming consensus was opposition. After that meeting, I also met with the sheriff, with the Hayden police chief. I got on some of the police forums that I'm on and just took some of that feedback back to them, got feedback from those professional groups. As you all know, there's been robust discussion about FLOC specifically in Colorado. As a result of that, on the 26th, I met with the city manager and President Monteen, and we agreed to terminate the contract with FLOC and to immediately suspend the ALPR use. which we, immediately after that conversation, I sent out direction to the police department, telling them to stop using the software. And Commander Griffin was able to lock out all the police accounts that evening. I emailed, after emailing the flock about our intent to cancel the contract, they acknowledged that email that night. And this is just kind of a play by play, so it's a little dry, I apologize. The next morning, Commander Griffin was able to go in and he was also, he disabled all the network access. So basically turned off any access the 60 some odd agencies had to flock. The only account that we left in place was Commander Griffin's account that was intended purely for auditing purposes. So he could go in there and check to see if anyone was using it. It would have been a big concern if somebody was using it. He did periodic audits every day and saw no activity on there. The cameras were still collecting data, but there was nobody sharing that data or accessing the data. The second, we got a formal acknowledgement. I'm sorry, I sent Flock a formal agreement cancellation and they immediately acknowledged it. We're talking to a series of folks over there. they let us know that they were processing the request. They also let us know that there was an overwhelming customer service demand for the deactivation of their product. And they gave us a heads up that there was going to be a delay. We continue to do our audits through last week. One quick update that's happened since then is on last Thursday, I received an email confirming from Axon that they have deactivated all the cameras and that they're no longer collecting data. That coincided with Commander Griffin noticing that his account was no longer working. So as of last Thursday, the cameras are not on and they are not collecting data. We felt it was prudent to talk about our Axon contract. Most folks know what Axon is. If you don't, they provide our body cameras, our dash cameras, tasers. We use them for our interview room at the CLEF. We just very recently entered into a 10-year contract with Axon for those products. Some of those products are required statutorily, as you guys all know, and if you remember all the history of the last 15 years in law enforcement, we are mandated by the state to wear body cameras, and they provide some of our other less lethal tools. In that contract, when we were talking to them at the time, we were exploring alternatives to Flock and Axon had included two free fixed AOPR cameras, which they call Outpost. We, at the time, had told them to hold off on the installation of that. We specifically wanted to wait till after the Civic Connections meeting. We suspected that there would still be pushback, so we weren't sure what we were gonna do with it. So we told them to hold off on that. After the meeting, the civic connection meeting on the second, we reached out to them and told them our intent was to remove the language for those two contracts or those two cameras from the contract, which they agreed to. To be really clear, those cameras have not been installed and will not be installed. We are legal and the PD are working with Axon to get those removed from the contract right now. Just talking points. This was a challenge, and anyone that was at that meeting or watching knew it was a challenge. What I really want to reinforce, and what we want to reinforce to the community and to council, is that community safety remains our top priority. These tools, if anyone is on social media and they're seeing what other law enforcement leaders are seeing, my sentiment echoes that. This tool is a great tool, but no tool is worth jeopardizing the trust of the community. One of the things I love most about this community is that we have that trust and we can have this kind of a dialogue and the dialogue that we had two weeks ago. It was tough to sit up here for two hours, but also valuable. And I think it meant a lot to the community. So we will never move forward with something like that when we get that kind of pushback. As we move forward, there is, and I want to be really, really clear, there are no plans for any ALPR fixed cameras anywhere in the community. We have no plans to do that any time in the near future. Period. If... If something evolves over time and we don't look at it, we'll consider it in the distant future. But there is no, I don't want anyone thinking that we did this and we're just going to switch over to Axon or some other product. There is no intent to even consider fixed ALPR at this time. So I want to continue the community discussions, really talk to the city manager and council about plans to move forward when we're ready for that. I think there is going to be an opportunity in the coming year or so to look at case law and to see how this plays out on the national level. So we're just hitting the pause button like most other agencies are in our neck of the woods anyway. And as we move forward, lesson learned is we'll just make sure that we're being really transparent with our decision-making, especially with these things. This is a new and evolving technology, as you guys have heard me say ad nauseum, and I think we're hearing from the community on that, and we'll continue to take that feedback. So I did say at the meeting, and I'll stand by it, if we hear that kind of feedback from the community and we're not confident in the product, that we'll cancel it, and we did. So that's it. We got a lot of time for questions because I imagine there's going to be some. Okay.

Thank you, Chief. We appreciate your work and the whole department's work. All right. What questions do we have for Chief Beckett?

Yes. I can start. So thank you, Chief Beckett. First of all, we really appreciate and want to thank you for your you know, listening to community and taking that feedback and taking this down to the step of, you know, disengaging them at this point. And I also appreciate, you know, that you specify here that no fixed ALPR will be installed without community input. So I think that's really important for the community. I want to make sure I understood something you said. That flock turned off the cameras themselves? Did I hear that? I know that we don't have accounts with them, but are those cameras still collecting data?

No, as of last Thursday, they notified us that they've deactivated all the cameras.

Okay. Um, all right. Then also a saw that Hayden, you know, deactivated their accounts, um, as of this, this week or, you know, in the past week, is that correct? Correct. Okay. With them, they've actually came out and said that, that they are actually putting bags over, over their cameras. Um, do you know anything about that? What, you know, why they made that decision or.

I don't.

Yeah. Okay. Um, All right, and then what is your understanding of the data that we have stored out there as of two weeks ago? Basically, is Flock cleaning all that data out, or basically do they have a retention period where they're keeping that data?

Well, the retention period when we were active with them was 30 days, and the data deleted after 30 days. The data should be deleted.

Okay. Okay.

All right, good enough.

Okay. Other questions for Chief Beckett?

A question. How many times did your department search outside of, like, the Rowe County? Do you have stats on that?

I mean, no, I don't. We were doing monthly audits. We've learned after the fact that there was a different audit function in there, so we are aware that there was what you saw, the news article with the sheriff. I talked to him after that article came out, and I was aware of a national lookup, I think is what they were calling it. We had opted out of that last year, so we weren't participating in that. The number of queries, you know, we were using the tool multiple times a day. So there's the times where we proactively would query it, and then there's the times we were getting alerts. So if a vehicle was in the system for whatever reason, it would alert to it. You know, we would get alert from the system. But I don't have a number. I'd be making up if I told you something.

But you had the ability to look in the reciprocal departments that were using flock cameras.

I'm sorry, say it again.

You had the ability to look in other communities that were part of the FLOC network.

Yes, that's correct.

So you had access to that, but you said that we opted out of that? They weren't able to search in our database?

So two separate functions. There is the networks and the agencies we shared with. That was the 60-some-odd agencies and 90 networks Commander Griffin spoke about at the Civic Connections. The reason for the disparity being that some agencies had multiple networks depending on the size of the agency. So those agencies could all query our system and we could query their system. And we could see the flock hits and they could see ours. So like the picture of the license plate, the location of the camera, and the reason. So like if it was a stolen plate or whatever the reason would be from an NCIC or CCIC alert, Other agencies could not see our, what we call the hot list. Those were lists that we made internally for vehicles that were wanted. The only agencies that could see our hot list data were Route County Sheriff and Hayden PD. We didn't share with anybody else. And I can, if we want more detail, Commander Griffin's in the back. And again, he's the one that really handled all that. So those were who we would proactively query. Their flock offered an option called the National Lookup, which was a different query system, and it provided a more generic level of information. So if you were in that system, you could query the entire system, which was a national system, and if at that license plate you had it, It was a different function. You had to have a full license plate. You couldn't just go off a vehicle, make or model or description. And you could query that whole system, and then it would run it against the entire national database. We opted out of that system in October of 25. So we were not participating in that.

So that opted you out of sharing your information with the rest of the system as well?

Correct. So if someone in the national system ran the query, we would not show up in their system. Why? Why did we choose to do that? It just felt like it was coming. I mean, there was no need for it. I don't think for us internally, when Commander Griffin and I sat down and talked about it, we didn't understand the specific needs for it. We had concerns about, you know, controlling and governance outside. Our intent was only to share in Colorado was always the plan. So when we learned that that function existed, we just disabled it.

Did you feel like flocked? Wasn't transparent with you guys as far as how they shared information or what information was shared? Because it seemed like those details came out after the community meeting that maybe more information was shared than you guys were even aware of.

Yeah, I don't know that I would characterize it as like, I don't think it was disingenuous. I think it was, it's a complex software system and we were all learning as we moved along through the system. So we used it pretty effectively for a few years and it really wasn't until the national scrutiny came along, really during some of the immigration issues that were arising across the country that people really started looking closely. So we started looking more closely and I think we just got a little bit ahead of the curve with it. So they've never not answered a question when we've asked. So like any complex software system, there's a lot to it.

Is there any APLR technology out there that would stay just within your department?

Yeah, there is.

We'll talk about that when that time comes.

Yeah, I think realistically, I think we need to let, we need to, clearly the community, like we need some time. If we were ever to even consider moving forward with this, it would really require some robust community discussions. For me, at a higher level, I want to see what plays out on the national level in the courts. I think it's great that there's two district court level rulings on it. I'd like to see what happens. If anything goes to the Supreme Court, that'll really be the blue line test for us, or bright line test. So yeah, we got time. There's no rush.

Great. Thanks. Thanks for putting on the community event as well. I mean, it was, it was hard for you to be up there for sure, but I was grateful that you were up there and I thought it went well.

I appreciate it. Okay. Counselor Gary, you have a question.

I do. Thank you very much. Thank you, President Muntean, and thank you, Chief Beckett, for the presentation, the information, and for your quick action. I just wanted to follow up on the comment you made regarding the data retention and specifically that it lasted up to 30 days. And I'm curious, would Commander Griffin be able to see if that information was still out there? So, you know, just does he have, he has the ability to confirm that any of that data that was retained is no longer accessible?

We cannot now because our account is officially deactivated. So he can, he can audit. And if he was doing his audits, his audits, he can only see data going back 30 days. And he was the, he was the super admin user. So we knew after, you know, beyond their, beyond that 30 day scope, it was gone, which is consistent with what they told us.

Okay. So again, just to confirm, because that's what I thought you said, he kept the account so that he could kind of monitor and audit. So we know that there is still data out there for the last 30 days. Am I hearing that correctly?

I don't know that we know that. I mean, Flock has told us that nobody can access the data if it exists. I'm not going to pretend to be an IT expert. My understanding is that nobody can see the data right now and that our 30-day retention would be when the data is officially gone.

And can he see the data or, you know, I mean, and maybe I'm just not quite understanding how it works. Right. And my thought would be if he can audit it, then he can get in and see if the data is still there or if it has been deleted.

He could while he had his admin account. He his admin account has now also been suspended. So we have we no longer have any access to the system, which was at our request. Our entire flock system has been disabled.

Okay, so maybe I misunderstood them. I thought that he continued to have an account so that he could monitor that all of the information was being, that they were taking the action that they did. But so it sounds like since the account has been deactivated, then he no longer also has access.

Yeah, so he had our, his admin account was active until last Thursday. And then when he went to log in, it was disabled. And we got the email from Flock saying that the entire system was disabled. So they had deactivated at last. So as of last Thursday, we no longer have access to it and all the cameras are decommissioned.

Okay.

All right. And, and again, thank you. And I, and I know route County said they've all canceled their accounts. Do they, I mean, do they have the ability to access and see what's out there or is everybody in the County at this point deactivated?

I that that would be a question for the county for the sheriff. I'm not exactly sure their contract was up at the end of next month, I believe. So I don't know. I don't know how they're handling their process.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Okay. Counselor Swintek.

Thanks for the transparency and continued transparency and the conversation. I really appreciate it. I think just in that vein, the continuing the transparency is critical. Looking through all the details, it's great. I think the only question that I have is on the 26th, the meeting with city leadership and city council to agree to terminate the contract. Can you give some context around that? why that conversation happened? Was there some more information that came out that caused us to want to talk about it? Or was it just the community meeting and a regroup to say, can you just give us some context into that meeting?

I think it was a combination. I mean, certainly the community feedback was a huge component. There were the ongoing questions of the audits and how different agencies were doing it. I think ultimately when I talked to other chiefs and other experts in the law enforcement field, we saw that we needed more governance. So I think we all had good internal processes and I feel confident in our process, but we also recognize that in the larger picture of this developing technology, we needed a better approach. Pretty much every CEO I've talked to is of the same mind of we just need to pause. So some agencies are just suspending their program but not deactivating them. Some of them are completely deactivating them. Some are looking at other products. But generally across the board, at least certainly on our side of the house, people are, our agencies are, they're at least suspending the program until we've had time to look at the governance of it.

So this was really encouraged by you, I guess following up from what you said in the community meeting, that if there were serious concerns with this contract, you would want to terminate the contract, and you did exactly that.

Yeah, the reality is ALPR is a great tool, it's a developing tool. I think I'll stand by what I said in terms of the way we look at innovation and technologies. We've got to stay on top of it, and the takeaway from the community and from talking to other agencies is that we're not there, we need to work on it.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, Chief, thank you. And a little bit more detailed, something you said at the community meeting that we had, which stick real close to me, is the functionality of the ALPR. And that was when we have cars that are driving from Salt Lake into Denver and kind of have proof of that. Right. And, you know, having experienced a ride along when flock was used and we got someone, you know, I first saw the functionality of this full force. And then the surveillance thing hit me after I've done a lot of research on it. So I've definitely been torn on this technology. A couple things that you've said tonight, and I'm going to lead to a question, is really the humbleness and humility of understanding what our community wants. Pulling the reins back on this flock right now, pulling the pause, leading that effort to get to that point. one thing that i heard at that community meeting was that it seemed like you gained a lot of trust from some people from a lot of the people that were in the room and they they trusted you and our city and that's why i want to get to this point axon is one system that's already in there they gave you some uh free cameras what i was hearing mostly after the meeting was people wanted guard rails to the data And so to me, I just want you to be aware that taking a pause is perfect. Thank you for doing this. It's great. But I really just want us all as leaders in this community to say, you know, there's a tool that our police force and I saw and have experienced using. To put our heads in the sand and ignore that this is out there is difficult. But if there's a way to handle the guardrails of the data within just the city of steamboats, database, whatever, that's for you guys to determine. Because I think if we were able to get that part solved where the community as a whole says, okay, I'm okay with 12 hours, 24 hours of something. And I don't know what the reality of functionality of that is. If someone's driving by with a drug car and you guys get flagged and that data's gone in 12 hours, well, hopefully they're in Denver by then, right? But how do you respond to that means how good that tool can be used. So if you can't respond to something happen that fast, then that tool may not be worth it. especially when it's surveillance and people are concerned. All that to say is that I think that as we move forward in this police surveillance opportunities, requirements from the cameras, look at it from the lens that what I heard at that meeting was that people were unhappy with this, including us, that it was just thrown out there. Once we kind of reeled it in, we talked about guardrails, a lot of the tone kind of came back to reality because I saw people that trusted you. Right? So whatever we're doing, like your conversation today, to continue with that trust, to put that pause on it. But I don't want you to not bring it back to us for a conversation and back to the community. Because the more we can get the community involved in that discussion as a tool for your police force, that people can say, okay, I'm okay with that. That's the conversation I think as a community we're going to have a much stronger community. And that's where I want to give you the, don't hold back on that technology as you're learning it because of this one incident. I think we need to recognize where those guardrails are.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes. Sorry, one last question. It sounded like the cameras are physically still up. Is that correct? Yes. Are they coming down? We're working on it.

So we're talking to their legal department right now.

Got it. Is there an idea of timing or any indication of when it would come down?

No indication of timing. We'll keep counsel updated. I would say consider the fact that the entire state of Florida just revoked their licenses for flock cameras, and you're talking about 130,000 cameras across the country. It's going to take some time.

Got it.

Okay.

Thanks.

I guess a follow up real quickly on that is basically I'm looking for a date for a date. You know, when would they give us, you know, be able to give us a date, you know, kind of thing. So just to keep that in mind. To follow up with Councilor Pacino's comment, A lot of the examples I've been hearing in terms of why you're using Flock was basically what I look at as real-time alerts or basically hot list alerts. You know, a car going by and identifying that that license plate is on a hot list. It's something that's happening real-time. It's not something that you need to store data. What I heard from the community is basically they were more comfortable with the hot list because you're not really storing data. They're more very uncomfortable with the surveillance component of that. And those are two different pieces. And I think we should look at them as two different pieces in terms of, you know, a hot list management. And hot list, you know, that stolen car is right there. It's coming by. and we know where it's at, let's address it, versus the deep surveillance research. And so I think there's two pieces to this pie, because I see it.

I had just one other, it's a question, but when we talk about the benefits of this system, And you have mentioned that, Councilor Agosta just mentioned a couple examples of that. Now that we don't have it, is there any changes that you think we can make to minimize or offset some of the benefits that we're losing? Or is it just, hey, you know, there's nothing else we can do in terms of, I don't know, staffing, I don't know, anything.

I'll answer your question with an anecdote. When I was a young patrol officer, we would spend a lot of our shift driving around running license plates in our computers in our cars. And if a plate came up as stolen or wanted in something, then we would take action. That's where we are again. So the officers would have to go around and physically run the license plates.

Okay.

ALPR was a game changer. It was a game changer that evolved very quickly. And I don't know that anyone is saying that we're done with it. I think we need to talk about the responsible way to use it. So it was an incredibly effective tool.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Chief Beckett?

Yeah. This is percentage data. Do you know how often the system was used for hot lists versus for surveillance?

We don't have that specific percentage. We use them both pretty consistently. So remembering that the system information is something that's in the CCIC, NCIC, National Crime Information Center, Colorado Crime Information Center. So those are the databases that house wanted vehicles, vehicles involved with a missing person or at-risk person, things like that. I get the alerts on my phone, or I was getting alerts on my phone when we had the system. I probably got 30 or 40 a day. we would use them internally for everything I told you, like hit and run crimes to things that had just happened. So I couldn't tell you the exact percentage. It was, we used both functions quite a bit.

Okay. Seeing no more questions. Thank you, Chief Beckett. And we'll turn now to public comment. Is there anybody in the room who would like to make a public comment on this work session topic? Please come on down. State your name, address, and you have three minutes, Bill.

Good afternoon. Bill Pass, 1875 Hunters Drive. My only comment is with regards to the disabling of the cameras. Seems like Hayden took the step of bagging their cameras. You know, they're still out there. They're connected. They're on a cellular network. They're powered by solar. I've noticed that when I was at the farmer's market just last weekend that one of the cameras has a sticker over the lens. The ones coming into town, though, are not bagged, stickered, or otherwise prevented from capturing data and sending it to the data center, regardless of what Axiom or whatever the flock is telling us. So would it be possible to bag these things just for the peace of mind that they're not capturing data? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. And we'll come back to that, Chief, and have you answer that when we're done with public comment here. Come on down, sir. You have three minutes. State your name and address, please.

My name is Steve Young. I live at 27505 Columbine Ridge. I'd like to second that gentleman's proposal. I was at the Hayden meeting earlier or late last week. And they're in the same situation that our council and police department are trying to regain the trust of the community. And it was brought up that Hayden doesn't own those two cameras. Flock Safety Corporation owns them, operates them. Same with City of Steamboat Springs. Those six cameras that we're paying for, we don't own them. Flock owns them. And other communities have found that Flock continues collecting data from their cameras and their network, their infrastructure, after these contracts have been canceled. So the only way that we can be assured that we're not being included in some surveillance dragnet not of your doing, but of Flock's doing, is to have bags over those cameras. And obviously, we don't want to vandalize their property. We don't want to tear them down. But putting a bag over them, I think, is an appropriate small step that we can take to just make sure that everybody can look at the camera and see immediately, hey, it's not collecting data. It's impossible. There's a bag over it. And if Flock chooses to come out and take the bag off the camera, it'll just tell us more about what kind of company Flock is. I just want to say I'm so pleased with what I've seen here at council and with your police department and the chief. Just as kind of a cautionary tale, I don't think it's the reading of the license plates that's the problem. It's the data, the way it's networked nationally, the way it can be used in the search industry. without probable cause to identify somebody that's been mass surveilled. And I think the way technology is moving, we've got great AI built into the cameras now that can read a license plate. That data can be fed into an AI platform like Flock has and Axon has. Axon's called Fuse. It allows them to bring data together from different devices, the body cameras, the dashboard cameras in the vehicles that include ALPR, the drones, even possibly taser data. I'm not sure what kind of data is collected there. But if you bring all that data together, you develop the capability to identify and track people rather than just cars. And that's kind of where you get into the gray area of encroaching on the Fourth Amendment. So if you hear the word fusion or data enrichment or data aggregation, I just say red flags should go up that we're getting into dangerous territory. So I appreciate the opportunity to engage with you and with the chief and I look forward to seeing the process work itself out.

Okay. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else? Come on down, sir, and state your name and address, and you have up to three minutes.

Hi, my name's Fritz Boniface. I live at 27530 Elk, um, Running Elk Road up in Clark. Um, you know, personally, I think that the bigger concern is the artificial intelligence, because it's moving so rapidly, and I know it's a national topic, it's a political topic, if you will, but... It's hard to change things at a national level, but we all live here in Steamboat Springs in this small community where we can make these decisions here for what's best for us, and we can inspire other communities to do the same. And we've been seeing that with these systems. And, you know, saying like, oh, this technology has been around since 1972 really undermines the AI side of things. And I remember that has been sticking with me since the public meeting a couple of weeks ago. And I had a great conversation with Chief Beckett afterwards about how. change starts small and we are a small community and we can start here and hopefully people follow that suit because I think with the amount of water resources and the amount of energy that AI uses that we need to put some guard rails on it at some type of level. And maybe that level is starting here and expanding bigger. But I just don't find it to be safe. It doesn't make me feel comfortable. Sorry, this is new to me, so I wasn't really prepared to talk. But yeah, I think that At Steamboat, I was very proud of the community and the questions that they were asking were very well thought out. But I left that meeting more hopeful about our community rather than necessarily decisions being made. Because I don't know all of you guys. And that's why I'm starting to show up to this stuff more. But we count on you guys to make the right decisions. not just for our community, but to set a precedent for the rest of the country, if you will. And I know that seems like a big goal, but it has to start small because change starts small. And I would hope you all would see how dangerous this technology could be. And I don't want to be a fear monger or anything, but I've never seen a single movie or story that involves AI that doesn't have some type of end in the world. to it, right? So everybody's been thinking about it for years. So what can we do here in Steamboat Springs to get control of these technologies? I think it starts with what we're talking about right now, getting rid of these these companies that we don't know what they're doing with the data they could be doing a lot more and it seems like they've been allowing a lot more agencies to to access it so um thank you for your time i appreciate you all i appreciate you cheat packet so thank you well thank you we appreciate your comments okay is there anybody else come on down win

Common sense tells me I should sit there and keep my mouth shut in the room. Speak to the wise master. So I have in Florida, I sat where you sat in the city with the police department. I was also on the board of a organization that had 10,000 employees and had a private unmarked police department. That's in my previous 40 years in Florida. I took City 101 because I've been here 31 years. And then I took Citizens Police Academy. And as a result of that, when there were murmurs about having a volunteer at the police department, I was the first person that applied. And after three months of FBI and CBI, and you know the drill, I was selected to be a volunteer with this police department. And I have just this past week taken my annual security exam on which I scored a 96 so that I can keep my key, which is very meaningful to me. It's important. I hate to have to run through the groundwork, but I've spent a lifetime volunteering and being interested in communities. I spent 31 years here. So in my this is coming up on my fourth year. November will be the end of my fourth year with the police department. doing ride-alongs. I helped a little bit with the strategic planning. I have an MBA. I'm a grandfather counselor to some of our young patrol people. I think I have won over confidence. They are assured that nothing I hear in the patrol car will ever be repeated out of it. Previous gentlemen talked about going to the basic of starting small. There is no rule that any government, national or local, can make that can't be gotten around by a person who really wants to do it. It's called hacking in its simplest form. What I would like to tell you is in my four years that starting at the top of the police department with Chief Beckett, you have an incredible person who has dealt with life and his own family's situation probably more than 98% of the population. You have Rich Brown as a commander who's been in the community for 30 plus years. You have Greg, the other commander in charge of the technical nitty gritty of policing. I have seen them. I have worked with them on their, seen their character. Character is what counts. That's the most basic thing. And then the training. The police department is getting the most up-to-date training. They're getting it for free where they can, and they're buying it where they have to. And so you can be assured that all our officers are doing the best that can be done out there in their daily work. I'd stake my reputation on it.

Thank you, Wynn. okay is there anyone else in the audience would like to make a public comment um well you've made but uh we'll give you one more seconds okay uh i didn't intend to say this i just forgot but uh there's i count at least nine cameras

in the city limits between Haymaker and Westtown. The city seems to be paying for six. Can somebody take it upon themselves to find out who owns the other three or who's paying for the other three and make sure that they're disabled as well? Okay, we'll bring that up. Thank you.

Okay, seeing nobody else in the attendance, is there anyone online? Please raise your hand if you'd like to make a public comment. Okay, seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it back, Chief, for a couple questions. One was around could we do what Hayden has done and put bags over these cameras?

We've discussed that on a high level. It's our position. It's my position that if we do that, it could be construed as tampering with the cameras, and I think we could open ourselves up to some legal liability, but I would defer to the city attorney. Sorry.

The contract that we have with FLOC, I don't know what the terms are of other communities. I imagine this is their master language. We're not permitted to remove or tamper with their cameras, or we could be in material breach of the contract. When you're in material breach, you open yourself up to damages. So I won't be recommending that tonight.

Okay, thank you. And the other question was the number of cameras, six in Steamboat. Maybe these are county cameras. Could you answer?

I'm going to look at Greg. Six are ours. There are some county cameras. I think it's also worth noting that there are private, there are flock contracts in the private industry. So there's other private flock cameras around, but I don't know.

And those are on private property?

They would be on private property.

But the city of Steamboat Springs has never had more than six? Or doesn't have more than six?

We don't have, yeah. We had our original cameras, and then as we were transitioning to get new cameras installed at better locations, there was overlap. But we have six, is what we contract for.

Is it safe to assume when you mentioned other private companies, the parking garages up at the ski mountain, could they be using flock technology for their surveillance of license plates and when I get my ticket for $81 because I ran in there for 30 minutes?

Any flock contracts in the private industry? I've seen them at Lowe's. I've seen them at hospitals. Really?

Something like that.

Well, I just, again, I'm not saying here I've seen, I've seen them around.

So no, I mean, when we start talking about the public sector where we have control over and we're trying to limit it yet, you know, all over the town, there's these private flock cameras collecting data, the exact thing we're trying to avoid.

I don't know the answer to that.

Anything as a ring camera, a ring camera too. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. HOAs hire, you know, by flock and,

It's just interesting to note. I mean, we're getting rid of flock in our private sector, in our public areas, but it's heavily what you're just stating in our private sector. And that's outside your realm, right? Correct. That's interesting.

Yeah, I think as we talk about the governance of this stuff and the way we look at this technology, there's a lot of talk about this idea of mass surveillance. Surveillance and the way it's been evaluated in the federal government specifically is not new. I mean, we've talked about surveillance. The courts have ruled on surveillance for decades. So when I was a young officer, we had trackers that we could just put on a car and the courts quickly ruled that those were overly intrusive and private. We used to have pole cameras that we could put up and watch a drug house. The court said that it was constant surveillance. So we're constantly evolving. I think we can look at history. We can see how the courts have ruled on surveillance in the past and we have an idea of what it would look like in the future. When it comes to very clear guidance from the high courts, from the Supreme Court specifically, from the high courts, it's on a case-by-case basis. So, I mean, that case law has changed a thousand times since I've been a young officer.

Counselor Gary, question?

Yes, thank you. I just want to follow up on kind of the conversation and make sure that we're being really careful with words from the perspective of the private cameras that are still out there. I mean, do we know that they're flock cameras? I mean, are they Axon? Are there other providers that do? Because we know there are certainly garages that do the license plate readers. So we'd love any sort of insight that you can provide on that. So that we're, again, careful about what we know or don't know.

I know they're widely used in the private sector. I don't know what people are using here. I know that there are ALPR cameras being used privately in our city. I don't know what company they are, who is using what. And it's not something the government would get involved in.

Okay. That's what I just wanted to be careful about in terms of we know that they're license plate readers, but we don't know what the... who the company is that's actually providing the service.

Okay. Any other thoughts? Yes. Question for our city attorney. So would we be liable if a member of the public were to put stickers on these cameras or bag them?

I would not say so.

Okay.

That would be an interesting decision.

I just, if I can.

I'm just, I'm saying that... If the SSPD, a city employee, city official does not think of a camera, instruct someone else to do something as a camera, use someone else as an agent to do something to a camera, I am not concerned about our law. We cannot control everything at every moment in this city.

And no one should do that. And it could still be considered a criminal offense. So the city attorney's position is to protect the city's interests. I will just say tampering with devices could be a criminal offense. I would say that would be a really bad idea.

I'll just jump in here for a second just to... clarify with council, we sent an agreement cancellation document that I drafted with help from you people, the chief and our talking RIT department and other folks. And in that agreement, we're trying to get them to delete all the data that they may have as fast as they can to get cake cameras down as fast as we can so i just want to assure you all that that's in negotiation as fast as we can but as the chief has pointed out there are certain limitations to when they're going to send a contractor up here to do that for us thanks

Since there's a lot of questions about covering up or just us doing something physically to disable the cameras, is there anything that we could do from the ground level looking up at these cameras to see whether they are on or off? For example, at night, do they have an LED flasher that activates when a car or person walks by them that we could verify that that does not happen?

I don't believe so. I don't believe so. When our admin account was on, the cameras, I mean, they were collecting data, but nobody had access to them. So again, I think at a certain level, there's only so much we can do.

Well, it seems like the sooner Flock can get around to taking these things off and down, the better. But we understand there's hundreds of thousands of these out there, or over 100,000. Okay. Thank you, Chief.

Sorry. Again, last Thursday, we got communication from them that they have decommissioned the cameras. So while I understand everyone wants to physically see them gone to understand that, we have it in the communication that they've been decommissioned. So I understand not everyone is going to feel comfortable with that, but there also is no reason to think that they're still on.

Okay. Thank you so much for your time tonight. We appreciate it. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, our second topic tonight is the Six-Year Capital Improvement Program. Kim, you wanna come on down?

Good evening, council.

Did everyone get written?

printed copy that was.

Well, my info right here.

And three many times. Love you. We move around the smaller. Okay.

All right.

Good evening, Council. Kim Weber, Finance Director, and Sarah Briones, Deputy Finance Director. So tonight we're going to talk about our capital improvement plan, a little bit about the process, a little bit of an overview. And after we get through the presentation, we'll open it up to questions about specific projects, We have the experts here to answer any of your questions about specifics. And this is your chance to ask all of those questions. But we're going to highlight mostly the process and why we're here right now. So part of the city's charter is that the city manager will provide prepare a long range capital program and submit it two weeks prior to the submission of the budget. So we're coming down to crunch time with the budget. So you're gonna start seeing stuff over the next month. So that is why we're here. Oh, also on this slide, you'll see present a balance six-year CIP. For years and years, we would submit a six-year CIP or a five-year CIP, and we'd just move everything to the first year, and anything that we couldn't fund, we'd just push off to later years. And this is over 15 years ago that I'm talking about. And we've really worked to come up with a plan that is achievable in a six-year period of time, and everything else drops below the funding line. So that balance is important. So this is a big process that we undertake on an annual basis. And it's a big process for many people in the city. So capital improvement plan proposals are due. People start working on, departments start working on them as early as January. And they're due around April and May. They submit them. Then we compile them all. Leadership ranks most of the projects. We have reined it in because it just takes too long. It already takes three different meetings for us to rank them all. then we put them all in order and that that's not always the best way to rank all the projects there's some that need to actually move up some that can kind of back down so we go through a process of balancing and then tonight we present to city council We gather any feedback that you might have, we make any changes, we go back, revise it. And then October 6, we'll present it again in a in a more condensed format. And then in the budget ordinance, you'll approve just the 2027 items. So even though you're kind of signing off on the full six year CIP, you're actually only appropriating funds for the 2027 projects. So we came to you in June to talk about the ranking criteria. So here was the ranking criteria that you approved and we used on these projects. So consider the legal, contractual and health and safety. Those are our top tier items. We've been told and we know that we need to maintain and protect our city's existing assets. So that ranks pretty high. The city's strategic plan, adopted plans, equitable community benefit. And then we do have a waiting for some private funding. So we have about 170 projects on this capital plan. Not all of them are funded. 65 of them have current year appropriated funds. We were able, based on our projected revenue, we were able to fund 32 additional ones for the next six years. So that's not, all those 32 aren't necessarily in 2027. That's about $49 million. And then, unfortunately, we have about $156 million of projects that just we don't have enough funding for. So they are what we call below the funding line. That's about 75 projects. So I just want to go over this, not each line item, but kind of how to read the spreadsheets. So the spreadsheets or attachment two has all of your projects from 2026 to 2028. The top part, try to color code it a little bit. The dark green are items that are above the funding line for the next six years. So these are projects one through 15, which we'll go over in a minute. Then you have 16 through 32. You'll see on, there's some color coding in 2027 as well. We used a light pink color. So any of the fire EMS projects, the city portion of those we were proposing to pay with the fire EMS fund. And then on the next slide, slide 7, you'll see there's a green color highlight in 2027 and kind of a purplish one. And that's where there's outside funding sources. So the Steamboat Springs Resort Corporation, the $2.75 million, will plan to use some of that in 2027. And then City Council... asked to fund Whistler Park in 2027 and that'll be funded with the accommodation tax funding. So that's the projects 1 through 32 that are above the funding line for the next six years. Then you go down to, on the spreadsheet, you go down to a light green and those are ones that already have funding this year. But in that block where we talked about the leadership team balancing, so we put them in order based on where they rank, and then we move things around to get it to balance, to get some of the projects above the funding line. So these are all the projects that shifted during that balancing session. So the public works facility construction has a large price tag with it. We're proposing $3 million of city funding and then probably debt funding for the remaining. But because of that $3 million, it made it so a lot of the other, even though it ranked really high, it made it so a lot of the other projects wouldn't be able to get done. So we actually split it into two different projects, funded the design and moved the construction down below the funding line. Then we were able to move up some other projects. So asset management software, West Acres fence, some infrastructure repair, and then we get down to Botanic Park fence line expansion, Botanic Park maintenance area, and the parkland acquisition. Those three have other dedicated funding sources. So all those, those didn't rank as high as some of the others, we moved them up because it doesn't have an effect on our CIP fund. So stables restroom, although it ranked hides got a higher price tag, and it would have moved all of those most of those projects down and flood reduction at butcher knife same. same thing. So those are the areas where we moved projects around to make it balance. So here's the list of the 2027 proposed projects. So these are just the ones that have 2027 funding in them. And we can go through and you can ask questions about any of these projects when we get to the detail, if you'd like, or I can go through them. I'll wait to go through them because there might be specific questions. When we talk about how we balance the fund, so this is on, I think, probably page three. Yeah, page three of your large handouts. But we take the beginning fund balance of the CIP, the Capital and Projects Fund, and at the end of 2025, there was $38 million in that fund. Adding in the revenue that we anticipate receiving in 2026, which is primarily grants, private contributions, intergovernmental contributions, and building an excise tax. then take out everything that has currently been budgeted. So there's $69 million of that that's already been budgeted. We come to an estimated $3.6 million in the capital projects fund at the end of 2026. So that's if we did all of the projects, all of those 65 projects that we currently have budgeted, we would have about $3.6 million in that fund at the end of this year. So then starting 2027, we start with that and we add in the revenue that we anticipate receiving and take out the expenses that we have budgeted, those 35 projects. And we want this number to stay above a million dollars. So it's $1.6 million is pretty low for a fund this size. But our philosophy is we keep the majority of our reserves in the general fund. And in the capital fund, this is really for if a project goes over or if something happens to our building use tax. But we do want to keep this at about a million dollars. So right now, the plan that you have, it's at 1.6 million. And then we have to think about the years out in the future. But they are looking okay, based on this plan. I wanted to talk a little bit about, so there's a few projects that are above the funding line, but they don't have any budget until 2028. You will see these again in the next years. They're part of the six-year plan, but you won't actually appropriate these funds. So this is the section. So I just took basically this and put it in the spreadsheet you just looked at two slides ago. But this is how we manage where we're at fund balance. So these are the funding areas for this capital fund. Use tax, we're estimating at about 4 million. Excise tax, about 2 million. We get franchise fees that are dedicated to utility undergrounding. that can only be used for utility undergrounding. Conservation trust fund money that it can only be used for recreation, outdoor recreation. Then we have the transfer from the fire EMS fund for the specific fire EMS projects happening in 2027. We have the transfer from the general fund for the ski core contribution specifically towards capital. And then we are planning to transfer $2 million from the general fund to help keep this six-year CIP going. So we have put money back in reserves the last few years. We are proposing to transfer that to the capital projects fund to keep the six-year CIP funded. This has been going on for decades. This is how a lot of the capital gets funded. We're conservative in the general fund, then we move money over to the capital fund because that is really what the purpose of reserves is for. It's for your one-time expenses, not for ongoing expenses. We have the transfer from the accommodation tax fund to fund Whistler. Unfortunately, today I figured out or we found out that that number is wrong. That should be actually 3.2 million, I believe. It doesn't change the ending balance because we'll change the expense and we'll change the revenue. It doesn't affect the bottom line CIP, but we did have the wrong number in that. We will get that corrected. So then we have some other outside revenue that we'll be bringing in from grants or contributions that are in the detail. We do have some restricted revenue, so revenue that has to be used for certain activities that we don't plan for, but our bottom line is 1.6 million, so. In my mind, we have about $600,000 we could utilize. This slide shows our general fund fund balance, and I'm showing you this because of the decision to bring over $2 million. You could say, well, why don't you bring over $3 million? Well, why don't we bring over $4 million? We have about $9 million in unassigned fund balance that can be used for capital. And that's after the $2 million transfer. Right now, one thing you'll see that is missing from this CIP is anything with the Stockbridge campus. We don't know what that's going to look like. We don't know if that's going to be all housing that can be funded with the STR funds. We don't know if it's going to be childcare. We don't know what it's going to be. I think it's in council's best interest to leave a portion of money in the general fund for knowing that that project could be coming. Also, we purchased that property with short-term rental tax fund. Once we figure out what portion of that is not going to be going to housing, if there's a portion, we'll need to pay out of the general fund, we'll need to pay the STR fund back for that portion. of the property value so um so that's why this is in here i suggest we stay at 2 million and not go higher but that is council's decision so next steps uh we'll get your direction tonight then we'll bring this back october 6 with any changes that you propose again we'll only budget for the 2027 projects and we'll do the the process all over again for 2028. and they'll be eligible or on for future ranking. So my questions, I know you guys have questions about specific projects, but do you have questions about specific projects? Are there ones that you would want to postpone, move to funded, move to unfunded, and then keeping in mind that we need to either move more money from the general fund or we need to push projects down in order to fund them?

Okay. Thank you, Kim, for that presentation. I got a question.

Go for it. On slide 13 up there, just the one or two before that, just the one before that, can you give me an explanation, a couple things. Your unassigned fund balance, you broke that up, fiscal policy, $15 million, then you have your $2 million in your unassigned and your balance. Tell me about the fiscal policy just in the last six years and where that $15 million has determined as your policy. How's that worked?

Yeah, so the city council approved 25% of the prior year's expenses as the fiscal policy reserve. Based on talking with our auditors, based on talking with other government agencies, that is a good example area to be in. I will tell you there is not a document that says this is what you need to do. At least I haven't found one. It's really about what your funding sources are. We are not reliant on property tax, which is a lot more stable. You find out exactly what you're going to get in November or December, and you can count on that for the year. We're reliant on sales tax. COVID can break out and March you have to stop. So 25% is only three months of the year. So I think that is, that's where that comes from. It's in our fiscal policy that city council has approved. Could be higher, could be lower. That's what we...

It's definitely... I appreciate the percentage. It's definitely gone up just in the last decade.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it goes 9, 10, 11, 12. And that's just based on, you know, as we take on... As we take on like the fire EMS fund, um, we expanded expenses that makes that number go up as we get a contribution from SSRC and we keep transit operations the same that goes up. So any like new service, any inflation, that number goes up because that's really the services that we're providing to the community.

Thank you. Other questions for Kim?

Go ahead, John. Unfortunately, my head is spinning. How can I help? First of all, this process and trying to figure out all the different numbers, I don't even know where to begin. I guess we could stay on slide 15 and basically what's not cleared me even to start out of the gate is what is our budget for CIP versus our budget or the general fund. And what I'm looking here, it looks like this is the general fund with a fiscal policy of 25%, that's for the CIP.

That is actually for the general fund. And I may have confused the situation by bringing that in. That was more just to say, This CIP includes a transfer of $2 million. That could be more, that could be less, but if you say more or less, it changes what we have sitting in the general fund. With the budget for CIP, we can look at slide 10. It varies from year to year. So the middle line that says less expenditures, in 2026, right now we have $69 million budgeted. in 2026. And that is, that wasn't all just approved for 2026. That is carry projects that were started a couple of years ago that were right in the middle of that. Maybe we haven't finished. Um, those are all ongoing projects that we have right now. Then we have 17.8 million slated for 2027, and then it goes down to 4.6.

Is the 17.8, is that for a new project money? It's new, yep. Okay, so we're talking about in 2027, that's new project money, so basically we're just carrying over any project with their allocated funding from 2026. and not such looking necessarily looking at those, but basically we are now evaluating what to do with the 17, 1, 8 million.

Yep. Yep. That's exactly it. And so when, when I come to you with the carryover supplemental each year, which is like a huge supplemental budget appropriation, it's because we haven't finished say that $68 million in Projects don't just drop off on December 31st. Then we reevaluate what do we need to rebudget for.

You don't have to reallocate those monies. The monies were allocated and just carry over.

No, we actually do have to reallocate them. We do have to come to city council and ask you to reallocate those monies. But we do it in a way that is, okay, we have X millions of dollars allocated for Pine Grove Road. We've already contracted for this. I think it would be a good idea for you to roll the budget over. Okay.

And then when you were talking about moving money over for like Whistler Park, which of 3.3 million, whatever that number is,

that is that in the 17.8 million or is that it is in the 17.8 million and then you have the offsetting revenue in the plus revenue above so you have the you'll will transfer money over from the accommodation tax into here so yeah that is in here okay and then why is with you you have on slide eight you identify

nine projects as basically that those are the projects it seems like you are recommending to spend the 17.8 million on but why is it something like a whistler park okay he's on there well this this was um so we took all ranking we all and then we drew a line

This is all we can afford, right? It was like . ... ...

Okay.

We'll take it off. Okay. Okay, and for us, And for everybody online, we are determined that we will be back next Wednesday with hope. The hope that I promise. Thank you.

This is the whole menu. And all these light green ones are up for debate. They've already been showing us.

Check, check, check.

It actually happened in an executive session.

He does better. Kim, I have a question.

Yes.

Is the fire truck stuff that's further out just because the lag? I don't think one of those trucks here.

The same question.

I was talking to someone who fired one of the trucks. Yeah. But they're not bugging it. No, we're not bugging it. Yeah, and that's very similar.

we're we're on right now did you guys know that we have we're on this is the process you have a hot light to look at this and this is oh yeah is your prostate okay good portion of manic

is having issues in their cloud or whatever it is so other folks are having problems too so we're just discussing our kind of backup options it is working it's just very choppy and as the audio is cutting out for folks online we will but we are worried that since the recording flows through zoom that it will be choppy

someplace else did that

Bye.

Check one, two, check one, two. All right, we can hear you.

I can sort of hear. Do you have your mic on? How about now?

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, now I can hear you.

So you're back. Okay.

It does appear like zoom's getting its act together again, but just give us a couple of minutes. Cause it as part of that process, it kicked us out and rejoined and restarted the meeting. So we're just getting everything.

All right. So we're going to take a couple more minutes. Yeah.

Okay, good. Cause I can hear you, but I, but there's no video coming through.

Yeah. Yeah. Video is frozen right now too. We're working on that.

Thank you.

Okay.

What?

Test, test, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

I have a better understanding now. Oh, I don't know. I play it like.

better now.

He's building one step further. You'll see in future years if this discontinues. I think 2032, you'll see this. Yeah. Yeah. It's an annual basis. Yeah.

Okay. We are going to record it up here to have a backup to make sure that we do record the session. Zoom is having issues, but they do seem to be somewhat intermittent. So it will be working, and then it will get really slow, and there are some issues with the Zoom client restarting itself. So I'm more worried about Gail's ability to interact with us. So Gail... I think we'll just have to see, um, where you are going to proceed with both zoom. It is still streaming to the internet. Um, when we have issues and if you are, if you are not getting through to us, I'm not sure what the backup plan is. I don't know if you could maybe just text, uh, one of your fellow council members, um, if you're not able to, to reach us.

Did she call in just a regular phone line or is that through zoom? That's,

That's through Zoom too? Fortunately, it all flows through Zoom. So we are a little bit at the mercy of their system.

Well, Gail, if we lose you, just text us.

Text one of us.

Okay. Yeah, thank you. I will do that.

And Gail, I'll actually recommend that you just don't try and use your video. Just keep it to audio just to help because that might help with whatever issues Zoom's got going on on their end. Sorry for the inconvenience.

No, thank you. It's barely delayed, right? Because I've turned my video off.

Yeah. We can hear you. We can hear you just fine. So hopefully that'll keep going. Okay. Where were we? Yes, we were.

I think we finished up one of the questions. So whatever other questions are.

I will... You can, yeah, others, can you ask other questions?

Other questions for Kim, and we'll go back to John later.

Is the fence a long process? It is, yes. Fire would be responsible for that?

It's a legal contractual obligation when we put the road in that we would maintain the fence and it needs to be rebuilt.

Last question is for the fire department.

Brian, is your mic on?

Sorry. My mic was off. My second question is about the fire equipment. I know the funding horizon is further out into like 2028. The reason we have that in this CIP is to plan ahead for the lead time to order that. So when it gets here in time...

The funding horizon. What do you mean by that?

It gets line items, numbers... seven eight nine and those and the budget is only out the funds are needed out to yep i understand like 20 20 20 31 20 30

Yeah, our fire chief is here. I'll try to answer the question. They are counting on lead time. So they are actually bringing the replacement schedule up sooner, knowing that it'll take three, two, three, four, five years. So those are based on the need in future years. So is when they're putting it in. Because in order to enter into a contractual obligation, we need to have it appropriated by city council. So they're building in that lead time into their requests.

And I assume that truck takes five years to come in. Okay, great. That was my question. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, other questions? I had a question. As I look through the spreadsheet that you gave us, and I'm looking kind of line items 161, 162, helicopter parking ramp, rodeo LED lighting conversions in 171, 172, and some of these ones. As I go through, I appreciate the years I've gone through this and having we come up with a ranking system. My question is kind of toward a return of investment, right? So on some of these capital improvement projects, it's a playground, it's, you know, parking lot resurfacing, things like that. Is there any criteria that you identify where there's a return of investment? For example, it was brought to us a few weeks ago that the helicopter parking ramp generates revenue with fuel charges and everything. So when I was looking through some of these items, I personally looked at them from a business standpoint. Like, is there a return of investment that we can get my tax dollars back and then use those to keep funding other projects? Do you ever run that through a criteria?

I would say, so we have a, on the maintaining our city assets, we talk about is it going to cost more if we do it now? I wouldn't say that we dive in deep onto the return on investment.

A good example would be the tubing hill.

Right, we did on that one. We absolutely did. We had many conversations here in this room and at leadership team level about what the ROI was. And we have very few projects like that. Maybe the helicopter parking would be one of them, but I would say we can, we can have that conversation.

Well, I think, and I don't want to make it a norm, right? Because it's an abnormally, but there's sometimes there's projects that have a return of investment. What I learned through our past parks and recs department was that we're set up to provide services to our community. not make a profit off them. This is what our tax dollars should be paying for. Good parks, clean services, fire, safety, things like that. But when we look at CIP and we're trying to consider that, when those show up, I just think sometimes it's worth kind of getting a little aha. That would be good to pay for because the self-service fuel station says it would profit, but it keeps getting knocked down the list year after year after year. And so I know now it's kind of moved up to a point, but I just want to consider some of these times we have business opportunities like the tubing hill that can prove to bring a service to town and then generate revenue for the parks and rec department for years in the future.

Yeah, I think it's important to look at both sides of the ledger, for sure.

Yeah, thank you. Are you advocating we push 175 up above?

No, no, no, no. I'm comfortable with where they're at. I just want to make a point of, you know, I trust where the system is, where it's got us there. I've been with it for a couple of years. But I just think that one of these consistent thing that comes up is not all the time do we have income generating capital. And it's worth wondering how do we keep an eye on those? to give them a little bit bump up because they could be a quicker return and we can do a whole lot more below the line. That's all.

Okay, go ahead. Councilor Gary, you have a question?

Yes, thank you. And actually just following up on Councilor Pacino's comment, I had that same thought, not so much as in revenue generating, but also from the perspective of cost savings. I mean, I think when we look at some of the other items, the LED light, and we know that they're much more efficient and they're much more cost efficient. I think there is something to be said to take that into consideration as well. I did have a couple of other specific questions. I teed up some questions to Kim earlier. I won't ask all of those. But I did have a question about line 19, which is the general paving for 2 million. And I guess my question is, what does that, and I think we've asked this question before, but I'm not sure that we either don't recall the answer in terms of kind of what our per mile or how do we think about that in terms of what's actually going to be, what's actually going to happen, right? I mean, I understand, you know, again, from a general municipal service perspective, we want to make sure that our roads are maintained. So, you know, we've got a pretty consistent line item. However, what does that, what does that 2 million provide for? Do we have like a square foot or a per mile cost?

I'll let John Snyder, Public Works Director, answer that.

Oh, John. Does it include green paint?

It does not include green paint. Good evening, John Snyder, Public Works Director. So give me a quick 90 seconds to give you the background on how we set this budget. So there is a national industry standard for how you measure how good your pavement is, and it's called Pavement Condition Index, or PCI for short. And it's a 0 to 100 scale, 0 being the worst, 100 being the best. and what you want to do is not let your roads get below 60 because when you do all of a sudden now instead of just overlaying you have to dig down and rebuild the whole thing kind of like we had to do for pine grove and it's really expensive so we had our consultant review our roads for the first time 10 years ago in 2016 and what they do is they take these vans with a bunch of fancy expensive equipment on they drive slowly over the roads and they shoot SENSORS DOWN INTO THE ROAD, GET READINGS BACK AND THEY TELL YOU HERE'S WHAT YOUR PAVEMENT IS. AND THEY DO THAT FOR EVERY ROAD IN THE CITY. THEY TOLD US AT THE TIME THAT YOU GUYS ARE AN OVERALL PCI OF 60. IF YOU DON'T GET IT IN GEAR HERE, YOU'RE GOING TO END UP HAVING TO SPEND A LOT MORE MONEY IN THE LONG TERM. SO WE INCREASE THAT BUDGET. THE GOAL IS TO KEEP OUR OVERALL PCI BETWEEN 80 AND 85. IF WE DROP BELOW 80, WE KNOW WE'RE NOT INVESTING ENOUGH. If we go above 85, we know we're investing too much. So right now we're at an 82, which is exactly where we want to be. So we escalate that cost 3% annually just to keep our spot between 80 and 85 because that's the most cost-effective way to keep your payment condition good.

Does that answer the question?

Well, it answers the question, yes, I mean, in the sense of, but not necessarily like in terms of kind of the per mile cost. I mean, what I hear you saying, right, is the national industry standard, right, and where you want to keep it between 80 and 85. And basically, are we in a catch-up? I mean, so we're in a maintenance mode. So basically, we're going to continue to see this line item at the end with the, you said 15% or 13%? 3% escalation?

Yes. Yes, that's correct. We would recommend we keep a line item like this that escalates 3% annually. Okay. And I can get you a per mile figure. I can email that to you.

Okay. And it is, Councilor Swintek, somewhat tied to green paint. So, okay, that answers that question. And it kind of dovetails into, I think, line 157, which is the third and Lincoln project. I think it's called...

something else um but if it's basically it's looking at the safety of third and lincoln and potential traffic kind of configuration yes uh it's east downtown circulation so what we're proposing is a study of that area to see what it is we can do uh to improve the congestion in that area and matt phillips our city engineer is here if you want to hear more about that project

okay because that one obviously fell below the line um and i guess that one of the questions i had is is is and and i think kim that i heard you say there might be a potential six hundred thousand I don't want to know that I want to say surplus, but 600,000 to pay with, play with. So, you know, I guess my question is about the third and Lincoln, you know, that it's a problematic intersection and just trying to get some insight into the study and the design and why that kind of really fell below and whether or not it would be

something to consider to move that one up for future um planning can i throw a wrench into that one that wrench is the rta uh station and that you know that's you know that could change that entire little area be depending on where a uh commuter rail kind of sits second third street or 13th street I'm just third street. Okay. Sorry. Never remember. I was like a 13th street. The other three. Oh, sorry about that.

Okay.

No monkey wrench. Keep going. Yeah. Honestly, Gail, tell me a little bit why you brought this up and, and, and convince me of it. We can have a discussion.

Well, actually, I think we're still kind of in question mode. And I would, again, appreciate staff's input on that. And again, particularly because we know that's a problematic intersection. So I think for consideration for us, I mean, there's been accidents, there's been people hit there. That's where the main traffic goes through in the morning and the evening. I mean, I think that's one of the ones that we hear kind of the most complaints about. So in the... CIP, as I say, line 157, I think there was $150,000 for this study and design. So why not? You know, I think there should be some discussion about whether or not we might have the additional monies to look at that one and potentially consider it. The other question I had is, and I think somebody already mentioned this, line 144, our stables restroom. I know we had this conversation last year and we actually took the money from the stables restroom to Whistler Park. Say again?

Go ahead.

I know that even last year we were saying that, and it says in the description that this is on its last legs. Are we nearing that being closed permanently.

We'll have Matt Barnard talk to that.

Good evening, Matt Bernard, Parks and Rec Development Manager. I don't think we're planning a closure for it. We do have some challenges with the way the infrastructure is performing, but with some patience, it does continue to work for us. So we're just going to continue moving forward with it. We'd only close it if it had some kind of an infrastructure failure, similar to the ninth inning restroom. That would, I think, be the only reason why we would close it. We'll keep limping it along for a couple of years until we get it funded.

But may I ask a follow-up question to that, to Gail, what you're asking here? Because Kim, if I look at the expenditures for 2028, 2029, 2030, the estimates are between $4 and $6 million, correct?

Estimates of what?

Of expenditures for capital. It's going to be 4.6 and 28, is that correct?

Yes, that is what was requested. That is what made it above the line.

Right, which is a drastic reduction from what's planned in 2027 of 17.

Yeah, I will say that because the amount of time that it takes to put these – proposals together because of the amount of time it takes to rank the proposals. The tendency has been to focus on the ones for just the following year. Next year, there will be a whole new slew of ones.

Well, I guess my question is, this has been around for a couple of years, this stables restroom. It's $2 million. And if we look at what the expenditures of 2020, 29, 30 are, to find $2 million to do that is probably a challenge given the size of the kitty that we have to keep our balance, the unrestricted balance where we want it. So I guess what I'm asking is that, you know, if you read the description on here, it's talking about flushing issues, all sorts of major problems. And this is a customer guest experience as well. And is this really something that we can just sit here with for the next three to four years?

You know, and I would add to that, Councillor Muntean, I mean, the reason I brought it up is because there's interest in this, certainly from the rodeo, from the Halison Hill user group. And there's a bigger potential there with the rodeo, with the use by Route County, you know, by the... cycling community as well as by the nordic users in the winter so um again when we get into discussion i think there's merit in terms of having a conversation about this because i think there's other funding that is out there but i think there needs you know potentially to be some sort of commitment from you know a design study as to you know what can what can be done So I think to add on to your point about it's a customer service, you know, kind of a customer service experience, right? We know we don't have enough bathrooms downtown, but there's also potential there with our, you know, with Allison Hill user groups.

And that's the time for us to cherry. Go ahead.

Oh, no. And I had one more question. So, again, below the line, line 183, that and probably I don't know, Matt, if you've sat down the jump snowmaking pipe repair. I just I don't understand that in terms of how it relates to summer usage versus winter snowmaking.

Sure, I can chime in on that one. We definitely utilize the broken line that we have. We would utilize that more in the summer for summer jumping. Currently right now, we kind of have a temporary fix We're able to route some water higher on the hill with just fire hoses. That's what we're using to get the water up there. That isn't an option for us to use that in the winter. So we kind of put that to bed in the fall and then we stack snow in other strategic areas that we're able to push snow up. um if you've ever seen us we're pushing snow up those um up those areas which isn't ideal we'd like to make the snow up there would be you know a much better situation for us instead of using like a winch cat to do that um but right now we're utilizing kind of our work around mainly in the summertime and in the winter we're using just our the machines that we have out there to kind of get by

okay um man can you respond a little bit hold on can you respond a little bit to the stables use um the bathrooms and and you know is it really an issue right now or are we just kind of like can we wait a couple years give us your insight

I think it's an issue, but it's also an opportunity. If we got to move forward with a project, if we got funding for this, it would really help out. I think Councillor Geary talked about just our winter use. We don't have the access right now. That's a seasonal restroom for us. So if we were able to expand this to a 365 day a year restroom, it would really alleviate some of that pressure that we have down on. the Howelson stable area, rodeo, the biking, the winter Nordic pieces. It would really help that situation out quite a bit. Facilities did, I think it was in 2022, gave us some funding. So we do have kind of a feasibility plan for this. And that's, I think, when we first kind of engaged some of the Howelson Hill user group folks to get interest in this. And so last year we did present to you, we kind of presented a base model bathroom to you. And then we also presented what it could be if we got some of that partner funding in there and what some of their ideas and aspirations would be if they got to chime in and contribute to that project. So I do think this is something that could move forward. Is it smart for us to spend money on this right now in a design? I don't think so. I think it'd be really good to gather those user group fans and say, who's really interested in this in this project? Who's really going to put money into this project? Because I want to hear their voice. If we just kind of go out and spend some design dollars now, I think everybody's going to come to the table with some ideas. I want them to come to the table with some money, so we're making sure we're designing something that actually could be built once we have those funds.

Just to give a little context, I think what he's referring to is a concession stand or a contestant's addition. There's other needs that these other user groups have identified in this house, and he'll user group. And if we can make it more than bathrooms, they may be able to put some of their money toward it as well.

Correct. I mean, some of our users have even asked us for some indoor storage space over there. Could the building be a little bit bigger to house some of their activities that they want to store equipment there? And those are all options on the table.

You feel another year delay or something? Cause it is constantly on there, but we haven't found a solution. Would you think that we need to kind of bring this up at the continually at the house and Hill user groups?

I think it would be a really good idea. You know, how long can we predict that it's going to operate? We don't know. Ninth inning wasn't even on our radar that it was an issue, and now it's closed because the infrastructure has just kind of gave out on us. So I can't give you a guesstimate on how long it's going to last. No, no, thank you, though.

Thanks, Matt. Sorry, Gail, did I take your wind?

no no thank you i mean i think that's the conversation that we need to have um right i mean in the sense of i do think there's opportunity there right um so we can we can have that discussion okay before we talk about uh potentially moving anything up or down are there any other specific project related questions for kim i have a general question and and that is as around

Taking a step back, where are we spending our capital investments? It would be good to have that big picture in terms of, you know, like what percent of our budget is going to roads? What percent is going to, you know, fire, parks and rec? transportation, do we kind of have a breakdown of basically more by department or function? Because I think it would be really good to understand, take a step back, where our spend is. I understand this is capital only and not operations, but still from a capitalist perspective, it would be good to understand where that money is going at the high level.

It varies year to year, we could do that research. But I don't have off the top of my head, we look at every project. And a lot of times a project, especially like we talked about stables restroom, I mean, that crosses over facilities, public works, parks and rec. But in general, if that's something that would be helpful for council, we could gather that information.

how does that help with your decision making um but it helps my decision making in terms of understanding it you know what parts of our city infrastructure um that we're doing our spend for example how much you know how much you know if it if you're seeing that we're spending 50 on on uh amenities you know parks and rec and things like that that's a that's a telling story i mean it's it's basically you're telling a story and unders and so basically understand what that story is

I mean, I appreciate that. I think the data should be easy. She got a column here that just says what department these are all connected to. Just put a formula and then you can get that data. What I don't want to do is use that data against any one department. We could do heavy in parks and rec one year and then super heavy in fire and PD. And it just depends on how the grading is. I wouldn't. at all want that data point to skew the needs of this great little matrix they have coming of what needs to be done. But I think it is important to recognize, gee, we're spending 80% of our money on above ground tourist track. Is that the wisest capital improvement? So interesting in that kind of high level, I'm okay with it. But anything outside of that, I don't want to direct it toward any decision making.

Okay, the one question I think before we can look at if we want to move any projects up or down, the question is, are we all comfortable with the ending unrestricted fund balance of 1.627 million in 2027? Because if we're not okay with that, If we think it needs to be higher, then we can't just add something and subtract something and it comes out net zero. So I think the first question is, are we all comfortable with the ending unrestricted fund balance, which is over a million dollars, which is the minimum goal? Are we all okay with that before we start getting into moving things around if we want to?

My only question is, does that 1.6 tee us up to be able to tackle the public works construction costs next year?

It doesn't necessarily tee us up for that. We do have some big potential building use tax, excise tax payments coming in the next year that we believe that we'll have. which will help with that. And then if you'll recall, part of the funding strategy was to utilize a portion of the freed up TIF funds to help pay that debt service payment. So we could issue more debt than the $3 million, or maybe we have additional debt. building use tax that we could utilize for that. But no, this plan, that's below the funding line and it doesn't take that into consideration. But I feel comfortable with that.

I personally been doing this. So as long as Kim keeps us above that million dollar mark, my comfort is in our reserves from the general fund. And that's why I was kind of hammering down on that. You know, using this for capital, this is exactly what it's for. We need to spend the money and not have deferred maintenance on across the city. So I'm fine with getting it close to that 1.6. I think I'd rather keep it there. But, you know, I could be consuade for another $150,000 for some kind of a study at 3rd and Lincoln. I don't know.

I was thinking the opposite direction. That's fine.

What were you thinking exactly?

I mean, I just am worried because we also have the fire. Is the fire station even on here?

Mountain fire station?

I guess I'm looking to staff. What are the big things coming down the pipeline? In my mind, it's the second fire station and the public works facility. So are we preparing today to make sure that we are able to tackle those projects in the coming five years?

I think I think the answer is yes, I mean we're starting the planning stages of that the fire potential new fire station is you know we're just going through a feasibility study at this point to determine. If we need a new fire station, or we can do a rebuild so we don't really even know the cost. Public Works, we're farther along. We have pretty good plans and have a better idea of the cost. Both of those projects will require a funding source different than the CIP. The CIP can't afford that. And that's part of this discussion that you've been having with fiscal sustainability and diversification of revenue sources to address some of those issues.

So this $3 million on here wouldn't go towards being able to issue the debt and getting us a new public works facility?

No.

What is the $3 million for in the city cost then?

I think that's the beginning of the design phase.

It's just the design. And then the outside revenue, $23.7, that's to be figured out?

Yeah, so we have $760,000 up in 2027. Because this project ranked really high. It ranked fourth. And so we have the $760,000. We talked about what could the CIP fund... take on to where we weren't issuing debt for the whole thing. And we talked about 3 million. And so the hope was that we would use $3 million of city funds to then kind of buy down that debt and then issue debt for that 23 million that then is serviced with the TIF that will be expiring.

Got it.

Mayor Mrakas, As an onslaught Gary question or comment.

Kimberley Baptista, I. Kimberley Baptista, yeah I think I think you answered my question, the question was about that public works facility and 23 million and. Kimberley Baptista, Three million but but the second question I had I guess canvas just make sure i'm understanding so as a 600,000 that you're talking about the part coming out of the 1.6.

That was the part that I believe Council President Muntean was referring to.

Okay. Well, I thought during your presentation.

Yes, it was what I was referring to in my presentation that the $1.6 million is where the unrestricted fund balance is based on this plan and these projections. My comfort level is making sure that always stays above a million dollars.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Okay, so are we ready to talk about any projects we feel should move up or down? Sure. Okay. Who has a recommendation? If any.

Do you want to take public comment before you?

Yeah, I think we probably should before we do that.

There you go.

So if there's anybody in the room, thank you, Tom, who wants to make a public comment on this, come on down, state your name. Address, you know the drill Bill.

Mr. Pass. Afternoon Council, Bill Pass, 1875 Hunters. I just wanna say that Kim does a fantastic job managing the city's finances. I have a lot of interactions with Kim and she's always very responsive to any questions that I have and has helped me understand a lot about how the city is financed. One point I would like to make, and this is kind of a high-level point with regards to the general fund and how we're managing the reserves and our surpluses such that they flow into the capital fund, is that I went back and did a look through all the audited reports since 2015, and we carry roughly 10% a year pre-COVID of surpluses in revenue. And each year those surpluses fall into unrestricted reserve. And then they're like a bank account. And we take from that bank account and transfer periodically like we're doing now, you're suggesting to do now with $2 million into the capital fund. So we're doing this every year. You know, we're accumulating money. COVID, it was really big surpluses. 2024, 2025 surpluses are below what they have typically averaged. But my point is this. Everyone talks about sales tax not being as reliable, not as steady as you go in terms of how much money you get coming in from a revenue perspective. However, excise tax and use tax are way more unpredictable than sales tax. And as a result, what we're having to do is take money that's really intended for operations, take a surplus of it, being very conservative, which we've never, ever not had a surplus. We've never, ever had to hit the 25% reserve. So we're taking money out of our operations basket every year and putting it into our capital basket while we're talking about sales tax and operations, but we're robbing money from operations for capital. So why aren't we talking about funding from the standpoint of capital? You know, I think you would get a lot more interest from the community if you were to be talking about funding capital projects and not about funding operations. And if we can get to where we're funding capital projects, then we don't have to be taking as much or stealing, if you will, from our operations fund. And maybe that's not as big a problem as we seem to make it out to be. Thank you.

Thanks, Bill. So anyone else in the audience who'd like to make a public comment? Is there anyone online? If you'd like to make a public comment, please raise your hand. All right, seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it back to council.

Question, John. When it comes to public works and sidewalks, I've noticed in the Copper Ridge area, you guys are doing a phenomenal job connecting sidewalks almost all the way out to mythology. Little section that's still missing. How is that? Is that in the same budget with the asphalt or is that in there for sidewalks?

know trying to i'm just trying to look at where you getting your budget money from that sidewalk construction is through their own unique project budgets or they're under the umbrella of a larger project say for instance pine grove what you're seeing there in the copper ridge area though is uh the result of development uh building sidewalk when they redevelop their property

Oh, so the landowner has to rebuild or do something. Except right by the intersection, that's the right of way. Did we cover that or they included that? They include that too.

Yeah, I think there's only been one section that the city has self-funded in that area. The rest have all been developer funded.

So leading you into Tamarack. Yes. So what would be a Tamarack sidewalk going along that whole road?

I think it'd be very popular. It would be highly used. It ranks quite high in our sidewalk master plan, but it's also very expensive. And you have easement issues and maintenance issues because in our code, the adjoining property owner is responsible for maintenance. And along a lot of Tamarack, the adjoining property owner doesn't necessarily front Tamarack. It could be a backyard that's several dozen feet above the road that would,

be required to get down there and plow or we'd have to take that on in the general fund okay okay yeah so i mean i'm trying to think of projects that are around there but just i mean i don't really see for me personally i don't have any changes to going up or down with any projects at this time

Others? Anyone else feel strongly about a particular project? I mean, I will just say about the Staples or the Staples restroom, finding a $2 million offset is very difficult. So, although I think it's a very important project, you know, to find $2 million.

It is, but the reality is it could be less. It could be more. It needs to be part of the House and Hill user group because that facility, that building, that structure was trying to only build one more building and we want to make sure that whoever's involved in that. And if we want to start making that a topic of conversation and lead that way for next year's CIP, we can start doing that.

Yeah. I think that that's my point, right? Is we, we know that it, we know that winter sports clubs interested. We know that the rodeo folks are interested quite frankly, last year, they agreed to, I think having the money moved and, um to the second um sheet of ice with under the understanding that we would continue to focus on the stables restroom so i guess my question is really just timing from the perspective of if we have those conversations i mean we know there's interest right um and to me it seems like the next stage step is to do some sort of design but if we don't have money allocated then we're looking at design

allocating money for design in 28 now maybe we're getting a building in 29 so that we don't even know i mean i'd rather keep that as a supplemental or something to do design work down the road we don't even know what partnership or how big the building's going to be where i get hung up on this is we're talking about two million dollars of toilets

It's not just toilets, though, Councilor Swintek. That's the point. It needs to be important.

We're talking about $2 million of storage units and toilets. They're really nice. Yeah, exactly. There's bigger problems for us to face than just get some porta-potties out there.

They are using those, and that's what the rodeo has stated. Listen, during the summer, for their needs, the porta-johns that they have out there are sufficient for the rodeo on that side of the bleachers. They said, we can do this a few more years, but it would be nice to one day have a building. The question is, what else houses that building?

So what I'm struggling with this particular one is basically Parks and Recs stood up there and said they want to bring the users group together and identify what are the needs there. And so I feel like we're the cart before the horse in terms of you know, that, you know, we, you know, Parks and Rec recommended, you know, a strategy to, you know, to design the entire area and identify where the, where the toilets should go in that area. So it seems like we're ahead of the game on that one.

Am I losing my mind? Didn't we already do that work and they wanted to put like a snack thing in there and a viewing platform? Like, didn't all of that already happen? I'm, why are we?

Yeah. We've had a discussion, but a consistent, consistent, consistent, intestine rooms and all this other stuff that was needed by these different groups. But we've never put it into a design phase or what would the building look like and where. So as we're at that just kind of schematic design and super high level, if we were serious about it, maybe we can bring it in the next, you know, next year. How much is the design?

I'm just, I'm just going to push back a little bit again, right. From the perspective of Council Pacino and I sit in on the Right. We had that, as I said, I mentioned last year, I think we all remember that we moved money from the stables restroom to Whistler Park. I'm sorry to that.

No, that was to the ice.

It wasn't Whistler Park. Let me finish, please. Exactly. I corrected myself. So it was to the... second sheet of ice. So thinking from a more visionary perspective, Councilor Swintek, it's more than bathrooms. It's certainly bathrooms, but there's an opportunity to do some sort of concessionaire so that you actually have potentially money coming in, right? Or at least some sort of offset. We know, I think as Matt mentioned, I think it's Routt County, whether it's Routt County writers have expressed some sort of interest. So we need to have these conversations, right? And the conversations have happened and continue to build on the conversations, I think it's just a matter of timing. So we're either, you know, as I say, if we have those conversations and then we wait a year or as Councilor Pacino said, maybe once we can get something and come back for a supplemental so that we have the ability to move forward and are looking at something sooner than 29.

Okay, can we say that these user groups, and you've mentioned many of them, that there will be some discussions and meetings around this and trying to come up with a plan to create some design at some point in the next year?

Yes.

Okay.

And commitment for funding.

Yes, exactly, exactly.

We'll get your direction. We'll go forward on it.

Is there any other projects, though, that we want to consider moving up or down at this point in time?

One that I'm trying to think through is basically with the whole paid parking scenario and that will cause an increase of foot traffic to the buses. The one area that's heavily serviced by... the bus service is the condo area, which is Whistler, I recognize the mountain area. And so I'm wondering whether we need to get moving on the Whistler area sidewalks because you need safe walking to the buses. That's number 151. 161. 161. And so that one kind of raises me because of paid parking and the amount of traffic and amount of use of buses in that particular area and the foot traffic that goes through there.

Is this around the base?

No, it's around Village Drive, Worcester Drive, connecting over to Mount Warner Road. We're going to have issues throughout town.

Why are we cherry picking that area?

Yeah. Well, I know it is going to be an area that is going to be heavily impacted. So are there other areas? Everywhere in the city limits.

I guess that's my concern is if we're cherry picking a specific area on a problem that's citywide, we should be waiting to see what the impacts are. And that's what we agreed to as a council as well, is we would continue to work with the resort. We would see how this coming year is, and then we would come up with a plan to work together.

That's the plan to evaluate next spring as to what the impacts are.

So I want to just raise that. I'd have a tough time pushing something that's already in the green out for that. But that is on radar. Yes.

I was going to say, I would support counselor Augusta on that. Right. We know people today walk right from already from Whistler, the Whistler area to the, to the ski resort. And certainly we've gotten lots of questions about disconnected side sidewalks over in that area. So, you know, when I looked at kind of the general paving, you know, I still think that there's some conversation that we need to have about the safety of the HAB-Masyn Moyer- intersection at third and Lincoln and absolutely concur that it would be great to see more money going to side, you know the sidewalk connections, whether it's 159 ski house to pine grove right where we know a lot of people walk. HAB-Masyn Moyer- 160 around the Emerald park right and 161 around the whistler area. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So.

I mean, there's sad people behind all of these. I guess I get bristly with this because I'm like, there's a sob story behind every single line item. Like where there isn't unlimited funds. Like I guess that's my worry is if we're not going to agree to the way that we're scoring and ranking these and drawing this line and we start picking off individual items, where does it end? And like, how fair is that? That's my concern.

I think it's also about policy and our priority and our goals, right? So we have goals to make it a more walkable community. And so I don't agree with you from a, I think that this is a policy question for us as a council and certainly what we're hearing from our constituents.

We're here.

So we're going to spend more money.

We have many goals though. I mean, to push back, I could go through this entire list and pick out ones that align to other goals that we have and things other people have talked to me about.

Well, then you should be advocating for those.

Okay. Do we have anyone who is, I mean, I've heard a couple of things advocating for, what are you advocating to replace for?

I would reduce paving. I would reduce paving up $2 million and $150,000 for a study at third and Lincoln.

Oh my God. I disagree. That's a really bad decision. That's that's creating a debt for future generations that to repay Don just stood up here and told us that we're, this is the most cost-effective way to maintain what we have. So we aren't creating a monstrous burden for future council.

I wouldn't support touching the paving either.

Okay. A question regarding, and I'm just not changing the subject, but bringing up a point. Kim, fire, we have a lot of apparatuses above the funding line. You have line items 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 right off the bat that are all fire related. And those are not funded until 2030 and 31 and 32. Help me reconcile, as those are on the top, why we keep those in there when we're not even going to fund them. Is it because they take so long to purchase and then we pay for them in three or four years?

The goal of this program is to look out six years and look to see what we're going to need in the future. And the fire chief has said, looking at their apparatus replacement schedule, this is when we will need to order it. So that's based on their replacement schedule. They rank so high because they rank high in health and safety. They rank high on these, most of these, if not all of them are replacement, they aren't new. So new apparatus usually ranks lower because that's an additional service, but replacement ranks high because of health and safety, maintenance of existing assets, the adopted plans. So they rank really high and they have their apparatus replacement schedule planned out. So that's why they're there.

And it's my assumption clearly in 2029, 2030 is when we'll need that $1.7 million, $2 million, $3 million to pay for those apparatuses.

Need those. That makes sense. And we don't push them out because they are less important. That's when they've said that they will need that money.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, and then as far as this Whistler piece, you mentioned that $600,000, where do you see that coming from, John?

Well, obviously that's a challenge. What I'm looking here, I would like to have Parks and Rec comment, is I am looking at, and would like further clarification, line item 16 with line item... This is the pumping station. And between those, those two seem to be related with... I'm sorry, I'm reading.

You're talking about the snowmaking one? The pumping snowmaking?

Yeah, there's a pump house improvements and then the snowmaking. You know, together, those are three around... 3.6 million.

So we have the house and Hill water, right? Pumping snowmaking, which is 2.63 million. And then, um, a separate project, a separate location, the Emerald park pump house improvements. And I think Matt, those are right.

Um, those, those two are taking up and just taking a step back. Those two are taking, you know, a big chunk out of our capital budget. And so, um,

just you know further clarification of the yeah let me speak to number 12 the hollison hill water rights pumping and snow making improvements phase two the civil peace this project started out with us needing to secure our water right that we have in the river and to do that we have to pump a certain amount of cfs And our phase one approach to that, well, we came to the CIP process proposing the entire project. Obviously, it was pretty big. It was a little bit over $4 million. So we were asked to cut it in half. So we cut it in half into a mechanical and a civil phase of that. We're in the middle of our... mechanical phase of that right now. We should have substantial completion by October 15th of this year, which would give us the pumping capacity to actually push our water right and preserve that. What we don't have is the ability to actually gravity feed that water from the river. So that is the second half of it. We're going to improve the infrastructure from the pump house all the way to the river that would truly allow us to turn that pump on and pump the full CFS to secure that water right so right now if we didn't fund number 12 we'd only be halfway to that goal and as we know the over appropriation of the waters in the Yampa River the the state can probably pull our water right if we're not utilizing those so to do that we need to get to the ability to be able to pump our full water right and then Number 16 was the Emerald Park Pump House Improvements Project. I do kinda wanna tie this to a funded project that we have down in the light green section. Bear with me while I try to find it. It's the Little Toots and Bud Warner Library Raw Water Project that is currently funded right now. We've gone through the design, we have a 100% design for Little Toots and Bud Warner Library. We had some construction money. We were coming back to the leadership team this year and saying, hey, we're not quite at the full amount that we need to build that construction project. But pause. I want to take a look at What is the best return on our investment? And we looked at Emerald Park. Emerald Park does about 8 million gallons of water for irrigation on those turf fields every single year. At Little Toots and Bud Warner Library, we do less than a million gallons every year. So if we were to spend money and continue to use processed water, potable water from Public Works, it's a much smaller amount that we have to pay to pump that water at Little Toots and Bud Warner Library. At Emerald Park, we do have a raw water system that's very antiquated and it's very difficult for us to even get close to the amount of water that we need to push out onto those fields every year, so we supplement very heavily with the potable water. in our opinion you know both of those pump stations are nearly about the same amount of dollars in construction dollars so it'd be a much better value for us to invest that money at emerald park we do have a fully planned system for little toots and borderline library i'm sure we'll get back to that project someday but for us to spend that money at Emerald Park is, it's a much bigger grab with our dollars. We're putting less strain on city infrastructure. The Public Works Department doesn't have to process and create that potable water. We're able to just pump raw right from the river.

And so that's why that... Is there cost savings associated with that?

not in like CIP dollars, the cost savings comes from our annually that we're not spending as much on our water bill because we're getting free water other than paying for the electricity to run the pump. But right now the cost savings is pretty high because we're supplementing about 50%, roughly 50% with potable water at Emerald Park. And our goal is to get down to, so we're just running a raw system there all season long.

you don't have a dollar amount associated with but that would be um i do have a dollar amount of what we're currently spending on it um not not in front of me but i did when we were giving the cip presentation sorry okay so where we are is we got our unrestricted balance about as low as we can go we have taken two million dollars out of the general fund already So looking at this, it appears there's very little flexibility we have to make any significant changes to this budget. And so I just wanna throw out there, is that, how does everybody else feel?

I've not heard anything to change what was recommended.

Well, I'm just going to challenge us all again, right? I mean, we, again, as we talk about sidewalks and talk about multimodal and talk about making it safer for our community, certainly one of the things is if we get people off the road, and hopefully this will happen with RTA, but also if we make it safer for people to walk and to ride their bikes via having sidewalks, we're going to end up using, there's going to be less use on our roads. So There is a benefit to having the sidewalks and ultimately reducing the cost and the use of our roads. So the use of our roads and the cost of maintaining our roads.

I agree with you. However, what would you pull out? That's what I was looking for. I couldn't find something. You're going to pull out the roads.

Yeah, no, I made a couple of suggestions. Yeah.

which is against fiscal stewardship, which is one of our goals.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sensitive on what she's saying. And she's absolutely right. We are needing some connectivity with our sidewalks throughout our community. And little by little, it's gotten a whole lot better. Some are more expensive than others. And yes, it will get people off. the roads, but right now I think a lot of people are walking on the roads, in the middle of the roads, and that's where the safety issue comes in. So I don't know if it's going to make a huge difference with people riding. I think a lot of people would like to take their bikes if they didn't have to take a road along the sidewalk, if there was a sidewalk. But right now I'm looking at deferred maintenance on all these other projects that I have that I'm looking at this year's above the line and the current funded projects, and I just see I'm okay with where we're at, Gail. I know that we want to stay focused on some trails and connectivity throughout our town, and I think we'll keep that in the forefront. But there's not enough for me to move right now on that. Councillor Barnes, we haven't heard from you.

How do you stand?

I've been inclined to go with staff recommendations as far as we have it here. Pulling something else out just kind of creates another problem someplace else.

So I'm hearing that five of us agreed to stick with the staff recommendations as is, is that correct? Thumbs up on keeping it as staff recommends. We have Gail, we have five of us who support that. That's good.

Yep, I'll continue to make my case.

Okay. All right.

You have it. I think there's, I mean, again, as I've said to Kim, I mean, absolutely concur that a lot of work's been done by staff and, and just again, think that it's always incumbent upon us to make sure that we're bringing the voices forward that we're hearing from the community.

Good point. Thank you. Do you have what you need from us, Kim?

We will bring this back on October 6th, talk about it again with any changes, and you'll have another chance to talk about it.

Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you to your entire team for this. Everybody's team for all this hard work. Okay. That is the end of our work session tonight. So do we have a motion to adjourn?

Moved.

Okay, motion by Councilor Swintek, second by Councilor Barnes. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Thanks, all.